Month: January 2014

Play-Doh & Updates

So I got myself some Play-Doh from the dollar store because I felt like having some childish fun.

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I made a flower.

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And a very unseasonal pumpkin.

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And a few other things that I didn’t bother to take pictures of. Man, that smell as soon as you open the little container … takes me right back to my childhood. 

In other news, I’m working on some boring behind-the-scenes stuff, which is why you haven’t been hearing much from me. Tinkering with cover layouts, working out the plot for the sequel, and organizing the thousands of files I have on my computer so I can actually find stuff when I want it.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a good one!

30 Day Character Development Meme

30 Day Character Development Meme

Oooooh, I found a cool thing. 

Click it. Cliiiiiiik it.

Updates on Paperback Cover

One-Piece Cover Not Lining Up 

I asked this question in another thread on the Lulu froums, but the response was essentially: “Hey this thread is really old,” and “Just muck around with it. You’ll figure it out.”

Well I’ve been mucking around with my cover for almost a month now. I hired a graphic designer to do a beautiful wrap-around cover complete with spine art and custom lettering. It was done to the exact specifications for an A5 Paperback. I ordered my proof copy and got this:

Cover Whoops

Cover Whoops 2

As you can see, the spine is creeping onto the front cover and the back cover is creeping onto the spine. There’s clearly some misalignment here somwhere.

I’ve read everything I can on the subject. Nothing on the forums or on the site proper has helped. My designer has tinkered with it ad nauseum. I’ve tinkered with it ad nauseum and neither of us can figure out what the heck the problem is. We’ve tried trimming the left-most edge of the back cover by a milimitre or two. We’ve tried adjusting the width of the spine, the size of the art on the spine. We’ve even tried moving the spine and front cover a bit to the right or left but no matter what we do, it just won’t line up.

I keep getting this:

Cover Problems

Yes, that’s a small image. That’s all I have to work with because I can’t figure out any way to make it bigger and see what the heck I’m doing. I think what I’m seeing here is that the spine is now creeping onto both the back and front cover. This is only one of the many, many, many misaligned iterations. The best we’ve been able to do is a one milimeter creep to the right.

I’m at my wit’s end, my friends. Please help me. I’m out of ideas to try and I’m so frustrated I could scream. I really want to put out a high-quality product.

Updates On Sequel, DriveThru Fiction, and Paperbacks

Hi guys! Just a quick post to let you know that I’m almost finished with the skeletal outline of the second book of the Blood of Midnight series. Absolutely loving the template I’m working with. It makes everything so much more manageable. I’m still not 100% sure about the title so I’m not going to announce that yet. Soon!

I’m slowly picking my way through the ins and outs of making my book available on DriveThruFiction. There’s a lot of information there. A lot to work through. Hopefully, it will pay off in the end. Apparently they want me to use Scribus to format my book so I downloaded that. It seems they also want me to use Lightning Source Cover Generator for the cover. I think that’s a service I have to sign up for. I’m really not sure yet. One thing at a time. It is rather frustrating having to go through all of this after already having the book nicely formatted and the cover professionally done and then have to start from the beginning because DriveThru uses a different system. Maybe in the future this will all be standardized? Hopefully.

Speaking of covers, I did some tinkering with the cover for Blood of Midnight: The Broken Prophecy but Lulu’s cover generator didn’t seem to like it. I tried to revert back to the previous version but since there’s no function to do that, I had to re-upload the un-tinkered version. This means that I have to purchase yet another copy of my own book in order to verify that it’s ready for distribution despite the fact that it’s absolutely no different than it was before. 

So yes, do be careful when publishing through Lulu. A few button clicks can cost you twenty dollars and two more weeks of waiting for another proof to arrive before you can restart distribution.

I did not realize, when I became an author that I would actually be spending most of my time fighting with computers and watching tutorials. … I think I need some more coffee.

Computers are Confuzzling

Aha! I managed to get a Goodreads widgit up and running in my sidebar. The ways they recommended doing it didn’t actually work for me and, instead, spit out a bunch of code with a link at the bottom. So I had to be a bit more creative and save the button image and manually link the Blood of Midnight review page to it.

I’m actually kind of impressed that I did that before I even finished my coffee this morning. What else lies in store for me today? I’ve been slogging through Goodreads trying to figure out how to use it. Still pretty confused. I’m sure it’ll be a great resource when I manage to make heads or tails of it.

Still struggling with DriveThru Fiction as well. I’ll let you know when/if that turns out. I really want to get the second proof back from Lulu to make sure the cover clipping issue is fixed before I really throw myself into getting it all configured for another distributor.

Despite the headaches of self-publishing, I wouldn’t trade the agency I have with my work for the ease of having someone else do all of this. I hate waiting on other people to complete the next stage of my plans.

29

What an awesome weekend! My wife and friends threw me a great birthday party. I requested a kidless kid party and I was not disappointed. There was construction paper, origami, finger painting, toys, games, candy, Kraft Dinner, Sloppy Joes, and BOOZE. Yes. Lots of that. Mmmm. 

Now the finger-painted masterpieces of my friends are taped up on my wall to make me smile whenever I turn around. This year I have selected a My Little Pony calendar to put up on the wall, its bright cheery colours in strong counterpoint to the freezing rain outside. Bleeeeeh. I wore my Oscar the Grouch pajama pants and we listened to Raffi and Sharon, Lois, & Bram while we jabbered about writing, politics, and sex … yeah kid-friendly topics there. I had an awesome time. The only bad bit was that I seem to be allergic to the fingerpaints because I broke out in a rash over my neck and shoulders at the close of the evening. At least we’re assuming it was the fingerpaints because that was the only thing I’d never come in contact with before. We’re going to experiment later to see if using them again makes me break out again. It’s useful to know when you’re allergic to something! Thankfully, someone pointed out the rash fairly quickly and I jumped on it with Benadryl, a bunch of water, and went to lie down. This is what my drunk brain told me to do. Not bad programming!

As this will be my last year in my twenties, I think I shall focus on celebrating youth and vigour this year. I’ve been told countless times by my elders to “enjoy it before it’s gone” and I’m the sort to listen to and respect my elders. A dying breed, I know!

Anyone want to join me? C’mon. Get out there and do something childish today. You’re not dead yet.

My Year as a Freight Train

I was going to take the day off, really, but then I came across an answer I wrote to a writing exercise. We had to pick a metaphor to describe what our 2013 year of writing was like. This is what I had to say:

 

My writing year was like a freight train.

My writing year was like a freight train. Heavy with a long, long train of baggage, yet moving fast. Unstoppable. No matter what obstacles came across the track, I ploughed through them. No time for bullshit or bitches. Drama-llamas smeared across my grill, eyes wide with the revelation that I stop for no one when my dream is on the line. I got a schedule, and your whining and excuses are not important.

Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga ain’t nobody got time fo’ that.

Sometimes, it went too fast for me, but there was no stopping it. I just had to hang on. No time to watch the scenery blur past except for one stop to refuel at the station of August.

Gods, I needed that.

When I came back from KG, I found the balls to take on yet more cargo. Every deadline met with clockwork-precision. Every hand on board needed to make this machine move. The conductor waits for no one and yes I did leave behind those who slacked off at their posts. If you want to be the boss, you’ve got to act like one.

I came to the end of the line, all wheels screaming and sparking and now I’m fucking HERE, but don’t you dare think I’m staying for good. Once I’m offloaded, I’m gonna get my ass turned back around and go back for more. Oil my joints, fuel me up, and get those cargo cars queued up nice.

I’m ready, 2014. Destination: Sequel. Let’s fuckin’ go.

Massive List of Prompts

Oh my goodness my friends. I have found a huge list of prompts. Let’s have some creative fun shall we?

PROMPTS AWAY WOO!

A New Year!

So I finished the Renew and Review Writing Challenge minus a few of the exercises I didn’t feel compelled to do. Very useful! I recommend Ms. Jepson’s work, at least insofar as the writing challenge goes. I haven’t read her book yet but I might look into it later this year. I now have a shiny new Writing Life Plan posted on the wall beside my computer so I can glance at it whenever I forget what the crap I’m supposed to be doing. Woo!

I had an awesome New Years Eve party with a ton of friends. Got a little networking done besides. Meeting creative people is awesome!

This year, I’ll be working steadily on the sequel to Blood of Midnight: The Broken Prophecy using Carroline Norrington’s Scrivener Template. It took a little futzing around to get it to work for me–being the amazing technomancer I am NOT–but once I got it downloaded properly it opened up a world of possibilities for me. If you don’t already have Scrivener, I totally recommend the investment. Even if I explain why I love it so much, you totally don’t understand its full worth until you try it for yourself. I actually use about 90% of the tools it offers.

So tomorrow’s my birthday. I’ll be 29. People keep asking me “for the first time?” I don’t get it. This year, I requested a kidless kid party. I want Kraft Dinner with ketchup, crayons, a colouring book, finger paint, Play Dough, and toys … and enough booze that I really do feel like I’m a five year old. Maybe my wife will buy me that Disney Princess cake and write something obscene on it? One can hope!