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Slow Start With The Writing…
Typical For Me… I usually start slow and then just gain speed. Clearly going to be the case this time as well. First off, I just didn’t clear the decks fast enough to get to my writing computer early enough each night. And when I did, tired of being at any computer, so time there did not last that long. Second, starting a book in a series that I had not even thought about in years, so had to take some time to put it back in my head and create some notes. Not for the plot, just what the characters look like and so on. Third, I am still…
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Motivation
Getting Back to Writing… After so much time away because of the eye injury, I am getting uneasy each day if I don’t get back to my writing computer. That is pushing me a lot, remembering the fun of just sitting down and making up a story for myself. And I am pretty much out of the focus on the words because of the injury. Got the computer and screen set so I can just let go again and write stories. Yay. But I also noticed that the challenge is making me more conscious of getting there as well. I still have to be careful to watch my computer time…
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Branding
To Genre… There are a lot of elements to branding in fiction, so much so that we are thinking of doing an entire six week regular workshop on the topic. (Let me know if interested. No requirement to take it.) Branding becomes critical not only the in basics like genre covers, but in so much more, such as licensing, trademarks, and overall value of a book or series, let alone its sales and licensing. And wow are there a lot of elements that go into branding in fiction. (Six weeks worth easy.) Most writers I’ve talked to tell me they understand branding, but as I stare at just their covers,…
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Kickstarter Best Practices
Finally Able To Do It Again… After two months of not being able to list Kickstarters from the writers on Kickstarter Best Practices free class because of my eye issues, I was able to do so tonight. Sorry about missing those of you who did campaigns in the last two months. Just not able to do it with the eye issues. Those of you thinking about doing a Kickstarter campaign, give me a chance to look at it ahead of time to help you fund. Just email me the preview link and I’ll be glad to take a look. And yes, I listed my own campaign as well. A Make…
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Some Cover Fun
At Least Fun For Me… I love doing covers for the short stories I put in my magazine Smith’s Monthly every month. I always put in four or five original short stories every month. This month there are four original stories, a collection with six stories, and a full novel. A decent issue. So thought I would share the covers with you. Since I use templates, these four covers took me about 90 minutes to do. (Most time finding the art that fit.) They are all for original short stories. And also, a side note: Today is the last day of the September Workshop half-price sale. See the last few…
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Cover Fun… Sale Extended One Day
Not Sure if Teachable Was Having Troubles on Sunday… So the August half-off workshop sale is extended until Monday night. Detail in previous posts. Now for Cover Fun I spent a few hours today doing covers. Four new short story covers and one new Smith’s Monthly cover. Had a good time with them. They all use my templates so other than finding the art, they were quick and easy. Thought I show you them just for fun like I do every other month or so. The four short stories are all original stories done this year.
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Last Bits of Smith’s Monthly #63
Just Finishing SMITH’S MONTHLY #63 Up Tonight… Fun thing to do on a Friday night. As many of you know, I do all the layout of the magazine, and every month I have a blast with it. There are four original stories in this issue, plus another collection of stories and the novel that is the header of this web site. MELODY RIDGE, which is a combination Jukebox Novel and Thunder Mountain Novel. It is the origin story of all my jukebox stories. So I wanted to put the collection of the short stories, with how the jukebox stories came about, and how thirty years after I started them I…
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All the Art
Took Me Two More Hours Today… I found all the art for eighteen more book covers this afternoon and evening. Finding art I feel is the hardest thing about doing covers, and since I had gotten behind doing covers for all the January stories, I just decided to look for it all at once. So I would created a folder for the story that said say “Story 10 The Galactic Missing” Then I would move the word.doc of the story into the folder and open it, glance at it to remember the story, then go to find the art. In the case of “The Galactic Missing” which is a Seeder’s…
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Monthly Cover Fun
At Least Fun for Me… Every month with Smith’s Monthly I get to do all the covers for the short stories in the issue, plus the exterior cover. And sometimes I put the covers here. This month was fairly easy, actually. There are ten short stories in this issue and one novel. But the six of the short stories are in a collection I put together, so I had already done the covers and the cover for the collection. (The entire collection is in the issue.) And one of the short stories was in an another collection I just put out, so that cover is already done as well. So…
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Cover Fun for #52 of Smith’s Monthly…
Five Short Stories and the Issue Cover… I was having fun working on these covers, stopped for dinner, came back and my InDesign had blown a fuse. Not kidding. It wanted me to sign up for a seven day free trial. Well, I had been using InDesign for decades. I tried everything, and considering this is Saturday, I was going to be out of luck until I could get help from Allyson and Josh at WMG on Monday. But Kris convinced me on late Saturday night to call Allyson, that she was still up because Kris had just gotten a text from her on another matter. So I did and…