Springing Ahead to the Unknown

Last night was Break Night.  I read up on Blender, I down loaded some content control software, and I chatted with people who needed chatting.  The last two days of work had been a pain in the ass, I’d finished Chapter Nine late Thursday night, and I needed a break.  So break I took.  Today, I get back into the novel.  Chapter Ten, Muse and Keith start having words, then shit, as they say, gets real.

Talia is so going to be disappointed.

Even though I shouldn’t, I’m already thinking ahead to the next story.  I’m guessing that at the rate I’m going I’ll finish up Suggestive Amusements in about thirty to forty-five days, and then it’s–what?  What’s next?  There is always a story right around the corner, no?  So what comes next?

That’s a good question.  Because, at the moment, nothing is sparking my interest.

I’ve been on a pretty good tear of late.  If I finish this new novel in March, that’s two novels written in five months.  Kolor Ijo was almost seventy thousand words, and I have no reason to doubt that Suggestive Amusements won’t clock in about sixty-five to seventy thousand words, either.  One hundred and forty thousand words in five months, with two stories edited in the between.  Not a bad output.  And if you pop the sixty or so thousand words of this blog from November through February on top of that, we’re talking a lot of words for the last few months.

Spring time is the time to get the self publishing thing going.  I need to come up with a cover, I need to get one of my stories fully edited and ready to go.  Just as we talk about writers who don’t do much writing, writers who don’t publish as much are just as bad.  You gotta get it out there, you gotta get people seeing your work.  I write for myself, but if I’m the only one reading anything, then I’m sort of losing track of part of why I’m writing.

This is the next part of the plan.  I’ve stated I’d like to publish four titles this year, and I need to get to that.  Otherwise–I’m not making progress.  I’m the shark that’s stopped moving forward, and it’s only a matter of time before I start going, “Glug, glug,” and sink to the bottom of the ocean to be consumed by hagfish.

I will start on Chapter Ten today, get my wordage in, then I need to start looking at things to help me get a cover together.  I would hope to make a cover that’s somewhat better than these gems, but who knows?  I could become the Gielgud of Bad Cover Art, which isn’t that bad of a goal if that’s what you set out to become.  I want something a little better, however, and I will guaranty that any cover I make will not have a dragon, a kilt, or anything relating to Scotland gracing the image; I’ll leave those to the other cover makers . . .

Once more I have a plan.

Now to make it work.

Coffee and Muses

Yesterday I said I was going to get a lot done, and I didn’t fib.  I did two blog posts, started looking into doing a three dimensional ball of yarn in Blender (hint:  it won’t be easy), and finished Chapter Eight of Suggestive Amusements with a fifteen hundred word dash.  It was productive as hell, and I felt like I actually accomplished something for the first time in a while.

Chapter Eight was, I will admit, a bit of fantasy revenge–or so I told my Muse when I was speaking with them last night.  Yes, I have a Muse, and they help me a lot.  I told them that a lot of my feelings about work, past and present, came out in that chapter, and there are probably a few people who, if they were to read the chapter, would know I was sort of drawing off of a hidden reserve of angst I’ve been hanging onto since leaving The Job From Hell.

While I can say I never had the same conversation my main male character has with his manager, some of the same thoughts he voices I’ve had more than a few times.  There’s nothing like being a cog in an organization where every job that comes your way should have a priority of “Immediate” or “High”.  I’ve been in IT for almost thirty years:  every job is important–save the ones I need done.  Then it’s, “Queue up, loser, don’t you see I’m busy?”  Which, come to think of it, was something I told to a manager once, though not in those same words.

What comes next, in Chapter Nine?  What I hope is going to be one of my favorite conversations.  My main muse gets together with her sister muse, and they sit and chat over coffee, talking about their charges, and . . . well, lets say Erin’s sister is always worried about her.  It’s not a big sister/little sister thing, because they’re identical in age.  It’s just that Erin’s an emotional muse, and her more musical sister always fears that she’s digging herself into a hole with each new charge.

I mean, think about the life of a classical muse.  They’re immortal, they go around casting their magic upon someone to bring forth the best inspiration they can muster, and–at least in my world–they are attracted to intelligence and imagination.  They aren’t there to make you a sandwich, though Erin does make breakfast at one point; they are there to light up your bulbs and make your fingers go clickty-clack upon the keyboard.  They are the box outside of which you are suppose to think, and if you want to make them happy, you best start creating.

In a way, their lives would be somewhat miserable.  They don’t just live for their job, they are their job.  Their excitement comes from what you produce, and then . . . they’re gone.  Erin helps you find that one true store hidden somewhere deep inside that bag of mostly water that is you, and once she yanks it out of you, what else is there for her to do?  Where is her relaxation, her fun, her down time?

Oh, you don’t think I’ve figured this out?

You don’t know me very well, do you?

Cascading Flakes of Persistence

Before coming to the Breakfast Place (which some of you Dear Readers know because you’re seen the name here before) there was a discussion with the Kidlette.  She’s someone who makes you proud:  honor student, black belt, artist.  She knows how to do things, and she’s only thirteen.

However, the last report card was not her shinning moment.  For only the second time she got a C, and it was a low C, and that isn’t good news in our house.  Now, I know how to hurt her, how to twist the screw so that if I really want to punish her, I can make it real.  I don’t need to do anything physical, ’cause . . . hey, man, I’m a writer, back off.  I know all the ways.

I told her, “You gotta do the things you need to do first, then the things you want to do right after.”  She loves her art, she loves chatting with people.  She get hung up on a math problem, and she get into a panic, because she’s afraid to ask for help.  I know that feeling, because I do the same.

But I fessed up to her:  it’s hard doing that, because things get in the way.  She has to do her school and homework, and it doesn’t leave a lot of time for friends and art.  I’m up for nearly twelve hours before I’m able to come home, eat, and get ready to do a little writing.  But it’s not always that easy.  I felt the cold coming back, then it was just being plain-ass tired, then it was wanting to speak with someone online, because I have almost no contact with people, and every little bit helps.

This week cut into the writing.  I only wrote two out of the five previous days, and I feel bad.

It’s all the bad habits coming back to haunt me, to toy with me, to say, “Yeah, you’re wasting your time with this writing shit.  It’s going nowhere fast, so why don’t you surf the Internet for Hello Kitty porn?”  (Yes, it does exist.  Trust me.)  And I hate myself for listening, because in all the times I have in the past I’ve walked away from writing for a while, and just sort of . . . floundered.

That was Bad Cassie, and I don’t like being Bad Cassie, because Bad Cassie has nothing in her life.  The writing is a way to other things, but she wants instant satisfaction.  She wants to see something for her efforts, and she wants them now.

The Muse told her a couple of weeks ago, “You gotta be patient.  You’re new; people don’t know you.  It’s not going to come overnight.”  I do know this, and the logical part of my brain reminds me that it’s a very true statement.  Sometimes, however, you wanna chuck Logic right off the train and party down with Desire (you’ll know her:  she’s the Woman with a Dragon Tattoo, and she will rock your world), and get all the stuff you think is coming to you.

I told the Kidlette, “It’s all about time management.”  It’s true:  it’s putting one bit of shit in front of the other, and ticking it off the list.  I have thing to do today.  There is my other blog, which I haven’t spoken on in a bit, and my story.  I’m behind on my Blender, and I have some friends I wanna hang with today.

A lot on the plate–but there is all day ahead.

It’s all doable . . .

The Emerging Picture

If you put any time into self publishing, you’ll quickly understand that one of the most difficult processes that needs to be finished before you can upload your story isn’t the editing, or the formatting, or even getting out the word that you have, once more, published something for the masses to read.

It’s getting your book cover created.

I’ve done two book covers, though only one has seen the light of day.  (Both have, actually; you’d have seen the second cover if you’d visited my NaNoWriMo page for my 2012 novel.)  Both are very simple; they give a hint at things within the story without actually telling the reader anything.  As a friend told me yesterday, “My opinion on covers is that less is more,” and there is a lot of truth to that.

But there is something to be said about having a cover that’s, well, slick.  The cover printed for Captivate and Control made my heart sing when I first saw it, and even to this day I can’t help but look at it and feel a lot of pride for the work that went into making that cover.  But I know there was a huge amount of work that went into producing that cover, and if you want something that detailed, and lovely, to grace your ebook, then you’ve got to shell out some coinage.

I’ve begun working with Blender, trying to make landscapes, and my first render isn’t that bad.  There is a lot more work that needs to be done, but I’m getting there.  I’ve also played with DAZ 3D a bit, and I’ve begun looking through Bryce as well.  There is a bit of a learning curve here for all this software, but there is always a method to my madness–

See, this is all about making all the book covers.

Bryce and Blender can help with creating landscapes; DAZ can help with getting figures set up, dressed, lighted, and posed so I can put them into a scene.  Once that’s all finished, it’s a matter of doing a render (that’s the same as actually building the picture) then maybe doing a little photomanipulating on said picture before turning it into a cover.  With Blender it’s even possible to create an animation, so if I really wanted to get into some viral marketing, I could try my hand and creating an animated short that would become my book trailer–oh, you didn’t know those existed?  Then you need to get informed, no?

It’s been pointed out many times that as self-publishing becomes more of the norm, a writer is going to need to understand, and maybe even know, all the skills that go into making a worth-while story, collection of stories, or a novel.  It’s not enough to simply write:  you need to get involved in everything.

I understand that some people just won’t get this software stuff that may allow them to build a cover for their latest opus.  That’s okay:  if I know how to do this, then I can sell my skills to you.  So when I have a little down time when I’m not working on a story–like now–I can go around asking people if they need someone to whip up a cover for their novel.

Because I’ve seen some of the covers that people have created.

And . . . damn.

 

Modelingrific

Ah, the weekend.  That transitional period where you go from one miserable week to another, usually stressed out from catching up on all the stuff you didn’t get to do during the week.  Mine are like that from time to time, and then there are moments when it’s all about relaxing and playing with something new.

First off, there was this writing thing I do, and what I was going to do next.  I thought and thought and thought–okay, maybe I only thought a little, but drama, people–we gotta have it.  I’ve decided that my story Replacements, which I wrote for consumption on another site, is a good little project to edit, then format, for self-publishing.  The last thing I had published was back in May, and I should get something else out and up before the end of the year.

Since Replacements isn’t a novel in search of a home, or something that’s a continuation of one of a couple of series that are ongoing, it’s made a good candidate for finding a home at Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon, as well a some points in-between.  It’s also twelve thousand words, so there’s room to expand the story, maybe go into a little more detail on some areas–like how the new Olivia fell into her role as mistress–and not blow this up into another novel.

It seems to be the best way to go:  editing, with a little rewriting, as well as getting something new out in the end.  All for the low price of $2.99!

But wait!  There’s more!

I’ve been playing with some 3D modeling programs the last week.  Blender has been one, Hexagon has been the other.  Mostly I’ve been playing with things in Hexagon, which is an easy program for one to learn the basics, then trying to create the same things in Blender, which is far more powerful a program, but–as everyone tells me–has a extensive learning curve.

One of the things I’ve played with is modeling space ships–in particular, one I ran for a game called Diaspora.  The ship my players “owned” was named The Divine Comedy, and the idea was to make the ship look as “realistic” as possible.  I knew what I wanted it to look like, but all I had, up until now, were sketches and a few notes.

But now, I have this:

What do we have here?  Up front you have the main docking port.  The big round thing is a centrifuge, and inside are modules that change position depending on which way “Down” is for any given moment–meaning, if the drive is burning, down is towards the back towards the engine, and if they are coasting, down is towards the short, outer wall of the centrifuge casing.  On top you have the comm tower.  There are two cargo doors between the centrifuge and the radiators–those wings on either side of the ship, which are used to get rid of heat.  On the girders you have the fuel tanks, then a large and thin shadow shield to keep pesky radiation away from the crew.  Then you have the reactor, and the engine nozzle.  Not how we often think of space ships in science fiction, but this is a lot closer to reality than anything you will see on television, or in the movies.

After that, I wanted to try my hand at something else from another story idea.  It’s sort of a alternate history/future history that could end up being very Rocketpunkish (you can look that up here), and one that’s been bouncing about for a few months.  One of the key moments in the story is involves the construction of a very large space station which acts as a transfer station to the Moon and points beyond, and what my characters do to make this happen.

What does this station–which I have imaginatively named Station One for now–look like once it’s built?  Like this:

It’s a huge assembly.  From one docking center to the other, it’s 210 meters long, or 688 feet if you’re not into the whole metric thing (even though you should be), and from one set of solar panels to the other it’s 170 meters, or 558 feet high.  This thing would need a couple of football stadiums to sit inside, and even then it’d pop out of whatever sort of roof you have over those joints.

At the one end are a couple of very rough models of ships that I’d use in the story.  At the center, before the solar panel towers, are four living modules, each one 38 meters high by 16 meters in diameter, set upon a centrifuge producing .3g gravity.  About the only thing missing are circular tunnels that allow people to walk from one module to the other without needing to climb up to the center, then head down to another module.

To give you a sense of scale, there is something below the station that looks like a fat goose flying in formation.  That’s Skylab, the one and only.  As big as it was, it’s miniscule compared to what I’m thinking of creating in my story.  Actually, one of the ideas in my story is that Skylab is saved and used as a work shack for the people putting Station One together–at least until they can get large living modules in place.

One of the things that’s nice about doing this sort of thing is being able to take a vision you have for something that could end up in a story, and give it a sort of physical presence.  Yes, it’s still fantasy, but now it’s a fantasy that one day may just show up as an illustration inside a story.

Just give me time, ’cause neither of us knows where this is going.

That’s always fun.