Friday, January 30, 2009

Zombies!

I don't know what it is about the shambling undead, but it seems everyone is a fan of zombies! As you will see in the soon-to-be-published third book of my series, Brianna & The Perils of The Darkwood, I myself have caved in to the popularity of zombies and included them in the Legends of Midralon series. What is the appeal of zombies? It's not like they are as cool as a fish dog would be? Maybe it's the fact that zombies seem like a monster that could really exist; don't get me wrong, werewolves and vampires are very cool monsters, but for some reason they are just not as believable as zombies! There are literally dozens of movies that feature some strange virus being released into the public that turn the population into the walking dead. For some reason, that scenario doesn't seem all that far from improbable; maybe I'm just being pessimistic, but just in case, it never hurts to be prepared!

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

A Few Minor Changes..And The Return Of 'Guess The Villain'

I've rearranged my blog a bit and added some new features. I removed the Lulu store section until I get up and running under Createspace and then I'll add my online store section back to the menu. The lower right menu bar now has a section where you can browse blog posts by label and I've added a fans section as well (which may only serve to embarrass me, as it appears my blog isn't getting that much traffic at the moment). There are also RSS subscription links added for your convenience and each posting now has a reaction section beneath it, so I can gauge your interest in my posts. I'll add more as I run across any new and exciting features offered by Blogger.com.




Another Guess the Villain posting for you as well! See if you can figure out who this nefarious character is, I want the villain's name and the movie. Not the actor's name! It should be fairly easy!

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

It Was Not A New Years Resolution

It wasn't a New Years Resolution of mine to post more on my blog. I found it funny looking back and seeing how it progressed last year. There was a flurry of activity in January that slowly faded off until, by the end of the year, there were no posts. I blame it on the holidays and the complete lack of time, and I hope that it doesn't repeat itself. I'm going to try and post more often, even if it's just a small message (like this one.)

The challenge will be to come up with interesting stuff, that will be worth reading to anyone who stumbles across my site. The main purpose of this blog is to keep everyone informed about the status of my books, but I will try and spice things up whenever I can! They won't always be epic posts, but there will be posts.

Monday, January 26, 2009

A Mystery is Afoot at Newtek

One of the graphics applications that I am hoping to use for the art on my books and site is Newtek's Lightwave 9. It is a 3d modeling application used in many movies and tv series. I am still a novice at using it, but I find it really powerful and pretty intuitive once you get the hang of it. Anyways, they have sent me a mysterious email with a link to this site: core. The link in turn takes you to a puzzle and then to a mysterious image. So I wonder what this big announcement will be....

My VUE 7 test renders for the Emily & The Silent King paperback book cover are coming along. I'm trying to find a way to get the quality I want without having render times of 241 hours! It's a long process, tweaking settings and testing. I am still reading up on some of the settings trying to decide if I need them or how they will even look once printed. Wish me luck!

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Paperback nearing completion!

I'm thrilled about the upcoming release of the paperback version of Emily & The Silent King! It looks like I will be able to bring the price down and make it more affordable! I'm sitting at my home computer now, waiting for test renders on the new book cover to finish. I'm using the new Vue 7 Infinite software package and it's taking me a while to get up to speed on it. I really like how the renders are turning out though! It will be a big step up from the plain cover of the hardback edition. It features one of the prominent supporting characters from the first book!

I may post a picture of the cover as I get closer to releasing it. We'll see how much free time I get to work on the cover. The editor should have my novel back to me within a week or so and I'd like to have the new cover ready to go by then. I am curious to see how easy the whole publishing process will be with Amazon's Createspace versus Lulu. I'm hoping it goes much smoother for me this time around.

On a completely unrelated note, I picked up the DVD version of Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It's not bad for a very low budget short musical. Neil Patrick Harris is great as the title character and Joss Whedon (and his brothers) did an amazing job on the songs. I definitely recommend that you check it out first chance you get, I believe the entire 3 acts were released for free on youtube, so you should be able to find them there. I would recommend the DVD though, it's cheap and there are lots of special features that are almost as good as the show itself. They actually turned the directors commentary into a musical as well (Whedon must have been VERY bored during the writers strike).

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Createspace to the Rescue!

Amazon is offering a new print-on-demand service called Createspace. So far it looks like it might be the solution to the problem I had of offering my books at affordable prices! I'm excited about what I've read so far and I am most likely going to release the paperback version of Emily & The Silent King using this service!

I have made my decision on an editor and am in the process of submitting my novel. It should take a week or so to get my edited document back. Then it will be up to me to get a flashy cover done. I am still considering, soliciting some freelance artist to come up with a cover for me, but I'm not sure yet.

Monday, January 19, 2009

2009 Status

It's been a long time between updates, but a lot has been going on. I've finished my revision of book one: Emily & The Silent King. I feel like I rushed the first version to print and wanted to go back and look at it once more. I didn't change the story, I just tightened up a few paragraphs, added the short story Stormhoof as a chapter and tried to fix any grammatical errors that I may have missed in the first few proofreads. I'm actively searching for a copy editor to give it the once over. I've contacted a couple of freelance candidates and I'm hopeful that I will be able to work with one of them!

In the mean time, I plan to work on the cover for the paperback edition of the book. I will probably take the hardback out of circulation until I can find a way to bring the cost down. I am hoping that the lower price of the paperback will result in more interest in the series.

I am also planning to give this blog a face lift and add some more original artwork in general. Now that Emily & The Silent King is on track for its re-release, I want to fire up my art skills and see if I can come up with some unique images and symbols for the Legends of Midralon series. I'm trying to decide what some of the iconic features of the land are and to come up with a visual reference.