Saturday, March 28, 2009

On Writing

I just finished reading Stephen King's On Writing and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It is the first piece of non-fiction that I've read in quite some time. He doled out some excellent advice, some of which I had already been doing (which pleased me greatly) and the autobiographical material was interesting. I never considered myself a huge Stephen King fan, but then, when I sat down and thought about it, I realized that I had  read quite a few of his books in my teen years. I think the first of his books I read was The Shining, then a collection of short stories titled Night Shift. Then I read The Stand. I don't remember if I read any more of his works after that, but I've seen tons of movies and made-for-TV movies based on his work, enjoying most (but not all) of them. So I guess I am a bigger fan than I realized!

As for my book, I am still making tweaks to it. I'm on the third proof version and still found a few things I want to change before I pronounce it ready for the public. Adobe InDesign helped me tame the layout problems and now I'm just tweaking a few sentences my daughter Emily wanted changed. The cover is still giving me a few problems, but I have a handle on what I want to do and it is all coming together. Soon...very soon!

Friday, March 20, 2009

Update on the proof

I received the proof copy for my book on Monday! There were a few problems that I'll have to correct so it's not quite ready for the public yet. The cover turned out very nice and with the exception of the main image being slightly too dark, I am very happy with the look of it! I would put it up against any other book on the bookstore shelf! The interior is another story. For some reason the formatting was very strange with page numbers popping up in strange areas and chapter headings looking off. I've decided to bust out Adobe InDesign (thanks to a recommendation by my editor Jill!) to redo the formatting. I had been using Microsoft Word 2007 and a freeware pdf conversion utility, but I think it will be much easier for me to do this with InDesign (allowing for some time to become familiar with the application!).

In other unrelated news I am going to be launching a second blog soon that will focus on my gaming adventures with my children. We are going to be playing several boardgames and RPG's over the next few months and I wanted to blog about it. The blog is called: Ludious Resurrectio - The Resurrected Gamer  the name reflects my attempts to get back into the sort of gaming I did in my younger years! Mostly RPG's but several boardgames as well! 

Saturday, March 14, 2009

So close I can smell it....

The new paperback version of the revised Emily & The Silent King is almost ready. Thanks to a ton of help from a good friend (Jill MacCorkle) I think this is the best version of the book to date. She gave me some excellent (and candid) advice that I put to use in polishing up the book. I really think this version will give me that "it's finally done" feeling and I can put it to rest and concentrate on going back over books two and three (not to mention book four).

I am just waiting on the proof to be delivered to me and then if everything looks good (fingers crossed!) I will be offering it on Amazon and an e-store very soon! I just hope the work I put into the cover picture comes through when it's printed.

I've been working on other things to support the books in my free time (what's that?). Trying to come up with a logo and other images to jazz up the pages. Hopefully I'll get enough free time this weekend to put a dent in that!