Hm..

For being a writer, I sure as hell don't update this thing very often, do I?

Digital Editions DONE

I'm sitting here, quite proud of myself for getting this far. I've got digital versions (iBookstore and Kindle) of my poetry book out there alongside the print copy. I'm published in every sense of the word.

It's exhilirating, to be frank. I've accomplished something that I set for myself. I reached a goal. I've never been one to actually finish a project. Sure I'm creative and I'll work hard on something now and then, but to see it to total completion? Rare. Now, time to break beyond that.

I've got that novel I was working on. Think I'll try and revisit that.

But I also have some more excellent news: I found an illustrator for my children's book! And she's wanting to work for peanuts! Heh, she's a good friend of mine and was really looking for simply a credit in her portfolio, but I convinced her to at least do a 50/50 split of the profits.

Things are moving forward, despite myself. I was always afraid of this moment...What do I do after I'd accomplished my first real 'victory'? How do I follow that act?

I think I'm doing well.

Book Shipped!

The proof copy has shipped as of this morning! It will arrive (hopefully) tomorrow. I sprung a little extra cash for the express shipping, and glad I did. Once I get it, I can approve the copy for sale and start to really push this thing a lot more.

I'm proud of myself for getting to this point.

As for Walter, looking for an illustrator. Spent the weekend fixing and tweaking the story to perfection and liking where it's sitting now. Just gotta find someone who's interested in doing the art for the book. Because a kid's book without pictures is just...boring.

Walter Wants to be A Witch

So with the poetry book done (Ordering the proof copy tonight) I'm sitting here wondering what to do next. Then it hits me like a ton of bricks. I haven't really done anything for my son, which seems odd given my passion for writing and the fact I express myself through that art. So I wrote a children's book for my son. Hopefully he enjoys it.

I actually wrote it very quickly (which surprised me) with only a base idea for what I wanted it to be. Had a friend read it over and they agreed it was crap (in a nice way) and that the flow was really off. So I re-wrote it and they loved it! With them being a parent as well, I'll take that as a good sign.

I dunno if I'm going to make it a series or not, to be honest. We'll see how the first one goes. But I'm rather proud of myself. Two books done in about a month. Not 100% done, but done from a writing perspective. And it feels great.

Proof copies and revisions

So I got the proof copy the other day, and the interior looks amazing. The cover was off by a bit, but the size was wrong to begin with so I think that's a major reason why. Otherwise it looked awesome as well. I've decided however to go with a different cover that's more 'eye-catching' online. While I loved the original, it seems to get lost and washed out with an all white cover in lists and the like. The new cover is red with a white blood spatter which really draws attention.

So, it's nearly the end of the month and things are rolling along nicely. I get paid next week so I can order a new proof copy, and if all looks good from there, we're golden! I start promoting the book heavily next month.

Feels good.

By the end of the month

The poetry book is a go.

I know, I'm rather excited as well. I've even come up with a name, at the suggestion of someone who is a member of a forum I frequent.

One Bleeds to Feed the Other will hopefully be finished by the end of May and ready to purchase. I'll be doing the regular print copies as well as eBook copies through Amazon and the iPhone book store.

Also, got a guy designing the cover to the poetry book, and I'm rather excited about that. At first I wasn't a fan of the cover he'd come up with. I felt it was off the mark of my original idea (and keep in mind at the time this was merely a mock-up). But when he showed me a closer representation of my original idea side by side with the one he'd come up with...

Well, my idea was crap. I don't mean that in the silly 'Oh, everything I do is crap' but in the 'Oh god, that's TERRIBLE!' way. So I gave him a greenlight for the cover he came up with (after showing a few friends who also loved it, ha) and am waiting for him to finish.

The book is pretty much finished as far as proofreading goes. I'm still waiting on a friend or two to get back to me with their suggestions and notes, but I'm pretty confident most of it was caught in the first pass.

I am really looking forward to this. Not only is it something I'm proud of, but it will mark a special time in my life: The first time I actually got something done for myself in my writing career. About damn time, isn't it?

Poetry and Novels and Comics...Oh My!

I've been a busy little bee, lemme tell ya what.

I'm about 6k words into a novel I'm working on (at a pace of 2k words a day minimum, which is far better than I was hoping) and while it'll probably turn out to be more like a novella, I'm enjoying it very much. I'll have more on that specific project as I get more into it.

In other news, I've written around 35 poems in the past two weeks. It's been a rough time for me personally in several regards, and the whole past year hasn't been the best. But I'm soldering through, keeping calm, and carrying on.

Yes, sometimes my life feels like The Blitz.

Anyway, the poems are all going to be collected in a book I'm going to self publish. I've never thought very highly of my own work, but my poetry...always got the short end of the stick. I've said time and time again I've never been a fan of poems, and I write them in no conventional way, honestly. I write from pure and raw emotions, and just get a sense of feeling across more than anything else.

They're incredibly personal as well, with almost all of them written from a high or low of my emotional spectrum, and all relate to something personal with me. So publishing them is a bold step for me...I've only ever shared them with a select few.

I just need a name for the book and a cover.

OH! Almost forgot the comics part of all this! My friend and I are gonna start up our old web comic again. So I'm working on new strips and it's really...exhilarating. I've never written with such a frenzy like this before.

Liquidation!

To the three people who read this blog, you might be interested to know I'm selling off a LOT of video games.

Check it out here.

I just need the cash to help pay off a bill.

Cold Mentality

So I've begun work on a novel. The theme? Horror! The working title is Cold Mentality and its basic premise is following a man on a cruise ship who slowly descends into madness. Whether it is real or imagined I'm sure will be something important for him to discover ;)

And there may or may not be some sort of darker sinister supernatural element involved. Should be fun!

So I've got the idea for the story and it's based on an idea I had for an adventure game from a few years back. My thought is I can write the novel and base the game on it and sort of do a cross-promotion thing if I finish both around the same time. My main goal is to write a minimum of 1500 words a day, without fail. If I maintain that, I should have a good sized novel within half a year. I usually have a framework to go off of, but right now I'm merely writing off the cuff and seeing where it takes me. Should be an interesting experience. Last time I attempted this I got 10k words in (in 2 days, no less!) and then lost interest because I felt the story was going to hit a dead end far sooner than intended (Pun, however, fully intended)

And honestly, you can get more of an idea of what it's going to be by checking out my previous posts with the same label. The excerpt isn't going to be in the finished product (at least not as is) but I'm going to actually stick with it this time to completion.

On edge

I get this feeling that I'm on the edge of something interesting. I'm hesitant to say amazing, because that would be rather pretentious of myself. But interesting...it's always interesting.

I have feelings that things will go favorably for myself in the near future (not creatively, but personally) and with that I feel that my creativity will shoot through the roof. Actually, scratch that. I'm already feeling overflowing with creativity at the moment. I just have no outlet for it. No focus to hone it. So what's the deal?

I've found my muse again. It's been 8+ years, but I've found my muse. Only problem is the muse isn't with me.

Maybe time will affect that.

Stay frosty.

One year?!

Jesus.

Been far too long since I did anything with this. Which begs the question. Continue on with this as a showcase for works I'm working on (ha!) or make it more personal. I've got an idea to write an entire novel in blog form, and go from there...but who knows.

But I'm not dead. Yet.