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June in Review
Health/Fitness
I was not totally idle while I was visiting friends (Sophrani and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kagetsume) and my parents for a week, because my father goes for a two-mile walk every morning and I went with him.
Still, lots of rich restaurant food and less exercise than usual, so a mediocre month for that. Also, my bike broke at the end of the month. -_-
Writing
I put together about half of an outline for The Sun Etherium while I was visiting my parents. I was not happy with what I had so far and didn't feel like it was gelling, though. So I put it aside and hauled out Birthright again towards the end of June, and wrote perhaps 4000 words of it.
I had a good conversation withalinsa about the problems I had with the climax of Birthright, where she gave me some enormously useful ideas. \o/ I may actually finish the draft this time! (Let's not talk about the edits. *shudder*)
The Business of Writing
I contacted two different artists about doing the cover for The Moon Etherium. Both asked for more details about it. Neither got back to me after I provided details, not even to say "No, thank you". In other news, trying to hire an artist is every bit as awful as I expected it to be. -_- Hey,okojosan, I don't suppose you want to do a fantasy/romance book cover?
I wish I could mock up a cover image that I liked even as much as I like the cover for RA, but no luck so far. I will probably try another professional or two, then give up after they also ignore me and use one I do myself. v_v
I did a lot more editing on The Moon Etherium while I was in North Carolina and before. I need to do a final read-through and there are a few more changes I might make. I decided to let the book lie for a while before that. Maybe a month. We'll see if I make it that long.
Art/Other
Not a lot. A couple of pencil sketches that I liked, a few color doodles that I didn't, another cover mock-up for The Moon Etherium.
Gaming
My mother addicted me to Spider Solitaire (it's more interesting than regular solitaire, I promise).
I plaed some Hold 'Em poker with my father's poker group, which was fun. ♥
Socializing
I spent a week in North Carolina visiting friends & family!
Happiness
My vacation was surprisingly relaxing. Usually I come back from vacations feeling like I need another vacation, but this one was mellow and I had lots of time to myself to rest and play with electronics. And edit my book. It was good.
Home has not been so good, what with everything falling apart. -_-
Goals for coming month
I decided to do Camp NaNo and set my goal at 20,000 words on Birthright. I'm at 9500 now, so that's going fine. Also, I am back to counting words, since I did that with The Moon Etherium and it worked great and even came out at estimated length.
In other news, I now consider a thousand words a day to be a modest, easily-achieved goal. Kind of "minimum effort if I want to consider myself to be trying at all". So that's a thing.
Depending on how writing Birthright goes, I may or may not get back to The Moon Etherium for my penultimate editing pass. We'll see.
I was not totally idle while I was visiting friends (Sophrani and
kagetsume) and my parents for a week, because my father goes for a two-mile walk every morning and I went with him.Still, lots of rich restaurant food and less exercise than usual, so a mediocre month for that. Also, my bike broke at the end of the month. -_-
Writing
I put together about half of an outline for The Sun Etherium while I was visiting my parents. I was not happy with what I had so far and didn't feel like it was gelling, though. So I put it aside and hauled out Birthright again towards the end of June, and wrote perhaps 4000 words of it.
I had a good conversation with
alinsa about the problems I had with the climax of Birthright, where she gave me some enormously useful ideas. \o/ I may actually finish the draft this time! (Let's not talk about the edits. *shudder*)The Business of Writing
I contacted two different artists about doing the cover for The Moon Etherium. Both asked for more details about it. Neither got back to me after I provided details, not even to say "No, thank you". In other news, trying to hire an artist is every bit as awful as I expected it to be. -_- Hey,
okojosan, I don't suppose you want to do a fantasy/romance book cover?I wish I could mock up a cover image that I liked even as much as I like the cover for RA, but no luck so far. I will probably try another professional or two, then give up after they also ignore me and use one I do myself. v_v
I did a lot more editing on The Moon Etherium while I was in North Carolina and before. I need to do a final read-through and there are a few more changes I might make. I decided to let the book lie for a while before that. Maybe a month. We'll see if I make it that long.
Art/Other
Not a lot. A couple of pencil sketches that I liked, a few color doodles that I didn't, another cover mock-up for The Moon Etherium.
Gaming
My mother addicted me to Spider Solitaire (it's more interesting than regular solitaire, I promise).
I plaed some Hold 'Em poker with my father's poker group, which was fun. ♥
Socializing
I spent a week in North Carolina visiting friends & family!
Happiness
My vacation was surprisingly relaxing. Usually I come back from vacations feeling like I need another vacation, but this one was mellow and I had lots of time to myself to rest and play with electronics. And edit my book. It was good.
Home has not been so good, what with everything falling apart. -_-
Goals for coming month
I decided to do Camp NaNo and set my goal at 20,000 words on Birthright. I'm at 9500 now, so that's going fine. Also, I am back to counting words, since I did that with The Moon Etherium and it worked great and even came out at estimated length.
In other news, I now consider a thousand words a day to be a modest, easily-achieved goal. Kind of "minimum effort if I want to consider myself to be trying at all". So that's a thing.
Depending on how writing Birthright goes, I may or may not get back to The Moon Etherium for my penultimate editing pass. We'll see.
no subject
What are you looking for in the book cover?
no subject
I have a few clear things that I want in the cover:
* I'd like it to be distinct at Amazon thumbnail size (about 150x240 pixels), so that a viewer can still tell basically what it's a picture of.
* Realistic/semi-realistic style (ie, standard book cover).
* Not the comic-book-style colors-over-inks
* Provides visual cues for the genre, which is "fantasy with strong romance subplot"
* Space for title/author name/tagline. (The Moon Etherium/L. Rowyn/"Sometimes you need to risk everything.")
The novel has two protagonists: a 7'6" satyress, muscular and well padded, big chest, big hips, brown skin, thick kinky hair, goat ears and legs. Usually wears a short chiton (Grecian-style two-shouldered toga). The other is A 5'11" male elf, golden-beige skin, lean build, long hair. Bishie. Usually wears a long formal jacket, close-fitted pants or tights, boots. The satyress has African-ish features, and the elf looks Asian-ish. Both look in their prime but not especially youthful: thirtyish.
I do not have a clear "this is what I want the layout to be" idea in my head. I have some vague ideas: maybe a shoulders-up view of the two about to kiss, with a silhouette of a fantasy cityscape (attenuated towers, flying ships, dragons, that sort of thing) in the background? Or the satyress holding the elf as they fly over the city? I am open to ideas on this.
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I don't do humans now, but turn them into cat people and we'll talk. ;)
no subject
(Well, I notice a bit of a style shift... O;> )
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Spider Solitaire
RE: Spider Solitaire
no subject
So you levelled up and got a new ability?
no subject
\o/
One so rarely notices when that happens in RL!