Mar21
Everyone likes music, right? I mean, something has got to drown out the sound of the dehumidifier, right? But what if the music is distracting?
Well. I have an answer. Maybe not the answer you’re looking for, but something to try: lyricless! I find that if the music has lyrics, my mind drifts away from my work to follow along. Words get put into my head, and I can’t concentrate on what I have to say.
A friend recently said to me, after I’d mentioned my recent playlist, “What’s with you and soundtracks?” Maybe I’m just a movie lover at heart, but I do love my soundtracks. Soundtracks are made as background. Generally, they won’t take over a scene—only add emotion to it, which can go hand in hand with the scenes you’re writing. Need something sad? How about some of Yo Yo Ma’s cello from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? Or La Valse D’Amelie? Uplifting? Okami! Fight scene? Plenty of those!
So, if you find yourself getting knocked out of the writing groove by your music, try a soundtrack!
Some soundtracks I listen to:
Fantasia
Hanna
Tron Legacy
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (great for sorrow and fighting!)
Princess Mononoke
Okami (great for uplifting stuff)
Amelie
Spyro the Dragon (Year of the Dragon and Ripto’s Rage. Great for general jamming.)
Other lyriclessish stuff:
Bond (String quartet)
Most Classical stuff (Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Sergei Prokofiev, etc.)
The Glitch Mob (Modern, kickass, techno-dubstep-electro-esque stuff)
BT (He’s got some great lyricless tracks—”The Antikythera Mechanism”, “All That Makes Us Human”, “Dynamic Symmetry”)
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Mar12
Thanks to Derek J Canyon’s Format Your eBook for Kindle in One Hour – 2012 edition
, Cat and Meese is now live on Amazon!
Very exciting stuff. I’m afraid I can’t offer awesome coupons for discount on Amazon. Boo.
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Mar08
When I released Cat and Meese back in November, I only released it only through Smashwords. Why? Well, after a few frustrating nights mucking about with code and conversion, I put the Kindle version aside. I had other things to do, and the definition of insanity was working me into a corner.
Fast forward to two days ago. I finally stopped procrastinating long enough to take a passing glance at the files and, while doing so, I had a thought: “Hey, didn’t Derek release a book exactly for this purpose?”
Yes. Yes he did. So off I went to his blog and, lo and behold! There’s a new version out!
It was only $2.99. Of course I bought it.
I first met Derek when he organized the Twelve Worlds Anthology
. I’ve long been impressed by his commitment to self-publishing, and the information he has shared in the self-publishing community through his blog. This commitment shows in this formatting guide. Not only has he provided a template and written step-by-step guidelines of the entire process, but he has also set up a support forum (and provided his email address) in case you get stuck and need some help.
I’d recommend this book for anyone having trouble with Kindle formatting—or, if it’s your first time and you’re a bit iffy about the whole process, this book will save you a lot of headache.
tl;dr? $2.99 will save you a lot of headache if you are iffy about formatting for the Kindle.
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Feb27
Just passed 100 followers on Twitter! It’s exciting for me, especially since I haven’t been doing anything with regards to promotion.
I suppose an update is in order. Well, The Dancer of the Wind is getting finished this week, and sent off to Beta readers. And a sequel to The Star-Eater is about half-done. Yep, it’s taking a while, but I’m plugging away at them.
I should do something special for the 100 followers. I will think up something.
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Nov28
Cat and Meese is now available on Smashwords!
At the vague reasoning of the fire mage, Meese (ex-apprentice to that same mage) goes into the literal criminal underground of her city in search for a rogue elemental with a crazy past. Things would have gone well, if the crazy in Kitty’s past hadn’t come back to haunt them.
At just under 5900 words, it is definitely worth the price (FREE with this COUPON: TY53U), and you get to meet two of my favourite characters: Kitty and Meese. This is supposed to be a sequel to the novel I’m working on, Meese, but this story has been waiting for the better part of a year for publication. I’ve polished it up within the last few months.
I’m also super excited since this is the first story I’ve self-published on my own. Now I get to pimp it out.
On another note, this is the last week of school (YAY!) and I’ve actually managed to write 2/3rds of another story while scraping by with my grades. After this week is over, I anticipate finally finishing the edits for The Dancer of the Wind, and plugging the hell out of all the writing projects I’ve put on standby.
Anyway. School isn’t over yet, so I should sleep since it’s approaching 2am.
Use the coupon!
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Nov02
Since I feel bad about not updating the blog, I’m making it up by showing off pretty pictures. These are the covers for my upcoming titles. Cat and Meese came back from the editor a while ago, and I’m almost through getting out another draft to send to my beta readers. Then it will be sent back in for editing to catch anything that was missed, and it’s good to go!
On that note, time to get back to the Cat and Meese file.
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Oct07
Woke up to 26 spam comments all over my site, so… I’ve disabled comments until I have time to deal with it properly.
If you need to contact me, there’s a form in the “Contact Me’ section of this site.
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Oct05
Are delayed. What a surprise, eh?
Well, technically, I didn’t specify when in October I’d release them. Ah, well. Here’s an update on them.
Cat and Meese is currently waiting for editing. And a cover, which is being made right now.
The Dancer of the Wind is nearing completion for its first draft, and I’ve also done some rewrites on a couple of the scenes. It probably only needs around 5k more words to finish it, if that. Then it needs revising and editing. Its cover is basically done. And when I say basically, I really mean that it just needs something smoothed over and for the file to be transferred to my computer.
I figure that I can get all the work done on The Dancer of the Wind, save the professional editing, by the time Cat and Meese has its cover and editing completed. And, while I don’t think I can upload the image she sent me for the cover progress, I can surreptitiously link to her tumblr of it. (Hint: It’s right heeeeeere!)
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Oct03
Well, I did promise you a blog for October, so here it is. I thought I’d point out the 100 Day Challenge. I’ve been participating in it for roughly a week (excepting the last three days because I’m a bad person, but I’ll get to that later on), and I must say that it is certainly motivating.
What I’ve been doing is making sure I’ve been writing every day. And, not just that, but also working something I need to finish each day. It worked for a week, and I wrote quite a bit. You see, I find that once I get writing, I write a lot. With the exceptions of when I’m really, really tired.
But, I’ve been having trouble getting done what I want to get done. Completing goals, so to speak. And, this last weekend, I didn’t work on what I needed to work on. Because I didn’t pin myself down and dedicate to it.
Therefore, I’ve decided to up the ante. Hopefully, this won’t overbalance my delicate mental state and cause me to procrastinate it, but I’m fairly dedicated to it right now. A lot of that dedication comes from the fact that, come November, it will have been a year since I started to write Meese, and it still isn’t done.
Shame is a good motivator.
Anyway, I’m upping my 100 Day challenge to completing something every one or two days. Usually that will mean a scene, or an edit of a scene, or maybe miscellaneous things like “contact that editor” and “write that e-mail”. Mostly it will be along the lines of “finish that scene.” I have a habit of starting scenes, mostly doing them, then leaving them and going onto the next one without ending it. It’s an aversion to endings that, I think, stems from high school essays.
So, I suppose we’ll see how that goes. It should go well now that I’m settled into school and my summer job has petered out for the season.
I think the way the 100 day challenge works is the same way that school works. It forces you into a routine. Forces you to have a deadline (midnight!) to get something done. Or else you have to start over. Disciplines you into sitting in front of the computer (or notebook, or what-have-you, so long as it gets the job done) for a certain amount of time every day. Makes you pencil it into your schedule instead of having it be on the periphery of things. Writing is a very easy thing to push off and procrastinate. Meese knows.
Of course, like any other tool, it only works if you use it right.
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Sep08
You may have noticed a distinct lack of entries in this blog over the summer. That was because of a lack of time. However, I do have some exciting news: this blog will be back in October (possibly mid-October, depending on cover art and editing), with two releases. They will be The Dancer of the Wind and Cat and Meese. If you recognize the latter title, it’s because it is available right now, for free, in pdf form under the Freebie section of this website. It is currently being edited, and having cover art done for it. Both these stories are set in the same world, although in different parts, and both these stories involve people with elemental magic.
Also, I received the cover for my not-yet-finished novel Meese. You might have noticed the thumbnail to the right of this post, but I thought I’d share a larger version.
And on that note, I’ll just leave you with the pretty picture to ogle over in anticipation for my novel’s release (optimistically around December.)
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