So my schedule is blown up, but that’s ok. I’m looking at the silver lining, and seeing that I’m going to have a few hours a week where I’m basically sitting and waiting on kids at various activities. So! I should be able to write during those, if I practice good discipline.
However, I do have some projects that are not-quite-writing but related. One is that I have decided to re-edit, re-cover, and re-release Vulcan’s Kittens and a possible omnibus edition of the duology with God’s Wolfling. This is going to be a slow-burn project as I’ll also be writing a third book in that world (Spot and Dierdre’s story) and I’d like to tie the three things together in some way. Second, and more urgent, is that I need to cover and release Lab Gremlins. I’ve taken it down from the blog, and have been working on editing it, but I’d like to release it sometime in the next month or so. I am moving at a snail’s pace. I’m also working on an art project…
On the art front. I have been working almost daily this summer on art. Much of it has been digital, due to time and space constraints, and the big problem I’ve had with digital from the beginning is that there’s no way to bring it into a physical realm. Well, I may have solved that problem. Paper prints are a good thing, but I found a company that does prints on metal, and wow… science fiction art on this stuff looks amazing. It’s not cheap – I can’t offer a $10 print sublimed on metal, it’s going to be in the realm of $45-$50 at an 8×10 – but it won’t need framing and matting, either, if I offer them as the floating print I ordered. I really can’t emphasize enough how gorgeous and sleek these things are. Once I’ve had a chance to photograph this, and set it up in the webstore, I’m hoping that folks who’ve asked me for prints will be willing to take the plunge. Art is best seen in person, I fully understand that, but jumping through the hoops of finding a gallery willing to take on an unknown… not now. Maybe not ever. I’ll have the shop here on the site, and we’ll offer POD prints, sent directly to the customer.
I am writing. Just… slowly. I find that after work I come home thinking I’ll be able to sit and write, but once I’ve eaten and showered and… thud. I just can’t brain. And I’ve tried getting up early, but that conflicts with the First Reader’s schedule and besides, I’m a morning person but not that much a morning person (we’re talking oh dark thirty, here. My alarm rings at 6, and while the First Reader rolls out of bed almost two hours earlier I’m deep in dreamland at that point). And when I am home with energy, I have plenty of household chores to wear me out before I can finally find some quiet time to sit. And when I sit, I start falling asleep. You see how it is. Also, I’ve tried (again) doing dictation, but when I am composing in my head, and trying to speak it, the software gets very confused. It’s super awkward. I’m going to try, and try again, probably with a voice recorder and then transcribing. I should be able to transcribe even if I’m brain dead tired.
header image is “Interstellar Commerce” the piece of art I’ve had made into a metal print.
Comments
13 responses to “Status check: Writing”
You know, transcribing is probably something I could do for you, if there was some way to get your audio files to me? I could transcribe into a Google.doc, and you could fix it when you had time.
Actually, that might work. Martin shoemaker uses a service, and I was thinking about hiring them, but I’d happily pay you the same rate.
23 skidoo
Re “Interstellar Commerce,” my immediate thought was Tanager’s Fledglings.” Is Jem behind one of those windows?
Might be! I had created this simply because I’m learning (hopefully getting better) spaceship art. But it does fit the theme.
The metal prints sound like a brilliant idea!
As for writing time, yeah, the words tend not to come when the body and brain are exhausted. Chauffeuring is hell for breaking up your time and concentration, too. Good luck with using the sitting-and-waiting time to write; even if you only get a couple of paragraphs at a time, that keeps the story alive in your head.
And bear in mind that teenagers become older teenagers and eventually get drivers’ licenses. (My kids didn’t have to beg for cars; I practically shoved the car keys in their hands and shoved them out the door.)
Two of them are old enough to drive – part of the variable in this next semester is to get them driving, which involves Driver’s Ed for one, and just lessons for the other. I need to create a timeline, with the goal of having them driving by end of year.
That image probably looks great printed on metal
thank you, I think so. It’s a nice medium for SciFi art, I think.
sounds like it is considerably cheaper than it used to be, tho
not having priced it out earlier, I can’t compare. I will admit that the actual cost of the metal 8×10 print was $30. I’ll sell them higher, of course, because profits are nice. LOL
well, i remember things like that costing over a hundred at cons… for some reason $145 is what i am thinking…
Probably. I have been yelled at by real artists for underpricing.