It's probably cold comfort, but I'm getting happier with the Half-Elven website. Just cleaned up a bunch of typos and made some clarifications in the text.
Also, put the Renna page back up so people can link to different stories. I'll keep the stories on the blog because I can get many of them up without using site pages. -- Even coordinated the blogs ... and like the look better.
[Having the blogs on Blogger is just another example of my cheapness in paying for hosting 10 pages instead of 100. Maybe GoDaddy should have an intermediate pricing option ... like for 25 pages? Whatever, I'm grateful for them having an easy-to-use platform for computer idiots like me with live help to get me over the bumps. So, I spend enormous amounts of time on the Half-Elven website. I'm learning. As always, life is a trade-off between time and money.]
Guess I should be spending all this time building "my name url", since most author sites go that way. But, I write adult and middle grade fantasy. I don't think the two would mix too well ... like my half-elves are into sex though I don't go into much detail. I think.
Just a couple more illustrations to go ... and I can submit the website to 1st Turning Point to get shot down. Like I know I should get a media kit up on the site. I'm thinking of putting it up on a separate page from my author bio ... but it seems a little presumptuous to put one up before anything is published ... or at least, within a couple months of being published.
If anyone has any suggestions about how to juggle the two age levels, I'm "all ears" ... or is that eyes?
RETURN TO WEBSITE: Click Image. (Artwork: Igor Glushkin)
Monday, November 29, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Never Ending Website Building
The pictures are coming along. Just approved another one for coloring ... for the History of the Far Isle Half-Elven page. This is the good news.
The bad news? I can't get the home page to come up as the home page. Will be calling GoDaddy customer service come tomorrow ... today.
The middling news. I'm in the process of deciding whether I should mention my new sale on the website home page when I get the thing working properly. Only problem is that the short story I just sold to Spectra Magazine ** isn't set in the Half-Elven world. This promotion thing just keeps getting more and more complicated. I'll probably keep any more comments on the writer's blog.
Why can't modern writers hide in a garret? [Not that I'd like to starve.]
** I give the link to this e-pub because they include info about the science fiction/fantasy world.
The bad news? I can't get the home page to come up as the home page. Will be calling GoDaddy customer service come tomorrow ... today.
The middling news. I'm in the process of deciding whether I should mention my new sale on the website home page when I get the thing working properly. Only problem is that the short story I just sold to Spectra Magazine ** isn't set in the Half-Elven world. This promotion thing just keeps getting more and more complicated. I'll probably keep any more comments on the writer's blog.
Why can't modern writers hide in a garret? [Not that I'd like to starve.]
** I give the link to this e-pub because they include info about the science fiction/fantasy world.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Surprise. Surprise.
Got surprised the other day when doing the "name search" bit. WolfSinger Publications has Taking Vengeance, my novelette about Mariah and Ashton discovering the threat posed by Trestemontan magic, listed on their site in the middle of their 2011 list. Guess that means it'll be published somewhere around June to August -- right when I'll be doing the traveling thing. Guess you can't have everything.
Worse, it means I have to get serious about this platform thing ... but am disinclined. Maybe I'll feel different when I finally get my illustrations up on the website.
Progress on the pictures! Take a look at the home page illustration of Mariah with Ashton and Linden. I think I drove the poor artist crazy with revisions, but I really like the result. Now I have to find or write the copy to go with it while the artist puts in the color. At the moment, can't remember where I saved my previous draft copy -- if I did.
Linden, Mariah and Ashton -- the Triad who launched a Rebellion against persecution but became estranged after they won freedom for the Half-Elven. [by Igor Glushkin].
Worse, it means I have to get serious about this platform thing ... but am disinclined. Maybe I'll feel different when I finally get my illustrations up on the website.
Progress on the pictures! Take a look at the home page illustration of Mariah with Ashton and Linden. I think I drove the poor artist crazy with revisions, but I really like the result. Now I have to find or write the copy to go with it while the artist puts in the color. At the moment, can't remember where I saved my previous draft copy -- if I did.
Linden, Mariah and Ashton -- the Triad who launched a Rebellion against persecution but became estranged after they won freedom for the Half-Elven. [by Igor Glushkin].
Monday, November 8, 2010
AAArrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhh!
Am in the middle of snagging yet another artist to illustrate my website. At least this one has graduated from college and has sent me a contract with a deadline. -- Do I relax yet?
While I was supposed to be getting an ending on a free short story for the next Renna's Tale, I've been putting the pieces together to submit Dark Solstice to an e-publisher. Sample. Cover info. The dreaded Synopsis. All done including a fine-tuning of my query letter that a thousand-and-one agents have rejected. -- What's that definition of insanity? Repeating the same thing and expecting a different result?
I think I'm better off finishing my short story about levying tithes and political control. I have to submit it to a critique group Friday.
While I was supposed to be getting an ending on a free short story for the next Renna's Tale, I've been putting the pieces together to submit Dark Solstice to an e-publisher. Sample. Cover info. The dreaded Synopsis. All done including a fine-tuning of my query letter that a thousand-and-one agents have rejected. -- What's that definition of insanity? Repeating the same thing and expecting a different result?
I think I'm better off finishing my short story about levying tithes and political control. I have to submit it to a critique group Friday.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Writing Decisions
Decisions. Decisions. I seem to be doing nothing but make decisions about my writing because everything keeps changing. The publishing world hasn't changed as much as what's going on it my head. The more I think I know what I'm doing, the less I seem to know.
The biggest change: I'm no longer writing to amuse myself. When first writing about the Half-Elven of the Far Isles, I had this scene of a discontented woman standing on a cliff edge over the ocean in a gale with her long reddish hair blowing away from her head appear in my head. Imagine my surprise when Mariah turned out to be a Half-Elven (though actually she's a true elf, but that's another story), and her daughter had just been almost killed by sea raiders. The words flowed as I wrote about events before and after that initial scene until I had over 400,000 words. [Chopped it into three novels plus bits and pieces.]
That opening scene and the subsequent events became the novelette that WolfSinger Publications bought for release in 2011 -- Taking Vengeance.
Now I'm fighting to write short stories ... not my strong point ... for Renna's Tales. After struggling for a week I finally got the words flowing. The problem. I kept writing summaries about the action and where it fit into the long history of my Half-Elven ... rather than showing the adventure at hand. -- This is complicated because the events Renna gossips about are forming into a novel of its own about the struggle for power after the Treaty with the Suthrons created the Marches.
I think I'm on the "write" track for the current short story now. So, a decision ... do I continue to play with the Half-Elven ... or do I go back to the middle grade stuff I've written which has just as slim a chance of being published?
Being rather dense, I think I'll try to do both.
Another change: I entered my website url for "free" search engine exposure. So, I've adjusted the counter on my site. Maybe I should have just left it with 400 viewings, but I wanted to see if the free sites made any difference in the visitors. I'll keep you posted.
One thing I've notice is that my traffic from foreign countries for this blog has increased the last couple weeks. But, it's not the result of the search engines. Their confirmations warned me that it'd be weeks before the freebies got crawled. If I wanted things done faster, I could pay for their accelerated service. -- I'm sticking to my orginal plan of getting some original artwork up on the site and then use the GoDaddy submission service. [Incidently, the artwork's progressing.]
The biggest change: I'm no longer writing to amuse myself. When first writing about the Half-Elven of the Far Isles, I had this scene of a discontented woman standing on a cliff edge over the ocean in a gale with her long reddish hair blowing away from her head appear in my head. Imagine my surprise when Mariah turned out to be a Half-Elven (though actually she's a true elf, but that's another story), and her daughter had just been almost killed by sea raiders. The words flowed as I wrote about events before and after that initial scene until I had over 400,000 words. [Chopped it into three novels plus bits and pieces.]
That opening scene and the subsequent events became the novelette that WolfSinger Publications bought for release in 2011 -- Taking Vengeance.
Now I'm fighting to write short stories ... not my strong point ... for Renna's Tales. After struggling for a week I finally got the words flowing. The problem. I kept writing summaries about the action and where it fit into the long history of my Half-Elven ... rather than showing the adventure at hand. -- This is complicated because the events Renna gossips about are forming into a novel of its own about the struggle for power after the Treaty with the Suthrons created the Marches.
I think I'm on the "write" track for the current short story now. So, a decision ... do I continue to play with the Half-Elven ... or do I go back to the middle grade stuff I've written which has just as slim a chance of being published?
Being rather dense, I think I'll try to do both.
Another change: I entered my website url for "free" search engine exposure. So, I've adjusted the counter on my site. Maybe I should have just left it with 400 viewings, but I wanted to see if the free sites made any difference in the visitors. I'll keep you posted.
One thing I've notice is that my traffic from foreign countries for this blog has increased the last couple weeks. But, it's not the result of the search engines. Their confirmations warned me that it'd be weeks before the freebies got crawled. If I wanted things done faster, I could pay for their accelerated service. -- I'm sticking to my orginal plan of getting some original artwork up on the site and then use the GoDaddy submission service. [Incidently, the artwork's progressing.]
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