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].

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.

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.]

Artwork!!! Ain't it Grand.

Artwork:  Hannah Nitecki

The above is the link-artwork I put up on my website ... after over two hours of struggling with the GoDaddy templates.  No wonder website builders charge so much.  You never know when your content will jump away from you to where you don't want it. -- Do you think web designers have more control over the mouses than I do?

The full picture is up on Renna's Tales.  The depiction is the scene where Gorsfeld meets Mariah the first time while she's working in the apple orchard.

Can't believe I've been working on this since August.  Guess patience is a virtue.

Some progress made on the next Renna/Mariah story.  Have the beginning ... and the ending ... and some vague ideas about what's going to happen in the middle.  I'm trying to outline by motivation.  Purpose of story:  to explain why even the Half-Elven are suspicious of elves.  This may be one I put up for e-sale.  

[Frankly, I don't know what I'm doing.] 

Sometimes Delay is Good

I think.  At least so far.  I've been reading a lot about e-publishing lately ... not necessarily self-publishing.  The end result:  I'm thinking about changing how a develop my website.  

Basic change?  Removing the "free" story.  If I can get some "cover" art, I'm going to e-publish them for $0.59, if possible ... with maybe a revolving freebie deal.  I don't know what I'll be doing.  The ideas still swirl in my head.  Whatever, the stories will be on the first page of my site.  Only I must figure out the linkage stuff.

Traffic still shows up at the Tales of the Far Isle Half-Elven site.  Increased almost a hundred since last week [if I round up] from wherever they're finding it.  People even follow the links to my blogs.  So, if you're a new viewer.  Welcome.

Yeah.  Someday I might have pictures of the characters up on the site.  First installment promised by Wednesday.  If it doesn't show, I'm off to find another artist.  I may be easy, but I'm not a patsy.

PS:  I hope you find this color combination easier on the eyes.  I've been dinking with the advance design for over a month.  Think I got the button close to the right spot this time.

Over 300 Viewers and Counting

and they weren't all me.  Believe it or not I only look at the counter on my Half-Elven website a couple times a week.  I wonder what'll happen when I publicize the thing.  I'm sure some gamers have gone away uninterested when they visited. 

Have been looking at Wordpress a bit.  Several people have said they are great for websites.  Guess I'm too simple-minded to use them.   Got so confused, my eyes crossed.  I think I'll stay in the idiot's corner.

Believe it or not I have a date for when I'll get my first artwork ... and the artist is interested in doing more illustrations.  Hopefully, once she gets an idea of what the characters look like, things will go faster.  Maybe I'll have everything up by November.  Then, what do I have to do?  I'm afraid it'll be marketing ... which I hate.

Oh, on the Renna's Tales front.  Revisions don't bore me ... but give me creating any time ... ideas bouncing around like bucky balls is much more interesting than the discipline of editing, etc.  Latest idea.  Renna wants to be a serialized novel of the years just after the Rebellion.  

Think of Renna and Maren arm wrestling.  My mind seems to be doubly active when I'm dozing in my chair with Wiggles sprawled on my lap.

Heaving a Sigh of Relief

Yeah.  The artist I've been emailing reminders too ... emailed me back.  She's still interested in my project and promised to have something to me by next week-end.  

Seems she's in college and taking 19 hours.  For some reason, she thinks that supposed to keep her busy?  I'm amazed she's even considering my project ... which is now up to three pictures for my Half-Elven website.

Reminded me of my first couple semesters in college when I was still hanging around the literary magazine crowd.  [I was working full time and carrying 18 hours so I could get out of the place as soon as possible.]  ... Yeah, I was writing at the time though not publishing.

What was this fantasy writer writing?  I'm almost ashamed to say I was imitating what the literati were writing.  Only vaguely remember one piece.  An old man dying, remembering his long-lost unrequited love, breathing in time to the neon sign across the street from his basement apartment.  Why do I remember that?  ...  Well, shortly after, I decided the whole group was inane and gave them up for partying in San Francisco.

Life offers more than one reason to sigh with relief.

Still, Agonizing Over Pictures

First, a Warning ...

I picked up a virus on Sunday night.  As soon as the little shield on my bottom tool-bar popped up, I shut the computer off -- so I don't think I infected anyone.  But, if you visit a lot of the stuff I do, you probably already know you've been infected.  Whatever, it took two days to get the computer guru to remove the stuff.

Seems to be a lot of the stuff going around from the stories the guru told.  So, if you haven't updated your security lately ... you should look into it.

Pictures...

Finally, managed to get my picture transferred to the author bio section of the website.  As much as I'd like the increase in numbers, it's not worth going to to see.  I put up the same picture I have on my blog.  [Not the cat though he's prettier.]  

When I enlarged my new "professional", I was sneering.  Or, at least my lip was curled.  Do you think that's the way I smile?

My first artist backed out of the commission for my home page ... so I'm looking for another picture for the home page of my website.  For now, I'm not going to worry about it.  The page can just sit as it is.

Story Progress ...

Experienced a little deja vu while my computer was off.  I wrote by pencil ... so I could erase often and much.  Discovered I write about twice as fast on the computer in spite of all the backtracking and copy/pasting.  Won't repeat the experiment soon.  My thumbs would whine if I spent one more hour with pencil in hand.

The next Half-Elven short story progresses ...  featuring Mariah after the Rebellion was won.  Again, Renna has her nose in the action.  Now, I get to worry about whether the story has a plot or not.