The Calling of Aethan Lightbringer is available for pre-order. I thought it would be ready by Monday or Tuesday, but it didn't make it until Thursday. It took longer to go through and make corrections than I thought, but I was still on track. Most of the delay was CreateSpace. They used to approve changes in a few hours. It's taking them a day now. Forgetting to change the cover color didn't help and added a day. I'll have to plan for that next time. By next time I mean for AoE, the young adult book that's pretty much done but was on the back burner while I worked on this one. AoE still needs a little work to fluff up some skimpy prose in light of the good editorial advice I mentioned in a previous blog. I may put it up for pre-order this week some time. It depends on how life goes.
The plan was for a 99-cent, pre-order period of a week. Because of the delays, the new plan is to extend the 99-cent period until after launch and switch it to regular price about a week after the pre-order started. There's also a delay on the final cover, but I'm not going to delay the book just for that. January means January. Release is the 30th. Did you think it would be the 31st? I wouldn't do that to you.
I saw some media deception this week I wanted to highlight. The liberal press was shocked at Hilary's defeat. They've been brutal and vicious in attacking Trump like the racists did to Obama after his election. There was a story this week that tried to smear Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway and White House press secretary Sean Spicer that shows the liberal media's true colors.
Spicer said that the inauguration had "the largest audience ever". The media had pictures of the crowd in Washington and had a fit, because it wasn't the largest crowd ever. They hit Conway, who said Spicer had used "alternative facts". In a press briefing, Spicer clarified. He was counting the physical crowd plus the television crowd plus the online streaming crowd on sites like Facebook, etc. His alternative facts weren't Orwellian the way the liberal media is portraying this story. It turns out Spicer was right. It actually was the largest audience ever, including the Reagan inauguration's. The press ignored that. When Spicer said audience, he meant the whole viewing audience. When the liberal media said audience they were very narrowly defining it as the physical crowd in Washington and twisted this whole thing into something it wasn't. They've been doings stories like this ever since Trump was elected, and I'm tired of it. This is not a political blog, but I'm calling them on it this time. I'm exposing what they're doing so you can be on the lookout for this kind of dishonest, hateful "journalism" that itself is nothing more than Orwellian doublespeak and propaganda. They keep getting caught doing the same things they're accusing other people of doing. That's something else to be aware of.
Have a great weekend.
Friday, January 27, 2017
Friday, January 20, 2017
The Calling of Aethan Lightbringer
The other day I mentioned my New World Order ID. During the week, I saw a news story related to that. Kentucky is having compliance issues, and visitors to Fort Knox with Kentucky IDs will no longer be allowed entry without a defense department escort. The same applies to visitors from other non-compliant states. The article is short and is followed by a list of alternative IDs.
I posted a while back about some anti-aging treatments that were close to human trials that would delay aging and let us live to 120. There's a new treatment that could actually reverse aging. It would be groundbreaking, but it's not available yet and shouldn't be for some time. It works in mice, though. That's awesome. Maybe we'll be able to get one that slows aging to get us by until the age-reversing one becomes available. I can't wait.
Remember the blog a while back in which I talked about getting a 3G mobile hotspot, because my internet goes out sometimes and prevents me from posting a blog or checking email, etc.? I almost had to use it. Last night my connection went out, forcing me to call my ISP. They assured me it would be fixed within 24 hours. They were right. It got fixed some time today. While I waited last night, I got the hotspot out. I charged it when I first received it in June and put it back in the box. After all those months, it still had nearly a full charge. It took fewer than five minutes to hit full. Color me impressed. Ironically, I've been thinking lately that the internet hasn't gone out since I bought it, and I needed to charge it and activate it to learn exactly how it works in case it ever did.
Church was cancelled Wednesday night, so I made a Bible study video I intended to post to YouTube. It was a little over twenty minutes. I made a video last year that was more than double that length, but it wouldn't render at 1080p for some reason I couldn't figure out. Uploading it was no problem. This new one rendered just fine at 1080p. However, the final file size was 1.95GB. At my slow connection speed, that's impossible to upload. Even 720p is out of the question. I rendered it at 480p, which was 356MB. That still takes hours to upload. Suddenly, I see why so many videos are only 480p or are very short. Hmm. Either I need to make short videos, or stick with low resolutions.
The green screen effect didn't work in the video. I had lines and some distortion over myself. I'm going to have to re-record it for that and to make it shorter. I'm not sure why the effect didn't work. Perhaps I was too close to to the screen and had too much reflected light. Or maybe the posts of the metal shelf in that room were reflecting green lines onto me. Or both. I'm going to stand farther away next time and possibly cover that shelf. However, the proof copy for the next book is here. The video will have to wait.
I'm going through the paperback of The Calling of Aethan Lightbringer. I suppose that's a decent title. No more of that Book2 nonsense. Book3 will be something similar, I'm sure. Checking a paperback is different than going over it on a computer screen. Formatting problems that don't show onscreen show up in a hard copy. Double spaces at the end of a line, for instance. A word I used twice not just in the same page or the same paragraph but in two consecutive sentences. I did that in the first two lines of the book and never caught it until I saw it in print! Ugh. I'm seeing little things so far. Nothing major. Everything is still on track. The goal is to get the pre-order up early next week. The proof copy has a quick and dirty cover that's not the final. It was just easy to order and ship it that way. It may or may not show up in the pre-order graphic at first. Do not be alarmed if you see an orange cover. It shall not stand.
Have a great weekend.
I posted a while back about some anti-aging treatments that were close to human trials that would delay aging and let us live to 120. There's a new treatment that could actually reverse aging. It would be groundbreaking, but it's not available yet and shouldn't be for some time. It works in mice, though. That's awesome. Maybe we'll be able to get one that slows aging to get us by until the age-reversing one becomes available. I can't wait.
Remember the blog a while back in which I talked about getting a 3G mobile hotspot, because my internet goes out sometimes and prevents me from posting a blog or checking email, etc.? I almost had to use it. Last night my connection went out, forcing me to call my ISP. They assured me it would be fixed within 24 hours. They were right. It got fixed some time today. While I waited last night, I got the hotspot out. I charged it when I first received it in June and put it back in the box. After all those months, it still had nearly a full charge. It took fewer than five minutes to hit full. Color me impressed. Ironically, I've been thinking lately that the internet hasn't gone out since I bought it, and I needed to charge it and activate it to learn exactly how it works in case it ever did.
Church was cancelled Wednesday night, so I made a Bible study video I intended to post to YouTube. It was a little over twenty minutes. I made a video last year that was more than double that length, but it wouldn't render at 1080p for some reason I couldn't figure out. Uploading it was no problem. This new one rendered just fine at 1080p. However, the final file size was 1.95GB. At my slow connection speed, that's impossible to upload. Even 720p is out of the question. I rendered it at 480p, which was 356MB. That still takes hours to upload. Suddenly, I see why so many videos are only 480p or are very short. Hmm. Either I need to make short videos, or stick with low resolutions.
The green screen effect didn't work in the video. I had lines and some distortion over myself. I'm going to have to re-record it for that and to make it shorter. I'm not sure why the effect didn't work. Perhaps I was too close to to the screen and had too much reflected light. Or maybe the posts of the metal shelf in that room were reflecting green lines onto me. Or both. I'm going to stand farther away next time and possibly cover that shelf. However, the proof copy for the next book is here. The video will have to wait.
I'm going through the paperback of The Calling of Aethan Lightbringer. I suppose that's a decent title. No more of that Book2 nonsense. Book3 will be something similar, I'm sure. Checking a paperback is different than going over it on a computer screen. Formatting problems that don't show onscreen show up in a hard copy. Double spaces at the end of a line, for instance. A word I used twice not just in the same page or the same paragraph but in two consecutive sentences. I did that in the first two lines of the book and never caught it until I saw it in print! Ugh. I'm seeing little things so far. Nothing major. Everything is still on track. The goal is to get the pre-order up early next week. The proof copy has a quick and dirty cover that's not the final. It was just easy to order and ship it that way. It may or may not show up in the pre-order graphic at first. Do not be alarmed if you see an orange cover. It shall not stand.
Have a great weekend.
Friday, January 13, 2017
The Bummer of Licensing for Television
The other day I was thinking what I'd like to do is come home to a house built about the time the one I grew up in was and have TV shows that were on when I was a kid already streaming to the TV. I could turn it on and have a little vacation for a while in a simpler time, when the world made more sense and America was still number one at things. That got me to thinking how cool it would be if there were resorts that were themed to certain time periods. All the buildings would be period correct. The TVs and radios would be period broadcasts. For instance, a 1940s resort, a 1960s one, a 1980s one etc. It would be a vacation while at the same time give modern folks a feeling of what it was like to live in some past era. I think it would provoke people to think about how we live now and all the things that are wrong in society. Imagine stepping back into a time when there were no drugs or gangs or drive-by shootings or continual stream of violence and profanity and obscenity. When people got back home, they would feel bombarded by our modern, negative culture. I bet wealthy, older people would want to live there year round.
So, that got me to thinking about the good TV shows that were on when I was a kid that people can't watch any more. Amazon is looking for content for its Prime video service. What if I could license an old show from the 80s or whenever and put it on Prime for cheap? I did some research. From what I've read it's entirely possible to do that. The catch is the studios that have the rights to old shows don't want to handle anything less than $25,000. That covers their lawyer fees and makes it worth their while. Even if I could afford something really cheap that only ran for one to three seasons, I'd be forced to add shows into a bundle until I hit the $25k mark. Bummer. That's part of why we don't see very many shows from the past, even if they were good. Another reason is that TV stations/channels don't want to license a show unless it had at least 100 episodes. That lets them do something called "stripping", which I infer is running a show five days a week at a set time of day. When I was little, a lot of shows never made it to 100 episodes. Bummer. Another problem is that some of the older shows played music in some episodes. To license a show like that, it would be necessary to negotiate with the music studio or studios, and stations/channels don't find it financially worthwhile to fight that kind of greed on top of the licensing greed. Bummer.
If you buy from Amazon, you've seen their ads for the shows they're producing. The year after Friends went off the air it was licensed to hundreds of TV stations for a total of $950,000,000 for that year alone. I'm guessing Amazon wants to make money running their shows first run and then license them out later for even more profit. They won't make Friends money, but I might keep an eye on that and see what they do. Assuming the Tribulation doesn't start before that, of course.
Book 2 rested for a month. I got back to work on it and finished going through it with "final" corrections. For test reading my process is to upload the manuscript to CreateSpace and order proof copies. It took hours of wrestling with OpenOffice last night, but I finally got the manuscript formatted for CreateSpace and uploaded. Today some time after they've checked it to make sure it fits their standards, they'll approve it for proof copies and email to let me know. They promise within 24 hours, so the clock is ticking. I expected to hear back already. Once I do, I'll get the order sent. Once the copies are here, it's test reader time. I'll go through it again, too. After that, assuming I've missed no major problem, it should be out this month. It's still on track for that. I'd like to allow a week for pre-orders at reduced price for faithful blog readers. So, that's where things stand on that.
Now that I'm not stressing as much over how late this book is, I'm thinking about doing a weekly Bible study and uploading it to YouTube. Maybe every two weeks. It's kind of what I've mentioned before. I'm trying to get more focused and precise with it and figure out how it would work. I don't know every single thing about the Bible. It would be things I've learned and things God has shown me and things denominational Christianity doesn't understand. Sunday isn't the Sabbath. Sprinkling isn't baptism. And so forth. Some of it would probably be humorous. As I've thought about topics, I've seen funny things. Satan wanted Moses's body. It says so in Jude. Phrasing it that way could be funny and interesting to an audience while teaching something real. I'm still working on it all. Every week wouldn't be like that, of course.
Have a great weekend.
So, that got me to thinking about the good TV shows that were on when I was a kid that people can't watch any more. Amazon is looking for content for its Prime video service. What if I could license an old show from the 80s or whenever and put it on Prime for cheap? I did some research. From what I've read it's entirely possible to do that. The catch is the studios that have the rights to old shows don't want to handle anything less than $25,000. That covers their lawyer fees and makes it worth their while. Even if I could afford something really cheap that only ran for one to three seasons, I'd be forced to add shows into a bundle until I hit the $25k mark. Bummer. That's part of why we don't see very many shows from the past, even if they were good. Another reason is that TV stations/channels don't want to license a show unless it had at least 100 episodes. That lets them do something called "stripping", which I infer is running a show five days a week at a set time of day. When I was little, a lot of shows never made it to 100 episodes. Bummer. Another problem is that some of the older shows played music in some episodes. To license a show like that, it would be necessary to negotiate with the music studio or studios, and stations/channels don't find it financially worthwhile to fight that kind of greed on top of the licensing greed. Bummer.
If you buy from Amazon, you've seen their ads for the shows they're producing. The year after Friends went off the air it was licensed to hundreds of TV stations for a total of $950,000,000 for that year alone. I'm guessing Amazon wants to make money running their shows first run and then license them out later for even more profit. They won't make Friends money, but I might keep an eye on that and see what they do. Assuming the Tribulation doesn't start before that, of course.
Book 2 rested for a month. I got back to work on it and finished going through it with "final" corrections. For test reading my process is to upload the manuscript to CreateSpace and order proof copies. It took hours of wrestling with OpenOffice last night, but I finally got the manuscript formatted for CreateSpace and uploaded. Today some time after they've checked it to make sure it fits their standards, they'll approve it for proof copies and email to let me know. They promise within 24 hours, so the clock is ticking. I expected to hear back already. Once I do, I'll get the order sent. Once the copies are here, it's test reader time. I'll go through it again, too. After that, assuming I've missed no major problem, it should be out this month. It's still on track for that. I'd like to allow a week for pre-orders at reduced price for faithful blog readers. So, that's where things stand on that.
Now that I'm not stressing as much over how late this book is, I'm thinking about doing a weekly Bible study and uploading it to YouTube. Maybe every two weeks. It's kind of what I've mentioned before. I'm trying to get more focused and precise with it and figure out how it would work. I don't know every single thing about the Bible. It would be things I've learned and things God has shown me and things denominational Christianity doesn't understand. Sunday isn't the Sabbath. Sprinkling isn't baptism. And so forth. Some of it would probably be humorous. As I've thought about topics, I've seen funny things. Satan wanted Moses's body. It says so in Jude. Phrasing it that way could be funny and interesting to an audience while teaching something real. I'm still working on it all. Every week wouldn't be like that, of course.
Have a great weekend.
Friday, January 6, 2017
Old Farmer Time?
The area where I live is bracing for a winter storm and sustained, sub-freezing temperatures. It snowed and sleeted for a while with some big, half dollar and silver-dollar-sized flakes. It's all melted now. The main precipitation is supposed to move in within the hour and continue during the night. That reminds me of the drought we had during the fall. I kept meaning to blog about it. It wouldn't fit anywhere with all the other things going on like that election. I try not to make long posts very often. It would've been too much.
Anyway, it was a very severe drought, the highest level the weather folks have on their drought scale. It was weird, though. The area where I live got rain after the drought started. I'd go about ten minutes down the road after it rained, and ponds would be drying up. Grass would be dead. There was talk of water rationing. They had no rain. I live less than a mile from this field with thick, green grass that never did go brown. Eventually, the drought got worse. We went for 50 days with no rain. That field stayed green even then, because of the river next to it, I guess, and groundwater. It's a low-lying field..
I live on a dirt road. The dust was unreal. It coated everything next to the road to the point where it was hard to tell when dust was hanging in the air from traffic and when it wasn't. There wasn't enough contrast between the sides of the road and the road itself. When there was traffic, the dust would hang in the air forever, because the air was so still. There wasn't enough wind to blow it away. It would billow up and drift very slowly. In the end we ended up the year with two feet less rain than normal. That's .6096 meters. ;) That's a lot of rain.
Today's kind of a slow, lazy day. This feels like a slow, lazy blog. The Grapes of Wrath. Reading back over it makes me feel like it would fit in during the 1800s or something like I'm an old farmer sitting on the back porch talking about the weather. Maybe it's Mark Twain day. All right. I'll let you go
Assuming the power doesn't go out, this weekend is Book2 time where I start the process of going through it looking for any mistakes and last-minute fixes. We're still on track for a January release.
Anyway, it was a very severe drought, the highest level the weather folks have on their drought scale. It was weird, though. The area where I live got rain after the drought started. I'd go about ten minutes down the road after it rained, and ponds would be drying up. Grass would be dead. There was talk of water rationing. They had no rain. I live less than a mile from this field with thick, green grass that never did go brown. Eventually, the drought got worse. We went for 50 days with no rain. That field stayed green even then, because of the river next to it, I guess, and groundwater. It's a low-lying field..
I live on a dirt road. The dust was unreal. It coated everything next to the road to the point where it was hard to tell when dust was hanging in the air from traffic and when it wasn't. There wasn't enough contrast between the sides of the road and the road itself. When there was traffic, the dust would hang in the air forever, because the air was so still. There wasn't enough wind to blow it away. It would billow up and drift very slowly. In the end we ended up the year with two feet less rain than normal. That's .6096 meters. ;) That's a lot of rain.
Today's kind of a slow, lazy day. This feels like a slow, lazy blog. The Grapes of Wrath. Reading back over it makes me feel like it would fit in during the 1800s or something like I'm an old farmer sitting on the back porch talking about the weather. Maybe it's Mark Twain day. All right. I'll let you go
Assuming the power doesn't go out, this weekend is Book2 time where I start the process of going through it looking for any mistakes and last-minute fixes. We're still on track for a January release.
Friday, December 30, 2016
Show Me Your Papers, Herr Jenkins
I got my driver's license renewed the other day. Normally, I could do it
online, but this time I had to go in person and present identification
papers, because the new ones are "Secure Driver's License and ID". They
wanted my birth certificate, my social security card and proof of
residence such as mail from a bank. My birth certificate was the
original that my parents got, when I was born in 197_. The man at the
DMV told me most places won't accept those any more and I needed to go
to the courthouse and get a modern one from the government. However,
since it was already in the DMV system, they could take it. Whew. That
saved a lot of hassle. The Secure Driver's License and ID is Real ID
compliant. Real ID was controversial a few years ago, because it's New World Order compliant. So. now I have a
driver's license/ID that's ready for the New World Order that complies
to the standards and regulations of the coming global government. It's almost here.
It cost $32. I think it was $8.50 the last time, but I'm not 100% sure. That was for a four-year license. The new one is good for eight years. My personal opinion is that eight years from now will be during the Tribulation. The IDs for it are already here.
Carrie Fisher died. It was big news. Even before that I'd been thinking that a ton of famous people have died this year. I was right. One of my Facebook friends posted an article that says the number of deaths of famous folks is unusually high this year. It was too long to read, of course. ;)
This week there was a news story saying that a show I've never heard of has been cancelled. I forget the name of it.
The current president made a lot of trouble this week. I can't wait for the new one to get here. :)
Have a great weekend.
Happy New Year! If you're on the Gregorian calendar, that is.
It cost $32. I think it was $8.50 the last time, but I'm not 100% sure. That was for a four-year license. The new one is good for eight years. My personal opinion is that eight years from now will be during the Tribulation. The IDs for it are already here.
Carrie Fisher died. It was big news. Even before that I'd been thinking that a ton of famous people have died this year. I was right. One of my Facebook friends posted an article that says the number of deaths of famous folks is unusually high this year. It was too long to read, of course. ;)
This week there was a news story saying that a show I've never heard of has been cancelled. I forget the name of it.
The current president made a lot of trouble this week. I can't wait for the new one to get here. :)
Have a great weekend.
Happy New Year! If you're on the Gregorian calendar, that is.
Friday, December 23, 2016
Separating the Chaff
I was reading my Bible, when I had a thought that didn't seem to have much to do with the text. It occurred to me that in order to have a Godly business, someone would need Godly employees. By business, I don't mean religious institution. I mean any type of business where the owner is a Christian and focused on God and Godly principles. In the U.S. we can't "discriminate" against people of other religions who hate ours. We have to hire haters. Spiritually, this is self-defeating. It's not good to be unequally yoked. Spiritually, it invites attacks. The thought I had was that a business needs to be centered on at least one fruit of the spirit, and the haters will weed themselves out. The popular fruits are love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Pagans would not be able to manifest a fruit of the spirit on a long-term basis. People can fake almost anything but only for a season.
A while back I saw this article about a couple of young women who were videotaped torturing dementia patients. Taking care of dementia patients required love, patience, etc. The women in the article couldn't manifest those fruits, because they apparently don't have them. As a side note, performing righteousness can be thought of as manifesting the spirit of God. Performing evil can be thought of as manifesting a demon. Think of that the next time you see someone doing something wrong, demon manifestation. The setting in the article was a health care environment. From the hospital trips with my dad, I saw a lot of pagan health care workers and a lot of health care workers who didn't seem to care about people. This article didn't surprise me at all.
Many businesses focus on customer service. Service is a fruit of the spirit. If servanthood is the main goal of a business, people lacking the spirit of servanthood will eventually quit, because service is not their true nature. Or they won't be able to perform the job and be fired. The business will eventually end up with employees who manifest that gift. Over time a Godly business can develop without violating any laws. It's a natural process.
Food for thought. What if sloppiness or incompetence or lack of focus on detail in the workplace is more about a lack of a particular spiritual fruit than a physical or mental problem? Think about people who are clumsy in certain situations but highly dexterous in others. Employees may not be able to do certain things, because there's no spiritual assistance. They can't manifest that fruit(or gift). This might be a concept for moving people around in a company to the job that they're best suited for. I'm not a guru on all this. I'm kind of thinking out loud this week.
Focusing a business on fruits of the spirit should be the main goal. God can work through and bless that.
Merry Christmas!
Happy Hannukah!
Have a great weekend.
A while back I saw this article about a couple of young women who were videotaped torturing dementia patients. Taking care of dementia patients required love, patience, etc. The women in the article couldn't manifest those fruits, because they apparently don't have them. As a side note, performing righteousness can be thought of as manifesting the spirit of God. Performing evil can be thought of as manifesting a demon. Think of that the next time you see someone doing something wrong, demon manifestation. The setting in the article was a health care environment. From the hospital trips with my dad, I saw a lot of pagan health care workers and a lot of health care workers who didn't seem to care about people. This article didn't surprise me at all.
Many businesses focus on customer service. Service is a fruit of the spirit. If servanthood is the main goal of a business, people lacking the spirit of servanthood will eventually quit, because service is not their true nature. Or they won't be able to perform the job and be fired. The business will eventually end up with employees who manifest that gift. Over time a Godly business can develop without violating any laws. It's a natural process.
Food for thought. What if sloppiness or incompetence or lack of focus on detail in the workplace is more about a lack of a particular spiritual fruit than a physical or mental problem? Think about people who are clumsy in certain situations but highly dexterous in others. Employees may not be able to do certain things, because there's no spiritual assistance. They can't manifest that fruit(or gift). This might be a concept for moving people around in a company to the job that they're best suited for. I'm not a guru on all this. I'm kind of thinking out loud this week.
Focusing a business on fruits of the spirit should be the main goal. God can work through and bless that.
Merry Christmas!
Happy Hannukah!
Have a great weekend.
Friday, December 16, 2016
Book3 and YA Feedback
Progress continues on Book3, as I've been getting back into the swing of it. I'm going for a minimum daily word count of 1,000 for now that will have to rise later. Book2 is in its resting phase before one last going over. It should be out in January.
I don't do much politics on here, but I've mentioned the recent elections a few times, including the recounts and other shenanigans. Here's an update on those. Wisconsin did a recount. Trump gained 131 votes, making the victory even larger and more glorious than before. The recounts in Pennsylvania and Michigan didn't happen, because there was no proof of election tampering whatsoever, etc. Imagining that something might have happened is not proof of anything. More than once, I've imagined myself winning the lottery. The lottery commission refuses to accept my imagination as proof I won.
I received some feedback on a sample of the YA novel from a freelance editor. I thought I'd share it with you.
"Too much dialogue upfront when we don’t know who’s speaking or where we are—this is a touch disorienting. Try to give us a little bit more of a setting by weaving descriptions into the dialogue tags."
and
"In general, I really wanted to see more description of your setting. I think by strategically weaving in more description, it would significantly strengthen your world building."
Where the reader is would be in the cover blurb. The reader would automatically go into the book knowing what's going on. Nevertheless, she's not wrong. I tend to have skimpy physical descriptions of places and items, because that's a lot of extra work. :) And I don't like lots of description, when I'm the reader. I hate pages of description of a setting, only to be gone from that setting forever by the end of a chapter. What a cool place! Farewell!
I'm pretty sure I've mentioned doorknob authors before. Those are the guys that spend pages describing the glint of the sunlight off a doorknob and how that reminds the character of something from the past and suddenly I'm stuck in a lengthy flashback that usually doesn't matter to the story. I don't want to be one of those guys.
But. I need to listen to what this person is saying, since I know she's right. My descriptions tend to be skimpy. That's so true. What I think I need to do is use more description while avoiding the doorknob problem. I suppose I could work a little bit harder and stretch and grow. :) Book2 is skimpy in places. It wouldn't hurt too much to add a paragraph here and there in the final edit and more sentences. Same for Book3.
On a practical level, one way I could do that would be to have a larger description of a setting the first time it appears in the book and then reference it later in a less-lengthy fashion. Think back to descriptions of Chesquial and Millican. I spent a few paragraphs on those and referenced them later by mentioning a spire or something similar that would recall the initial description without trying to redo it.
Going forward, I also think I'll try to add a few more sentences in minor locations. I'm going to have to find a balance without going overboard spamming description after every dialogue tag. If it grounds the reader while at the same time adding content of real value, it can only make the stories stronger.
Have a great weekend.
I don't do much politics on here, but I've mentioned the recent elections a few times, including the recounts and other shenanigans. Here's an update on those. Wisconsin did a recount. Trump gained 131 votes, making the victory even larger and more glorious than before. The recounts in Pennsylvania and Michigan didn't happen, because there was no proof of election tampering whatsoever, etc. Imagining that something might have happened is not proof of anything. More than once, I've imagined myself winning the lottery. The lottery commission refuses to accept my imagination as proof I won.
I received some feedback on a sample of the YA novel from a freelance editor. I thought I'd share it with you.
"Too much dialogue upfront when we don’t know who’s speaking or where we are—this is a touch disorienting. Try to give us a little bit more of a setting by weaving descriptions into the dialogue tags."
and
"In general, I really wanted to see more description of your setting. I think by strategically weaving in more description, it would significantly strengthen your world building."
Where the reader is would be in the cover blurb. The reader would automatically go into the book knowing what's going on. Nevertheless, she's not wrong. I tend to have skimpy physical descriptions of places and items, because that's a lot of extra work. :) And I don't like lots of description, when I'm the reader. I hate pages of description of a setting, only to be gone from that setting forever by the end of a chapter. What a cool place! Farewell!
I'm pretty sure I've mentioned doorknob authors before. Those are the guys that spend pages describing the glint of the sunlight off a doorknob and how that reminds the character of something from the past and suddenly I'm stuck in a lengthy flashback that usually doesn't matter to the story. I don't want to be one of those guys.
But. I need to listen to what this person is saying, since I know she's right. My descriptions tend to be skimpy. That's so true. What I think I need to do is use more description while avoiding the doorknob problem. I suppose I could work a little bit harder and stretch and grow. :) Book2 is skimpy in places. It wouldn't hurt too much to add a paragraph here and there in the final edit and more sentences. Same for Book3.
On a practical level, one way I could do that would be to have a larger description of a setting the first time it appears in the book and then reference it later in a less-lengthy fashion. Think back to descriptions of Chesquial and Millican. I spent a few paragraphs on those and referenced them later by mentioning a spire or something similar that would recall the initial description without trying to redo it.
Going forward, I also think I'll try to add a few more sentences in minor locations. I'm going to have to find a balance without going overboard spamming description after every dialogue tag. If it grounds the reader while at the same time adding content of real value, it can only make the stories stronger.
Have a great weekend.
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