11 June 2014

Writing Wednesday: Plugging Away

I'm still not back to my regular writing output, but I'm determined not to stress about it anymore (dertermined, dammit!). I have been slowly working away at a story--a novella, maybe--that's going well. I'm enoying the main character and the setting, and thinking that it may be a recurring series, probably with different charaters in the same setting. Kind of like what I have planned for my Wonder Island stories (the first one, Ichneumon--the title of which I may change since it says nothing about the story if you don't know what it means--is available at the usual ebook outlets (no link at the moment, as Blogger for iPad won't let me add links)).

Anyway, "The Curator of Improbable Fossils" is somewhere under half finished. As I got closer to what I thought was the end, I realized it might work better as an alternating viewpoint story, since there are things I can't address properly from the one point of view. So I've written most of the Curator's part of the story, and now I'm transferring it out of my handwritten notebook (I don't always hand-write, but I find it helps me get un-stuck sometimes because it seems much less permanent, like I don't have to get it right).

Next, I'll write the Librarian's point of view (and maybe even type it directly into the word processor, since the Librarian is a rather more modern character than the stuffy Curator). Finally, I'll write the end. I don't know yet if the concluding parts will be alternating viewpoints, or from one or the other's point of view, or from something more omnipotent. I hope I'll know by the time I get that far.

01 June 2014

Suspending Stamp Saturday, Sort Of

I just found out that I got a table (actually, a half table) at the Dartmouth Comic Arts Festival in August. Yay! It's only a half day thing on a Sunday, but I have so very much to get done by then. Add to that the fact that I just started a part-time retail job, and retail is extra-exhausting for an introvert like me, and I just don't have time to do everything.

So, sadly, for now, I'm going to suspend my Stamp Saturday posts. Probably not entirely -- I am going to try to work on them a little at a time between other things, but those other things have to take priority for now. Rest assured, though, that I will get back to stamp stuff. I have all that wonderful material to play with, after all!

Just as a taste of the length of my to-do list, here are some of the main things on it:


  • write 8+ reviews and articles each month for Young Adult Books site, plus site maintenance and other odds and ends, and reading the books I review
  • work two or three shifts a week at video game store
  • teach letter press one evening a week (until the end of June) -- this usually takes up most of the day as I also run errands and print some things of my own while I'm in the city
  • make corrections to Fey chapter one digital files and re-print
  • scan, touch up, and letter Fey chapter two pages for posting on the web
  • lay out Fey chapter two in book form, order a proof, correct, and print
  • finish as much of Fey chapter three as possible
  • finish Art Nouveau satyr illustration and print as poster (and maybe other things)
  • make prints of dragons (first test different sizes)
  • text for Monsters mini-comic
  • scan and touch up images for Monsters mini-comic
  • make cover (possibly letterpress printed) for Monsters mini-comic
  • make fairy stickers
  • make Fey business cards and flyers
  • wrangle Wordpress so Fey site looks better
  • make myself a Fey t-shirt to wear at DCAF
  • figure out table set up and buy/make necessary stands, etc


So yeah. Whole lot to do and no time to waste. Plus, in order to be able to do my video game store job well, I need to read video gaming news and reviews so I can better help customers. And I need to decide if I'll have my novels to sell at DCAF, too, and if so, I'll have to lay out several of them for print, get and check proofs, and order copies. Probably I'll just get a few more copies of the ones I already have available in print (though one needs a cover change to match the new e-book version cover).

I think the rest of today may very well be spent scanning. I may also drop dead before I even get to August. Heh.