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A much delayed follow-up post
Jul. 11th, 2013 11:37 amEesh. I'd planned on writing a follow-up post to my previous one, but I keep running out of time! I guess that's what happens when you're too busy juggling a day job as well as churning out my morning 750 words, doing some heavy duty revision, catching up on reading, and writing a 5000+-word post on one of the most defining rock albums of the sixties. Oh, and watching some extremely silly anime. ;)
Anyhoo! Lots of different writerly things milling around my head.
--Still hammering away on the revision of The Persistence of Memories. No major revision here, not like ADoS, but I have run into a few passages here and there that need a bit of work. Most of the work on this one is on redeveloping some of the characters--not that they're flat, but now that I've reread the entire trilogy in one go (and am re-rereading, and will probably do so again another time or so until all three are completely revised), I'm seeing a few bland spots here and there, and I'm also taking the opportunity to throw in a bit of development that ends up completely unveiling itself later on.
--I've also been thinking (again) about the possibility of self-pubbing the series instead of going through the majors (so to speak). I'm still really up in the air about this, to be honest. On the one hand I would really love to see it released by a professional publisher, and I'm still going to submit it out into the wild until I get a bite. But in this day and age when there's a lot of good self-publishing going on, and I can honestly see myself going that route if it comes to it. Sure, I won't get the super-shiny art cover or wide recognition...but at the same time, the books aren't going to be seen by anyone if they're going to remain sitting on my computer, either. And who's to say the book wouldn't just sit there gathering dust on the bookstore shelf until it gets remaindered? The publishing field isn't what it used to be, that's for sure (and yes, I've read Judith Tarr's recent posts about it...it's a sobering but quite interesting read). I've been doing a bit of homework on this end as well: possible cover pictures (and possible people to contact to take said pictures if it comes to it), possible editing services, and even which self-pubbing companies I can reach out to (I'm on the mailing list for a few of them already). If I'm gonna go that route, I'm gonna do it right.
--That said: A Division of Souls is currently in "please beta read me" phase, so if anyone is at all interested, let me know and I can float it your way. I have it in .doc and .mobi format and can probably change it to most other formats if need be. Thanks!
--In non-trilogy news, I was typing out my morning words yesterday (thanks to 750words.com), and at the same time I was listening to my latest music obsession, KSCU (Santa Clara University's radio station--you've heard me going on about it in the past, and its playlist is VERY similar to the college radio back in the late 80s heyday...check it out here if you're interested). And with college radio comes thoughts of autumn...and with thoughts of autumn come my old trunked novel Dream Weaver. Trust me--the old version is pretty bad and not worth revisiting. However, just for the fun of it, and to get my morning words out, I thought I'd do a bit of brainstorming to see if I can create something new out of the old setting. In the process I came up with a lighthearted and fun storyline of alternate realities bumping up against each other. Equal parts Adam Christopher's Empire State universe, Studio Ghibli's character studies, anthropomorphic comics, growing up in woodsy New England, and my college rock obsession, I came up with what might promise to be either a YA or at least an interesting fantasy story. I'm not going into too much detail at the moment, but I may expand on this idea in my spare time as a possible future project. We'll see where this goes!
--The Blogging the Beatles posts seem to be going over well! That last one was pretty long and detailed, but I'd wanted to do that on purpose. The Beatles of 1962-66 are definitely different from the Beatles of 1967-70, not just with the Red and Blue Album compilations, and I wanted to focus a little on why and how they changed at that time. The next half of the discography is going to be pretty interesting work--the releases get stretched out a bit more, but in the process I also have to work my way through the White Album, which is going to be quite interesting in and of itself. And yes, I will be commenting on "Revolution 9"--there's a lot of fascinating stuff on that track if you have the tolerance and patience!
Okay, more about writing later...back to work and the other twelve things I'm doing! :p
Anyhoo! Lots of different writerly things milling around my head.
--Still hammering away on the revision of The Persistence of Memories. No major revision here, not like ADoS, but I have run into a few passages here and there that need a bit of work. Most of the work on this one is on redeveloping some of the characters--not that they're flat, but now that I've reread the entire trilogy in one go (and am re-rereading, and will probably do so again another time or so until all three are completely revised), I'm seeing a few bland spots here and there, and I'm also taking the opportunity to throw in a bit of development that ends up completely unveiling itself later on.
--I've also been thinking (again) about the possibility of self-pubbing the series instead of going through the majors (so to speak). I'm still really up in the air about this, to be honest. On the one hand I would really love to see it released by a professional publisher, and I'm still going to submit it out into the wild until I get a bite. But in this day and age when there's a lot of good self-publishing going on, and I can honestly see myself going that route if it comes to it. Sure, I won't get the super-shiny art cover or wide recognition...but at the same time, the books aren't going to be seen by anyone if they're going to remain sitting on my computer, either. And who's to say the book wouldn't just sit there gathering dust on the bookstore shelf until it gets remaindered? The publishing field isn't what it used to be, that's for sure (and yes, I've read Judith Tarr's recent posts about it...it's a sobering but quite interesting read). I've been doing a bit of homework on this end as well: possible cover pictures (and possible people to contact to take said pictures if it comes to it), possible editing services, and even which self-pubbing companies I can reach out to (I'm on the mailing list for a few of them already). If I'm gonna go that route, I'm gonna do it right.
--That said: A Division of Souls is currently in "please beta read me" phase, so if anyone is at all interested, let me know and I can float it your way. I have it in .doc and .mobi format and can probably change it to most other formats if need be. Thanks!
--In non-trilogy news, I was typing out my morning words yesterday (thanks to 750words.com), and at the same time I was listening to my latest music obsession, KSCU (Santa Clara University's radio station--you've heard me going on about it in the past, and its playlist is VERY similar to the college radio back in the late 80s heyday...check it out here if you're interested). And with college radio comes thoughts of autumn...and with thoughts of autumn come my old trunked novel Dream Weaver. Trust me--the old version is pretty bad and not worth revisiting. However, just for the fun of it, and to get my morning words out, I thought I'd do a bit of brainstorming to see if I can create something new out of the old setting. In the process I came up with a lighthearted and fun storyline of alternate realities bumping up against each other. Equal parts Adam Christopher's Empire State universe, Studio Ghibli's character studies, anthropomorphic comics, growing up in woodsy New England, and my college rock obsession, I came up with what might promise to be either a YA or at least an interesting fantasy story. I'm not going into too much detail at the moment, but I may expand on this idea in my spare time as a possible future project. We'll see where this goes!
--The Blogging the Beatles posts seem to be going over well! That last one was pretty long and detailed, but I'd wanted to do that on purpose. The Beatles of 1962-66 are definitely different from the Beatles of 1967-70, not just with the Red and Blue Album compilations, and I wanted to focus a little on why and how they changed at that time. The next half of the discography is going to be pretty interesting work--the releases get stretched out a bit more, but in the process I also have to work my way through the White Album, which is going to be quite interesting in and of itself. And yes, I will be commenting on "Revolution 9"--there's a lot of fascinating stuff on that track if you have the tolerance and patience!
Okay, more about writing later...back to work and the other twelve things I'm doing! :p
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