Drunken Owls and Other Delights

After a slight bump in the road, in which I had to call Shutterstock to get them to process my payment correctly, I purchased a package of 5 downloads (which is good, considering I can use the others for books 2 and 3) and commenced playing with both Photoshop and PicMonkey to get what I wanted. I also consulted A. for her input on the visuals, asking what seemed to work best for a reader like herself.

The picture was taken by Tommy Zhang. :)

The funny thing is that I'd used Photoshop only for the cropping, as I was less than happy with the fonts they had available. And since I needed to work within the submission parameters most want, I had to make sure I had the right ratio. Which meant eyeing it because I can't do ratio math to save my life, measuring the picture using an actual ruler against my monitor (LIKE A BOSS) and considering it done. It's as close to the 1:1.33 ratio as I could get it.

As for the fonts, I used PicMonkey.com (thanks to Meagan for the suggestion!), which is what I'd used for the original outtakes. Goddess knows I did not want to use the Papyrus font (aka the pseudo-Celtic Wiccan font you see on all the New Age books), nor did I want to use the same science fiction fonts everywhere else. Something just that bit unique, but not overly so. The title is Geo Sans Light (bolded), and the subtitle and author name are both De Walpergen Pica.

So, total cost today? Just $41 for the five download credits on Shutterstock. I already own Photoshop, and used the free level of PicMonkey. Not bad at all.


Next up: Continuing the work on the final line edit, and uploading. :)

One of the side effects of the changes I've made with my life over the last few months is that my focus on decision-making has (thankfully) become less stressful and more clarified. I seem to have gotten rid of a lot of the but-what-if's and are-you-sure-you-want-to's, to be replaced with 'okay--if you're doing X, be aware that Y may happen' and 'if you're going to do A, remember to follow it up with B, C, and D.' In short, indecisive freakouts have been swapped with heavy-duty plotting and foresight. Hey, it's still stressful, but it's a much healthier stress, one I can channel into useable energy.

Another side effect is that I've been seriously thinking about my writing career over the last few months. Yeah, I know...I'm always thinking about my writing career. [I was going to say "...or lack thereof", but that would be lying. I'm still not published, but I'm still writing daily on the new project, as well as making plans for other projects.] I admit I've been a bit lax the last month or so about submitting the trilogy to various agents, but I think that's been due to my frustration with the lack of communication. I know one of the rules of thumb is "if you don't hear anything by six weeks, consider it not accepted". I get the non-communication due to the volume of manuscripts that come in, but it's still frustrating, because I just don't know either way.

Which is bringing me to the possibility that I may finally bite the bullet and go the indie/self-pub route with the Mendaihu Universe books. It's a possibly expensive route to take, depending on how I do it and which steps I take, but I'm willing to take that step, and, hopefully if I do it right, it'll eventually pay itself off. I've been doing research on it for some time now. I know of many different routes I could take.

Does this mean I'm giving up my dream of being published by one of the Big Five? Not really. I'm sure that given the time and inspiration, I could write a manuscript they could sell. I've just been thinking that perhaps the Mendaihu Universe is a little too off-genre to fit into a specific place. It's Future Earth with aliens, but there's a fantastical element. The writing style is more inspired by Asian SF than American SF. I'd like to think it's not a sprawling mess but a very detailed story, and these long years of editing and revision have ensured that every plot and event ties in with everything else. It's a tight story...it's just long and intensive. In short--I realize it's probably a damn tough sell to the popular kids in Manhattan. But it's my baby and a universe I love writing in, so perhaps indie/self-pub is the way to go for it.

I do have a few story ideas that could fit into a more commercial mold. I've worked on a few already, but others have remained purely in gestation mode. And I'm sure I could come up with others. Those I will gladly submit to agents and publishers, as I'm pretty sure I'd have better luck with them.

We shall see.