Thursday, September 29, 2011

stuff

I need to go into hiding with my laptop. I can't seem to finish this freakin' book! I'm not blocked or anything. I just can't seem to get a really good run of working time.

AnnaBeth 2 word count update – 63089

I will probably finish within the next month or so if I can stay productive.

Off that subject, I got to order a new phone! I am moving from Blackberry to Droid.

I like the Blackberry ok, but it suffers from some significant flaws. Web browsing capabilities are limited. It can’t see flash websites. The camera on it is probably the worst camera I've ever had on a phone before. As you might have noticed if you read the blog, I really like to take pictures, so that's a problem for me. I also don't like how small the screen is.

My husband has an android phone and I swear it can do just about anything you would want to do with a phone. He can even watch netflix on it, which is freakin' awesome.

This morning I had to do a hard reset on the blackberry. When it came back up, I suddenly had all these app update notifications pop up as though the phone was begging me not to abandon it. It was saying - look I can give you new things too!

It's not going to work, blackberry. Our relationship has been fun at times, but it's over.

_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

animation update

I spent a lot of time studying adobe flash, etc this past weekend. I plan to incorporate animation in my book trailers.

Adobe is really good at providing instructions on their products. The training video library on their website is extensive, which is wonderful because I need all the help I can get.

One thing adobe is not very good at is letting fireworks play nice with flash. I do all of my digital illustration in fireworks. It would be nice to be able to draw in fireworks and send it over to flash. Weird things happen when you try to do that. Textures are lost. Vector shapes magically change size. It's frustrating.

However.

Flash has its own drawing tools. Not as good as fireworks but they're sufficient. Do I sound like a spoiled baby yet?

I can do vector shapes. That's the important thing. As far as creating movement, Flash is pretty darn awesome. It can insert frames between two states so i don't have to work frame by frame. That handy function is called “tweening”. It’s very cool, even if there are some limitations.

I estimate the blooming flower animation to take about 8 hours to complete. I am somewhat relieved to feel like the animation is something I’ll be able to handle.

So where am I on the next actual trailer? I have story boards with words and pictures. Next I'm working on rough sketches for the finer points of the animation, like the blooming flowers. They will probably not be anatomically (should one use "anatomically" when talking about plants?) correct but still interesting to watch. That's the important thing.

The only animation I completed so far is a stem growing across the bottom of the movie. That is not very interesting to watch so I'm going to wait until I have more to put it up on the blog.

TTFN

_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

Monday, September 26, 2011

movie: Take Me Home Tonight

This weekend, we watched Take Me Home Tonight. How 80s-alicious was that flick? The answer is v-e-r-y.

The movie takes place in the late 80s. Matt (Topher Grace) hears that the girl he crushed on in high school is coming back to town. His twin sister, Wendy (Anna Farris), and his friend Barry (Dan Fogler) convince him that he should ask her out at a Labor Day Party. He starts lying about his job, etc. to impress her and manages to get her attention. Hijinks ensue.

There was nothing exceptional about Take Me Home Tonight. There were a lot of 80s movie clichés, which was probably intentional. It was a bit chick-flick-y and predictable, but it was funny in parts. The soundtrack is rad to the max with 80s hits.

Take Me Home Tonight is ok. It gets a C+ with extra points for having a bangin’ soundtrack.

_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

making things move

I've been watching a lot of book trailers lately for the work I do on Journey Reader. Some stand out. Others don't.

I have created one book trailer. It was basically some illustrations and words put to music. Nothing dynamic, really. Nothing special about it. Well, maybe the illustrations were special enough to count for something.

I tried my best to keep it from being too powerpointy, but it could have been better. I don't find slideshows all that compelling. Don’t get me wrong, using a slideshow set to music is better than no trailer, for sure.

However, the fact that the trailer has almost no movement to it bothers me. All trailers I do from here on out will probably have some kind of animation to them. I don't mean like Disney style animation, of course, but some movement on the screen is far more preferable to none.

The next book trailer project will be for the annabeth series.

Here's what I'm thinking.

There are some gardens and flowers in the first book so I'm using that. I may also include Poe the crow and maybe Dorian, AB's gray tabby as well.

At the end of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (genius, truly), the credits roll in this frame of flora. As a song is playing, flowers and toadstools and vines are appearing and blooming around the credits. It's very cool. I want to do something like that with the AnnaBeth trailer, but with, you know, my stuff. Mine probably won't be quite that cool because I'm not a professional animator, but one has to try, at least.

You may be asking - didn't she just say she WASN'T doing Disney-style animation? Yes I did. You are right. Technically Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland was a Disney production. Award yourself 6 points and eat a cookie. I meant like Cinderella or Lion King kind of animation.

I have never animated anything before, so this should be an interesting learning process. Flash and I will be getting to know eachother better very soon. If I get any preliminary animations going, I will post them, unless they look like crap, in which case you'll never know they existed.

_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

Monday, September 19, 2011

movie: Thor

Thor is a movie about a space Viking who is banished to Earth by his father. That’s right. Space. Viking.

So, King Viking Daddy (played by Anthony Hopkins) sends Thor and his hammer off separately. He also strips his son of all his powers. Thor meets an adorable but plain scientist name Jane (Natalie Portman). She is in charge of her own space research team.

While Thor is away, his brother Loki starts causing some trouble back home, as characters named Loki tend to do.

So. There was action. There were many special effects, especially in the scenes depicting Thor’s home planet.

Thor’s character was a little cheesy (really, how could he not be?) and Portman’s character was probably a bit weak, but the movie was good. I will say that it probably could have been shorter. It was almost two hours. A longer movie format is justified for say, Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. Thor? Maybe not so much.

I would like to see a sequel. Thor gets a B+.

_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

Friday, September 16, 2011

Star Trek vs Star Wars

Today I read about William Shatner comparing Star Trek to Star Wars. Of course, Star Trek wins out in his mind because, well, Star Trek is pretty much most of his life. I understand.

I grew up on both Star Wars and Star Trek. I really can’t say that I prefer one over the other. I know there are people out there who feel like they can only like one, like they’ve sworn some kind of nerd allegiance. But I could never choose.

The two series are very, very different. Star Wars is flash and art. Star Trek is/was some flash and art, but it was more human and character driven in my opinion.
Shatner makes some really good points in this article, especially about the female characters in Star Trek. There wasn’t a lot of girl power going on in Star Wars. That situation is a little better now with the Clone Wars animated series but it is still very much a male dominated world.

Here is the article if you would like to give it a read.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2037981/Star-Trek-supersedes-Star-Wars-level-Captain-Kirk-actor-William-Shatner-weighs-debate-sci-fi-fans.html

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Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

Thursday, September 15, 2011

thinkin', readin' stuff

I'm on a sort of writing break at the moment. I say sort of because I am writing, I'm just having a bit of trouble deciding which direction I want the story in AnnaBeth2 to go. It took a turn that I hadn't anticipated but totally makes sense. It's a part of the story that will carry over to the final part of the trilogy.

I'm figuring out how to integrate certain details while ratcheting up tension to move toward the end of the book. Basically, I'm spending a lot of time working through various scenarios in my head to decide which will serve the story and AnnaBeth3 the best.

While I'm on semi-hiatus, I started reading two books - Bossypants, by Tina Fey and Empire State of Mind, which is about Jay-Z but not actually written by him. The latter is like an “unauthorized” biography.

I know. Celebrity books. Gag. I can't help it. Even though I prefer not to interact with the majority of the people around me, I still find the lives of others (strangers?) interesting. It might be a writer thing.

Reading these books (at the speed of light because I have stuff to do) has made me realize that memoirs and biographies are excellent ways to learn about creating realistic characters, especially if the goal is to give aforementioned characters a lot of depth. And memoirs are really helpful for learning about people who are nothing like you too.

For instance, let's say I want one of my characters to be an opera singer. What the hell do I know about the motivations of such a person or their obstacles? I don't even like opera. But if I read a Luciano Pavarotti biography or memoir, I bet I will have picked up quite a bit about both him and the opera thing by the end.

Aside from personality traits and career stuff, the reader also gets information about people around them, the culture, the time period, etc.

I'm not saying one should copy all the family and life experiences from memoirs, but spending 300+ pages in someone else's world/head/time can be enlightening.

_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

in which there was Tuesday

Oh my gosh. We have been insanely busy latey. The fact that I have gotten any writing done at all is frigging amazing, seriously.

The boy has boy scouts about one day a week and soccer three days a week.

The girl has cross country and guard, one or the other or sometimes both 5-6 days a week. And the occasional orthodonist or eye doctor appointment.

Plus they both have homework and everything else associated with attending school.

Crazy times. I love to watch the kids compete and perform, etc but getting everywhere we need to be is hectic. The husband keeps track of most of the scheduling and picks up the girl most of the time, which is very helpful. I can't wait until the schedules slow down a bit. That should occur some time in October, I believe.

So I grab writing time where I can. I'm also trying to read 2 books that libraries will expect back at some point. Does anyone have a time machine I can borrow? That wouldhelpsomuch, thank you.

Tomorrow is the one-month anniversary of the Journey Reader launch. I am really pleased with it so far. I can't believe it's only been up and running a month! So far, JR has over 20 authors either already on or plugged into the scheduler for the near future.

Sometimes I worry about running out of people who are willing to promo books there, which is completely silly. I'm currently scheduling November posts because I'm out that far. I've delayed some blog-to-author marketing activities because I know if my inbox gets out of hand, I'm done for. While I love JR, I don't want it to consume my whole life, which it hasn't done, yet.

Anyway, that's all I have for now.

_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

Monday, September 12, 2011

movie: The Gathering

The Gathering stars Christina Ricci as Cassie. A woman driving her car hits Cassie and ends up taking her home, because that’s what you do with strangers who might have negative feelings about the fact that you struck them with your vehicle.
Luckily for the rich lady, Cassie is not a psychopath. She suffers from amnesia and ends up staying with them for a while.

Cassie starts hearing things and having nightmares. The little boy who lives in the house has nightmares and hears things as well and she comforts him while she tries to figure out the deeper meaning behind the mysterious happenings.

Meanwhile, the rich husband is involved with some archaeological work for the church. They’ve unearthed that they believe is a church in a hillside. The statues and some reliefs on a wall depict a scene that they determine is an account of the crucifixion by people who witnessed it firsthand.

Sounds exciting, right?

The Gathering has a really interesting concept. Unfortunately the story moves agonizingly slow. What could have been fascinating and action packed ends up dragging. There is something about it that feels undeveloped or…something. The Gathering gets a C.

_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

Friday, September 9, 2011

One Last Trip to Borders

I had my last visit to Borders this evening. They had two days left in their going out of business sale. It was very sad. It was crowded, of course. When you mark anything down 80-90 percent off, that tends to draw a crowd.

The atmosphere was weird. There was tension in the air, maybe because every time you turned around someone was RIGHT behind you. There were people in front of every shelf, poring over the leftovers from previous levels of markdown.

Seeing what was left was interesting. Most of the nonfiction was gone with the exception of some outdated software and business titles and books about the operation of various models of Nikon and Canon SLR cameras. There were a LOT of books about 2012 end of the world theories and such. Apparently the literate masses aren’t overly concerned about it.

Two shelves of Manga remained. They may have overestimated demand on that one. Many romance novels remained as well.

We found zero children’s books and zero toys. In fact, the once very adorable and fun children’s section looked like this.






A woman there picked the foam decorations off the wall and took them to the counter to purchase them. Talk about depressing.

The worst part was when we went to check out. These two little shithead (that’s right I said it) eleven year old, obnoxious boy brats in front of us actually hassled the cashier about losing her job. By the time we reached her to check out, she was practically in tears. I wanted to give her a hug. And I am not a hugger of strangers or mere acquaintances.

It was truly disgusting. I understand they’re just kids, but I mean damn, they were old enough to have some kind of compassion for someone losing their job. If I ever caught my kids treating anyone like that, please believe the consequences would be significant.

Anyway, thus ends the beautiful Borders store. I hope someone else bookish moves in. Bonus points if they hire the Borders employees and put in a coffee bar.

_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

Thursday, September 8, 2011

really a lot of words

I finally crossed over 50000 words in AnnaBeth2! Woo! Very exciting. The thing isn't finished of course but at 50000 words, I've crested the hill and I'm rolling on momentum. If I remember correctly, the first installment was a little over 70000 words.

If I really get moving, I can probably finish before the end of October.

I'm eager to get back to the remix project; I have to admit. That's probably a good way to feel when editing time rolls around.

I was starting to get sick of it during the last round of rewrite. That happens with everything I write after a few reads. Now I have distance and the enthusiasm I need to work on it effectively.

I like working two projects at a time. That was a good plan. Releasing the books takes longer, but there are benefits.

However, I won't put a book down in the middle of a rough draft again like I did with AnnaBeth2. That was not my best move. I don't think it will affect the finished product, but picking back up and remembering where the subplots were and who was doing what was very difficult. A novel is a complex thing. I'll probably still have to sort some parts out in the rewrite.

So future writing schedules - two works in progress at a time.

Book One rough draft to completion (no hiatus) plus 1-2 rewrites.
Stuff Book One into a virtual drawer
Book Two rough draft to completion (no hiatus) plus 1-2 rewrites.
Stuff Book Two into virtual drawer
Book One - more editing plus feedback from beta readers
Book Two - more editing plus feedback from beta readers

Two book releases in a relatively short period of time, which will depend on marketing schedules and such. Be free, my pretties!

Have I mentioned this is work?

I did take the day off to read a chunk of Bossypants, by Tina Fey. She is awesome. I have great admiration for people who can achieve insane levels of success and remain true to who they are and where they came from. If I’m ever lucky enough to reach a Janet Evanovich level writing career, I want to be like that. Still me, just with enough money to do what I love for a living and enough skill to do it well.

TTFN

_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

guest post: The Magic of Changing Your Perspective, by Jackie Lapin


For most of us, dealing with changes and events that move us out of our comfort zone instantly takes us to a place of fear and negative thinking.


It is the rare person who doesn’t emotionally invest the experience with anxiety and assign a negative value to it.

Yet the truth is that all things are neutral, they just are—until we lend our perspective to them and assign value. More importantly, every experience brings with it an opportunity for growth—for greater wisdom, for new knowledge, for redirection from the Universe, or for expansion in some way, shape or form.

The task for us as Conscious Creators is to retrain ourselves not to immediately go to that dark place, but instead to seek the light and—assign positive value to every experience. The best way to do that is to learn new perspectives, and to apply them to each situation. You can magically turn a perceived problem into a blessing by asking the right questions or applying the right filter.


Let’s expand our thinking and open up to the many new ways to look at things. By having these “tools” in your tool kit, testing the ones that work best for you, then applying them through practice many times over, you will be able to change your knee-jerk negative pattern of thinking to a welcoming and positive perspective that raises your frequency. And eventually will become your new permanent pattern of perspective.

Here are some really insightful questions that will lead you to look at your perceived challenges, problems, and issues as your next opportunities, gateways, and gifts:

• What is the joy to be found here?

• What is really great about this?

• What can I learn from this experience?

• How can I apply this in the future?

• How does this ultimately serve me?

• What is the upside to this experience?

• What is the takeaway here?

• What message is the Universe offering me?

• How can I turn this experience into something positive?

• What is the underlying truth about this experience—what is the reality

without my emotional charge?

• What is the good that can come from this?

• Who can I help with this wisdom, knowledge, and experience?

• Where is this experience directing me?

• What is the invitation here?

• What new opportunity does this open up?

• How can I grow from this?

• Where is my expansion in this?

• What is this calling me to let go?

• What burden is being lifted through this experience?

• What deep calling within me wants expression through this change—even though it may be subconscious?

You undoubtedly know that everything happens for a reason. Here’s an opportunity to look at that reason as Source does. You would not be offered this

experience if there was not purpose here for you, your life, and your spiritual growth. But the Universe gives you these experiences out of its desire to help you reach your own truth and highest good. Use these questions for a more objective view of what is in your highest good.

Illustration by Richard Crookes




Jackie Lapin tours the world teaching Practical Conscious Creation. She is the bestselling author of "The Art of Conscious Creation; How You Can Transform the World” and "Practical Conscious Creation: Daily Techniques to Manifest Your Desires." Filled with specific and imaginative practices, Practical Conscious Creation offers 70 articles with step-by-step actions to achieve greater empowerment and a more satisfying lifestyle.







To learn how to become a better, faster manifestor, secure a free chapter of “Practical Conscious Creation” or receive Jackie Lapin’s daily manifesting tips, visit http://www.jackielapin.com/.


The book is available here.

Jackie Lapin is also the founder of LifeWisdomNetwork.com, the Virtual Village that is the Marketplace, Directory and Information Resource for the fast-growing Consciousness and Transformational World .A place where mind/body/spirit entrepreneurs and self-help experts connect with their next customers and clients worldwide. Go to www.LifeWisdomNetwork.com for more information or to learn how to become a Village Member.

Discover the Tools to Make You a Better, Faster Manifestor!

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

movie: Season of the Witch

Ok, this is going to be quick because I feel like crapola. I seem to have come down with something that is not very fun.

Season of the Witch
Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman (Hellyboy) star as a couple of crusade knights who decide to take early retirement due to the whole cruelty of war thing. They lose their faith in the church and go awol.

The pair end up in a town that's been hit by the plague. The townspeople request the knights' assistance. They decline. They later reconsider and agree to help some town representatives escort a woman accused of being a witch who brought the plague to a holy city where she will be judged and presumably, put to death.

Season of the Witch is creepy in parts. There are some great special effects and some really gross plague makeup.

The movie was pretty good, but short. The story had great potential and it would have been nice to see just far into weird/creepy they could take it, but alas. It gets a B-.

There's a guest post on the scheduler for tomorrow. Woo! I know I said I moved them all, but I had a nonfiction author request one and I only put fiction on Journey Reader, so she'll be here instead. Was that a run-on?

_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

Monday, September 5, 2011

state park fun and stalking

I had the day off today for the holiday, so I took the children to Mounds State Park in Anderson. It was a really cool park. There are Native American ceremonial mounds there and some scenic trails. There are some pics below. But first, a story about stalking.

For some reason, I have a tendency to attract stalkers, which is rather unsettling because I am very much an introvert. I first noticed today’s stalker at the Great Mound. That’s the first one you find when you hike on the main trail. She was this nerdy sort of lady with glasses and a ponytail. She had 5 or 6 kids with her.

I noticed her because one of the children was walking around wrapped in a Strawberry Shortcake comforter, quilt thing. When I took a picture of the Great Mound to send to my husband, I caught a little corner of it in the picture. Here it is.
















My two non-quilt-wearing children and I left the Great Mound to head further down the hiking trail. The lady and her kids were a bit obnoxious, so I hoped they wouldn’t follow us. They did. We took a right at a trail junction, so did she, we made a brief trip off the trail to the edge of the White River, she took her herd of younglings that way too. She followed us for quite a while.

I finally stopped my kids on the trail and told them to let the lady pass. She took her time walking up. I stood there texting my husband about the crazy lady. She did finally come up next to me and ask me if I had been to the park before. I hadn’t. That was our first trip.

She went ahead on the trail like ten feet and stopped. I swear she was waiting for us to start walking again so she could follow. She did eventually give up and she turned around and took her crowd of children back the way we’d come.

Creepiest park experience ever.

Here are some pics.














This is the left part of the circle on the Great Mound.


















Toad! or frog...whatever. He crawled into a hole in the mud about 10 seconds after I took this picture.














The White River




















There were tiny creeks and waterfalls everywhere. This one was next to the trail. It ran down a hillside on our right, under the trail into the river.



















There were a lot of seemingly dead trees.














I like the reflections on the water in this shot.

Also interesting, there are some people who believe the mounds are haunted by blue gowned dwarves called pukwudgies. lol. Here's some info on that


Here is the link for the park website - http://moundsstatepark.org/

_________________________

Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!

There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:

http://www.LeaRyan.com/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

Saturday, September 3, 2011

I heart True Blood

Ok. I've been really resistant to the whole vampire culture thing. I think the Twilight craze and general vampire pop culture overkill (I make no excuses for puns) really turned me off of anything vampire related, which sucks (still not sorry) because I love Anne Rice and various other vampire related books and movies. Underworld, Blade, you probably get the picture.

Anyway, so I first heard about True Blood, I rolled my eyes and went on my merry way. I caught a few minutes of it on TV by accident a couple of times, saw fangs and changed the channel.

The husband and I recently decided to give it a shot because we're kind of out of shows right now. I have to say that I love it. A lot.

I really like the characters. They're varied enough to make things interesting. Plus they're Southern, the sexy, intelligent kind of Southern. I like most of them so much that sometimes I get a little jealous that I didn't come up with them. We're only on season 1 (DVDs from the library) but I'm sure we'll get caught up soon.

_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1

Thursday, September 1, 2011

book working updates

Summer is almost over already! I can feel autumn in the air and I LOVE it. Fall is great – the cooler weather, the smell of burning leaves, the food, Halloween!, my birthday.

However, there is sadness. I don’t think I’m going to get any books out this year. I just work too slowly, and I don't want to pick up the pace because doing so pretty much guarantees that I will screw something up.

I was hoping to get AnnaBeth2 out in the fall but September begins tomorrow and I don't even have the rough draft finished. If I were to have it ready in fall, I would probably need to be editing by now.

I am disappointed. I like to release things. It gives me joy.

Lack of writing time is really a huge obstacle for me. I know I've said that before. If I can ever work this gig full time, I'm going to crank 'em out like James Patterson.

Ok, maybe not THAT fast because I don't have a staff, but sure as heck faster than I can now.

But on the bright side, next year should be really exciting - probably at least two books in the first few months and at least one more novella, maybe two if I can get Juniper2 going.

I may check in with a traditional publisher or two for the remix project. You know, throw out a line, see if anyone bites. Some portion of that novel will likely appear on authonomy within the next 3-4 months, so anyone who is interested and has an authonomy account could grab a sneaky peek there. I will announce when/if it appears on that particular website.

AnnaBeth2 word count update: 46919

_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.

Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1