some rambling about editing and another illustration

I started editing the second AnnaBeth book on the iPad today. I wasn't sure how it would go. Writing on the iPad is okay, except for the whole spellcheck weirdness the app does.

 Editing on it is like a dream come true. My previous editing process involved printing out the manuscript on paper and carrying it around with me in a binder. I would make changes on paper and then manually transfer the changes into the word document. This was by far my least favorite writing task. It's nightmarishly tedious and there's a high probability for error.

 With the iPad, all I have to do is make changes on the screen and then transfer it back to the laptop. Amazing. This will save me so many hours of performing a task I all but despise.

 It leaves me more time for drawing, which is good because I've been having this drawing fit lately.

 For about a year, I haven't done many illustrations, probably because I was obsessing over writing. Now that I started drawing again, it's like someone opened a floodgate.

 Here's another illustration. This one didn't start out as a pencil sketch, which is unusual for me. It went straight from my head into Adobe Fireworks.

This inspiration for this may have come from an Egyptian street art book I have. The colors and the geometry remind me of the artwork in that.

 Also, I'm considering setting up shop on etsy to sell some prints. If I'm going to crank out illustrations, I might as well do something with them.

I do not hate men

I was poking around on Amazon and I saw a couple of bad reviews for What the Dead Fear. You know, whatever, everybody is entitled to their opinion. No matter what you write, someone is going to hate it, I promise.

One guy noted that all of the male characters in the novella were monsters. I hadn’t noticed while I was writing it, but he’s kind of right. That thought never even crossed my mind while I was writing it. The characters just are who they are.

I wouldn’t call Gareth a monster, really, however. He just is what he is. He was created with a purpose, and he fulfills that purpose the only way he knows how. He’s lonely. He actually likes Juniper. There are times when he isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, but hey, if you were stuck in Limbo in a prison full of noisy, lost souls, you would probably be a tad on the crabby side too.

So, no. I do not hate men. They do annoy me from time to time, but I like them just fine.

I would like to point out that there are plenty of female monsters in my books as well – Tiamat in Babylon Dragon is pretty darn evil. Isabella in Lair of the White Wyrm eats people, for goodness sakes.  The naughtiest magic folk in Destined for Darkness are women. The cult leader in Pestilence (work in progress) is a woman. If anything, I think I have more monstrous women than men.

books as apps

I've seen some discussion about books as apps lately, whether they can or should be converted into a more interactive experience.

While I appreciate the value of just reading books, there are some really cool things that can be done with apps. They could offer a reader even deeper immersion in the story if done correctly.

The book app I read about today is a new version of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. You can actually change parts of the story by making choices for Victor. They added some meat to the book, of course. The original is only 70,000 words, which isn't really all that long for a book.

Some people would care that they messed with a classic. I don't mind all that much (obviously, I monkeyed around with Stoker's work) because you aren't removing the original from existence. It's still there in all its glory in print and as an ebook.

I know this is probably, technically a mashup, which I have likely expressed distaste for in the past. However, this isn't just slapping new words on top of old words. It's an entirely new art form that isn't going to stop at being pretty and semi-functional. They're going to offer a new level of immersion in the story that books usually can't offer.

So what could a book app potentially offer aside from user influenced story lines? Artwork, of course, maybe a soundtrack, videos, author readings, footnotes, maybe a link into a message board where people discuss the book, share buttons for social networks like facebook, pretty much anything that can be displayed on a screen or played as audio.

The only potential downfall of the book as app is the expense of creating one. In order to justify the expense, whoever is sponsoring the endeavor would probably want to be sure they're going to recover any expenses. Not all books turn a profit.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/Apps/article/51618-frankenstein-app-and-the-state-of-adult-targeted-apps.html

a movie and some rambling

Next is a movie starring Nicolas Cage and is about a man who can see about two minutes into the future. There is an exception to the rule. He sees a woman he hasn't met.

There’s a government agency after him because they want to use him to help prevent a nuclear disaster. He is unwilling to assist them, so they pursue him in an effort to basically force him to help.

The plot is well-paced and never boring. Special effects were cool. Nicolas Cage's hair is just as horrendous as it pretty much always is. Jessica Biel’s hair looked better than usual. She had this wavy thing going on.

Next is one of those movies that advances and reverses time but not annoyingly so. It adds a certain level of excitement, I think, because anything can happen to any character and they may or may not get a rewind. Next gets an A-.

We actually bought this movie. We went to our local Blockbuster to rent a movie and discovered they were “moving”. They were selling their DVDs and Blu-rays for like $2 so we figured we may as well try to find a movie we hadn’t seen and just buy it.

When we reached the counter, I asked the girl where they were moving to. Her answer was “online” and she truly looked like she was going to cry. I felt really bad, of course. Silly me actually thought they were actually moving like the sign out front indicated.

Husband and I are quite unhappy about the store closing. We do have Netflix, so we still have access to movies, but I liked being able to walk into a store and choose something off the shelves and watch it the same night. Call me old-fashioned, I guess.

Our economy is evolving in this strange way. Everything is moving to the internet, which causes people in retail stores to lose their jobs, which is sad and not good for the general state of things. But there’s no stopping the future.

I think as time goes on, people are going to have to depend less on companies like Blockbuster to provide jobs. They might not have a choice in the matter.

People who adapt their skills and experience to the internet-driven economy are going to fare better.

Until the terrorists learn how to take it out and drain all of our bank accounts. awww...