As some of you know, I finally, finally, after nearly sixteen years of not quite continuous work, ordered the proof copy for my book last week. There then ensued some serious nail biting, pacing and other such symptoms of worry as I calculated just how long it could take for the proof copy to arrive.
I calculated that, if both the printing and the posting to the maximum amount of time, then it would not arrive until the twentieth of April as it is not a go idea to count the weekends in such things. As it is my fingernails can begin to regrow, the carpet be replaced and the cold sweats be washed off as the proof arrived on Thursday! Whoop!
My apologise for not sharing this brilliant news with you, as I really should have done, but Thursday and Friday didn't even give me much time to celebrate as no sooner had the proof copy hit my hands than my editor whisked it away to start the finally double... triple... quadruple... check.
Almost immediately I was having feed back - the chapter headings are too low, the margins need to be bigger, the header needs to be higher up and 'the end' needs to be taken out, it makes it sound childish.
It was a case of sigh, roll eyes and begin on the fiddle work. Still that is why author's, particularly self publishing authors, need their editor. They are the first member of the public that gets to see you book and if they rip it to pieces then you know that your readership is going to do exactly the same. Don't fool yourself into thinking 'I love it and therefore other people will too'. You have to bare in mind that the story has been living in your head, possibly for years. In that time you have become so well acquainted with the characters and the landscape, the social structures and even the patterns of speech that you sometimes forget to share them with your reader without even realising that you are doing so. So git your teeth and bare with the pain when your editor turns round and says 'Hang on a minute how does that work?'
However, I would say that the better editor is the sort that is willing to brainstorm a few ideas around with you to improve your book, not just rip your story a new one and leave you feeling like you've just watched your baby die. It is a tricky balancing act between overcritical and not critical enough.
Any way, I have to be going because in between doing the final polish up of 'The Return of a Nagus', I am writing the first draft of the four book, when we are not busy editing the second one. We are on to the third read through of the first chapter of the second book and we are still picking up things that have to be changed and re sculpted... sanded back... cut out... filled over... repainted... polished up....
If you hear any infuriated screaming in the next few days, it is probably me and it means that we have reached the tenth read through and it is still not perfect.
Saturday 28 February 2015
Friday 20 February 2015
We Have Lift Off!
Yeah I know that this a day early but I'm not going to have time to sit in front of the computer tomorrow as I have family to be with so I thought I would deal with it today.
Am I so glad that I did!
Though the Hardback is still being validated, the soft back of 'The Return of a Nagus' ready for printing so I have ordered the proof copy. It should be here within two weeks time.
Oh my Lord! I have the proof copy on the way!
After nearly sixteen years of work, sweat, tears, tantrums and doubting my own sanity I finally have the proof copy on the way! I'm not sure if I'm about to start laughing or burst into tears. I have the proof copy on the way!
I have a feeling that there are going to be last minute editing work to be done once I see it as the properly bound novel but that doesn't change the fact that after all these years of work I have the proof copy coming!
THANK YOU YAHWEH!
After all these years, things are finally coming together. I swear that only God could drag it so far in one piece through all the flames it has endured. That or I'm utterly insane. That or a genius. I suppose time will tell with that one. If I succeed I'm a genius, if I fail I'm insane and I'm not going to fail, I've put to much work in to fail and I'm willing to put all the rest in as well.
See you all at Diceni in May for my book launch!
Am I so glad that I did!
Though the Hardback is still being validated, the soft back of 'The Return of a Nagus' ready for printing so I have ordered the proof copy. It should be here within two weeks time.
Oh my Lord! I have the proof copy on the way!
After nearly sixteen years of work, sweat, tears, tantrums and doubting my own sanity I finally have the proof copy on the way! I'm not sure if I'm about to start laughing or burst into tears. I have the proof copy on the way!
I have a feeling that there are going to be last minute editing work to be done once I see it as the properly bound novel but that doesn't change the fact that after all these years of work I have the proof copy coming!
THANK YOU YAHWEH!
After all these years, things are finally coming together. I swear that only God could drag it so far in one piece through all the flames it has endured. That or I'm utterly insane. That or a genius. I suppose time will tell with that one. If I succeed I'm a genius, if I fail I'm insane and I'm not going to fail, I've put to much work in to fail and I'm willing to put all the rest in as well.
See you all at Diceni in May for my book launch!
Wednesday 18 February 2015
One Step But Many of Them
Alright, for once I have good news to report on all sides.
I've finally completed the art commission that I was given at the beginning of January so I'm now just waiting for the finally viewing. If it passes the costumer's scrutiny then I'll be able to count that one as another success and another project completed in totality. I know I said that I've completed it but a commission is never fully done until the costumer has seen it and proclaimed themselves happy with it.
I have also unloaded the cover and content files for both the soft back and hardback versions of my novels to Drivethrufiction and I am now just awaiting approval from their end to be able to order the proof copy. As long as everything goes smooth (just for once pretty please let it go smooth) then every thing should be running right for the provisional publication date that I have set for the end of March.
It is a provisional publication date, which is why I am not making it public yet but publication is getting that close that I am beginning to plan on which date I am going to finally plug in and tell the world 'I am published! Come here to buy my stuff!' I'm even daring to begin to look forward to the whole thing!
Out of all of this a huge thank you to my boyfriend, Stormwell Hughes, who has taken my hand and literally walked me baby step at a time through layout, book cover, download and upload to get me here and who is now with standing my near constant squeeing. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Big squee!
On a more serious note, I hope that everyone liked the cover artwork that I displayed in the last post. It is my own work so comments are always welcome, even if they are critical (how else am I meant to get better).
Also if you would like me to a commission for you then please contact me on either:
thevatwork@outlook.com
Or find me on facebook as V. J. Bartlett and send a friend request. I check both email and facebook twice a week so I will contact you as fast as possible.
I've finally completed the art commission that I was given at the beginning of January so I'm now just waiting for the finally viewing. If it passes the costumer's scrutiny then I'll be able to count that one as another success and another project completed in totality. I know I said that I've completed it but a commission is never fully done until the costumer has seen it and proclaimed themselves happy with it.
I have also unloaded the cover and content files for both the soft back and hardback versions of my novels to Drivethrufiction and I am now just awaiting approval from their end to be able to order the proof copy. As long as everything goes smooth (just for once pretty please let it go smooth) then every thing should be running right for the provisional publication date that I have set for the end of March.
It is a provisional publication date, which is why I am not making it public yet but publication is getting that close that I am beginning to plan on which date I am going to finally plug in and tell the world 'I am published! Come here to buy my stuff!' I'm even daring to begin to look forward to the whole thing!
Out of all of this a huge thank you to my boyfriend, Stormwell Hughes, who has taken my hand and literally walked me baby step at a time through layout, book cover, download and upload to get me here and who is now with standing my near constant squeeing. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Big squee!
On a more serious note, I hope that everyone liked the cover artwork that I displayed in the last post. It is my own work so comments are always welcome, even if they are critical (how else am I meant to get better).
Also if you would like me to a commission for you then please contact me on either:
thevatwork@outlook.com
Or find me on facebook as V. J. Bartlett and send a friend request. I check both email and facebook twice a week so I will contact you as fast as possible.
Saturday 14 February 2015
Download Nightmare
Alright, for all you lovely people out there that are beginning to follow my blog, be that through facebook, twitter or you just stumbled over me when you were browsing there internet.
First off a huge thank you for thinking that I'm entertaining enough to follow.
Secondly, my newest update on how the preparation for finally, after nearly sixteen years of work, publishing my book is coming along.
About a week ago I emailed off all the details of what I wanted, including the cover artwork I designed and painted last year, to Ian Liddle. He is a professional book designer and you can find him on facebook at:
www.facebook.com/Ian.R.Liddle?fref=ts
I highly recommend him as he could not have been more helpful and accommodating to my ideas and listening to my design brief. He also came up with his own slant on what I wanted which has added whole volumes to the front cover design. I am hugely indebted to him for his hard work and the speed with which he has replied to many of my questions and requests.
As such I should be able to upload the files to DriveThruFiction in the next few days and order the proof copy. Oh yes! After all the years of hard work I'm finally this close to the completed work!
However, it has not all been plain sailing even at this late stage, which just proves that you should never take anything for granted, especially when you are dealing with the Internet.
Downloading the PDFs of the front cover was time consuming, stressful and at one point drove me to tears as it not only failed so many times I lost count, it also tried to scramble code the AVG anti virus on my laptop.
In the end my boyfriend had to download them on to his computer and then transfer them to a memory stick for me and even then that didn't go smoothly as it took six attempts to do one and the other we both lost count on. Not exactly how I wanted the end of the day to go.
"It never goes smooth! Why doesn't it ever go smooth?"
Still, it is down so I am that one step closer, so I now think it is time to share a sneak peek at what the front cover will look like. Here's the artwork!
I will keep everybody posted as to when the publication date is set!
First off a huge thank you for thinking that I'm entertaining enough to follow.
Secondly, my newest update on how the preparation for finally, after nearly sixteen years of work, publishing my book is coming along.
About a week ago I emailed off all the details of what I wanted, including the cover artwork I designed and painted last year, to Ian Liddle. He is a professional book designer and you can find him on facebook at:
www.facebook.com/Ian.R.Liddle?fref=ts
I highly recommend him as he could not have been more helpful and accommodating to my ideas and listening to my design brief. He also came up with his own slant on what I wanted which has added whole volumes to the front cover design. I am hugely indebted to him for his hard work and the speed with which he has replied to many of my questions and requests.
As such I should be able to upload the files to DriveThruFiction in the next few days and order the proof copy. Oh yes! After all the years of hard work I'm finally this close to the completed work!
However, it has not all been plain sailing even at this late stage, which just proves that you should never take anything for granted, especially when you are dealing with the Internet.
Downloading the PDFs of the front cover was time consuming, stressful and at one point drove me to tears as it not only failed so many times I lost count, it also tried to scramble code the AVG anti virus on my laptop.
In the end my boyfriend had to download them on to his computer and then transfer them to a memory stick for me and even then that didn't go smoothly as it took six attempts to do one and the other we both lost count on. Not exactly how I wanted the end of the day to go.
"It never goes smooth! Why doesn't it ever go smooth?"
Still, it is down so I am that one step closer, so I now think it is time to share a sneak peek at what the front cover will look like. Here's the artwork!
I will keep everybody posted as to when the publication date is set!
Saturday 7 February 2015
Competition
Howdy folks, little continuation from my earlier blog post 'The Use of History', prompted by watching 'Life Story' and my general thinking as to why mankind seems to have a lust for killing one another.
If you look at nature then competition rules the day. Whether it be over food, home, mates or just to establish who is the more powerful, there is always competition. Those that excel at competition thrive and their descendants are placed well to thrive. Those that struggle at competition are left by the way side.
No matter how you look at it, if you strip away mankind's tendency to root for the underdog, then competition and the need to compete rules the day.
Factoring this into my observations of the human race, has rather clarified something. If you want a society where people are the most honest and trusting of one another then you need to go some where like the Arctic circle or the plains of the Maasai Mara. The reason? Because if you are not honest with one another, if you cannot trust each another absolutely, then your environment will kill all of you.
That is what I believe shapes societies more than anything. If Mother Nature provides a great enough challenge in the environment then mankind's need to compete is turned outward, the society acting as a unit to protect itself against hostility. In short, the group stays close to the fire for fear of the 'Boogie man'. If mankind has managed to strip away all of its environmental challenges it still feels, at the deepest level of its mind, the need to compete. Therefore that need turns inward and the society starts competing against itself. I suppose that you could say that war is the ultimate expression of that competition.
Corruption, corporate indifference, governments ignoring the voices of their people, these can all be taken a symptoms of a lack of natural competition, that is, competition with nature.
Therefore if you want to design a society in your novel that has no word for lie, has no word for deceit then you need an environment where nature is that aggressive that the people dare not break ranks for fear of the 'things out there'. The opposite of that would be a very rich land, with few natural predators and plenty of fertile land. That would breed a society where corruption would bloom like a well watered weed, unless the competition was found in fighting the corruption and it would take a very strong character to do that.
Something to think about.
If you look at nature then competition rules the day. Whether it be over food, home, mates or just to establish who is the more powerful, there is always competition. Those that excel at competition thrive and their descendants are placed well to thrive. Those that struggle at competition are left by the way side.
No matter how you look at it, if you strip away mankind's tendency to root for the underdog, then competition and the need to compete rules the day.
Factoring this into my observations of the human race, has rather clarified something. If you want a society where people are the most honest and trusting of one another then you need to go some where like the Arctic circle or the plains of the Maasai Mara. The reason? Because if you are not honest with one another, if you cannot trust each another absolutely, then your environment will kill all of you.
That is what I believe shapes societies more than anything. If Mother Nature provides a great enough challenge in the environment then mankind's need to compete is turned outward, the society acting as a unit to protect itself against hostility. In short, the group stays close to the fire for fear of the 'Boogie man'. If mankind has managed to strip away all of its environmental challenges it still feels, at the deepest level of its mind, the need to compete. Therefore that need turns inward and the society starts competing against itself. I suppose that you could say that war is the ultimate expression of that competition.
Corruption, corporate indifference, governments ignoring the voices of their people, these can all be taken a symptoms of a lack of natural competition, that is, competition with nature.
Therefore if you want to design a society in your novel that has no word for lie, has no word for deceit then you need an environment where nature is that aggressive that the people dare not break ranks for fear of the 'things out there'. The opposite of that would be a very rich land, with few natural predators and plenty of fertile land. That would breed a society where corruption would bloom like a well watered weed, unless the competition was found in fighting the corruption and it would take a very strong character to do that.
Something to think about.
Tuesday 3 February 2015
Sizing Up
Oh the joys of being an author, or to be more precise the author who doesn't want to share any of her profit with an agent and a publisher who will still want her to do most of the work herself any way.
I am now in the final stages of publishing my book. The Independent Publisher Network has provided me with the ISBNs (check them out, they do a really good deal and they have a list of all the titles they have published on their website). The editor has given me one last tweak to do and the blurb has been written. I did the front cover art months back so the only thing left to do is the cover design. On advise I am having that done by a specialist and that means I need to accurately report the page size and count. That of course means that I need to shrink down the pages to book size and that is where I've run full tilt into another load of work.
For those that don't know, when you write your first two... three... four... five versions of your manuscript you type it at least 1.5 line spacing with the chapters placed half way down the pages and huge margins. And of course you print it off on A4 paper to send it off to you editor.
Hopefully, all things being equal, you get the go ahead to publish your novel so you start the page sizing and immediately you have to change the line spacing to 1 line spacing, change the gap before the chapter headings, decrease the margin size and generally double check everything all over again. And if you are doing a hardback edition at the same time that means you have two whole files to check over and space properly and generally it is a lot of time consuming fiddle work.
However, it is another step closer to finally being published so I guess we will have to endure it. Roll eyes. I said I'd endure it, not that I would like it.
Hopefully I'll have it all done before the end of February. Sigh.
I am now in the final stages of publishing my book. The Independent Publisher Network has provided me with the ISBNs (check them out, they do a really good deal and they have a list of all the titles they have published on their website). The editor has given me one last tweak to do and the blurb has been written. I did the front cover art months back so the only thing left to do is the cover design. On advise I am having that done by a specialist and that means I need to accurately report the page size and count. That of course means that I need to shrink down the pages to book size and that is where I've run full tilt into another load of work.
For those that don't know, when you write your first two... three... four... five versions of your manuscript you type it at least 1.5 line spacing with the chapters placed half way down the pages and huge margins. And of course you print it off on A4 paper to send it off to you editor.
Hopefully, all things being equal, you get the go ahead to publish your novel so you start the page sizing and immediately you have to change the line spacing to 1 line spacing, change the gap before the chapter headings, decrease the margin size and generally double check everything all over again. And if you are doing a hardback edition at the same time that means you have two whole files to check over and space properly and generally it is a lot of time consuming fiddle work.
However, it is another step closer to finally being published so I guess we will have to endure it. Roll eyes. I said I'd endure it, not that I would like it.
Hopefully I'll have it all done before the end of February. Sigh.
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