Friday, September 26, 2014

Sometimes they're inspiring, sometimes, not

Often times, when listening to books, I get struck by inspiration.  More times than not, it's just a tangential thought to something said in passing in the book.  Other times, I feel like the book drains the inspiration from me, and though the book might be filled with lots of stuff that could inspire me, it seems to do the opposite.

I don't know if that is caused by the particular books, or if the feelings of inspiration make me more or less perceptible to those side ideas.  But I do know that I've never had the "feeling" switch midstream in a book.  In other words, if a book starts out inspiring, it keeps inspiring until I finish it.  If a book starts out sucking away my inspiration, it keeps me in a non-inspired state until I finish it.

Right now, I'm listening to William Gibson's Neuromancer, which was a groundbreaking book that essentially introduced the genre of Cyber Punk.  Although it's entertaining, this seems to be one of those inspirational draining books, as I find I can't think of a single thing worth writing about while I listen to it.

In other news, Megi has pneumonia, but is in pretty good spirits.  Grandma and Candice both have the flu, and are both barely able to move around the house.  Gabe is excited about participating in the 100 mile running club, and is also trying much harder at math.  He isn't very good at math, but I'm very proud of him for wanting to try and be better at it (as opposed to before when he didn't care at all).  And Donna seems to be getting everything right on all the classwork that is sent home.  She can even read a few words now, too.

That's all for this entry, thanks for reading.  (And if you are a fan of my T. Allan Bishop Facebook Page, please click "like" on the link to this I post there, Facebook isn't showing them to most of the people who have clicked like on the page but nothing more, and so a lot of people aren't seeing the blog updates when they are posted there, and the only way to remedy this is by getting more "likes" on posts there...)

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Reminiscing With People I've Never Met

It's been four months since I posted an entry to my blog.

Shame on me.

Since then, I've been on two vacations (including one without kids), the kids have started back to school, the youngest is mostly potty-trained, and I haven't made one iota of progress towards the book being published.

Yes, you read that right.  Not one iota.  To be honest, it has probably only crossed my mind about four times.  That fills me with shame and regret.  I need to get busy.  If I don't get it done soon, I'll probably just give up on it, which isn't really what anyone wants.

So, what do I need to do to make it happen?

Well, first off, I need to finish writing it.  I want there to be 13 stories in it.  I have 12.  I've looked through some of my past stuff to see if there's anything I could "polish off" and fill out the list, but none of them seem to fit correctly.  Which means I need to write another story.  To do that, I need three things:  an idea, inspiration, and motivation.

I have plenty of ideas, but none are currently inspiring my muse, which seems to also have gone on holiday for a while.  Hopefully s/he will return soon.  The last part of the equation usually sparks up when the inspiration strikes, so...

What happens after I finish writing it?  I need to have it edited.  Self-editing can only take you so far, because you know what you intended to say, and often will read it that way when reviewing it.  So, I need to find someone to edit it for me.  My wife and editor has dozens of projects on her books for her art career, and I don't want her to get sidetracked from them.  I also don't want to pay someone to edit them when I'll probably not recover the fees in sales.  (I'm realistic about how many I'll actually sell.)   We have ideas here, but don't need to worry about them until I'm ready to explore them.

Say I get it edited, then what?

Then I have to get a cover designed.  Even though it will only be an e-book, I still need a cover for it.  Covers are usually the first impression a potential reader has when deciding to try the book or not.  Also, several sites will not put them on their featured pages without cover art.  I'm not much of an artist.  My wife, who is an amazing artist, also has her own projects (as I mentioned before).  Assuming a time constraint in getting the cover designed, my best bet would be to develop a "temporary" cover art until a much better one could be put in it's place (the nice thing about e-publishing is that the product can be updated to change out plain cover art with better stuff, "also by this artist" pages with updated ones, etc.).  that would allow me to publish it shortly after finishing the writing/editing phase without having to "push" or "rush" my wife to do a better cover on my timeline.  I know she hates deadline type work and would then grow to hate the project if I did it that way versus allowing her to do it on her own timeline.

So, that being said, I will start carrying around an idea book and pencil more often (it'll also be easier since we're closing in on the time of year when I have my jacket with me when I'm out) in hopes of getting those key materials needed to getting the thirteenth story written for this collection.  Maybe I'll even force myself to write even when I don't feel inspired.  It's usually the advice famous artists/writers give to aspiring artists/writers.  Even if I throw most of it away, I might find one gem in the bunch.

What about future stories/books, you ask?

Well, those will almost certainly happen if I can get this one story written.  I have several ideas (that don't fit with this collection I think) percolating in the back of my mind.  Several involve splitting up larger story ideas I've had into smaller stories that build on each other for one larger tale when put together as a whole, but each of which could be a small story in itself.  Plus there's the "new takes on classic horror stories" of vampires, werewolves, zombies, etc. that I'd like to include in the same book, but none of which are beyond the early idea stages yet.

Now, on to the fun stuff:

The Sharks only have one game in Colorado this upcoming regular season, so I bought better-than-normal tickets and got second row seats across from the Avs bench for the game this year with Candice.  Then right after I buy them, the school announces that the fourth grade concert (which is usually MUCH later in the school year) will be that very same night.  Gabe loathes going to those events DURING and AFTER they've happened, but generally HAS to go to them because everyone else is.  Since we know how he's felt about all of them in the past, we plan to divert his attention that night.  We're going to give him the Blu-Ray of Captain America:  Winter Soldier and let him watch it for the first time that night.  Should make everyone happy.

Also, this year, Candice will be playing Fantasy Hockey with me.  I'm excited that she'll be participating in a hobby I find fun.  Right now I have 5 teams in the league, all of whom I know, and most of whom are mostly new to fantasy hockey.  We need an even number, so I need at least one more, and preferably three more.  It should be interesting seeing her root even more for some players as the season unfolds!

Megi is mostly over her feat of the potty, and is essentially potty trained.  She also started preschool two days a week.  Donna started kindergarten this year.  My goodness where has the time gone?

We spent the money we had saved up for a new bed on getting the house painted to satisfy the HOA.  It needed it anyway, but I was hoping for another year or two before we were forced to do it.  Now, we're saving up for it again.

Halloween is just around the corner, and this year we have a crying angel statue to add to the cemetery.  Here in a couple of weeks, we'll take the kids to get their costumes and put up the cemetery fencing, then the week of Halloween, I'll set up the rest of the stuff.  Hopefully, we get a good deal on November 1st for something good to add to next year's exhibit.

Megi has figured out pedaling the tri-cycle, but still has a few issues with it, but at least we don't have to push her for the most part any more.  Donna, is getting really good at riding her bike, but needs a larger one.  We'll probably get that and then start on the no training wheels thing.  Gabe, as always has already outgrown his bike, but until he starts learning to use his hand-brakes, we're holding off as long as possible before getting him his first adult sized bike.

I also learned about the Elio around the 4th of July weekend and made a deposit on one.  I got my number in line the other day, and I should get the 5,751st Elio to roll off the assembly line next year this time.

I know I'm leaving out a bunch of stuff since I missed so many months, but thanks for reading anyway!

Quill Writing

Quill Writing