I have two stories vying for attention at the moment
to be in the next book, which I tentatively plan to call At The Turn Of Midnight.
The Forbidden
Knowledge story keeps popping into my head for some reason. Maybe I should take that as a sign. The latest way it popped into my head was via the main character’s name: Nathaniel Scribner, which seems to fit a
librarian character from the mid-1800s in my mind for some reason. Maybe this weekend I’ll see if this story is
serious about wanting to be written, or if it’s just taunting me with trying to
stay in my mind for some reason.
Of course, at the same time, the untitled zombie
story keeps popping into my mind, though not as intrusively as Forbidden Knowledge. It doesn’t want to be forgotten either (as I
wrote at the end of Vivarium),
but definitely has spoken to me about changing its format from simply a “first
person zombie story” to something more.
I also plan to sit and edit some. My method for self-editing takes two
forms. First, I read each sentence one
at a time in reverse order (since I’m already familiar with the story, this is
the best way to see if each sentence works alone). Then, I’ll just read through and make sure
that no story/plot/character flaws stand out to me.
I need to set a deadline for editing and cover art for
Dark Stories For A Restless Night so
that I’m at least forced into trying to meet it. I’ll have to ponder just when that might need
to be. I imagine it’ll take at least a
good month or two to get both done. And
maybe a month after that to get everything set to pull the trigger on
publishing. Which means I should
probably pick a date about three months before I plan to publish. Whenever that is. Maybe right at the start of summer for the
available online dates? Feedback would
be appreciated.
I’m toying with the idea of using an actual photo
for the cover art, or a “sketch” of the photo.
I’ve found some decent photo to sketch sites. This one does just grayscale: http://www.dumpr.net/sketch.php,
while this one does color sketches: http://www134.lunapic.com/editor/?action=color-sketch. I think our concept is going to be a table
set up for a garage sale or antique store with items related to each story on
it. This stems from the story Mary’s Painting in the book where she
buys a painting from an antique store that leads to the story line. I’m not sure what item would be there from
each story yet, but I like the idea. I
just don’t know which might prove to be better - a sketch of “live” photo.
There
are eight stories in Dark Stories For A
Restless Night. Some stories lend themselves easily to what the item or
items on the table could be, while others aren’t so easily. Here’s a listing of the stories included in
the book:
Mary's Painting - A woman buys more than she expects when
she purchases a painting on a whim
Sins of the Father - A priest defends the mission he presides
over
The Fall - A young boy awakens after a bad accident
while playing
Darkness - A group sets out on a rescue mission in
the Mexican jungles and finds themselves at peril
Cat's Eye View - Find out why cats behave the way they do
The Viewing - Witness the last days of life on a
distant planet
The Journey - A man travels exestentially through the
cosmos
Un-Separation - A man's unhappy and unexpected reunion
with his wife
That’s all the news directly related to my writing
projects. There has been some that
affects my ability to write. This past
week saw me lose my laptop. It also saw
me figure out a way to salvage a laptop from two unusable laptops. I took the hard drive from my most recent
laptop that won’t even power up any more and put it in the older laptop that
wouldn’t boot up completely and system restore couldn’t fix. I was able to get system restore to reset the
newer hard drive’s software to work in the new laptop, but also had to
reinstall any software that I use regularly like Microsoft Office. Fortunately, I still had one more install
available for my last Office purchase.
That is all of the writing related news. For those of you that are interested in other
stuff, feel free to read on.
In the past few weeks, everyone in the house has
gotten sick in some way or another. Gabe
and Candice have both gotten strep.
Grandma has some mystery illness but hasn’t gone to the doctor about it
yet. Donna and Megi got a stomach bug
that saw them both throwing up. Poor
Megi was throwing up for the first time and was terrified. And I had an intestinal bug the other night. I’m hoping that the girls and I don’t catch
the strep that is making its way through our family.
That’s all I have for this entry. Thanks for reading!
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