Book Production

Shooting Video

By / October 28, 2013 / 2 Comments

Video intimidates me, but I shot one anyway because Kickstarter projects do better with a video. The process went something like this: Wait until kids are gone at school and Howard is occupied so that no one else will witness nor tease me about my process (or lack thereof.) Fix hair and makeup. Set up tripod and camera. Shoot a test shot to make sure I know where to sit and am properly framed. Start recording. Sit down and begin talking, then realize I don’t know what comes next even though I thought through everything I want to say. Freeze up and flee from in front of the camera. Pace around the kitchen muttering to myself as I practice all the words. Record again. Mess up often. At each mess up, pause then start the sentence over because through the magic of editing maybe I’ll still be able to use the shot. Nope. Start over with a new take. Repeat until two takes feel acceptable. Watch the video and marvel at the number of times I roll my eyes because I’m trying to remember what to say next. I’ve learned not to Um, but my eyes were all over the place. Bundle everything up and hand it off to someone who has the magic power of editing.

There is a reason I do not video blog.

Picking up the Pace on all the Projects

By / October 21, 2013

A few weeks ago I posted the first sketches from Strength of Wild Horses. Today I got to peek at the first finished pieces.

Isn’t it beautiful? Look at all the colors. Angela’s use of color astounds me every time. I’ve seen scans for about a third of the images. I am so happy to see each of these pictures and really excited to see the rest. The rest are coming soon. This means that tomorrow I have images to start putting on the Kickstarter page. Of course tomorrow I’m also making sure Kiki gets back on the bus to college, talking to insurance agents on the phone, working on LOTA, going my visiting teaching, helping kids with homework, and attending pack meeting. In fact all my days for the next few weeks are like a spinning plate act while I try to keep all of the projects on track so that they can hit their deadlines.

I don’t mind. All of the projects are happy ones, and Strength of Wild Horses is probably the happiest of all, because it is mine and Angela’s. Just look at the beautiful picture that Angela made. There are going to be thirty more like it. I am so excited to be putting this book out where other people can love it too.

News and Updates

By / October 16, 2013

Tomorrow (Thurs Oct 17) I’ll be hosting a Writer Hangout at the Provo Library from 11am – 1pm in study room #155. You’re welcome to join us. We’ll mostly be writing, but there will also be some visiting. Over the next weeks I plan to hold more of these in various locations until I find one that fits. If no one else shows, I’ll still be there, writing.

This morning we signed a lease on an office/warehouse space. It is a small space for a warehouse, but still bigger than what we’ve had before. I’m surprised how quickly and smoothly picking the right space went for us. I really expected to spend much longer looking around and feeling ambivalent. Instead I’ve got keys in my pocket and a whole new list of things to do. The landlord needs to do some cleaning and fixing, the biggest of which is to the heating system. Somehow our unit is connected to the furnace from the next unit over, which is not ideal. I have to acquire insurance for the location which covers liabilities and possible damages to inventories in case of unfortunate events. I’m also accumulating a list of things to acquire, like garbage cans. Then there will be all the moving in. It is interesting that I’m not feeling stressed by this list. Instead I feel happy, because I’m gaining more space for business and more space for family.

We’ll almost certainly be having some sort of a “help us move” event with food and merch for minion volunteers. If you’re a person with a strong back and think the idea of helping haul tons of books from a storage unit to a warehouse sounds like great fun, please email schlockmercenary@gmail.com to get onto the volunteer list. That way I can contact you when I know more details.

I’ve received word that the Tub of Happiness reprint has arrived in LA. Soon it will be on a truck bound for Utah. It will be the first thing delivered to our new location. So I’ll get to see how this works.

Angela is spending this week putting together the final art for Strength of Wild Horses. I expect to spend the lion’s share of next week putting together the Kickstarter page and generally preparing that project to launch. Once it launches I’ll need to do layout for the book and there will be lots of work to do to maintain and push the Kickstarter.

The Jay Wake Book has been sent off for what I believe will be the final test print. If this one looks good when it arrives, I’ll be making it available to the public.

I’m in the middle of layout for Longshoreman of the Apocalypse. I have the recolored strips from Travis and am in the process of cropping them and checking for errors. So fare I’ve gone through about a quarter of them and identified two fixes. Then I’ve got to put them all into place in the book. The bonus story is completely scripted and drawn. I believe it is in Travis’ hands being colored. Hopefully we’ll have the whole thing bundled up and sent off for print soon.

Howard is working on the 2014 Schlock calendar. It is about a quarter complete. I’ll have to take a pause from prepping LOTA and Kickstarter to make sure I’ve got all the calendar layout in good shape. I have to update the handy holiday list and the pages themselves. This one needs to get off to print soon so that people can have their calendars before Christmas.

We also have promised to put together the Unofficial Anecdotal History of Challenge Coins. Editorial work on that project has not begun, but needs to.

On the home front, Link and Patch are needing regular homework support. Fortunately they’re both good workers and we’ve found a rhythm that works. Gleek is enjoying her year of almost complete freedom from homework. Kiki will be coming home to visit this weekend once we figure out if she can catch a ride with friends or if she needs to ride the bus.

Wow. Lots to do. I’d better get back to it.

Nearing Completion on the Jay Wake Book

By / October 2, 2013

I’m almost done with the layout for the Jay Wake Book. I’ve still got a few pieces to place and I’m still waiting on a few more pieces from others, but I can see completion from here. After this there is test printing and tweaking before it is released for the public. I have been awed and honored to be part of this project and when I release it, it will feel like the time I held one of my Aunt’s pigeons then let it fly. I never owned the bird, I was just privileged to hold it for awhile before it took to the sky.

Kicking Into Gear for Strength of Wild Horses

By / September 30, 2013 / 4 Comments

Yesterday I got an email with all the storyboards for Strength of Wild Horses. (The sequel to my picture book Hold on to Your Horses.) Once again Angela has created vibrant images which capture the story. They’re only sketches with words pasted on the top, but they let me really see how the completed book will look. I fired back a happy email to say they were delightful. The response let me know that once I approve these sketches, we’re only about two weeks (or less) away from me having completed artwork in my hands. Eeep. I mean Yay, because I am so excited for this book to be real, but it moves me from calmly waiting for art to be done into the part where I have to step up and make the project happen. In the next weeks I have to assemble a full Kickstarter campaign. I’ll have to run it. And I’ll get to ride the emotional roller coaster of watching it fund or fail.

This morning I sat down and carefully looked through the sketches with a critical eye. I approved almost all of them. There are a couple of pages where the words and pictures are not quite working together the way that they need to be. So Angela will give me new sketches for those. In the meantime, I’m beginning to take steps to run and promote the Kickstarter. I dusted off the preliminary page I created last spring. I need to do a lot more with it. Since the thought of shooting a video felt too scary (and I really ought to wait until I have some final art for it anyway) I went over to MailChimp and set up a mailing list. Now anyone who wants updates and press releases from me can go sign up. I promise not to be spammy, though I’ll definitely be sending email about the Kickstarter when it goes live. At some point later this week I’ll figure out how to put a link to the sign up in one of my blog sidebars. Probably to the right, where I list my twitter handles and social media groups. There is also the Hold on to Your Horses Facebook page, which will host many announcements for the coming Kickstarter and also currently has a sneak preview sketch.

It is always tricky to balance a promotional push without being annoying. I can feel like I’m shouting out to everyone, I can be a nuisance to some people, and there will still be people who come to me weeks later and say “How come I didn’t know about this?” I shall endeavor to do as much as I can to make sure that my social media announcements are in themselves somewhat interesting rather than just announcements and begging.

The most important thing for me to remember as I begin the scary process of putting my project out there for others to support (or not) is how much I love and believe in this book. Creating Strength of Wild Horses is not about making money or even about furthering my writing career. It is about getting to be part of something amazing. I get to provide a forum for others to appreciate Angela’s amazing art. I get to put another story into the hands of families and children who fell in love with Amy through Hold on to Your Horses. And perhaps most of all, I get to see Amy come alive again with a brand new adventure where she learns what wild idea horses are good for.

Angela feels a little reluctant to release sketches because she wants her art complete before it goes out in the world, but I have permission to show a few. This is only a concept sketch, but it makes me very happy because I see Amy again and I realize how much I missed her.

Editorial Work

By / July 7, 2013

This afternoon I carried all of the Schlock books and arranged them on a kitchen table for a photo. We’re opening pre-orders for The Body Politic tomorrow morning, which meant I had to create store items for the new book and for the nine book bundle.

I left the books where they were while I edited the photo and created the store item. Howard wandered through and looked at the array. “These are all the books you made.” I looked up from my laptop, confused for a moment. Then I realized he was right. Howard drew the comics, but I did the design and editorial work on all nine of the books. Howard is the author and creator, but the finished books are mine as well.

I’ve been pondering editorial work as I work on assembling the Jay Wake Book. My job is to create a framework and to remain as invisible as possible. That book must belong to the contributors, not to me. Yet I care deeply about the project. Many of the submissions have brought me to tears. If I didn’t I could not do a good job with it. An editor must be objective enough to see how a thing could be better and passionate enough about the work to understand what it needs and to put in the hours necessary to help it get there. I care very much about the Jay Wake Book, yet my emotions are not so raw that the process of creation hurts at every step. Mostly though, I feel honored to be able to be a part of such a creation.

I like making books.

Project: Jay Wake Book

By / September 16, 2013 / 7 Comments


UPDATE on 7/20/2013: We are now in phase two of the Jay Wake Book project. We will be collecting additional celebrations of Jay until approximately September 25, 2013. The final version of the project is expected to become publicly available sometime in October.

Introduction to the project:
Our friend Jay has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and is hosting his own wake, Jay Wake, which Howard and I are attending. We know that other friends of Jay would love to be able to come, but can’t for a multitude of reasons. The Jay Wake Book is a project to let everyone participate in the celebration of Jay. I’ll be collecting stories, art, and photos of Jay to compile into the book. The first iteration of this book will be presented to Jay at Jay Wake. The second iteration will include stories and photos collected at Jay Wake. It will be made generally available either in electronic or print version.

The call to action:
We need your stories and accompanying pictures of Jay. Did you witness Jay do something funny at a convention? Tell us about it. Did Jay be clever or raucous? Send us that story. We want to celebrate Jay and by doing so, celebrate this larger community to which Jay has added so much.

What to contribute: Anything that celebrates Jay, his contributions to your life or the fandom community. Thus far we’ve had promised submissions of fiction, personal stories, art, and tales of how Jay has improved the life of people he’s never met. If your idea speaks to you, it will probably speak to others as well. Please contact us to discuss it.

How to submit:
Email your story and pictures to jaylakememory@gmail.com. BUT first read the conditions below.

Terms and conditions:
1. Submitting your story and/or picture of Jay means it will be published in a publicly available form. You will be asked via email to agree to some terms of use for the story and picture. In return, the story and picture will only be used for the Jay Wake Book in print or electronic format. It will not be re-purposed without your permission. Further clarification can be obtained via email. Art celebrations of Jay are very welcome.

2. Please make sure that you read and copy edit carefully before submitting. We do not feel it is appropriate to edit someone else’s memories, so except in the case of simple spelling errors, typos, or punctuation, no changes will be made to the words or pictures that you submit.

3. If you submit your story, photo, or art before July 1st, 2013 it will be included in both phase one and phase two of the project. Stories submitted after July 1st will be included in phase two.
Phase one: A physical book to hand to Jay at the Jay Wake event.
Phase two: A revised and expanded book including photos taken during Jay Wake and additional memories collected after the close of phase one. Copies of this book will be given to Jay and those close to him. It may be made available to the public as well (details to be determined.)

Thanks in advance to everyone who participates.

Preparing for the Tub of Happiness Reprint

By / May 20, 2013

Last week I did a series of tweets talking about going through Body Politic and finding a hundred errors, fixing them, then finding thirty more, fixing those, and finding another dozen. It was an excellent example of iterative publishing. I ended the series by saying that even with all our attention beforehand, we always find mistakes in the finished books. How many? Well take a look at Tub of Happiness to the left. I’ve identified over a dozen things that I want to fix before it heads out for its second printing. That printing is imminent, so if there is a typo or other error in Tub of Happiness that has been driving you crazy, please email schlockmercenary@gmail.com with the error and page number. I may already know about it, but you just might be saving me from holding yet another printed book and finding a mistake in it.

Bits and Pieces of Posts

By / May 20, 2013

This week and next week I have so many irons in the fire that there is hardly any room for a fire. I’m not likely to have brain enough to write full and thoughtful blog posts. Yet my brain is thoroughly trained to notice things, think about them, and then hold them until time to write. My brain fills up with fragments, each of which would be a lovely post, but time and I have to march onward. By the time I have space to write there will be some other thought more pressing. So I shall record some of the fragments in the hope that if I pin them down with words, they’ll stop fluttering around in my brain begging for attention I can not spare.

No one told me that the sales people would begin circling the minute my child completed her ACT and declared her intention to both graduate from high school and attend college. Circle they did, first with suggestions of the importance of commemorating high school. Surely my child needed a ring, a jacket, a hoodie, photographs, a tassel, graduation announcements, all with her school logo. I was assured that these things would be forever treasured, just like her years in high school. The brochures were pitched to appeal to nervous/nostalgic teens and parents alike. We got her a tassel. While the pitches to commemorate high school were still in full force we started hearing from colleges. All of them wanted us to know that they were very impressed and giving Kiki a very special opportunity for a fast-track application. They very carefully did not say how much they want our education dollars. Kiki applied to a single school, got in, and began bouncing the rest straight into the trash. I thought that would be the end of it, but today we got the first of a new onslaught. Our child is going to the dorms, surely we want to buy her a super value kit of bedding, laundry hamper, toilet kit, all at extremely reasonable prices. Every where I turn someone is hoping that during this transitional period in our lives we’ll be ready to throw around some money in an effort to appease our emotions. It makes me think of the stories Howard tells about the shark-like tactics of coffin salesmen. They’re worse than used car salesmen because they prey on the bereaved.

This morning I gave the final go ahead for the printing of Body Politic. I will next interact with that book when it shows up at my door. As usual, I do not have time to luxuriate in something completed. Instead I am immediately setting to work on the reprinting of Tub of Happiness and even more critically on the shipping of 30,000 coins. Latest word says that those coins will arrive at my door by Wednesday. Tomorrow I’ll begin triaging to figure out how the shipping processes need to work.

We’re in the last rush to complete school work before the year is over. It makes me resentful of the one last complex project that Patch has to complete. The other three kids mostly have at-school things left to do, not homework.

I spent this morning re-creating financial data after my hard drive crash. It was tedious, but finally validated my tendency to keep paper statements. I’m still maintaining a list of data lost. So far it is only four items long. This is good.

I wish I had more time to luxuriate in the process of helping Kiki prepare for her CONduit show. I would love to do right by her there. Particularly since her latest birthday was not everything she hoped it would be. Yes the circling sales people are right, we are a bit emotional during this transitional phase. I just don’t think that buying her the perfect dorm room trash can will make up for whatever lacks there have been in the past eighteen years. Instead I’ve been trying to soak up normal before normal changes. She graduated from Seminary on Sunday. Next Thursday she’ll don the classic cap and gown and march with her classmates. I don’t know where that will put us all emotionally. We’re in uncharted territory here. The kids afterward will have a road map that they can follow or avoid. For now I’m doing small nice things for Kiki daily between now and the beginning of June. It won’t be enough, or rather, if there hasn’t been enough to date, no last minute effort will fix that. But it feels like the impending launch is a good one. We’re nervous, but ready. Also, we’ve still got months. Graduation closes off high school, but it does not begin college.

Howard is feeling better, for which I am daily grateful.

I read a novel draft for a friend. It was how I spent my Saturday instead of the ways I’d assigned to myself. I love when a book pulls me in and earns my tears. Note, there is a difference between pulling strings and really earning sadness. Also, I love it when I can love the books of my friends.

My poor correspondence box is gathering dust. I hope to write letters again in June.

It is late and there are more irons in the fire for tomorrow.

Adventures in Computer Hardware

By / May 15, 2013 / 3 Comments

Last Thursday I uploaded the final files for The Body Politic to our printer in China. When I clicked to close the ftp program I noticed that the machine was behaving oddly, like it had to think extra hard about what to do next. I use this machine all the time and I could tell something was significantly wrong. Sure enough, halfway through the back up process it failed completely. Diagnostics at JPL Computers have diagnosed a hard drive failure. No data is retrievable from the drive.

Hard drive failure is never good news. Yet, as with Howard’s recent hard drive failure, this one happened as conveniently as possible. I was in between projects and in a schedule lull. Reconfiguring my computer was not how I wanted to spend this week, but at least I have time for it. Also, in the wake of Howard’s computer failure, I stepped up my back-up habits. They’re pretty good. Most of my writing in progress exists in dropbox where I still have all of it. Using my back up drives I’ve been able to switch most of my processes over to Calcifer, who is supposed to be my writing machine, but he’s been great about stepping up and handling business tasks for me. My desktop machine has been out of commission for almost a week and I’ve been fine.

Later today or tomorrow the desk machine will come back to me with fresh new drives. I’ll have a clean slate on which to install my programs. In some ways that appeals to me. I like having things be organized and new. Unfortunately then I’ll begin to discover the gaps in my back up processes. I know that there are pieces of data that I will need which I’ve missed. There will be some things I’ll have to re-create. Yet I don’t think I’ll have lost anything that is worth a $1500 drive reconstruction to get back.

The most astonishing thing about this adventure in hardware failure is that I haven’t panicked even once. This is the sort of event which is tailor made to send me into an emotional spiral of doom, sure that everything will fall apart. I did have a moment of shock “Are you sure it is the hard drive?” I asked twice, as if I could make the answer be different just by wishing. But after that moment of disbelief most of my reaction has been to shrug and get to work putting things back together. The story would have been quite different if we didn’t have the money to get the new drives, if I did not have a laptop that could be re-purposed for a few days, if I hadn’t been using dropbox as a storage medium for my writing, if I hadn’t run a bunch of back ups last week, if the timing had been different. So many ifs. I’m grateful that even with a bad thing so many good things fell into place.