Some of the details in this week’s account may be a little bit of medical TMI. I don’t go into details, but it may still be disturbing for some. This is going to be a bit long, and rambly, and a lot of me talking about things that I doubt most people are interested in, but I need to get it off my chest. So I won’t blame folks if they want to skip it. My writing has been crawling along, but mostly in putting together this account. So, this is what my week has been like…
Wednesday
The theme for this week started off early. Wednesday morning when I got up, I noticed that one of our cats, Thunder, wasn’t in his usual conspicuous spot on top of my legs. In fact, he didn’t appear to be in the bedroom at all. This wasn’t a great concern, because from time to time he will spend a night sleeping downstairs somewhere. I got dressed, and headed downstairs. Sure enough, he was sprawled comfortably on the floor downstairs. That was pretty much where the normal behavior stopped.
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Tagged as:
Cat,
Frustration,
Medical,
rant
Well, it has been a long and tiring week. A big part of the week was a trip to Richmond, Va for RavenCon. This was our first time going to RavenCon, so we weren’t quite sure what to expect. Considering my previous sci-fi convention experience was Balticon, I found RavenCon to be considerably smaller. This did have some advantages, and a few disadvantages. [click to continue…]
Tagged as:
Panels,
Parsec Awards,
RavenCon 2013,
Steampunk
My how quickly things can change. Two weeks ago I talked about creating a new account with ACX and plans to make some money from narrating audiobooks later this year. Now it would seem that sooner would be better than later. We got some news at my day job this past week. It seems my work is being negatively impacted by the economy and they are going to have to make some cuts. They’re not planning on letting any people go, but in order to make the cuts they need by the end of the year, they’re going to be putting employees on furlough in the latter half of the year. For the third and fourth quarters of the fiscal year, every employee will be required to take two days of furlough in each pay period. That’s a 20% pay cut… [click to continue…]
Tagged as:
Day Job,
Homebrewing,
Short Stories,
The Way of the Gun,
Voice Work,
Writing
Some weeks are full of accomplishment, and some weeks feel like nothing gets done. This past week felt like I couldn’t get anything accomplished. That wasn’t true, of course, but that is the way it felt. Visiting friends occupied a good chunk of the weekend; something I really haven’t done in a while. And then there was the very tempting talk of adding new projects to the docket… [click to continue…]
Tagged as:
Audio Drama,
Balticon 46,
Flying Island Press,
Pirates Cove,
Podcast,
Short Stories,
The Way of the Gun,
Voice Work,
Writing
After being on the fence about it for many months, this past week I finally broke down and created a profile on ACX. What is ACX, you say? And well you might ask. ACX is the Audiobook Creation Exchange. Audible.com created ACX to promote the creation of digital spoken word content. This makes a lot of sense because digital spoken word content is what Audible sells. They need to get that content from somewhere, and ACX is part of making that happen. ACX creates a marketplace where rights holders, aka publishers, authors, and other empowered agents, can find narrators, studios, and producers looking for work. Here’s how it works… [click to continue…]
Tagged as:
ACX,
Audio Drama,
Balticon 46,
Podcast,
Reading,
Swimming Cat Studios,
The Way of the Gun,
Voice Work
Today I finished a book that was recommended to me by J. Daniel Sawyer a long time ago. I think the actual recommendation was on an episode of the Galley Table almost two years ago. Dan is an author and screenwriter who has been around the block for a while. Having come at writing from the screenwriting side of things, he has a good practical view of the business of writing. And let’s face it, there are a lot more people out there who will tell you how to write than there are telling you how to not get ripped off as a writer. While it is imperitive to be able to turn out a good product, you can’t be a good writer unless you can manage the business side of things. And the business side of things is where this book comes in…
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Tagged as:
Books,
business,
Review,
Writing
Normally, I’m a pretty apolitical person. I don’t usually go in for much political commentary, so you must realize that things have pretty much gone pretty far if I feel like there is a need to speak up. I’ll try to keep it short, but I understand if there are a lot of folks who just don’t want to hear it at this point. For that reason, I’m putting the rest of this post behind the cut. [click to continue…]
Tagged as:
Something Different
I feel as if a weight has been lifted from my shoulders! The audio for Northern Mist is complete and has been turned over to Tee and Pip for Tales From the Archives. At least our part is done. We don’t have good access to music sources, so Tee is going to be doing the scoring for the story. And, of course, they’re going to put their own stamp on the beginning and end of the story. For now, Northern Mist will stay under the code name. Once I get word from Tee and Pip to reveal the name, or that the story has been released, I’ll let you know the real title. We’re hoping that you really enjoy the story.
So, with that done, priorities are shifting… [click to continue…]
Tagged as:
Crackle & Bang,
MoPO,
Philippa Ballantine,
Short Stories,
Steampunk,
Tee Morris,
The Cross of Columba,
The Perils of Prauge,
WIP,
Writing
Great merciful Elisabeth! It’s been three weeks since I’ve had a chance to drop a post over here. That’s way too long in my opinion. Then again, I’m not sure how much I really have to say about what is going on. Our main push is still getting the audio version of “Northern Mist” finished so that we can turn the audio over to Tee and Pip and they can finish it up and release it on Tales from the Archives, and we can stop using the code word “Northern Mist” and start using the real title. But progress has been slow due to health problems, insane schedules, and the Maryland Renaissance Festival. Perhaps I need to adjust my priorities… [click to continue…]
Tagged as:
MoPO,
Philippa Ballantine,
Short Stories,
Steampunk,
Tee Morris,
The Cross of Columba,
The Perils of Prauge,
Treasure Island,
Voice Work,
WIP,
Writing
