Posted in Movies, Writing, tagged Amour, Emmanuelle Riva, Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Michael Haneke, movie review on 26 Jan 2015| 5 Comments »
Last night, after watching Amour (2012), I was positively knackered.
I’d just spent two hours reeling from the blows inflicted by this unflinching story of an elderly couple dealing with the inevitable. I’d wept sharp, stinging tears of grief and had the air punched from my lungs. It left me weakened by a powerful catharsis, spent of all emotional reserves. I was a raw, flayed thing.
And I was exceedingly glad of it all.
Posted in Writing, tagged cover art, creative writing, ebooks, indie authors, ND Author Services, NDAS, self-publishing, Writing, writing tips on 16 Jan 2015| Leave a Comment »
ND Author Services
Since the day Gutenberg pulled the first sheet off his press, we’ve been told “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” and for just about as long, we’ve done precisely that. It isn’t fair, but we do judge books by their cover and now, with the Big-Bang-like expansion of the self-published sub-industry, we probably do it even more.
For self-published authors, cover art is a morass of high cost and low quality. If you’re lucky enough to be an expert photo-manipulator, you may be able to create a decent cover, but even so, the costs of stock images and the complexity of rights and royalty limitations can be daunting.
I’ve created covers for some of my own titles. I’ve negotiated with photographers, fussed with fonts, and tried to apply the wisdom I’ve gleaned from those who do it for a living. I’ve had varying levels of success (the art for Unraveling Time and Cryptogenesis are probably my best), but I’ve never truly been satisfied. Still, whenever I’ve looked into contracting a graphic artist to create a cover, the prices have been out of my range, especially for shorter works which don’t have as high an earnings potential.
Enter ND Author Services.
ND Author Services (NDAS) is the publishing arm of the Hendee writing empire. The Hendees, Barb and J.C., are the authors of the best-selling Noble Dead Saga and other great series, and I’ve sent you over to NDAS before, to learn from some of their excellent articles on the business side of writing.
What most people don’t know is that J.C. Hendee is the talent behind most of their short-form covers. While all their long-form work is published by major houses, they self-publish all their shorter tie-in works, and J.C. crafts the covers. A while ago, I had the opportunity to look over J.C.’s shoulder and study how he builds layer upon layer of graphic elements to create his unquestionably high-quality covers. At the time, I could only dream of having cover art that good.
Now, however, we can all benefit from J.C.’s graphical talents, and you won’t believe how affordable it is.
NDAS began offering “pre-made” covers last year, and they now have an impressive gallery of artwork available for licensing. There are dozens and dozens of high-quality cover art on display, all organized into genre-specific categories. Select the artwork you want, and NDAS will customize it for your title, name, and other specifics. Then they’ll reserve that artwork for a year, so other authors can’t use the same piece.
You can license the work for e-book, print, or both, and here’s the kicker: the price for these is $30, $75, and $85, respectively.
Yes. You can get quality cover art for your electronic and printed book, both for only $85.
I know I sound like a shill, but anyone who has looked into hiring a cover artist knows that this is an incredibly low price, especially if you consider the quality of the work. I’ve paid more than that just to get the rights to a single photo to use in my covers.
Don’t see that perfect fit your title? No worries. NDAS offers services to create custom cover work, as well.
Trust me on this: if you are part of the self-publishing world, you really need to check this out. It may very well be the only cover art resource you need.
k
Posted in Culture, Politics, Writing, tagged charlie hebdo, comedy, daily show, jon stewart, pogo, satire, walt kelly on 09 Jan 2015| 2 Comments »
Wednesday, in the wake of the terrorist massacre at France’s Charlie Hebdo, Jon Stewart of The Daily Show said that comedy “shouldn’t be an act of courage.”
I’m not so sure he’s right. Comedy, it seems to me, often is, and more so than we might think.
A week before Wednesday’s murders, in an example of pure coincidence, I found myself pondering this very idea while reading one of the books I received. I was reading Through the Wild Blue Wonder, Volume I of the complete collection of Walt Kelly’s classic, brilliant comic strip, Pogo, which ran in daily and Sunday form for a quarter century during my youth.
Originally, I was simply going to review the book and wax nostalgic about what is without doubt my favorite comic of all time, but after the senseless stupidity that played out this week (and is still playing out) in Paris, my feelings about the book have a deeper resonance that I can’t ignore.
The truth is, comedy often is an act of courage, especially when satire and lampooning are employed.
Pogo began as a cute comic about anthropomorphic animals living in the Okefenokee Swamp of the American South. Quite soon, however, Walt Kelly–who drew and scripted Pogo from 1948 until his death in 1973–began to introduce caricatures of real life personalities to the swamp’s denizens. As early as 1949, Kelly began to lampoon publishing magnates and political figures in the panels of Pogo, drawing fire from such iconic personages as publisher William Randolph Hearst. In this way, Kelly’s lovable, innocent, brown-eyed Pogo ‘Possum faced down social and political foes, from Castro to Khrushchev to JFK to LBJ to the John Birch Society.
Kelly may never have feared for his actual life in busting those powerful chops, but he did experience backlash. As a syndicated cartoonist, he felt the pinch financially when newspapers, in retribution for some of the strip’s more pointed social commentary, dropped Pogo from their pages. Also, it cannot be denied that in creating his wildcat, Simple J. Malarkey, an obvious caricature of the paranoid Communist-hunter Senator Joseph McCarthy, Kelly was poking the Big Bear, an act that could easily have gotten him blacklisted entirely.
Through satire, Kelly pointed out our foibles and challenged our fears. In reading Pogo, we grew braver and wiser, and could see more clearly the daily idiocy we so often ignore.
Kelly was not alone in his work, and is not alone. There is a direct line from Pogo that reaches back to the political pamphleteers of Elizabethan England and Revolutionary France. Likewise, there is a direct line that stretches from Pogo forward to The Onion, SNL, and yes, to Charlie Hebdo.
And so, I think Jon Stewart got it wrong. Comedy is commentary, comedy is brave, and in that, comedy is an act of courage, because in the end, one of the bravest things we can ever do is laugh at ourselves.
To the murdered tigers of Charlie Hebdo: Nous ne vous oublierons pas.
k
Kanji character Raku: happiness, music, joy.
Posted in Writing, tagged antagonists, antagonists in fiction, Bad Guys, building believable characters, creative writing, Writing, writing bad guys on 10 Dec 2014| 7 Comments »
I’m still only at about 80% on the health scale–this head cold is a brute–but there’s a definite upward trend, so I figure I can manage one post this week. A dozen topics have risen to the top, only to slip from my focus, except for one. Luckily, it’s a writing topic, so I can indulge myself.
I think it’s fair to say that my writing has evolved over the years. Some of this evolution has been instinctual, which is to be expected from an autodidact like me. Just as I sometimes know that something works without knowing why it works, so do I just sometimes know that something works better without knowing why. Much of the time, though, I am cognizant of the changes in my writing, as they are the result of a conscious shift. Perhaps I’m correcting a bad habit (e.g., an over-reliance on the Rule of Three), or maybe I’m shifting away from one method or style in favor of another.
But then there are the times when a change has been so subtle that I don’t notice it at all. Such is the case with how I deal with antagonists. (more…)
Posted in Writing, tagged creative writing, genre writing, novel writing, starting a new project, The Wolf Tree on 20 Nov 2014| 11 Comments »
I’ve finished nine novels, but I’ve probably started a hundred.
Not a hundred different ones. Just the same ones, multiple times. And that’s where I am now.
Starting a project is, for me, a difficult transition. There are so many pivots to make–away from research, away from outlines and characters and structural thinking–and so many habits to suppress, that I get locked up, caught in a loop like HAL9000. Each time I start putting words on paper, questions arise, doubts are sown.
It’s hardest when it’s a brand-new project…like The Wolf Tree, the one I’m struggling with now.
Posted in Writing, tagged creative writing, creativity hacker, editing, immerse or die, IoD, jefferson smith, making lemonade on 06 Nov 2014| 2 Comments »
Time for specific answers to burning questions. Just what were the WTF moments IoD slapped me with? Are they legitimate?
(If you’ve just joined, here’s where you can find Part 1 and Part 2 of this conversation.)
The book I submitted was Unraveling Time, which I still feel is one of my best books. It does, unfortunately, suffer from having one of the roughest opening sections I’ve ever written. There are reasons the opening is so rough. The reasons do not excuse or justify its roughness, but they may be instructive to any writer rushing toward self-publication.
So below, after some backstory, I will examine the IoD charges, set down my verdicts, and wrap up this series of posts.
Posted in Writing, tagged creative writing, creativity hacker, editing, immerse or die, IoD, jefferson smith, making lemonade on 05 Nov 2014| 1 Comment »
There are several things that, in younger years, I might have done with such a scathing critique as I received last week from Jefferson Smith’s Immerse or Die report.
(If you’ve just joined, Part 1 of this conversation can be found here.)
Most of these reactions are defensive in nature and, as such, they bring nothing to the table aside from their protective value. As I enter my dotage, I can safely say that one thing I’ know is this:
I can always learn if I want to do so, and I will never learn when I don’t.
And in this case, I want to.
So, here’s what I will not be doing in response to my IoD Smackdown.
(Writers: Pay close attention to Item #4 on the list.) (more…)
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 