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Emily is GO for Launch

17 Sep 2013 by KRAG

The Revitalization of EmilyWe are live. “The Revitalization of Emily” is live on Amazon, and available for Kindle readers and apps.

Formatting went well, but there’s one new lesson I learned. Fonts that work well on the printed page are often too big for the Kindles. I had a couple of iterations before the headers worked properly.

Overall, though, an easy process.

Some people wonder why I do this on Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) instead of iBooks or Smashwords or any of the several other venues open to short fiction works. They also wonder why I don’t put it up everywhere, simultaneously.

The main reason is one word: reach. Continue Reading »

Posted in Books, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

Editing Weekend

16 Sep 2013 by KRAG

The Revitalization of EmilyI spent the weekend doing two things: trying to relax, and editing the novelette.

I succeeded in the latter.

Editing went well, both on the story and on the cover art.

Each editing pass revealed fewer errors–reaching zero by the fourth pass–and fewer lines that gave me pause. Eventually, in editing, I like to get to the point where for each possible change, I have to think, play it two or three ways, and then end up with a STET in the margin.

My last pass, I also took special note of the “said” use. They’re still there (despite my earlier efforts), but now each one that is in the story has been considered. If it’s there, I want it there, and I’m happy with that. Continue Reading »

Posted in Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

He said, She said

12 Sep 2013 by KRAG

Stack of BooksWe all have our individual quirks of style. Little, verbal quirks. We use a phrase once, like it, use it again, and eventually it becomes habit.

For most people (i.e,. non-authors), this isn’t a problem. A quirky turn of phrase, a tag-line, a preference for the spelling “grey” instead of “gray”–these are not problems for most people.

For writers, though, it can be a problem. Why? Because you can’t see them. And because others can.

Yesterday, I discovered a new one of my own. Continue Reading »

Posted in Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Supervising the Rewrite

10 Sep 2013 by KRAG

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiAs I’ve been working on this story, re-creating it from an older model, I’ve been watching over my work. Supervising, if you will.

Overall, the new version is half-again as long–originally around 8,000 words, it now clocks in at about 12,000–and I wondered if that was just because I added a scene here and there.

So I took the opening section. The action is the same. The first and last lines of the section are the same, like fenceposts. But the rest of it has been entirely rebuilt, rewritten, similar only in structure and in what happens. So, what’s the word-count for each version? Continue Reading »

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Golden Cayenne Hot Sauce

09 Sep 2013 by KRAG

Golden CayenneA friend of mine runs OACA Pepper Farm, and he shared a great recipe for a hot sauce that uses carrots, onions, and habanero chili peppers. The carrots give sweetness, the habaneros the heat, and it comes out orange, tangy, and very good.

When my garden started providing me with golden cayenne chili peppers, I thought I might try a twist on the OACA recipe. Keeping with the a la page concept, I considered my options as to what might work well with the intense, almost candy-colored yellow of the golden cayennes. The answer came at a BBQ during Labor Day weekend: corn.

I whipped up a batch of this yesterday, and it’s yummy.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Food, Recipes | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

Recalibration

05 Sep 2013 by KRAG

Mahonia after rainSo far, the results from my poll on subscriber interest and visiting schedule have been small but consistent.

Readers who expressed an opinion, said that they visit about 3 times per week, and want more writerly content–actual writing, or discussions on writing.

What prompted me to ask these questions? Continue Reading »

Posted in Writing | Tagged , , | 2 Comments »

Happiness, Music, Joy

04 Sep 2013 by KRAG

GakuI once knew a girl.

She was beautiful, with happy eyes and apple cheeks and long, black hair. She was quick to smile, her eyes turning into crescents, her laugh quiet and shy, like a secret. She was quiet, like me, and thoughtful, unafraid of deeper questions. She played the violin, not very well, but well enough to enjoy the challenge, the process, and the camaraderie of the shared anguish of second violins. From my seat in the viola section, we would share a glance, a wink.

She was kind. When I told her of my growing affections, she suggested we take a different course. I decided my life was better with her in it, and agreed. We remained friends, wrote letters, flirted without romance, talked of life, of dreams, of the future.

In time, though, our paths diverged. Other loves and other dreams led us both away from our hometown. Our letters grew infrequent, then stopped.

Decades passed.

Then, a note. An email. Is that you? Do you remember me? Continue Reading »

Posted in Culture | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

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