Tag Archives: reading

December 3, 2023 · 6:58 pm

Infinitas Publishing – Status Report

⏰ Time for another Infinitas Publishing status report! 😊

I’ve highlighted the projects that had changes in blue.

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Isaac’s Untitled Fantasy Story: So… this was a backburner project as of a month ago, but I needed something that was already outlined for NaNo, so I snagged it to work on last month. (More about that change of plans here). I ended up writing 58,000 words for NaNoWriMo, and managed to keep up with par daily. Now I’m taking a break from writing for a few days, because that was exhausting while also trying to keep up with my evening shift at the library and preparing for the Poor Artist Sale. But… now there’s a good chunk of rough draft ready to go!

Next goal with this will likely be to finish writing the rough draft for any missing scenes, then do a revision pass on the earlier scenes now that I better remember how the magic system works. Once that’s done, this will likely return to being a back-burner project while I finish other projects.

Crafting Your Fictional World (Non-Fic Book): Rough draft sitting at 22,000 words. On hold.

Sweetweird Genre Notes: On hold with 2,100 words.

Distant Horizon: (Book 1 of the Distant Horizon series): Next up: Paperback version of this in Atticus, which can be used on Draft2Digital in order to release a paperback version wide across multiple retailers, rather than only on Amazon. I intend to revisit the blurb before finalizing this. On hold.

Starless Night: (Book 3 of the Distant Horizon series). Blurb needs to be updated across all retailers.

Changing Tides: (Book 4 of the Distant Horizon series). On hold while working on Legends of Cirena #9. Next step is to merge the two revised drafts and start writing the missing scenes.

The Glitch Saga (Distant Horizon spin-off series): Goal is to create a new cover and print edition for the complete collection edition. (On hold).

Deceived (Distant Horizon spin-off series): Needs print formatting. On hold.

SBibb - Betrayed Cover

Betrayed (Deceived #2): We’re now up to chapter nine on Wattpad! All episodes have been scheduled both for the newsletter and on Wattpad, with the exception of the final chapter. The reason is that I’d like to have a note with what’s coming next, and when, and that is still to be determined.

As it currently stands, this draft of Betrayed is set to be fully released on Wattpad in early February.

My next step is to send this draft to beta-readers so I can start preparing for the ebook release.

Future Goals: Continue revisions to Deceived #3. Add Isaac’s notes from Deceived #5 (formerly #4) into the manuscript, revise Deceived #5, and revise #6 (formerly #5) before handing it to Isaac for his feedback.

TWB 4: (Book Four of The Wishing Blade series). On hold. Next step is to finish adding the remaining outline to Scrivener, review that outline for missing plot points, and then write the rough draft.

Wishing Blade Prequel (Prequel novella for The Wishing Blade): On hold. Next step is to write the rough draft of the new scenes and begin revising the original scenes to match the updated outline.

Once complete, this is intended to be a newsletter-exclusive story.

The Legends of Cirena – Collaborative Adventure Facebook Group: On hiatus.

The Dark Forest of Aneth (“Ro’nor (“The Restless Sands of Neel”) & Zynia (“The Dragons of the Mist”) cross-over / A Legends of Cirena short novel): On hold for NaNoWriMo, with a draft (both polished and rough sections) at 56,000 words.

Goals: Finish rough draft and polish. Edit the book cover.

The Wind Mage and the Wolf (“Livena (The Wind Mage of Maijev”) & Nuaka (“The Gryphon and the Mountain Bear”) cross-over / A Legends f Cirena short novel) : Joran’s short story is on hold. Still needs a couple scenes smoothed out, and I need to cross-reference the final scene in The Wind Mage and the Wolf (from Joran’s point of view). After that, it’ll be ready for a read-aloud and proofreading.

The Legends of Cirena Volume One (LoC #1-6 Collection): Print edition complete! I got the last chapter background illustrated, added in illustrations (both new and ones created for the Wishing Blade Universe newsletter), and finalized the formatting and cover.

There are a few minor tweaks I may make to the print edition before moving on from this completely, but I won’t make those changes until I have a chance to reread through the print edition (one last round of searching for typos, plus a reminder for any edits I need to make to LoC #9).

Huntress 3: On hold. Still planning on rereading the first two books and creating an outline. This might be a December project, though I primarily plan to use December for wrapping up small this-and-that projects.

Huntress Prequel: On hold at 18,000 words. Needs rough draft completed.

Game Design: On hold.

Mist Catcher (Isaac’s Sci-Fi Story): Last time this was at 46,600 words (including some notes). However, this was Isaac’s NaNoWriMo project, and he wrapped up the month with a whopping new 62, 845 words. 🎉

From what I can tell, that puts his latest draft at 109,400 words (not including the Halloween episode?)

Aside from taking a break after NaNo, I think his goal is to complete the series arc, which would complete the draft.

Marketing:

The Poor Artist Sale went well. Though we didn’t quite hit my target goal in sales, we got really close, and we did better than last year. 😁 And, aside from a rough start with setup (let’s just say that setting up the canopy with lights took longer than expected(, we were both happy with the final result.

We shared the booth with Lillie Rae Art, who had stickers and jewelry on their side (my favorite being the cat themed-bubble tea pin, and Isaac’s favorite being the little rainbow ghost pin).

Again, no new BookFunnel promos last month, though December is fully set up to have weekly book promo highlights. 🙂 I also plan to resume newsletters in December. Amazon drip ads continued as usual.

Next up: Continue adding sample chapters to the BookFunnel pages and the main Infinitas Publishing website, and update my author bio across the different websites. I finally remembered that my plan for Stripe and Payhip was to offer direct sales from the main website. Update the business ledger on a regular basis. Add a progress tracker somewhere for the different books. Revise Amazon ads, and overhaul book categories, keywords, and blurbs.

Other Stories: On hold

Next up: Draft my next Writers of Warrensburg anthology short story. Revise ending of YA Alien Invasion/Dystopian story.

Other on hold projects include: a “for-fun” space/portal fantasy story rough draft, Mermaid/Siren Sci-Fi short story draft, and comic script (“If I Had Asked”).

Unofficial Minecraft FanFic: On hold.

SBibb’s Photographic Illustration: On hold.

Future Goals: Figure out a schedule for uploading general art projects. Update the SBibbPhoto website to incorporate Daz work, and fix the SEO information.

SIFlint Art: Pencil bags have been ordered (we did three designs… the Legends of Cirena era map, my nonbinary book dragon, and Isaac’s Celestial Tides dolphins in space), but they didn’t come in on time for the Poor Artists Sale.

We had also tossed around the idea of doing a coloring book with my Dragon Hoard designs, but didn’t have enough designs yet for that, so we instead printed coloring postcards through the local The Print Shop store. We printed nine designs, and created bundles of eighteen postcards (two of each design) with an eight-pack of crayons. (I ordered 43 packs of crayons from Michaels, whee!). We did sell those at the Poor Artist Sale.

Daz PA: I’ve finished the main shapes for the Genesis 9 version of my Diverse Worlds Head morphs set for 200 Plus Head and Face Morphs. All that’s left is to finalize the set, which I plan to prioritize now that NaNoWriMo is over.

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Happy writing and reading (Or 3D rendering if you’re into Daz)! 🙂

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March 30, 2016 · 9:35 pm

Thoughts on Publishing – A Video Blog Post – Reading Chapter Sixteen of Magic’s Stealing

Today I’m reading chapter sixteen of Magic’s Stealing. Enjoy. 🙂

Click here for the link if you can’t see the video.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

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November 9, 2015 · 6:38 pm

Thoughts on Writing – Swearing in Audio Formats

In my last post, I read from Magic’s Stealing. It was the first time I edited one of my Youtube blog videos using Premiere Pro, and I used it to remove some of the more obvious stumbles where I tripped over my words. However, I ran into a bit of a conundrum that I hadn’t considered before. For public readings, should I bleep out swear words, or should I leave the text as-is?

If you recall, I wrote a post a while back on To Swear or Not To Swear, in which I debated whether or not to include actual swear words in the dialogue of the book. Ultimately, I decided to keep that particular instance, because it fit the character’s intentions and offered readers a bit of insight into the characters.

Keeping the swear as-is continued to bug me, though, largely because I wondered whether or not a middle grade audience (not just young adults) might be inclined to enjoy the book–but might have a less-inclined parent if those parents read the first chapter.

And that in itself is a whole new debate. Is it a good idea to tailor a story to a specific audience, with certain marketing expectations in mind? Middle grade novels are typically expected to be free of swearing. YA ranges the gamut, and adult depends on the genre.

The conundrum I’ve run into is that I intended Magic’s Stealing to be YA. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if a middle grade audience enjoyed it. As such, it’s led me to a new thought… if I ever do a public reading, should I censor the word? Then again, if I didn’t keep the swear, the passage wouldn’t have quite the same meaning. It’s unfortunate from a marketing standpoint that the only real-word swear is in the first few pages. Should I simply find a different chapter to read, perhaps in the middle of the action?

I suspect this will depend on the venue in question. Some venues, especially ones that are geared towards being family friendly, may ask to not have the swear read. Others may not care at all. It’s probably up to the type of fiction you write as to whether or not you choose to use venues that have specific preferences.

But what about audiobooks?

My first thought was, why change what we wrote? We choose our words for a reason.

On the other hand, people reading a book can very easily skim over words they don’t like. It’s not so easy when those words are being spoken aloud.

(I’ll admit that I don’t tend to listen to audiobooks, so I’m not sure what the general protocol is here.)

Granted, censoring spoken swears will depend on the audience. Obviously, censoring an erotic novel would be ridiculous. The target audience has expectations as to the contents of the novel.

But what about a YA novel with the occasional swear? Should this be censored in audio format? My first thought was “no.” That’s not how the author wrote it. But when read aloud, does that change the impact of those words?

Does reading the book aloud change the impact of the intent, and thus, change what should be read? Does reading aloud change how the text is perceived?

Or does trying to censor a word–whether by dropping the volume or inserting a bleep– actually draw more attention to it?

What about switching the word? The meaning changes, but what if, by switching words during a spoken performance, you actually get the intended reaction?

Is there a difference between the impact of something spoken, versus something silently read?

That, to me, is the real question.

If what we write on the page takes a different meaning when said aloud, then perhaps we should consider that impact, and decide what to change from there.

After all, screenwriting is different from novel writing. Adaptations are made because a book is a different format than what you might see in a live or recorded performance, and has different advantages and limitations.

But if the spoken word has the same impact as the written, then perhaps no changes should be made.

Honestly, I’m probably over-thinking this. For the previous reading, I left the swear in. I figured that pretty much anything I did would draw more attention to it (other than writing a whole blog post pondering the question), while letting it flow in context should keep the story running smoothly.

And in general, I’m thinking I’ll read the text as-is. If the one swear is likely to pose a problem, I could always chose a later segment to read.

But now I’m curious as to what you think. How would you handle a reading that has the occasional swear, whether an audiobook or in public?

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November 7, 2015 · 9:57 am

Thoughts on Publishing – A Video Blog Post – Reading Chapter One of Magic’s Stealing

Today I’m continuing the trend of doing a weekly video blog post, but instead of doing a reading from 1000 Words, I’m reading the first chapter of Magic’s Stealing. 🙂

(And  a Youtube link in case you can’t see it).

This is a day late–I normally try to post on Fridays– but this time I edited the audio to remove the more obvious stumbles where I tripped over my words. It’s been a while since I used  Premiere Pro, so it’s not perfect (and I caught a couple spots I missed once I listened to the full video), but hopefully the edits will make the overall listening experience smoother.

As a side note, I started doing the video blogs as an experiment in seeing whether or not that would help shorten the amount of time I spent producing material for the blog.

Did it?

Nope.

I want the videos to look and sound at least semi-professional, so I practice the reading at least once beforehand, so that the actual reading has as few stumbles as possible. Since I’ve now rediscovered how to use Premiere Pro, removing obvious stumbles also takes time, and then I have to export the edited clip from Premiere Pro and create a “movie” image in Movie Maker for the book (because I haven’t quite figured out the video options in Premiere Pro). Then I upload the different clips to Youtube (I do the reading separate from where I talk beforehand). Depending on my internet speed (which has been lacking as of late), those clips can take a while to upload. Then, once uploaded, I need to splice them together using Youtube’s video editor (handy thing, though limited), listen to transition points to make sure those flow smoothly, and create the new video. Once that’s uploaded, I listen to the full thing to make sure that everything has correctly processed.

It’s a lot more time-consuming that I thought it would be, but I suspect part of that is the learning curve involved with each program.

I still enjoy doing the readings, however, and I hope you enjoy them, too. 🙂

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October 30, 2015 · 9:28 pm

Thoughts on Publishing – A Video Blog Post – Reading Four Way Stop

Last week I did my first video blog post, in which I read “The Magician,” one of my 1000 Words short stories. Tonight I’m continuing  that trend by reading “Four Way Stop” (also from 1000 Words), in a special, Halloween edition. 🙂

I had a bit of help with this one from Isaac, who helped create a few themed props, and the process which much faster than last time, since I had a better idea of what I was doing.

Anyway, here’s the video!

(And  a Youtube link in case you can’t see it).

I hope you enjoyed this post. Please let me know if you would like to see more of these. 🙂

 

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October 23, 2015 · 11:47 pm

Thoughts on Publishing – A Video Blog Post and a Reading – The Magician

Today I’m doing something a little different. In an effort to save time (which didn’t work this time around, but hey, now I know what I’m doing, so next time may go faster), I decided to try making a video for a blog post. This is also the unveiling of the Infinitas Publishing Youtube channel. 😀

This was an experiment, to say the least.

I knew bits and pieces of what I was doing, but I had never used Youtube’s video editor before (it allows you to splice videos, add multiple video clips, add music, etc), nor have I tried using Windows Movie Maker for a really long time (and trust me, the older version I used was much more user-friendly).

Anyhow, I managed to get a video tied together, which includes a reading of “The Magician” one of my 1000 Words short stories. It’s also the first time I’ve made an audio edition of any of my stories together, so we’ll see how it goes.

Now, I’m not using a professional mic by any means, so the sound has a lot of hissing at times (and you can hear a car’s speakers in the background at one point).

Since I only rehearsed the story once before I read it, I did stumble a few times. If I try to do a true audio book with any of Isaac’s and my stories later, I’ll want something with a bit clearer sound, and I’ll probably practice each chapter a bit more before I do the recording.

I also keep noticing little tiny phrases that I would reword for accuracy in the video portion, but I guess that’s downside of doing an unscripted video.

But other than that, here it is!

(And  a Youtube link in case you can’t see it).

I hope you enjoyed this video/blog post. If you liked the video and/or the reading, please let me know. I may do more of these. If not, oh well. Worth a shot. 🙂

 

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