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On Book Covers and World-building

I said last week I would have a review of The Dark Knight Rises by this weekend. I was actually in the middle of writing it, but got a little worn out. I haven't really been feeling my greatest today. I have that feeling of a head cold but we're smack in the middle of summer and so I'm going to be a little stubborn and say that it can't be a cold though colds can come up at this time of year. So I'm just assuming it's alergies. For this reason, I'm keeping this post short but will have the review for you by early next week, hopefully Monday. I know, it's not my usual time to post but we can call that one a "Special Edition".

I'm working out a bunch of technical elements with my cover for my book of short fiction and so haven't really been working on the illustration (the final sketch itself) lately. I'm shooting for next week to start work on that. There's so many implications that come with creating one's own book cover that most people don't think about, such as deciding on a trim size and the coresponding size of the illustration. You can't make a 5" x 6" cover for an illustration that was meant for a smaller or larger cover. Not that either in my case are those sizes, this is just an example.

Then I'm working on two short stories, one that I'm debating whether to include in the collection. Maybe I'll post it here in the next week or two for you to read and then let you guys take a vote on whether it should be included or not. The other story will probably not be used in the collection although it can since it does have to do with the theme of illusion/misconception but it is too complex and so I probably won't have it revised in time. I'm at the world-building level of that story, a level I thought I was already finished with until I discovered that one of my characters would be better off as an alien. So I had to add to the world building, particularly her home/ancestral world. Talk about complexity!

Until next time (the "Special Edition" posting) . . .
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