A Far Out Fantastic Site

Illustration by yours truly! If you’ve been following my Facebook author page , you may had seen a post there from last week saying there would be a cover reveal here early this week for my upcoming short-read book, “The Trespassers”. I was actually hoping to have that cover reveal here today but it looks like it’s going to have to be in a special blog post a little later in the week.  The artist I had sent the concept sketch to made the full illustration based on it but it didn’t turn out the way I wanted. So, I asked her to make some changes. I’m posting below my side of the text chat with her to show you the details that need to be changed.  One of those details is the overall style of the illustration. It needs to be more photo-realistic. I don’t care for photo-realism myself, and I care for it much less in digital art, because I find it too technical and lacking expression. However, unfortunately for some of us, it’s what’s dominating the literary market as far as book co...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) blog hop! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. Today’s post is a double feature of a sort since we have both the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop and the post that I normally publish on Mondays but decided to combine it with today’s. So, today we have the IWSG question of the month (which is optional) and the latest progress on my upcoming single-short story book, "The Trespassers". And that update includes the concept sketch for the book cover's illustration which you'll see below!  Book Progress for 'The Trespassers': Book Cover Illustration Concept Sketch I sent the manuscript for “The Trespassers” with the final edits to the formatter and so now it’s formatted for both print and ebook. Immediately after that, I made a pen and ink ske...

Credit: Pixabay At the beginning of the month, I had said that “The Trespassers” would release in roughly two to three weeks . Well, I did mean roughly . It’s going to be a little longer than three weeks before it releases. The reason relates to the fairly recent merging of Smashwords, where I’ve published my ebooks in the past, with Draft To Digital (D2D). When that happened, the two companies decided to combine their self-publishing service tools. So, in order to release my book in wider distribution and so beyond Amazon, I'll have to learn D2D's self-publishing tools which will take me a while longer than if the merge hadn’t occurred. But don’t worry! There’s also good news! The good news is that D2D claims to offer more flexible, easier and a better variety of tools. That means a faster turn-around time for releasing future books like " Bad Apps ", my upcoming short story collection. Not only that, but unlike Smashwords had before the merge, it offers self-publish...

Credit: Pixabay That second current book that I'm working on that I mentioned in the previous previous post  almost had its copyright page missing. This is a one-short story book that will be releasing before my next full book, "Bad Apps", releases. It's called "The Trespassers", a science fiction horror story.  I don’t have a precise date for “Bad Apps” since I’ve run late on it several times already, but I’m shooting for late autumn or early winter of this year. “The Trespassers”, on the other hand, will be releasing way before that though, roughly within the next three weeks.  I had sent the manuscript for “The Trespassers” to the book formatter earlier last week when I realized that I didn't include a copyright page. So, I told him to hold off on the formatting so I could gather the copyright page’s information, such as the date of publication and the character resemblance disclaimer, and then I would provide him with it. I put the information togeth...

Credit: Pixabay In my previous blog post , I had said the newsletter, “Night Creatures’ Call” would be coming out in another week. It's now been over a week in which I apologise for.  My explanations for the delay have been writer’s burnout and others. Much of those others are due to myself trying to cram several writing projects into a limited amount of time. That time is limited by not only my day job of four days a week, but by the two-hour public transit commute each way every day. Right now, I have three projects going on: my upcoming short story collection, "Bad Apps" ; my single short story book, "The Trespassers"; and of course, the newsletter.  For "Bad Apps", I'm currently working on two short stories both of which are in the revision process. For the single short story book, I'm in the process of adding an author's bio so I can send the manuscript out for formatting. For the newsletter, I had recently been working on the Book-In-...

  It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) blog hop ! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. I’ve had some writing challenges these last few days, one of which actually goes back a little further and has, ironically, lead me to planning a new upcoming book release that will occur before my short story collection, “Bad Apps” , comes out. It's, what I call, a pre-release book. Also, in today’s post, I'm also answering the IWSG optional question of the month about writing distractions.  IWSG Optional Question of the Month: Writing Distractions The IWSG question for May is: How do you deal with distractions when you are writing? Do they derail you? Isaac Asimov once said that if you're going to be a writer then you should learn to work through distractions, particularly noise. I’m sure that doesn't work ...

Credit: Pixabay To find out how you can read this post without ads, visit my Patreon page !   There’s been a lot of big things going on in sci fi and fantasy news this past week! One of the biggest is the announcement of memorialising the late Harlan and Susan Ellison’s  home into a library. But in connection with that is an upcoming volume of an anthology series that features dark and terrifying futuristic fiction that Mr. Ellison had edited, “Dangerous Visions”.  Third and Final Volume In An Anthology Series The new “Dangerous Visions” anthology will be the third and final volume in the series, according to science fiction/fantasy TV writer/producer, J. Michael Straczynski . The first book in the series, “Dangerous Visions”, was published in 1967 and the second, titled “Again, Dangerous Visions”, in 1972, both of which were edited by Harlan Ellison. According to Straczynski, in 1973 a third and final volume, “The Last Dangerous Visions” (LDV), was announced and had a pl...