Archive for February, 2010
Cover Art
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
I have two choices when it comes to creating a cover for The Winds of Winter: hire an artist, or create it myself.
Way back in the day, I worked in acrylics, and I got to the point where I could do a reasonable job of painting what I was looking at. (Astronomical scenes were a specialty.) But I haven’t transferred all of this skill over to the digital media I work in now. Some of it, yes — I created all the graphics for this site. But I need some practice with Painter’s brushes to get up to speed. (I’ve been working with Painter off and on since version 2.0. I got a demo with my first digitizer, and was hooked. In those days, the software came in a paint can.)
I also need to improve my figure drawing, if I’m going to paint a cover. That’s always needed work, in any medium.
I spent my leisure time this weekend working through Painter tutorials. I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to handle a cover painting by the time I need one, but it won’t hurt to try. If I don’t get there, I found an artist whose work interests me.
I ditched Twitter
Sunday, February 21st, 2010
Tonight I went to maintain my Twitter account, and discovered that Twitter has ordered all the applications with a mass unfollow capability to disable it. That means I could spend hours unfollowing the people I’ve followed lately who didn’t follow me back — at two clicks and a pageload per person. That’s hours wasted doing something I should be able to do with a search and a couple of clicks total.
That’s many, many more useless mouse clicks than I should engage in, if I want to keep my carpal tunnel syndrome from flaring up.
So I’ve ditched Twitter.
It’s not my preferred method for social interaction — I prefer a medium with more room for nuanced remarks (which Twitter’s 140-characters-per-post precludes). I thought it might be good for word-of-mouth advertising of The Winds of Winter, however, so I was taking part in writers’ chats and carrying on other individual conversations. But this recent policy of Twitter’s means it’s just too darned much work for any possible return.
There are definitely people I’m going to miss. I probably won’t run into them much anywhere else, as I’m not much of a blog-commenter. I regret it.
Goodbye, Twitter.
The Slaying of Sigurd and the Passing of Brynhild
Saturday, February 20th, 2010
I have added three more sections to the unabridged version of William Morris’ epic poem The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Nibelungs. This bring us to the end of Book III. Next is Book IV: Gudrun.
The Darkest Day
Sunday, February 7th, 2010
I’ve uploaded a new section of William Morris’ Sigurd the Volsung, unabridged. This latest scene is the one I find most wrenching in all the poem.
Later: I have uploaded two more scenes also. We are nearing the end of Book III.
Work proceeds on The Winds of Winter. I’m working on adding a scene to the mid-section of the story. After that, I have only the ending left to write.
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