All posts by Mark

Software, StoryBox

StoryBox Status

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It’s been awhile since the last update, and you might be wondering when the next one is.

The answer? Soon, I hope. I upgraded to some new underlying libraries, and the vendor made some changes that I had to accommodate. The changes turned out to be fairly significant, so I’ve been using StoryBox and testing it as much as I can. I don’t want to release it and find I broke something critical with the change.

Also, I will be releasing Shattered in the next couple of weeks and I’m using StoryBox ePub export for dealing with B&N PubIt and Kindle, and I’m working out the kinks.

The next update probably has the largest number of changes of any update since I started publishing StoryBox a year and a half ago.

Writing

Workshop Causes Identity Shift – Story @ 11

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Sometime during the week, something pretty amazing happened. I don’t know when, exactly, but I do know when I recognized it.

After the last session, we sat around and talked. Two other pro writers showed up and joined the conversation. At one point, we were talking about the traffic in the Seattle area, and I said, “I don’t have to worry about the traffic, since I’m a writer and I never have to leave my basement.”

Now, if you know me, You know I’ve said nearly that same thing many times in the past. About 10 seconds after making the comment, I stopped and said, “Woah – I said ‘I’m a writer.'” Here’s the deal. Prior to the workshop, I would have said, “I’m a programmer.”

Sometime last week, a switch in my brain got tripped and I now identify myself as a writer before anything else.

Writing

Writer’s Marketing Workshop Aftermath

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It’s late, or early. I’m in bed after the last day of the workshop. I can only say, at this point, that I think attending a workshop like this provided more challenges to me and my writing than any of the alternatives I’ve tried.

I committed story six times this week. Freaking incredible. I have proposals for six new novels sitting in my bag, and I can’t wait to start writing them. I know how to pitch them. I know how to blurb them. Hell, I have incredible blurbs and tag lines for all of them.

Oh, and the other writers that participated? One and all, they wrote some incredible proposals for books that I can’t wait to read. Fifty four new novel proposals in total. Just an amazing amount creativity and energy permeated this place.

I may write more about it in the future, but as of right now, I feel blessed to have participated.

Uncategorized

Shattered Progress

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If you follow the progress meters to the right of this post at all, you’ll see that I’m making progress on the final edit of Shattered. I’m trying to get two chapters done each day.

It’s harder than I imagined. I had several readers read it, and I compiled their comments into a single Word doc, and I’m now going through it, line by line, and fixing whatever they complained about. Occasionally, I see something that everyone missed, and I fix that, too. It’s tedious work for me, but I couldn’t imagine putting Shattered out without having put in this effort.

After this “Final” edit, I’ll export it to ePub and read through it again, more than likely finding additional problems I need to fix. In this, publishing a book seems to be like publishing software. There’s always one more problem that you missed.

I also have seen the initial sketch for the cover art, and I’m pretty much thrilled with it. There were a few minor changes, but I pretty much feel the initial sketch was amazing. I can’t wait to show it to you.

If everything goes well, the eBook versions of Shattered should be out mid-April. The paper version may take a little longer, but I hope it will be available by the end of April. I’ve heard of teething problems from others with their first trip through CreateSpace, so any time estimate there is likely off.

I’m really excited to be able to see the finish line. Of course, once I cross, I have to do it all over again with Questioner’s Shadow, and with the second book of A Wizard’s Work, which I’ll start writing as soon as I’m done with QS.