Solo: It's a Better Movie than It Got Credit for

 SPOILERS AHEAD---- I'm not good at avoiding these, so if you haven't seen the movie, you might want to bail...

I did something most people probably didn't do before seeing this movie; I didn't watch any trailers, read any reviews or go into it with high hopes. In fact, I never really got into any of the Star Wars movies after the original trilogy. I liked the pod racing scene in Phantom Menace, but the next two movies were mostly awkward and forgettable to me. With Force Awakens, I did have to wonder if they casted it well and I just wasn't feeling Kylo Ren at all. The only seen I really liked was where Finn and Rey were working together to hit switches in a fight scene-- the only place where the movie had perfect chemistry. I don't remember Rogue One very well, but I remember the ending was sad. I didn't even bother seeing Last Jedi but I'm sure I will eventually.

Solo is my favorite Star Wars movie now.

These days, I'm scarce on social media or any type of opinion forum. I don't depress myself by devouring world news. I enjoy the internet for its very valuable factual research for my stories. I can admit that it can get addictive to be 'liked', but the tables are just as likely to turn. The fact that I can't tell if people are being serious or satirizing is another big turn-off. I consider myself to be very moderate, not so I can agree with my liberal and conservative friends, but so they understand that I intend to disagree with them when my own experiences prove an exception to their opinion.

That's the baseline for my standpoint. When I saw that this movie, Solo, was doing badly, I was genuinely shocked. I didn't go in with any agendas, but one of the first outrageous claims I saw was that this was an 'SJW movie'.

I have no idea how anyone can get that out of this movie. We're used to movies with a diverse cast by now and not only was this cast perfect for each of their roles (Danny Glover, Paul Bettany, Thandie Newton and Woody Harrelson, not to mention Amelia Clarke) I don't feel like they were 'color-casted' at all. I'd have a hard time even trying to put another actor into their roles. 

Let's get another bit out of the way before I launch into the SJW bit though; Alden Ehrenreich is no Harrison Ford. I don't think he was badly cast and it didn't ruin the movie for me, but we don't live in a time that makes men or actors like Ford anymore. Harrison Ford also came from an era where men and women didn't shame each other for their differences. That being said, while he didn't hit the same charisma or reckless arrogance as Ford, he was still convincing as an inexperienced, young Han Solo.

Now let's get to L3. How anyone can assume that this was a WIN for SJWs is beyond me. Directly from the onset, Lando makes it clear that he would erase L3 if he could but her navigational maps are indispensable. He finds all aspects of her personality irritating and humors her unfortunate personality because he's a showy, arrogant man who likes to possess things that no one else has. He tolerates a lot of bullshit and takes a lot of risks to have those things. When you look at how he deals with her, it is less a romance and more a purely comical arranged marriage type situation. Notice that when he is desperate to save her and the bottom half falls off, he hesitates for less than a second before he makes off with what he considers the most important. And I do think he is a little sad to see her go, but in the way that mismatched people often grow on each other. Han Solo and Leia were wildly attracted to each other and also completely annoyed.

And as for the SJW revolution where L3 'liberates' the droids? When she releases the restraint bolts on the first droid, she sets it free and then seems clueless as to what the fuck it should do. As the scene switches between the action, the next glimpse we get is her celebrating because she found her calling and all around her, the 'freed' droids are... basic fucking morons. They're running into things, wheeling over things back and forth, because most of them are low-level machines built with very limited purposes. L3 is like a Swiss Army knife in terms of use and she herself puts anything Lando says as her top priority, but her 'side missions' and 'purpose' are useless and hilarious, not very flattering to SJWs. The droids don't really represent slavery or anything so lofty; they come off as quite the opposite-- it is more akin to throwing your PlayStation in the dishwasher to clean dust off of it. To me, it seemed to poke fun at what happens when you meddle in the individual function of a logical society, you get chaos without purpose. What it DID succeed in was adding to the distraction and chaos that the main characters needed so that they could escape. It was never the central purpose and it doesn't glorify social justice in the least. It was just funny.

Now as for the movie as a whole, as far as I'm concerned, the pacing was perfect. The characters complemented each other well and it was funny, dramatic, and action-packed in all of the right amounts for me. One thing movie writers have been doing really well in modern times is choreographing beautiful intelligent fight scenes that do an excellent job utilizing their environments. I think Alden and Amelia had a chemistry that worked well, none of the awkward unbelievability that Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman, both terrific actors in all other respects, suffered in their compatibility. I have to admit I've become a big fan of Danny Glover and Thandie Newton; him from Community and her in Westworld as Maeve. Maeve is easily one of my favorite characters to date and she nails it. Glover is flawless as Billy D. Williams, er, Lando Calrissian and that's just it-- he doesn't just get into character, he really took the time to research his predecessor. Paul Bettany as Dryden Vos-- I can't say it enough how underrated Paul Bettany is as an actor because this was a VERY masterfully done and subtle villain that might easily have been ruined by anyone else. Woody Harrelson, well, he tends to rock roles in movies I didn't even like. I was not a Hunger Games fan but the guy he played in that (and Elizabeth Banks' Effie Trinket) were the only reasons I bothered (although Donald Sutherland makes a chilling villain, pun absolutely intended).

While it's regrettable that Thandie Newton's character (I think it was Val, but it was so rarely said) and the little four armed guy were short-lived, I can't say there were any characters that weren't well done. I had to look her up because I'd never seen her prior to this but the gorgeous Erin Kellyman who plays Enfys Nest is someone I intend to look for in the future. She's got such striking features that you could never mistake for anyone else. Even the brief characters were dimensional though.

I would not be disappointed if there weren't more movies in the Solo saga. I didn't feel like this one HAD to be continued, that it was complete within itself, but I would certainly try more of them if they go ahead with that. I feel like this is a movie that did its job; it told the back story of Han Solo learning some of the most important and hardest lessons that formed him. I'd never really imagined this movie would ever be made, but I'm very glad it was. It wasn't loaded with terrible CGI, and some people may complain it was too dark in places and that it seemed like a low budget shortcut, but I can't say that ever bothered me and there are plenty of video games and movies I would make that complaint about.

Here's what I'd really like to leave you with-- try to avoid consuming media with too much knowledge going in. Hype or bashing might overinfluence your ability to enjoy it or even form your own opinion. I might have enjoyed it less if I dissected it according to what other people said. Even now, I feel like I make a unique contribution to the arguments rather than just agreeing or disagreeing BECAUSE I didn't go in expecting anything. Perception is everything. I might have liked Hunger Games if I hadn't seen the concept done better in Battle Royale for example. Opinions are all over the place, but when it comes to the SJW argument, I think that bit was comedic genius that managed to shit on both SJWs AND anti-SJWs. Come with me and sit on the fence where it's easier to shit on both sides.

I'm sticking to my story; this was my favorite Star Wars movie to date. I still love the original trilogy but this was just a great balance of everything and I didn't feel like it pandered to anyone. You didn't have to be a fan to like this movie, but a fan could still enjoy it. I'm not trying to change minds, but I really, really feel like the harsher critics weren't watching the same movie I was. It's almost alien how differing the opinions are-- all the more reason I think people should get out and see it. Where do you fall?

Happy Dance/ Beta Reorganization

Because blogging is bipolar, we're shifting to the fully positive, almost sickeningly enthusiastic side of things.

First and foremost, a happy dance is in order. After my previous confession of needing to muster up the troops and get to some serious outlining, I am almost completely unable to stop attacking my current book with an ever-increasing word count. I not only put a 14K ring on Part II, but I've seen its transition into Part III. My muse has this unwritten rule, mind you: Write out of order or she'll be out of order faster than a vending machine at the bowling alley or the men's room at a dive bar. So I set out to spot edit between Parts I and II and ended up with the muse taking a joy ride directly over to the epilogue and start setting up the lead-in for the third book, UnHeard.

Which is why I'm postponing the beta I was planning for Part I which is more correctly still a very polished alpha, but some things might wiggle loose while writing Part II that I'd rather not confuse readers with as a clear work-in-progress when I jiggle some conversation and events just a bit askew.

I've also decided I'm going with BetaBooks for this. Click on the hyperlink and check it out, especially if you're interested in queueing for the beta in its current TBA state; I'll still put you on my list. Once I start putting up the beta on FB groups, you'll know it's in serious motion and I'll start linking people to them. I don't have official 'chapters' but everything is parsed into sections according to scene and characters, so I might start people out in different plotlines rather than the book in its usual chronology. This will keep people following one solid progression and able to spot confusing breaks in the continuity if present. I might leave it up to request for people to read it in its entirety, but be warned that this book will be super epic in length and will likely break 200K words in its entirety, so I endeavor to keep any commitments flexible this way. I even have bits that are really small, short story length, that I'd appreciate a look-through for.

So yeah, I jumped the gun on betas, but I promise this is for the quality of the experience since it is a very ambitious entry in the series.

Happy news all around though, short and sweet. I can feel my craft honing to a finer edge as I go. I'll never down on my first series, which still continues to entertain me whenever I read it, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that it only gets better. I'm still unconventional in my methods, but I believe that flexibility is what makes personal successes something to treasure. Perhaps someday there will be someone looking to discover my story and it won't be one you find in every writer's blog, the cookie cutter road to 'success.' For me, there's no greater motivating (and pant-shittingly scary) path to a good story than a life carved stubbornly through the mountain. Safe doesn't guarantee success, so why not aim for a worthwhile journey?

The Desire for Shared Misery

I'm probably not going to tell you anything you haven't heard before, but I'm also sure that there's a first time for everything and I may be breaking a thought cherry that you've overlooked many times over. That's reason enough to go for it.

What I'm doing now, it's my dream, you know this. I used to fantasize about a day when I could write and draw my stories with the stars in my eyes that everyone else has when thinking about the things that they either won't do or lost interest or hope for somewhere along the way. It should be glorious, but it's the human condition that when we attain those difficult goals that we are always looking ahead to the next. We ascend to bigger things, but there's always something more. They say that the highest achievers sometimes reach these places where there's just a big empty space above with the mountain of all attained below. I can't tell you how, even as an atheist, that seems absolutely impossible to me. I wouldn't feel like a god nor feel the need to create one. In life, there will always be something above as long as I don't wave off everything as below me. I carry this attitude into a situation where I am asked to teach-- I may be the one viewed to have the authority, but I go eager to find something to learn as well.

I probably seem pretty zen about life, but appearing stoic is an everyday struggle. The idea that I am not capable of misery or knowing real pain because I'm not 'woe is me' is a fault in logic. My threshold is just different, tailored to my own survived trauma, and when things are hardest, I'm just more likely to clam up and power through. When I do whine, you'll notice it's oddly minor-- I have a cold, my back hurts again, I'm anxious about doing something. It's not commendable and it's why modern people are so inclined towards mental illness, this idea that suppression is strength, but it's also not a habit that is broken easily nor safe to do in certain company. Modern attitudes can be predatory at any sign of weakness.

You also see how many people seem almost excited as they compare how awful their day was, how it actually worsens mood when people enter this frame of mind. Can't say I didn't do it because in some work cultures, your level of perceived misery often calculates how well you're received and if there's anything worse than being on your feet for 8 hours, it's having no one to talk to to pass the time.

Somehow, people perceive a 'dream' career as a break from the fold and can unintentionally isolate you, more than that kind of effort already does. I can set my own hours, but if I treat it like a part-time job, it will take me years to do what could be done in months. I could work 8 hours a day, but again, creative demands often press you to strike while the iron is hot. I've come to operating my life on a series of alarms just to remember to eat, stretch, take a walk, check on what the kids are up to. Those things that people think I can do 'anytime I want' disappear, not because I'm engaging in escapism but because I struggle to make something that maybe, just maybe, might give that joy to someone else.

Have you ever psychologically profiled someone? Have you done it for all 30 characters in a book? Have you ever had an idea you know jack shit about and realized you have to speak to people or otherwise research it so it still bears logic? Has two weeks ever passed before you really paid attention to what day it is?

Writing is not just a career and it can border on obsession. Some writers build soundtracks for their characters, draw them, make maps, a lot of 'extras' that they use as devices to make something unique of their ideas. It's often something they only talk about with other writers because even people who obsess over a fandom struggle to comprehend that sort of obsession with your own unfinished work. It can be dismissed as narcissism rather than the struggle to translate these worlds into something legible to others. In fact, writers can often seem 'mute' while mid-project to resist the temptation to just talk endlessly about the made-up issues they face and struggle to help you relate to. Even once they finish, many writers don't find it any easier to discuss it, hoping to lure people into discovering it without what is tantamount to spoiling it. When your friends and family aren't reading it, that too can create a silence.

Don't get me wrong-- many writers actually prefer some or all of their family and friends don't read it and we also don't want to have to force it when we do, but it inevitably causes a gap in interests. This is why many, many writers almost have to have other jobs and interests even when they can be a full time writer. There is literally nothing we can easily say about it unspoiled, especially when it consumes our life. I'm a full time writer and illustrator, but I also take time to watch TV shows, read books, crochet, learn new skills, because I need things in my life that won't turn me into a monk locked in a vow of silence when I'd like nothing better than to talk about my books. Of course, a quest for knowledge is part of who I am, so I'd still find ways to break out of any one thing to experience something else. It is just a thing that comes rarely.

The thing is, my misery is a different creature, not one I'm flying above on to laugh at all the peasants below. Writing is as emotionally, physically and mentally draining as any other job. If I had been an archaeologist, a zoologist, a radiologist, a physical therapist or a lifeguard (yeah, when I was six this was somehow my dream job), it would have borne the same weight, but I would pay taxes, hate customers/patients/dinosaurs/colleagues/bosses, in the same ways most people do. People see my pajamas (which are more attached to the fact that most regular clothes are physically painful), my flexible hours and my unfailing faith in my work and think I'm somehow above it all when much of the time, I'm scrambling out from under a rock and begging people to believe I'm human.

And no, I don't want you to think I'm below anyone either. You probably haven't seen me talking to celebrities either, but I'm not someone who gets starstruck. I imagine they're plenty used to being treated like aliens and there's absolutely no surer way to get them on autopilot than doing so, for better or worse. In my own mind, I'm both a celebrity and a nobody and I'm not that different from anybody until someone insists on treating me that way.

FYI, if you ever want a room full of pregnant women to look at you like they suddenly think cannibalism might not be a bad idea, then say 'oh, god, no!' when they ask if you have kids. It will also give you a good idea on how it probably feels to be... Kanye West with anything he has said in the past few years. (Sorry, no sorry, but I laughed at the Swift drama; the Kardashians were the point of no return.)

Damn it, Kanye, I used to be able to tell people I adore you. But I still love your music.

In any case, sometimes shared misery is something we aim for to be the only one not miserable alone. I've been there, even spent years believing that doing the 'right thing' makes it okay to feel wrong about everything. Now, sometimes I go ahead and risk some infamy to release my obligation as an impostor. To be fair, I honestly loved my job in floral at Kroger, I just hated that one bitch assistant store manager. I could dodge the bitch competition and go outside to water flowers and hum. Nothing makes a manager angrier than someone enjoying their job.

My boss is still a bitch, but with flexible hours, engaging work, and not having to cry in the bathroom or explain it to coworkers that it's just frustration and I'll be smiling in about five minutes, I'll settle for the bitch I choose rather than the bitch I don't.

I'd say I've ranted thoroughly enough to wonder if I've gone too far. And my finger still wanders towards the Publish button anyway... Sllllooooooowly, and--

Cover Reveal + Progress Shots

As promised, I'm doing another visual post on the progression of another cover, this one for the upcoming A World Reborn: Deicide book. Let's jump right into it.

As usual, I had started with building the form and color blocking. I always call them 'mannequins' until they start to flesh out into characters. After laying the base color, I usually dive right into the eyes, as I did here.

Calyra and Conor are medium toned like their mother, so I warmed the skin color and began adding shading to the models.

The face certainly turned out different by the end, but I start with some hard lines that get blended out later. Sometimes I keep the original guidelines, but I normally ditch all but the skin toned lines on that layer.

Here, I just did a rough sketch in of her hair. One base is on a layer behind her skin, the other is on top. This way, I can get it dimensional around the model.

A little hard to see, but I use a different layer and a different guide color to draw in clothes and other elements for each character. These are suggestive and often changed drastically when I actually start filling it in.

Just a shot on the detail of their sandals and her painted toenails. For Conor, I only faintly lightened the nail area and opted for a shorter more masculine style.

This is a better view of the guidelines used. I didn't deviate too much from this style.

Since I did quite a bit on the details for the last book, I'll jump ahead to the colored and nearly finished version. I did end up altering the colors a bit, an easy process if you do everything on separate layers!

Had to get a close up on their more desaturated version.

And here we have it! I usually post the panoramic view in a cover art post, which you can locate with that tag on the right side of the blog.

It's certainly been an exciting journey, changing up a bit from my usual comic style. It wouldn't be practical to do comics with this much detail, but I certainly love taking the extra time focusing on one cover like this. As usual, if you have any questions about my process that I haven't covered, either out of curiosity or if you're an artist looking to pick up some new techniques, please feel free to contact me, either through the comments or my email linked to this blog. I usually get back to people pretty quickly (within a day or two).

Thanks for reading!

To Plot or Not to Plot... Maybe Just to Plod

A week was spent in writing... maybe only 3-4K towards my book. However, maybe three scenes, I realized all of my notes and ideas were going to be a hot mess, just picking up where things would start to unfold. Some parts were flashbacks to shed light on why certain events happened, some were just present scenes that revealed the bigger mystery, but it was quite clear that all of these ideas needed a solid framework.

Every story needs a different touch, point blank. Even in a single series, I'm not formulaic. Of course, beginning, middle, end is true for all of them. I'm not a firm believer in making the first sentence or first paragraph the hook. I have seen very few that do this that are able to keep the pace or not sound like a desperate plea to hold your attention. In fact, I like to write under the impression that the reader is at least somewhat like me-- enjoying a courtship that isn't one sided. I'm not trying to impress myself with my vocabulary nor assume you need every sight, smell and texture described for my creative writing teacher, to give you the bits that are relevant to the experience and let you fill in the blanks. Mind you, this is not advice I'll give to everyone, only that each book is not everything and it takes a lot of skill to withhold the need to show off rather than just weave a story of proper pace. I've read Stephen King explain the 'kill your darlings' advice in a non-literal sense; not as a call to kill your characters ruthlessly, but to terminate flowery prose and self-aggrandization to preserve the spirit of the piece. That's something I can dig.

There are pros and cons to plotting or not and this isn't about apple picking-- at this point, that sort of blog is low-hanging fruit. However, I'll use the experience this week to perhaps help a writer that started with a pantser and ended up staring at the reality that planning cannot be avoided any longer. First, let's get your baseline. Were you truly winging it and have nothing but the body text? Were you coming up with substantial ideas and jotting them down? In a notebook? In a program? On the side notes of Scrivener?

Krista got you.

You got nothing? Start here.

Let's go with the big fancy headers so you can skip to where it applies to you.

Don't get stuck here and fixate on your brick wall. A lot of people that get knocked out of the free-writing phase often feel like this is a logical weight like editing can be. Your ideas are probably slippery little fish, an intimidating school of feeding fish you're trying to count. I don't like to assume that having no outside notes is the most difficult. It's probably more work, but skimming through for the main points will be a little extra work with the bonus of refreshing your memory more thoroughly. There are a couple of ways you can take a block of text and make it less intimidating. If you're not a fan of chapters, at least make sure the scenes are divided. While you are parsing text into manageable blocks, if you haven't already, parse your chapters/scenes into a formatted table of contents in a regular word processor or start drop each one into its own scene in Scrivener. 

I often name each scene (which does not show up on the full document unless you want it to) to match the events. I have some just named things like Magic Upgrade or First Dance and this is usually enough to help me cross-reference it with scenes involving that characters. For word processors with the highlight function, you can color code scenes in the table of contents with each color representing the dominant character/characters (I'll use red for one, blue for another and purple when they're both present. Yellow for one, blue for one, green for both-- you can be strategic with the combos. A lot of characters? Use brown. Character deaths? Black or dark grey.).

For Scrivener, you can use a multitude of icons and color flags, etc. for the same coding purposes. You may know your story enough to build a color/icon system right away or you might want to alter it as you go. The idea here isn't immediately wrangling the full body of information, it's building sections that become increasingly more manageable as you go. 

You may only want your scenes to contain a few important details (Entering the Dark Room) or start by lumping full scenes (The Haunted Castle). Those scenes may grow or shrink as you decide which details need to be together to check for continuity. Remember, I write epic fantasy, so I usually have at least three main plotlines moving in and out of sequence. If outlining requires you to seamlessly follow a certain characters to build their plotline, it may be important to give them their own color. Maybe your story is moved by places. You may need to gather everything that happened at the castle to decide what needs to happen in the labyrinth.

To simplify this so far, build your outline from your general intention and themes, dividing sections in a way that lets you jump to them and gather relevant details almost thoughtlessly. You can use:

• A linked table of contents to jump to these sections
• The scene feature in Scrivener
• A color coding or icon system
• The Control or Command F feature to locate weird word indicators heading each related section

The idea is to create a map that is about to zip you through outlining.

You've got... something. Little bits.

You've been outlining to a point, but it's a bit disorganized or you feel like something is missing. You may need to use the color-coding/icon/keyword systemizing I went into above just to help you locate what you did do. You may also have this intimidating pile of notes that, when you wrote them, seemed very thorough. Maybe too thorough, but not quite in order now that you look at it. This is where my current story ended up. Some things in notebooks, some things preempted in the notes section of Scrivener but not where I was using them, just where I thought of them.

This is where I had to get my hands a little dirty this week.

Part I was actually well-organized, but built a lot of particulars I'd have to deal with for Part 2, maybe 3. I knew I wanted to take a similar approach, alternating between the two main parties with some room to lead in some subplots. This is where I had to take my pile and build plotline notes. I used Mac's Stickies for this but you can use color coded pages, specific dedicated pages in a notebook, whatever works best for you. The idea is to treat each slowly revealed plot and block them together. In my case, this was a little tricky. One plot has three specific timeline, when the character was young, when his son reached adulthood, and when those decisions came to a head in the present. I didn't want them back to back but rather I wanted certain present events to act as a lead-in to the past. This was done through one of the two parties' discoveries. Explaining it might be more confusing so basically it kind of went like this.

• Main Party 1 - Broken Door, able to use Recall
• Door Scene 1- As a youth
• Main Party 2 - Light leads to tomb, name is important
• Door Scene 2 - Prior to Gala Event Part I
• Main Party 1 - Library, chains
• Relevant Subplot - Villain's entry into City (past)
• Door Scene 3 - A father's rage

Might not mean much to you, but each of those represents enough to lead me into knowing where to look if I need to make sure I've added certain details. One that I realized I missed early on was the affect that a certain sound had on a character. I had been able to zip through the scenes involving her just by following her labels.

From there, every idea got a container. I had an area map that I plotted their routes on quickly to plan each scene of their progress. It also set up where I alternated the scenes. Once I did this, it was a matter of making sure all the pieces found a home. What needed to happen in the conservatory, with Main Party 1 with these objects. Colonel Mustard in the Kitchen with the pipe wrench, if you must. You'd be surprised how fast those ideas fly into place if you prepared everything.

You overplanned. Your muse is MIA.

Yeah, been there too. Your details are not only chaotic and thorough, but they clash like a MF. You're probably staring a note mash-up that could be a novel all by itself and you've got it all together, but once you start to read it, it's chock full of inconsistencies. Sometimes they completely negate the way things worked in a previous book!

This may not be such a big deal unless you already have something published. Sometimes you know you're not 100% enough to release a series until you've written them all. Sometimes you jumped the gun. If they're not published, go to town on your (hopefully thoroughly outlined) first book and through in the changes you need. Otherwise, rework your sequel. I'd advise you not to heavily change an already published book. This really screws with your early print adopters and you do not want to do that. Bite the bullet and call it canon. If it's really hurting to let it go, store it for a future WIP or take on a second project. Even if it just means writing a scene that will fall somewhere in the middle of that book, get it out of your system. Remember, no book or series has to be everything. Often an author's entire body of work is revisiting a theme that you couldn't let go, courting it with other characters, a little different, but on its way to finding fulfillment. You don't want to half-ass an idea just to keep building it. Always give it all you've got but don't panic if you feel like it could be better. It may need a home somewhere else.

And the rest.

The only time you need to panic about having too much or too little is if you're aiming to be a one-hit wonder. This is where people really fret that maybe it isn't all it could be. If you can honestly say it's a solid story, where it needs to be for what it is, don't worry that you forgot the bad-ass dragon or the apocalyptic battle scene or that you just couldn't make them work on your first go. I think a lot of people give up when their first book flops, maybe even their first three. I have six books out there and I'm not even pressed about the marketing right now. When I started, I set one goal: fill a shelf with my work. That is my first priority. I'm not going to worry one whit about sales or marketing or financial comfort as long as I can keep focusing on building my library. That will come next. Even then, I'm not resting on that. Right now, I have so many ideas that one shelf would never hold them. They might fill the whole case. I might divide my priorities even then, but even with that driving goal, it's never been all or nothing.

Yes, I am planning on making this my career. Yes, best seller would be terrific someday. No, I don't plan on doing it for free. I don't care if a crafter is a novice or not, they should never undervalue hard work. There are absolutely atrocious best-sellers and under-valued masterpieces and neither really deserves it, but they both should absolutely stick to their guns. I was once accused of not being a serious writer because I'm not wasting time forcing the existence of my books.

In fact, one prevailing message I've learned is that some fantasy readers will not pick up a series until it's finished. Often, they are not convinced an author will do so. I can't shame an author for the time it takes to write a book and juggle life, but I have seen the frustration of readers who wait 5 years between books that are supposed to be finished in 5 books. Some people don't want to wait 20 years to reach the conclusion. Prolific readers sometimes want new material and to retain memory, visit one world start to finish, not treat every book like a serial comic. One thing I have done is feel out comments on social media, see where longtime readers and new readers fall on the spectrum. Young readers tend to be more forgiving while older readers tend to be set in their ways. If your target audience is young readers though, they might not see it through to the end if their tastes have changed significantly as they grow up. If your series is a classic, then it will still see consistent sales over time. If it's a trend, a wait might burn it out completely.

Of course I do my research and stay current. Market trends don't really interest me-- those are the shiftiest. However, audience trends are something I do watch. Genres and even age group content is often mislabeled because there are no regulations and they can skew their popularity by throwing their work into a niche. It's easy to seem more successful as a writer if your book is #3... in Grasshopper Fantasy. Or maybe YA Romance is trending, so even though your book is Adult Fantasy, you can get away with it because there's at least one subplot where young adults are interested in each other. This is why I never quite understand why people insists on labels, or warnings or guarantees of any kind. Why they think a cover or a review or a rating means jack shit. I have read terrible books and I have read wonderful books, but I have never regretted the act of discovery or the element of surprise. I believe the saying is something along the lines of 'If it's not a blessing, it's a lesson.'

I could probably keep babbling but I'll tie things up in a few paragraphs. The only thing I care about is whether a work shows integrity. That's what I try to do in my own stories. If you think that doesn't make me serious, it's both not my problem and sounds backwards in actual practice. When an author tells a story, I want to see that they care about it. When I read a dirty romance novel, I don't want them to juggle between intellectualism and smut. It's trying to please everyone and failing. To imply that you have to burn out trying to be successful just sounds like a superficial and temporary attitude. That kind of writer makes me think they'll stop once they've earned their fortune, that opinion will sway the quality too much, that they don't really care about their work, just the end game. I've seen too much work tank over time that way, whereas the really great work only got better and better as they struggled with what it meant to them even when financial success wasn't the motivation. I've seen so many writers even grumble over the demand to continue a series when they wanted to move on-- how they could still write a superb story that wasn't thrown away in spite of that. If you can write knowing that your most notorious work may be the one you're most embarrassed about, that's what I call serious.

I don't care how fast or slow you write. I don't care if you plot or don't. When you thirst for the way to make your story work, I respect that. When you'll read through long blog posts to see if you can learn at least one new thing, I get that (and do that). Because books, if they're lucky, have one magic moment in someone's life.

If you want a fun rabbit hole to research, look up famous books that the authors didn't like. You'd be really surprised by which books fall into that category. Plenty of people adore their work and never see reciprocation, but there's that flipside that makes you deepen your attitude towards your craft. Did you know that you can be detached and write an emotional story? Find your opposite attitude, your opposite method, and see what it can show you.

As for progress, the topic gets you mostly there: I've got Part II thoroughly outlined and ready to cruise. I'm excited to get back to a more creative flow. In the notes sections of each scene, I kept all of the main points to a short list that I can keep eyeballing as I go. I've tried making more thorough notes in the past, but when I get too detailed, I rarely commit even then. It tends to be wasted work if I overplan (and not the sort worth carrying over-- more like a 3 AM idea that I can admit I'm glad will never see the light of day). So UnSung is back on meaningful word count mode this week. I do intend to do some drawing towards the end of the week. The kiddos are out of school so I'm also going to spend some time keeping them from this alien concept called boredom. A couple hours of quality time can save me 8 hours of whining distractions. Both emotionally fulfilling and calculating-- some things are better bedfellows than you think!

Cover Design at a Glance

Cover design is one of those areas where, even if you're an artist and a writer, it doesn't necessarily mean you feel confident making your own cover. In graphic design school, we only got a very basic run-through of concepts involving typography, use of space, and digital design. However, taking the importance of education to heart, I dug deep on those big projects-- pamphlets, catalogs, billboards, covers, packaging and so on. No matter the scale or technique, you have to know the trends in order to break them.

First off, let me throw a few examples of cover design in fantasy:

This one uses a specific character design as the main image feature.

This one goes for the inanimate object approach.

And this one keeps it simple with a texture, border features and a stamp/symbol.

What do you notice about all of them? Multiple fonts, some serif fonts and the unity of color. Most covers I seen want any bestseller or award status right up top, but with minimalist covers like the last example, you may want to go really easy on breaking the mood with that, taking it to the bottom or even the top of the back, if you're designing a print cover. You'll get a lot of advice as to what goes where, but if you have a set image in mind, then positioning can get trickier.

In the examples I'll use from my 5th book of my HWU Chronicles, I had predesigned the title and image in other programs. I modified the Matura Script font in Illustrator and did the digital painting in Clip Studio Paint. I'm not going to walk you through every detail of the process as in what menus or toolboxes and commands you use. If you're serious about learning cover design, you're far more likely to build a comfortable work flow if you're not fixating on the exact way I do it. I'd also like to make it more usable for people NOT using PhotoShop to do their cover design.

Starting with the template. This one comes from CreateSpace or KDP. If you're only doing an ebook cover, you can skip over some of the steps obviously. First off, for print, you need to know the page count of your final PDF as well as the book size to get the right size template. Very important because spine width is very picky and you need to know your margins. For interior concerns that will ensure your page count is correct, please see my previous blog on formatting. For now, you only need to open the template directly into your design program. Don't move it at all. If you need to, find that layer and drop the opacity to around 50% and keep it on top. You can turn it on and off with the visibility option (usually looks like an eye next to the layer). Once you're satisfied, lock it so you don't accidentally move it or mark on it.

I placed my image first. You can do this using the option Place/Import in the edit menu. I've seen this is pretty consistent in location through the many programs.

This is the image layer under the template layer with the opacity dropped.

Now, there are no hard rules with the placement of the character name, but I've found for my current designs, I like my author name at the bottom. I like for this to be a playful curly font, but be careful that your author name doesn't overpower your title. Many authors just go with a plain powerful serif font. With my other series, I liked my name in a serif font at the top. Now sometimes the name sells the book so it will be the draw more than the title. Either way, I recommend keeping your name centered almost always unless it really doesn't go with the image layout. The real estate in your name can be a concern too, so I'll shoot out some exception.

For one, my name can be left or right justified to the bottom of a page because the second part of my name is larger.

KRISTA

GOSSETT

(Pst, over here!)

KRISTA

GOSSETT

For those same reason, it wouldn't work well like that at the top of a page. Negative wasted visual space. Almost never is regular centering a good idea because you're leaving an odd space to the left and right of the word above or below. Maybe you're lucky and your first and last names line up wonderfully. If they don't though, you may need to do this:

The smaller word in my name not only got a bigger font size, but I used horizontal scaling to stretch the bottom letters and raised the baseline of the bottom word to close up any unwanted space between the two words. Again, if you're going for minimalism, then stacking the name is a good way to take up some space, but for the most part you do not want your fonts laying over 3D images. It visually flattens them. In most cases, simply centering the author name on a single line is all you need.

As you can also see, it's not a big deal if it does lay over some types of images. I use an illustrative comic style that isn't 3D dimensions and there are no distracting features on his collarbone that clash with the font. Consider your main image's impact carefully. Here, I've also laid in my name on the spine and determined where it sits by the location of the background silhouettes.

As I pointed out before with the name alignment, I did it here with the genre tag. This is an entirely optional element. Some people prefer not to place a genre for the headache of purists deciding how well it actually fits the category.

Whatever you decide, you may also consider consistency in both placement and order. It can be a bit of a visual dumpster if you keep reordering where the title and author name are or jittering them around too much. Sometimes I decide not to keep the alignment perfect for the sake of readability. Apologies if you're OCD, but for me, the visual harmony beats alignment every time.

Of course, don't forget to keep pulling up any template you're using so that your text is safely in the print zones. KDP and CreateSpace will refuse to bypass your oversight at least.

One important aspect I can't stress enough is that most fonts over images will need some sort of stroke or subtle glow so that it doesn't get lost in the light or dark. In most cases, I consider the prominent background colors and how it complements the title. Blue's natural complement is orange so an orange/yellow outer glow was used here. It doesn't clash with the background, almost completely unnoticeable there, but makes sure the black text isn't swallowed in the dark elements. You'll notice that 'Book Two' is a bit muddy. It looks great on the print, but for digital, you might want to use thicker stroked fonts so it doesn't get fuzzy at a distance.

The title here just follows a left to right drop mindful of the space. If you haven't predesigned your title as I did, you will need to know how to utilize the text features to size, align and create visual harmony. There are many tutorials that can help you find your specific needs. Some people have an eye for this, some people can't see the visual hiccups and need direction. I do cover critiques for fun, so you can always run it past me and I'll be happy to offer suggestions.

Back matter time! Again, no hard rules; you can center or stagger elements left and right, but for this example, I'm using a solid color bordered box and pulled one of the background colors once more. Legibility of the text is the most important. If you don't want to box it in, you'll need to tweak with outlining features like I did for the title to make sure it's not distracting or hard to read.

Now, despite the fact that the interior always looks better with full justified text, this doesn't seem to ever look right on the back cover. While it's usually visually okay to center any quotes, you most likely do not want huge blocks of centered text throughout or the push and pull of full justify. Stick to the standard left justify and make sure you turn off hyphenation. I'm not sure why it's the default or why anyone actually uses it, but a word chopped by a hyphen interrupts more than unifies. But the right edge staggers all over the place. Eh, not a big deal. You can always manually push and pull lines of text or find words that fit better for the visual if that's something that bothers you. No one is camping out on your back cover very long, so I'd focus more on making it clean and interesting.

On the final, I had added a handwritten font with a one-liner above the block in the same yellow as the author font, but it's fine to go minimal on elements if you don't want it to look cluttered. Negative space can be relaxing as long as it looks intentional.

The guts of cover design is much like writing. While I wouldn't be too strict looking for rules here, visual composition is often a process of moving, resizing, trial and error. Once you have things where you think you're satisfied, I'd suggest taking it to a cover critique group NOT a writer's group. Often the really bad covers are just mocked, dismissed or worse, told they look great when they don't at all. If you want constructive criticism, you need to find a group of people dedicated to that one area, full of novices and experts alike. Most actual designers will be able to specifically point out what doesn't work and give you technical fixes and suggestions.

And there you have it. My two cents on the basics of cover design. I always welcome any questions, suggestions or critiques. I've had a blast making comic style covers, practice for my ambitions of doing a web comic in the future. I know it's not traditional for the genre, but I never set out to do that. Just like my favorites strayed from the beaten path, I endeavor to do the same.

Well, back to writing. Yes, I have been working on UnSung this week! Exciting, frustrating, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Encourage, Don't Discourage

Working with other writers for an anthology is a wholly new experience for me and one that puts diplomacy to the test. We are individual authors, all with very different styles, audience and intent so there's going to be a little squirming.

It came time to choose cover designs for the anthology and one of the writers was a little brutal but not wrong about her critique of the choices. I won't go into details but she then posted what she thought of as better designs which ticked off another one of the collaborators. It didn't devolve into all-out battle but it reinforced what I've learned about diplomacy.

From the onset, I don't think that the design abilities of said covers were irredeemable. I've seen decent work from her in the past and it's clear there's some potential and she wants to grow and learn. Really, the worst you can do is tell someone you can do it better, this is how you should do it, or just let someone else do it. I've said it before but we all start somewhere and sometimes it can take years upon years to reach proficiency. It's through failure that you grow and through application that you learn what people want to see. If you treat everything like a secret and put nothing out there, you work in an echo chamber.

While I agreed that the designs as they were might hurt sales, that's not a helpful assessment in moving forward. Instead, I picked one that I thought was best then added suggestions about what elements to tweak to make them work. Things to try, things that might help her see for herself what works. Diplomacy is not something I came by overnight. My nature is more than a little impulsive so it did take years to make it a habit. Some people fear that diplomacy is about ass-kissing, watering down your voice or some other nonsense. Diplomacy done well creates listeners and clarifies your points, making people more likely to respect and respond to your ideas.

It's not censorship to consider the weight of your words. It's making sure they do not go to waste, that they aren't misunderstood. The internet is full of people who 'speak their mind' and how often are those people phased out and ignored because they are heavy handed? Self-expression is important but do your words really represent your potential? You don't need to sacrifice wit or humor or style to be diplomatic. In fact, a bit of forethought can enhance it.

While I certainly have the skills to say 'just let me do it', I have to admit I want to push people to grow rather than succumb to my own ego or impatience. I am often inspired by things outside of myself and it seems inspiration is even amplified if I am inspired by someone I've inspired. It's much better to create a creative loop! Feed off of each other, outside of comparison or skill, just feed on the shared experiences.

Beta Update

After doing some skimming around, I've decided to try a relatively obscure online sharing program called BetaBooks. A shame really since the interface looks really promising and I think it definitely needs more attention among authors looking for good beta sharing solution. The interface allows each beta reader to comment freely but privately on the same document (so that the other comments don't clutter or persuade in one direction or another). I will still keep the Google Docs option available if the reader is more comfortable with that option, but I'd love to do a blog on my experience with BetaBooks. I have a good feeling it will get a lot of use from me in the future. 

So when you email me...

Kitacat[at]me[dot]com

You can indicate which sharing options you'd like to use and we can work it out from there.

I'm staying off of social media for the upcoming week to get some writing done, but email and PMs will still be checked. If you know anyone who might be interested in trying the beta read, send them my way. No obligations, no enforced time limit, but I will be acknowledging all contributors in the back of the book and inviting you to participate again for future projects. Beta readers may also get some swag privileges in the future, but definitely a free copy of the finished ebook for their meaningful contribution.

Any new details about the beta will be popping up on my blog, so make sure you are subscribed if you're looking for updates. We'll see how this goes first. Finding beta readers can be extremely difficult so I'm not expecting miracles. 

Going Dry...

To focus on writing rather than getting distracted, I'm taking a short hiatus from social media for at least the next week to get into drafting Part II of UnSung. I will still be checking emails for the beta sign-ups (and checking PM/DMs), but it's always better for me to escape the peanut gallery to pick my own brain.

My 5th book of the Heroes, World and Universe Chronicles has gone up, A World Reborn: Higher Reasoning , but if you want to give the series a try, start with The Truth about Heroes: One of Many for $.99. Or gamble with the first three in the trilogy edition for $4.99. The first two prints are at $20 because they contain illustrations, but most copies fall at $15 because I changed tack. The trilogies are tomes so they fall at $25. I wish I could go lower, but I'd get next to nothing for print if I did. I have all of the hard copies and they're superb quality so certainly not skimping there. It's the one downside to PoD self-publishing. Also, all nine will be released rather quickly, with the final ones out by July 11th. I've sat on this series for so long that it's time to let it go and focus on the many, many, many others queued up.

I haven't yet mentioned it in my blog at this point, but if you like doing fan art, I challenge you to draw my characters! I know in my first book, I described them from the onset (and readers are mixed about whether they like subtle introductions or 'just tell me what they look like already' so I went with what I like). If I drum up enough interest in fan art competitions, I'll consider doing a giveaway in the future. Again, I love to see art of all skill levels, so get creative. I didn't just get into this to show what I could do-- I'm also very interested in what is inspired by it.

In any case, about to start my retreat! I busted ass getting all the covers done for the first series and I hope you like what I came up with, but writing went on the back burner to do it. I gotta get back into writing mode, which usually involves wrangling my toddler of a muse...

Need Beta Readers! Want In?

As you know, I tend to do things out of order and this is the first time I'm introducing beta readers into the process (at my usual better-late-than-never pace of doing things). I'm not requiring readers to sign an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) but I do have a short list of expectations on confidentiality, only to explain to any of the ones new to beta reading. I am not giving any time requirements since this is just Part I and there are two more parts in progress.

Word Count (for Part I): 88,102

Genre: Adult Epic Fantasy

Title: UnSung

Contact Me @ kitacat[at]me[dot]com if you're interested.

Yup, 88K puts it at full novel length already, but I'm not confining the next two parts to a similar size-- whatever it ends up as, it will be. The epilogue will be a lead-in to the next book, so if you are continuing after Part I, there will technically be four phases. If you have any questions, you can email me or we can set up a quicker messaging method, but I do provide some details in the document itself. I'm using Google Docs, so we'll use your Gmail address to link you and it makes any on-the-fly editing or suggestions a snap. I use it for beta reading others' work and it's been a great experience.

Speaking of which, I'm currently reading for a friend so I need to jump back to that and squeeze more of that in tonight. I'm hoping to compile a list within the next week or two, so no hurries. Feel free to pass it along to anyone who might be interested. 

Thanks in advance to anyone who offers their time towards helping me improve and grow as an author. If you want to check out a vastly different series, my first series is available on Amazon, all queued up to be published fully by July 11th of this year. Check out my site HERE for details. If you want to pick up UnNamed, you're welcome to, but I would also LOVE to have readers that can tell me if UnSung works as a standalone.

Self-Publishing: A Process

In writing groups, I see quite a few people getting hooked into the promises of vanity presses-- people who claim they have a successful team of artists, editors, printers at their disposal, but very few (if any) are more than clever advertisers looking to do anything more than run off with your money. When you dig a little deeper, it becomes clear that to protect your work, you must be mindful of who they are using, which rights you are retaining when you sign anything and if they are going to be proactive in marketing a new author or if they leave you to that. You can use services like Reedsy to scout your own editors and cover designers and it's not as difficult as vanity presses would like you to believe. With services like KDP, they offer the exact same services for free, only charging on a needs basis if you do use their affiliate for design and editing.

I don't plan on getting into those details here, but building trust can be a daunting task but 'getting what you paid for' isn't an assurance in publishing. Even authors signing on to tradtional publishers get no guarantee of performance unless they or their agent is careful to negotiate the involvement. That being said, I currently do everything on my own. As for getting what I paid for, I certainly have enough student loan debt to necessitate an investment in using my own education.

You've probably heard people insist you must at least have outside editors and cover designers. I wouldn't put stock into that. There are just as many people that think it's okay to get a deal and pay an artist $25 for a cover. Sorry, but that's highway robbery and they're underselling themselves if their work is worth a shit. In truth, if you can't afford any options, it makes sense to learn the skills and gather some beta readers. Certainly pay an artist or editor if you can, but don't shame the starving artists who put in the work and take different risks to get their work out there.

I'd much rather go into what my process has involved. It's taken some time to learn what I want when I present my work. It's going to be different for everyone but I'll share what works for me.

Writing:

It starts with the content. I don't have just one method here. Sometimes I plan, sometimes I just write. Sometimes I edit while I go, sometimes I wait until I draft. Through trial and error, I've discovered I'm a skeletal writer when it comes to throwing out ideas. Some writers are fluffy and end up having to cut a lot, but I find I am methodical, building first the logic then dressing it up. Because of this, I find it beneficial to edit even in first draft phase. The reason I do this is because I like to print the first draft and edit it with a red felt tip pen and if it's too rough, the edit end up looking like a massacre. While I do like to mark up the grammar and wording, I like to use the margins to make notes of where the story might need more emotional development, action or other detail. I edit almost obsessively and it can be cleansing for me where it can be demoralizing for others. I don't find it blocks my creativity to switch between writing and editing. In fact, it also makes it harder to hit blocks because I don't just accumulate debris that I'm terrified of confronting later. 

TL;DR: Write, edit, write, edit, edit, write, edit x3-- this is a method you will develop with trial and error.

Editing:

Stills deserves its own section despite its mixed presence in my writing process. If you need something more structured then it's easier to keep to a simple guideline; even if you do pull in an editor, you should self-edit the entire manuscript at least three times. First draft, edit, second draft, edit, final draft, edit is the least you should do. Should, but don't have to. Some of us are more grammatically inclined or detail oriented or chaotic about when and where. I will advise walking away from a project midway through and staying away from it for a week or so for at least one of the edits. The more you can discipline yourself to become a stranger to your work, the more you can efficiently criticize and catch things you might have been blinded to. Editing is proofreading, fact checking, consistency, repetition. Yes, if choose to be your own editor then you will need to be patient enough to walk away and wait. It's a passive devotion of time in that you are not actually working on it, but waiting to bring fresh eyes to it. Do some short stories or research papers. I wouldn't advise doing character sheets or maps or origin stories because that isn't distancing yourself from it at all. The discipline for self-editing comes from forcing its absence. I would not consider an edit to be properly done without that step though.

TL;DR: Self-editing requires you to distance yourself from your own work long enough to develop an impartial eye.

Formatting:

I just did a post on this in great detail so let's skip straight to the TL;DR. It's very simple once you figure it out and it's absolutely the most important. You can afford some minor formatting snags but if it becomes too distracting to be read, your book is going to get chucked. Just follow my formatting post and get it right the first time.

Cover Design:

Despite my background as an artist, this was tricky. Not because I wanted something trendy but because self-branding IS difficult. I've done many features concerning the images I do for book design but I wasn't quite learned in creating a brand beyond the first book. I had made the logo designs tie in to each other, but admittedly did not consider placement of other elements such as author name, continuing fonts, etc to be continuing elements. I attempted to remedy this in later books though, paying attention to where items were on the spine where they line up on a shelf or even the color of my blurb boxes. The images are often a key factor in placement and sometimes I do have to sacrifice consistency of alignment to make the elements cooperate with the image. Cover design is both rigid and fluid and requires some amount of sacrifice. What each design needs is very dependent on how effectively you want each element to complement the next. I do plan on doing a post about how to do basic cover art. It should help you make good independent decisions that follow your vision. I've seen many covers touted as bad which were actually effective in either arousing humor or curiosity. Even as an artist, I can still say it's folly to judge a book by its cover. 

TL;DR: cover design is a visual checklist. It's a portal into an experience. Even bad covers can be good.

Uploading:

Prior to uploading, I like to have a folder prepared to go. It contains:

• A .docx of the formatted ebook
• A .PDF of the formatted print book
• The original PSD of the book cover design
• The PDF of the full cover for print
• A .jpg of the front cover only for ebook.

I start with KDP's bookshelf and start a new Kindle book. On the first page, I enter in the book details like author name, title, blurb, etc. On the second, i upload the docx and jpg and then preview to check for errors. I usually set my books up on a pre-order schedule, something I wish they'd do for print in the future. For those, I'm usually stuck with saving it to draft and manually approving it on the release date. After I set that up, it asks if I want to start the paperback so I do. It carries over the ebook info and I upload the PDFs and approve those if they don't catch any errors. I set up pricing then save it.

TL;DR: come on, it's not that long.

Sharing:

I don't really do much by way of marketing so this is more accurate. I set up a way to share release dates over social media. The most time consuming part is updating the website but each book gets placed into the Latest Release section, a marquee in the Books section with excerpt and buy links and a new Fun Facts entry. I also use FaceBook, both my main feed and Page, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, my blog and sometimes Instagram to announce preorders and releases. Beyond that, I don't do much because the writing and designing comes first right now. Because I want to get a web comic going this year too, I need room to be creatively experimental. I would love to hire a marketing guru someday to handle this part of it, even if it's the only investment I make. I have to say, I actually love the other parts enough that I'm not desperate to outsource the rest. This was part of the reason I pulled out of searching for traditional publishers. I do actually love the process of formatting, editing and designing on top of the writing. 

It will be exciting to change that up for what a web comic demands. And yes, I will continue writing books. The current frenzied frequency will slow down after the summer but UnSung and its series' partners, UnHeard and UnVeiled, will follow. I may be pursuing either the Piscine novel or the YA fantasy series after but writing will continue alongside the webcomic.

In any case, just did the Flying Pig Marathon yesterday so I'm finishing up this recuperation day with writing a blog from the comforts of bed, but the close call of dropping it on my face a few times means I've tempted fate long enough.

I hope this sheds some light on your possible process. Don't let prevailing attitudes bully you from at least attempting a new experience. You very well can try and fail and pull your book and rebrand it anytime-- the beauty of self-publishing. I may be pulling my first book to redo the cover design. I ended up being more consistent with the other covers so I'd like to at least make that one line up. I do need to swap in an editted PDF. I ended up changing a few things in the ebook and trilogy versions that were left in the first book. Might squeeze that in in the next few weeks. Might have a surprise there too. I'm plotting but time will tell.