Insane Xade's Blog

I finally finished it, and Wazzy has the cover done. All that is needed is for Wazzy to go over the final half of the book and I can publish it. As you can see I updated the entry image to the left. I would have posted sooner but I kept forgetting to. I also started working on Insanity of Xade the book today, which reminded me to double check the spelling of Barkardo and prompted me to write down this blog entry. I decided to write out IoX then make it into a comic if I decide to go back to comicking. That way I have a final script and know beyond a shadow of a doubt what I will be wanting. Anyhow, here is My Deviant Art so you can see the cover all blown up. Stop by and tell us what you think

In other news I have been playing a game called Champions Online. Look me up if you play @insanexade I've been bringing my comic characters to life and really fleshing out Frank. I think the game has really been a tool to help me develop IoX

Best. Book. Ever! English Grammar For Dummies is the best investment for your lunch money you will ever find if you are a writer. Within minutes of reading some of it I realized why my book told a good story but did not do the story justice. My commas were misplaced. My quotes were misused. My descriptions were improperly describing the scenes. All in all I had run on sentences smashing against each other. Fragments were fragmenting the style. And commas in the wrong places, or not enough of them.

Wazzy had sent me a link to one of her stories and we came to a disagreement over the grammar. It soon came down to a mild argument. In my infinite wisdom, or just wanting to prove my point once and for all, I bought the grammar book. To my surprise we were both wrong yet also right on many accounts. I took a long look at my writing and immediately realized what I should do. I yanked the book off my virtual shelves. Then I posted a note saying I needed to revise and started to do so at once. Armed with the knowledge of the grammar book, I watched as my words flowed much easier. Then I examined Artemis Fowl, a book series that I really enjoy, and saw that Colfer uses the same rules.

All right, so I am working on that problem. What other problems with reading my second book did Wazzy have? The setting. Plain out right, the setting. I did not spend enough time setting up the world. Wazzy is a visionary. What I mean is, she literally sees what she is reading in her mind. What a gift she has! Oh if only I could do the same! Ahem, sorry. Anyway, She often found herself either imagining them talking in a blank void, or a fantastic setting punctuated by a character pulling out a cell phone. This would prove so jarring that it would completely spoil the image for her. Also she pointed out that Twilight has basically stolen my idea of sparkle use. What a let down that was. In the years since I first wrote the first crappy draft, back in 88, I used the word sparkle for the magic display. The magic style, is what I called it. So I also needed a new magic style.

So, this morning Mom and brainstormed. Now, the thing you must know to understand this is that the Xadian humans are descended from a group of hippies. As such, they only took 1960's technology with them. This means that although they have common things to us, Xadians took a completely different path from there. After a number of laughs, a lot of arguing, and some long silences of thought, Mom and I mashed out the fine details.

Now, as I am working on the first book, again, I am adding more flair to the world. They now wear tunics and 1960's style bell bottom pants. They also wear fantasy boots. The children enter information into datapads with keyboards, not notebook computers. Long hair is in style, many of the children wear headbands. Then there is this little oddball in the corner of the room. Aden doesnt wear loose clothes. His clothing is tight against his body. Loose clothes are easy prey for sharp unicorn teeth. Since he is using pen and paper, this sets him even further apart than he already is. BOOM! I have my setting. The rest is just grammar and actual story telling.

So, back to the drawing board. But this time with correct tools to do the job. I was trying to use a sledgehammer to pound in the nail. Although this is quicker, it is too rough and damages the wood around the nail. Now I have my normal little hammer. It's time to rebuild my house. Wish me luck.

After waiting for a while I got my newest copy of book one. I eagerly ripped it open and examined it's glossy cover. Pleased with it at last, I opened it. The copyright page was the very first page. Not a blank one like there should be, this means that it was on the very first page that you see opposite of the cover. Every single odd page was now an even page and vice versa. After I got over the shock, I thought it must have been a printing error and checked my book. It was a printing error, my own printing error. Somehow I deleted the first page. What a catastrophe! I set it down on my little printer and haven't touched it since. It's just too much for me right now. Maybe later I will read it, right now it's just collecting dust. I'll probably ebay it later when I'm rich and famous

Anyhow, after brooding over it for a while I came up with a plan to prevent that in the future. Divide the pages up and reuse what I can. So I came home and promptly did that. Now there are three files per book, Blank, first six pages and the story. Naturally, the blank and story can be used for both paper and hardback books. This will make it much easier for me to edit it, actually. Now I am back to two copies of the book instead of three, much more manageable. Anyhow, that's it for today. See ya

Now to go over it with a fine tooth comb and go over it about fifteen times XD

Thanks to Wazzy over on Deviant Art, who did my bubble child avatar I really fleshed out the main hero of the story, Vincent Pricer's appearance and added a few things to his personality to make him even better than before based on some concept work. Soon as we have something concrete I will show whatever readers I have here. As it stands he now has a rather flamboyant outfit suiting his dramatic personality. I have been sending Wazzy daily and sometimes twice a day notes and eagerly await her replies. We really fleshed out his hair style and made him drastically different from the first book's version. He appeared as a bit part in the first book and because I kind of felt so sorry him I explored him in the second book. Somehow, I have a feeling that this book will really take off and sell the first one. It really is my best piece of work. I am not slandering ARW or anything but this one actually seems to be equal if not better than the first book, thanks to wazzy. She is such an excellent artist that I might see if I can buy Cory's images for the interior cover image and have her redo the first book's cover if I like what she does for the second. I might even be able to redesign Aden's simple little country boy with a T-shirt and jeans and make a second edition. I've always found that I am somewhat lacking in the detail when it comes to colorful character descriptions. I guess it's just my simple little country girl personality surfacing.

Take an additional 20% off my book with coupon code "CITHARA20" at checkout!

I was eating my breakfast while I checked my inbox on my crappy little phone (I so want a tablet) when I saw this code in my inbox Hurry, you only have until September 7th to use it so make sure you take advantage of the code asap or it will be gone until next time! Hurry! Buy before Friday. BTW lulu.com takes credit/debit cards, even the prepaid varity if you care to set one up at your local big chain store.


PS what do you think of my new promo star? I whipped that up in about 20 minutes time and made it all fancy with some layer effects ^_^ I kind of like it

It ate up a lot of my profits, I mean a lot of my profits and I had to mark up the books so high it wasn't funny. However, on the bright side I was able to add a lulu.com discount to offset that. So, they're still quite reasonable over on my store. I really need to get some business cards, as in asap but I don't fancy their price. Sure they are sweet and nice but $197 for 500 front and back with glossy cover is a little steep. I could do better myself via vistaprint or something. However, I now have official isbns which is wicked cool and even my own barcodes I had to add in place of the lulu.com ones. I mean wow! Now people can look it up by isbn and scan and everything, once it's distributed. This more than anything makes me feel exceptionally happy. What would make me feel even happier is actually selling some books, even if it was just the ebook, which I just marked down to $5.50 just to try to sell a few more. The profit is still quite respectable, even in the app stores. Now, all I need to do is wait. I do hope that I caught most of the errors and stuff. I mean I had 48 of them this time, but they were basically me rewording things to flow smoother. I think if I go through it one more time I will scream.

In the second book's progress I am on chapter sixteen and at 308 pages. I just finished re-reading it and found a couple plot holes to fill in. One of the main hero's skills cannot be used someplace and I accidentally had it used in an earlier place in the book. The hero is a little more powerful than I like to deal with, so I had to add some very firm limitations to his power. I want him to remain human, or in his case elfish, enough to be believable. I do not want to have the Gary Stu syndrome. He makes mistakes. There are people who just doesn't like him. However, he has a tragic past. But almost everyone has suffered from some tragic thing at some time in their lives so I'm good there.

Anyhow, the store is all set up with the final prices and we'll go from there I'll make some little buttons sometime. In the mean time I just added a little html nugget over on the right.

Here is my spotlight I finally decided to publish it and I put the paperback on sale for 10% off.
Here Just so you can add it immediately to your cart.
Paperback 10% off for the first week!

Hardback

Ebook!

I've been working quite hard at making sure my book is 100% perfect, I've been taking my time with it, and double checking everything. My ETA is Next week. Just to let you all know I'm still around When I get it all three copies of the book, ebook, paperback and hardback will be here So Right click, chose bookmark and add it somewhere. You know I'll be Tweeting and telling the world about my book when it is up. To tide you over here is the blurb.

Everyone has allergies. Some people are allergic to grass or cologne. Rarer allergies include money, or household chemicals. Aden Welex has an allergy so rare that it has no name and makes no sense. Aden is allergic to technology. Any technology, it doesn't matter what it is, gets destroyed by his touch or receives interference if he pays attention to it. Computers explode if he plays with them, phones die within seconds if he tries to use them. Even his own watch stops dead if he pays attention to it.

He wasn't born with it, oh no, it happened the exact moment he turned fourteen. Suffering with this techno-allergy for almost two years, Aden has no idea what caused it and is too poor to go to the big city to have an accredited doctor look at him.

A chance discovery of a dead king with his magic book and sword suddenly explains this allergy. Aden is a wizard. Not just any wizard, but the descendant of a number of famous wizards on the distant world of Xade. As luck would have it he had a terrible experience with magic, resulting in a deep fear of his own magic. However, the current king needs him and his magic to protect the kingdom against the evil wizard king Thour. Can Aden overcome his reluctance of wizardry in time to save the kingdom of Spectra?

Anyhow, this should be good for now, I'll add sidebar for the most important entries or something. Here it is as a store snapshot. :0

I had no idea that so many typos slipped through the book. Fifty-seven of them, of various types and stuff. I hope I found them all. It would be quite embarrassing to have readers comment on my blog that there was typos galore in my book. Most of them was minor, just missing or misplaced commas but a few was grammar and a number of them was no period at the end of a return. There was also a couple detail things relating to the book and even a couple things that I had to change to make way for Without a Will. Furthermore, there was a couple things wrong in the cover and I decided to add a number one on the bind, since it is the first book. I sampled a pretty color from the background and went from there. I'll probably reread it again to look for more typos, I dont have the money to order another one. At least this book held up to being read, unlike the one this one replaced. I was so shocked to see the pages come out and I am quite pleased that they redid the order with all revisions. I made a hardback version too with the same file as paperback. That way my readers will have a choice

Nothing much about without a will except that I kind of slowed down a little. Been thinking about having the hero and villain doing almost the same thing as the hero and villain did in the first book but a different locale. It would open up a rather silly joke at the hero's expense. It still irks me that I had to chop out the one joke so maybe I'll do this one instead. Of course the first joke was rather cruel on the Hero's part but this hero isn't quite as nice as Aden so it wouldn't be out of character.

Well, anyway, Im going to hit the hay, im tired

After waiting for a good long while the book is finally here! I think the blue doesnt show up that well so I doubled the size of it in the psd. So far I like what I see besides one tiny little detail that I can edit out in the final version since I already made a little revision. when it came to the story breaks I want it to be three stars (*) in the dead center and spaced evenly apart. At one time I made a style to do it but instead, when I made the ebook I had to remove the style of both the heading 2 and the stars to be in the normal but altered for fit the original requirements for the style. This meant going through it and removing the indent, centering it, and in the chapter name's case adding bold, italic and boosting the font up a hair. Quite tedious, really but I suffered through it. Now I have two copies of the same book, oh joy. Also, I realized the very first page of the actual book should not have a header but all the other ones should, so I changed that in the document. Good thing I don't have to worry about that in the ebook But any changes to the text in the main book will have to be located in the ebook section. This will be quite some fun, and I will apply myself fully to this wonderfully complex task that I have to do in order to ensure it is perfect.

In Without a Will's news I ended up hiring Wazaga of Deviant Art as the cover artist. She says she has a better idea for the actual cover I can hardly wait to see what it is about and sent her all related images. Sadly, I had to reject a long time fan's artwork. He needs more practice but he said he will work very hard to improve by the time book three needs a cover. I hope I left him plenty of encouragement and I know I gave him lots of links to help him improve. Please don't be mad at me, I am only trying to do the best for my work. A cover is the very first impression that a potential reader will see and it has to be a really good one or they will pass it by.

Again I had to crop a very interesting confrontation between the hero and villain because I stalled out. This also included a rather funny joke but ah well, maybe I can find a place for it somewhere else. I need to keep the pace moving smoothly like I did in ARW. In the previous chapter I had an eleven page battle and Mom really enjoyed it, she said the pacing was excellent and did not seem drawn out. I do not want the pacing to suffer but I do want to have a nice climatic battle between hero and villain.

Anyhow, I guess that's about all I want to talk about today. thanks for reading!

I can hardly wait until I get to hold it in my hands. I am even more excited than the first time because I know it will be almost 100% complete. I am seriously thinking about opening up preorders to my friends. I hear lulu.com has bulk discounts. Maybe if I get enough prepaid orders I can make a good profit going. I hope so, for I have a lot of people who might be willing to buy it, which doesnt include online friends.

I already decided on Without a Will's color for the cover. It's right over on the right where I put all the other little related images Go on, click on it and see it's awesomeness! There's no image of course but Cory had such an excellent idea that I decided to run with it and have a little image inside a box. I chose a pretty cobalt blue. I don't know what the other books will have as the background, or even what they will be called, but I have plenty of colors thanks to paint shop pro's change to target brush. I've used this with some outstanding results involving some old Role Player Game Maker XP games I tried to do but I merely got over that. I've often thought about returning to game maker, even going as far as downloading and fiddling around with Unity but never really went that far with it. I think my calling is painting mental images and writing stories for others to enjoy, not game making.

Anyhow, I sent back the tablet with priority mail, it should be there tomorrow, and I should get my refund then too. I think I'm just going to wait and get this from NewEgg It will run all that I need, most likely and I can even run atlantis and everything else on it that I use, including blender and my paint programs. I might even just use it as a netbook replacement and sell my netbook or give it to Mom. Although the slate only has one usb slot I can easilly expand it if I need to and with the bluetooth keyboard option, which I'll get, then it's really super easy to use it. If my book really takes off that will be my reward ^_^

And I am pretty happy with the way it came out. I think 6 bucks would be a good solid price for it. I would make a bigger profit on that than the paperback. I got an email about the order for lulu and I am happily awaiting the book itself. I would show off the snap shot but it's about the same thing besides the tiny little word E-Book I added. This is so I can easilly see which one sold. I cannot wait until I can open my virtual doors and say come and get the copies! I am so thrilled.

In other news I got my tablet back however, it does not seem to be charging. I am sorely tempted to send off an email to them. of course there is no possible way to open it and get to the battery to replace it. I thought they would inspect it. I was assured they would inspect it but but that seems to be a major flaw in it. I'll give it until I get up in the morning then send off the email. If it does not charge I am going to be totally ticked off and demand my money back with the shipping costs! I mean come on, I know its three times the charm but I cannot afford to send it off again! it better work! I will never ever get anything from china again. I didnt want to get it in the first place but they tricked me into doing it by having a "usa depot" I will not be ripped off again. They WILL pay return shipping. This is BS. I broke it open and looked at the battery but it is connected. This is bull crap. The only thing wrong with it is the battery. It keeps time and everything else. It makes me so depressed. I thought I had a good tablet but I guess I never will To top it all off I accidentally ruined m y 32 gig card so CENSORED! a 17.50 card roached. But maybe I can do something kind of sneaky and get a new one.

Well, it's one step closer to completion, the cover is finally done! Below is the store picture snap. I hope it isnt too much that I'm asking for. I would like to have a little bit of profit. Currently it is at 3.68 and I will give some of that to Cory since he worked so freaking hard on the wonderful cover. I must give a shoutout to blambot.com for having such fitting fonts. I made a special note to the site in the links section. I give it maybe a week before I get the final proof, read it and release it to the public. And I know my friends have been waiting oh so patiently I know one thing I love how it looks. I can hardly wait to hold it in my hands and read it! I mean I am so excited that nothing can bother my mood! Okay Girl, calm down, it's approaching bedtime so I need to settle down.

Okay, now, those of you who tried to visit the main site and got redirected here please be assured that it is only temporary. What is also temporary is the size of the sidebars, I need to make room for the Project Wonderful ad. I'll css them both a little bit bigger and probably work on a new improved layout. I will probably keep the basic layout I have, just make it blue to match the book with graphics and stuff instead of text links. I might even add a nav bar if I decide I like Serendipity. It is definitely better than the old blogging software I was using before. The site loads clean and there are few problems and best of all I do not know one of the major developers so cannot get annoyed at them!

Well, im going to kick back and relax by working on book two some more. Does anyone think they can do the cover?

Well, he added the clock and it is now officially complete. I just need the title itself Cory and I have been bouncing ideas off of each other. He thinks Mighty Zeo 2.0 from blambot should be the "Aden's Reluctant Wizardry" and Arcanum for "Chronicles of Xade" Something similar to the gray thumbnail below, which I made in hexagon because I wanted to see it from all angles. I dont know exactly what we will come up with but it's bound to be nice. I actually wanted to get nate piekos, the owner of Blambot to do it but he had other things to do so I'm left floundering in the dark here. He suggested a site but I was like hmm? and then Nah so I just said fudge it.



I don't really have anything else to say except book two is doing pretty well. I just finished a rather long battle and working on the recovery before dipping the characters back into the fire again. Cory just sent me a pass on the cover for book two so I need to find someone with a style similar to his to make the second cover. Anyone want to sign up?

Well, the hard part is done and I am adding a blog entry featuring Cory's cover, at 50% to the right, which is probably what it will be set at, unless Cory can work more magic and get it properly to size. Trust me the cover is different on the right than the thumbnail on the left that I use as a topic image. Now all I need to do is figure out the actual logo for the comic and what kind of picture goes around the text of back cover, if anything. Maybe I'll just have it fade out to one color by the time it reaches the bind. We haven't really discussed this yet. Most of then time Cory and I just talk about the front cover. We've just now started chatting about the font of the title. I think he has a nice idea but I dont know. I do know I will still need just the front cover for the ebook version of it.

Anyhow, once the cover is complete I will be getting the final proof copy and reading it one final time before finally getting it published on lulu.com. Maybe I will actually get enough money up to get out of debt but I would be just happy to see my book take off like a rocket and never come back down. People tell me it's best seller material. I sure hope so, I have a bunch of local friends and online friends too who want to buy it from me. I can't wait.

In other news my tablet is finally going to come back to me, probably by tomorrow. I found various tools to help me back up. Since I now know it is rooted This one, I hope I can use to completely back my boot images and maybe even make a clockwork mod out of it. I once had a site that told a person how to make a custom clockwork mod but I lost it somehow and forgot to save it to my bookmarks. I'll probably find it again later when I no longer need it. I really want to mod it. The first one I had always lost time and it got quite annoying to always reset the time. Maybe this one won't lose time. I just simply cant wait to play with it and get all my games back on it

Well, that's it for now, have fun everyone

Insane Xade