about creating books

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Here you’d think I’d be relieved to finally be done with my last book, and yet this week I already started working on the next one!

I’m sure part of it is simply because this one got dragged out so long – I literally started putting that book together last fall, but got side-tracked, then we moved, then I got side-tracked some more. It didn’t help that I’ve been working through issues with my printer for the last month – it was actually all ready to go around the end of June, but every order I received had print errors that just kept dragging on and on! But we’re not here to talk about that right now…

Instead I kind of just wanted to ramble about the process in general because like most creative things that I do, I really enjoy the end result even if there are points throughout the process that seem arduous or sometimes even mundane. Books in particular are kind of a big deal because I’m really fortunate in a number of ways to even have the opportunity to be publishing them – a lot of stars have to align, from having written the actual content first of all to having the technical knowledge about how to put the things together, being able to squibble up enough design know-how to come up with a cover that looks halfway decent, and then having a print-on-demand option that will still allow me to make more than pennies a book for my efforts.

I’m definitely greatful because it becomes painfully clear at all of the various points throughout this process just how delicately my ability to publish my own books hangs in the balance – it became quite clear with my printer issues because as much as I may have wanted to get angry and pitch a fit, they’re really my only option other than to not print books for profit right now, and thus it was required as a business decision to play nice and give them the benefit of the doubt.

…or even several benefits of said doubt…

But it could’ve been anything else – what if I wasn’t able to come up with a cover design that didn’t look amateurish like 99% of other self-published books? Luckily for this one, being based on our comic strip I had some old graphics to fall back on to bring the design together, but it’s still a fear for the next book because even though I mostly have the 50-60 columns for my next humor book picked out as of a few days ago, I still haven’t the foggiest idea what I’m going to do for the cover yet. I think the last one turned out ok, but there’s always that little bit of fear over whether your next project will be deemed better or worse.

So anyways, I’ve got a sneaky feeling that I’ll feel this exact same way after I finish the next one, too, which should really be in the next couple of months. And you could argue that two books in one year sounds like a lot, but actually next year I want to do three, so we’re really only getting started! That’s another part of it – my long-term business plan has me ramping up even more work as the years pass, so it’s not like this creative anxiety is going away or anything.

Plus, next year’s books will feature two that are based on content that hasn’t already been created yet, so in addition to the stresses of making the physical book, I’ll also have to worry about actually writing the stuff that goes inside, which oddly enough hasn’t been as much of an issue to date because books 1-3 have all been (and #3 will be) covering content that I wrote years ago. I’m sure that’ll invite along a whole new set of challenges for what it’s worth, but if there’s another thing that I’m finally starting to pick up on, it’s that you can’t get worked up about what might happen tomorrow because you’ve still got work to do today, and that work for me today is my next humor book.

Hi ho, hi ho – it’s off to make books I go…

creepy bug pic?!

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I know we haven’t had one of these in a while, but I just couldn’t resist after discovering this ugly beast glaring at us through the sliding glass door…


The first picture best shows his size because he was a good couple of inches long, but I also had to include the second one as well just to give an indication of how angry this mother-fucker looked! It was as if he was ready to cut through the glass and carry Cleo off to his lair to be fed to his minions!!! Shortly after taking this, Sara doused him with a heavy dose of wasp-be-gone because we didn’t want Cleo finding him later and getting stung in the process of what she tends to do with every single other bug that she finds.

campaign photo highlights

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Our new campaign actually has a public wiki to share info about the world in which we’re playing (whereas the last one used Yahoo! Groups, which is a closed system), so hopefully as soon as I can figure out how to upload these to the wiki I’ll be able to just provide links to the new galleries as I create them, but in the meantime, here are a handful of fun pics from the two sessions that we’ve played in Keedrah thus far…

solar power

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Sometimes I wish that more people were excited about the prospect of solar power.

I mean, I understand that it’s still kind of expensive and all, but I’ve got to think that it would be a big step in the right direction even if every new home that was built these days had its own solar panels, thus requiring only a fraction of power from the grid as existing homes … if not being able to sell back a little excess to boot! It just seems like with resources becoming more and more limited and pollution going through the roof, maybe it’s time to invest in clean energy solutions that don’t come with the harmful effects that buying coal or nuclear-based power from the local utility is associated with.

This post was inspired by a couple of links that I stumbled across the other day – the first being a really cool infographic citing the financial impacts of homes going solar:
http://1bog.org/blog/infographic-what-if-solar-were-on-every-roof/

And the second (possibly from the comments of the first) being a 1-year review of solar power from a consumer who installed it in his home last year:
http://snorkie.com/post/2011/07/27/One-Year-of-Solar-Power.aspx

The second blogger does make mention that part of his motivation for doing this was being conservation conscious himself, which I know some folks may not put a priority on over cost, but I’d like to think that if enough people who were in that position to make the choice began err’ing to the side of solar, one would think that eventually the costs would work themselves down to an area that would be more affordable for the average Joe. Besides, after seeing some of the crazy electric bills that we’ve gotten this summer, who wouldn’t drool at the thought of not getting a bill in the mail each month?!

confused by the debt ceiling thingy

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I’m going to come right out and just admit that I don’t really understand this whole “debt ceiling” thing.

Maybe it’s that I don’t understand how government debts even work in the world, but I guess it confuses me how we’re allowed to just vote and raise our own debt limit. Wouldn’t it make a lot more sense if the creditors that are giving us that money in the first place were the ones to make the decision??? I mean, I can’t just call up Chase tonight and say, “Hey, guys – my wife and I were talking and because we really want to buy a new boat, we’re going to need to increase our spending limit. We’ll take another $5,000 – thanks!”

Of course, the other side of the discussion is simply how ridiculous it all is in the first place … and a little bit scary for generations to come, frankly. To continue the personal finance comparison, you can’t pay off debts without making sacrifices, and seeing as the entire focus of basically everything is always about reduced spending (that rarely ever happens) along with reducing taxes, it’s silly to think that we could ever possibly make progress on a $15 trillion debt like that. Honestly, I don’t really have a problem paying my taxes, even though I might grumble a bit when I’m writing the check each year, but likewise I understand that services cost money and I think one role of the government is to sustain public services for the greater good like police and fire and libraries and schools and museums. I know a lot of people don’t share my view on the first part – they don’t want to pay taxes and because they don’t personally use museums, for example, themselves, then only those who use them should pay for them…

And if you want to get stupid about the argument, I personally don’t believe in the wars that we’re in right now, so why not just let the people who believe in those pay the $200 billion a year that they’re costing us and my tax dollars can go towards something useful, like roads and schools and a space program. The idea that one year of war costs us the equivalent of the entire 30-year run of the space shuttle program ($196 billion) to me is but one sign that war is just a pit that we’re dumping money down that clearly we don’t even have to begin with.

But we can’t cut spending on the wars because … terrorism.

So I guess our options are…

  • Give up on the idea of paying off our debts, eventually watch our economy collapse as the US dollar is deemed basically worthless.
  • Continue to cut worthwhile programs focusing on education and local public safety and research towards the future because war is too profitable to quit.
  • Lower taxes for corporations in hopes that they’ll create new jobs, even though they won’t.

Seriously, is there even a way that we can get out of this at this point? Right now when I look over our options and the direction that our politicians are taking us, it seems like the only sacrifice that they’re willing to make is that of future generations. Sucks to be our children’s children, I guess…

getting sidetracked…

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I’ve been having a hard time trying to focus lately.

It came to the point this week when I finally just took a break from the ridiculously massive project that I’m working on now and started dabbing in a couple of newer ones that I currently have scheduled to do after the big one actually completes. And I’ve got to tell you – it was a nice change, to the point where I know already that it’s going to be a real bear to eventually refocus and get back on track to finish the gigantic monster of a project that has otherwise been dominating my life for the better part of this year.

I mean, I guess I’ve been doing it for 7 months so far (going on 3 years, if you really want to nitpick), and while I’m absolutely thrilled with the results, frankly I’m also just really tired at this point and wish for the love of god that it was actually done already!

On the upside, at least I can say that this one by far is the single biggest thing that I have in my “pipeline” for at least the next year or so, meaning that once it’s finally done, all of my projects going forward are considerably smaller and I should be able to complete them in a matter of weeks, as opposed to months upon months…upon months. Plus, and I’m sure I’ll talk more about this later as I get closer to the new year, I’m really looking forward to putting a lot of this “web development work” aside for a while and just focusing on writing new stuff next year. I’ve had (and still have) a lot of core things that need to be aligned across the various things that I’m writing, but once all of that gets wrapped up, I “should” be good for another year or two to allow me to focus my efforts elsewhere for a change…

Now what was I specifically working on this evening again??? I honestly don’t even remember at this point!

A Lifetime at Shawshank

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Instead of actually writing and being productive this evening, I spent a good portion of time watching The Shawshank Redemption after coming across it on HBO. It’s one of those movies that I’m excited to watch just about anytime that it comes on…and not in the bad movie sort of way, either.

I especially love how it keeps a sense of humor through the whole ordeal while also dealing with some very serious issues – corruption and abuse of power in the prison system, the difficulty in adapting back into society after one gets out, and of course ultimately, the idea of being locked up for the better part of your life for a crime that you didn’t actually commit (is it still considered a spoiler 17 years after the movie came out?). Sure, it’s a dry humor … as one would kind of expect from being in prison under a life sentence … but Morgan Freeman has some great delivery through the narration of this movie – makes me think listening to the man read the phonebook would be just as riveting as listening to him read the Constitution or something.

Plus, I like that everything works out for Andy and Red at the end – it’s really neat to see Red’s journey to find his friend once again after getting released on parole … a bit morose just because he’s been through so damn much, but also hopeful and determined. The fade out when he walks up to Andy working on his boat on the beach does a perfect job of leaving you saying, “Man, that was a great movie…”

Granted, I suppose technically I was supposed to be working, but still, a great movie nonetheless! 😉

Suave. Dog.

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Could someone please tell Cleo that no normal dog sits like this, all sly and cocked to one side like she just sent one of the cigarette girls to fetch her smoking jacket for her???


She won’t listen to me. Just mutters something along the lines of, “Scamper along kid, you’re bothering me…” before flipping another page in her magazine while she waits for the ladies to freshen up…