Andrew McEwan's Blog: Words Are the Gravy On the Mashed Potato of Life - Posts Tagged "xmas"
Cover To Cover
There are bloggers and there are bloggers. And then there are non-bloggers like me, mere after-the-fact word-spinners with only a rhythm in mind, a sculptural beat. We Know Not What We Write writers who hope mid-paragraph to discover a meaning, metaphor/shape.
Confused?
You can only do what you do. If your doings don't appeal, well, they are not undone. Merely suspended in time and space. That is: unread.
Still confused? Me too.
But enough of that. I've been concentrating a lot lately on ebook covers. A good cover is worth its weight in pixels it seems. And I don't disagree. They are fucking hard to get right though. On the plus side you can easily update a cover online. On the down side a bad cover will condemn your words to the realm of indifference, for they will be overlooked.
(see above)
Being skint, impatient and not owed any favours, all but two of my ebook covers are my own work. I say work, but that's stretching the point. They are lacklustre and lazy. I am trying hard to redeem myself but find I'm running into an old problem: talent falls short of imagination. A younger incarnation of myself fought a pen at school but his handwriting was always shit. Similarly, that same boy had a head full of pictures he found it impossible to delineate. Haphazard, thirty second cartoons I can rattle off; with captions. Detailed, intricate drawings of spectacular three-dimensional landscapes? Forget it.
Thus do I write!
Anyway, I bought a graphics tablet and have married this to SketchBook Express, which is excellent and free. I mean to try it with the equally free Gimp, but having previously downloaded that app my then computer crashed. I have since upgraded the hardware but as I type not relaunched. Which is besides the point. Layers! Yes, I have figured that much out. Each image on a different plane. Sounds familiar somehow...
In summary I'm experimenting and learning at the same time. This is how things should be. Most things at least.
Pencilled in for 2013 is a relaunch of Ocellus and the first rendition of The Orange Propeller, jacketed as befits twins of a peculiar bent, glorious in colour schemes to make the goddess blush.
That they might be read.
That is, stripped.
Confused?
You can only do what you do. If your doings don't appeal, well, they are not undone. Merely suspended in time and space. That is: unread.
Still confused? Me too.
But enough of that. I've been concentrating a lot lately on ebook covers. A good cover is worth its weight in pixels it seems. And I don't disagree. They are fucking hard to get right though. On the plus side you can easily update a cover online. On the down side a bad cover will condemn your words to the realm of indifference, for they will be overlooked.
(see above)
Being skint, impatient and not owed any favours, all but two of my ebook covers are my own work. I say work, but that's stretching the point. They are lacklustre and lazy. I am trying hard to redeem myself but find I'm running into an old problem: talent falls short of imagination. A younger incarnation of myself fought a pen at school but his handwriting was always shit. Similarly, that same boy had a head full of pictures he found it impossible to delineate. Haphazard, thirty second cartoons I can rattle off; with captions. Detailed, intricate drawings of spectacular three-dimensional landscapes? Forget it.
Thus do I write!
Anyway, I bought a graphics tablet and have married this to SketchBook Express, which is excellent and free. I mean to try it with the equally free Gimp, but having previously downloaded that app my then computer crashed. I have since upgraded the hardware but as I type not relaunched. Which is besides the point. Layers! Yes, I have figured that much out. Each image on a different plane. Sounds familiar somehow...
In summary I'm experimenting and learning at the same time. This is how things should be. Most things at least.
Pencilled in for 2013 is a relaunch of Ocellus and the first rendition of The Orange Propeller, jacketed as befits twins of a peculiar bent, glorious in colour schemes to make the goddess blush.
That they might be read.
That is, stripped.
Words Are the Gravy On the Mashed Potato of Life
...there may be lumps in either or both.
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