MultiMind's Blog, page 10

Grammys! Hurr Durr.

Huh, none too clever with the title. It’s all vague and such. Oh wellz.

I learned recently that, once the Kinetics audiobook is out, I can actually join as a voting member of the Recording Academy – The Grammys, in other words. (How I found out: Viola Davis won a Grammy for her audiobook narration of her memoir, getting EGOT status (Billy Porter ought to be next, he is also deserving), and thus I started looking)

Here’s what you need to become a member of the Recording Academy/The Grammys, so sayeth their site (under Voting Member):

Two strong recommendations from music industry peersProof of a primary career focus in music, including but not limited to:Active marketing and promotionsAwards and honorsEstablished online presence. If pertinent to craft, current and historical touring dates/performances, fan base interaction, music videos, charts or streaming statistics, current releases available, etc.Press such as interviews, highlights, reviews by relevant outletsProfessional support system (e.g., manager, booking agent, publicist, etc.)Twelve commercially distributed, verifiable credits in a single creative profession. At least one of those credits should be within the previous five years.All tracks must be commercially available in the United States, either through recognized online music retailers/streaming services (defined as paid, full catalog, audio-only, on-demand streaming and/or limited download subscription services) or physical distribution retail stores.

Let me explain a credit: A single “credit” is a single track/song.

Let’s say there is an album (which is an entire body of work) and it has 12 songs on it. People make them and thus, those people have to be credited for making them (aka “their name has to be on the work since they made it”). Lets say one person made/sang the entire album. That one person has 12 songs/tracks on the album. Remember, each song they are credited in making/singing is a single credit. That album would satisfy the “12 credits” part of the entry rules and thar they go for that bit.

But! Let’s say there are two people on the album, Person A sang/made 6 songs, Person B sang/made 6 songs. 12 songs/tracks on the album in total but Person A and Person B can only get 6 credits each because they only did 6 songs and, remember, 1 song is a track and one track is a credit.

I hope that made sense.

I would technically be getting in based on my audiobooks because I do engineer, direct and produce them. I do all the “behind the curtain work” as well as one of the most important “crowd facing” part of the work – I wrote it. My narrator can also get in (Soraya Butler, my narrator for Dreamer and Kinetics, is already part of SAG-AFTRA) because she is the performer. That means we both get credits for my audiobook, as far as Grammys are concerned. It also means should I become a member of the Grammys, I can also submit my audiobooks for Grammy consideration, which I would like because I sincerely do appreciate Soraya’s acting and would like for it to be recognized on official measures. Each track/chapter of an audiobook counts as a credit. All my audiobooks so far would clear the “credits number” threshold easily, so I have No. 3 covered.

No. 1, I’m not too worried about because I have enough friends in the industry to ask sweetly for a recommendation. No. 2 is currently building but still what I have now does indeed count. No. 2 basically means “you are a serious artist/participant of the recording/music industry, not a daft Johnny Come Lately.” Producers, engineers, etc also can be included, even though they are the “behind the scenes”.

I have my feelz about the Grammys (this post is a glimmer of those feelz). It is indeed becoming on the way to being a trash/watered down award if they don’t turn the plane around quick on how they handle voting issues in the Grammys and the lack of diversity in the voting class of the Grammys. However, for me, it’s an official stamp of validation of my experiences in the music industry. In other words, it’s proof that I did work, I did participate, I did create. That and because I simply have another personal reason: I just wanna “sit with” my friends who are also voting members of the Grammys. I’m a person, I’m allowed to be complex *shrug*

What do I get if I join? I get to vote in the Grammys and to submit my audiobooks for official consideration (it falls under the category “Spoken Word”). The dues are $100 yearly and it costs about $40-65 to submit a body of work for consideration of winning a Grammy.

The Grammys awards the recorded performance and audio engineering of the work, not how well it was written or not. That falls under literary awards. I already wrote that I’m not too big on Nebulas and Hugos because of the issues I mentioned in my “feelz on awards” post. The Ignyte seems interesting but it looks more like “If you are a person of color who walked off with a Nebula or Hugo, you’re also going to get an Ignyte”. It’s a new award (3 years old at this point) but it makes me feel “the sky is the same everywhere you go”: It’s looking like another award that celebrates basically the same five or so people in the speculative field.

I have a history with the music industry because of my experiences and because of those experiences, I could have joined the Academy earlier … but I wanted to get in on my merits and my art and not because I got in from helping friends and their art. It just would make me feel weird if I did that. I rather go on my own merit and not risk my friendships.

I also wanna wear a pretty ball gown somewhere pretty while sitting with my friends. I cackle at the idea of sitting beside my guy friends in music and they fuss, “Your dress ate my legs … and my phone” from my over-flowing skirt. Lol.

Simple derpy pleasures? Yes. Still means something to me to be part of the Recording Academy, all in all. Probably mars my punk cred a little – which would come right back with all my other experiences in punk – but meh, like I said, I’m a person, I’m allowed to be complex.

Legacy Stories: An Explainer

I tend to call some of my works “legacy stories”. Here is why:

A “legacy story” is a story that has been boppling in my head since I was a teenager. It has been in my head for so long that it has earned “legacy” status. That means it’s been in my head for roughly 20 years. It doesn’t mean I had not written the story down, either as a scene or an attempt to write the whole thing (key phrase: attempt), but that it had not been in full form, from start to finish. I certainly have old journals and typed version from typewriters (yes, I still have a typewriter from when I was a teenager) and floppy disks (I’m born in ’87, duh). I even have my old journals from when I was a teen and I wrote in various colored gel pens, some of which that were scented (and still have their scents! Open a journal and, boom, hit in the face with saccharine strawberry scent. Amazing.). The stories were simply scattered between all these different mediums in bits and bobs.   

Titles that are “Legacy Story” status (Italics mean “soon to go into the publishing process/is fully written and typed”, bold means “still needs to be written”, plain lettering means “already published, about to be published”):

Dreamer

Kinetics

The Glassman

The Harlequin

Butterfly

Darkness, Light and Time

Snow Angel/Cold Angel

I had many, many stories in my head growing up but, to be honest, I melded a lot of stories together, so I could A) reduce my “to write” pile effectively (so I can free it up for newer works) and B) make a better, more cohesive story that I couldn’t as a teenager simply because I didn’t have enough life experiences and skill to do so C) I noticed a lot of reoccuring themes that I could just P-P-A-P them together and call it a day

As you can see, I have a smol list. It’s from a list of almost 30-40 as a teen to about 7. Bits and bobs of legacy works will show up in future works (Such in a future sci-fi roman a clef called Galaxia and its offshoot/connected book titled The Kill Crew Chronicles) but those 7 are the stories that stuck out in my head the most growing up. Be it due to a scene (like the knife/closet scene in Kinetics), an entire story line (like The Glassman), something jarred at me to get the story written throughout the years.

My current “to write” pile is about 15-20 titles. New books pop up all the time. For example, there is an omake (Japanese for “Extra”, for those who don’t read mangas or watch anime) that follows behind The Glassman and Dreamer together. That story itself is probably less than a year old at this current moment – I know because it’s one of the first long works I have written in fountain pen, my new writing process. So, there’s that. In Search of Amika is a massively young story, roughly a year old by the time it got published. So is “Null (Void)”, less than a year old by the time it got published also.

I tried really, really hard to get my works published traditionally but I’m putting them out myself now. I’m actually glad because I have more control over my works, from the cover to the narration. And, most importantly, they’re coming out, period. I wanted to see these books in bookstores and published and they are. I went from zero to seven books slated. No, I’m not traditionally published (which is, frankly, losing a lot of its glossy gleam at this point as an attractive option) but, hey, these works are also not simply lonely files on my computer or only live in my writing drawer as handbound written journals. Someone can go out and read them, wherever they want, however they want.

And it isn’t that I only started attempting to get published traditionally back in 2018 or so, try “longer than that”. Might as well come out now, or they probably, most likely never would have, given how traditional publishing is.

I feel like once I get the legacy stories out the way (and Soaring, which is a quasi-legacy but not quite, I got the idea for that title back when I was an adult working at the Library of Congress), I can focus on other works that have been building up since then, like The Story of Anarcha.  

Patreon

I have a Patreon that, frankly, I don’t use. I started it a while ago because I figured that was what I had to do as a writer in this new digital age.

To be obscenely honest, I don’t think I could keep up with a Patreon. I thought it would be great because I could put all my writing scribbles and stuff that goes into making my books up there but I don’t really have any will to do so. Not because I’m massively protective of my original scribbles, I literally have zero desire whatsoever to do such a thing. Well, now. Later could be a waterfall of scribble works and such. Plus, I have this blog. Maybe I would do a separate tumblr or something but that’s still “More Work That I Have No Desire To Do”.

Not to mention, there are monthly awards for patrons. I can’t come up with something monthly and I have a disorder to consider on top of that, it just wouldn’t work. If I get too much stuff to do, I don’t write. I get flustered instead. Nothing gets done when I’m flustered.

I’m more of a maker, so I’m better at selling Stuff than I am at selling a personality. This means that I probably am more likely to have a random webshop selling book stuff (woo, buying my works direct from me) instead of telling people to donate monthly.

I feel weird at the concept of people donating monthly because it makes me feel beholden to their feelings and thoughts in a way. And what if I say or do something they don’t like (because I have a personality and feelings and thoughts and opinions)? They’re going to feel upset that they threw money at me in the first place. At least with a product, it’s a little different because you were buying a product, not access to my personality.

How I see it:

Throw money at a person: I like the things you do, you are the product.

Throw money at a thing a person makes: I like the things you make, your things are the product.

It’s a little different because I myself do check who I buy from to make sure they’re not a terrible person (in my perspective). If the person is misogynist? I’m extremely not likely to spend on their product, I rather hunt down a dupe or something better across the internet. If I already own the product, I can chuck it out, shelve it permanently or, if it is a recent purchase, return it for a full refund. But that’s different than shelling out money to a person because of their personality, which includes that misogyny. No refunds on that. Nothing to throw out for that.

I feel more comfy at people purchasing my things than simply throwing money at me. At least I feel less … bad? … about it. They got to walk away with something I made instead of me feeling “Ohhhhh, prepare to feel utterly disappointed when I’m not matching the person you are imagining in your head.”

Also, I currently have a job, I work in the field of libraries. I know good and well if I lost that job, I would feel radically different but that’s a bridge I’ll cross if I get there (and hopefully I don’t, that bridge sucks). Even if the worst would occur, I still would rather have a webshop instead of a Patreon because making things for people to buy is better to me than them just shelling out money at me blindly.

I have seen many writers muse on this and say “well, look at it like this, they are paying you to create”. I get that totally … but what if they think your writing has gone sour or you finally wrote something they hated? Back to square one.

Remember, I’m from the music industry and worked with promotions so I know a thing or two about fan culture on the business side – fans can easily get an odd and, at times, very undeserved sense of “I own you” level entitlement. Want to see it in action? Look at some of the things that get said at K-pop stars, especially when they get sick. Or at popular musicians if you don’t feel like crossing the (unbelievably low) language barrier. When you are selling a product (your book, your music, etc), you can at least remind the fan “No, you own your copy of their artistic work, which you chose to have. All the artist owes you is their immense appreciation but you don’t own their life.” When the person is the product, that gets a bit harder to say because it is the person/persona/personality they are paying for. The less of a real product you have to give them, the more that odd entitlement grows. What if I mention I had a meal and it had meat in it? Some fan may feel like since they shell out money to my Patreon for me to continue my artistic livelihood, they have a say in telling me that I need to stop eating meat because they themselves do not eat meat. (By the by, I am developing a major interest in plant-based meats/impossible meat so that’s a work in progress. Vegan food finally got tastier and priced reasonably enough to mimic real meat – but I am currently an omnivore, no matter what. I really like Lightlife and Gardin, though.) Here’s the thing: that would make me too uncomfortable. I have already seen it happen with my more noteworthy friends, they don’t like it and neither do I. There’s offering your opinion and insight but then there is “you need to do this because I give you money to exist”.  Or if the person the fan is doling out money to reveals they are dating or something else fairly innocuous but can be treated like a bombshell revelation.

So, yeah. I’m still going to let the Patreon lay fallow since there are no patrons on it and it took a lot of work to put it up and I’ve no idea if I’ll actually do something with it but I’m not too interested in doing something with it.   

Herbin Ballpoint Fountain Pen & Edelstein Onyx Ink | Kinetics Audiobook is nearly done!

First, the Kinetics audiobook is now done and edited. It should be out and available on all audiobook sites on February 11, 2023. Sorry it took forever but it is here! You can listen to the audiobook sample on the “Published Works” page.

Now, about pens.

I got another pen – yes, I know, I have several – but this one is a ballpoint fountain pen!

I have what I like to describe “a metric crap-ton of ink”. This means I obviously want to use it. I don’t buy ink to donate to Ferris Wheel Press and Dominant Industry, I buy ink to use.

This ballpoint pen is so that I can use it. I wanted a ballpoint fountain pen because A) I had no idea they existed B) I thought it was cool that it existed C) I need to use up my black ink since I don’t really use it for story writing. I only have one bottle of black ink, which was Higgins, an ink I very much did not like. I sent my Higgins ink to a writer friend who I convinced to get a fountain pen and got a different black ink that I hoped I would like, Edelstein’s Onyx ink.

What is a ballpoint fountain pen? It is a ballpoint pen that uses fountain pen ink to work. I don’t like throwing away pens and I prefer to reduce, reuse and recycle so this helps with that. I just have to refill the pen and there you go. I wanted an “everywhere pen”, a pen I carry in my bag for all the times I need to write something and I thus need a pen around. It looks unique enough that I won’t lose it.

For an “everywhere pen”, I prefer black ink only. When I am writing my novels and stories, I want alllllll the colors of the rainbow. Out in the regular, degular world? Black. It’s a stable color and is document safe.

I got an Herbin ballpoint, because it was fairly cheap ($11, usually Herbin pens are way more expensive) and because it was small. Herbin ballpoints do have a fountain pen version but I already have a fountain pen so I only want it to be a ballpoint. I prefer thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin supa dupa fine lines but this Herbin doesn’t believe in “fine line”. It is a medium line at best. If it were for story writing, I would be massively disappointed. As it is an “everyday pen”, I don’t care as much because, hey, I’m just writing on documents and forms when I’m out and about. I don’t get finicky when I go, “Can I borrow a pen?” so no point in getting finicky now.

There really aren’t a lot of ballpoint fountain pens. I think it’s just Herbin and Monteverde (which is a massive price jump, from $11 to $78). There is also Pilot V5 Refillable but those are hard to find. I should know, I own a pack. Pilot pens are for Masterbooks or hand-edits, not as an “everyday pen” so that’s that. Very small crowd, I tell you.

Also, the Herbin is for if I have to sign books on the go. This way, my books are still signed with fountain pen ink. – Oh, wait! I just learned. I now sign my books at home with a glass dip pen and using Ferris Wheel Press’ ink called “Stroke of Midnight”. It’s now a sold out ink so yay, go me. This means that adds to the authenticity of the signatures and ink since it’s not like people can just buy that ink any ol’ where. Back to Herbin. I don’t like to travel with my regular story-writing inks for a litany of reasons. But a regular black Edelstein is fine by me. So, long story short: if your book was signed with a glittery dark blue ink (or red blood-like ink), it was pre-signed. If it was signed with plain black ink, it was signed in-person.

The ink I got was the Edelstein ink in Onyx. I love the look of the bottle and it looked like an ink that does well on copy paper/cheaper paper (when it comes to fountain pen ink, paper does matter). I got a 3ml sample from Anderson Pens (who I super suggest for sample inks) since I don’t plan to run through the black ink as much as it is not being used for story writing, where I use a lot of ink. Once I run out of the 3ml sample, I’ll probably buy a bottle and use that bottle only for my Herbin since the ink writes really well so far. Edelstein Onyx is waaaaaaay better than the Higgins ink. It is also waaaaaaaaaaaaay more expensive than the Higgins ink, at $30 for a 50 ml bottle. A bottle of Higgins is $5.99 for a 75 ml bottle.

One thing I nearly forgot: The Herbin ballpoint doesn’t come with a cartridge so you will need to purchase one if you want to use the Herbin right out the box. I have a Monteverde push/pull cartridge (in opposed to a screw cartridge) and it holds a good amount of ink for what I need it for. I’m not using this pen for creative works therefore I’m most likely going to spot when I’m about to run out of ink, especially since the pen and the cartridge is completely see-through. The cartridge was about $5.

It’s not too bad a pen and I think the ink is nice. Woo.

Much Ado About E-Notes

It’s another “Much Ado” post! I guess I do these *shrug*.

I have mentioned on this blog that I do hand edits after I type up my works. I print out my work double-space (which is usually a big stack of paper), sit down somewhere comfy and go over my work with a pen. Then I scan in my work, page by page (and re-scan skipped pages, which was frustrating af when it is hundreds of pages), and shred the originals because I have zero place to put them.

What it usually looks like

Then the pandemic made that a bit shaky (yay, supply chain nonsense and the evils of capitalism) so I got an e-note after looking at a bunch of e-notes for quite a while carrying an angry expression on my face because I didn’t mind my (cumbersome) system. That and e-notes are quite a bit on the pricy side. Like “Playstation 5 prices” level.

It wasn’t exactly easy to find a good e-note – which is basically like a digital notebook you write in, so think of an ereader you can write in, if that makes sense – because I wanted to make sure the e-note could obey strict parameters

Replicate the paper experience – my writing experience needs to match a regular degular experience with paper and pen, I do not need fancy, I need a digital paper and pen experienceMust be about the size of a piece of paper, nothing smallerPen/Stylus has to be affordable (and bonus, it has to erase since it has that feature)Must have a super straight forward user experience, I must not have to click or tap through a million things to write notes onMust be able to write thinly (because I prefer fine and extra fine point pens, it must be replicated in the digital)Must be easy to make notes alongside my works since I sometimes write in new long passages and/or chaptersMust be easy to bounce between notes and my worksMust be easy to port my work into my DriveMust have a cover (to protect my expensive purchase)Must have a long battery and short charge timeMust not have a mic, camera or speakers – replicate paper onlyMust be able to use the device outside of a proprietary appNot Amazon

That’s the short list off the top of my head. When I consider a tool, especially pricey piece of tech, I look at everything about it. I don’t care how popular or pretty it is – it needs to work. That way, I only have to buy it once and call it a day. My phone is from 2019 and still works just fine, it does everything it’s supposed to and what I got it for. Ditto with my laptop, which I got in 2020 after I fried my previous one (I messed up a circuit I was making on a breadboard and it was plugged into my arduino, which was plugged into my computer. There was a kickback surge and it fried the computer). As long as it can play VR, allow me to make 3D printer files and format books, I’m good. My fountain pen holds an immense amount of ink and has a super fast refilling method (vacuum) so I don’t need another.

I measure a million times, cut once.

Ditto with e-notes. Which has been a headache.

Originally, I wanted the Remarkable but then I learned they were more trouble than they were worth from all the reviews so I looked at something else and eventually wound up with the Ratta Supernote A5X.

What I have now (in terrible lighting)

The Ratta was a pain in the derriere to get, I had to wait so long to get my Supernote but apparently not as long as people who purchased after February, who were then told basically “you’ll get it when you get it lolz”.

It was not perfect. I wound up accidentally peeling off the protective layer (because I thought it was the shipping protective layer, similar to what you see on a brand new smartphone fresh out the box) and got into a back and forth with the company over it because, welp, their Supernote comes with a ceramic tip stylus, which only works with that layer and will destroy other screens on any other e-note. And the stylus doesn’t come with an eraser button either. Ratta tried to tell me I can use gesture erase (put my fingers on the screen in a particular way) but that’s too much work when I’m in the middle of working. I wanted straightforward.

Plus, it had hoooooooooooorrid palm rejection. If I wrote with a stylus (I had to use my Note 9 stylus in the meantime, which worked but sucked … and baffled my phone because it knew the stylus was being used but didn’t know for what so it decided to act out) the screen would randomly turn pages, zoom in a bunch, or assume I’m doing gesture erase and nuke the word I was writing (which is almost always the entire word because, as you can see, I write in cursive). I had a massive back and forth with Ratta over this. I was not happy. And for the price I paid? It was absurd.

Thus I didn’t use it for the longest while. Because it frankly sucked and I also needed to get a stylus that had an eraser on it. I eventually fixed the stylus problem – I have two now, the Lamy AL-Star pointed end stylus (Lamy is a fountain pen brand, I had no idea they also did styli) and the classic Wacom pen, which has an eraser but no cap. I want a cap – remember, I want as direct a replication of the pen/paper experience as possible.

Then apparently Ratta had two updates, which greatly improved the stability of their product. I could write on it without zooming or going back and forth on pages accidentally. I tried hand-editing a short work and a long work to see how it could compare to my previous system. I still don’t like that I can open the side panel on the bottom right corner when my hand goes over it but it’s better than before.

Right now, Ratta is “mid” in comparison to my previous method. They’re okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay but not brilliant. If I had to go back to my old method, I wouldn’t be too heart broken. Now, being “just about the same as good as previous method” is a step up for Ratta, which was originally “hated it/what a dupe”. I don’t know if it is just a case of needing time to get used to the digital method or what but so far, the Supernote is doing better than it did in the past. Especially since they also finally brought in regular erasing (spot erasing) instead of just taking out an entire word just by erasing one letter (when writing in cursive). They didn’t tell anyone, as far as I know, I found out by accident. You operate regular/spot erasing by quickly double clicking the eraser button on the side. And when you’re done, just click the eraser button again and you’re back to writing.

The Lamy writes really well, btw, to the point I sometimes forget it is a stylus and try to use it like a regular pen lol.

I do like the little physical side bar (which is a line on the right side of the Supernote) though. It makes switching between notes and documents massive quick. And I can quickly get rid of any ghosting left behind from previous scribbles and such, which is a common issue on e-ink products.

With the story above, that is 122 pages, the Supernote could handle the editing process for over a few days before needing another charge. It is a bit of a slow charge (a couple hours) but I can do it during nap times. It does send documents pretty fast via Dropbox to Drive but I need to refresh my knowledge on Ratta’s bluetooth so I can use that method also.

So far, the Supernote is okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay but at least it is an improvement from “I don’t wanna use this” to “I can actually do work with it”

Which is the important part.

Braille! … Eventually.

I do eventually plan to have all my works available in Braille. Hopefully within 10 years. I simply want my works to be very accessible, no matter who is consuming it. My work is already available in audio, e-readers can make text massive and my books do exist as ebooks, For me, the final frontier is Braille.

However, I have noticed that accessible tech is really, really expensive. Even e-braille devices are thousands of dollars. This is a load of nonsense when you remember that disabled ppl make less than abled people (which, to me, is very ableist and creates a vicious cycle against the disabled). And once you get past the money hurdle, there is also the “can you even get the device” hurdle. Some places are wild in that they’ll want the money … but then you learn they won’t even have the product. It’s just so unnecessary to me.

Braille, everyone, is just embossing. Bumps on a paper. It isn’t a new language so it isn’t too hard to tell a computer “when you see ‘a’, make this group of raised dots”, instead of “when you see this sentence, feed it through a bunch of complex grammar and letter rules to make a new sentence that is comprehensive in another language.” I do know that text to braille software exists but the bits I have seen are clunky af. I can probably code something better, since I already have a background in coding (I have a background in a lot of things) and it would help me since I also have special letters in my works because I mention other languages like Spanish and Chinese. That way, I would know exactly what is going down on the page. It isn’t hard to make a braille embossing plate, I have a 3D printer. I also can probably get a plain old standard metal one. That is the plate that the paper lays on to give the pressed in bits of paper to go.

A Cricut can do embossing. I am glad that penny finally dropped in my head. They even have some braille projects. However, I want to make sure I can do 100+ pages efficiently so I may make my own embossing machine from scratch since I also have a background in building tech and thus can make it happen. Or just get a Cricut and fiddle with that a lot.

As for binding, any stitch that is great for single page binding or thick book binding would work. Braille books are thick! And big! I have a background in bookbinding (I told you have I have background in a lot of things) so that’s super easy. A plain saddle stitch/journal stitch would do the works just fine. So would perfect binding (which, if I remember correctly, is just glue on the spine and there you go. Even a Japanese stab bind could be efficient here – and tactile and pretty! Printed braille paper isn’t usually double sided, it’s single sided (because of the embossing) so Japanese stab binding is probably perfect. That’s usually the stitch I use for single sheet binding, especially for big works. Plus, it lasts a very long time on shelves.

As for “signing” the works (making an autographed version), that’s not hard. Embossing stamps exist. And raised ink. I can probably make do with puffy paint and my glass dip pen and some ingenuity.

It would be a “big” project but not impossible, not by a long shot.

It just means I would have to take my works, put them in print form, see how much words fit on a given page and go from there. To print, I probably would have to make a “digital plate” per page (so I can print multiple copies of the same page) and collate it by hand. Printing via embossing isn’t exactly as cut and dry as printing in sighted text. Probably because there are way more devices for printing sighted text because at one point in history, printing sighted text took making book plates and creating each plate letter by letter for every page. Now, you can just shove your file into a computer, wait a little bit and a printer spits out a printed paper, fresh off the presses. A system that used to take days to do just to make a simple page now takes perhaps a minute or two.

Either way, I would certainly like to have my works as far and wide as possible. This includes those with disabilities. Especially because there are so few Black penned works in braille. But a lot of visually impaired people are people of color. I know this because the first library I ever worked in was the Maryland State Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. And Blind Industries exist in my state. I also know blind and deaf people. So, yeah. I want to barrage the blind people of the world with my works the same way I barrage the sighted people of the world, lol.

It’s doable.

Digital Access, Physical Accrual

Probably a very bland title. Meh

The world is a lot more of a digital and interconnected place. When it comes to publishing stuff, I still have the mindset that it is still 1995. I was born in ’87 and wanted to be a published writer since I was 10 so that’s most likely why. I came up during a time where you had to schedule your time around the media you liked (gotta see the movie before it leaves theatres, gotta get the book before it is no longer sold on shelves, gotta wait around to hear your favorite song on the radio, etc etc). It’s not like now, where you can consume media whenever you want. Want to buy a small-known comic book at 3 in the morning? You can do that. That would have been impossible in the 90s. Want to watch your favorite music act live in Shinjuku but you live in Atlanta? If they’re streaming it, just set your clock and you’re there. Or watch the stream and pictures or hashtag of the band from the people who are there. You can do that. Missed a music video? That’s ok, just type the name into a search engine and there you go. Heck, the musician probably has the video on their social media.

It’s sometimes hard to remember that in publishing.

What provoked this was the fact that I have friends who like Neil Gaiman (I’ve read The Sandman graphic novel and own a copy and seen Good Omens, it’s not bad) and I looked up autographed copies of his book. He regularly says signing hurts his hand – because he has to sign hundreds or thousands of books in a single sitting, which is indeed painful-sounding. So that means getting an autographed copy isn’t going to be super easy. He signs genuine payloads of books but you can only buy them in certain places (Such as at DreamHaven, a book spot in Minnesota) or risk it on eBay (where it might be a fake signature – the fact that Gaiman signs with a fountain pen and a particular ink helps with verification of real or fake). It helps the bookstore, it brings ppl in because Gaiman signed books. It helps Gaiman because you don’t have to attend a signing to get a signed copy and he doesn’t have to get a crick in his wrist.

There are other bookstores that Gaiman has popped into because he likes books (go figure) and while he was there, he signed his works that they already carried. Xiran Jay Zhao has done the same – and caught static for it, which is wild. I’ve done the same. I had visited Amalgam in Philly because I just so happened to be there and they had my book Dreamer on their shelf. So, I signed it. You can sign copies of your own book, just inform the staff first and they’re usually extremely ok with it, if not stoked.

But the pandemic, tho. That keeps people inside (we’re still in a pandemic). Not everyone has access to a bookstore, not every bookstore has an easy to navigate site for autographed works and not every writer visits bookstores bunches (*koff koff*me*koff koff*). And what about people overseas? What if someone in Australia or Russia or Zaire wanted a Neil Gaiman book? Nuts to them?

Back then, that would have kind of been the case. If you don’t have access, you don’t have access. They can still order these books online (assuming there are no shipping blockades (like there are now due to literal war and/or Covid)) and have them delivered.

I kind of looked at my works and how easily signed versions are not accessible. I don’t commonly sign my works unless for a giveaway (which only happens once, usually when the book is coming out), or I pop into a bookstore (which I hardly do because oh, look, internet). I’m not on Gaiman’s level of demand but that isn’t to say that will never happen, nor does it mean that some random reader in the current time still wouldn’t like to have that opportunity.

I guess an online digital shop? So people can buy my works direct from me if they so wanted to, be it an ebook, print book, audiobook, or book-related item (I do make ’em so why not?). And they can choose if they wanted it signed (at no extra cost, it’s just a scribble & a stamp, y’all). Nora Roberts owns a bookstore and that bookstore sells a payload of her works (as well as other people works but it certainly is the one-stop shop if you like Nora Roberts works in every pen name she has ever penned in, including autographed copies). That bookstore also has a webshop, so it isn’t absurd and unusual. Unlike the physical store, it can be accessed around the world. I already have webshops for my bookbinding stuff such as sewing cradles and handbound journals on the etsy of my other blog, Black Witch, but that is currently closed because of the pandemic – because we are still in a pandemic. Either way, I have experience in running a webstore. I can make the store look any way that I want, which I like. I also like that it can provide a decent avenue for anything I create, such as stickers, pins, knitted wear, glowing things, etc. since I do indeed create quite a bit. I have a fairly creative background so it works. I can make limited runs (like a hand knitted blanket) so that way I don’t burn myself out.

Just stuff I’m thinkin about.

Glass Dip Pen!

I got a glass dip pen, partly because of the new upcoming book that’s coming out after Kinetics, partly because I always wanted a glass dip pen. They’re pretty!

Mah Glass Dip Pen! With Cap! (That Doesn’t Post)!

I remember staring at more traditional glass dip pens in Barnes & Nobles when I was a teenager. It was clear with a peach-ish pink swirling, twisting band that stretched into the thin, swirly wisp of a tail and a spiral clear tip. I thought it was the coolest thing evarrrrr. I had dip pens when I was a teen but they were traditional metal nibs, complete with the holder. My holder was black but with silver sprays on it, bought from Blick art store. I liked it but glass dips look so unique and fanciful.

This pen is going to be used for signatures and signings primarily, if not only. I used to have this super romanticized idea of writing a story with a dip pen because that’s how it has been done for centuries … but I straight up can’t. Simply don’t have the brain for it. How Phyllis Wheatley and Charles Dickens could do it is beyond me. I have used quills before, I have used dip pens before, it really doesn’t suit my brain with the fact I have to dip my pen so constantly. Write a small few lines, dip. Write a few more small lines, dip. Not great for if I’m focused on a scene or I don’t want to be bothered with it running out mid word. I rather my fountain pen, which stores over 60 pages of ink in a single fill. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better. I need pens that can go like the Energizer Bunny – for a very, very long time with only one or two (very fast) refills in between. Efficiency is the name of the game for me. But for signing books and such? Sure, a glass dip is perfect.

I can do several books back to back on a single dip with a glass dip. I got a Moonman/Majohn (I call it “Moonman” because that’s what it is to me, and because ink company Kaweco did them dirty by trademarking the name “Moonman”, knowing they’re competitors. Traaaaaaaaaaaaaaash) because the glass dip has a cap, which is a big selling point to me. I don’t want to have to worry about the state of my pen when it’s not in my hand. The cap doesn’t sit on the back of the pen (doesn’t post on the pen), it just sits wobbly and loosely so that’s a concern but it just means I have to hopefully not lose the cap. Also, I can use my shimmer inks with total impunity without worrying about how it affects my pen. I want my TWSBI Vac700R Extra Fine pen to work with shimmer inks – and it does!.. a little – but it still clogged once and worries me all the other times I used it. No bueno, y’all. With a glass dip, there’s no worries whatsoever. This also means, for the most part, books are going to be signed with shimmer inks until they run out. I’m not currently signing books at the rate Neil Gaiman does so I should be ok for quite a while. I only have two, Ferris Wheel Press’ Stroke of Midnight and a custom ink from Kiwi Inks. I plan on using Stroke of Midnight, to be honest. I just poured some into a small sample vial so it’s easy to grab and use, esp. since I have to shake the vial often to make sure the shimmer is throughout the ink instead of sitting on the bottom.

That’s for when I am signing books in my apt. When I am out and about at a future book signing where I have to sign right then and there (I currently prefer to pre-sign books, gonna get to that in a minute), I plan on using a different ink all together, most likely a shimmer sample vial, as my “outside” ink.

I have talked about this a bit in the past but I do have to be mindful of my disorders. It’s a pain in the neck to worry about how a disorder affects me or how my environment affects my disorder – and, in turn, me. I don’t take any of my ink outside because it is “book writing ink”. Including my shimmer inks. That means they stay in. I don’t want to have a bad experience while toting my pretty valuable ink around. Plus, ink bottles are usually glass, not exactly travel friendly. Most of my ink bottles are glass. Either way, pens stay in, ink stays in. I may carry my glass pen out – or get a “travel” one, depending on what my brain decides – but either way, I rather pre-sign my books with my stuff together all in one place and when it is easier to cajole my brain into doing so.

Besides, we’re still in a pandemic, holding an event should be few and far in between. I don’t want to catch covid (never have, yay) and I don’t want to risk others to get it just to grab a book. There is that extremely salient fact to consider. Even with my in-person book signing, I still had a digital, livestreaming version.

Either way, I’m very excited for this very pretty glass dip pen. So, any books that are done for giveaways or book signings, it is most likely going to be done with a glass dip pen.

By the by, the audiobook for Kinetics is still getting worked on. It is nearly done, my disorders are basically what is slowing it down. Well, the treatment of them, which requires a lot of time. Either way, it is getting worked on. Should be hopefully out by end of December. Especially so that I can go on full break between books. After Kinetics is my first ever novel to come out, The Glassman, in Sept 2023.

New Giveaway “Dreamer” on Storygraph, “Kinetics” Audiobook update (Now, there’s a sample!)

Another month, another giveaway! This time, it is for Dreamer on Storygraph! What is up for grabs are 10 print copies (which comes with a DIY-styled sticker of the music shop YinYue: Music Under the Moon and a postcard containing a free code to the audiobook version!), 5 ebook copies and 5 audiobook copies (provided by Author’s Direct). The giveaway ends November 18th!

Also, today is the very last day of the Kinetics giveaway on Storygraph. Three print copies of Kinetics are up for grabs (which also comes with an extra surprise treat for winners) and so are three digital copies.

As for the Kinetics audiobook, it is still chugging along and due to be out within a couple months. There is now a sample of the audiobook that can be listened to on the front page, where all the books are listed. Kinetics is narrated by Soraya Butler, who has been really great during this recording process (I honestly always feel bad when she has to do the creepy parts because, whoo boy)!

“Kinetics” Book Giveaway on The StoryGraph – Sept 19 to Oct 18!

Book Giveaway! Enter in The StoryGraph’s very first giveaway on their platform for a free copy of Kinetics as either print or ebook.

Click here to enter The StoryGraph giveaway

The StoryGraph is just like GoodReads – except Black created and Black owned (GoodReads is owned by Amazon) – and wants to be what GoodReads isn’t. Picking books to read on The StoryGraph is a better breeze than on GoodReads as they ask you and learn from you what books you genuinely prefer instead of what is paid to get put in front of you. From pacing to diversity to content warnings, The StoryGraph wants to make sure every book you read is an actual good read for you.

I have been on StoryGraph for a while, actually. I have seen first hand how the app works and that it really does seem to glean pretty well what books I prefer (the app thinks I like fast paced books that are less than 300 pages – it’s right, I don’t like slow books and I prefer them fairly short). I don’t tend to put in my recent books on StoryGraph or GoodReads but I do like that they recommend books that I would genuinely have an interest in.

Have Fun!