Jamie Ferguson's Blog, page 24

One blackbird, not in a pie

Introducing…Blackbird Publishing!

I love this so much!!! This image was designed by the very talented Drew Slaybaugh. I emailed him two weeks ago asking if he’d be interested, and an hour and a half later he sent me the first version. The only changes we’ve made have been to the font and background color – the bird was absolutely perfect from the start.

Blackbird Publishing is the press I created to publish my work under. You don’t need to create your own company to self-publish, but I chose to...

Ending and beginning

My first novel, With Perfect Clarity, is within inches of being published!!!

The publishing logo will be done soon, I’m correcting all those pesky widows and orphans, and I just purchased my very first ISBN numbers. The last big step will be proofing the print version. I’m excited and nervous and happy!!!

I’ll put up an excerpt from chapter one soon, but in the meantime here’s the text from the back cover:

Emma remembers her death with perfect clarity. Brutally murdered in Colorado in the late...

A rose by any other color

This post was intended to be about naming things, but while I was working on my assignment for the Cover Design workshop I’m taking, I realized that my current challenge involves color and visual elements at least as much as names.

A few weeks ago we adopted a two year old dog from the Nebraska Border Collie Rescue. (Thanks to my super awesome friend Kristin for going with me on the long and windy drive – eight hours each way!) We agreed to change his name, unaware that we were going to spend...

The light at the end of the tunnel

The past month has been a bit too jam-packed for even a multi-tasker like me. The part of the company I work for was bought by another company, which was good because we ended up with two extra holidays this month (yay!), but not so good because it involved a lot of worry and stress for pretty much everyone. My brother-in-law visited, I learned how to make marmalade, and I was finally brave enough to try making lotion on my own. (It turned out to be ridiculously easy…I’ve made four batches no...

Formulating with Lester Dent

One of the things that Dean Wesley Smith likes to mention in his writing classes is the Lester Dent Formula. Dent was a pulp fiction writer – he’s most famous as the creator and main author of the Doc Savage stories.

A few weeks ago it was getting late and I didn’t feel up to the task of removing a minor thing that wasn’t working as planned from my novel. (Minor, but present all throughout the book…so a lot of work.) I wanted to do something writing-related that was a little less intensive, so...

On the edge of a cliff

I’ve added an extra level of complication – and fun! – to my life by signing up for the Cliffhangers workshop taught by Dean Wesley Smith. This is the third class I’ve taken from Dean, and the first one I’ve taken online; he just started offering online workshops this year.

I’ve read lots of good cliffhangers, but finding the really great ones when you’re trying to look for examples to study is surprisingly difficult. One tried and true way to end a chapter or story section is to have your ch...