Barbara G. Tarn's Blog, page 164

Random Friday

Because the first cold of the season didn’t really allow me to spend 3 hours watching a subtitled movie – although I watched Namastey London, but it’s less than 3 hours and I had already seen it dubbed and cut on the Italian TV a couple of years ago, LOL – I mostly worked at night, either reading or writing or coloring SKYBAND.

Which led to a couple of things (not in chronological order of happening, haha). One night I was toying with Wordle and Desktop crashed, so it didn’t save the page of SKYBAND I was coloring (Photoshop doesn’t have the auto-save like Word, if it does, I don’t know where it is, sigh). So I had to redo it the day after. But I also had fun with Wordle and Star Minds so here’s the result – which means when I edit it I’ll have to find “asked” and replace whenever possible. Yeah, my character seem to ask a lot of questions, sigh.

Second thing – while giving one last look on Facebook before going to bed, I found a desperate call from one of my muses (can’t link to his post *f… Timeline!* , so I’m copy/pasting here – go to the official page and look for it, if you want to know more and see the comments):

Everyone please listen. This is serious. If you are on my page and you are on this one… (link removed) You have a choice to make. I cannot have people giving this person what she wants any longer. This has gone beyond humorous “fun”.

I had noticed he had many Facebook profiles, both private and fan pages, and I wondered how he could keep up! Then it turns out most are fake – I know I noticed the one that said “in a relationship with (that person)” and wondered “I thought the mother of his children was called something else!”. Turns out I was right, LOL.

This so reminds me of the woman who took to a Canadian court her case – she said at least 3 of her children’s biological father was Keanu Reeves – and lost. That was a couple of years ago, and I don’t want to google that story for you. But then, this proves that those guys born in 1964 are too hot for their own good, haha! I have much appreciated 3, so I know what I’m saying – but I’ve never stalked them!

Mark as Swan, Keanu as Killius and more (male) muses in the rest of the band…

I use them as models and, when I can, I let them know, but it’s just their faces, not them. And yes, I might have had “virtual boyfriends” since the 1980s, but I’ve never told the celebrity of the time. Now it’s slightly different, as you all know who my muses are, but I’m not saying I’m in a relationship with them. They’re just muses, I’m not interested in a relationship in the first place, and even my virtual love life has reached some form of stop. So yeah, I can look obsessed, but I’m not, really.

I still don’t get people who get so obsessed with someone that they become stalkers. Or, if it’s a celebrity, they go after their money, even if they say it’s just love or something. I don’t believe in love as a form of possession, so that’s probably why I’ll never be a stalker. I respect your freedom as long as you respect mine. And to me love is sharing, not possessing. A jealous lover would be very short-lived with me.

I had left my heart on a man in the 1990s (a real guy, not a celebrity! ) and now I’m hoping to see him again and see what happens – after almost 20 years anything can happen! I had fun meeting old classmates (and I finished high school in 1984, most I hadn’t seen since), so I’m kind of curious to see what happens if and when I meet him again. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be, but at least I won’t have a regret!

This goes well with the study about friendship between men and women. Sice 1982 I agree with Pierre Cosso’s line in La Boum2, “I don’t believe in friendship between boys and girls”. My experience is – yes, there can be friendship after he has made his move and got his “No thanks” answer. I do have male friends like that, and no, I never slept with them, but yes, they did try to have a pass – just in case!

Mmm, can you tell I’m working on a love-story? I’m putting a lot of myself in the gal, especially since in the original (a screenplay) she didn’t really have a voice. So I’m adding her diary, and the third person narration is always from the male protagonist POV. But the novel (or novella?) will show also her POV, which didn’t come out in the “movie” version, LOL. Well, maybe it will, if it gets picked up at last, haha!

Anyway, it’s not only in the contemporary stories that I put myself. There’s a lot of me in technological angel  Kol-ian, even if he’s male and not from Earth – but then, he falls in love with a hunk, not a vixen, so that was the easy part, LOL! Okay, maybe my characters look all the same because they’re mostly based on me, but then I have a split personality, makes for some interesting variations, haha!

I guess that’s all for now… I wish you a great weekend… sorry I can’t share my reading yet, but 1) I havent’ finished it and 2) I’ll do a special post for this one, so stay tuned!

Writer Wednesday

First of all, The Look Challenge! Mighty Joleene Naylor challenged me to this quite interesting thingy.

Here are the rules:

~ Search your manuscript for the word “look,” and then copy the surrounding paragraphs into a post.
~ Give a little background on the scene if you’d like.
~ Tag 5 other writers who’re working on, or who’ve completed a manuscript.

From the WiP (actually in beta/editing stage, will come out in December) Technological Angel (Star Minds book 1) – the scene is set in Rome, Italy, November 1982. Sci-fi geek Daniele has just met someone.

“Wait wait wait! You mean you’re extraterrestrial?” Daniele marveled. That would explain the strange clothes, the harmonizer effect and the impossible name. “No, no, wait, let’s start this from scratch! So, you are?”

“I’m Gaurishankar from Ypsilanti and I’m looking for Uwe-yuri from Marc’harid who on this planet wants to be called Ugo Rossi and lives in Roma, somewhere here in EUR, but I’m not sure where exactly.”

Keep cool, Daniele thought. After all, even in Star Wars there were aliens that looked humans. The idea of talking to a real extraterrestrial, even if he looked so common, was exciting. That guy didn’t look like any of the “Martians” seen around the world, but definitely talked strange.

A big car passed by and Gaurishankar’s watch started beeping like crazy. Daniele observed in wonder the metal bracelet with a small quadrant of lights emitting strange sounds, realizing it couldn’t really be an actual watch. Must be some kind of James Bond gadget or something.

“Uwe-yuri,” Gaurishankar whispered, following the black car with his eyes.

This guy is really obsessed, Daniele thought as they jogged after the car who was indeed the neo-millionaire’s. Daniele had recognized him and his chauffeur, but the gate of the villa closed on their faces, making Gaurishankar curse under his breath.

Now, finding five writers who have a manuscript… I’ll try!

Madison Woods

Prue Batten

Laxmi Hariharan

Loralie Hall

and… dunno. If you’re a writer reading this and have a WiP, please take the challenge and link back to me, so I can see your excerpt!

Now, to other writerly stuff. Don’t miss Kris Rusch last post on disappearing writers, and check the comments on how to take care of our health as well. Personally, I work on a desktop (seated), on a laptop (usually in my lap on the bed, LOL) and longhand (both for writing and drawing), so I change position quite often. And I do try to walk every day, or I wake up with a back ache.

Also, if you’d like to donate books to underfunded school libraries, check David Gaughran’s post about Fill the Shelves – at the moment only for the US, but the UK site is on its way…

I spent the weekend uploading ebooks direct to Kobo, and I must say I love their e-pub converter more than calibre. I figured out how to save my word.doc so they come out as perfect e-pubs, as perfect as the meatgrinder’s, but without the Smashwords matter, LOL! The titles slowly went live on Monday, but I had to adjust all categories, as apparently choosing Fiction/Adult labels as Romance/erotica (even if there is a romance/erotica category…). So I took out one category from all books, as I don’t write erotica.

My titles have only 2 categories, sometimes just 1 (they suggest 3). There are no tags, and it wasn’t easy choose the categories, hence not “enough” for visibility. I uploaded 6 titles for B.G.Hope, 7 for Barbara Sangiorgio and 17 for Barbara G.Tarn – well 18, but then I delisted one as it’s free on Smashwords, so I’ll let it go to Kobo through them. There’s no way to upload for free on Kobo, I guess they price-match like Amazon, but dunno how it works yet. So the free stuff is still only on Smashwords, LOL.

Also, for my main pen-name there are actually 18 books, but 2 are still the Smashwords edition. BoI – Water is stuck in “publishing” status for some reason, sigh. But then, I noticed I had let the DRM on, so I managed to take it out before it went live! All titles came with DRM, even if I’m sure I didn’t want it on any, and had to modify them after they went live…

When I wasn’t uploading and converting and checking e-pubs, I was inking SKYBAND 12, so it’s finished. Now I need to color and letter it… meh! I also finished the longhand version of Records of the Varian Empire, so this week I’ll alternate typing and coloring SKYBAND (on desktop) with writing the new B.G.Hope title – yes, longhand. Can’t write the first draft on the computer, I tried, I just can’t do it. I tried to do it for 1 scene of Mind Link (Star Minds book2), and rewrote it completely when I printed out what I had done – longhand!

So that’s all for today… have a great week!

Happiness is..

Writer Wisdom Sunday

Every Sunday until November and unless I have a guest, I will share words of wisdom from writers on writing. Enjoy!

You can’t wait for someon to come in and save you. Get out there with whatever means are at your disposal.

- Allegra Huston (daughter of John and sister of Anjelica) after crowd-funding her short “Good Luck, Mr Gorski”

The path to success is a path, not a destination. Making yourself happy, sharing your art, or whatever your goals are, requires constant adjustment along this changing path. We will all be making decisions in our writing careers. I challenge you not to see those decisions as right or wrong, but as just another span in an ever-flowing path that is your writing career. It will ebb and flow but it will never freeze unless you let it.

- Posted by Domey Malasar, author/blogger

Beautiful stories are emerging. A few days ago I read about a woman publishing her first e-book on her 72nd birthday. The vision-impaired have returned to reading because they can now adjust the font size. Families are sharing Kindles and a love of stories together. It’s an evolution, a revolution, and the greatest moment in human communication since Gutenberg. We are connected here in this common dream. There’s no expiration date on magic.

–Scott Nicholson

Never use someone else’s process word for word. It’s your process; it’s what’s in you! “Follow this guy’s process and use this colored paper” – never do that! Never take advice that sounds like instructions. If youw ant to do that, buy a coloring book. Be your own creative.

- Max Landis (filmmaker son of John Landis)

No matter what you do as an indie publisher, you must be writing first. You must be creating product.

In the first golden age of fiction, the pulp writers got very, very rich at 1 cent per word in the middle of the Depression.

We are in a new golden age of publishing.

We can write a few books, treat them like events and spoiling fruit, or we can write all the time, have fun, write what we want, put them up, and then just keep writing.

We now have the choice to go either to traditional publishing or do it ourself with indie publishing.

But just as it has been for hundreds of years, the writers who will make it on either side, traditional or indie, are the writers who just keep writing.

And that really is the secret.

- Dean Wesley Smith

Random Friday

While I wait for DriveThru to send me the print version of SKYBAND Omnibus (trying to switch POD, here, can you tell? I’ll probably end up with 3, LOL! I’ll have to keep Lulu for some things, and then use CreateSpace for novels and short story collections and then maybe DriveThru for the graphic novel…), here’s the little “special” about chapter 12 – or another Art Friday of some kind.

First of all, this chapter was half inspired by an old comic of mine. Here you have the original page, started on May 1st, 1982 (the whole 6 pages comic was finished 2 months later – I was still in high school and worked on it in my free time, LOL).

Just imagine… (OK, now I’m thinking about Krrish as this line is actually in English, so it’s very easy to remember – and repeated quite often at the beginning of the movie, LOL!) Ahem! Just imagine 16-year-old Barb drawing that? How must have she felt when she had to draw a *gasp* naked breast? Probably the same way 47-year-old Barb will feel when she reach the page of this very same chapter that isn’t inspired from this comic and where her good friend and cover artist Cristina added an anatomic male part I had so carefully censored in the original drawing, LOL! Some things never change, some things do… (yikes, not it’s Matrix Reloaded! I really should stop talking with movie lines, haha! But at least now I got both muses in mind, hehe! ).

Anyway, here’s how that scene turned out – with our SKYBAND characters instead of that so-called sci-fi story (you can tell it’s sci-fi because of all those alien humanoids with strange colors – yeah, I watched a lot of anime back then, even my style was very manga/anime! ).

Yup, two pages instead of one now – and yes, it’s not colored nor lettered yet, but it was just to show you how I redesigned the scene… Originally I was inspired by BDs (French comics), which had many more frames in one panel. Now I’ve reduced the frames to 6 per page, hence the need of 2 pages or 3 where I had 1. And no, in this case I didn’t blush – I had already drawn Ylenia’s breasts in the previous chapter where they went to a public bath, so they were all naked (and censored in their lower parts, haha).

So Ylenia, Nadira and Swan get some kind of remake of the original 1982 comic, and Killius gets his own spotlight (yeah, it’s his privates that you’ll see, courtesy of Cristina – and no, I won’t post a preview on this blog! ) while the other 3 will have to free them from slavery. Sadist Author never sleeps, mwahahaha! This is not really a spoiler, as it’s on the cover of the chapter, LOL!

Now, hopefully this weekend I’ll manage to continue inking between an upload and the other on Kobo and finishing those Records of the Varian Empire… I probably won’t touch the pencils, as I have enough drawings for my calendars this year. I tried to order one on Zazzle, but they refused to print it because it’s drawings of a celebrity (but then, while it was still in the making, I got the email saying “continue your design, we think it has potential!” – and then they tell me “your order was canceled”, sigh), so I ordered both on Lulu. Whenever I get them, I’ll post pics (I already have one, but I modified it, so I’ll show you the final version).

Movie reviews… next week, I guess. I watched only the Bollywood remake of Madame Bovary, but having not read the book (although I downloaded it on my Kindle from Project Guttenberg), I can’t compare. I can only say that SRK was cute when he was young! And that’s before he made it big with Darr and Baazigar!

Anyway, have a great weekend!

Writer Wednesday

This week apparently everybody talks about promotion and social media. You have Dean Wesley Smith with two posts on promotion (sort of part 1 and part 2). Re: those – I blog because I like it, not because I’m promoting my books (hence the random Fridays). Yes, on Wednesdays I talk about writing in general, but I know this blog is not for my readers, it’s for me and my friends and whoever decided to hit that “follow” button for whatever reason (thank you, by the way).

Then you have a “study” about Dark Social – whatever that mean. I did buy my first computer in the late 90s, but I used it as a typewriter. I don’t remember when I added an internet connection, but for sure I used only e-mail(s) and some web crawling for research purpose… I still don’t Tweet, and have a moderate use of Facebook – the author profile only gets this blog posts through Networked Blogs, more or less. OK, sometimes I share something from DeviantART, but not always.

And finally a very funny post on How to really get more likes on Facebook, by posting something likeable, doh! And I hope you got to Kris Rusch’s post on disappearing writers that will end up being in 3 parts, so watch out for the last piece coming out tomorrow…

Now, I opened a Kobo account and opted out all my titles from Smashwords distribution. I wasn’t selling through them anyway. And as I’m in Italy, it has the Mondadori logo as well. I have found out last Friday that Kobo e-readers are sold at the Mondadori bookstores (it’s one of the Italian Big6, in case you don’t know, belongs to Mr.B.), so I thought “Cool!” – except, again, Italians in general don’t read. But that’s another story. Next weekend I hope to upload everything direct-to-Kobo.

I still need Smashwords to get to B&N, where I “sell” a lot (i.e. it’s mostly free downloads, much like at Sony. At Kobo, not even the free titles through Smashwords… mysteries of ebook shops!). And I still want to publish that last Silvery Earth title for this year before moving on to other projects (well, Star Minds but also the B.G.Hope title).

Now I considered putting it here, but as it’s more artworks than writing, I’ll postpone my SKYBAND “special” to Friday! I won’t do all Art Fridays, promise!

Have a great week!

Happiness is…

Writer Wisdom Sunday

Every Sunday until November and unless I have a guest, I will share words of wisdom from writers on writing. Enjoy!

There are so many writers now defending the Big 6 hat I liken their behavior to Stockholm Syndrome. As artists, we’ve become so used to the idea of breaking into the publishing industry by appeasing the gatekeepers that we’ve begun to revere them. We defend their decisions – even the wrong ones- because we’ve deemed them essential to the process. They’re the powerful pourveyors of wisdom who nod at worthy intellectual properties and welcome their creators into the fold.

- Joe Konrath

 

As an indie publisher, you can use your own publication deadlines to help drive yourself to finishing and releasing books.

Many beginning writers can’t seem to finish a project, or when they finish it they spend years rewriting the poor thing to death and having workshops turn it into a monster with an arm sewn onto the forehead.

Having a publication deadline will do wonders for getting you to write, finish what you write, not rewrite, and get it out to readers. (Wait, those sound like Heinlein’s Rules, don’t they? (grin))

Also knowing a book has a hope of getting read by readers and making you some money does wonders for pushing a writer to write and finish.

- Dean Wesley Smith

 

I still have great respect for those writers, like Raymond Carver, who pack as much tension into a suburban living room as other writers do with a planet overrun by zombies.

I can’t do that. More to the point, I don’t want to.

Never be ashamed of your enthusiasms. If you love something, write it even if nobody else does. And if nobody else does, write it so well that they have no choice but to love it too.

—–

Christopher Farnsworth

 

Don’t make it your job, make it your hobby. If you don’t enjoy writing, you shouldn’t be doing it. If you do enjoy it, do it more. Don’t treat it like it’s a job. Rewriting someone else’s work, that’s a job! Your original stuff should be fun.

Max Landis (filmmaker son of John Landis)

 

Think of the best stories you’ve ever read. How many of them are standard, run-of-the-mill stuff? I would be willing to bet the stories that stick in your mind have a fresh, a different perspective. And that can only happen when the author is true to himself or herself.

So my advice is to write first, then find a market for what you write. Remain true to your inner voice, and you will be published, and you will write lasting work.

- David Kubicek

Random Friday

As promised, here’s some “art tips”. Last week-end I used my procrastination technique drawing Hritik Roshan. So this drawing is now in the frame I photographed last week.

I also did another that I posted in The DeviantArt gallery and one I haven’t posted because it was an experiment. I might post it when I redo that pic in another way, so you can compare. I’m also trying to do 12 drawings so I can do a calendar – I’ve started working on it and I already ordered the Keanu Drawings calendar on Lulu (the Hritik one I’ll do on Zazzle, so I can compare quality), it’s the first year I don’t do them with Word.doc, LOL!

Anyway, Shafali asked me what pencils I use (I will spare you the rest of the discussion, LOL), so let me introduce you to this 20th century relic!

Tadaan! That box was bought back in 1985 for the outrageous sum of 28.000£ (which is now 14euros or 20$, but it was a lot back then). Some of the colors inside are still the original pencil, but some… I bought the single color many times (especially the black, but also dark blue, “skin pink”, and most browns and orange/red) and the price of the single pencil went from 1200£ to 2euros (4000£). Yeah, an expensive hobby!

Anyway, while I was at it, I took pics also of my other drawing materials – paper (240gr A4) and mostly tracing paper. I’m the queen of tracing for portraits colored with Caran D’Ache! That’s why they look so different from the weekly vignette or the graphic novels, LOL! You can also see the yellow paper I use for B&W portraits. So, that’s the hobby stuff, to decompress from writing and producing more work!

Now, a couple of DVD reviews… I watched 2 more Bollywood movies from the pile, one I recommend, the other… not so much! Here we go.

Johnny Gaddaar is a very good thriller with no dance numbers and a plot where if something goes wrong it can only get worse. I saw the trailer somewhere and was happy to have bought it, even if it doesn’t have any of my fave stars, but introduces the guy of New York and has

The other is Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon – the smart lady in Long Island gave it to me, and I bought it just because*. Except I don’t like

Next on the pile are the movies, both old and new… next week! Have a great weekend!

*in case you’re wondering “just because” has been the main reason to watch movies for me since the 1980s. The name changed throughout the years, of course, sometimes I had more than one on the list, but they were always actors. If you asked me a director’s name, I couldn’t tell any. Well, now I can, but originally I couldn’t. Not saying the trend started with Karan Johar, but almost, LOL! To me it was the faces in the movie that made the story, not some unseen bloke directing them (or writing their lines… and I’m a writer, haha!)… Visual person, in case you didn’t notice! It was either the face(s) or the story/genre – let’s say 60% the face 40% the story/genre… yeah, that’s how twisted I am!

Writer Wednesday

So, Indie Books List has stopped posting. They had my free excerpts last year, but this year I never sent them anything – I felt it was overcrowded and didn’t bring in sales. Please take your time to read their post on why they stopped posting those excerpts. I think Jack and Shaina are spot on! So, what do I call myself now? I think I’ll settle for writer/artist with a small publishing imprint, LOL!

Thing is… I’m not sure I found any of the communities mentioned by Shon on Blood Red Pencil. My family and my offline friends don’t speak English and if they do, they’re not very supportive – I can count who really supports me in this endeavor on one hand… Most go “How is your book doing?” – the previous version was “how is your book coming along” – to which the answer is still “Which book?!”. Much like the earlier version, the friend stare into space or looks at me as if I’ve grown another head (previous case: s/he reminds me what I told him/her so I can fill him/her in) and then goes “why, you published more than one?”. Doh! I’m too prolific for my friends to keep up with me, LOL!

The stealth critique group – not sure I found it yet. I keep changing beta-readers because they get busy and I lose them, sigh. The writer community… not sure I belong to any. But I like being “different” – which is the underlying theme of most of my writing. Considering it took me 30+ years to accept it, I’ve very happy about it. The publishing community – yes, I met some great small presses or indie authors, but they mostly live in North America, so we have different challenges. The audience… still looking for my readers. I know they’ll come!

And eventually we’ll all go to the libraries across America, especially if the Big 6 keep doing what they’re doing. Read the guest librarian on Joe Konrath’s blog. As for success… see SPAL’s post about why you might not succeed (which pairs well with the above link of Indie Books List). I think the key to success is figuring out what you really really want from your writing. Write stories and share them with the world? Get rich quick? Whatever your choice may be, make it an informed choice.

Now, you might even want to disappear… are you one of these writers? Kris Rusch explores the disappearing writers (part one, part two will come out tomorrow on her blog, so go back to it). Personally, I’m not going to disappear, but her post made me understand a little better my writer friends who “gave up” – nothing wrong with it, it’s a matter of choice and I respect you for it!

For me, you know I married Mr Writing and I’m nowhere near divorce, LOL! While I wait for betas, I work on something else. Like the Varian Empire – originally I intended to publish up to its fall, but now I decided that I’ll tell you about it next year, along with the Amazon stories. There’s another story that is not set in the Amazons Country but deals with Amazons as well, so showing the fall of the Empire and its aftermath sounds fine even for next year.

Thus, Silvery Earth will see one last title this year, a short story collection (maybe I’ll bundle them by characters as well) that goes between CVE2 and CVE3 – so part 1 is a sequel of The Left-handed Warrior, part 2 is a prequel to The Enlightened Emperor. I’ll be working on the print editions as well.

In November I hope to write another B.G.Hope title – sort of romance. December is Star Minds month, when I’ll probably also outline book 3&4 that will come out next year. I’ll also do some art of the characters, as they’re being very persistent with it. I still have to figure out how to do those sketches – tracing from pictures or improvising.

Friday I’ll do an art post about the colored pencil portraits, but in the case of Star Minds I know it will be like the covers and the graphic novel – a drawing inked and then scanned and colored with Photoshop. “A” drawing? I have a dozen characters, sigh! And of course I’d rather spend my days drawing only two… Mean Author who has favorites!

Talking about authors who do their own art, may I point you to Joleene Naylor’s blog? Her Amaranthine series special edition is out! With lots of goodies! Her characters are as bothersome as mine, IMHO… but that’s why I want them to meet, LOL! So watch out for character interviews on her blog in December.

But in the meantime, if you haven’t tried this vampire saga yet, go and give it a try. I still have to read book 4 – darn TBR pile never goes down, sigh! – and look forward to it. Maybe I’ll end up buying the print versions… no, I’ll save shelf space, LOL! One more book in the Smashwords library, which makes… GAAH! 40 books! I’ll never find the time to read them all!

OK, back to writing and reading… Drawing only on weekends… glad Jo’s busy, so she won’t notice SKYBAND is on the back-burner again! Have a great week!