Rabia Gale's Blog, page 25

coming soon: wired

I’m trying something new on my blog. Starting Monday–tomorrow!–I’m serializing Wired, a post-apocalyptic Rapunzel retelling. Yes, I confess: I broke another fairy tale.

Wired is about 4500 words long. I’m splitting it into five unequal parts (why, no, I have not yet mastered writing scenes of equal lengths) and posting it Monday through Friday.

Stay tuned tomorrow!

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homeschool highlights

We solved the mystery! Sir I. and I have been doing Journey North’s Mystery Class in which we used photoperiod data and interdisciplinary clues to find the names and locations of ten mystery sites along the globe. There was a lot more math involved in this class than I’d expected, but it helps that Sir I. is a good calculator. David came to our rescue for a couple of the clues, with the result that we got ALL the mystery sites. Woohoo.

Oil pastels and soft pastels, mmm, mmm: Move over crayons and sidewalk chalk! The kids have been drawing and coloring with oil and soft pastels this week. Miss M. drew her apocalyptic scenario, Sir I. spent a lot of time coloring his nighttime sky a deep rich black, and the Baron made an abstract composition entitled “Blue”.

Fledgling Literary Analysis: I read aloud Marguerite de Angeli’s The Door in the Wall to Sir I. and Miss M. Since the titular “door” and “wall” in the title are mostly metaphorical, Sir I. and I had a good discussion about symbols, problems and solutions, and expectations. It’s pretty neat to hear Sir I. think at that level.

And to round things out, here’s some homeschool humor:

Hmm, that last picture on the bottom looks an awful lot like my schoolroom–but it can’t be because we’re sadly short of bookshelves these days!

Happy Friday!

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self publishing? team publishing!

As many of you know, I have recently self-published a collection of short fiction on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

*straight face*

(Squee!! I have a book–a BOOK–for sale! SQUEE!)

Ahem.

Self-publishing is a bit of a misnomer for what I did. Sure, I wrote the stories and wrestled them into various formats and pushed The Button, but it wouldn’t have happened without the help of several people. I provided the raw material (the stories), and they helped polish that into the product (ebook) that you are now holding in your hands (provided that you have your Kindle or Nook or other e-reader with you RIGHT NOW, because you are, of course, surgically attached to it–and if you aren’t, WHY NOT?).

If you liked my book, these are the people you can also thank. If you hated the book–well, just think how BAD it would’ve been without them. *pause* Yeah, that bad.

So without further ado (goodness, I write long intros. Note to self: brevity is the soul of wit), here are the fine folks who helped turn this ebook into reality:

First off, is writing buddy and best beta reader EVER, Jo Anderton. Jo is the first line of defense between my first drafts and the rest of the hapless world. She’s the one who gently, yet firmly, tells me things like, “Tighten that beginning! You waste too much time on the intro!” (hmm, sounds like a familiar problem…) and “Well. That ending came out of nowhere” and “Wowza. I have NO idea what just happened here”  (okay, maybe she doesn’t say “Wowza”, but something similar in Australian).

You can thank Jo later.

When time came to put the three fairy tales into ebook format, I didn’t want to burden Jo with copyedits (besides, there’s a lot of content coming down the pipeline I need want her to beta ). Plus, I wanted fresh eyes on the stories. Enter Liana Mir. Not only did she give my stories the eagle eye, she also turned them back around to me really fast.

Next up, the Cover. *GULP*

I’m still traumatized by my one experience with Photoshop back in college. I did try, though. I downloaded GIMP, but it made me turn pale with horror. I looked into cover designer rates and had to call for the smelling salts.

So I asked my sister-in-law, Robin Cornett (an awesome photographer and web designer–see her credit at the bottom of the page) if she’d be willing to try her hand at an ebook cover. Robin’s a sport, so she said, “Sure!” It was a great experience for me because all I had to do was look at pretty pictures and cool fonts and say “yes” or “no” or “maybe” and she handled the rest. I knew that brokenness and mirrors/glass were big in my stories, but I couldn’t think beyond a boring image of a broken mirror. Robin was the one who came up with the idea of adding a layer of broken glass over a girl’s image. We considered a close-up face shot, but it said “contemporary YA” rather than “fractured fairy tales”. Luckily, we were able to find a shot of a girl in a wedding dress and a tiara which said “fairy tale princess” to me and went from there.

I think she did a lovely job. Don’t you?

Robin also came up with the title and subtitle. If it hadn’t been for her, you might be reading a book called Frosted Fairy Tales or Cold Hands, Cracked Mirror. Catchy–not!

Last but not least is my husband David, who urged me to go the self-publishing route with these stories. He saw that the query-go-round was taking its toll on my productivity and spirit, that I was really attracted to the idea of project-managing the publication of my own e-book, and he encouraged me to go for it. He’s also a programmer, so whenever I got into trouble during the conversion process he went into the XHTML and cleaned things up for me.

And, while I’m giving credit: he also wrote my blurb. He did a better job if it than I did. Thanks, hon!

There you have it. Yes, I self-published, but it was a team effort.

Want a chance to win a copy of SHATTERED? Check this post for giveaway details!

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right brain meets left brain in art business book

I was first introduced to M.C.A. Hogarth’s work by Liana Mir. At that point, I hadn’t quite made the decision to self-publish Shattered. I knew that I was interested in going into business for myself, but I didn’t have a plan, I didn’t have any tools, and I didn’t have the mindset of an artist-entrepreneur.

Enter Hogarth’s Three Micahs–cartoon jaguars who understand the creative process and make business principles fun and accessible. Hogarth is pretty amazing–she’s a writer and artist who has also held down day jobs in the business and technology fields. Over the years she’s experimented with interactive storytelling, serialized fiction on her blog and small press publishing, not to mention creating visual art (fantasy illustration and cartooning) which she’s productized (yet another word I learned from the Micahs!) in her Zazzle store.

People, this lady has a lot of experience in combining the creative right brain and the analytical left brain into a career as an artist-entrepreneur, and she’s shared a lot of her insight in (free!) monthly columns.

And now she’s running an Indiegogo campaign to turn her columns into an actual book (with extra chapters! and worksheets! and more cartoons!).

To say I’m excited about this is a wee bit of an understatement. So, if you’re interested in making money off of whatever kind of art you do–be it writing or costume-making or jewelry design–you should run, not walk, to see what Hogarth is offering. Check out the Three Michas columns that started it all (Roles, Products, and Plan) and if you’re convinced, help support her campaign.

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apocalyptic visions of a 5-year-old

At first glance, Miss M. seems to be drawing a pleasant campsite scene, with a campfire and a tent, green grass and happy people. But all is not as it seems!

Miss M: That’s the sun and that’s the moon. They’re exploding. And that–pointing to a black hole near the fire–is the portal. People are running to the portal. It will take them to a new Earth.

Those apocalyptic visions do start young.

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meeting discovery

Two weekends ago, we loaded up the kids and went to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center (the Dulles annex of the National Air and Space Museum) to see the space shuttle Discovery.

Since Discovery had arrived only a few days before, replacing the Enterprise permanently, there were a lot of people there. Like us, they wanted to get up close to a piece of history.

I look at Discovery–at any space shuttle–and what I see reflected back to me is the human spirit. To me, space shuttles represent the power and fragility, triumph and tragedy, imperfection and ingenuity, the curiosity and will of humanity.

As a race and as individuals, we’ve gotten a lot wrong. I won’t enumerate that list here, but when I think of the courage and intellect and drive that took humans to space (space!) I can’t help but see the image of God shining through us, dimly though it might be.

Space Shuttle Discovery lifts off Pad B at the Kennedy Space Center on September 12, 1993, to begin STS-51. Image credit: NASA

Rest well, Discovery. You have earned it.

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shattered giveaway!

Ever notice how prevalent the number three is in fairy tales? Three brothers. Three wishes. Three trials.

And in recognition of that, I’m giving away THREE copies of Shattered: Broken Fairy Tales.

Right now, Shattered is only available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, which limits your options, especially if you live outside the US. Now you have a chance to win a copy! To enter, tell me your favorite (or least favorite) fairy tale in the comments–or just throw your name in the hat. Giveaway is open to anyone with an email address and ends Tuesday, May 8th, at 10pm EST. I can get it to you in one of the following formats: EPUB, MOBI or PDF.

To those of you who have already bought a copy: thank you thank you thank you! If you liked the stories, I would appreciate you leaving a review on the site you bought it from. If you are a book blogger and want to review Shattered, send me a message at rabia [at] rabiagale [dot] com. I am also available for guest posts.

Once upon a time, stories ended happily ever after. Or did they? What if the magic mirror couldn’t decide on the fairest of them all? What if Beauty’s kiss didn’t break the curse? What if choosing a bride based on her shoe size was a bad idea?

Shattered: Broken Fairy Tales is a collection of three short stories that take a turn into the dark forest instead of out of it.

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