Mel Thorn's Blog, page 2

Sketchbook: When Art is no Longer Fun, Take Two

One thing I’ve noticed since creating this blog is that my post I made a while back about solving the problem of becoming bored with art is the most viewed of my posts. Apparently, this is a problem I am not alone in facing. The skill of practicing art becomes tedious and unrewarding for many individuals, so many in fact, that I wonder how many have given up.

I’ll admit that I draw less than I used to when a child and teenager. Art was my way of coping with poor living situations, and now that I have a better life, I’m pouring almost all of my creativity into my novels and fresh ideas for future books. My mind is so cluttered with these plans for stories and books, and I spend so much time story-boarding them that I don’t encourage myself to draw often enough. The result has left me with a satisfactory improvement to my writing skill, which had surpassed beyond what I thought possible for myself, but my skill in art lags somewhat behind. While I can draw well, I feel I can’t do it well enough. In my mind, there is always room for improvement.

One of the many things that helped me get excited about drawing again were series of Youtube tutorials on perfecting drawing methods. Some artists help make drawing fun and easy with guides to help you start learning new techniques, and to even get you started fresh from scratch. One such artist I’ve been following for a while is named Sycra.

Here is a list of art tutorial videos by Sycra that should help any artist looking to improve

How to Draw Playlist

Sycra not only introduces new concepts and theories into artwork on a regular basis, he teaches you these same methods as a means for learning. Improving your art is all about adapting, and more importantly, the time you spend on it. Every single day, I write. If I can’t proof or edit one of my novels (whether it’s writer’s block or something else just as nasty), I write side stories. When I wake up, all I can think about is writing. I can’t go a full day without doing at least thirty minutes of it. This is how you must treat your artwork if you plan to do it professionally, or to get better. I can honestly say that after long periods of not drawing, it shows that I haven’t been practicing. If I drew as much as I write, my quality would be twice that it is now.

I get frustrated easily, and failure discourages me. Nothing turns out right, and I want to throw everything out.

Don’t get discouraged by this emotion. It happens to me, too, and it does force me away from my artwork. But I’ll tell you now that it shouldn’t. You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs, and art will probably sacrifice many eggs in the process of learning how to make what you want to. Drawing is fun and easy– once you already know how to do it well. On the way there, the road is bumpy and unpleasant at times. You have to remember that it’s all part of becoming better than you were before. Even the failures are things you learn from. Failing over and over is how we succeed in the future.

Once I draw something really well, I’m afraid to continue in fear of never making something that good again.

Maybe I’m the only one that goes through this, but I’ve seen people worship smaller accomplishments, which hold them back from working on tougher things. Repetition is the key to practicing. Even if one out of a thousand eyes you draw is the only one that looks good, you still need to draw many more so that all of them will look good and normal. This was a trap I once fell into, and anything that looks even semi-good compared to older work, I cherish it instead of improving myself, and working too hard on one project for hours will bore the hell out of you if it ends up not looking the way you wanted. Draw a thousand tiny mediocre pictures before working on one huge project that’s beyond your capability.

I have such good ideas for comics and pictures, and I want to make them reality! I’m too excited to wait!

Don’t rush a skill. It will take you years to perfect it. If you’re not the patient type, perhaps drawing isn’t for you. I speak from experience in that I myself am not patient at all. I don’t sit and practice because that’s “work” to me, rather than fun, like it should be. Writing is always fun for me, even when I’m working. Art has to be fun for you, and if it isn’t, again, it might not be for you. Consider your reasons for why you want to draw.

I don’t like people criticizing me.

This is one I can’t help much with. No one likes to be criticized. When developing a skill, it’s okay to ask for critique from other artists. Most are professional about it and recognize that you’re in the stages of learning. Remember to have some thick skin and try not to take everything too personally. Some people are trying to help you improve.

If after the tutorials and suggestions you still feel like drawing is too tough to tackle, there might be other kinds of art aside from drawing that appeal to you. For instance, I’ve always wanted to try sculpting, and I’ve made it a goal of mine to attempt it.

Remember, an artist spends time with their craft every day. How much time would you like to invest?

The post Sketchbook: When Art is no Longer Fun, Take Two appeared first on Thorn Creations.

Tale of an Amateur Guitarist: Corruption Bypass

If you’ve been to this site before, you might have noticed that it got a huge upgrade, and doesn’t look like a dime store excuse of a blog anymore. If you haven’t been here before, welcome, and stay for gourmet coca. We– and by “we” I mean “I”– made it ourselves.

So… corrupt RockSmith profiles?

I’m getting to it!

The last time I spoke about RockSmith, it was just after my high E string broke. I replaced my old strings (which were way too thin for my playing style) and bought myself some heavy duty steel strings from Ernie Ball. I have to say, I’m in love with them so far. After purchasing them, I taught myself how to restring my guitar, and managed to get them on there much better than the pawn shop guy who sold it to me did. How’s that for efficiency?

After restringing Garotte, I had him back in action in no time, and restarted RockSmith, determined to find out what was causing my profile to constantly become corrupted. Here’s what I learned:

I completed a very specific mission with a CDLC and it corrupted my profile.

First, I wanted to clarify something about corrupt profiles. They don’t always happen because of CDLC. Since fixing this issue, I’ve been able to play and complete many CDLC songs without any problems. Now, however, I’m very wary of them. Your profile can also become corrupted if power is cut off to your system suddenly, or if the game freezes (especially on Xbox) during play and crashes. You never know what could happen, so always keep a back up!

Second, yes. I tried to complete a mission with a CDLC, and it corrupted my profile every time I tried. This does not happen with all missions, strangely enough. This particular mission was “Play a song in Drop D.” I kept playing a CDLC Rammstein song, and it would complete the mission. I would quit the game, try to reload, and the profile would be corrupted. So, I loaded my backup profile and played a Drop D song that came with the game, cleared the mission, and everything went back to normal. I could now play the CDLC Rammstein songs whenever I wanted without corrupting the profile. Which is awesome, because those songs are sweeeeet.

So, if you do download and keep CDLC, never fear. The files themselves after being played will not cause issues– but be wary of playing them for missions. I would definitely play it safe, no pun intended, and use a retail song to complete one. So far, I have not been able to recreate the phenomenon, but I know now what was causing it.

Remember that once a profile is corrupted, there isn’t a way to get it back. Keep regular backups of your profile so that you don’t lose your data forever the next time it happens!

How to back up your Rocksmith profile on Steam:

Navigate to Program Files–> Steam–> userdata You should see a folder with a name that is a bunch of numbers. That is your Steam user folder. Enter this folder, then open the folder named “221680” (assuming you have RS2014). Make a copy of the “remote” folder and paste it somewhere safe. I have a separate folder solely for this purpose, and I make sure to do this every time I end a RS session. Don’t back up the profile unless you’re sure it isn’t corrupt already. One way to be sure is to “quit” your game, which will take you back to the RS title screen. Re-enter the game and try to reload your profile. If it loads without problems, you know it’s not corrupted.

How to back up your Rocksmith profile on Xbox:

Learn how to turn on Cloud and backup your save games right here.

Hopefully those tips will come in handy. I know I’d be pretty pissed off if all of my hard work was erased.

I was wrong before about CDLC not including Riff Repeater!

I made a silly mistake before in my last AG post and stated that Riff Repeater couldn’t be used in CDLC. As it turns out, a lot of them do have the option, which is, needless to say, very refreshing! I’ve learned half of Garbage’s song “Push It” in this manner. The reason I thought it was impossible before was that whoever made the Rammstein songs did so without including Riff Repeater (the jerk!). But, since those songs are pretty simple to play, it isn’t as necessary.

Always check to make sure your volume and tone are cranked all the way!

I mentioned before (I don’t even know how long ago), that the game wasn’t registering when I played chords. I was completely mystified by this, because I knew I was hitting the right notes and it frustrated the demigod out of me. The reason, apparently, was because my tone was turned down. As soon as I moved the dial back up, it recognized my chords just fine. Strange that it was only chords it couldn’t read, but regardless, that seemed to fix what was wrong.

As for how much I’m improving with the Rocksmith technique…

I’ll admit that I don’t play every single day, though I should. I do, however, play for several hours when I actually start up the game. By now, I’ve learned to play a few of my favorite songs, and I’ve been exposed to songs I’ve never heard before buying Rocksmith! I’ve become particularly attached to the song “Knights of Cydonia” by Muse. Now that is a fun song to play. I love that you can add songs to a list of favorites to choose from as well. Since my list of songs has gotten massive since buying RS, I have a lot to go through! All the more reason to give myself a deadline.

That’s it for this installment. Remember to rock on, and stay in tune!

The post Tale of an Amateur Guitarist: Corruption Bypass appeared first on Thorn Creations.

Author Corner: When to “Get Professional” With Marketing

#140872533 / gettyimages.com

The hottest of guys are the ones who wear ties. That’s my motto. Okay, no it isn’t. But shouldn’t it be?

I’ve heard a lot about the benefits of paying to have your book/eBook promoted and featured on various advertising websites. I myself haven’t tried it yet. I’ve also been spending these past few weeks researching and looking into the best types of marketing by following a couple of blogs with some helpful advice.

While researching, I haven’t done much writing, or working on my book cover. I still have the copy of a finished novel ready to launch that I haven’t launched because my cover is still only half-finished. The reason why it’s still waiting in the locked-down pens of self-publishing is because I feel like I need to boost my following and promote the work somehow before releasing it. I need people that are “into my stuff” (namely gay romance) before releasing new stuff.

I’m already beginning to notice how this will only damage me, rather than help me.

How soon should I be worrying about marketing?

What I’ve neglected to say so far here, is that the book I’m waiting to release is my second novel ever. Yes, I have only published one book so far. Some have said that getting into marketing early is advantageous, but I’m starting to see how it’s holding me back. With all of this research and paperwork I’m diving into, how the hell am I supposed to write my books?

Since I haven’t published more than one yet, I can’t state from my own experience what works for me. What I can say is that while I’ve been losing myself in knowledge on how to get my work out there, I’m not getting my work out there. I personally believe there is a good time… and bad time to put all of your focus on marketing.

How many books should be released before marketing becomes your primary concern?

Well, if “more than one” isn’t a good enough answer, I’d be willing to bet that marketing won’t do you much good if you don’t have more than a couple of them out. There’s something that publishers refer to as “phoenix sales,” which means that if people buy your newer book, and enjoy it, they tend to buy your older material, thus boosting the sales of older books at the same time. It makes sense, doesn’t it? After reading one book by an author and liking it, chances are you might enjoy their other stuff.

What about social media?

As of right now, social media is not helping me at all. Granted, I spend very little time on it, but that’s because when I do spend time on it, it doesn’t seem to benefit me. All it seems to do is give me spam that I don’t look at.

I write almost entirely gay romance, and maybe some other genres with gay romance sub-genres in them. When I discovered that this was my label, this was my brand, this was who I was… I sort of got lost in wondering how I’d snag people who were into it. I’ve heard it can be very popular, especially in eBook form, but I have yet to find out how to take advantage of that. I’ve accepted that it’s what I enjoy writing, but I’m not sure how to go about picking an audience for it. All I know is that you can’t wait for them to come to you. I don’t know how to get them to come to me.

Obviously, publishing more books and establishing a brand should be the first step. People should recognize your name when seeing all of the books you wrote. “Hey, they wrote such-and-such, and as I recall I think I kinda liked it.” Well, that’s one thing you’ve got.

My advice, to myself and to others, is to give yourself a bit more breathing room before focusing all of your attention on hooking an audience. The right time will come to show yourself off. Your first book is an introduction to (hopefully) how awesome you are, and to show that this is your brand. I don’t really count my earlier eBooks in this because they were short and pointless and I was still testing the waters. I’m totally serious about publishing now, and it’s all about my best effort.

Remember: establishing yourself as an author will take a while.

Don’t be in too much of a rush. You might get ahead of yourself… and stumble on the way. Like me. And I fall pretty hard.

Tale of an Amateur Guitarist: Unraveling the Mystery of the Corrupt Rocksmith Profiles

Yes, it’s the next installment of my amateur ability at playing electric guitar with Rocksmith and clumsy fingers.

Are you a rockstar YET?
When I play metal songs, I feel like one… and isn’t that what matters?
No?
Oh. Well, no, then. I’m not. But I’m getting closer!
As I said, I’ve fallen deeply in love with playing metal! Metal has always been a favorite genre of mine (not including death metal. I have a scream limit), but I’ve found that playing it is even more desirable. I’ve come to find out that my playing style is… rather aggressive. My low E string took a bite out of me this past week.

This is a sign that you’re an abusive guitar owner

Yeah, that’s blood. I literally played it till my fingers bled. Well, it’s my own fault. I didn’t strum my strings, I slammed them. And that was a mistake. Lesson learned the hard way. That’s what I get for playing when in a very sour mood. And playing metal. While in a sour mood.

Have you found out why Rocksmith profiles get corrupted?
As a matter of fact, I have. It has something, if not everything, to do with playing custom songs. After backing up and restoring my profile several times, I did a trial and error test to determine what was specifically causing it after it happened to me a second time.

After finding out about custom songs, I had downloaded a lot of them. Honestly, more than I’m capable of playing well. I sort of picked them out as “Oo, I might want to learn this one someday, oh, and this one, and this one.” The drawback to custom songs vary, but there are two so far that I have learned about in my testing:

1. You can’t use Riff Repeater in CDLC. Not any of them. This isn’t a massive setback, but for a new player, can cause some frustration. If there’s only one part in the song you want to tackle and get better at, you can’t do it unless you play the whole thing start to finish a hundred times– or, a solution I plan to take up soon, reading the tab sheets for it and learning it slowly first before playing it in Rocksmith. This gives me an excuse to find alternate resources other than Rocksmith to train myself to play.

2. You can’t complete missions with them. This, I believe, is what might be causing the corruption in the profile. When my profile would get “corrupted” it was after playing Rammstein songs– ones in Drop D. Until now, this really mystified me. My other CDLCs weren’t causing the problem– only Rammstein. It wasn’t until yesterday morning that I realized: “hey, don’t I have a mission to play a song in Drop D? Almost all Rammstein songs are in Drop D. I bet that’s what’s causing it.”

I played a Drop D song that came with the game. Cleared that, then backed up my profile after completing the mission. I reopened Rocksmith and prepared to test my theory that the mission itself was causing the CDLCs to corrupt the game. I open a Rammstein song and get ready to rock. Rocksmith asks me to tune my guitar for the song.

Twang! My high E string snaps.

“Wow,” I thought, with a slow, sarcastic blink. “The timing couldn’t be more perfect.”

Although this really bummed me out, not only because I had to quit before my goal of one hour for the day, but it meant that I wouldn’t be playing for probably a week while I wait for new strings. The positive thing is that it gave me the opportunity to order new, better strings suited for metal playing, and will teach me how to restring my guitar. Plus I get to mess around with different gauges and see what works best for my style.

So, we won’t find out the truth of profile corruption until next time?
I’m afraid so. But you could test this theory yourself! Maybe you’ll find out before me.

Lastly, I’ve become so fond of my guitar (even though it bit me) that I’ve given it a name. I’ve decided to call it “Garrote.” I thought it fitting for one that might be playing metal most of the time.

Keep on rocking until next time!
Stay in tune!

Kitty Has a Great Offer For You! A Free Book!

If an orange tabby cat loves a book, chances are, it’s pretty engrossing!

For the next five days, For the Sake of Happiness, a M/M romance novel, is FREE on Kindle! Pick yours up while the offer still stands– and so you don’t disappoint Circuit the orange kitty.

He is not one you want to disappoint.

Tale of an Amateur Guitarist: More Rocksmith… and the Issues With it

 

My journey with Rocksmith continues!
Rocksmith remains to be a great teaching tool, and an encouraging one. I’m still having a lot of fun learning, and I must say that I’ve learned a lot. In the lessons so far, I’ve gotten half of them done, and I’ve gotten high scores on some of the games. The more I play my guitar, the easier it becomes.

Ehh.. with some exceptions…
I’ve found where Rocksmith can fall flat (and of course, cannot compare to the tutoring of an actual teacher). While I have learned ten times more about guitars in the past week than I have my whole life, I’m starting to wonder if I’m learning all I can be. I like to broaden my horizons, so in the time to come, I might try various other tools to aid me along. With that said, let’s take a look at some of the flaws Rocksmith can fall victim to.

Your save file can become corrupted.
Ohhh yes.
One fateful morning a few days ago, I opened my Rocksmith profile only to find the chilling message that the save file was “damaged” and thus could not be opened. As my heart steadily plummeted into my stomach, I realized that I had lost all of my progress. I would have to do all of the lessons over again. I would have to level up in the Guitarcade again. I would have to play those damn starter songs again (that I never heard prior to playing this game).
Thankfully, I didn’t have months worth of progress lost, as some others have! Since I had already known how to do everything from my first time around, I plowed through the lessons quicker a second time, and thankfully my high scores were saved on my Uplay profile, rather than my Rocksmith one, so my name is still on the leaderboards.
My message to ALL Rocksmith players: back up your profile for the love of all that is loud and rocking.

Rocksmith tracks “correct notes” better than it tracks “correct technique.”
Rocksmith does track your technique, but it is most useful in the songs and practice rounds of lessons, where it tells you your technique accuracy percentage. Where it isn’t useful is the lessons themselves. I’m pretty sure if you hit all of the right notes, even accidentally as I have on a couple of occasions, Mr. Proud Guy will gush “EXCELLENT” anyway. As I said, it’s not that big of an issue, since the lessons are more of forerunners to the bigger projects, but sometimes when passing a lesson, it actually shocked me that I got it right, because I knew I didn’t.

Chords.
I “get” chords… but the game seems to think I don’t. It will tell me to press my fingers on the frets… I do so. It will tell me to only strum those strings and no others. I do that. I strum it, it sounds fine. The game tells me I might be holding my fingers in the wrong place, or that I’m missing a string. I check my hand. Yeah, my fingers are on the right frets. I’m moving them around to make sure I’m not touching other strings. I strum each string individually to make sure they sound right. They do. Strum the chord. In so many words, the game keeps telling me “you’re doing it wrong.” This is extremely frustrating, as you can imagine, because without an actual player or teacher telling me EXACTLY what I’m doing wrong, I have no idea what it is. I’m doing my best to do whatever the computer asks me, and it doesn’t like the way I’m doing it, for whatever reason.
The ironic thing is that when I play those same chords during songs, they’re apparently perfect. I hit every one. Maybe the detection of the chords is more lenient in the tracks and riffs, but when trying to play them during particularly the second chord lesson, it doesn’t work. The problem is that I can’t tell if this is human error or just a bug– another problem with using a game to learn.

Bends.
I might need to toughen my fingers for this… but holy HELL does it ever hurt. I mean, it kills. Mostly because whenever I do bends, the game tells me I’m wrong, then I have to bend again… and again, and again, again, again until my fingers are nearly bleeding. I’ll push that damn string up to where it wants and it says “miss” a lot of the time. So I keep trying and miss even more because my fingers are falling off. Again, this is where a teacher would come in handy, to tell you if you’re too low or too high on your bend. Oh, and the bends are always on those thinner strings, which you have to push against the thicker ones. I wonder if working my arms this hard counts as exercise (probably not).

Tremolo.
Eh, this one just sort of requires practice right now, but I find it challenging to angle my pick just right to do it correctly. It’s all a matter of doing it repeatedly, of course, but I can’t help but tense my arm when trying to do it. They tell you not to,  but it’s sort of something that can’t be helped. My picks are medium thickness, and I heard lighter picks are ideal for tremolo, but mine aren’t that heavy. I managed to do it properly for the lesson… and then, I could never get it right again. It was like a miracle that occurred out of nowhere to help me pass it so I could move on.

So… do I feel like a rockstar yet?
Not quite… but I can tell you honestly that when holding my guitar, I feel great. It’s satisfying to learn new things, to challenge yourself, to rise above something that before has been holding you back from achieving certain goals. Onward, to conquering rock!

Stay in tune!

Author Corner: The Book Marketing Sandtrap

#140650128 / gettyimages.com

Since publishing my first novel in February, I’ve been spending a lot of time researching how to market. There’s a plethora of information out there on how to do so, and all of the typical do’s and don’t’s. In doing so, I’ve learned a lot… and I’ve also found that some of the things I’ve learned, if not most, don’t help me in the least.

During my many months of research, I’ve come to understand something. One marketer tells you it’s best to do one thing, and another opposes this idea. It’s no wonder I’m getting so confused about what to do. Who is right and who is wrong in these cases when they so often contradict each other?

For example:

Marketer One: Spread yourself to as many forms of social media as you can! Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, all of it. You need to be able to reach everyone because not everyone uses just plain Twitter, Facebook, or Google.
Marketer Two: Spend most of your time on your own website, and only use one form of social media at a time.

Marketer One: Blog about helpful topics that give people advice. Give them hints on how to improve their technique. If your blog doesn’t have helpful advice posts, no one will give a crap about it.
Marketer Two: Write about you, about your life, and make yourself seem more human so that people are interested in the fact that you are a real person. Showing people that you have a real personal life will make them more invested in your work. Don’t write negative reviews, though. In fact, don’t be negative at all.

Marketer One: Have a budget in which to spend on buying marketing tools and things such as ad space.
Marketer Two: Are you insane? You’re in the business to make some money, not throw it away when you could do it yourself! You can do it yourself… can’t you?

Marketer One: Spam your book title!
Marketer Two: Don’t do that! It makes you look like a robot and people will unfollow you faster than they can say STFU!

What’s most interesting is that many marketers believe mailing lists provide the best form of marketing overall. The problem, however, is that when trying to get an answer from anyone regarding what exactly to put in a mailing list, they just give me a half-assed “well you just have to do it” answer. Yeah, but how do I do it? What do you give people in a newsletter when you’re not important enough to have news? It’s a bit of a catch, isn’t it? If no one cares about you and your website in the first place, what’s going to make them join your mailing list?

Some say “give them something for free in return.” Okay, like what? I don’t have advice, because none of the advice provided for me does me any good. How can I tell them “sign up for some tips” if I have no tips? I’ve heard it might work to give people free samples of stories. If people cared about my stories, they’d be coming here already, wouldn’t they? Again, it’s a catch. You need a mailing list to hook people, but you need to hook people before starting a mailing list. What is one supposed to do when they have no idea what to do. Unfortunately, people have tales of their own misfortune, but their advice is for people already exceeding my own fame and fortune. “Go on radio shows,” I’ve heard. Why would anyone take a no-name author on their radio show? I need to be important first, but I can’t become important unless I do the show.

For an author, this is what it’s like to try to understand marketing. Okay, for an author like me. Some have it easy. They find their golden egg and milk it for all its worth. Some of us don’t have that golden egg. Some of us are just really, really bad at marketing ourselves. I can tell you a novel-length story about certain characters and the life they inhabit, but I have no idea how to tell you that book is worth reading. In my view, if it’s not a famous enough work, I don’t believe it’s good enough. People want to read popular things.

And so, I sit in the sandtrap, waiting to find my own egg. One of these days, it’ll pop out from under me in the form of giant flashing banners and desperation.

The Book Marketing Sandtrap

#140650128 / gettyimages.com

 

Since publishing my first novel in February, I’ve been spending a lot of time researching how to market. There’s a plethora of information out there on how to do so, and all of the typical do’s and don’t’s. In doing so, I’ve learned a lot… and I’ve also found that some of the things I’ve learned, if not most, don’t help me in the least.

During my many months of research, I’ve come to understand something. One marketer tells you it’s best to do one thing, and another opposes this idea. It’s no wonder I’m getting so confused about what to do. Who is right and who is wrong in these cases when they so often contradict each other?

For example:

Marketer One: Spread yourself to as many forms of social media as you can! Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, all of it. You need to be able to reach everyone because not everyone uses just plain Twitter, Facebook, or Google.
Marketer Two: Spend most of your time on your own website, and only use one form of social media at a time.

Marketer One: Blog about helpful topics that give people advice. Give them hints on how to improve their technique. If your blog doesn’t have helpful advice posts, no one will give a crap about it.
Marketer Two: Write about you, about your life, and make yourself seem more human so that people are interested in the fact that you are a real person. Showing people that you have a real personal life will make them more invested in your work. Don’t write negative reviews, though. In fact, don’t be negative at all.

Marketer One: Have a budget in which to spend on buying marketing tools and things such as ad space.
Marketer Two: Are you insane? You’re in the business to make some money, not throw it away when you could do it yourself! You can do it yourself… can’t you?

Marketer One: Spam your book title!
Marketer Two: Don’t do that! It makes you look like a robot and people will unfollow you faster than they can say STFU!

What’s most interesting is that many marketers believe mailing lists provide the best form of marketing overall. The problem, however, is that when trying to get an answer from anyone regarding what exactly to put in a mailing list, they just give me a half-assed “well you just have to do it” answer. Yeah, but how do I do it? What do you give people in a newsletter when you’re not important enough to have news? It’s a bit of a catch, isn’t it? If no one cares about you and your website in the first place, what’s going to make them join your mailing list?

Some say “give them something for free in return.” Okay, like what? I don’t have advice, because none of the advice provided for me does me any good. How can I tell them “sign up for some tips” if I have no tips? I’ve heard it might work to give people free samples of stories. If people cared about my stories, they’d be coming here already, wouldn’t they? Again, it’s a catch. You need a mailing list to hook people, but you need to hook people before starting a mailing list. What is one supposed to do when they have no idea what to do. Unfortunately, people have tales of their own misfortune, but their advice is for people already exceeding my own fame and fortune. “Go on radio shows,” I’ve heard. Why would anyone take a no-name author on their radio show? I need to be important first, but I can’t become important unless I do the show.

For an author, this is what it’s like to try to understand marketing. Okay, for an author like me. Some have it easy. They find their golden egg and milk it for all its worth. Some of us don’t have that golden egg. Some of us are just really, really bad at marketing ourselves. I can tell you a novel-length story about certain characters and the life they inhabit, but I have no idea how to tell you that book is worth reading. In my view, if it’s not a famous enough work, I don’t believe it’s good enough. People want to read popular things.

And so, I sit in the sandtrap, waiting to find my own egg. One of these days, it’ll pop out from under me in the form of giant flashing banners and desperation.

Manga Studio Versus Photoshop

I’ve recently made a switch to Manga Studio for my comic-style artwork. I have to say, I’m pretty impressed with it. I didn’t have much high hopes for it at the start, but when using the features for inking artwork, I fell in love right away.

Usually, I use Photoshop for my artwork. Now, there’s nothing wrong with Photoshop– in fact, it’s one of the greatest programs for an artist. My issue with it, however, is it’s lack of versatility when it comes to inking. The pen in Photoshop is not very user-friendly, in my opinion, and using a brush to ink… well, that’s just time-consuming and frankly, frustrating. Photoshop is by far better when it comes to it’s functionality with layers and abilities to blend colors, but it’s also more of a hassle to create comic book panels in Photoshop than it is in Manga Studio.

Manga Studio, much to my relief, had various options when it came to pens. I love my inking lines to have a “tapered edge” look to them. It looks cleaner, in my opinion. There is a pen you can choose to use called “For Effect” pen that offers this automatically without having to change a whole bunch of settings like you do in Photoshop. I eventually chose not to use them in Photoshop when trying to ink my pencil work since it was way more hassle than it was worth, and looked clunky. In Manga Studio, it looks fluid, crisp, and really makes the black lines pop out.

I still prefer coloring in Photoshop over coloring in Manga Studio, however. I did try out the coloring for my latest drawing, the one featured here, to give it a shot to see how well colors mixed and faded. While I was able to give my brush soft edges, there’s definitely an ease-of-use (at least, in my opinion) when coloring in Photoshop. First, using the Alt key to use the eyedropper. That saves me a multitude of headaches. I don’t know if you can map the eyedropper to a key in Manga Studio, but if I can, I’m definitely doing it. Second, I find brush sets easier to find for Photoshop than for Manga Studio. Everyone’s come up with a million different kinds of sketching brushes for PS that come in handy for me.

Overall, Manga Studio wins out for me in terms of comic book art. The options you have to create panels and lines are much broader than in Photoshop. I mean, it is called Manga Studio. It’s sole purpose is to make comic drawing easier. I haven’t tackled a whole comic page in the program yet, but I hope to do so soon. It should be a lot of fun now that I have a program that can make it a bit easier on me.

Seeing how clean my art came out of the program, I look forward to starting a web-comic, which I hope to eventually make when my time isn’t as restricted. It gives me all new reasons to draw again. I’ve been considering quite a bit making one featuring characters of mine that star in my next novel, or to plot out a future graphic novel. So many opportunities.

Tale of an Amateur Guitarist: First Days With Rocksmith

As I’m typing now, my left shoulder is killing me because I’ve been playing my guitar for hours while standing. Obviously, this isn’t a good thing, but I’ve come to love playing guitar so much that I just can’t stop.

Of course, when you start getting shoulder pain, that is a time to put it away. Also, when my fingers burn and ache like nothing I’ve ever felt. No, I haven’t quite gone all Bryan Adams and played it “till my fingers bled,” but I’ve come insanely close to achieving that. By now, I believe my fingertips have permanent indents in them.

So Rocksmith. It’s a great game, but an even better teaching tool. Not only do I feel like I’m learning something important by playing, I’m having fun while I do it. I’ve only been at it for I believe three days, and already I’ve learned several power chords, I’m getting quicker at fret-switching, and the muscle memory for where my strings are is improving. Of course, I go beyond their recommended “hour a day” goal (many hours beyond it), but the time just melts away with the instrument in my hands. It’s so satisfying and rewarding to see myself getting better in just a few days. In a couple of months, there’s no telling what I’ll be able to achieve.

However, I’m not planning to go my entire guitar-playing career using only Rocksmith. There are lots of amazing videos and tutorials and tabs online to help guide me when I start getting better, and I plan to utilize every last bit of information out there to succeed. I’m not quitting, or giving up until I sound like a pro.

With that said, I have some miniscule advice for anyone else who is new to Rocksmith.

1) Play the Guitarcade. Play, play, play the Guitarcade. I can’t stress this enough. After learning a few of the lessons provided in the game on how to play frets and use other techniques, I went straight to the games before trying any song. If it’s one thing I feel improves my technique, it’s the games. On top of that, they are so insanely fun. Learning songs is fun, too, but I’ve found that after spending a good amount of time playing the mini-games, I was better at playing the songs.

2) Don’t press your strings too hard. It may sound good coming off the guitar itself, but it registers as a sharp note in the game if you do it. It’s a good way to train you to ease up on that pressure and relax. And you need to in order to play a song.

3) Don’t play for hours on end like I do. Ow.

If you can, get the PC version. That’s the version I have, and for PC, you can install custom songs, which you can get from Customs Forge.
Learn how to install custom songs Here.
Search for songs to download Here

You can install customs on Xbox and PS3, but it’s a lot harder if you’re not accustomed to modding.

The more I play Rocksmith, the more I’ll have to say. Stay in tune!