Wesley McCraw's Blog, page 10

Music Monday 3/28

Comics: Where to begin.

Have you ever wanted to get into comics, but then you saw all those endless racks of issues in mid-run and didn’t know where to begin? Are you into comics already but would like to investigate the non-superhero side a bit more? Well, I’m giving you a reading list to do just that.

First a primer: Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. Anyone interested in art should read this, but for comic readers, it’s doubly required. It uses comics to explain comics and it is pretty much universally admired for its insight and clarity. You’ll never look at comics the same way again.

Now that you understand comics on a deeper level, it’s time to test that understanding. Comics are more than just superheroes. And if you’ve tried comics in the past, you have probably already read a superhero story or two. Try these instead…

A spectacular and transporting intro into sequential art is The Arrival by Shaun Tan. I can’t say enough good things about this graphic novel. The Arrival is wondrous, personal, universal, and timeless. Imaginative doesn’t cover it. It’s pure magic on the page, and it demonstrates how comics can do things that other mediums can’t.

Take your time to absorb every image. It’s easy to fly through comics and just read the words. This book doesn’t have words, and it’s good practice for taking in and reading images. You have more control over the pace of comics than prose. You don’t want to experience everything on fast forward.

Now that you have been dazzled, it’s time for some classic manga. Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha is my pick. This book challenged a lot of my ideas about classic comics. What is the tone, the subject, the style of a comic from the late 70’s?

After reading the 8 volumes of Buddha, one of the father of manga’s last epics, it’s time to read something a bit more modern…

We3 by Grant Morrison (Writer) and Frank Quitely (Artist). Brutal and heartfelt. It takes risks with the form and it pays off. This limited six issue run has robot battles and ultra-violence, but it also has a powerful emotional core.

Your comics education has just begun. I’ll continue with your reading list soon. That should be enough to get you started.

 

Music Monday 3/21

The first day of spring and hopes for the summer.

I’m back to full-steam writing today after a bit of a break. I just had my coffee and I’m ready to go.

Thank you to everyone that bought House of Cabal Vol 2. Also thank you to those currently reading House of Cabal Vol 1. (If you haven’t got a copy of volume one yet, you can get it for a buck at Amazon HERE.) I hope the twist and turns are keeping you all entertained.

I have two books I would like to finish up this summer. To accomplish this I’ve made some deadlines for myself for the spring. These deadlines line up with the releases of a few PS4 games I’ve been looking forward to, so I’m using the games as an incentive.

The next draft of my novel Brief Pose should be done before the release of Dark Souls 3, April 12th. That gives me about twenty-four days, which isn’t much.

The next draft of House of Cabal Vol 3 should be done before the release of Uncharted 4, May 10th. That’s only fifty days away. That deadline might be even harder to hit.

After that, I should be in good shape to wrap up Brief Pose for a release before June 21, the release date of No Man’s Sky. And then I can focus on House of Cabal Vol 3 for a late summer or early fall release.

This is a tight writing scheduled, but I should be able to accomplish it unless I hit some kind of unforeseen problem with the writing process. This is such a crazy year for releasing my work and a long time coming. Thanks again for joining me.

House of Cabal Volume Two: Estate has been released onto the world!

You can now buy the second installment of House of Cabal at Amazon and Smashwords.

Buy Volume Two for $3.99 from Amazon HERE.

Or from Smashwords HERE.

If you’ve read Volume One already, I would love a review at Amazon HERE. Besides wanting to know what you think, it would also help me to sell more books.

Thanks again and I hope you enjoy exploring the enigmas of the estate.

Sincerely,

Wesley McCraw

The “official” release of my book is tonight.

At midnight House of Cabal Volume Two: Estate will officially be released. Why do I keep using the word official? It’s because the book is already available at Smashwords and Amazon.

You can buy Volume Two early from Amazon HERE. Smashwords HERE.

In the future, I will be stricter about timing the release, but at this point, I’m not sure it matters that much. Ideally I would want my book to rise up the sales chart to get exposure, so I would want all my fans to buy the book at once, but I’m not quite at that point yet. I’m still just starting out. Most of the people who will be buying this book are people who have already read volume one, and frankly, there just aren’t that many of you yet.

So wait for the release tonight or buy it now. And if you haven’t read the first one yet…

You can buy Volume One from Amazon HERE. Only $0.99.

Or for a limited time get Volume One FREE from Smashwords HERE.

Releasing my books for you, your friends, and your enemies.

Getting the word out about my books is not the most fun thing. At its best it’s me telling people that I have this cool story I want them to read. I’m thankful that everyone so far really likes House of Cabal’s first volume, the few individuals who have read it. Now what?

I should try to get more blogs to review it. I should try to get some short stories in magazines. I should keep writing. But it’s hard sometimes to keep going when I come to the end of a project. I haven’t received the feedback yet that will help me carry on.

Releasing a book feels like it should be a high point of the writing process, but it’s not, at least so far. I’ve only released two books, and soon I will have released three. So I don’t know how that will change, but I expect it will always end up me, back at writing and fixing sentences.

Here is the final cover for House of Cabal Vol 2.

I lost the Photoshop file for House of Cabal Volume Two: Estate and so I had to recreate the image.

Thankfully my Photoshop skills have emprovesd so it didn’t take nearly as long and I like this verson better.

In fact, this is my first cover that I’m actully happy with.

Pick up a copy Friday the 18th.

Music Monday 3/14

I got my copy edit back.

I got House of Cabal Volume Two: Estate back from my copy editor after some drama over missing emails.

The corrections look solid. The book release will be on March 18th. As you can see in the corner, there is a countdown. Not many days left now.

I have a few things to tie up still, the main one being, finalizing the cover and the text for the Smashwords version and the Amazon version and writing all the sales copy.

People have been wondering what I’ll be working on next. Plans can change, but here is what’s up.

I have a rough draft of House of Cabal’s next two volumes. I haven’t finalized which parts go in which volume yet. I’m also not positive on the total number in the series. At least six. I have the ending planned out, but there is room to play.

Before I focus on rewriting volumes three and four, I have a novel that I would like to release this summer, Brief Pose, and maybe a book of weird fiction short stories to release this fall. So the release of volume three should be in early 2017. Okay, that’s a lot of writing I have this year. No time like the present.

Thanks again for reading my work. Get volume one of House of Cabal for free HERE.