K.N. Salustro's Blog, page 32

Here, Have a Top 10…

Today’s Top 10: the books that havebeen pivotal tomy growth and development thus far.

This has been going around my Facebook feed this week. It’s one of the better tag games, in my opinion, and I figured, hey, why not share it here as well. Now total strangers can judge my literary influences instead of just my friends!

In all seriousness, though, I do like this trend, and it’s always interesting to see what others put down. I personally have all fiction titles, and they’re almost all scifi (by...

Who’s Afraid of Gravity?

Last night, I watched the final three episodes of Book 3 of Avatar: The Legend of Korra. If you haven’t seen them yet, spoilers ahoy. (For both Legend of Korra and The Last Airbender. You have been warned.)

If you have seen them, then let’s talk about what I’m calling “defying death saturation”.

Now, before I get into what I mean by that, let me just say that I loved these episodes. I really enjoyed this entire season of LoK, much more so than Book 2, which felt too disjointed and didn’t have a...

Maybe I’m biased on this one. Maybe.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/handmade-tales/

When we (meaning humans in general) talk about handmade vs machine-made products, it’s easy to get into a huge debate about the imaginations of people and the cold efficiency of machines and then we get into Terminators and Matrixes andso on and so forth.

It’s fun to talk about but eh, not feeling it today.

What I’ll talk about instead are stuffed animals.

Stuffed animals are adorable. And snuggly. And all around awesome. And no, they’re no...

So CreateSpace was actually pretty good…

… when it came to sorting out a technical difficulty regarding thebook cover for “Chasing Shadows”.

I’ve seen a few frustrated authors post about CreateSpace’s support team, and the automated responses that they received to their inquiries and concerns. I don’t know if I got lucky or what, but I actuallyhad a really positive experience with their staff.Now, don’t get me wrong, the site itself can be really tricky to navigate if you don’t know what you’re doing. When I first went to submit my f...

“Chasing Shadows” Free on Kindle

I’m running a promotion for my science fiction novel “Chasing Shadows” over on Amazon. Starting today, July 24th, the Kindle book is free to download! The promo will run for four days, but if you’reeven vaguely interested, why not run on over and pick it up now?

In addition to this promo, I’m making it available as a paperback via CreateSpace. More on that later, including the technical difficultyand thepleasant surprise that was the CreateSpace help team.

Happy reading!!

Brass Noise

I used to play the trumpet.

That’s one of those things that always surprises my nowadays friends when I tell them, and they always say, “I would not have guessed that in a million years.”

I played trumpet in the school band from 4th – 8th grade. Not an incredibly long stint, or an illustrious music career, but enough to get a note. I don’t remember why I joined, though I know that it had somethingto do withan ultimatumissued by my motherthat ended up being useless because the other thing ended...

Still Figuring This Out…

I’m still not quite sure what I want this blog to be. There’s not a huge amount going on in my life right now, so I have these awkward filler posts that maybe give you a sense of who I am, but then again, maybe not.

I guess this was supposed to just besomething to come back to and think about whenever I have an “off” day, though I’m not sure I want it to become a diary or something like that. I’m thinking I’d like to incorporate doodles at some point. We’ll see, I guess.

Roller coaster metaphor...

What I’ve Learned as a Freelancer

Freelancing is one of those occupations that manages to be dreamy and nightmarish all at once. You get to set your own hours, and often work from home. Awesome! You often do not have a steady source of work, and someone is always looking for something for free. Not awesome. But even with the drawbacks, I’ve learned some valuable experiences from freelancing. Things like this:

Never undervalue yourself.

Make sure that the project is worth your time.

Never, ever promise what you cannot deliver.

Don...

My Top 10 Animated Films

Animation is not just for kids. But you already knew that, didn’t you? And if you didn’t, then you are really missing out on some beautifully crafted films that know how to take advantage of their mediums to tell stories that might otherwise be impossible to explore. Animation can go where live action cannot, or will not. It takes time and dedication, and when it’s done well, the attention to detail can be breathtaking. It is one of my favorite genres. And so, without further ado, here are my...

Writing Habits

Everyone has them, right? The little things you do to switch your brain from play to work, or vice versa, depending on how you view writing. For me, personally, writing is more play than work, even if I get stuck somewhere and ever word feels like a slog through stale mud. But whenever I write and whatever I write, I have a set groove that I settle into, and it helps me go faster. So, while writing habits are different for everyone, here are mine:

1) I like it to be quiet. Totally, blissfully...