Author: Aya DeAniege

Cover Making

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Making a cover has a learning curve. Now, I’m not under the belief that just anyone can sit down and make a nice cover. Unlike formatting, it’s not something that can be explained in a single blog post.

For myself, I have a long history with both graphic design and art. Don’t take that as meaning I’ve gone to school or anything. I worked with photo-manipulation software when I was a teenager. There was nothing else to do and this was in the age where your computer still made sounds as it connected to the internet, and was slow as could be. If you wanted to grab a picture, you had to wait ten minutes to an hour for it to download, my connection sucked that much.

I have, over the years, continued to use photo-editing software in the form of Gimp. Gimp was not what I was raised with and I found myself frustrated over the things that I couldn’t do, or couldn’t figure out. The text box alone…

What I was used to was a pirated copy of either Paintshop Pro, or Photoshop Pro. I had used the good stuff and knew that my trouble with Gimp was the limitations of the software. Though it is free and great for beginners.

As a teenager and into my early twenties, I drew a lot. Except it always came out awkwardly un-balanced. Turns out one of my lenses is crooked or misshapen and without special man-made lenses, my perspective of the world was forever slanted. Isn’t that fun? Especially when you can’t freaking draw with them on because it’s very uncomfortable.

My jobs over the years have involved a great deal of visual balance. This is a requirement for graphic design. If you have no sense of balance, or how to make a piece balanced, something will forever bother the reader who glances over your work.

My most recent job involves colour, measurements, creating designs, and guiding clients through the design choices to create a custom look that suits their needs. In the past three years I have learned more about colour and balance than I thought possible, or that I ever thought I would need.

So, with all that, I had a shitty little monitor and a mouse with some photo-editing software. I found drawing and working with the mouse to be annoying and blocky, like I was making the shapes with my shoulder instead of my wrist.

I grabbed a tablet, just a cheap one, nothing overly fancy.

Still have the shitty little monitor.

Why does the monitor matter? Well, each computer monitor is a bit like a snowflake. The monitor I have now is several years old, has dead pixels all over the place and I swear is getting darker with time.

Creating the cover for At Death’s Door, I thought I did really well, until I got it onto my cell phone, which is a much newer screen, and spotted things which I couldn’t see on my monitor. Things which made it look like a three year old had tried to colour the cover.

I would have caught it, had I actually been able to see the colour problem on my monitor. Once I saw it, and I zoomed in, I could kind of see it, but I still had to use my cell phone as a guide.

Hence the monitor’s new title, “shitty little monitor.” It works great for all things not graphic design.

Even with the proper equipment, this takes time, effort, and practice. Lots of practice. I like the practice, it’s quite invigorating to work on something besides writing and editing constantly. I’m also not playing a game, so I don’t have that guilty voice at the back of my head whining about how I should be working.

After getting a cover done, I step back and think that there was a better, smoother way of doing that thing. I remember for next time. Yes, my first few covers are going to be a little lumpy. Yes, it could be years before I produce the types of things which others would actually pay for.

But that’s actually my end goal with this. Not just to make my own covers, but to sell covers as well. That way, when I get aggravated about writing or editing, I can take a break, do some arts and crafts, and still make money.

I just need the practice.

Graphic Design

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I have been working for the past two weeks non-stop pretty well. Getting back into the swing of things, which is great.

I’ve completed another edit of At Death’s Door, and that will be my focus until April 1st, which is when I hope it goes live.

I’ve finished writing the first draft of Contract Signed, and gotten about a quarter of the way through Contract Sealed.

I’ve reached chapter 15, or about three quarters of the way through the second book of Wraith’s Rebellion, which I’m thinking of titling Cheating Death, instead of Death Mask.

After some research, some conversations and a bit of work for relearning, I’ve decided to get back into graphic design. I did this as a teen, though not in any sort of a serious sense. Just dabbling on my mother’s computer with Paintshop Pro because the only games we had were solitaire and pinball.

And I was really bored of pinball. I also only had her images to play with, which also got boring. What she had and what I wanted would sometimes overlap, but not always.

Let’s face it: graphic design is the second most expensive part of indie publishing. The first being editing, and the third I think being formatting.

Anyone can do cover design. How nice your cover designs turn out depend on practice, eye, and equipment. Like last night, I discovered that I need an actual mouse pad to do this, because my mouse ‘bounces’ and then ruins my freestyle select two thirds of the way around an image that the smart select can’t find.

It also takes patience. A different kind of patience than what writing or editing or marketing take.

I have the eye, I have enough ability to look at covers for At Death’s Door and be like, “hey, this is how that’s put together!” What I lack at the moment are the practice and the patience. Of course, I have no patience because I want to get At Death’s Door up for preorder, and I have little practice because of the same thing.

There’s at least two more edits and one final read through before it can go live. One of the edits, I’m going to start tomorrow before I read through it and then do the read for the final edit, then read again for problems. Hopefully by then, my beta readers have gotten back to me.

The most I’ve done for graphics was slap a transparency on my header photo for Facebook and Twitter, then add text. So impressive. It also took me an hour to do. Don’t get me wrong, I had a ton of fun doing it, but that was an hour of work from At Death’s Door.

I may use graphic design as a way to unwind, I’m not going to lie.

And while writing this post, I found an image I want to touch and play with. Excuse me, while I go sign up for a website and see if they let me play before purchase.

Giveaway Rules and Such…

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I’m running a contest to give away a signed copy of the Contracted Trilogy. So three books to one person, shipped from my home, to you. I haven’t signed them yet, as you may ask for a personalized message. The rules are as follows:

Must live in North America, or have a North American mailing address. Obviously to receive the books you would have to share that address but I will not share it with anyone else. About two seconds after writing it, I’ll probably forget it anyhow.

Contest will run from February 21st to March 21st, so a full month, to give time to everyone to enter. Links will be added to this page as I get the items up and going.

Ways to enter:

Share this publicly on Facebook – this has to be public or I won’t receive the notification, which means I won’t know you entered. As far as I know, only shares on the original post will be sent to my notifications. So I very strongly encourage you to head to the original post and share that one, not one you’ve seen on Facebook.

Like the Facebook post – simple enough.

Follow my author page – new follows only, sometimes Facebook doesn’t tell me who has followed my page, so if you’d really like to make certain, drop me a line after liking.

Join the mailing list. – new joins only. The mailing list probably popped up when you visited the blog, it can also be found on Facebook.

Retweet this on Twitter – link coming soon.

The rules are pretty simple, but it does tend to leave out those who have already done some things! So if you’ve made it this far down the rules blog, here’s another way to enter: If you’ve read Contract Taken, you can leave a review on Amazon for the book. If you’ve already done that, you can review on Contract Broken. You may need to claim the review, but to do so you just need to send me a notice.

Difficulty Focusing

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

 

I’m trying to focus for Contract Signed, but I’m outside of the plot I had written down so I’m kind of in my own marsh style area. Seven more chapters to go, I kind of have a gist of an idea of what and how. Because the what and how of before didn’t really change all too much.

On the vampire front, I’m on chapter six of Death Mask now and that’s going fairly well. Again, I’ve broken outside of my plot just a little bit. But this break was by mashing two chapters together because it worked better as one rather than separated.

What I should do, is when I get home start edits on At Death’s Door.

Or work on edits while at work on break and before my shift starts. I could do that too. Except I need to have laser focus for this edit and there are people who talk to me while I’m sitting there. I think they think I’m joking when I say I’m working?

I also have to take the time to set up the… I don’t have a clever name for it yet. The book where I’m going to put all my worlds in one place so that I stop whining about all the ideas I’m chasing and the possibility of losing them. This way I can add and snippets of plot to the book. When I’m done writing Wraith’s Rebellion and the new Contracted trilogy, I can just open the book, grab a page and off I go.

In theory.

I’ve been starting to think of what I’d do if I quite my day job, how would the writing run. Just sleeping until I wake up doesn’t do it for me, not if I want to be productive. So I was thinking if I can manage it, I’d have a seven am start, maybe earlier some days, with coffee. That’d give me a couple of hours to do some writing before a majority of people are even up.

Or stores open, because I’d still have to go out and buy groceries and stuff.

I’d probably work a set schedule, like Monday to Friday, seven to whenever I went to bed. I’d probably end up wheeling that back to like five and then taking the rest of the night “off” to pursue whatever projected I wanted to or to just play video games. Take weekends, holidays, and festival days off.

I know I sound like a crazy person. I know my first book just went up in September. I know that I don’t have a firm date for the next book to come out, or a real plan to get the others out at this moment. I know I’m writing every day instead of editing.

I also know I’m not marketing, but everyone wants 15+ reviews on Amazon, I don’t meet that requirement yet and I’m not going to pay for reviews. So I have to actually wait on that.

But at the end of the day, I am a planner. I want to plan for the eventuality of not working a day job so that when I get off the job, when I get home that first night, then the next morning? I can get up and I know what I’m going to do and I know how I’m going to do it. Without planning now, getting it thought out and the kinks figured out as much as I can, I’ll spend weeks, or even months caught in a bog of trying to figure it out as I go.

So I’m planning and thinking now. How can I do this, what is the best use of my time?

Oh gosh, I’d be able to eat meals at a table instead of at the computer as I typed one handed…

Back to Work (again)

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Seven weeks behind, I think it’s safe to say I’m throwing out some expletives in frustration. I need some project I can tick off as complete before I start getting disoriented by this pile of work that’s building up.

Need to get back into the routine. Death Mask on the phone, Contract Signed at home. Whatever I can manage at work.

Today “whatever I can manage at work” is formatting for both Contract Broken and Contract Renewed. I got the wraps back, thankfully my cover designer found time among planning a wedding, working full time, and running her own writing job.

Thinking about how much was on her plate does not make me feel better about me being seven weeks behind.

Seven weeks! That’s like two books written and one edited with how quickly I normally work.

I’m also concerned because I have another doctor’s appointment next week. My concern, of course, being that the last appointment took me out for a week. My skull was vibrating like a tuning fork even on Saturday.

I do have a plan, but I also had a plan last week and it did not work.

Then again, I didn’t expect to have two trips to a lab and an extra trip to the doctor because she forgot to tick a box off…

Still, I’ve never done this before and don’t know what my reaction will be. 

So there’s that concern. 

In the mean time, if my bus ever shows up, I am going to write on my commutes, I’ve got the tablet to do the formatting at work, and I do have a plan for edits and writing once I get home. I even had a plan to write this morning. 

I find, however, that I can work better if I read the last chapter to get in the mindset sort of thing. So I drank my coffee and read chapter eleven of Contract Signed. 

I don’t recall writing it, but my goodness.

There are so many things I could be doing, if not for the day job. It’s aggravating because all my energy when I get sick or injured… or have no water for three weeks… goes towards the day job because the bills have to be paid.

Gotta get back to work. That’s my mantra now. 

Gotta get back to work.

Out of Comission

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I don’t even know if that’s spelled right. 

Struggling to find words makes writing nearly impossible. Thank you autocorrect for finishing all my words. Sort of.

Going to curl up in bed until the words return. Then will go back to work and beat out a book or two in a month like usual.

Stupid brain being broke.

Stupid Medical Tests!

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Okay, so it’s my own fault for finding a doctor after almost three decades without. Yes, I’m young still so it’s not as bad. But no one quite believes me.

Today I have spent four hours in transit and waiting for tests. Before that I couldn’t leave my apartment. It was my own doing, getting up and going, but it was Dorian’s voice at the back of my mind.

I know I haven’t talked about him much recently, but he still exists, I swear.

Actually, I could blame him for this. He found a letter sent to me asking about when I had been screened for cancer last. In my defense, this was the first such letter I had received. 

Upon hearing about my situation, he demanded I find a doctor. I got pissed at him, every other sexual partner has only been interested in getting me on the pill.

Yes, I live dangerously. But the rate at which I could get pregnant is pretty low according to genetics. 

Apparently it didn’t occur to him. He did mutter something about how that’d be nice. I could see the nasty, smutt filled thoughts running through his head.

He did it because of age and screening. I’ve never been screened before, that’s a problem. I understand that, complete understand.

But I haven’t done it before because of what almost happened this morning. When I almost missed my appointment because I was paralyzed by fear.

I’ve stood up to men two and three times my size. I’ve removed myself from bad and worse than bad situations. But try to get myself to a doctor’s appointment and I lose my freaking mind.

So while I was supposed to edit today, all I’ve been able to do is whine. Not even about the tests, but about how vulnerable I feel.

Whine, whine, whine. 

Know what I’ll be whining about tomorrow? 

How I didn’t get any work done because I was feeling vulnerable. 

And there’ll be this voice at the back of my head whispering, “You’re weak and pathetic for being vulnerable.” And nothing will shut it up except a good working over.

Except Dorian won’t er… supply me with what I want until attached rhetoric tests are done. Stupid tease.

Second Round of Edits

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

At Death’s Door is going through another round of edits. I just finished the read through and I can see the spots and holes and problems. Then I can see things that are nagging as you read, like, you know… that’s not what he said before.

The timeline is definitely all over the place.

Here’s the thing, I’ve got two options. Do things and fix all the things, or use those slip ups to my advantage. Some of them may not have been slip ups, they could have been Quin losing track of time, or mixing up memories. I believe he says as much.

He also says a couple of times that they were instructed not to scare the delicate little mortals.

Then there were some nagging bits bothering me so I went to the character causing them and handed them to her and we looked at one another for a time. She considered not telling me, I could see it in her eyes. She’s not a character whose head I ride inside of, sometimes they surprise me.

In the end she told me.

There are nagging bits and burrs and seeing the end of the trilogy, I just kind of sat there for a minute, then started shouting at the characters.

Ah well.

Knowing that ending allows me to alter a few things. It kind of explains a few things, why things sat the way they did. Why that one was just like that, why that person was just so. I can smooth a few things over or rough them up in a few other places.

There were bits and pieces that I absolutely loved, but then the voice changed. So I need to go back and recreate that voice through the entire thing.

I’m on chapter two of that re-write (sure, let’s just call it a re-write instead of an edit) and I’m having difficulty moving forward.

I don’t want to do this again.

Quin’s is a story of abuse that spans centuries. It’s the kind of abuse that people normally give flowery names to. If he had been born a girl, he might have even been called a “child bride” instead of facing the truth.

And he’s completely unapologetic about it. You asked what happened, this is what happened, don’t get weepy or bristled about it, it didn’t happen to you. Unless it did, then respect that this is how he has come to terms with what was done to him.

He’s also at a critical stage of his growth. He hadn’t quite shrugged off his abuser, but he’s about to face the man for the first time in centuries. It could go either way. He could fall into that trap again, or make the next step and defy, finally coming to terms with the fact that he is in control, he can take control of his abuser.

Because this is a vampire, after that step he could, in theory, become the abuser. He could exact every revenge fantasy of every body in the world.

But I don’t think Quin’s like that. He’s thought of ending it all, but never torment or revenge.

He just wants it to end.

And I don’t want to go through his life story again, adding in more details as he dictates them.

But I will.

Because he asked me to.

If what he was asking me to add would alter that voice that dragged me into the narration, I would say no to him. There’d be no point otherwise. I’m all for a whipping boy, but even I can only take a character being subjected to so much.

Like pretty well all my stories, there’s probably a light at the end of the mine shaft I dropped them down. Things probably work out in the end. But that doesn’t change the fact that Quin spent fifteen hundred years, his entire life, in an abusive relationship because he didn’t have the support he needed to get free.

Not until Helen walked in, called him Mr. Fedora, and asked him why?

At Death’s Door

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I opened At Death’s Door and discovered that I was almost done with the first round of edits. These were mainly typos, autocorrect issues, and some formatting. The story is now on my phone in pdf form and I’m going to give it a read to check the global edits. This includes adding things that I couldn’t during the initial writing, going back and revisiting all descriptions, and such on and so forth.

I found a premade cover today that I quite like the look of, one from someone Beth has used in the past. They’re even offering to do the wraps now! Beth had to make her own… or maybe Beth didn’t read the entire site like she lectured me on doing several times. She gets like that sometimes.

So I need to rush through and get the edits set up so that I know the approximate length of the print book to get the cover ordered. Once I have the additions to it and the cover on order I’ll run back and start over as if I haven’t done any edits at all.

Which means a read and mark down edits. Then a read to make certain I didn’t create a typo in the mean time, because I do that because I’m stupid. Then through a grammatical editing program which does all right. Then another read to make certain I didn’t make a typo again, because I do that because I’m stupid.

Then I’m going to ask for a beta reader.

While they have the book I’ll read it again in the freaked out way I do. Which is basically as follows:

OH GOD SOMEONE IS READING MY BOOK WHAT ARE THEY READING WHAT DID I DO OH GOD WHY DID I DO THAT THERE’S A COMMA MISSING RIGHT THERE IM STUPID AND SHOULD JUST GIVE UP.

No punctuation whatsoever, just screaming at the top of my lungs inside my head as I start ripping it apart for more errors.

As Beth says, the editor in me hates the writer in me.

The Missing Link

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

Or in this case, too many links.

Prototype has been on my work desk, so to speak, since September when it seemed to fight every step of the way. Since then I’ve revisited it in the planning stages several times. Each time I can only shrug and put it back on the shelf, uncertain of what happened.

I think I figured it out. 

I  was walking to the bus stop and thinking about Contract Signed which is m/m. That’s definitely not everyone’s cup of tea and Signed would be my first published m/m so those who are not long time readers are not going to be expecting it so much.

Just because I keep talking about it, doesn’t mean people are listening. In fact, for me it almost guarantees that no one who the warnings are for are listening. That’s the way it goes, how it’s always gone.

So, walking to the bus stop, I’m trying to figure out how to word that once the trilogy is complete and ready to go. It kind of comes to me, except inside my head me was all “if you don’t like this, give me about an hour.”

And I went, “What the fuck does that mean? Who can come up with a solution in an hour? This is problem solving time, not fantasy!”

To which the voice inside my head said something very mean.

A few minutes later I was presented with another status update that started with, “and for all you readers, here’s a m/f story.”

To which I did role call to try to put something in that spot.

Prototype is always at the top of role call. Every month I’ve started, or said I was going to start, a new story, Prototype is the first story brought up as a possibility. 

This time the voice didn’t ask. The world was dumped on me and then we proceeded arguing with one another about it being broken and which of us was to blame for it being broken. 

Yes, I talk and argue with myself inside my head. But it’s nice to have a sounding board sometimes. 

At some point the voice in my head started ripping scenes out of Prototype and basically throwing them out as I protested that it couldn’t go. We needed that and that and…

And then it hit me in the face with the pared down version. 

Which had removed the general world building and just focused on the characters.

“It’s a series. There will be plenty of time for world building in books two to sixty.”

Yes! 

I don’t know when I’ll be able to work on it again. Nearly everything but chapter one news to be thrown out. That’s okay though. It’s not the first time I’ve had to start from scratch on a story.