Android Me Inching Closer
A quick update on Android Me. The latest draft of the novel is now in the realm of the readers. My expectation is that this is the last distribution before I hunker down to the publishing side of things. This means committing to a cover design, and then typesetting the manuscript. This is the part of the process that, while not nearly as bad as editing is, can be tedious. Every ebook seems to want its own format to look all spiffy, and the trade paperback needs even more hands-on care. Basically it means that I have to scan through the book several more times before I'm done. (This underscores my advice that you better like what you write because you're going to be reading it a lot.) While I love that we live in an age where independent publishing is pretty much the norm, I sort of get annoyed with the having to do so much of the detail stuff. It's [...]
A Scratchy Intermission
First, an update with Android Me. I'm still in the midst of what I hope to be the final significant edit. Movement on that has been on hold for a few weeks as my brain was needing a break. Since I'd also been champing at the bit to do some scratchboarding, I decided to have a sort of busman's holiday and broke out my scratch tools. The attached image is my scratch WIP titled Ristra Roja. It's on 5 x 7 inch (127 x 178 mm) Ampersand Scratchbord. For those who don't know, a ristra is tied bundle of any of several foods meant to be dried. In this case, I chose a tight shot of a very familiar sight across my home state, a ristra of New Mexico red chile. I'm doing something that's very familiar to other scratchboard artists but something I haven't done outside of experiments: actually using a brush to apply Ampersand Scratchbord inks (basically acrylic inks). I've tended [...]
