Yute status, VCON, and Kris story...?

Well, yesterday I passed the halfway point in my final editing run before I print a single copy for the volunteer editing team. After they each get a run though with a highlighter, I do another editing run with their suggestions in hand, then it'll be time to release..!

While it's out of my hands, I'll finalize the cover, and do a pile of marketing work. Tweaking the website, making the bookmarks, etc, etc.

Another thing I considered doing was writing a short story in page-sized installments, here in the blog. It would be about Kris Taylor, the girl that Regan dumps at the start of Lifehack. There's a big gap in what we know about her- it might be fun to see how she got to where she ended up. (minor Lifehack spoiler: she starts as a disloyal civilian tramp , and ends up as a military pilot by the time we next see her)

And the Vancouver Science fiction convention, (VCON) was moved from its location near the King George station, to near the Watreront station. Quite a distance form each other, but abouth the same size of a trip from my place. Still, I was looking forward to seeing the old locaion again. It's not like I have any reason to be loyal to the old location... it was just my first VCON... but it's familair territory now.

Whoops, a lil stinker just crawled up on my lap. Maybe I should shange the lil troublemaker...

I love it when a plan comes together

I've been tidying little bits here and there in Watching Yute. Adding the graphics to the chapter headers, etc, going over rough spots, smoothing them out. Right now I'd say I've done... one and a half editing reads. I plan to do one more lap before I print off the editing version, and set it to sail among my volunteer editing team.

I made my first serious steps into designing the cover. I was originally planning to mock up a quick one to put on the editing copy, and redesign it as the editors were doing their thing... but lo and behold, I quickly keyed into a great design. It's using source imagery from art I've previously shown the world, so It'll look very familiar to anyone who's been in my gallery at ozero.ca. It's as if the image 'Cassidy', was subconsciously made to be converted into a cover.



That'll be flipped, so that Cassidy is sitting on the front over, (right side of he cover layout) and silhouetted. That'll also let me avoid the blatant anime-look, which I fear would alienate or drive off anime-non-fans who might otherwise like the book.

In other news....

While the editors are doing thier thing, I might use this plog to post entries of a short story spin-off to Lifehack. Kris Taylor needs more of her story told. Regan's hated ex goes from trampy civillian to trampy air force pilot in Lifehack, but we miss out on the two years of her life where she chose that path... go Kris! You evil, evil *****!

Editing 1/2 done-ish.

That is, my first editing pass through is about half way done. This pass is looking MAINLY at the 'big picture'. Are events lined up right, does it feel right, etc? Of course, I'm catching typos too but it isn't my main focus at this stage.

after this pass:

-CTRL-F, to find things like FROM where it should have been FORM... the common typos that software doesn't catch. Make sure all the 'Sir's as capitalized, try to make sure all the hourable spellings of certain colourful words are right, etc. I'[ll also search for the word 'edit', which marks spots I wanted to adjust later.

-lay down chapter headers, make sure shaps start on the right pages. NAME the chapters... right now they're all "Chapter edit ::: edit" and some of the broader layout things.

-then a slow, scrutinized pass, trying to find typos, word by word. This is always tricky, as I'm quite prone to getting into the story, and skipping along merrily. Maybe I should read it backwards. I tried that a big with Lifehack, but couldn't do it.

After that, it gets a single print, to be handed around to my editing volunteers., givign me time ot finalize a cover, etc.

Whew.. it might even happen.. it might be ready for October's Sci Fi convention... but let's not rush it...!!