Yute in 'post pruduction'. And I need sleep.

My darlin lil girl Caitlin has managed to con me out of a LOT of sleep in the last 2 weeks, and the last day and a half have been the icing on the cake. I'm so tired I got some messed up 2nd wind, got re-tired, and re-vitalized, and now I may be a member of the undead.

Well, the Yute manuscript is in the hands of the first of 4 volunteer editors, (my dad, Gill) I've been working on some of the promo gear.. bookmarks, signs... and I need a punchy tagline...

Lifehack had something like:

She lost her brother,
She learnt to fight a legion of the dead,
Scavenging to survive for two years.
And then, to make things difficult,
She fell in love with a straight girl.

That worked pretty good. People would walk by, skimming past the first part, all pretty cliche, until they hit the last line, and I could see their faces turn to curiosity. Awesomesauce.

I need a short, short blurb like that for Watching Yute. Key elements that would summarize without spoilers are:

-lesbian hero (Quite different from Regan, FYI)
-Nanites at work (secretly) in some un-specified manner
-Revenge (though I really dont wanna use the WORD revenge of vengence, cuz it sounds too cliche)

it might also mention starting a new life, a violent man, or a coward covering his butt. I think that's plenty to work with... So far I have stuff like:

"She found a new girlfriend at a new position, but secretive nanites are attracting the eye of some violent men"

I dunno... that's not BAD, but I have time to refine it.. any ideas? I might turn this into a contest to announce on the forums, with a copy of the book for a prize.... I dunno.

I need sleep. Why aren't I sleeping? I. Hurt. I'm that tired. And I'm hot. Sweating the kind of sweat that stings your eyes. Am I whining? Yes. Are blogs with whining annoying? Yes. Is that going to stop me? Ehh.....

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...!!

Editing is a trip...

I was fully prepared to start editing form the start of the book, and think "Man, what was I thinking?"

But I was very pleasantly surprised. Aside from ironing out some inconsistencies for 'facts' that hadn't been entirely decided when I started, it's been a blast to go back and read.

It's kinda like... you've been watching a TV series for years, and then you come to the dramatic conclusion, you start watching the reruns form the start, and you get hit with an odd sense of nostalgia. I find myself thinking "Hey, I remember when that happened!". Polish a couple typos, refine a line here and then, and move on.

This first editing run will be pretty lightweight. I'll miss a ton of typos, I know it.. then another pass or two concentrating on typos and such... I have to create a chapter header graphic also... but overall, this editing this is much less of a chore than I rememeber... then again... I did just start...

Cheryl N., 1981-1999

Ten years ago today, Cheryl N jumped form her 10th floor bedroom window, and was killed. Her 'true love' had betrayed her idealistic heart, and to her, the world ended. She couldn't see how many people loved her, or how many people her death would affect.

Rest in peace, Cheryl.


In happier news, Watching Yute (which will be dedicated to Cheryl) has pretty much completed the first draft stage. More or less. In Lifehack news, I've gotten a boxload of new copies today. Primarily meant for the sci fi convention in october, a few will be circulated in Maple Ridge. Specifically Haney Books, and 'Let The Games Begin'.

In even happier news, today was the party for my daughter Caitlin's 2nd birthday. (Conflict-y day, hmm? I'm glad her actual birthday is not the 24th... this was just the convient day for the party.) I BBQed a mass of grub for the mob of family that came over, and Caitlin was dazzled by the deluge of gifts that she didn't really need.

One such gift was a huggable piggybag, which oinks for a while when you put money in. She loves it. "Money??" she asks. When she gets it, she stuffs it in, and oinks along with the pig. Her oiking is hilarious. A lot of her animal sounds are inspied by how *I* immitate the sound... which is a big too realisitc and difficult for a 2 year old... but she did impress people the other day with her elephant impression. For that matter, she was the only child in a room full that knew what an elephant says.

Back to the pig. It's way past bedtime. She's been crying in her room for a long friggin time now... "MONEYYYYYYY!!!" Geez... what have we started?

Final peices of the Yute plot....

When I set out to write Watching Yute, I set a framework first... we start at point A, end up at point Z, and we obviously needed to pass through F, M, and T along the way...

As I wrote, I 'ad libbed' B, C, D, etc.. most of which, I had a pretty good idea of what they'd be. Maybe I'd have a good idea for Q, and I'd leave myself a note for later, and so forth. As of the other day, I now have ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ.

Sure, XYZ hasn't been fleshed out yet, but I know what they are. Similarly, every other spot is open to revision.. something I said during D, for example, might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but has come to not fit quite to well after ideas that reached maturity in S.

BUT! It's all there, waiting for the 'grunt work'. Then the first draft is done. Then I'll refine it, and refine it, and refine it, then Ill get a copy to pass around to my volunteer editors, and then.. then it'll be done...!

I have a few ideas for the cover that came to me the other day as well. It will probably feature the background from this image:


But without the anime representation of Cassidy.. I just don't think anime on the cover sends the right message. She'll be on there in some way, and.. well.. just wait for it. I'll probably work on it while the editors are doing thier thing.

In a related story, May 24 will mark the 10th anniversary of the passing of an old distant (IRC) buddy, Cheryl N., known more commonly as Eris in IRC. We weren't super super close, but I spoke to her on the phone about her romantic problems the day before she killed herself.

She still seemed upset of course, over her boyfriend, but within a 'reasonable' amount. The next day the news hit us all through her boyfriend. Shocked, I called her number, and got her mother. When I asked nervously for Cheryl, her mother quietly said in her thick accent, "She dead today." Well, that was chilling. We'd all hoped it was some kind of hoax.. a stunt to get back at her boyfriend.

How does this relate to Watching Yute? Well, I'm dedicating the book to her, since the book deals with many of the issues Cheryl N. faced in ther final days. One of the central characters is named after her as well, (not the last name though). I considered changing that, but it just kinda... had to be.

In much much happier May news, on the 27th, my little spite Caitlin will be turning 2 years old! A smaller party this year.. I'm still saddled with finding a theme of some sort... last year was farmyard... which this year? Circus? Uninspired perhaps, but hey... she's gonna be 2...! I'll wait for her 3rd birthday for the roswell alien autopsy theme....