Monday, May 24, 2021

I Totally Know What I'm Doing

 I know I promised terrible cover attempts on here, but we are doing mock ups with art from royalty-free sites, and I'd have to buy the art if I want to post it, and I'm not totally sure that's what I want to use yet. But someday soon!

In other news, I sort of... quit my job. I mean, I still have another six weeks, four of which are vacation/personal days, and then two weeks where I either train the next person or fix everything that broke during my vacation and write some more documentation.

My goal here is to take at least a year off and try to get my writing career off the ground. Am I making enough money at this point to support myself? Ha ha, absolutely not! In fact, I'm making negative money when you factor in covers, editing, software, etc. But I have enough savings to live off for at least a year, which gives me some time to start building things up.

Sometimes I do have the confidence of a mediocre white man!

Various family members kept referring to me as "retired" over the weekend, but I consider myself to be living in Schrödinger's paradox -- I'm either a full-time author or I'm unemployed. I won't know until sometime next year. Then I might need to get another day job, but I'll worry about it then.

In the meantime, I intend to have a lot of fun!


Close-up of grey cat sniffing a yellow flower.
Guido finds this flower suspicious

Saturday, May 1, 2021

Get Ready!

 All I can say is that May may either be awesome or miserable, but probably nothing in between. I've signed up for (and paid a bunch of money, so I have to take it seriously!) a workshop on creating book covers.

Anyone who has been on this blog recently knows that I have a lack of both taste and talent in the visual arts, so my attempts to make covers might frustrate me, but they may kill the instructor. We have to turn in assignments every week for feedback.

Class starts this week, and I plan to post my assignments here. The best part is that the instructor is going to use some of the student work (anonymized) in the discussions, so people all over the world may be making fun of my art! I'll be (anonymously) famous! (In case it's not clear, I'm absolutely fine with this. I'm sure if someone was sensitive about this, they could opt out.)

In the meantime, have a skillfully edited picture of the bed-pets [does not include the little dog (who doesn't get on the bed) or the semi-feral cats (who won't come in the room if I'm in it)]. If they all stayed on this side of the bed, I would get more sleep, but the minute I get under the covers, there's a scramble to see who can be the most disruptive. A queen-size bed ought to be big enough for one person, but it's really not.

dog and two cats asleep on a bed, faded into a starry background