It’s been awhile since I’ve posted an update, so what better time than a month late on a rainy, lazy Saturday afternoon?
I’ve been working to line up illustrators for all of the stories. Milana Samarskaya, a wonderful artist from Taganrog, Russia, is just finishing up the pretty pictures for A Day for Meeting Mermaids. We’re now discussing which story to tackle next. You can read more about Milana here. She’s been wonderful to work with, and her dreamy, colorful style has been pitch perfect so far.
I’m in the process of ball rolling with two more fantastic artists and couldn’t be more excited to work with them both! I don’t want to jinx anything just yet, so mums the word until we get a little further along…but I’m super duper mega stoked about it. Their styles are wildly different, and should bring something unique to this little universe we’re creating.
You may have noticed (who am I kidding, no one is reading this) that I’ve changed the generalized, ambiguous main character in most of the stories to a little girl named Sophichkin. I’ll be giving them all the same treatment as time permits, and using that as a chance to give another editorial pass to each story. For those in the know, Sophickin is a nod to my own little girl, and she’s pleased to be the heroine in all of these stories. That world weary, jaded and pragmatic part of me that pays mortgages and electricity bills also recognized this as a chance to produce them all as a series in the hopes of moving more product. Try it, you’ll like it. First one’s free, kid.
The Winding Path Publications route proved to bear no fruit, but I’m still very excited about Kindle and ePublishing as well as some print-on-demand avenues. J.J. Fast Publishing continues to be a great resource to flatten my rather extreme learning curve.
So what’s next? Well, hopefully I get off my bum and pound out the 15 or so stories languishing in the “Ideas” folder of my Scrivener project. The messages and plots are all ready. I just need to put my fingers on the keyboard and give them all proper births.
After that, who knows? I’d like to tackle something a little meatier and have a few ill formed concepts bouncing around inside my skull, but nothing concrete as yet. I’ll be sure to keep all zero of you that are reading these posts up to the month as to what’s happening. Until then, keep it simple, be honest and always bargain in good faith with destiny…
-dsf