Stating the obvious

A bit different dragon than the ones I've been writing about this week.

It's Monday. Since I'm usually working on the weekends, and this one was no exception, I'm a bit groggy this morning. That's also partly because I had a nice date-night with my First Reader and we were up late (late, for us middle-aged folk, is past ten, so you know. I may be a college student, but those shenanigans are long in the past).

You will find a very interesting interview with Amanda S Green up at Amazing Stories Magazine sometime later today. I'll come back later and add a direct link. I usually mirror ASM posts to my blog, but I'm kind of curious to see how many of you click through.

I'm working mostly on two things today. Writing, trying to finish Trickster Noir; and the cover workshop I am taking from Dean Wesley Smith. It wasn't cheap, but it's full of information, and I'm only in week two of six. It has homework, which is what I need to do today. I was sick last week and didn't get it in on time. It's making me look even more closely at covers than I have been, and should be invaluable, not only for my own covers, but as I start being able to offer my services to other indie and self-publishers as a designer and artist.

I'm challenging myself, this year, to expand my skill-set, building on what I already know and pushing my limits out even more than I have been. Writing, art & design, marketing… So much to do, so little time.

Writing has been going decently well. Last week I set a personal record, writing 10,002 words in one day. Whew! Research for this segment of the book has involved watching the 'Best of Beaker' on youtube, using google maps to draw a likely route from Ulaanbaatar to Chernobyl, and learning the Japanese word for palace (Kyuden). There are times this work amuses me to no end. The good thing is that I have it all to the very end, and epilogue, in my head. I just have to put it on paper pixels.

I think I'll have another cup of coffee.