Tag: updates

Picture Book Update

I will have to roll up my sleeves and format my new book in Adobe Illustrator or InDesign. This is something I wanted to avoid, but I don’t think I can hire someone for the formatting, mostly because I want to have the book in a  finalized draft before I hire the illustrator: I need to know the page count so I know how many illustrations will be necessary.

I think I’ll place the text on the left page, surrounded by an attractive border, with a full-page color illustration on the right page. I’ll print the books in 8 x 8 inches via KDP, with bleed, which will make for a small but adequately sized paperback picture book.

I’m frustrated that Vellum, my usual formatting software, doesn’t offer the full range of trim sizes available on Amazon. It’s set up for novels, of course, but I  thought I could make a picture book out of it with a little coaxing. However, none of its available trim sizes are suitable for that, so Adobe is my best bet. I have some experience with Adobe Illustrator but none with InDesign. This could be fun, especially since I will now have to worry about all kinds of typographical things that Vellum handled for me automatically, such as runts and orphans and so forth.

In slightly different news, I noticed that Grammarly has rolled out its own “artificial intelligence” system, GrammarlyGO, which has automatically been integrated into my Word plugin. Although there’s been a lot of buzz about what it might mean for authors to start using AI in their writing, Grammarly, which is hugely popular, already functioned on similar principles, so a lot of us have already been using AI to assist with our writing, at least in a limited fashion, without knowing it. That Grammarly is an “AI” system similar to ChatGPT explains both why it is more dynamic than most grammar checkers and why it sometimes gives screwy, ungrammatical suggestions: I once had it suggest that I write “more bottomless” instead of “deeper,” apparently because it could comprehend how to employ a synonym grammatically but couldn’t understand subtle differences in meaning, and it has recently developed the annoying habit of suggesting comma splices. If it degrades over time as other AIs do, it will probably become useless in a few years.

If nothing else, it is good for catching my spelling mistakes and cutting out unnecessary words, but it is designed more for business emails than fiction writing.

Anyway, GrammarlyGO is interesting to play around with. You can see from its suggestions in the image at the top of this post that it can parse a document reasonably well, but its tips are quite basic. The first of its three recommendations is the standard “show don’t tell,” which isn’t bad in itself but is inappropriate for the present work, which is a children’s fairy tale. The second recommendation is vague, possibly a stock suggestion it gives when it doesn’t know what else to say. Probably, it can’t understand the conflict that’s already present, or perhaps it doesn’t know how to handle a story this short. And as for the third suggestion–that’s already in the story, which is written with a moral appropriate for its young target audience: The importance of gratitude. But I’m unsurprised that an AI can’t pick that up since it’s built into the story’s fabric and never explicitly stated.

And We’re Back

The site was down for much of the day today, for reasons unclear to me. This has been happening more often lately, and I’m not technical enough to know why, though it makes me wonder if the site is unstable. I don’t have anything particularly weird plugged into it, but who knows?

Anyway, we’re back. My hosting service is prompt in answering customer queries even though they have trouble keeping me online.

New Compy

At last, I have acquired my “new” computer. My old one had become unusable, so it had to be replaced. The new one, which is refurbished, definitely has some disappointments, but it should last a few years, in which time I might be able to save up for something better. One way or the other, the old one had to be replaced, so I can’t really complain.

That being said, I found out that, stupidly, I failed to make sure it has WiFi. I guess I sort of thought everything today has WiFi. As it turns out, it doesn’t have it. Fortunately, my desk is currently close to the router, so I was able to plug it in.

Also, the “free” monitors that came with it are blasting my eyes, even when I turn the brightness down to zero and probably because of bad framerate or something. I might have to replace them with something less cheap just to save my vision.

Also, the computer does not have suitable specs to be upgraded to Windows 11, which surprises me as its specs are mostly decent (aside from the missing WiFi), but Windows 11 is apparently quite specific about what it will run on. I suppose I will plan to replace this thing approximately around the time Microsoft stops supporting Windows 10, or when I want to move my desk across the room.

But the good news is, I can open the word processor without the computer freezing up for fifteen minutes! That is like a revelation. This should increase my productivity immensely, assuming the monitors don’t give me constant migraines. I’m currently copying over all my documents from my backup drive, after which I can get to work. Also, I now have dual monitors for the first time, so I can go all Minority Report with my windows.

Writing Children’s Books

My wife and parents have been urging me to produce some child-friendly writings, and I’ve been thinking I really should, especially since experience indicates that kids show the most interest in my work. Besides, I’d like to produce something I can read to my daughter, who’s currently under two. Since she was born, we have taught her to love books, and now that she’s beginning to form complete senteces, she often brings us books with the command, “Read the book!”

Today is the last day of our Covid isolation, and we’re all just about back to full health. We were lucky not to get sick during the height of the pandemic, and to come down with a mild variant that never went into our chests. I am currently working primarily on two projects: I just finished the draft text for a children’s picture book and am also editing and rewriting a more advanced children’s novel. On top of that, I’m working on the third volume of Jake and the Dynamo, which runs under the working title of The Shadow of His Shadow.

I don’t have experience writing for kids. My wife, looking over the draft of my picture book, immediately said the vocabulary and sentence structure were too advanced. But that doesn’t surprise me; I was already aware that, as I was writing it, I slipped back into my natural style. That can be fixed.

I’ll be wanting an illustrator in the near future to come in on this project. I’m not sure who to pursue as of yet, though I wish I still had contact with Roffles Lowell, who did the interiors of Jake and the Dynamo, and whose style would be great for a children’s book.

Blasters and Blades Podcast

Recently, I gave an interview to the podcast Blasters and Blades, so it’s only fair I give them a shout-out, though my interview won’t go online until late October (I’ll let you know when).

You can find the podcast several ways, one of the easiest being their YouTube channel.

I got onto the Blasters and Blades podcast thanks to Declan Finn, a prolific pulp author who gave the podcast’s hosts several recommendations for interviewing new talent.

I was on the podcast discussing Rags and Muffin, of course. This was my first podcast interview, but I think I acquitted myself fairly well. I likely droned a little, and since I was nervous, I made a few silly mistakes: For example, I’m reasonably sure that, in describing the technology of the book, I accidentally implied that I thought there were no electronics in the 1980s. Aside from that, I don’t think I came across as too terribly stupid.

So check out their channel, and I’ll let you know when my interview goes live.

Handyman Update

As someone born right on the dividing line between so-called Generation X and the so-called Millennials, I find myself accomplishing things late in life that men of earlier generations would have accomplished by late childhood. Now that we have a house, I find myself thrust into the role of handyman and fixer-upper, a position with which I have no previous experience.

I’m easing into it, however. Last week, I successfully replaced the sacrificial anode in the water heater without even injuring myself. This week, I returned to the water heater closet to rodent-proof it.

We recently had what seems to be a mouse in the house, though it doesn’t appear to have made it out of the walls and into the living area. I traced its point of entry to the water heater, which is in a closent in the garage. The water heater is elevated eighteen inches, as its suppose to be, but the space underneath it offers rodents direct access to the walls of the house. Yesterday, I cut a spare piece of sheetrock and used it to cover the space, and then I coated every visible gap in the closet with foam insulation and left a present of rat poison. Then I went around the house to fill visible drill holes and spaces around electrical outlets with more insulation, which I’ll paint over later this week. After that, I’ll finally start in on re-grouting some of the tile.

I’ve never handled foam insulation before, so I made a mess of it. Fortunately, the stuff can be pared with a knife after it sets. I’m thinking about getting more cans to do the space between the brick and the foundation next, though I need to research whether that’s a good idea first. That should not only help prevent more mice but might cut down the brown recluse and hobo spiders: When we moved in, this place looked like something from a horror movie, and we’re only now getting the creepy-crawleys under control by diligently sweeping out corners, killing spiders on sight, laying glue traps, and using lots of insecticide to cut off their food supply. They have twice colonized the mailbox, but the last time, I nuked the box’s interior with spider spray and left it open to dry, and haven’t seen them since. The garage, however, still looks like the Arachnophobia wine cellar, and nothing I do seems to significantly reduce their numbers.

Selling Out at Nescatunga

My computer is becoming increasingly unreliable, which is one of the reasons I’m not posting as much as I ought. After talking to my wife about it, I’ve decided to replace it once our tax refund arrives (we always get ours late, for reasons not worth explaining at the moment). We wanted to put that money toward the house, but this decrepit machine is making it difficult to write my books or do my other work, and I need to get a new one before it finally goes kaput. Years ago, I had dreams of saving up for a high-end gaming PC, but that’s not in the cards (or the budget), but I can at least get a respectable multimedia laptop similar to what my present computer was before it got old.

Although this is more than a week late, I want to report on my first author’s appearance. Last weekend, I was in a little town called Alva, Oklahoma, which has an annual festival for arts, crafts, and local performers. It also draws in a handful of writers.

I went with the assumption that authors’ booths are desolate places unless the authors are household names, so I didn’t bring much stock. I had a few books printed and brought them along with a folding table and a couple of posters, and I was prepared to spend a solitary day getting minimal attention. Much to my surprise, I sold out before noon. I will probably return next year—with more books and higher prices.

I also found myself wishing I had some books with more toned-down content, as it were. A lot of the interest I got was from children, and I had to tell them, “Um … ask your parents first.”

And speaking of children, my success was likely due to my sales assistant, pictured in the image up top (with her face hidden for safety, of course). She loves reading, even though she can’t do it yet, and is always flipping through any book she can get her hands on. In the days leading up to Nescatunga, I had to keep those two posters out of her reach because she would point at them and yell, “Book!” before trying to grab them. She likes ripping paper right now, so the posters probably wouldn’t have survived if I’d let her have her way.

Speaking of which, you can have those posters if you want:

Rags and Muffin poster.

Jake and the Dynamo poster.

I mocked those up myself in Canva and had them professionally printed. They turned out better than I expected. But as a vaguely amusing aside, the backdrop on the poster for Rags and Muffin is one of Canva’s free backgrounds, “city at sunset,” to which I added more reddish tint. On the computer, it looks like an urban hellscape and therefore an appropriate representation of the book. When blown up to poster size, however, it is obvious there are a lot of trees and parks, so it’s not quite as threatening as it is on the screen.

Assorted Updates

Happy Easter.

A lot is happening in the Davidson household. The little magical girl is now fifteen months old. As is typical for a girl her age, she’s hit a sleep regression. She is having trouble getting to sleep at night and can’t handle being in her crib by herself, which is putting some strain on both her mother and me. My wife is a nurse and works nights; previously, when she worked, I could put the baby to bed and then write late into the evening, but now that the baby is fighting bedtime, I’m struggling to find time for other things I need to do. I’m attempting to rearrange my schedule to write early in the morning … but the baby wakes up really early to demand milk and cuddles, and then she won’t go back to sleep. I usually end up holding her until my wife gets home, and then I don’t even get breakfast before I have to rush to work.

So it goes.

My parents-in-law have been here for a while and have been a huge help with the baby, but they’re heading back to the Philippines now, which means I need to up my game. I’m trying to figure out a system to write and watch the baby simultaneously; the problem is, I can’t write in her presence because she wants to bang on my keyboard and has a tantrum if I don’t let her. I could potentially block her off so she’s in the room with me but can’t reach the computer, but that will make her cry.

On another first-time-parent, first-time-homeowner front, we’re working on the house. We’re putting in a garden and planning to plant fruit trees in the back. Also, we’re going to plant hedges in the front because the direction of the wind and location of the house cause a lot of trash to blow into our front yard. I figure, if we have hedges, the trash can pile up against them on the street instead of scattering across our grass. We’re moving slowly on all this because budgeting is tight, but we’re moving.

Also, it appears a vole has destroyed part of our sprinkler system. After reading some articles online, I suggested to my wife that I might be able to repair it myself, but she gave me “the look” and told me to call somebody instead.

And although this isn’t the highest priority, I want to put one of those miniature free libraries in the front yard. Having retired from archaeology, I work as a librarian, so passing out books to others is a mtter of principle for me. I don’t want to be officially associated with the organization called Little Free Library for the same reason I refuse to join the American Library Association despite official pressure: Because those guys are assholes. Nonetheless, I’ve always liked those miniature libraries, and I think there’s only one other in town at the moment, so I’d like to host the second. When I finally get it set up, I’m going to fill it with books that are edifying but not too demanding, such as Mortimer J. Adler’s Aristotle for Everybody and H. G. Wells’s Short History of the World.

I have plans to DIY our guest room after the grandparents head out. It may turn into a disaster, but it will at least be a disaster contained to one area of the house. Our house has an atrocious interior texture, and the walls were abused by previous occupants who didn’t understand the concept of stud-finding and thus ripped holes in the sheetrock that were then hastily patched. So I intend to try my hand at skim-coating. Some DIY sites online claim, no doubt falsely, that it’s super easy with the right tools, so I’m going to give it a shot, and if I destroy a room, at least I will have only destroyed one room. But if I succeed, that means I can go on to do the other rooms. The plan is, rip out the carpet, skim-coat the walls, apply new texture (orange peel, probably, because it’s easy and looks okay and comes in cans), and put down a floating floor. If that works out, I’ll move on to other rooms to do the same thing.

I have some ambitions that are beyond my skill level, such as a built-in bench for the dining area and built-in floor-to-ceiling bookcases for my office, which would be extra cool because the office has high ceilings. These projects would, at the least, require tools I don’t currently own and can’t presently afford.

On a more serious note, my computer desperately needs replacing. One thing slowing down my writing is that I simply don’t know if my machine will cooperate with me when I turn it on. Sometimes it boots up fine. Sometimes it takes twenty minutes. Sometimes my word processor crashes unexpectedly or slows down the computer to a crawl. Sometimes I think I can squeeze in a little time to write but actually can’t because the computer is too slow. This computer is now over a decade old, well past its life expectancy. As with everything else, this is a budget item for which there are no funds. But I have been expecting for years now that this thing will simply one day fail to turn on when I press the power button, and although that still hasn’t happened, it is fast approaching.

I have yet another item that is halfway between a hobby project and a religious devotion. I am a fanatical Bible annotator. My notes are a stream of consciousness consisting of points from sermons and my own thoughts but mostly snippets from books and articles I’ve read, with quotes ranging from Jules Verne to Bertrand Russell to the Bhagavad Gita as well as a slew of archaeological journals. I’ve been through three different study Bibles over my lifetime, and I am almost finished copying my notes from the previous two into the third one. That third one is a first edition, in leather, of the Harper Collins Study Bible, and it is getting worn out, so I am seriously considering copying all of my notes, a project that would literally take years, into a new, fourth study Bible.

To that end, I recently acquired, for an embarrassing amount of money, a rare leatherbound edition of the New Interpreter’s Study Bible, a volume I have coveted for a long time. But after examining it and finding it dissatisfactory in some ways (poor binding and narrow margins mostly, but also the annotations are obnoxious), I think I am likely to settle for the fifth edition of the New Oxford Annotated Bible, which I also acquired recently. The New Oxford is horrid in many respects but is also the only “ecumenical” study Bible that updates regularly, is designed for personal annotations, and is printed by a company that actually gives a darn how the product looks.

I anticipate that the fifth edition will be the last version of the New Oxford that is actually useable. All of the Bibles I just mentionend use the New Revised Standard Version, which is an offense to the ears that wreaks havoc on the texts it pretends to translate, but it is the only English version, unfortunately, that includes all the books used by the Eastern Orthodox and some prominent lesser Eastern Churches. A new version of the NRSV is forthcoming, which promises to be worse than the current one; the current NRSV I can fix with a red pen, but the new version will be beyond saving. I expect that the sixth edition of the New Oxford, whenever it appears, will use this newer version, so that means the fifth edition is the last “ecumenical” study Bible that will not be worthless. For that reason, I expect it will be the last study Bible I buy and may be the one into which I copy all my notes to create my own personal “definitive” edition. The New Oxford lacks features that anything calling itself a study Bible ought to have, such as a cross-referencing system and a concordance, and its formatting is horrendous, but it is, sadly, the best thing available in its niche and is likely to remain so.

On the writing front, I have two projects. I am working on a collection of Rags and Muffin short stories, though this has proven difficult: Although I’ve been editing, formatting, and promoting Rags and Muffin, actually writing and living in their world isn’t something I’ve done for some time, so it’s hard to get back into. I’m also moving ahead with the third volume of Jake and the Dynamo. I was having some difficulty with the plotting of that book, but I’ve recently found the solution. Finding the time to write, however—and getting my computer to cooperate—are other matters.

The First Review of ‘Rags and Muffin’

We are just days away from the December 10th release of Rags and Muffin, and the first review has just arrived.

Over at Scripts and Reviews, I have given an author interview, and they have had the following things to say about the book:

I have to say, this is the best book I’ve read in a while. Usually, depending on the book, I fly through them. This book was so richly worded and heavy in world-building and creativity it took me a little longer to get through but was totally worth it.

Rags and Muffin is filled with epic fights and detailed landscapes. The ragtag group of heroes is each unique with their lifestyles and struggles. Seeing glimpses into their past and their lives tugs at your heart, but then other scenes are riddled with comic relief. So while you’re reading, you get a full range of emotions that keep you hooked and turning pages until the very end.

This story was incredible to read, filled with Gods and intrigue. This is a book you won’t want to put down. This book is easily one of the top 5 books I’ve read all year!

A Commentary on ‘Jake and the Dynamo’

Over on my Facebook page, a reader has left an interesting comment. Admittedly, I don’t interact with my Facebook page as much as I should because I’ve had a heck of a time figuring out the interface. Every time I try to see reader comments, it kicks me to a different part of the site … it makes me want to strangle Zuckerberg in Minecraft.

Anyway, regarding Jake and the Dynamo, a reader writes:

I’ve been rereading the book, and you have got some horror fantasy gold here. Your stuff is like Stephen King’s—American culture is built out of trash, and while his trash is b-movies and comic books, yours is anime and kid videos. That’s a good thing. We’ve had a lot of pop culture lately with comic books being elevated into the status of the a new Western or Cowboy genre, but your stuff, and King’s, recognizes that superpowers and fantasy adventure would be less like a Saturday morning cereal fest and more like a living nightmare.

Of course, magical girls are a Japanese riff on a specific type of all-American fantasy to begin with—the magical wife, whether she is a witch, or a genie, or what have you. Now, there are writers, like Fritz Leiber, who dialed in on the fearsome possibilities of how supernatural powers could distort a relationship, in his Conjure Wife. But you’ve opened the magical girl genre up to horror in many, many ways. It’s a real treat. Take body horror—adolescence is disturbing enough for a normal child, but what if the steel hard hide and augmented strength your contract gave you has the effect of not only protecting you from harm, but also making it possible to hurt people you love, or keep love and friendship, ironically, forever at bay, shielded by terrible powers?

The magical girls close up are terrifying. Are they children wearing costumes that give them powers? You get the impression that they are actually costumes that wear children—a demonic concept indeed! The competent arrogance of Pretty Dynamo becomes grotesque because it is inhuman. The brash neediness of Sukeban becomes a behavioral loop that traps a youngster in a state of arrested development. Rifle Maiden is compelled to become a cartoonish mass murderer, which may have begun as a fantasy of unconquerable strength. Not to mention the nightmarish depiction of Kaiju destruction your narration supplies—in some way, the magical girls are implicated in the mayhem, because they and not armies, are participants in the carnage. (Incidentally, the best descriptions of the trauma inflicted by falling buildings that I’ve read is in Pietro di Donato’s Christ in Concrete, which I recommend.)

The horror of nightmare is especially strong in your writing, with the reality of the fact that the magical girls are all witches who have sold their souls to demonic powers, and who face a reckoning of some sort, whether it is from the Kronos-like spaghetti monster en route to make the universe a tomb, or God, who is forgotten in the crush of trying to survive in a universe bent on humankind’s demise. The irony of this spiritual ignorance is deeply rewarding to the reader. In a world of cheap heroics, what will true heroism be? I’ve never read anything like this before.

My comments:

I am humbled and flattered. I also admit to being perplexed: This is the second reader who has informed me that Jake and the Dynamo and its sequel are horror novels. I was honestly unaware of that, and it makes me think I need to redirect my marketing plan. I have always thought of these books as action-comedy.

Part of my confusion may simply stem from the way I see the magical-girl genre. This reader flatters me by attributing to me things that I thought I was merely borrowing. The idea that the magical girls are “costumes that wear the children,” for example, is not unique to me. That magical-girl transformation entails a loss of self is already hinted in Sailor Moon, which first introduced the concept of the reluctant magical girl, and it is further developed in titles like Princess Tutu and Shugo Chara, the latter of which was Jake and the Dynamo’s immediate inspiration. When I depict the girls as uncertain about their true identities and as having distinct personalities when in their magical forms, I am (to my own mind) merely following the formula. I am also doing that for my own convenience: In my head, Dana acts differently when in and out of costume, so I wrote her that way.

The hint of demonic contract and Faustian bargain does, I admit, deviate from the norm, in which the bargain between a girl and her talking animal is benign. Phantom Thief Jeanne first proposed the idea that magical-girl contracts were dangerous and potentially diabolical, but it was of course Puella Magi Madoka Magica that finally developed it. To me, it seems obvious in part because the magical girl’s animal mascot resembles the familiar of the classic witch. That’s why I use the word familiar in Jake and the Dynamo.

My most original contribution to the genre may be the antagonist of the series, whose true nature has not yet been revealed. Though one may find him lurking behind the arch-nemeses of some anime titles such as Neon Genesis Evangelion or Gurren Lagan, the resemblance is coincidental: Those anime deal with some Stapledonian concepts that I already had churning in my mind for a long time, long before I became interested in anime. In fact, “Lord Shadow” is a version of a villain (if he can really be called a villain, or a he for that matter) that I invented for another work, and whom I will undoubtedly use again in a different guise.

(This post contains affiliate links.)