The Bumpy Advance Down the Road + Poll

It’s been a very disappointing month in many sectors of life. I won’t bore you with details, but suffice it to say, my trip to Realm Makers was cancelled due to hotel issues that rendered it too expensive to go. So I had to attend virtually. Ultimately, that was good, but at the same time, I’m getting to the point where I’m not interested in virtual conferences. My attempt to Galaxycon was thwarted by them selling out before I could buy a pass.

I mean, we could have bought the passes months in advance, but with the fact that so many things from health to floods to government has torpedoed plans and cost us money we can’t afford to waste right now, we aren’t buying any tickets or making any reservations without “day-of” cancellation refund policies. I’ve lost out too many times from honeymoons to conventions. That of course means things are probably going to get more difficult for me to attend the events, but at the same time, who can afford to be pre-empted by the randomness of life anymore? Gonna have to play it close to the vest.

Of course, the biggest “positive” if you can call it that is that I’m going to be moving ahead of schedule to restart my attempts to be a freelance graphic artist. More info on that coming later. But yes, I used to be a graphic artist and webdesigner in the early days of the internet… pre HML and CSS, to give a reference. My recent work in newspapers has allowed me to polish up the skills on the new software, and now it’s time to move forward and try again what I did back in 1999. But I’m not an illustrator… yet. For that, I’m going to have to re-learn my skills with Daz Studio (yes I know the raw basics but it’s been a decade) and Bryce. Once that’s done, I’m hoping to start producing more artwork for my projects. Till then, I’m still looking for a cover artist and designer for the book series. The right person might also parlay the job into works on the associated products that are going to be coming along after the launch. It can’t be all my own work.

But speaking of my own work…. I’d like your thoughts. What do you think of this for the series logo for Tales From the Dream Nebula?

Now that the beta read edits are complete and I’m getting the last set of eyes proofreading, I can move on to book 2 and start the editing process there so it will be releasing in time next year. Yep, you’re getting 3 novellas released in 2023, so be ready! You can expect more information of pre-orders coming soon too.

Okay, back to work for me!