A Long Overdue Return to the Wonderful World of Fiction Writing

[Lionheart]

After years of neglect, I've finally returned fiction writing again. Outside of editing my brother's fantasy novels and running an Author's booth at Gencon for his books, I haven't done much with all the creative material that's been floating around my brain for a while. No, my "writing" has been relegated to analysis, proposals, procedures, XML schemas, and XSL transformations.

That changed at Gencon 2012. C.E. Rocco of Dragonroots Magazine asked if I would write a short story for the Missing Pieces IV anthology for Gencon 2013. I wrote a science fiction piece called The Observer -- and had a blast doing so.

Of course, once the bug bit, one story was not enough. My wife and I talked about it and decided to produce a science fiction and fantasy anthology of our own to release at Gencon 2013. I wrote a new fantasy story and revised a superhero story I had done years back. Sheri (refered to as Heart's Fire on FR) contributed both a fantasy and a sci-fi story, C. K. Deatherage (author of Waysmeet and also published in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds V) wrote a fantasy story, and Paula Welker (a pharmacist at the drug information company I work for) included a science fiction story.

It was quite the adventure -- and my first foray into cover-to-cover book development. My roles included publisher, author, editor, cover designer, and interior designer. The tools included Photoshop (cover) and InDesign (interior) for print publishing, and the Kindle plugin for InDesign, Sigil, and Calibre for Kindle publishing.

Thus was born The RudderHaven Science Fiction and Fantasy Anthology I. My wife came up with the initial concept of a dual shield (half sci-fi, half fantasy). I did the artwork in Photoshop, using techniques I learned in a large part right here on Freedom Reborn from my skinning days to create textures, lighting effects, and layer effects. I found a good space image from the NASA web site (free to use commercially as long as credit is given) and a picture of Ireland landscape (with permission and credit give) to provide a background for the shields.

Thank you to all the FR members who were willing to share tips and techniques with the FR community. I'm not pro by any stretch, but the cover seems to do the job:

Spoiler

If sales go well, I might look into getting professional artwork for the next anthology.

[Glitch Girl]

congrats Lionheart!  Sounds like quite a project.  I hope it does well.

[Lionheart]

Thanks, Glitch Girl. It's been fun. A lot of work, but fun. I definitely intend to get a running start on next year's volume. I pushed it a little close to the wire this year for having it ready in time for Gencon.

[spydermann93]

This sounds amazing!

I really like the cover, too!  I can't wait to hear more about this project and I'm glad that you're having fun with it.

[Figure Fan]

I think the cover looks pretty cool, actually. Best of luck to you, LH

[Lionheart]

Thanks, guys.

Spyder - The project is complete; we launched the book at Gencon this year. It did pretty well. If you're interested, you can go to Amazon and check out the Kindle page. You can click on the cover image and read an excerpt from the first story. If you have a Kindle and Amazon Prime, you can borrow it for free. My apologies if this sounds like marketing (I suppose it both is and isn't), but I'm excited about it and wanted to share with my fellow Reborners. I should have posted here earlier.

FF - My wife agrees with you. She really likes the cover. I guess it's a confidence thing for me; I'm not really an artist, just a dabbler. As a skinner, I was pretty decent as a costume designer, but never created my own base and never picked up a real knack for highlighting and shading. But what I do know about using Photoshop to create artwork mostly comes from you and others on FR, for which I am very grateful.

If anyone has comments or tips with regard to how the cover art could be improved for the next book, suggestions or observations are more than welcome.

[spydermann93]

Spyder - The project is complete; we launched the book at Gencon this year. It did pretty well. If you're interested, you can go to Amazon and check out the Kindle page. You can click on the cover image and read an excerpt from the first story. If you have a Kindle and Amazon Prime, you can borrow it for free. My apologies if this sounds like marketing (I suppose it both is and isn't), but I'm excited about it and wanted to share with my fellow Reborners. I should have posted here earlier.

Haha, no need to apologize for being excited! It's great that you shared this with us.  And "borrow it for free," you say?  Sounds awesome! I'll have to see what I can do (perhaps my sister will allow me to borrow her kindle ).

[BlueBard]

I like that cover, too

[Lionheart]

I like that cover, too

Thanks, BlueBard. I have an idea for the next cover, possibly involving swords.

[AfghanAnt]

This is really great Lionheart.

[Lionheart]

It's been fun. We're gearing up for the second volume to be released in time for Gencon again this year. My first story is done (sci-fi); I'd like to do a fantasy story as well. I also need to start putting together the elements for the next cover. We pushed it kind of close to deadline for the first volume. I'd like to avoid the last minute crunch this year (we can dream, can't we?).

[Lionheart]

Well, the second volume of the RudderHaven Science Fiction and Fantasy Anthology is in production. We decided to go with a dual sword on the cover this year. My wife did a pencil sketch of the fantasy sword and my daughter came up with the sci-fi sword concept. Then I crafted them in Photoshop using layer, lighting, and texture effects.

This is the result:

Spoiler

The paperback and Kindle editions will be released later this month and we'll be taking them to GenCon in Indianapolis in August, along with an two other new releases. My nose has been buried in Photoshop, InDesign, and Word/Wordperfect docs most evenings/weekends for the last three months, with writing, editing, and cover and interior design.

My daughter (age 14) has a story in this year's RH anthology too. She's pretty excited. 

[Lionheart]

One of the most enjoyable parts of working on this year's anthology has been helping my daughter polish her story. This is her first full story (she's started several others, but this one caught her imagination and she decided to run with it).

In the first pass of her story, she didn't really wrap it up. She left it as a cliffhanger and thought it was done. I told her no, that was not a true ending to the story. Even if she did not resolve the catastrophe that happened at the end, she did have to find a way to conclude that specific story for her character.

She added four paragraphs that went the right direction, but still did not quite make it. They seemed hurried and left even more questions. We talked through the issues some, but it did not seem to click with her entirely.

So I rewrote the last four paragraphs myself, using most of her existing text, but adding more information and trying to draw out the emotions of the main character a little more. Then I handed it to her and asked her to look what I did and see if she could figure out why I did it. I told her she did not have to use anything I wrote, but to see if it might give her ideas of her own. She studied it for about 10-15 minutes, then went over to her computer and began typing.

She not only rewrote that portion her own way (capturing the character and world much better than I did, because it sprang from her imagination), but added two pages of new content! It flowed better and drew that story  to a conclusion. She is going to continue the next part of story in the next volume of the anthology.

Then she got all excited while we were going through the edits and began looking for places where she could polish her wording to make it smoother. Her story is a younger read than the rest of the book, but she put a lot into it to make it a fun read.

That glow you see emanating from your screen is from a Daddy who is proud of his girl. 

[Podmark]

That glow you see emanating from your screen is from a Daddy who is proud of his girl. 

That's awesome. Very inspiring anecdote.

[Lionheart]

Thanks, Podmark.

She's been a great help as a reader, commenter, and rookie editor. It's been exciting to see her with the confidence to write her own story this year.

[Lionheart]

Our third RudderHaven anthology is out. I took a shot at creating a dual sci-fi/fantasy helmet for this one:

https://www.facebook.com/402404086506136/photos/p.939809349432271/939809349432271/?type=3&theater

I still need to set up the Kindle version, but the paperback is available online now.

My daughter wrote the conclusion to her Fairy story from last year, but where the first part came to 14 pages, the finale came out as a 62-page novella! The plan now is for her to go through last year's story and flesh it out a little, then we'll combine them and do a standalone book. I do want to find an artist who can do better character art for that one, though.

We'll have a booth in Booksellers Row at Archon 39 at the Gateway Center in Collinsville, IL (St. Louis area) this weekend. My daughter will be going to this one with us, although she may be in and out of the booth. I know she intends on attending the Klingon Christmas Carol and a number of other seminars. 

[Lionheart]

And number four is out. This year, my wife drew a picture of a wizard's staff for me. I scanned it into Photoshop and skinned the wood and gemstone textures for it. The sci-fi staff and brackets were done entirely in Photoshop, using several tools including my small Wacom. I'm still getting use to the Wacom, so I only used if for smaller detail work.

https://www.facebook.com/402404086506136/photos/p.1154919944587876/1154919944587876/?type=3&theater

My story in this year's anthology is a little darker than what I normally write. I wrote the last third (about 2300 words) in one day. Ironically, while it flowed easily, it was the most difficult sequence I have ever written (you'll understand if you get a chance to read it). We will managed to get this anthology done in time for Archon 40 (Sept. 30 - Oct. 2). Yay!

We've also started work on a superhero origins anthology for next spring. The goal is to have it for the St. Louis Wizard World Comic Con in April. I'd like to have my first superhero novel out by then as well, but that will be pushing it.

[daglob]

 

[Ozymandiasveis]

Hmm sounds like a great read! If I ever get my hands on it, its going to make a great book report!

[Lionheart]

Thanks, guys.