What I’ve Been Up To

What have you all been up to?

I’ve been working on book two of the sci-fi space opera. I had wanted to get the romance revised/edited and out this year but that will be delayed until I figure out exactly where I want to go with it. I’m not naturally a romance writer so after going through the first revision, I just didn’t feel it would be ready within the year. I’m wanting to get the fantasy book out, so I’ve been editing it like crazy. However, suddenly, I had this urge to work on the cyberpunk characters. I have a character named Isamari. That’s not her real name. Rather, it’s her hologram name. She is a side character who works with the mc and whom the mc bumps into later. Normally, I don’t focus on side characters but Isamari is just itching to be written.

I know very little about Isamari, and I never intended to know her more than just a co-worker, but as I think more about her, I realize she plays an important part of the story. Her part is small, but she creates tension for the mc. So, because of that, she needs to be more developed than intended. I’m pretty excited because I kind of want to know who she is.

Do you ever get sidetracked by a minor character? Do you let them grow and become a bigger part of your story, or do you remind yourself that they’re not that important and keep them in the background? I’m curious.

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Writer’s Unite! Anthology Cover Reveal and Release Date

If you remember, I was in the Writer’s Unite anthology awhile back but under a different publisher. I’m not sure what became of that publisher but the Writer’s Unite! team is at it again with a new publisher and two volumes of fantasy short stories. I’m in the first one with the same story (that was published with the previous publisher). There have been minor revisions/editing to my story but it’s still the same theme and magic and all the wonderful things you’ll find in a fantasy story.

The ebook will be released on December 15, 2021, but you can preorder on December 1, 2021.

Here’s the new cover:

Book Cover Software

If you’re looking for something less expensive than Photoshop CC to create your artwork for your books, Affinity is currently having a 50% off sale on all three products (Photo, Designer, and Publisher). Last year, I purchased all three for the same deal. I’m a Photoshop user and have been using the software for a couple of decades now but I wanted to try out Affinity. I’ve tried it out a couple of times since purchasing but only dabbled for a few minutes. This time, I thought I’d give it a little more time. The reason I bought Affinity was mainly because of the price, but also because I had heard it was similar to Photoshop. To be honest, I don’t think it’s very similar at all. I had to Google what I needed for the simple photo composite below. I’d love to someday switch from Photoshop CC to Affinity, but we’ll see.

Here’s the composite using Affinity:

Here it is using Photoshop CC.

You could see that I was able to add more shadows around the eyes. It’s because I didn’t know how to do it in Affinity and I was done with Googling. I also used the warp tool, layers, and other tools in Photoshop. Whereas, on the Affinity image, it would take some time to learn those tools. If you know of a good Youtube tutorial I could learn from, let me know.

The statue photo is by Mika Y. The eye photo is by Molly M.