Proposed Nova cover

I changed the font to one called "System," which was too good to pass up. I will edit Jacob to be the same. Here's the 25% image--one of the first macro photos I took.

Cover Art for Jacob

I played around with some plant images for a cover for the Jacob Continuation novel. It's on the site. Here's a smaller version. My daughter doesn't like the text.

Update for 5/16/2012

I'm nearing completion of the rewrite to Part One. Aside from cleaning up little details, this is a major expansion that turns it into a full-length stand-alone novel. It's currently around 65,000 words (up from 45,000). The new material answers a lot of unresolved questions about what happens to some of the main characters, like the Goodsons and Stevenson1111.

In other news, I've begun using the workshop site to chronicle changes to versions of the installments as they are edited and refined into what will (finally) be the polished form that I can call done. For example, I made a small change to Jacob's Continuation, and hyperlinked the edition number on the main site to the workshop page that describes it. That will help keep me sane(ish), and let readers see what the diffs are without reading the whole damned thing again.

Nova's Continuation is with the editor, and it will be the first part finished.

I'm looking forward to getting Part One done and moving on to the new phase of the story, where things get really interesting.

Oh, and I think I'm going to design covers for the main sequence using the hex theme that's on the main page, but use colors in the order of the spectrum ROYGBIV. Since Parts 2-4 will all be one novel, that gives me five more books before I run into UV.  I'm not sure what to do about covers for the Continuation pieces. Suggestions are welcome.

Jacob's Continuation

I posted a full-length novel last week, and forgot to mention it on the blog. It fills in the gap between parts 3 and 4 of the main sequence. I had a blast writing it. If you've ever read John D. MacDonald, you may see an influence in parts. I'm currently working on turning Part One into a full novel, tying up loose ends and actually showing Calli's transition to employment with Sevens. I got great feedback from my editor (Paul Witcover), and we both agreed this was the best solution. While I'm doing that, he's picked up with The Continuation of Nova, so that may be the first one to appear as a finished ebook on the vendors' virtual shelves.

I've also written the first two of several articles for IEET.org on the reasoning behind some of the principles that appear in the novel(s). I'm trying to figure out my optimal caffeine input rate to get maximum writing done per day.

Audio format

One of my dear readers, relet, has created an audio version of Part One. I love the VOX settings--it's far better than if I had read it. Downloadable here (start at the bottom). I will also post this link on the main site. Thanks relet--this is very cool!

First Attempt at Amazon Publishing

As a first foray into electronic publishing, I posted "The Promise of a Kiss" on Amazon's Kindle store. It's very easy to do so. I was surprised that there seems to be no way to actually charge nothing for an item. Maybe I missed something. The lowest price one can stick on a piece is 99 cents, at a 30% royalty rate.

Here's the link.

If you read the story and feel like leaving a review, go for it. The license hasn't changed, and you can still download it for free from the site. I even made a zipped .epub of it.

CC changes, Flattr, Workbench

Thanks for the recent correspondence and comments. I learned about Flatter and set up an account, so you can buy me a cup of coffee if you feel so inclined. Don't get too inclined or you might fall over. [update: thanks for my first Flattr!]

Other changes include a quick correction to my embarrassing misspelling of 'emygdala -> emygdale' in Part One e2.0. I have no explanation for how that happened. I've now posted the edition number on the home page. The other change from 2.0 to 2.1 (other than that one spelling) is the licence, which is now more liberal. It allows share-alike non-commercial derivative works as long as they make attribution. As I work through the other pieces in preparation for handing off to the editor, I'll do the same with them. I also added .doc format, which might be easier to manipulate that html or pdf for some purposes.

In the vein of derivative works, I grabbed the blogspace lifeartificial.blogspot.com a while back, and may start using it as a sketchpad for ideas and also to post other bits and pieces that would be considered non-canonical with regard to the story trunk. This would include the screenplay I wrote and many pages of god-mode text in the original prose versions, as well as tossing out some ideas for the sequels. This needs to be in a discrete space because it would contain possible spoilers. This is just an idea at this point. Feedback would be appreciated.

One possible project for this workbench space is a rewrite of "Canman". This novella-length piece is referred to in "Nova's Continuation" as a kind of holy book for the Continuation. I wrote it a long time ago, but it would need a lot of attention to fulfill that purpose. If there's a writer out there with a bent toward political philosophy, have at it. I reserve the right to "bless" derivative works as canonical or not, purely for my own sanity. You're free to ignore these classifications.