Oh No, More Damn Joe Stuff!

Today I will finish the polish of CLIMBING THE SPIRAL MOUNTAIN. I have been going through the whole manuscript, over and over. More than 180,000 words, 560 pages in final book layout using 11 point type and .9 line spacing. My friend Lonnie Burr pointed out it is longer than THE ODYSSEY. I hadn't noticed. I stopped counting after seven complete read-throughs, so I guess I am over ten times through today. And I am pleased with the story, the way the book flows, what an easy read it is. I'm finishing the typographical/layout corrections. I will give it one more spellcheck before sending it off to my editor for his final check by fresh eyes before it goes up onto Amazon and Kindle. I will begin the promotional side of getting it read. That means I will be setting up the limited "free download" days so people will get the chance to read it - and post their reviews - with Amazon. When this is done it should be easy to work on the smaller books. SONG OF ORPHANS,...

I am supposed to be working on the manuscripts, but I needed a break. I will need fresh covers for the four books to spew out over the next few weeks. They are being tweaked to make better Kindle edition through Amazon, meaning everyone who already bought the Kindle edition will be automatically upgraded when they are uploaded. But I found a font I like and thought I'd do the new covers to follow the dictates of the current fashion in "Good Cover Design." I think they brand me as the author, the four books as belonging together and view well at the small size, the button people will use to pick the book out of a series. I continue to work on the text, corrected the typographic errors I mentioned in the previous post. It looks like all four books will go up in short order. And I work on new pieces when not escaping from my editing typography or designing new covers.

From 1989, fresh from Arizona, I drew this image on my Macintosh 512K-Plus in MacPaint after a dream. This was the image that led to writing the first scene of Mountain. Two books out last month, hope to get two more out this month. Maybe more. But while solving one problem, I discovered another. There is now a problem created in the translation of the original manuscript for CLIMBING THE SPIRAL MOUNTAIN from Apple Pages to Microsoft Word to LibreDoc the hyphenation that helps make text look pretty, called "soft" hyphenation, became fixed. "Hard" hyphenation. If the word bottom was soft hyphenated as "bot- tom," that became the fixed typography, no matter where it appeared in the line. Soft hyphenation is only at the right edge of the line within the paragraph. Hard hyphenation is forever. So I have been going through to change them one-by-one, which means making the determination of how to handle each instance of the hard-hyphen problem. Picky, ...

Not me. I'm enjoying the prospects for the next few months. After juggling several projects, several are coming to final, releasable states at the same time (compared to the years used to generate them). So, over the next couple of months, there are several books (and other media) moving into reality. And I find that satisfying. I like satisfying. Later. I have work to do. Not me. Externally. But internally, a nice change.

Segment: Sho-Caudal #12 Cover I did get the 12th issue of SEGMENT: SHO-CAUDAL  into the emailboxes of subscribers on April 30th. It is out. So I am working on the next will be the new releases, with a proper Kindle edition through Amazon, for my fiction and stage works, already available as hard copy through the same source. I'm not sure about the Apple Books editions. And I am finishing a promotional piece to introduce people to the hundreds of free Skyrealms of Jorune material through archive.org, and direct links to the Return to Jorune releases for those books that are available. Almost ready to go. I am also doing a second piece to solicit some freelance work through my graphics skills. Logotypes, pre-press, branding ... with several samples from previous and (hopefully) satisfied customers. I've been doing the work for fifty years and can carry it through, so charging for it doesn't seem outrageous. The juggle continues. First, the cleaned for the releas...