Tags & Such

Yesterday I was grateful for the brother’s help. We made a semi-complicated dinner and made two batches of different cookies at the same time. I couldn’t have done it on my own, that’s for sure!

Today I was thankful for hearing from Teresa. I have been worried about her, and in fact was just thinking about her last night, and she popped up in my PMs today! So here’s hoping she continues to get better.

As far as what I’ve been doing…not much that’s worth sharing. Cooking. Cleaning. I did get some tags made the other day and I guess I should share them just because.

(If you wanna check it out – this one is kinda funy)

(if you wanna check it out – this one is kinda sad)

(if you wanna check it out – this one is twice the length of the other two.)

(If you wanna check it out – this one is seriously modeled off of a Hallmark Christmas special – but with vampires!  WARNING: unlike the others it is pubbed direct through Amazon who half time won;t set it to free but it is ALWAYS free on Smashwords)

(If you wanna check it out – it’s got unrequited love)

And now I need to go work on the TTC page for the week.

Have a happy tag kinda day!

Jo 🙂

 

Takeover Thankfulness

I promised to come back but didn’t. Isn’t that just like me?

Anyway, yesterday I was thankful for the success of the takeover in Once Upon a Page. I admit, it wasn’t as busy as some of my others have been (I had about 17 participants, not counting my fellow authors who were also hosting), but I appreciate that people came and hung out with us and played games and what not. I always worry that there will be zero, so 17 is waaaaaay better than that.

Thought I’d share a few of the takeover graphics with you and then I am gonna go do some photo editing I think.

Have a takeover kinda day!

Jo 🙂

Thankfulness #130 & Union Station

Today I was thankful for getting things ready for the Facebook party tomorrow. I have all my prizes and images and script all ready to go. (The party is 6pm – 10pm in the facebook group Book Born.)

Some of my snazzy graphics:

And while I am sharing snazzy things…I mentioned the Pompeii exhibit a couple of days ago. As I said, it was held at Union Station in Kansas City which is an old – but still functioning – train station that is beautiful! Seriously:

I didn’t have the Nikon because we didn’t know it was in a train station and didn’t think we’d be able to take photos anyway (ha!) But I did get some snaps with my cell phone worth sharing:

And now I go to watch Hell on Wheels and hopefully get some work done on the fantasy book.

Have a train station kind of day!

Jo 🙂

 

Thankfulness #123: Graphic Art Fun

Yesterday I promised to share my new teasers, so here they are!

I’m reasonably happy with them. I also remade the slides for my slideshow on my website. Check ’em out maaaaaaaaaaaan….

Yeah, I love my Boxshot program. Worth every penny, though I was disappointed that almost none of the updates ever applied to my version. My free updates have run out now, though.

Hubby was still sick today, so we mostly just bummed around on the couch. We watched Silver Streak (with Gene Wilder) from ’76 and…and something else that I can’t remember, then started the newest FaceOff series. While I had coffee today, I opted for real sugar after the warnings I got yesterday, LOL!

Not much else to share. It’s after midnight so the new book is live. I hope people like it. Or at least don;t hate it. I had 22 copies pre-ordered on Amazon (oh wow.) See? That sarcasm right there is why I need to get out of publishing. There was a time when 22 copies would have felt amazing. Now it feels like why bother? Everyone else is selling hundreds, or looks like they’re selling hundreds at least. *Sigh*

Need to update all the old books now with new “also by” info.

Have a grapically fun kinda day!

Jo 🙂

Thankfulness #107: Paying the Bills

Today I am grateful for having just enough money to pay all the bills for the month (yay!) and still order my brother his floor cleaner (he is very particular about the brand but we can’t find it in stores around here anymore). This means nothing will get cancelled or penalized. Double whoo-hoo.

Not much else. Got some editing done on the book and filled in where it said “write scene later.” Yeah, I do that, usually with sex scenes. Or fight scenes. I am kind of looking forward to not having to write either one for awhile when this series is finished. wOOt!

The dog kept me company again today:

And we had pizza for dinner. From Godfather’s. I had a coupon.

 

And I did make a cute graphic for a friend today:

I got to use stuff from that February graphics bundle again. I also bought the March bundle but have not had time to go through it. I’m getting addicted to them!

And now I go back to editing. Tomorrow I need to do blogophilia. I also need to file my taxes still. Bleh.

Have a bill paying kind of day,

Jo 🙂

 

Thankfulness #82: Family Visit

Today I am thankful for a visit from my cousin. She stopped in and brought her boyfriend so we could meet him. Since she’s in Nebraska, we don;t get to see her very much, so it was nice to have the time, and I enjoyed meeting him. he seems like a good kid, very polite and intelligent (and he has good taste in TV) and they seem to happy together, so I was quite impressed.

I did get some work done for the Valentine’s party Saturday:

Now I need to sort out games and write up the little bits to post (I like to do that ahead of time so I can concentrate on replying to comments during the party.) I need to get with my co-host on that and map it out a bit. I think she’s been pretty busy, though, so I may have to drive to Texas and kidnap her to do it, ha ha! (joking – I am going to Florida next week, no way I can afford Texas too!) Speaking of the party, if you’re not going to it I have to ask: WHY NOT??? Go on, click the link, click “going”, and then stop in on Saturday between 5 – 8 pm.  Easy Peasy.

Not much else to report so i shall end this and probably go work on chapter 19 a bit.

Have a surprise visit kinda day!

Jo 🙂

P.S. It’s snowing! 😮

 

Thankfulness #81: Hubby, Symbols, and Banners

Today I am thankful for hubby’s thoughtfulness. I’ve been staying up until well after he goes to work, so by the time I go to bed I’m pretty tired. Normally he has torn the bed up, and I have to basically remake it, fix the bottom sheet. find my pillows and stack them back up…you get the drill. Well, when I went to bed last night, it was already done. Pillows stacked, blankets all spread out. It was very sweet of him to do that, especially since he was on his way to work.

Now on to the symbols. While talking to someone on Facebook tonight I had a brilliant idea finally for the cover silhouette… okay, to be fair the bit I am using for the silhouette had not been written until today, they hadn’t been in the location before, and I hadn’t planned on them going, but… surprise.

So I got the cover mostly done, except the tag line, and that includes the symbol I use on the spine and that will be the chapter headings:

 

I will say this much about it, it is used in the story as the symbol of the Night Goddess at a ritual. (It’s not as exciting as it sounds, I promise you.)

But I have also decided 100% to push the publication date back a month, so I made a new facebook cover image to reflect that:

The book wrapped in brown paper was tricky because the boxshot program automatically adds in the pages on the three sides of the book and only lets you wrap a texture on the spine…ah, now you’re getting it. Yes, I turned the book backwards and drew the pages onto the spine portion of the texture so when it wrapped it looked like it was covered in brown paper. I admit. I am pretty proud of it.

As I mentioned I did get some writing done.I am in a boring bit – the bits between stuff where I’m getting them from point A to point B. All those mundane things that have to happen like feeding, and telling where the f*** the car came from, and that crap. That’s one thing I love about visual stuff. Like I have been slowly making it through Voltron season 2, and they just skip huge chunks. One minute Keith in his room. Then he’s in the loading dock in his uniform. We know he got dressed. We know he walked down there. but in a book you have to SAY all of that. If nothing else you have to say “An hour later Keith trooped through the landing dock, dressed in his paladin uniform, a bag of possessions on his back” but in the visual version it might be an hour later, it might be six hours later, no one cares. You have more room. You can also pull of a lot of tricks visual that you can’t in writing. Like Father from Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood or the Naru dreams in Ghosthunt. I tried to do that in another book, but in writing it just didn’t work. All the betas figured out the truth too fast and thought the main character was stupid, or else they were completely confused (when I tried a vaguer version). The upside to writing though is that it’s faster then animating and doesn’t require an entire team just to draw it.

All right, and with that I am outta here. Gonna update the author facebook page, write up my blog announcement for the date, and take pics of my prizes for the valentine’s party Saturday.

Have a bed is made kinda day!

Jo 🙂

 

 

Thankfulness #75: Proactiveness

Google is rolling out a mobile first algorithm that most of you don’t care about, but a simple way to say it is that websites that don’t perform well mobile will lose google rankings. Right now if I look myself up, my website is the top result (thanks to other google algorithms, this might vary for you), but if my site isn’t mobile friendly, maybe that would change…

Except, luckily, hubby went overboard when i asked him to adjust my website’s menu to make it mobile friendly, and he made the entire website mobile friendly.

So now, when google starts lashing about all these algorithms, I’m already set. I don’t need to panic, or rush about, or react, I can just keep cruising on.

Let me tell you how often that happens – so rarely that I can use it as my thankfulness item for the day.

Curious now? To see if your site -or any site -is mobile friendly, you can check it out with the testing tool.

In other news, I broke down and bought those jack Strify albums through iTunes – a pain in the a** because I had to install iTunes first, which took forever, then spend ten minutes trying to recover my account (It’s been so long that it had a five year old address, and the answer to my security question was a pet that has since passed away! needless to say, I updated everything now.) But I have my happy playlist going now.

I’m also on chapter 16 for anyone interested, and have figured out what to fill a couple of chapters (at least) with, so there’s that victory. (The deal is I have an event that has to happen on a certain date, so to speak, like say a Christmas massacre – not it, but a good example – only I have four or more days until Christmas, but as I said, I think I know how to fill those days now. I hope.)

And now I need to sleep so I can get up tomorrow and go measure things! *Squee*

Have a proactive kinda day!

Jo 🙂

Thankfulness #72:

I slept in today, and it was nice. In fact a whole day in bed wouldn’t have been amiss, but alas I didn’t go that far. I did get a cover squared away, did some work on another, got my newsletter done, and added a new slide to my slideshow on my website that advertises the Vampy Valentine Party coming up. (Next Friday I have to go buy prizes for it).

I think it came out pretty good. Maegan has very awesomely set up the event and made the very cool banner for the page – so go check that out and hey, feel free to click the going button while you’re there!

Which brings me to my Thankfulness – today I am thankful to Maegan for setting up said party and co-hosting with me. (Okay, and for thinking of it in the first place. Shhhhh.) it is going to be a lot of fun!

And now I need to go listen to two songs on repeat and write what should be a sad scene if it works out.

Have a Party kinda day!

Jo 🙂

Thankfulness #58:

Today I am thankful that I finally got to play with some of the stuff I bought in the Never ending resources pack. I got them and the texture pack unzipped the other day, and also downloaded a bunch of really adorable fonts from Fonts for Peas. Anyway, I write dark books, not cute fun books, so I really had no idea when I was ever going to get to do anything with this stuff because the style is adorable, but doesn’t work with my brand.

But, it DOES work with the facebook Book Born group! We’ve been working on updating the rules, and Amy had the awesome idea of condensing them in a graphic, so…

Isn’t that adorable, if I do say so myself?

Other than that I’ve worked on the book some and mostly done nothing useful. And now I go back to that.

Have a cute graphics kinda day!

Jo 🙂