We return to Nick and friends...
Or at least, I intend it to be relaxing. Hopefully it delivers.
4:22 minutes
Materials:
In which I talk about the paper, the paint, and the experience of oils versus gouache. Fun stuff, will do more.
Thank you Locals supporters! Your contribution to my art war chest here is what's powering these experiments and videos. For now I'm keeping them public but I may start doing some subscriber-only videos if you all are interested.💖
Thanks for your comments yesterday on the business post... all very provocative, in a good way. I'll try to respond to all of them today.
Some Alysha misc now, since I'm gearing up for the results of the Kickstarter!
Petrov is giving away coupon codes for every book in the Alysha series (and has some leftover coupons for Marda and the business book). You can pick those up here (and please do! The books are bought already, someone should use them!) https://twitter.com/PetrovNeutrino/status/1457344535843987461
Our own @JudasComplex sent along a sample of the Faith in the Service audiobook, which I've attached for your delight! I... haven't had a chance to listen to it. Don't ask me about my past week and a half or so. Putting it here will guarantee I get to it.
After hearing the amused comments during the livestream, I went ahead and added all the ship type illustrations I have inked from the 90s to the wiki. Glory in the rampant adorableness of their anthropomorphic stylings! See those ...
A little comedy today, at least in the link. Transcript follows.
Hi, all. Welcome to this episode of The Jaguar’s Heart.
A while back I was introduced to a comedy sketch about Cuban coffee by a Mexican comedian, Gabriel Iglesias. ( The sketch begins with him greeting all his fellow Latinos and then backing up to say ‘but we’re all different, aren’t we’ which is a segue into a demonstration of how different Hispanics speak Spanish.
It is hilarious. First, because I am a Spanish speaker and a linguistics hobbyist, and his portrayal of various accents resonated with my experiences in trying to make sense of them myself… Not always easy, since from culture to culture, slang and accent are often totally different (and sometimes grammar! Spaniards use a grammatical construct that has died out in many other Spanish-speaking countries, the plural “you.”)
I also loved it because the Cuban coffee part is real. I grew up with Cubans. I know how we are....
One of the most common things I hear (and say) right now is "the asymmetry is the story." Here's one about how none of us are innocent of the sins we hate in others.
Hi, all. Welcome to this week’s episode of The Jaguar’s Heart.
It’s been weeks since the Baen’s Bar incident and I’m still thinking about it... because the longer I do, the more I feel, overwhelmingly, that it’s obvious that the problem is deeper than “this forum was saying stuff that offended us.” We have to back up to the glaring fact that people on opposite sides no longer consider each other human. Nothing I say will matter because the people disagreeing with me don’t think I’m human. They have denied my humanity; they have not bothered to listen to my beliefs, or have fake-listened to them in that way that people do when they’re so ready to prove you wrong that they’re only using your speech to provide talking points for their own ideas.
We have forgotten how to listen.
Increasingly, we have also ...
A few days early, on my shop; I was planning the 15th but I got it done faster than I planned. You can get it right now from my shop in ebook or paperback: https://studiomcah.com/products/an-exile-amid-stars-shieldmatron-2
Or, if you prefer, you can wait for the retail edition (ebook and paperback). Those links are here: https://books2read.com/shieldmatron2
I've also wrapped up the FireBorn's Legacy Kickstarter and sent out that update, so... I think that's everything that was on my plate for this year. I am thinking of going back to writing the gamelit (finally!) and maybe doing a Christmas story! I'll actually be able to breathe and think about that. Excited!
Anyway, grab the book if you're wanting to.🧡
Typo checks and first reader reports are coming in at a good clip on Surela 2 - thank you all! I'm going to start formatting this weekend and should have that wrapped up shortly.
Meanwhile, I'm looking at everything I've dropped to finish Exile Amid Stars (including re-reading the gamelit novel to see where I left off!). But I'd also like to do some conlang work, so this is an open call for requests for words! I'm assuming Ai-Naidari, but if you want to know words in other languages (the Jokka's, or Chatcaavan, or Faulfenzair, or whatever!), let me know.
Reminder also that I'm doing one card readings from my balance deck on Discord, so if you'd like one, let me know there. It's happening in channel #other-stuff.🙂
But anyway, yes. Word requests, if you have them!
I'll be finishing the draft of Surela 2 tomorrow, and will probably wrap up my personal revisions on it by the end of the week. Which means if you're interested in being on the beta reader team, you should clear the decks for the beginning of next week!
My recommended re-reads going into this one are Surela 1 and FireBorn's Legacy.
Wiki spoilers will probably start going up this week as I finalize my edits and start adding things to entries so that first readers can do research/double-check things, so be advised!
If you prefer to wait, I'm guessing this one will be available for direct sale (from my shop) by mid/end of November, and at retail in December. I'll have a pre-order page up probably by Nov 15 at the latest.
I know I've been quiet and putting all the things on hold, but the book was only 25,000 words long at the beginning of September and it's now 100,000 (and still going). I've dropped everything to get this done in time for a 2024 release, and it's been eating my brain ...
The chapter titles are all a mess. But this is the proper order so far:
Gamelit 1 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/4241337/gamelit-novel-first-chapter
Gamelit 2 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/4255477/gamelit-novel-last-bit-of-chapter-1
Gamelit 3 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/4267366/gamelit-novel-chp2-part1
Gamelit 4 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/4267371/gamelit-novel-chp2-final
Gamelit 5 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/4298755/gamelit-novel-chp-3-part-1
Gamelit 6 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/4330428/gamelit-chp-3-part-2
Gamelit 7 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/4331116/gamelit-chap-4-pt-1
Gamelit 8 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/4361942/gamelit-chp-4-last-bit
Gamelit 9 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5215305/gamelit-novel-chapter-3
Gamelit 10 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5244861/gamelit-novel-10
Gamelit 11 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5271216/gamelit-novel-11
Gamelit 12 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5301971/gamelit-novel-12
Gamelit 13 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5326625/gamelit-novel-13
Gamelit 14 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5360605/gamelit-novel-14
Gamelit 15 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5385714/gamelit-novel-15
Gamelit 16 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5418577/gamelit-novel-16
Gamelit 17 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5444360/gamelit-novel-17
Gamelit 18 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5475518/gamelit-novel-18
Gamelit 19 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5502726/gamelit-novel-19
Gamelit 20 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5530518/gamelit-novel-20
Gamelit 21 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5558728/gamelit-novel-21
Gamelit 22 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5586451/gamelit-novel-22
Gamelit 23 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5613544/gamelit-novel-23
Gamelit 24 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5642711/gamelit-24
Gamelit 25 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5668799/gamelit-25
Gamelit 26 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5693714/gamelit-26
Gamelit 27 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5722853/gamelit-27
Gamelit 28 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5747793/gamelit-28
Gamelit 29 - https://studiomcah.locals.com/post/5772301/gamelit-29
Last weekend I decided to return to my local convention, NecronomiCon, after over eight years, to see how things had changed… and also because I missed in-person socializing. Fortunately, the con didn’t mind my signing up at the last minute, and put me on panels and sold me a writer’s alley table, so I was able to go all three days and sell a few books.
Briefly, about Necro: 2024 is its 43rd year, and it's never missed a year, even when they were forced to do a zoom version. It’s a nonprofit con of the old science fiction style, with panel programming, gaming, an art show, and a dealer’s room. In the past, it’s been fairly large, but the arrival of the enormous for-profit ComicCons have obviously cut into its attendance. The vendors I talked to said last year there were 400-500 people. This year, because of the hurricane, we probably had a quarter of that number, if that. Seven of the guests canceled because they couldn’t physically reach the con, and in fact, the committee wasn’t even sure if they’d be able to run it until three days before they were scheduled!
But it did run, and I’m glad it did, because it was a low key and relaxing event… less like a con and more like a weekend spent catching up with friends. Prior to my hiatus, I was a regular at this con, and was surprised how many people remembered me from back then; the woman who started the con came by to reminisce about how young and shiny I was when she first met me, and since she met me in the 90s, this was a legitimate observation…!
This brings me to the fact that the con skews a little old, but there were more small children than I’m used to seeing at cons, which was nice. (Especially after the tantrum some of the local furry cons threw about requiring attendees to be 18+). Since the hotel’s on university property, I talked with one of my table buddies about posting fliers on campus to attract some new people. The game room ran 24x7 all three days with tabletop games, roleplaying, LARPing, and an enormous library available for checkout so people could try something new. There was even a miniature painting contest, and the minis and paints were all supplied for you, and you got to take your figure home. I have to imagine that would be a fun thing to do over a weekend with friends: “let’s get together and play games and socialize”? Sounds like a good time to me!
The rest of the con is more modest in size, but I have to think that’s an opportunity, especially for younger people just starting out. The dealers’ room had maybe 20 vendors, and there were maybe 10-15 writers in the writers’ alley depending on the day. The art show’s panels had many vacancies, also. Though some of that was certainly due to the hurricane, I still think attracting some young adults to step into the shoes of the people who (probably!) want to retire from con-running would be a good idea.
I participated in three panels and one reading, which were almost entirely empty because of the low attendance, but that made it more fun in some ways… you can chat with the audience directly when there’s only a handful of people listening. My topics were “Redemption Arcs in Media,” “Writing the Short and Long of It” (about how to decide how long a story should be), and “The Fascination of the Other,” where I ended up impromptu moderator since we’d lost ours to travel disruptions. These were all companionable discussions, and the other pros entertaining company. I hadn’t planned to participate in the reading but got talked into it by the head of programming, because of the cancellations… so I read the first scene of “Leadership Lessons,” from To Discover and Preserve, because Vera is fun to perform. I tend to prefer funny material for readings, because it raises the energy level of the audience, and gets them responding.
Also good: absolutely no political talk that I heard at all, and the one time someone strayed onto it on a panel, I said, “Let’s not do politics… we’re here to escape,” and the whole audience did a ‘hear hear.’ I also saw signs of heterogeneous beliefs among the attendees, which was great. I’d like to return to a time when fans came from multiple beliefs and united over their shared love of dragons and spaceships.
I spent the entire weekend, when I wasn’t on a panel, behind a table. One of the good things about such a small attendance was it gave me a chance to test my in-person sales procedures. The new Shopify hardware worked perfectly once I figured out how to use it, and 2/3rds of my sales were credit or Apple Pay. One of them was even for an ebook, and the woman who bought it started reading it that night, which was gratifying. The physical set-up wasn’t bad; my new banner is great but I think my table could use some fancifying. I also very obviously need a cart to haul things because Daughter and I carried the boxes of books in and that was not ideal. Lessons learned!
I also feel, based on this con, that I probably wouldn’t be a great fit to sell at the ginormous 40,000-person cons, because what I enjoy is chatting with people and there’s not much chance of that in the crush of a megaconvention. I could be wrong, but people seem more likely to buy from me after talking with me a while. Gambling on numbers over personal connection reminds me too much of the “advertise to large numbers of strangers on Amazon” strategies that never worked well for me. I should probably try a ComicCon to be sure… if I can even get in! Those enormocons have waiting lists for their $700 tables.
I did really enjoy the talking. Two people had already heard of me; one of them bought Mindtouch on sale, and liked it, and another was on my mailing list already. I also received a compliment on my new mcahogarth.org website, which was unexpected. I stripped that site down based on my own frustration with web 2.0… I guess I’m not the only one tired of endless, hyper-polished Wordpress sites.
My sales covered my table and a little more. A third of my sales were of the business book, which makes me happy because I like to think of helping people realize their dreams. The other third were either Mindtouch or Earthrise, and if even one of those readers goes on to read the rest of the series, that’s a serious win. But I wasn’t too focused on making back my expenses… as Daughter observed, “This was an advertising expense. If you made money, that’s on top.”
I’ll be back next year, definitely. If you’re local to Florida, it’s worth considering if you love gaming and like relaxacons!
