Progress, pictures, particular points in my plife, and how not to use a silent ‘p’
Book #1 – “Ghost in the Water” – is now pretty much out of my hands, and is the publisher’s responsibility. Here’s what’s happening right now. Or, if not RIGHT NOW, then at least here’s what’s happening at THIS PARTICULAR POINT IN MY LIFE.
The book: The text may need a tweak here and there, but we’re on the seventh draft now. I don’t see anything significant changing. It’s pretty much done! Here’s what it looks like so far:
The cover art: As said in a previous post, the cover art is done. After getting the scans completed, we put three layers of protective gloss on the artwork. That gloss stuff, in case you haven’t worked with it before, is smelly. Very. My garage will never smell the same (and perhaps that’s a good thing). But the artwork looks really nice, and I’ll soon get it framed. You remember what it looks like (minus the ghost special effects and title/author text):
The inside art: Did I mention there’s internal art? Well, there is! Artist Celia Kaiser created three ink drawings for use inside the book. They illustrate key points and action scenes in the story. I’m not going to show you the pictures here (they’ll spoil the plot!), but I’ll share tiny, incomprehensible pieces of each. Here’s what they look like:
The second book: I’m working on book #2 – “The Magician’s War”. It’s going well – I’m halfway done writing it! Here’s what it looks like:
It was an effort getting to this point, and not just with the writing: You might be surprised how long the artwork took, too. Yes, there’s the process of painting and drawing, but also doing conceptual sketches, submitting those sketches for approval, then tweaking them, then scrapping some ideas to come up with better ones, then more concepts and proposals, and all this before starting the final version.
It’s good to have the first book pretty much wrapped up. Now I can focus even harder on the second.
That’s what I’ve been working on lately… But enough about me. How about you? What have you been doing?
I have been waiting for the request for my address so you can send me a pre-read of the book. :) Great work Andy! Glad to see this progressing along so well. Never thought I would be able to say I know a famous author…
I’ve been training for the River Bank Run, traveling to Vegas, and prepping for a couple little speeches I have to give tomorrow. Can’t wait to see the first book on the bookstore shelves!
Scott: Nope, I’m not famous, and speaking statistically I never will be. I’m just a guy who’s written a book or two, though I’m pretty happy with that!
Monica: Good to know what’s going on with you. Good luck in the Run, in Vegas, and I hope your speeches went well!
Andy
Andy,
You may be a bit more famous than you think. I am an Information Security Officer at a large health care system in Texas. After reading your article ‘The Myth of Computer Security‘, I decided to poke around in an attempt to quote your credentials as I am using the gist of your article in a few speeches I am going to be delivering to the surrounding community.
I see now that you are also offering an upcoming book (and here’s to a successful series). I will plug it for you. Let me explain that a little further. You see, I work for a non-profit children’s hospital and I am part of an organizational initiative called “Family Forward” where we send resident experts to the community to help with various subjects. I will be presenting to PTOs and other organizations in the Dallas/Fort Worth area over the coming months and I will also be talking to some children’s groups, schools, etc.
Having not read the book, I can only discern what I can from the title, but I have every reason to suspect that your books (notice the plural) will pique interest in creative thinking, problem solving, and science/technology in young minds and, of that, I am a great advocate.
Best of luck to you,
Jody S. Hawkins, CISSP
Information Security Officer
Thanks, Jody! I’ll take all the help (and plugs) I can get!