I am a much more resilient writer than some may think. I also have a read-between-the-lines third eye. Everyone's comments have been helpful. Yes, everyone's. This does not mean I'm changing the story to everyone's whims. I am however taking into account consistent themes. Here are some of the changes I need to make:
Thank you. When a beta reader goes off on a tangent it's awesome. Not only do I get to torment, but I've given you the feels. Torment might be the wrong word. Nah... Suffer. I really am a horrible person. And I'm here to bring you all along for the ride. Point, laugh and say, "At least I'm not as bad off as you." It's true. I went to Austin, the weird capital of the US, and even they thought I was too weird. *shrug* So back to being grateful... Without input writing can be a huge mirrored box. Over and over again. Beta readers help writers grow, stretch and learn more about themselves. So...thank you...for being tormented by a too weird for Austin pervert. God, I hope my niece and nephews never see this blog (or come across my novels). So that's it for the Seducing Sensei update. On the Pyromage project I've gotten 17,600 words in a .docx file. I've got about 20 pages of notes/scenes in the livescribe book. So that's about another 5K. And I keep writing. I've decided to do something different with Pyromage, but that is for another update. There is a reason why I was late with this update and I feel the hand of Editing (like the hand of God) pulling me back into the abyss of publishing. Troll River Publishing has a lot going on this month. You can take a look here if you want to see the newest releases coming out! Go ahead! A least those authors don't torment their beta readers...or do they?
Done? So we're in agreement, right? Good. Okay... Third, I'm not sure an illustrated cover would convey the right tone. (Note: tone and mood are not the same thing.) Both set your expectation, but this story was written with yaoi in mind so an illustrated cover sets that up. Ultimately, I chose to go with an illustrated cover because of branding. The cover, book trailer and teasers will all have the illustrations Zoe created. It's just makes sense with that point of view. I'll go with Zoe again when I make the next books so I have an all around brand with the Notice Me Sempai series. You can see from Zoe's first attempts it doesn't give any impression that this is an all male menage. At least not really. The above picture is adorable. They look like they're posing for the year book. But the cover says this could be a story about three humorous friends, their lives, their differences and how they relate. That's not this story.
I needed a cover that could give me their character traits, besides teacher and students, that I'd like to put as the representative to my story. So then Zoe shows me this... No, it doesn't show all their faces. I might still want that. But this at least screams, there's sex in here. The blatantness -- yes, my new word blatantness -- is what I was going for. I gave Zoe the okay for this one. Here's why. It shows Mori's weakness, it shows Itsuma taking the lead like he always does, and it shows Scott's eager but gentle way. Those are my characters. Oh, for those who don't know the order from left to right is Itsuma, Mori, Scott. The best character illustrations of them are found here. So Zoe's got the okay from me and I've got a rough sketch. The next time you see the cover will be for the cover reveal. For now, try to use your imagination for detail, color and shading. Until next time! XOXO ~ Stephy
My god, you must be sick of me giving updates of my latest work. However, the picture you see above is the last panel of Zoe's story boarding for the trailer of Seducing Sensei. Now all I have to do is... ...put it all together. Here's what we have so far:
Combine my 87 images to the music and we'll have a trailer. Holy hell it's been fun. I think Zoe made the process awesome. She kept feeding me images every week. After panel 40, my face was turning red and I was a total fan girl... What to do now: Hire someone to put these all together. This YouTube video is what I'm going for: PLEASE BE WARNED!!! THE VIDEO IS YAOI (MALE ON MALE SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS) PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T CLICK UNLESS YOU WANT TO SEE THIS Yeah, sorry for the warning but some people don't take my dirty blog seriously sometimes. Anyway... So all this work and still no video, yet. But there will be! As for the rest of the book. I've penned the last word of the first draft and have put it in the drawer to simmer. Don't freak...I'll leave it in there for a few weeks, bring it out, edit it over a week, then send it out to the betas!! But as soon as I shelved it and could think about something else, my paranormal, fantasy, dragon story reared its sexy legs up and...it too is an all male menage. Hell if I know what's going on with the inner workings of my head but there you have it. I don't even know what genre to call this one other than all male menage dragon story. It's been in my head since 2014 and it's never let go. So...I'll be posting about that one until I have more news about Seducing Sensei. I'll send out an email to all my peeps so if you want to be apart of my crew, scroll to the top and sign up for my readers group list. You'll get a free story too--just to see if we're compatible. If not, no worries! So now, whip-lash back to S.S. (Seducing Sensei) I'm putting all the updates of SS in chronological order for posterity purposes for later. One day, we'll look back and smile. http://www.snmckibben.com/a-dirty-blog/good-luck-finding-a-book-trailer http://www.snmckibben.com/a-dirty-blog/storytelling-vs-genre-writing http://www.snmckibben.com/a-dirty-blog/current-events-notice-me-sempai http://www.snmckibben.com/a-dirty-blog/seducing-sensei-update In other things to do before this book comes out...I need:
Until next week!! XOXO ~ Stephy
I'm starting the illustrations from the last blog teaser here. But the excerpt is part of the book that is further down the story line. (Please understand this is a first draft and you may find grammar errors. I'll be having this edited by a professional and certain passages may change when released.) Enjoy! Excerpt
Until next week! Happy reading! XOXO ~ Stephy
So this is just a brag session. I'm here to tell you about the cool things I'm doing with Zoe, the illustrator, and the book trailer for Seducing Sensei. I've formed a series of this particular world in my head. There are three side characters in this story that I'd like to explore, but that's for later. Right now I'm calling it the Notice Me Senpai series. I like the way Zoe has taken this part of the story and made it really work. I'm only going to show the PG parts here as this is an M/M/M (all male menage). I'll include the narrative from the book but please don't hold me to high spelling and grammar standards as your getting a glimpse of the first draft. Take a look!
So that's what I have to report this time! In the spirit of my Notice Me Senpai mood I've got a video I found and wanted to share :) ~ Until next time! Enjoy!
Now that I'm doing one for my own story I wanted to do something I would enjoy watching. Full disclosure here, it's an all male menage which means it's for the GBLT community. Sorry gang, I'm still writing M/F romances but really wanted to do this one. It's about a teacher and two students. Anyway... I went to upwork, put up my project details, scanned through 17 or so artists and found Zoe. She does The Last Cowboy comic. Her colors are vibrant and she's got a fabulous story. She's also doing my story-line for the book trailer. I'm so excited. I know. I know. Book trailers may or may not bring in readers but this one is a labor of love. I feel lucky to have found Zoe (as this is the month of luck). She's talented and dedicated. She loves this stuff and I can't wait to finish this story and give you a book trailer to go with it. For me, when Zoe showed me the sketches I thought she immediately caught the essence of each character. Now that we are beginning I'm seeing the rough drafts and the finals. It's awesome to watch. So another exciting day of a working writer. If you want to hear my ramblings, listen below. I'll update you next time!!
I'm a dinosaur. Unlike the word processing writers of the world I still write on pen and paper. I salute you, you Scrivener efficient organizers!! May you collect pieces of internet in your scrap ideas and find the best story on a white screen. You will never run out of ink. This is why I'm a dinosaur. But I'm a bad-ass dinosaur like the one on above because even though I still write with pen and paper, I'm replacing my pen every two days. That's many words. :) For those who are bad-ass dinosaurs, like myself, I can tell you there is nothing like a bic. Gel pens are wonderful but they last me a day. I was so frustrated having to replace my pens so often I decided to see how long -- or how many words -- one of these gel pens lasted. 6,800 words later I found my answer. W.T.H. Do people just not write a lot? Do you, my dinosaur friends, have this problem? What do you write with? And now, an excerpt from one of those pens...on a 5X8 flashcard...
Writer's Warts and all...my unedited world spilling out onto the index card. Yes, I've gotten into the habit of writing my unedited, crude, whatever is in my head stories on paper. This gives me permission to be cheesy, misspell everything, to turn off my evil editor, and write what ever comes to mind. See the red squiggly lines of spell checker don't let my inner editor rest. Yes, I could turn it off, but this suits me. I like writing with pen and paper. However, I've noticed that sometimes it will take me twice or even three times as long to write a sex scene. Does anyone else have this problem?
|
Thanks for taking a look at my little hodgepodge of a blog. The format and subjects of my blog has changed through the years as it's my log of S.N.McKibben's writing journey. You've now been sufficiently forewarned, happy reading! Categories
All
Archives
December 2023
|
Proudly powered by Weebly
|