a new cover

I have a confession to make. When I first published Repeating History last summer, I really had no idea of how to make a cover, very rudimentary knowledge of Adobe InDesign, and not much else. Since then I've learned just a little more, and this is the result:

The pocketwatch is a public domain image. The geyser is a photo of Grand Geyser that I took the day I had the inspiration for the book in question (it's the same photo that's on the old cover, but I lightened the photo for the old cover to make the title stand out). The banner is because the colors in the geyser photo run the gamut from almost black to almost white, and make it impossible (at least with the skills I have at my disposal) to keep it from washing out almost any letter color or pattern I chose. The banner colors are chosen from the photo.

The lettering is two variations of woodgrain, via Photoshop. The font is akaPosse, from dafont.com.

I would love to know what you think of it. Please tell me.

And another small accomplishment

I have learned how to format a book for Amazon.  I'm not the techiest person in the world, so there was a bit of a learning curve, but I seem to have mastered it.  I still have a bit of tweaking to do (a bit of odd spacing in a couple of spots that, now that I look at it, are in the manuscript, too), but soon there will be a real ebook.

In the meantime, here's the shiny new cover:

Making progress.  Moving like a herd of turtles, as a friend back in Ohio used to say.  The photo is of Grand Geyser, which I took during the actual eruption that inspired the writing of the book.  Which is kind of nifty in itself, if I do say so myself.

Done again

This appears to be my week (technically -- from Friday through the following Wednesday, at any rate) for finishing projects.

Today I finished The Hat Project.  Completely.  Utterly.  Right down to the printed browsing records (which is what the curator prefers to have when she's preparing exhibits, rather than browsing on the computer in PastPerfect).  All neatly in order.

The hats themselves have long since been organized and curated and recorded and re-stored within an inch of their lives.

And now it's time to move on to the next project.  If you need a freelance museum curator/exhibits person/writer, and you're either in the greater Tacoma, Washington, area, or need something I can do for you via a distance connection, I'm your woman.

So do please feel free to contact me, here or at my website.

Thank you!

Website TK

Well. I do wish working with computers came more naturally to me. Some aspects do. I’m terrific at learning new programs easily and quickly, and I have more of a concept of how to make a computer work than I do, say, an automobile. Not that the latter is saying much – I know gas goes in one end of a car and oil in the other, and where to take it when it misbehaves.

Which, in some ways, is more than I know when the software refuses to cooperate on my computer, after all. Hardware, yes. I know where to go when the hardware goes belly-up. A small local company called Angel Computers (a wonderfully apt name) has been taking care of my hardware needs ever since I quit relying on my 1000-mile distant brother-in-law for the purpose a number of years ago.

It’s the software everything-but-using-it that’s the battle. From my point of view, a car doesn’t have software (although I know it has a computer). Maybe that’s the real issue.

All this to say that I’ve spent most of the last three days emailing back and forth with my ISP getting the trial run of my website to actually publish. And, at last, it does. Now I just need to design and build the actual page and put the content on it. Why do I feel like that’ll be a piece of cake compared to just getting out onto the web? And why do I feel like a rock climber who needs to keep three of my hands and feet on the cliff at all times?

Website address TK as soon as there’s something to read there. TK? I was a newspaper proofreader in a former life, and read display ads for a living for about three years. TK was what we put in the blank spots while waiting patiently for the sales staff to provide graphics for the finished ad. No, I don’t know why it’s TK and not TC that means to come, but it does.

So. Website TK. Soon, darnit. And next time we’ll have some real content here, too. I promise.