Cynthia Vespia's Writing Process

asian, Books, fantasy, interviews, publishing, Uncategorized, women, Writing

On Goodreads I recently met Cynthia Vespia, the acclaimed author of the fantasy saga Demon Hunter. Her first novel, a medieval fiction entitled The Crescent was published in August 2005. The novel was unanimously praised as “an engaging, descriptive read” which prompted a sell-out at Borders Bookstore in less than one hour during the first official signing.

As part of the Writing Process blog hop, she was kind enough to share tips to upcoming writers:

What am I working on?

I’m currently working on the sequel to my acclaimed Demon Hunter series, titled DEMON HUNTRESS. It follows the daughter of my lead character as she follows in her father’s footsteps and takes up the role of hunter.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Every author has a different voice. I have been told I’m a multi-genre writer. I’ve included romance in horror novels, and comedy in thrillers. I write what comes naturally to me to make the best story possible.

Why do I write what I do?

I write what I like to read. I’ve been a fan of fantasy since I was a kid reading Piers Anthony or C.S Lewis. As I grew my tastes grew into more mainstream thrillers. So I still dabble in both genres. I can’t help where I get my story ideas.

How does my writing process work?
I get a spark of an idea and develop it from their with a rough outline. My character profiles will go in depth but I tend not to flush out too much of the actual story because it ruins the spontaneity.

Cynthia’s Goodreads profile contains links to her books and book trailer videos, check them out!

Undead Sorceress Front Cover Reveal!

art, Books, covers, marketing, publishing, Uncategorized, Writing

I was complaining recently that I had hired a cover artist who fired me as he thought my mock front cover was good enough. Also he had 20 covers in queue and didn’t really want to think too hard about detail work. So I took it upon myself to improve what I already had as I thought it was missing a “”je ne sais quoi!”

After spending many hours researching and staring at hundreds of other book covers in store and online , I learned a lot about styles of different books. As I wanted a “unisex” book, straight lines were better. Books purposely aimed at female audiences had lots of swirly motifs and books directed to men had darker colors. Fantasy books in general are the most elaborate, with lots of illustrations compared to other books which just have fancy text and stock graphics.

Subsequently, after lots of fiddling around with my graphics program for a few days, here is the new cover. TA DA!

You might think – this cover looks the same as the mock cover!

Well, the changes include a different font (looked at thousands of fonts before choosing this one), a straight line divider, shuriken symbol, smaller wallpaper and shadowing of the text.

The “Volume One…” text was moved from the bottom of the mock cover because I looked at many paperbacks at the bookstore and realized that not all books have their edges cut evenly. So if I have anything at the bottom that’s significant, it might look odd if the book cutting machine isn’t having a good day!

For me, the font was super important as it evokes emotions and helps convey an aura of fantasy. Generally the new cover to me seems more dramatic and elegant.

The spine & back cover is another story as I am still working on that. People keep going on about having an important front cover and they forget the rest of the book! Will post the rest as it comes together!

The Writing Process

articles, Books, interviews, publishing, Uncategorized, Writing

Lately I’ve been on Linked-In and Good Reads a lot, learning from other writers about what they have been going through in their publishing journeys. Usually there are discussions about how to find readers, build blogs and how useless it is to go after people who pirate your book unless you have hard evidence.

Anyhow, I saw a post from fellow author CR Hodges, inviting authors on a “My Writing Process” blog hop to share what is going on in their writing life. Below are questions and answers for this blog hop on what is going on at this stage of my author career.

I should also mention that CR Hodges is a fairly versatile writer with books on the US civil war, sci-fi stuff and lots of short stories. Stop by his site if you get a chance!

Every writer has a different path and next week I’ll be posting details of the writing process of acclaimed Demon Hunter Saga author, Cynthia Vespias!

JF Garrard’s Writing Process

What am I working on?

At the moment I am finalizing proofreading for my first novel, The Undead Sorceress before sending it to my formatter in Australia.

This is the first book in a series called International House of Vampires which has vampires, magic users, robots and people all rolled up in the cast of characters. I wrote this book because I love fantasy, sci-fi and horror books, but didn’t see much diversity in them. There is a female lead and characters of different ethnicities as well as LGBT. This book has a theme about filial obligations and how far one is willing to go for family.

The second book, Dark Evolution is 50% done, but I am a bit stuck as I keep rewriting it and then getting distracted by other things. All I can say is that there are mermaids in this and it has an environmental theme to it.

My non-fiction works are in various stages as well. The Literary Elephant is a book I started as a guide for beginning Indie publishers. I’ve learned a lot on my self-publishing journey and there is no need for people to reinvent the wheel every time! I hate books that wave a stick in a general direction, so this book will have links and lots of advice on how to implement action steps!

How to Make a Munchkin is a book about modern tools of baby making and the pressure on women to have babies. This was written after I had a “natural” miscarriage which took over a month and I was really scared for a long time. None of my medical books on pregnancy really described what happens during miscarriages, so I hope this will help others realize that they are not alone if they have issues and not to be too worried if they have to go through the same miscarriage event.

I need to update some statistics before sending it to my editor. As well, I have a family doctor and a nurse lined up who are very interested in reading this and will contribute to the forward of this book.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I’m actually entering The Undead Sorceress into a novel competition for the “Visionary Fiction” category. This work is different because mixes up fantasy, horror, sci-fi and contains a global cast. My background is in Nuclear Medicine, so I tend to incorporate some science into my stories. As well, growing up with concept of Taoism, I inadvertently wrote a lot of that into the book since Taoist philosophies explain the concepts of magic and vampires so nicely.

For my non-fiction work, I try to incorporate useful information in a simple manner. Many times I read self-help books that are not very helpful and that pisses me off. So I do my best to offer valuable advice and realistic outlooks on situations.

Why do I write what I do?

I’ve always wanted to write and still remember the day when I had to choose between Science or English. My parents were against English as they thought I would starve to death as a writer and convinced me that Science had more opportunities. I loved Science very much too, so I headed down that road and now work in the Healthcare Sector.

One day, I discovered a fellow hospital administrator self-published a book and this sparked my interest in writing again. Self-publishing? What is that?! I thought that the life of writer was becoming depressed over rejection and then dying early, usually by starving or suicide.

Inspired that someone made a book, I started writing again and it was done fairly quickly as I had a story in the back of my mind for the last ten years. It was the idea of how I would sacrifice my life for my grandmother as she suffered different setbacks over the years (fish bone poisoning, stroke, etc.) The Asian notion of filiality is self-sacrifice for the older generation as they sacrificed themselves for the younger generation while raising them.

Generally, I write because I like sharing different truths in fiction and non-fiction. It is a way of disseminating knowledge and contributing to society via this “artform”.

How does my writing process work?

I think too much. I overthink. I hypothesize a lot because I have spent too many years with the scientific method. I am not a healthy writer because I also procrastinate and tend to overdose on chocolate.

Generally, I like reading anything and everything from newspapers to books to magazines. I also like watching lots of films; doesn’t matter what language as long as there is a good story. Also I like travelling, visiting museums, art galleries and random places. I absorb a lot of different cultures and things just spark as I figure out if I want to write a story featuring a certain element I’ve seen or not.

Ideas are scribbled into notebooks and as I’ve learned in the past, I shouldn’t write ideas onto receipts or napkins as I tend to lose them. Eventually, after I’m inspired by enough ideas, I will have a skeleton of a story – I know the beginning, middle and the end. Then I have to fill in this story with people, events, conflict, incentives and plot.

As I write and eat lots of chocolate, the characters will take on a life of their own and unpredictable things will happen. I’ve discovered I can’t have a super rigid outline, as half the time I won’t follow it! I like books with realistic people so I spend a lot of time thinking about how a character will react to a situation.

While writing I am absorbed and I get very grouchy when interrupted as I’m in “the zone”. I used to paint, so writing to me is seeing scenes in my head and then creating a piece of art with words.

Eventually after a manuscript is finished, I edit and ask my Viking husband, along with any willing friend to edit. Then I edit again. After these rounds of edits, I’ll find my editor and pass on the manuscript to them. More rounds of editing. The final step is then proof reading before sending manuscript to formatter.

To give you an idea of timelines – I wrote The Undead Sorceress in three months (thought about it for 10 years!), then it took over a year to edit. Editing takes a long time and is also when what you write gets torn to pieces as people may not understand what you are trying to say. So you rewrite and rewrite until it is good! Then illustration work, formatting, cover design, etc took many months as well. From start to finish, it’s been a two year process.

My last piece of advice is to not worry about what is right or wrong as everyone is different! Just write and get started!

Upgrading website!

art, branding, marketing, publishing, Uncategorized, Writing

Now that National Novel Writing Month and my Kickstarter are both done, I wanted to work a on new goal – to revamp my website! I had looked around for a few weeks while procrastinating during my writing sessions and found a few awesome sites which offer free WordPress themes. Well, there are actually hundreds of sites which offer free themes, but most of them look the same, quite frankly. The premium stuff (fully set up site, video tutorials, tech support) is not free, it’s about $50 USD (depends on theme) which isn’t too bad.

WordPress has revolutionized the way websites are built as it’s really website building for dummies who don’t know code (aka – me!). You install templates and you keep adding “widgets” to customize the site. Widgets are all those things on the side of websites and at the bottom which display social media icons, posts, calenders, etc.

After a few months of building a basic WordPress website, I felt ready to set up a more complicated site. Of course, my Viking husband laments that I’m not coding much and things could be more beautiful, but I can live with using a standard theme.

These are the two sites I found which offered great free themes with nice designs and lots of widget options:

http://yithemes.com/
http://smthemes.com/

This website uses “Alium” from SM Themes. My first choice was Memento from YI Themes, but the preview wasn’t working properly and the free one looked too limited. Second choice was Diablo (yes, like the game name), but the words on the demo site were too dark.

It was exciting to learn how to use sliders (the moving thing at the top of the site) as I always wondered how people did that! The only thing I haven’t learned how to do is build a nice portfolio gallery with pop up words. I found a few widgets for displaying pictures, but the problem with me is that I have too many words describing the artwork. Oh well, I’ll figure out how to display things more nicely over time.

Let me know what you think of this new site!

Check out my kickstarter article on Authors Helping Authors!

articles, Books, kickstarter, publishing, Writing

It’s been about two weeks since the Kickstarter ended and I still haven’t recovered. In hindsight, doing National Novel Writing month at the same time was not a good idea as combining the two took up way too much energy!

I learned that a campaign was actually a 3 phase thing: beginning, middle and end. During each phase, I worked madly to build and keep up momentum of the campaign going. It’s a really hard thing to do as you will find out that lots of people really don’t give a crap and will tell you to your face. So you learn to develop a thick skin because for every nice person, there is also a super nasty one who will hate you because you are in front of their faces.

Lessons learned, tips and resources were written into an article called “Tips for Running a Crowd Funding Campaign” and submitted to a site called “Authors Helping Authors“. Lots of excellent resources here for people who are interested in writing and publishing!

A book as a product is more difficult to sell on Kickstarter. Innovative thing-a-ma-bobs are easier to sell because they are quirky and general. Books are aimed mainly at readers and there are so many of them listed under publishing that it is mind boggling. I could barely find my own kickstarter campaign when it was running under the category of “publishing” and had better luck looking for it under “Toronto” projects.

Will I run another Kickstarter in the future? Well, it depends on how well the book sells in general. People that have a lot of readers and press tend to do very well with their Kickstarter projects. Also, for a third or fourth book, authors tend to give the first two away, which makes better incentives as well. I should never, say never to anything, as I might become involved in other projects. Who knows what the future will bring?!

Introducing Sammuel Bowden, the creator of Twisted Eden

art, Books, interviews, kickstarter, Uncategorized, Writing

Recently I posted some tips on Kickstarters on Google+ and was contacted by Sammuel Bowden, a talented writer and artist from Bronx, NY. He just recently started a project called Twisted Eden, which is an innovative take on the traditional graphic novel format. His kickstarter just started for this book. The video is pretty slick and artwork super unique; I’ll let him explain his revolutionary ideas, which are quite exciting as I love reading graphic novels!

Hi Sammuel, thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us. Can you introduce yourself and let us know a little bit about your background? Your artwork is quite unique (similar to air brush styles), did you have any art training or is it a natural talent you possess?

Lol, not to sound cocky, but it’s a natural talent. I have been drawing since I was seven years old, but I always wanted to take art classes to perfect my style! Natural talent is one thing, but professional training is another for the fact that it is a lot more technical.

The title of your kickstarter is “It’s not just a Graphic Novel, It’s a new Beginning!” and you mention that the difference between your book and the traditionally published graphic novel is the fact that it is a “True Hybrid Book”. Can you explain a little bit about what this means? How did you come up with this?

I’m a very analytical person. Whenever I watch a good movie, show, or read a good book, I ask myself two questions:

What makes me like this show/book so much?

What elements do all the things that I like have in common?

Asking those questions over and over again, had given me an idea. That Idea was to blend in as many elements as possible to make the “ultimate” story. Originally, I wanted to make an anime series, but not having any knowledge or networks in animation…I knew it would be impossible at that stage. So, Instead of an animated series, I wrote the plot to a book series and kept my drawn characters.

I always loved shows with a narrator, so I thought that it would be a good fit to make my book a First Person Narrative. But, making my book a written novel took away some good scenes that I had imagined for an anime series. Certain things are just better told through a sequence of art panels, where you can actually see the action.

So, wanting to keep my highly detailed writing, I decided to make a way to merge comic and narrative together! Then, as I played around with words and formats, and displayed my Half-Novel/Half-Graphic novel story to my friends. I realized that I may have the next big thing.

People who prefer words read my book for it’s writing while appreciating the art, but comic lovers enjoyed my book in reverse to the novel lovers. Also, kids who hated reading books would read the long pages of my story just to find out why two characters were fighting in a comic strip. Not a single person has disliked my content.

I felt like I accomplished my goal in blending in all elements of a good story. But, more importantly, I was able to combine two separate worlds of story telling together (Hence the name True Hybrid Book).

On your website you talk a little bit more about Twisted Eden and that you had actually thought about this story and its characters for a long time. How did you come up with this story?

Well…being born in the 90’s made me appreciate Anime in a big way. Seeing shows with intense action like Dragon Ball Z is one of the things that kept me drawing at a young age. But, as I got older and became more analytical, I knew that I needed something more than a basic story with big fights.

When I first made my story, I noticed that my characters didn’t have enough internal conflicts to make them relatable. So, I went back to the drawing board and started giving each character an internal conflict. That’s when I thought of the classic “memory loss” idea for my main character. A person trying to uncover their lost memory always added that “mystery” element to the book that most people love!

My main character’s loss of memory was a good way for me to give him more depth while giving the story an unpredictable plot. In total, I believe it took me around three years to put everything together. Lol, I think I just realized that I sacrificed hanging out with friends in High School and college for this book…sheesh!

Can you explain why you chose to name your book Twisted Eden? Without spoilers can you hint on how it fits into the story line?

Well, most of us know about the classic story of the Garden of Eden from the Bible. So, I wanted to make a fiction book that “twisted” the story of human’s origin. In the Garden of Eden, there were two trees that wasn’t to be touched. One granted man the power of Knowledge while the other Granted man the gift of life.

Twisted Eden is a Fictional of how things probably could have been if Adam ate from one Tree, while Eve ate from the other…

There are different realms in Twisted Eden with two sets of beings – humans and the Dominants, who govern humankind from within the shadows. What kind of creatures are these Dominants and why do they need to rule in secret? Do they have super powers?

You can picture Dominants as Angels. They are in the form of “Man”, have influence over Humanity, and have wings and cool powers. Some are good, some are evil, but the plot isn’t so simple. What is percieved as good and bad is through the eyes of the beholder… You’ll see these conflicts of Morales versus Circumstances a lot in Twisted Eden.

In your book excerpt you start off with a young Prince from another Realm. Is this Prince human or a Dominant? Will there be lots of twists and turns in this story? Lots of fighting?

The Prince is a Dominant, so he has those cool wings and powers. Yes, there will be lots of twists and turns in the story. I purposely wrote the plot to make a person think something is going to happen when it doesn’t. And yes…there will be lots and lots of fighting! Not as much in the first issue though, because I want to paint the picture before things start exploding!

Let’s talk a little bit about Fusion Book Publishing, is this your own company? Was it difficult setting this up?

Yes! I Found Fusion Book Publishing to help beginner Authors for free! I love helping people, but I favor self publishers since we have a good reputation of producing bad stuff…(thankfully that’s changing) It was really hard to get the ball rolling at first, but it’s finally getting some momentum! The main blog is at http://sammuelbowden.blogspot.com/. The home page shows what’s new while the Free Help page connects you to the Facebook community where you can contact me for help.

What do you hope to do in the future with Fusion Book Publishing as you grow bigger?

I want it to be a second chance for Authors! Everyone has the power to make a good book, but just need guidance on how. I want Fusion Book Publishing to grow to help as many people as possible to do what they love to do. I also want it to serve as a place where readers and fans can reach out directly to the industry to express what they want.

It’s been great learning all about your Twisted Eden project and I hope that it takes off as some of these ideas really captured my imagination! Tackling a new take on a traditional format of anything is a courageous task! Please have a look at his website and send in some support to his kickstarter!

Reflections On My First Radio Interview

Books, branding, interviews, publishing, radio, Uncategorized, Writing

Until I met my husband, I never listened much to the radio. His family are huge fans of CBC radio and grew up with this station always on in the house. My family has Chinese television on all the time instead.

Looking for different ways of promoting my Kickstarter campaign, I stumbled across Dr. Wright, a crowd funding guru who has a web tv and radio website. She offered to do a quick interview with me for her radio podcast and I jumped at the chance. There was no equipment to set up, which was nice and all I had to do was call into her LA radio station. She had mentioned a few questions in her email so I wrote up answers for those, but in general I wasn’t sure what to expect!

It was a good experience overall as I learned a lot about what I didn’t know. Such as how to answer questions properly when the host improvises. I was really nervous, so that did not help things as I stumbled across my words like a drunken sailor. In general now I know that I have to think harder about what messages I want to convey for my book, including themes, unique characteristics, cultural matters, etc. My friend was surprised at all this. “You wrote the damn thing, you should know everything!” He admonished.

Writing is such a solitary, introverted activity that it feels odd to suddenly switch on an extrovert personality in order to explain what the heck you created. As well, growing up in an Asian culture, tooting your horn is a bad thing and you never want to draw attention to yourself because you will appear to be a narcissist. So generally, I find talking about my work and myself in a positive light hard to do as I grew up learning to do the opposite. My husband says I’m the worst salesperson in the world as he listens to me degrade myself after receiving any good comments on my work. He’s trying to train me to say “thank you” and not continue on to say anything bad afterwards, but it’s going to take a lot of effort on my part.

Here is the interview for those still interested, hopefully I’ll do better next time!

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wrightplacepodcast/2013/11/15/dr-wright-speaks-with-jf-garrard

Making Loch Ness: The Web Series, Q & A with Christina (Donna)

art, comedy, kickstarter, television, theatre, Writing

One day I received an email that I had a new Kickstarter backer for The Undead Sorceress – Odin’s Song Productions. What a cool name! After thanking them I checked their profile page and it turns out they have an awesome Kickstarter campaign going on for Loch Ness: The Web Series. So I gave them a kick back of support and asked them to tell me a bit more about this project.

This web series follows the journey of Donna, Joey, Kyle and Steve; four high school metal heads who dream of making it big with their folk metal band “Loch Ness”. But first, they need to figure out where to find a lead singer and survive overbearing parents, lack of funds as well as a bass player who manages to get it wrong more than right.

Based on a true story of a now defunct folk metal band from Omaha, Nebraska, the series is told through the lens of original Loch Ness band member, Christina. If you take a look at their Kickstarter video you will see that their production and lighting quality work are extremely professional. They have a great sense of humour as well!

We are going to have a conversation with Christina Marie Leonard who is the creator/writer, and plays Donna in this head banging series.

Hi Christina, thank you for taking the time to do this Q & A with me as I know that you must be super busy with your Kickstarter campaign!

First, can you tell me a little bit about your role in this project? How did this project start?

CML: Thank you JF! Well, I am the writer of Loch Ness: The Web Series, and I will also be playing the character Donna who is the keyboardist of the band. I got the idea to write the series in March of 2013. I had gone back home to Nebraska to visit and while I was there I hung out with my friend Carl who was in the band with me and a lot of fun memories came flooding back. I had been going through a tough time in LA, so when I returned from my trip to Nebraska I really immersed myself in writing this series and it has become very close to heart.

Your goal for the Kickstarter is $10K which actually isn’t too crazy for video production projects. What do you hope to accomplish with the funds?

CML: Our goal of $10K is something we definitely believe is achievable, but there are a lot of expenses. We need the $10K for production insurance, locations, permits, food, gas, equipment, and costumes for the actors.

What is involved in the making of a web series? Is it as glamorous as people are led to believe? In general, a lot of video production looks great because only the perfect takes are shown and the many hours for a few seconds of work are not seen!

CML: Making a web series is definitely a huge thing to take on. The writing process in itself took several months of rewrites before I had something I was really happy with. Then getting a production team together and all the planning that goes into pre-production has taken a lot of time. It is all worth it, though- we have a project we all really believe in, and working with people I love being around makes those long hours seem not so long!

How were the cast members found? Is everyone from Nebraska? Do they really know how to play their instruments?

CML: We had some table reads early on during rewrites of the script, and brought in actors who were the right ages and types for the parts. Later on when we were casting, we asked those same people to read for us again, as well as having casting calls on LA Casting and CAZT.com.

We saw a lot of really great people and we ended up casting actors both from the casting calls we put out, and the pool of actors we knew from the table read. Of those actors, just myself and Chris Muckey, who is playing Joey, are from Nebraska, although ironically Chris and I did not know one another until we moved to California!

The characters are never seen close-up playing their instruments in the series- usually they are setting up or dismantling their equipment from a show- so we did not make it mandatory that the actors auditioning know the instruments their characters play. However, several of our cast members actually do know how to play guitar and/or drums which will likely open up fun opportunities for improv in the series.

In the story line, there is mention about finding a lead singer. What is involved in this and why is it so hard to keep a band together? What should people expect from this series? Is it a comedy and drama mix?

CML: The story line about finding a lead singer comes from the struggle that the real Nebraska band “Loch Ness” had with holding onto band members. It seemed like, at least when I was in high school, all the bands in the Nebraska music scene kept switching members.

With Loch Ness, it was usually just members not being interested enough, and being busy with other high school activities and dropping out. Once, though, our guitarist cancelled right before a show. It was our first show and I insisted we went on anyway, so Billy the drummer ended up playing guitar that night, and a drummer from the band “Talos” that was playing the show with us was just fantastic and learned the drum part for our set right before going on.

In the web series, most of the vocalists either quit or get kicked out because they get romantically involved with Donna… that may or may not be based on a true story as well. You can leave that up to the imagination! Overall, you should expect a lot of laughs- this series is definitely a comedy, in the vein of “Detroit Rock City”, “Empire Records” or one of my favorites, “Todd and the Book of Pure Evil”.

What has happened to the real Loch Ness band? How long did they exist and what venues did they play in? Do you still keep in touch with them?

CML: The real Loch Ness band broke up a few years when we all graduated high school. We played for the latter half of high school, Junior and Senior year, and we played in several venues around Omaha, NE- The Rock, Club Roxbury, Jacket’s Bar, Sokol Underground, and some smaller venues as well. It was hard to juggle acting in plays and be in a band at the same time, so when I was doing a month-long run of “The Crucible”, at the Omaha Community Playhouse, we could only play on Monday nights. Fortunately, my band members were really supportive of that, and we found a place called Shea O’Rileys that had shows every Monday night that worked perfectly for us!

I’ve kept in touch with the guitarist Carl ever since the band broke up, but lost touch with Billy, Matt, and Jason- the drummer, vocalist, and bass player for awhile. Fortunately, creating this web series has brought us back together. In fact, I recently did some interviews with all of them about their experiences in the band and what they look forward to in the web series. Billy’s interview is already available as an update on our kickstarter page and more will be coming soon!

This is the first time I’ve heard of “folk metal band”. Can you explain what this is?

CML: You’re not alone in being unfamiliar with folk metal. I didn’t know much about it until Billy involved me in the band. Basically, folk metal is a branch of heavy metal that stems from Viking metal. Folk metal originated in Europe in the 1990s. The lyrics usually talk about mythology, and there is often accordion, bagpipe, or some other folk instrument incorporated (or keyboards with settings to replicate that, like we had) to add that folk element to the heavy guitars and vocals.

Will there be original songs involved with this production?

CML: There will definitely be original songs involved in Loch Ness: The Web Series! We have several songs from the Nebraska “Loch Ness” band that will be used, and we are open and excited to collaborate with any metal artists that want to have their music in the series as well!

What is the story behind Odin’s Song Productions?

CML: Odin’s Song Productions consists of myself, Mijoe Sahiouni, Max Holm, Rachel Gunnerson, and Melanie Recker. Mijoe and Max both studied at the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film with me at UNL in Nebraska.

Mijoe stage managed some of the shows I was in, and I directed and wrote many shows in college as well. I have always respected her directing style and professionalism and was excited to work with her in LA.

Max, a film major at UNL, directed me in his Thesis Film “Lilith”, a thriller, which was one of my favorite roles to play and a great experience. I became great friends with them both, and I knew I just had to involve them in “Loch Ness: The Web Series”. They were the first ones to jump onboard and help create Odin’s Song Productions.

Rachel is a really great writer who I met through Mijoe, and during the rewriting process of the series, she helped me a lot in making Loch Ness as funny and solid as it can be. I am so glad to have her onboard as a producer for the full run of the series.

Melanie is another Nebraskan who I did not officially meet until moving to LA. (However, we ran into each other several times at auditions in Omaha over the years thinking “hey, that girl looks familiar!”). Melanie is a great actress who is awesome at bringing people together- she has created several social media groups for that purpose, and actually was the first person to introduce me to Chris, who plays Joey. Melanie is producing several other projects as well as Loch Ness: The Web Series, and will be moving on once pre-production is over, but we are lucky to have her, as she has been an initial part in getting this thing off the ground!

Well, I’ve learned a lot from you about making a web series and I wish you and Odin’s Song Productions the best of luck on your Kickstarter! Please check out their fantastic project here and send in some support!

Making your own virtual mixed tape to share

art, family, Money, music, publishing, Uncategorized, Writing

While reading tons of articles on how to make a successful kickstarter, I stumbled across a link for 8tracks. Someone mentioned that this was an awesome way to share your music with the world. 8tracks is a site where you can upload your music and make a virtual mixed tape to share with the world! Or like in the old days, you can use it to woo a beloved. Uploading and listening is free!

Be warned, I was extremely frustrated with the uploading process and it turns out you can only upload 2 composer tracks per mix. Also, it will reject any tracks with no identification data, such as .wma rips from a cd. Although I listen to tons of Final Fantasy background music, because they were by the same composer, I could only share 2 songs in my mix.

Overall, it was fun to make something to share, so I put together music I listened to when I wrote The Undead Sorceress. It’s all instrumental music because it helps me with writing. When I listen to songs with people singing I start typing what they’re singing instead, so it’s terrible for my writing process. The tracks are from Ashes of Time (movie), Game of Thrones (tv), Rurouni Kenshin (anime) and Final Fantasy (game).

Some of the music (Rurouni Kenshin) is a bit tense because these tracks were inspirational for writing sword fighting scenes. I remember making a cd for someone with these tracks for her family’s restaurant thinking it sounded very Asian, but she said her customers would choke on the food because the music was so nerve wracking.

Please have a listen, click on album cover below and enjoy!

(Instructions – click link and press “play arrow”! http://8tracks.com/jfgarrard/undead-sorceress-mix)

The Undead Sorceress Mix List (31 min)

1. Ashes of Time, Yo Yo Ma, Ashes of Time Redux (movie)
2. Main Title, Ramin Djawadi, Game of Thrones (tv)
3. Liberi Fatali, Nobuo Uematsu, Finaly Fantasy VIII (game)
4. Hitenmitsurugiryu – Amakakeruryu No Hirameki, Noriyuki Asakura, Rurouni Kenshin (anime)
5. The Will, Samurai X Rurouni Kenshin movie, Taku Iwasaki (anime)
6. The Last Wolf Suite – Shishio Makoto No Kumikyoku, Noriyuki Asakura, Rurouni Kenshin (anime)
7. Blue Fields, Shinko Ogata, Final Fantasy VIII (game)
8. In Memories: A Boy Meets the Man, Samurai X Rurouni Kenshin movie, Taku Iwasaki (anime)

Conversing with a Manga Artist Part 2

art, asian, Books, publishing, Uncategorized, women, Writing

This is Part 2 of a conversation with Eri-Chan, a super talented manga artist from the Philippines…Part 1 of our Q &A is here.

If I were to commission you for a manga, what kind of information do you need? A script of some sort, I imagine?

A script is okay, but a novel-like format works better for me. I love reading novels, and as such, I tend to get a better image of the scenes in my head compared to script-like stories. 🙂

What is your favourite manga? Why?

I don’t have a certain top favourite (since I have lots of favourite manga and anime), but for the shoujo-type manga, I fell in love with NANA, Card Captor Sakura, Kareshi Kanoujo no Jijou, and Zettai Kareshi. For the shounen, I’ll always love Naruto and Death Note, and am currently getting hooked with Shingeki no Kyoujin. I also liked horror and suspense manga like Goth and Jisatsu Circle.

I don’t really like manga and anime for the art style or what~ usually; its impact on me while reading it is what I look into. Did this manga tickle the imagination in a way that either I relate so much to it, or that it leaves my brain thinking about it for a few days or even weeks? I guess I love series that leaves my mind in a deep thinking state after I read it.

What is your dream job? Well, you are already living it – or perhaps better way to put it – dream commission?

I’ve always wanted to work on published love story or horror/suspense manga. I’m also working on my own title, a comedic love story, and I may be releasing it by next year. (im currently writing the story J) Other than that, I still want to pursue my studies and go for a multimedia art school (once I get me enough funds for it) so I can learn all sorts of stuff to become a professional all-around artist and illustrator. 😀

Have you ever turned down a commission?

Oh yes, a lot of times. And it breaks my heart to turn down offers of illustrating beautiful stories just because the client wants a rock-bottom price for the art, I mean, I would definitely love to draw for them, but of course, I have bills to pay too, right? Aside from that, there are a lot of stories that didn’t suit my style, (like shonen stories, sci-fi, action, sports), and I always try my best to be honest with my clients if I know that my art style isn’t gonna be the best one suitable for their kind of story. I don’t want to accept a request if know that I can’t do my best on it.

For people who want to become manga artists, what tools would they need? Do you use tablets or certain software? What tips do you give in general? (Eek! I know one is to backup stuff as there was a huge issue when her computer died…damn electronics!)

Yes, having backups of your files would be one of the most important ones, if you’re going for drawing manga digitally (especially after what I’ve been through with my pc when it broke down on me since I do everything on my PC~ haha..😀 I use a graphics tablet, and Paint Tool SAI + Photoshop CS3 for drawing. I can’t give that much advice for traditional mediums in manga, since I do stuff digitally, but I do believe that investing time to study the art and everything about it that you use will be very helpful in the long run. . Also, take in mind that there will always, and always be people in the industry that are better than you, but don’t let that get you down. Lastly, always be open to new ideas, like what my artist friends are always telling me.

I’m still starting up, and I’m looking forward to learning more as well.

This conversation continues onto Part 3…