First job Wednesday morning, after feeding the dog and the birds, was Week 3 of the 50 crime mystery prompts workshop. This is the final workshop in this course. I had feedback on Assignment 2, which was favourable. And I collected Assignment 3. Then I went into the planning stage for Assignment 3.
Much of this was already done both earlier in the course and on the murder mystery prompts workshop, as there’s some cross-over there. The only difference is the crime. After watching the workshop, I refreshed my memory for the prompts and decided to stick with the story I was going to write for Assignment 1 but ducked out of due to already writing Assignment 3 for the murder mystery prompts workshop and Novella 8 for the great novella challenge.
My chosen main character for this story is a male, but he’s another character who has the ability to chat to lots of members of a local community and perhaps become another series character…[sigh!] Because, like, I don’t already have plenty of series characters!
With that out of the way, the next job was Story #2 for the bookazine. Like Story #1 (Mavis Braithwaite Strikes Again), Story #2 is already written. Killer Queen is a Marcie Craig short story and I already had the cover.
All I had to do with the cover, was replicate it in Affinity, which I did easily enough. Then I proof-read the story and copied it across from the short story master Scrivener file into the bookazine master Scrivener file. Now all I have to do is remember to keep the latest version, so I’m not editing something that’s already been edited.
The next story on the list to proofread for the bookazine is Stevie Beck and the Body in the Lake, which is the first official Stevie Beck/Horvale cosy mystery novella. At 24,000 words, this one is a bit longer to quickly proofread, but I’m really not feeling the current Stevie Beck covers. So I used the time allocated to ‘Story #3’ to play with covers.
I played with artwork and covers in Canva, and when I thought I’d found one I liked, I replicated it again in Affinity.
I’ve noticed in things like story bundles that some book covers stand out more than others, and these are mostly books by Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch, funnily enough. What makes them pop, though, is their names big and bold at the top of the covers. So that’s what I’m starting to do with my own new covers.
Of course, once I started, I wanted to make sure I had plenty of pictures of Stevie that looked the same or similar. So I collected a few together and transferred them to my desktop so I can play even when the internet is dropping out.
Grand-doggy #1 wanted to play ball a few times. Other times he just wanted some attention. And I didn’t get much more writing or work done. It seems mornings are my most productive times, and afternoons are my faffy times. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to allocate entire afternoons to faffing.
The poet has been grafting in the garden over the past few days. He’s filled all the pots with new bedding plants, he’s cut all 4 lawns, and he’s cut back a load of brambles and strimmed away a load of weeds. He’s made me feel very guilty…
I was supposed to be at the dentist today, but it was cancelled. Phew! Unfortunately, it’s been re-arranged…Booo!
The garden sounds like it’s coming along really well.
Have fun with the book covers!
I have far too much fun with book covers! Ian’s starting to say I should be doing those instead of writing the stories to go inside them! Of course, he’s also with me in wanting to do the writing first…
The lawns are looking very parched today.