Balloon Lady Available

The Balloon Lady is published! You can find it here.

At long last

The proof came in!

It's shiny and pretty and the only things that need to be fixed will take a matter of minutes! The pictures and the texture look way better than I thought they would. I'm really proud. After those few tweaks are made The Balloon Lady will be available - probably this week - in time for Christmas!

Proof Copy

A few days ago I ordered my proof copy of the print book, and according to Fedex it should be here tomorrow!

I'm super excited, especially since I also got an email from lulu saying that the iPad version of my book is processing in the apple store and may take longer than they thought.

Hopefully the proof will look good and we won't need to make any major changes so we can release in time for christmas.

Here's hoping.

Progress

This week, the eBook version of The Balloon Lady was published on lulu - last night, we finalized the cover for the print version and ordered a proof copy! It should be here in about 10 days, and if everything is good with that, then it'll be released to the public in time for christmas!

I'm incredibly proud of myself right now - I feel like I did something amazing. I started and finished a huge project on a ridiculous time-table (because I wanted to actually finish it) and it worked, and so far I'm completely thrilled with the quality.

Coming Soon

I successfully uploaded the ePub version today and you can find it here - bear in mind, that it's not yet available in print or in iBook but those won't be much longer! I'll update as soon as they launch. In the meantime, check out lulu, enjoy the promo, and like the project on facebook!

Formatting Fun

Note to self: include front pages before formatting the book.

Formatting is taking a little longer than I thought for one simple reason: I suck at it. Thankfully, Alex is helping me in his spare time. First we were going to do a landscape 8.5x11, only to find out that doesn't exist and the only landscape template available is 9x7 - so we spent a day or two re-working everything to make it fit the new size.
Now it's all fitted, and I think I need another page or two on the inside....

Confession

Ella Roselyn is actually my pen name. My real name is Kierstyn King (yes, the illustrator). This month has been an experiment in writing, sort of my own adventure on top of an adventure and a motivation for me to continue even when I became discouraged.

I'm proud to say it worked. I've managed to write and illustrate an inspiring and well written story in less than a month. Oddly, I think writing it under an alias and on a crazy time table enabled me to do it better than I would have otherwise. Less over-thinking, more writing and when I wasn't doing that, I was painting.

Emotionally, it's been a roller-coaster. When I was talking about days feeling like I was just oozing everywhere and pouring my soul on to pages I meant it. It feels weird to be done, except for the few things I have left to do - like upload the file and publish. After a month of working like nuts, rest is weird, I feel a little lost, and a little healed. I had to face some things while writing, I realized some things about myself - some things I don't yet understand. Like why do I love even when it's painful and it'd be easier to forget? is it because it's worth it, even though it's emotionally hard, or is it because I just don't know what else to do? Is writing this story even worth it?

It's a kid's book, to be sure, but to me, it's so much more than that.

Wait, I did that?

This week has sort of been a rough one. Even though the book is written and edited, the illustrations done today, and we're almost ready to format...there's something about writing that takes a toll. Writing at all is an exertion, a pouring out of your thoughts and heart into words onto pages - with this story, it was like pouring out my soul. After I wrote the first draft there were a few days when I felt like the deepest parts of me were just oozing and spilling out everywhere. When I got distracted with life, or went back to bed sick, I felt like I was losing so much ground, there was more work to be done, just not enough energy to do it. I'm on the home stretch now, and powering through the questions and the doubts (is this even good? will it help anyone?) sometimes I feel like a failure waiting to happen. Then I remember...

A month ago I didn't even have a story. In such a short amount of time I've come such a long way, and I can't stop now, not when I'm so close to finishing. I literally wrote a book in less than a month. How often does that happen?

Checklist #2

Written: check
Edited: check
Illustrated: 3 left

I'm so excited! I sent my manuscript to Veronika Walker a few days ago, hoping she could work on my tight time-table and she was thorough, easy to work with, and most importantly got back to me quickly. I couldn't have asked for a better editor. It was fantastic working with her, I couldn't recommend her enough!

We're 3 illustrations away from completion now, and those should be done before Thanksgiving.

It's off!

I sent my manuscript off for editing today! Now I get to sit here and twiddle my thumbs for a few days until I hear back. I suppose I could try and format, instead of twiddling...that may be a better plan.

Proofing

Thanks to some soup that sent me to bed all of yesterday afternoon, I regretfully missed posting. I'm much better this morning though and I made some progress on finding someone to proofread/edit for me on my crazy deadline. Connections are great (thanks Kiery)! I also played with some formatting earlier this week. I say played, but I really mean failed and handed to my boyfriend to make it better - this is quickly becoming a group effort.

Kiery sent me some more shots of her illustrations, she only has 8 to go and then we can move on to real formatting and hopefully getting a proof print. We're so close!

Catalyst

You know when you write a story, but you (semi-intentionally) leave out a key element of that story?

Yeah. In an attempt to leave things open-ended...I kept out the one fact that held everything together. Obviously the story didn't make much sense without it. I was scared though, it's a painful and happy story all at the same time and this one detail, while vital, I was afraid might be too much. It's real, it's pain, it's confusion and hurt, and yet, it's the catalyst for all the good to come.

So I put it in.  

Publishing Thoughts

I really like my story - everyone around me likes my story, but I know just because people like my story doesn't mean it's going to actually go anywhere. I want to make sure I have one or two copies of my own, If it doesn't fly, then it's no big deal, I'd just like to have a hard/printed copy.

This is where it gets interesting.

It would be fantastic if my book took off, and for some reason my boyfriend seems to think that it will. I however, know nothing about actually publishing books which is why there are self-publishing services, like lulu, for instance. With lulu though, it's also expensive to make the books and order them in bulk, we're talking hundreds of dollars for 50 22page full color books. Since it's a children's book it does actually have to be colored. I could look into their children's book package, but that starts at around $500 (also, I already know how I want it formatted and I already have an illustrator, so I wouldn't need half of their package).

The other thing is my timeline, and this is what's keeping me from asking publishers about my book. I want to have it completed by the end of the month. Most places take, well, significantly longer than that to start and finish the process.

Right now, it's looking like I'll just stick with lulu and work out their online services and print myself a copy and go from there. I'd like to figure out if I have any other options, but so far I haven't turned up anything better.

Veterans day!

Stepping aside from my regularly scheduled programming to say "Happy Veterans day!"

Editing Fun

I sent off my manuscript to some people to proof read. I've learned the hard way many many times that it's pretty impossible for me to accurately edit myself. I can run spell-check, and I can gloss, but because I know what I wrote it's really hard for me to find things that are wrong.

I made an attempt today and found "has" instead of "as" and a word that needed to be capitalized before getting pulled back into the story and just reading it over.

Hopefully I'll get some good feedback and I can move on. Kiery is about 1/3rd of the way through the illustrations (yay webcams), and they look great. Since I don't have a working scanner she'll scan them in and email the full size versions to me and then I can format the book and convert it to a pdf and hopefully publish!

Sneak Peek of the Illustration

Kiery sent me a picture of her illustration design ideas (which are fantastic) so I thought I'd share one - I can't wait to see the rest!

Checklist

Book Written/Drafted: Check

Illustrator found: Check

Final Edit:

Funny thing, I was playing World of Warcraft and I was mumbling in the trade channel about an illustrator and Kiery sent me a tell and a link to her art blog (which I checked out after the raid) and things just sort of fell into place from there. I'm super excited and can't wait to see what she comes up with!

Story Board

Finished copying the draft over and making some minor edits. I'm taking a break from editing to give my mind a rest and working on storyboarding and figuring out where I want to go illustration wise so I know what to ask for.

I decided to plan it out on my white board, so I put the sticky notes with the list of pictures on the side and made some sketches to get an idea of how it would fit on the page. I think I'm going to try for a Winnie the Pooh type of integration. 

Word Count: 1,283

Last night, I started typing up the book and editing. I wrote the first two parts and counted the words for NaNoWriMo - 1,283. I was surprised. I would have kept going but I started making too many typos to keep up with so I just left it there.

Who knows, maybe I'll get closer to 50k than I thought! I wasn't anticipating having more than maybe 1000 words....I'm not great with numbers.  I may try to finish the rest of it today, but I'm not sure how far I'll get. I'm leaving spaces for pictures in between and made sticky note markers in my notebook of what illustrations I want so I'll have everything ready when I find an illustrator. :)

First Draft Done

Whew. Finished my first draft. it was way more emotionally exhausting than I anticipated, but I'm glad...they say it's a good thing when writers are in tears by their writing, right?

 Onward to the next part now (after I wipe my tear stains off the paper - I showed it to my boyfriend and he was like, hey, stop making me cry!) - editing rounds, also I need to pick out which parts I want illustrated and find an illustrator. I'm really happy with my progress so far, who thought being sick for over a week could be so productive?