Latest Thoughts on "The Labors of Ki'shto'ba Huge-Head"

       I originally posted this piece back in June of 2012, but strangely enough, hardly anybody viewed it at that time.  Now, at February 22, 2013, as I'm getting ready to publish v.2, The Storm-Wing, I'm going to repost and update this piece.   I'm also going to upgrade the abridged sample chapters from The War of the Stolen Mother, so that the complete text, from the opening "Translator's Foreword" through Chapter 8 are on this same blog.  You can also download approximately the same amount of text as a Smashwords sample.

        I've inserted the back cover of The War of the Stolen Mother in the sidebar. I decided, instead of doing a description or a blurb, to use an adaptation of another of my illustrations for The War of the Stolen Mother.  It shows the first meeting between the Companions of Ki'shto'ba and the trickster Za'dut. I hope you enjoy it!

        The original art for the back cover showed the scene set among dark rocks, but I thought I would make the back mirror the front, so I framed it with the tree instead. The original also includes A'zhu'lo, but the twin would have made it a little crowded. The little critter that Wei'tu is hanging onto is one of the Little Ones -- the domesticated "dairy ants."
        Probably the only thing I might change about these covers is the type font. I'm using Lucida Bright -- I abandoned Book Antigua in this series because the apostrophe, which gets used a lot, is kind of strange in that font. But I'm not real happy with Lucida Bright either, so I may tinker some more. I have a weakness for Harrington, but it's probably fancier than would be wise to commit to. I want to settle on a font I can use for the entire series. [I ended up using Harrington on the front cover, but I'm not using that font on The Storm-Wing.]

        The formatting for the printed book is coming along. The whole thing has 36 chapters and yesterday I completed Ch. 26. That is to say, I've got that much inserted into the template. I've been making quite a few alterations as I go. Some of them are stylistic and some are substantive, but a lot of them are required to make the text fit. Remember those long, made-up names, with the syllables separated by apostrophes? You can't divide those syllables at the ends of lines -- it would look goofy! Therefore, since the text has to be justified, some lines end up with big gaps between the words. That will never do! So I have to rewrite so that the long names come at the beginnings or in the centers of lines. I never make things easy on myself! [I have now gotten used to this process and even find it rather fun!]

        The footnotes have turned out to be less of a problem than I expected. I haven't had any instances where the text split itself between pages, and only one instance that I can remember where I had to adjust for a big space at the end of the page.  [In The Storm-Wing, I had one  long footnote that had to be split between pages.  I really hate that, so I fixed it by moving the numeric reference to a later point in the text.  It's a satisfactory solution, at least in this case.]

        So all this fiddling means typos may creep in and that's why I'll probably want to peruse the thing one last time.

        I may change my mind and make an attempt to put Stolen Mother on Smashwords. I sell something every now and then to people who don't have Kindles, and I do get quite a few sample downloads, which can't hurt. It's all going to depend on whether they can cope with footnotes.  [I did that, of course, and now know exactly what to do.  Amazing how one learns from experience!]

        I have a confession to make. "Stolen Mother" is a terrible spoiler for The Termite Queen! Since it takes off right at the end of TQ, there's a lot of talk about what happened in that story. (More reason for you to buy and read Termite Queen right away!) When I did that, I never thought of it as a spoiler; I thought of it as filling in the backstory, since people who haven't read TQ may read these books. There is nothing I can do about it since references to the plot of TQ are embedded in the fiber of Stolen Mother and subsequent tales. Oh, well ...

        I have only one other remark: Back in the post about the titles of the six volumes, I stated that the tentative title for Volume V would be The Quest for the Golden Fungus: The Companions Reach the Sea.  I've decided to make it The Quest for the Golden Fungus: The Path of Gold (or The Golden Path -- I still have to ponder that some more). Otherwise, the titles are pretty much set. [Actually, I'm still pondering the titles for the final two volumes.  I think these are way too long, but I do want to keep the term The Quest for the Golden Fungus, because it mirrors The Golden Fleece.]

 

Latest Thoughts on the "Labors" series

      
       I've inserted the back cover in the sidebar.  I decided, instead of doing a description or a blurb, to use an adaptation of another of my illustrations for "The War of the Stolen Mother."  It shows the first meeting between the Companions of Ki'shto'ba and the trickster Za'dut.  I hope you enjoy it!

       Once again, the white lines in the covers mark the bleed space.  I'll remove those lines before I actually upload them. 
       The original art for the back cover shows the scene set among dark rocks, but I thought I would make the back mirror the front, so I framed it with the tree instead. The original also includes A'zhu'lo, but the twin would have made it a little crowded.  The little critter that Wei'tu is hanging onto is one of the Little Ones -- the domesticated "dairy ants."
       Probably the only thing I might change about these covers is the type font.  I'm using Lucida Bright -- I abandoned Book Antigua in this series because the apostrophe, which gets used a lot, is kind of strange in that font.  But I'm not real happy with Lucida Bright either, so I may tinker some more.  I have a weakness for Harrington, but it's probably fancier than would be wise to commit to.  I want to settle on a font I can use for the entire series.

       The formatting for the printed book is coming along.  The whole thing has 36 chapters and yesterday I completed Ch. 26.  That is to say, I've got that much inserted into the template.  I've been making quite a few alterations as I go.  Some of them are stylistic and some are substantive, but a lot of them are required to make the text fit.  Remember those long, made-up names, with the syllables separated by apostrophes?  You can't divide those syllables at the ends of lines - it would look goofy!  Therefore, since the text has to be justified, some lines end up with big gaps between the words.  That will never do!  So I have to rewrite so that the long names come at the beginnings or in the centers of lines.  I never make things easy on myself!

       The footnotes have turned out to be less of a problem than I expected.  I haven't had any instances where the text split itself between pages, and only one instance that I can remember where I had to adjust for a big space at the end of the page

       So all this fiddling means typos may creep in and that's why I'll probably want to peruse the thing one last time.

       I may change my mind and make an attempt to put "Stolen Mother" on Smashwords.  I sell something every now and then to people who don't have Kindles, and I do get quite a few sample downloads, which can't hurt.  It's all going to depend on whether they can cope with footnotes.

       I have a confession to make.  "Stolen Mother" is a terrible spoiler for "The Termite Queen"!  Since it takes off right at the end of TQ, there's a lot of talk about what happened in that story.  (More reason for you to buy and read "Termite Queen" right away!)  When I did that, I never thought of it as a spoiler; I thought of it as filling in the backstory, since lots of people may read these books who haven't read TQ.  There is nothing I can do about it since references to the plot of TQ are embedded in the fiber of the "Stolen Mother" and subsequent tales.  Oh, well ... 

       I have only one other remark:  Back in the post about the titles of the six volumes, I stated that the tentative title for Volume V would be "The Quest for the Golden Fungus: The Companions Reach the Sea."  I've decided to make it "The Quest for the Golden Fungus: The Path of Gold" (or "The Golden Path" -- I still have to ponder that some more).  Otherwise, the titles are pretty much set. 

Of Title Pages and Maps: Author Proposes, CreateSpace (and Word) Disposes

       I've always had in mind a fictional gimmick that I thought would be quite effective.  My intent was to have my name as author appear only as minimally as possible in all the volumes of "The Labors of Ki'shto'ba Huge-Head."  It would appear in the copyright and maybe on the credits for illustrations and maps and (probably only as initials) on a brief acknowledgment of my debt to Robert Graves' Greek Myths.  I wanted the title page and cover to read like this:

The Labors of Ki'shto'ba Huge-Head

A Series

Volume I

The War of the Stolen Mother

by

Di'fa'kro'mi the Remembrancer

Translated by

Prf. Kaitrin Oliva

       And that was it.  I wanted to maintain the fiction that this was really a work written in the 30th century by an alien intelligent termite and translated by a Professor of Linguistics and Anthropology of that time.  But I'm pretty sure there is no way to accomplish this without a lengthy discussion with CreateSpace's Member Support people, some of whom are rather dim bulbs in the imagination department, if I dare to say such a thing.  And I really doubt they could accommodate me in any case -- the rules are too cut-and-dried.  I'm sure they would say, you can publish under a pseudonym, but that's silly -- I'm neither Di'fa' kro'mi the Remembrancer or Kaitrin Oliva; they haven't lived yet!  And I want the books to be listed on publishing sources under my name.

       So I decided to compromise and put on the t.p. and cover just the series title, volume number, title of the individual volume, and my name as author -- just the normal stuff that will certainly satisfy CS requirements.  However, this morning I went into CS to set up the title information -- and I can't find a field to insert a series title!  I'd have sworn they had one, but I guess not.  They have a place for a volume number, but I can't call this a multivolume novel. 

       So now I've compromised again.  I set the whole thing up under the title "The Labors of Ki'shto'ba Huge-Head" to which I will append the volume number, the way I did with "Termite Queen."  Then I'm going to use the individual volume titles as subtitles.  It will appear on the Amazon listing and allow for an Amazon search under the subtitle; I just checked it out using the subtitle of "Monster Is in the Eye of the Beholder."  So my cover and t.p. will read as follows:

The Labors of Ki'shto'ba Huge-Head

Volume One

The War of the Stolen Mother

by

Lorinda J. Taylor

       Then inside the book, right after the dedication, I'm going to have a fictional facsimile t.p. with all the information about Di'fa'kro'mi and Kaitrin and an imprint with a 30th century date.  The book itself will follow -- Table of Contents, List of Characters, Translator's Foreword, etc.

       Then I thought, where should I put the map?  I was going to put it at the beginning of the 30th century material, but I think it will get lost there.  So I've decided to use it as frontispiece, before the 21st-century title page.  I think that will add a lot to book's appeal.

       I worked on the map this morning and adapting what I'd already drawn didn't turn out to be as easy as I had expected.  (What else is new?)  This map has a horizontal orientation, since Ki'shto'ba and its Companions are traveling from east to west at this point.  So I'm having to turn it and print it sideways, on the left-hand page before the t.p., facing the t.p.  But the darned Word drawing program wouldn't let me rotate it!  I realized it was because you can't rotate a text box, and my maps are loaded with text boxes!  I don't know any other way to put on the captions, pointing out the names of the fortresses, rivers, etc.  The Word Art part of the program just doesn't work well on my current version of Word; the older version that I used to have was much better in that regard.
       So I had to delete all the text boxes and then rotate the page.  Now I'll have to put the boxes back in with the text flipped to run sideways.  Furthermore, I have to change the colored map to black-and-white, because I think it will raise the price of the book too much to ask for a colored illustration.  So I can't color code anything -- for example, in order to differentiate the fortresses of the Shum'za from those of the Da'no'no Shshi.  I may have to vary the symbols.  So you can see I still have a lot of work.

       Now a surprise:  I've decided to print the original colored map here on this blog, on a separate page.  You can go right now to that page and view it!  When I get the b & w one done, I'll add it so you can compare them.  [I had a devil of a time getting the thing to hold its formatting while I turned it into a JPEG!  And would you believe it?  I typed every letter on that map in Times New Roman and it converted part of them into Arial or something similar!  No way to fix it!  Not that it matters particularly -- I kind of like the Arial.  Anyway, on the actual book, I'll just be using copy & paste to put in the drawing.  What this means for Kindle I shudder to think!]

       Addendum to the above, added 6/12/12:  I finished the black-and-white map, but when I inserted it into the template, it completely rearranged the text in the text boxes!  But now I've figured out why it does that.  If there is a default paragraph form in the document into which the material is being inserted, it reverts to that.  Therefore, all the text came out with indention and spacing after paragraphs.  So what I'll always have to do is wait to format the text boxes until the piece is actually in the document.  But it's taken me nearly all day to do this!
       Consequently, I'm not going to try to insert a copy of the map in this blog.  I know it will alter it again and it's not worth taking the time to fix it.  You can look at the colored map and wait for the print book to see the black and white one.

More on Formatting Covers for CreateSpace

       First a progress report on the text of v.1 of the series ("The War of the Stolen Mother"), which I've now begun to prepare for publication.  The editing hasn't amounted to much so far -- some rephrasing to smooth things out and a few changes to the Foreword to account for the fact that there will be six volumes in the series instead of three.  I haven't shortened anything, but I didn't really expect to.  I think this story is practically perfect as it is.  (Self-praise, etc., but I can't help it.  I really like my premises in this series, and if the Shshi can at time be wordy little beasties, that's part of their nature.)

       I'm working on the cover.  I've resized the picture that you can see in an earlier post, which means that it comes out narrower and taller.  I figured out the best way to do this.  Group your picture into one entity, then open Format Autoshape and then Size.  In Size, use Scale, marking Lock Aspect Ratio.  Then gradually reduce the width until the Absolute Width shows as close as possible to what you want (in my case that is 5.75'').  (If you increase the heighth, you end up with something really wide and you have to redraw everything.  If you don't lock aspect ratio, then you'll stretch or narrow the figures instead of merely reducing them in size.) 

       Then make a square on your document that is the size of the cover allowing for bleed (in my case 5.75 " by 9").  Move your adjusted drawing onto the square, fitting it against the left margin of the square.  It will be a perfect fit in width, with lots of empty room at the top.  Then draw another square the size of the actual cover (in my case 5.5" by 8.5")  Position this square on top of the drawing, aligned against the left margin and allowing .25" at the right and .25" at the top and bottom (this is the bleed, the area that will be trimmed in the finished book). 

       Now you have saved all the items in the picture -- you won't have to cut anything off -- and the proportions will be correct.  All you have to do is adjust the positioning of the objects in the drawing to fill the space at the top and to fit in the title.  That will still require some work, but you won't have a huge redrawing job.  And be sure not to let anything important lap into the bleed, but also be sure that the bleed area is filled in with something because you don't know exactly where it will be cut.

This is not what I was planning to write about this morning, but since my posts on Ruminations of a

Remembrancer on formating text and covers for CreateSpace have attracted a lot of hits, I decided to elaborate a little on the cover aspect.  I mean to write another post in the next couple of days; I want to talk about the characters that occur in epics, mythology, and folklore.