(no subject)

[radlilim]

I spent a frantic 45 minutes this morning looking for my wallet. I hate it when I lose something and have no idea where I saw it last. It turned up between the door and the seat on the passenger side of my car. Wtf? But I have it, so my heart is back to normal.

Had to reset up my work computer again. When they do this I get like a month of non-crashing time, and then it starts doing it exponentially each day. Blah.

I'm actually getting my hair cut tonight. Only like 3 weeks late. So shaggy.

Going to get some work in this weekend, but not a lot. Saturday afternoon we are going to the Brewers game. Sunday I have a vball board meeting at 11am, then games starting at 3. Plus we kinda wanted to go to Art Fair on the Square.

I started listening to Prophet of Panamindora again. Now that I know what happens I am catching more things. And now that I know some "back ground" info on some of the characters, I'm paying close attention to them. There are tentative plans (and I hope saying this won't jinx it) to do some fan art. The biggest problem is trying to find the character descriptions, since I can't just find the page and study it, I have to find the time stamp and listen a few times. Might be more artistic license than normal.

My throat is all scratchy and I've been coughing painfully. I think I might be getting sick. Paul will kill me if I give him a cold.

Comments

[fenrah.livejournal.com]

>The biggest problem is trying to find the character descriptions, >since I can't just find the page and study it,

Or you could just...ask the author. :D Not very dignified of me to comment on this, but I've never gotten fan art. I was told one of my kid listeners likes to the draw the characters, but I have not seen those.

Also, I don't know if you're aware, but these books are available as free PDFs (http://www.panamindorah.com/?page_id=63). PDFs can be word-searched. Search a character's name, and you'll quickly see what descriptions I gave.

[jkivela.livejournal.com]

I didn't want to presume, I know some authors don't like to give out copies of their work in case of plagiarism. But I didn't know about the PDFs, that will make my life easier.

I was half hoping you _would_ comment, and thus I could get something like that. :D

I've been making some notes as I relisten (alas, I've caught up to what I've downloaded for this round and will have to wait until I get home tonight to get Book 2), but I'm sure I missed some details.

You will get copies, I promise. I just need to make the time.

[fenrah.livejournal.com]

Your icon - LOL.

If you have any questions, just ask.

I often don't describe character traits that aren't important to the story. It's OK to me that readers will imagine slightly different things. It was funny when I commissioned artwork for CC, though. One of Rah's early complaints was, "I've read all of Part 1, and I have no idea how long anyone's hair is." Oops.

[jkivela.livejournal.com]

I will. Like I said, the trick part is finding making the time.

I'm interested in tracking down your description of clothes too.

I'll have to wait until you release CC to do art for that, I'll stick with Prophet for now.

[fenrah.livejournal.com]

The clothes in Prophet are a lot more Medieval than the clothes in CC. I don't know whether you found your way to this page on my website: http://www.panamindorah.com/?page_id=7. Cover-art sans lettering and a little extra.

[jkivela.livejournal.com]

Yep been there, it just seems odd to me for fauns and such to ware pants :)

[fenrah.livejournal.com]

The shelts in Prophet actually where knee-length tunic skirts. That second picture down of Syrill talking to the girls at the tavern shows it pretty well, and Corry is wearing something like that on the last cover. If they do opt to wear pants, it's going to make their fur grow in funny patterns.

[fenrah.livejournal.com]

Would it be terribly nosy to ask what you do at this job that seems to be driving you crazy? It's my impression that you design books in the mysterious land of regular publishing, but I can't remember where I got that idea.

[jkivela.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I kinda do that. Actually the designs for the books, which are for grade K through 6 usually, come from the publishers. What we do is place the manuscript onto the page according to the book design and then make corrections and changes as the editors require them. We also tend to do a project for one state, according to their guidelines, and then repurpose them for other states, as the customer requests. Most of my stress derives from the ridiculously short schedules, dealing with unreliable technology, and unreasonable demands of editors.

Also, if you ever want your books typeset, you have free labor, as long as I get a copy. :)

[fenrah.livejournal.com]

>Also, if you ever want your books typeset, you have free labor, >as long as I get a copy. :)

Aww! That is extremely kind of you. I'd wanna find some way to pay you if I took you up on it.

I feel that if authors taken on the role of publisher and actually charge money for stuff, they need to make the kind of investment that publishers make, which means professional copy-editing, typesetting, design, etc. This is currently beyond my financial reach, but I plan to get paper books out there eventually.

You have a cool job! Books for K-6 are pretty. When you talk about "a project for one state," what do you mean by "state"? What sort of unreliable technology do you use?

[jkivela.livejournal.com]

Like I said, if I got a copy of the book, I'd consider us even. Since I'd be happy with just getting your work out there, and it'd be a good portfolio piece for me. I can't offer copy-editing (though I do have friends that can do that, one who worked for Wizards of the Coast as an editor--and I'd ask them), but I can do design and typesetting.

Buy state I mean, Texas, Florida, California, etc. Each state has their own educational standards and a slight rewrite needs to be done to met those. So we end up with a bunch of version of the same book.

We use Adobe InDesign to layout our books. The unreliable part is when we are required to use 3rd party add-ons, or even customer written add-ons, to make the books. These add-ons are mandated by the customer, and they usually have to do with linking the images to a central server, or allowing editorial access to editors, but since they are not written by Adobe, they can be buggy and often have not been though enough testing to ensure they run smoothly.

[fenrah.livejournal.com]

>Like I said, if I got a copy of the book, I'd consider us even.

A signed copy. Perhaps slash. lol. I really might take you up on that. I've had a number of listeners express interest in paper books, and the more Panamindorah stuff I release, the more interest I get. I was planning to give some attention to this at the beginning of next year when I'm done with my nursing masters and I have more spare brain cells.

>Buy state I mean, Texas, Florida, California, etc.

That is fascinating. I had no idea there were state-specific versions of different children's books. Are we talking about fiction? Or are these school books?

[jkivela.livejournal.com]

No rush on it on my end either, offer stands as long as we are friends. :)

School books. Right now we are doing reading text books. So there is a story, often fiction--but sometimes biographical or factual--for the kids to read and then questions and activities to expand on the selection. But the changes occur when one state needs a particular skill covered, but another doesn't. We also do math and science.