Author - Artist - Voice Over Actor

Tag: National Novel Writing Month

Ring Tones and Novel Writing

With CLOCKWORK GENIE already on virtual stands and book shelves, and REVENGE OF THE MASKED GHOST about to join it in the next few weeks, it’s time to start working on another novel.

The next novel, which I am planning to do a pseudo-NANOWRIMO through the month of February, will be a Young Adult fantasy which I’ve had sitting on the shelf for several years and have decided now was the time to dust it off and make it ring.

Speaking of making the story ring, can someone explain to me the use and necessity of ring tones?

In my story a cellular phone plays an important roll (does anyone call them cell phones anymore, or are they all smart phones.)I’ve been thinking about what ring tones my lead teenager would program into her phone. The more I thought about it, I began to wonder what would be the point.

Why do people have ring tones? Why purchase a song to play when someone calls?

I have had a cell phone (three or four) over the last 15 years, and have always set them to silent or vibrate. Never saw a purpose to have the ringer on.

You want to know when someone is calling you, that’s for certain, but how many of us like to hear when other peoples phones start ringing.

If we’re fast enough, we usually can answer the phone just before the third ring, so why do people want to extend those rings by turning them into songs?

Have you ever noticed that when someone has a musical ring tone, the longer it plays the harder they have in shutting it off and it usually becomes a real embarrassment?

While in the movie theater there is always that slide that comes up repeatedly to remind you to turn off the your phones, or worse that audio clip where every sound in the theater is amplified with every possible phone or noise that could be made.

Recently the Muppets did a very nice version of this before their movie.

Why is this even something we have to think about any more? People’s phones ringing loudly and long, in the theatre, middle of church, a business meeting, or dinner.

Yes, some can hear the buzzer of my phone. Usually when it vibrates through the table or desk. But it’s usually low enough it doesn’t bother anyone. But I do turn it off in the theater.

The other day I was watching a rerun episode of THE MENTALIST, and there was major mistake with the use of a cell phone. The lead of the show has just broken into someone’s home. Only a few feet inside the house, his phone rings. His phone rings. This was not done for comic effect. You’d think that if you were going to break into a house and not want anyone to know you were there, you’d turn the phone off or have it on vibrate. The Folly Department can just as easily drop in a Buzzing sound as it does a ring tone. Other than receiving important information about the B Plot, the use of the phone in the house had no purpose. A woman nearly catches our lead in the house, but not because of the ring tone.

So my question is a serious one, and is research for my novel. How many people actually have audible ring tones? How many have simple ringers, and how many have longer songs?

I’m probably going to ask my teenage niece about this. She is a Young Adult after all.

My next question to her will probably be: Do you actually use your phone, or is it mostly used for texting and facebook? I don’t want to write cliché teenagers in my story, but the phones have become an integral part of their lives.

I may have been rambling here, but in doing so I find that this is all very important to my novel. Not only are cell phones important to the story, but also so is being annoyed by the ring tones.

This has been great talking, thank you for all the help. I appreciate – RING RING – Excuse me, gotta go answer that.

(Oh, like you didn’t see that joke coming from the start of this blog.)

Kevin Paul Shaw Broden
Four Names of Professional Creativity.

A Cover Fitting a Genie

Well, my novel CLOCKWORK GENIE has been available online as an ebook for purchase for nearly a week now (you can click on the link to the right to purchase it at Amazon.)

So far I’ve had two sales. I’m still smiling.

This week I’ve decided to blog about the cover art of the book, which I can talk about since I drew and painted it, myself.

If you’ve been reading my blogs, or following me on twitter and facebook, you know that I am a comic book artist and draw the online comic book FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY. I wanted to be in comics from an early age and started off as an artist, but soon realized I was a storyteller first. The art has kept up with the writing, and here’s an example.

The hardest part of art that I’ve found, even back in my illustration course in college, was the thumbnail stage. I usually draw something once and like that I have trouble trying to draw it in other designs. It was no different for this cover.

My original idea was to show an image of a golden pocket watch in the center of the art. Perhaps even superimposing a woman’s face with in it. But that didn’t quite work. The two panels of my thumbnails here represent that. Have the watch laying on a cobblestone path, or hanging from the title. Discussion this with Shannon, who has been a great help as my editor on this book, she suggested that the watch should hang from the text to one side as the woman walks off into the distance, yet looking back over her shoulder. I liked that idea; especially having the woman approximately placed helped it fit in with the Paranormal Romance of the book’s genre and market.

I liked that but thought that there might be a better way of tying the woman to the watch all the more. Read the book, the watch is very important to her.

So I brought her closer into the foreground holding the watch on her shoulder.

Either of these were still good ideas, so I decided to take them both to the next stage.

Using the 3D program POSER I set up a female figure into the poses I though best fit the images I had in mind.

I don’t usually use Poser in my artwork, but do use it to set up poses to find the right angle and position of the body for the shot. By the time this was done, I knew I’d be using the close up image.

Using the Poser images as a starting point I sketched up and then penciled the pose. I would then add the hair and the pocket watch into the image on separate layers.

Using these detailed pencils, the painting began. Both the pencils and painting were done in Corel Painter.

The way I paint is not what I would suggest for others, do what works best for you. Coming out of my comic book coloring experience, I laid in flat colors first, her flesh tones on one layer, her hair on another, then the watch, and her dress.

Putting the flats against a grey background, I began to paint in the shadows and shades on each of the layers. I like to use a Gouach, Broad Cover Brush for putting in the colors. Then I blend it all in using a Blender tool, different ones create different effects in the paint, and currently I’m using the Grainy Water Blender. Change the size of the point for different areas and purposes.

The same is done with light side of the figure, blending in a lighter color and finish with highlights. Sometimes the brush doesn’t create a thin enough line so I use my Variable Tip Pen, or even the pencil; again adjust the size for what’s needed.

As you’ll see I did the watch on a different layer, but dropped in the shadows on her flesh tones here.

The next part of the job, done in a separate file, was to create a background. Coming up with the right colors for the background had to be just right for the foreground figure to stand right out and not just be flat. I adjusted this several times as my original colors blended too much into her dress.

I then had to design the house for the background. This house is extremely important to the story, so it had to stand out yet not distract from the figure. I did researching and looked at a dozen or more big houses in Bel Air owned by Hollywood stars back in the 1920s and 1930s. Not wanting to copy any one of them, I found something I like and in several and blended into something new. I drew it and painted it at a large size but on a separate layer that I would be able to shrink down and adjust the shade and tone as need be.

Once pleased with the background, I dropped in my figure in front of it. Here you can see how the watch finally was incorporated.

The background would be adjusted a few more times until I was really happy.

The next assignment was to figure out what font would work best for the title on the cover. I liked several fonts, both in what came with the computer, and some that I purchased. Here is a selection of them that I was considering.

I decided to go with Baskerville SemiBold, but without the Italics.

In Photoshop I started off with the title in the same color as her hair, but it didn’t stand out well enough, so changed it to a brighter yellow. Which I then used the Layer Styles to create an appropriate bevel effect on the letters.

The only problem I had now was my ‘four names of profession creativity’… my name was almost too small to visible. I had to adjust the size slightly, and then dropped a black bar underneath the text so it didn’t vanish into the flesh tones of her arm.

So the Clockwork Genie finally had a face and a cover. I hope you like my art, and I hope you really like the novel.

Thanks.

Kevin Paul Shaw Broden

Four Names of Professional Creativity

Today’s the Day! – My book is out!

Last time I celebrated all the great authors who are fighting with blood, sweat, and tears to produce a complete novel in a month as part of National Novel Writing Month. I also told you about what came out of my experience NaNoWriMo.

With hard work since that November of two years ago, I am now able to announce the release of my contemporary fantasy novel:

CLOCKWORK GENIE.


Cecilia Orchard lives alone.

She writes fantasy and mystery stories to escape a humdrum data entry job that barely pays for her apartment, food, and bus fare. Then a handsome police detective arrives with news that she is the prime suspect in the murder of her grandfather whom she never knew existed. If inheriting a fortune from a man she doesn’t know isn’t madness enough, Cecilia finds herself the owner of a powerful genie that could make all her dreams come true, but what are her dreams and is she willing to make the wish?

There’s a real great thrill to know that an idea I had years ago, and all the hard work it took to turn the idea into a story and then into a novel, now exists for others to read.

In the weeks to follow I’m sure to write more about this book, including on how I designed and painted the cover art.

The book currently can be found on Smashwords, and soon will be through distributors including Kindle. I’ll let you know.

Thank you all for the support.

Kevin Paul Shaw Broden

Four Names of Professional Creativity.

NanoWriMo – A Novel this November

Am very proud of my fiancée Shannon Muir as she begins working on her latest novel as part of NanoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). As she types away at her keyboard, I know several of my online friends are doing the same thing.

I was contemplating starting one as well, but have too much to do this month.

You see, just days ago, I types the two most glorious words to an author, and I typed them twice.

“The End”

I typed it first on a short story, which I submitted to a publisher for consideration as part of an anthology.

Then I typed them again on my first novel.

Two years ago I did participated in NanoWriMo, and completed the novel I worked on that November, but it was far from perfect and had so much in it that there is no way I could truly consider it finished. Even now I know it needs a page one rewrite.

However, about two weeks into that NanoWriMo, I had an idea for a new story. The concept came to me whole, and while not wanting to interrupt the book I was working on; I jotted down a full page of notes of this new tale and put it aside.

But the more I worked on the story for Nano, the more my thoughts lingered to the new one. So when December rolled around, I jumped head first into the new novel.

The first draft of the story flew from my finger over the next few weeks, though I had to admit that the climax stunk. So in the rewrite I discovered other characters that lived with in my novel’s world and had their own parts of the story to tell.

As I asked more questions about the characters and the world they lived in the story expanded and became much better.

With Shannon acting as my editor, I went through several rewrites and the story kept getting better. Much more so than what I had originally jotted down in a flash.

Now the novel is finished and I am currently painting the cover art and formatting it properly to be release as an ebook, by the end of November.

All this resulted from NanoWriMo. My original book sits in a virtual sock drawer, and one day will come back to life.

This has been a great experience for me, and I wish an equally great experience to all my friends that are writing their novels this November.

Keep Writing.

Kevin Paul Shaw Broden
Four Names of Professional Creativity

DEADLINES – “I’m going to make this one.”

Maybe this week I’ll actually meet my deadline and post this blog on a Thursday like I promised myself.

But worried I’m going to miss the deadline for finishing the artwork of my web comic.

Which got me to thinking about deadlines.

Since I’m “between” assignments right now, I have had to created self-imposed deadlines on myself or I wouldn’t get anything done.

Here are the deadlines I have set for myself right now:

Sunday – The latest page of FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY has been penciled, inked and approved and I post it to the web site.

Tuesday – The next chapter of “Revenge of the Masked Ghost” is posted to my note page on facebook (Which maybe moving to its own site soon.)

Thursday – I post my “Four Names of Professional Creativity” blog (hopefully this got posted on a Thursday).

Saturday – Study and Prep for the Sunday School/Bible Study I lead Sunday mornings.

You can find most of the links for these over there on the right, and if you’re reading this you’ve found it already and don’t need the link.

As I’m writing this I am also penciling more of the comic, and working on a novel. One thing I am good at is multitasking, but it doesn’t always help.

I need to have these deadlines, not only does it force me to get the work done it also keeps me thinking in the same mind set as I would when employed to do the work under even tighter deadlines.

If not for these deadlines I’d constantly be finding reasons not to do the work. It’s so easy to get distracted as is (thank you Twitter).

One of the hardest things for me to do is something I really need to do more of. That’s to write spec scripts (samples of my writing, either a movie, a television show, animation, or a comic book). If I know someone is interested in my work and wants to see a sample, or is willing to let me pitch for their project, I can write up a good sample in a short time. However, if I don’t have a goal like that it becomes hard to build up the energy to write. So I need to force a deadline and goal on myself to get it done.

It’s coming on a year now since I decided to participate in NANOWRIMO, National Novel Writing Month (http://www.nanowrimo.org/) I had a vague idea for a science fiction novel and so signed up for it. In Nano the writer has thirty days to write 50,000 words of a novel. You don’t have to complete the story, but the goal is to reach that number.

Surprisingly I reached 50,000 with a couple of days to spare, and actually finish the entire first draft.

The problem I did have with the story was that though I knew where it should end up, it was all over the place with far more characters then planned taking different paths to reach that end. Every so often I go back and take a look at it, there’s still something there but I have to rip it apart and workout a detailed outline to put all the parts back together again.

What made it even more frustrating was that about a week into Nano I had an idea for a completely different novel, which would have worked out a whole lot better if I had begun with it. But I had committed myself to the first story and was going to see it through. I paused long enough to write down about a page worth of notes on the new story and then got back to Nano.

Once I completed the Nano novel and feeling victorious I gave myself a few days off and then turned to the second story. And I surprised myself by having the first draft of it done by the end of December.

With Nano I was proved to myself that I could complete a major assignment under a deadline, and the second novel proved that it just wasn’t a onetime event. Though I didn’t have someone else counting down the days I pushed to get it finished before the end of the year, and I succeeded.

Lastly, as I approach the deadline for this blog I want to mention that a Deadline can also be considered a Finish Line of a race. Whether you’ve been given an assignment, or working on a personal project you run for that line. When you cross the finish line or beat that that deadline, if you’ve worked your hardest and done your best work, you’re already victorious. The acclaim, the fortune, the fame, that’ll come later.

And with that little gem I’m just going to make this deadline with about an hour to spare.

Oh, one more thing. I just finished the pencils on the comic page, so I will be able to meet the deadline for FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY as well.

Kevin Paul Shaw Broden
Four Names of Professional Creativity

Writing, writing, writing.

Of all the writing I do, why is blogging and journaling the hardest? Don’t have an answer; I promised myself to do more of this but end up only doing it two or three times a year.
But what I can say is that I’m really happy with my writing at the present.
Last November I participated in a novel writing contest called NANOWRIMO or National Novel Writing Month. Along with thousands of other writers, I had to produce a 50,000 word novel in the one month time.
There had been an idea bubbling in the back of my head for sometime, a science fiction story that I though would be perfect. So I wrote and wrote and wrote for those thirty days, and was able to not only complete 50,000 words, but also type The End to the entire story.
I put the novel aside until January when I gave it a read through and the first rewrite to clean things up, but what I discovered was that this story was far larger then I had anticipated. In truth, maybe I knew it would be too massive because I had first conceived the original idea as a TV series. I’m not going to give up on this story, but am going to sit on it for while and see if there is something more focused that can come out of the greater whole to tell.
That said, I am still a successful writer.
About half way through my Nanowrimo project an idea came out of nowhere. An idea completely different from the grand experiment I was in the midst of. I jotted down a “working title” for this new idea, and one line of the concept and put it aside. This new idea sat in the back of my head as I dealt with the first one.
With December and the Nanowrimo novel finish and sitting a virtual drawer, I pulled out the new idea and began to write a second novel completely from scratch.
I immediately began to love the characters that were growing in this novel; they weren’t restrained by the “high concept” of the first novel, and began to do what they wanted. It was fun to watch them and a great ride to experience their lives with them.
However as I approached the 50,000 words on this novel I realize there was no ending as I currently had it. These characters just wanted to go on past the original story.
So I knew what had to happen next. I put it away for a while.
In January and February of this year I did a rewrite on my earlier novel and gave it to a friend to read. The story was still too expansive so I worked on it some more, but knew I was going to have to rip the whole thing apart. Find what the heart of the story really was and fix some major continuity problems. So my science fiction story has once more gone back into the drawer. It’s not dead yet, but needs to sit for a while.
Pulling the second novel out once more I dove right in and pulled apart the ending that wasn’t working and began to ask my characters what they really wanted to tell me. And they told me. I found a whole new part of the story for a new character, and discovered secrets about several other characters I didn’t know anything about. The novel began to finish a whole lost smoother.
After letting my friend read this novel, and dreading similar notes as the first, I went back in for more rewrites and from the start to the finish and back again I fine-tuned it.
At the start of this month (June), and 80,000 words, I declare the novel finished! Because if I didn’t I’d never stop, or ever do anything with it.
Then after weeks of research I send the novel off to publisher. To make it all the more exciting; the postal tracking I used let me know the publisher received my manuscript on my own birthday. So I take that as a blessing.
I don’t know what will happen with this novel, or the one sitting in the drawer, or the new one that began to fall from my fingertips today, but I remain faithful and declare myself a successful writer no matter what.
Will let you know when I hear from the publisher and what happens with the rest of my writing. Maybe this blog will be filled with something worthwhile yet.

Best,
Kevin Paul Shaw Broden
Four Names of Professional Creativity

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