February 2015

Inspiration Tuesday: C9rcle by Ian Llanas + Update

This piece entitled C9rcle by Ian Llanas of a raving nightclub hit the same target as Payoff from last week. Thanks to this work, I now know that there will be at least one pivotal club scene in the hi-tech science fiction story brewing on the back burner.

Here’s to hoping the story doesn’t start percolating before I’m ready to capture the contents.

c9rcle_by_ianllanas-d5k7bbq
©2014 Ian Llanas
You can find more by Ian Llanas at:
http://ianllanas.com
http://ianllanas.deviantart.com
https://www.facebook.com/IanLlanasArt


Update:
#1 — ABB:Samhain Shenanigans has gone out to my Alpha Readers (I believe they’re worthy of capital letters). Which means we’re about two weeks from launch! My apologies for not hitting the February publication date. It’s been a tumultuous new year.

#2 — My publisher just relayed that they’ve hit a snag with the ABB:Yuletide Yield cover art. They still have the same plan to get an artist for the next three covers and assure me that I’ll have a cover to drool over by mid April. They don’t my saliva is acidic! Unless they read this. Then they’ll know… And they’ll have it ready… Right, EP?

—Zeek (EJ)

The Avatar Ate My Weekend

Least. Productive. Weekend. Ever.

Things were going so well. I had just been sent a rough concept of what the cover of book three will look like, had a nice talk with the proofer over my choice of repeatedly jamming two words together, and–having already hit my weekly goals–had a clear schedule going into the Friday evening…

I had started watching Avatar Season 1 earlier in the week as a reward at the end of a good day’s work. Then on wednesday, I rewarded myself with watching two episodes, and again on Thursday. Then Friday–

Friday–

*Sigh.* Then Friday came and I thought I could knock out my two reward episodes before work and just write myself to sleep.

That didn’t happen.

I work up in the living room and, before I could really give it any thought, resumed my binge watching. Saturday poofed away into the ether and clung to Sunday for survival. Instead of being Saturday’s salvation, Sunday went down too.

So, now that I’ve taken in all three season, here’s my opinion:
Season 1 was well done.
Season 2 seemed a bit loose (in a bad way).
Season 3 felt rushed and unfocused. Don’t mistake me, they got the story across and brought it to a satisfying conclusion, but a lot happened in a very short time leaving me wondering if Nickelodeon told the writers mid-season (presuming here that Avatar isn’t an import) that season four wasn’t going to happen.

“Hurry up, y’all! We gotta stitch Zuko into the group and bring this baby on home.”

When these lapses in productivity happen, I always feel that my subconscious led a rebellion campaign against my will. This makes these rare slips hard to regret…which is I don’t. The show proved to be good fun and that’s probably exactly what I needed.

—Zeek (EJ)