Instead of being, you know, productive, I spent today in the kitchen baking a cake for my writing group's holiday party tomorrow. It's a black walnut cake with butter cream cheese frosting.
Nice! Not sure if you've ever tinkered with Canva? I've really appreciated how user-friendly and easy it is, though admittedly I'm a klutz when it comes to Photoshop.
Tales from the Crosstimbers is open for submissions for the Spring, 2025 issue, due out in March of 2025. We're eager to read your speculative fiction of less than 2500 words. Payment is at least $10 and up to $25 per story based on word count.
Writing.Com members and yet-to-be published authors are especially invited to submit.
Damon Nomad - Website is a time sink, but fun, too. Every so often I need to feed the analytic side. Since I don't prove theorems any more, I write computer code.
I'm like Gene Kelley, except he's gotta dance and I've gotta code.
Continuing to mess with Creative.Microsoft.com. I wanted an image of events in the first chapter of the linked novel--two runaway teens witness a mysterious airplane dumping something in the desert. I wasn't happy with images where I asked for a 'blue Saturn" in the sky. They all looked really crappy, with HUGE planets with off-center rings. So I left out the request for a blue Saturn used the daytime image it gave me, and used Photoshop to put in a Saturn I'd previously created with Photoshop. Additional Photoshop tweaks included changing the left-hand guy's hair to blonde, using a day-to-night filter, bluring the Saturn and putting a glow around it, and replacing the sky with an AI-generated sky.
Wordsmitty ✍️ - Humans are certainly better at it. I can't draw, though, so this is better than I'd ever be able to do. I'm sure the publisher will have a real artist draw a great cover for this book...assuming I (a) get around to submitting it; and (b) find a publihsher.
Just don't use Nowhere Oklahoma because that actually exists too. LOL Oklahoma definitely has some interesting town names. I live in Oklahoma City and grew up here in Oklahoma. You can find a lot of interesting stories and places about this state.
I changed the town to Bathsheba. That's a ghost town with an interesting history...it was founded for women, and men were banned from the place. Even male livestock were banned...might make another story...
I changed this yet again, to Lone Star, Oklahoma. "Lone Star" was a town in SE Oklahoma that was inundated by Wister Lake. https://www.ghosttowns.com/states/ok/lonestar.html
It seemed better to use a ghost town for the name, and this one doesn't have much in the way of connoatations. Bathsheba's unique history potentially complicates this otherwise simple story.
I've spent the last couple of days posting some shorter fiction to Medium.com. This is a place where--apparently--you can get paid for your fiction, based on the number and duration of views. It's too early to assess how effective this might be--if anyone else has experience with this site, I'd be interested in learning about it. My "portfolio" on the site is at https://medium.com/@mathguytulsa
If you have a novel-in-progress and want to exchange reviews with other novelists, this is the place for you. Note that this a place to exchange peer reviews, so you're expected to give reviews as well as get them.
Local writing group met last night. I read "The Frogs" ; they said they liked it. I believed them when they said they liked the carrot cake I brought to the meeting--there was only one piece left because I told them to save one for Mr. Gene.
Cake is three 8" layers, with cream cheese frosting, a butterscotch drip, and candied carrot curls on top. The curls were kind of a disappointment, both in appearance and taste. Don't think I'll do them again.
It's still kind of drafty--as in a work-in-progress as opposed to letting in outside air. Content pedestrian (no violence or sex), but the protagonist has a *very* foul mouth, hence the rating. Otherwise, let me know what you think. I'll leave it for public access for today only. (I may try to publish it at some point...)
Ichabod Crane--
Mince Pie - He just got out of the hospital after a fall, and he's still recovering. They should have left-overs, so his wife can skip cooking for at least a couple of additional meals. They're both fellow authors and we're in the same local writing group.
How I spent today. My local writing group is meeting at our home this Friday. https://osfw.online/october-2024-meeting/
It's nearly Halloween and half the authors write horror, so...
thanks for everyone who weighed in the cover. This was pretty much the overwhelming choice, so we're going with that. The spring issue will have the same layout, but with a different picture and pallette.
I've got two potential covers for the first issue of "Tales from the Crosstimbers." I'm curious which the readership likes better. WDC has messed with the color selections--the bright blue will be more like navy blue in the actual covers. It also blured some of the type--the actual covers will be sharp. I'm more interested in the two styles and in the paintings. One is dreamy and the other more realistic. The title on the first matches the branding on the website, with the tree logo and the Bauhaus-inspired layout. COVER A or COVER B
I like B more ... but think the second line of the title should be closer to the first. If you could make that wart the white version of that section of cover A, I think it'd be perfect (so also add the tree and the line, but in white).
How I spent my day instead of writing...
I made this Oreo Cake for my writing group's monthly meeting on Friday.
It's got crumbled oreo cookies in the frosting and chunked oreo cookies embedded in the buttercream between the layers. Of course, it's got a ganache topping, buttercream stars, and more oreo cookies.
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- Humans are certainly better at it. I can't draw, though, so this is better than I'd ever be able to do. I'm sure the publisher will have a real artist draw a great cover for this book...assuming I (a) get around to submitting it; and (b) find a publihsher. 
- He just got out of the hospital after a fall, and he's still recovering. They should have left-overs, so his wife can skip cooking for at least a couple of additional meals. They're both fellow authors and we're in the same local writing group.
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