Updates and NaNoWriMo and Cannibals

I've discovered a correlation between movies that come out in the month of October and what I decide to write for my NaNoWriMo project.

Mama was scheduled to come out out last October, and that year for NaNo I wrote Enculturation, which followed Janie Brooks, a rehabilitated feral child and her little pack.

We Are What We Are came out this past month, and I quickly became wildly obsessed (just ask my exasperated roommates).

So of course I had to incorporate cannibalism in my NaNo, and since I'm in an Evolution of Warfare class this semester with all the NROTC kids, I just sort of tossed cannibals and marines into the blender and added a dash of post-apocalypse-but-all-the-adults-are-dead and ran with it.  It has the potential to become a hot mess, but right now we're going steady.

In other news, I ran another pass of the cover art and manuscript past the Dog Ear Publishing and even though Dog Ear stopped sending me confirmation emails, they are probably working on it and will suddenly surprise me with the revisions soon.

TTFN

M.K. Wissler

At this point in the road...

I've finally edited and re-edited and submitted all of the necessary files for Dog Ear Publishing.  My good friend finally finished the cover art, and it looks gorgeous.  The timeline expectation says that the interior will be formatted for review by July 18th, so now I just sit back and relax.

And write an entirely new book.

I forgot that I had a coupon for five free books from CreateSpace since I won NaNoWriMo this year and since it expires on June 30th, I decided that I needed to use it.  I didn't want to use it for another edition of Oxlerran-related material, and so on June 12th, I started piecing together bits of another project.

Today, I finished an entire book.

It's the fastest I've ever completed a project and this shows that I will indeed be productive if promised free things.

This is The Mariner and the Angelfish and it is a step away from Oxlerran, since it involves magic and is set in present day.  The best thing about writing present day fiction is that you can make all of the pop culture references your heart desires.  It's currently being reviewed by CreateSpace, and then it will be authorized and printed and I'll have five copies!  Very exciting.

TTFN

M.K. Wissler

Publishing and New Stories

It's official!  We've set up an account at Dog Ear Press, and all I have to do is to send in my files.  I'm currently stressing over how to write about myself.  You'd think I'd be good at that, after college applications, but it's hard for me.  After the files are sent, the next step will be me reviewing the interior in about 12 weeks.  It's going to be a long road, but I hope it will be 100% worth it.

The sequel is panning out fantastically; after extreme cuts in December (post NaNo), I'm back up to 50k words as of last weekend, and things are heating up.  However, the stories of Oxlerran have been ignored a little in favor of three other possible novels.  The premises, in order of how much they interest me, are 1700s pirates, feral wolf children, and Greek warriors.

Whatever will happen with them will hopefully be posted on the blog, although I seem to forget this blog in favor of just writing the stories and then posting every other fifth month.

TTFN

M.K. Wissler

P.S. Did you hear that the Office of Letter and Light is retiring the Script Frenzy activity?  I was terrible at screenwriting, but I always wrote a novel during that month.

Another Shipment

I recently recieved another box of Ordinary Enough in the mail.  Three book this time, and boy are they as close to perfect as I've ever seen.

The size is perfect.

(5x8)

The spacing is perfect.

(I finally realized that spacing should be single spaced.  Not double.  Not 1.5.  Single.)

The cover is beautiful.

(My crazy artist friend will be drawing the final cover, which is already underway.)

And I had it printed on cream paper, which is easier on the eyes.

I'll be attending a class in August on getting published, and after that I hope to start sending this baby out into the world.

TTFN

M.K. Wissler

Updates

I've been trying and trying to get my act together, and you know, this is a lot of writing for one book.

Said stack does not include the other three printed versions of the novel (which are with my mom's friend, my art teacher, and the cover art designer currently) but it does include the second edition of the work in book form, two spiral notebooks filled with stuff, and the entire manuscript printed out.  That binder has hinges.  Hinges.  I did not know that they made binders with hinges.  Also included in the picture is a lovely view of my carpet.

My summer project is to really get the ball rolling with Susie to find a home for this novel in the publishing world.  After that's on its way to being settled, I'll be pounding out the next book.

TTFN

M.K. Wissler

P.S. Also, Lenny now has his own twitter.  he's @OfficialLenaic

Spring Cleaning

During the month of March, I read Utopia by Thomas More and wrote a lengthy essay on it as well as creating an oddly juvenile poster.  I also read Shakespeare's The Life of Henry V and wrote an essay on that as well.  I also finally watched It's a Wonderful Life, read some Tolstoy, and finished my essay on Jean Anouilh's Antigone.

Well, actually I finished that essay last night.

In other news, I opened up one of those old boxes in the basement and found, to my delight, the entire history of my life from birth to about fourth grade.  This is where things get scary.  Apparently, from about first to third grade, I was the class's resident math whiz.  

I think if nine year old me could see seventeen year old me, she would be ashamed of the math skills I now possess.  However, in that box, I did find about a dozen or so odd books that I'd written as a child, which consist of flowers named Stephanie and Horses in the snow and also about my unadulterated joy at finally seeing what trees looked like after getting glasses.

Script Frenzy is up and running, and I have about fifty pages on that, so I'm powering through in anticipation of a busy second half of April.  I'm working on the third installment of Naomi's series, so I skipped an entire book.  We'll see how that goes.

I also completed another step in my more-euro-chic-than-thou process by eating French Lavender ice cream.  I don't know how to feel about it just yet.

TTFN

M.K. Wissler

My Book Has Arrived

TA-DA

There it is, my book.  I printed and ordered five copies from CreateSpace and they arrived in a very big box.  My friend took pictures of me as I opened the package and honestly, I look like a child on Christmas morning.  One book stays home with me, one went to the crazy artist friend, one goes to my eighth grade English teacher, and then two copies I donated to my school library, autographed and all.

Very exciting.

I'll also be talking at my school's Love Your Library Week next Monday.  I'm really nervous, but hopefully it will be very fun.

I'm now working on Xavier's book as much as I can, but he is still being a brat.  I also filled up my novel scrapbook, which was no small feat.  I feel kind of empty without it, but I started another one, so that might make up for its absence.

TTFN

M.K. Wissler