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Weekend Update

Home Renovations

We’ve been sinking some money into our home lately. We upgraded to wood floors and recently we upgraded our couch and got new easy chairs and a couple of lamps. These are the first quality of life upgrades we’ve done in over a decade. We were due. Last weekend we finally finished painting our kitchen, something we started ten years ago. This weekend we had our kitchen cabinets upgraded to include new oak side panels, raised center cabinet for new above the range microwave and then had the upper trip redone. It looks nice. We still have a long way to go on the kitchen. We need a new sink and new counter tops and a new dishwasher. But before all that, we need a new TV console in the family room.

Starting this month we will be focusing on the kid’s rooms with new paint, new carpet and blinds. Our home is a never ending upgrade project.

Writing

Still editing Draft 3, of The Rising. Adding chapter header quotes as I reread. When I’m done, it goes off to my editor for a final, closer pass. Then I fix those issues and send it to someone to copy proof it. With any luck, that will be out in ebook format sometime in May. My second novel from last year is still out with Beta Readers. That will be coming back this week and it will enter into Draft 2 stage.

Nothing new has been written this year yet. With any luck, I’ll start writing in late Spring or early Summer. Gotta get these books out first. Non-writers don’t realize how much time a book takes after it’s been written. The largest amount of work happens after the first draft.

Modeling

I cleaned out my garage a bit today to make room for my Scout Den to paint their pine wood derby cars tomorrow night. After that project, I need to start making progress on the Votainion warship model for next year’s Book 3 cover. I’ve been researching Studio model building over the past week. I’m switching to a 1/4 20 turn screw base on all models under two pounds. Usually, that’s fighters and small starships. The larger models will still have 1/2 inch PVC pipe armatures but I now have a 1/4 ” screw adapter.

I’ve been slowly accumulating lighting gear for photographing these models. I hope to have proper, Hollywood style blue screen action in my garage soon. I have my floods in hand and I’m waiting for my blue screen. Also on the way are lighting equipment essentials like day light gels for the lights, and gaffer’s tape. I gotta say, I’d just grinning ear to ear at the prospect of getting to do lighting again. It was my specialty in film school.

Covers

I think we’re on our way to finalizing the cover for Book 2, The Rising. But I’m still working on finding the perfect artwork for The Blood Empress. As soon as I get something more concrete I’ll show it off here.

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