Little Advice/Help

Asking for Advice:

I would like to ask for advice/help from any independent authors who come across this blog post.
While the books I would like to publish through Amazon at some point are not done, I am trying to make sure I understand the process before I finish one of the books so I am ready when they are.

Question 1: I was reading through Amazons page on KDP, and such, it mentioned that I have to have exclusive rights to my book to publish them. Do I have to do anything special, pay some company in order to claim I own my book- as in copy right or something- or is it by default mine unless I sold it to a publishing company?

Question 2: What about commissioning the cover of the book? I have commissioned it from a friend and she knows I want it for a book cover. Am I golden to use it as the cover with amazon, because I have permission from the artist?

Question 3: Is there a link you can give me to a good source for independent publishing, in case I have any other questions about the process?

Question 4: What do you suggest about editing? I know there will be errors that I won't catch and I would like to fix that, what do you suggest for getting a story edited before publishing?

Thank you so much, for anyone who helps me to answer these questions!
I have read various tips and such in blogs, but it never hurts to have a nice large rang of advice on a topic.

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About WOVaN Project & Modern Magic:

The search is finished! I did find the story. I also found a whole bunch of old crappy stories I wrote 11 years ago as well. I did find a few old Floppy's which could have more stories. I am glad my parents haven't gotten rid of their old tower yet, we have a new one, but the old one is still nearby and it has a floppy drive, at some point I will boot that old puppy up and about a half hour later I can pop in the floppy and see what is on it, assuming they still work.

WOVaN is coming together nicely. If you haven't guessed yet, WOVaN is going to be a collection of short stories. It will be a series- I have MANY short stories. The first won't have too many, a small collection. There is a completely new story-ish, the first paragraph is from an old story I found, but after that is all new that I have been working on. I think it's at 3,000 words, it might end up as a Novelette and be the focus story of the collection and then a couple shorter stories. We will see how it goes. One story you may recognize from here, but I changed and edited it. Then some older stories I wrote years ago- fixed up and edited.

One of many Shrimp we caught. Big suckers.

I am still working on Modern Magic too, right now its sort of just typing up notes from when I didn't have a laptop (which is a LOT) and then trying to organize them in the proper storyline order. Kind of a daunting task at the moment.

How I am doing:

Started my new job last Tuesday! I work 4-10. Yeah, that is right, three day weekends baby. I think I am going to love this job! NDA doesn't let me talk details, but I work for Microsoft thru Volt, game testing. Don't look to me for leaks, I want to keep my job. XP Lol, but I am enjoying it. Bugging and Crashing a Natal (Kinect) game. Fun, fun. The people I work with are so much fun. I have finally found the perfect work environment. I don't want to leave this job anytime soon!

Me and a Shrimp. See! Big suckers.

Also speaking of fun, that last weekend with that super warm and sunny-ness- while me and the sun don't get along, I had a fun and packed weekend.

Friday- I went shrimping with my dad, grandpa and uncle Scotty. Spent time on my grandpa's boat from 6am to about 5pm. Good times. I am happiest on a boat. I want to have my own boat one day and just spend hours out on the water, perhaps a few nights. I love laying down on a boat and rocking in the waves. So calming. I can't describe how relaxing being on a boat is for me. Being on a boat rids me of nausea, that's how relaxing it is.

Cute little Dwarf Cuttlefish.

Saturday- I went to Pike Place Market for the first time- I know, whats wrong with me? I have lived near Seattle my whole life and I had never been to Pike Place. But I enjoyed it, and now that I have a job I want to go back and buy things. Several things. I will go back sometime later this summer. Me and my mom also went to the Seattle Aquarium. I love that place. I love getting to see all sorts of sea life, so beautiful. Also cute. I think my favorite part of the Aquarium is the Octopus and the Harbor Seals. Then- is it horrible that I went to the aquarium, loved and enjoyed seeing all the sea life and then I went to have dinner at Ivar's? <.< I love sea life both to observing and also eating. yum. ^_^


Oh, lets go to Book corner for a moment:

 I still have so many books I want to read, I have over 120 samples waiting to be read and about 34 books I bought or found for free waiting to be read. I recently finished reading Gunship by John Davis. (The links are for Amazon) I believe the third book is due to be released soon, but I am not sure when. I haven't read the second book yet, Glimmeria, but it is on my list- in fact I should grab the sample to remind me. I did rather enjoy the book. It had a nice Firefly feel to it. I can match parallels to some of the characters. While the format of the books was hard to get used to, it was a great story. You grow to like the characters and so you want to continue to see how they are, if they are okay. If you enjoyed the show firefly, you will surely enjoy Gunship.

Right now I am currently catching up on Asimov magazine and then I will be back to reading Blood Skies by Steven Montano (@Daezarkian) Which I HIGHLY recommend. I haven't finished it yet, I am only on chapter 3, but I have to say: The world Steven Montano has eloquently painted with words is breathtaking & marvelous.

Me at Snoqualmie Falls on Mothers day

I don't know if this really fits into book corner, its a blog. I stumbled across @Suzisquared on twitter last night and by proxy I found her blog - Vampire Sexual Secrets. I have read a good deal of it by now and I will read more later tonight. But I have fallen in love with her blog and her Vampires. Ideal. That is the best word I can use. I have been seeking out Vampire since I was 4- so ever since I can remember I have gotten my hands on anything Vampire I could and while I will enjoy them on some level, some not, some I do love, but more often then not I would feel something is missing. Her Vampires, are probably the only ones that have made me feel- 'I finally found it.' Like I can take a breath and relax because I have found what I have been looking for all my life. I can't wait to get to the actual story, I am so excited. I have been reading through the other parts of her blog, which talk about her Vampires, the characters, and explaining things. Then I will read the actual story, which I am antici------------pating. Sorry, Rocky Horror Picture Show, can't help it.

Oh, and have you seen the English trailer for Kingdom Hearts? I am so excited to play! Can't wait! Already pre-ordered at Gamestop, and there will be a collectors edition through Gamestop, so when that is pre-orderable I will upgrade to that. Release date is nearly here! 7/31/12!

Alright, I think I have talked enough. Sorry for the lack of Short Story or a WOTDS. Had a busy first week of work, still getting used to it and I am feeling a little off. So what writing I can do I am putting towards WOVaN right now. This blog post- I have been slowly working on since last week. So my apologies, next post I will see what I can put together for you to read. For now, if you haven't read some of my other stories here is the WOTDS Guide and Short Stories Guide. I will leave you with that and back to editing WOVaN for me.

~Nekodra
Nekodra-blog@hotmail.com
@Nekodra

TARDIS Checkered Traveling

Arch my African Wool Giraffe

Man, I want to go to Africa so bad. I want to travel in general. My big dream is to travel to another planet, but I worry that won't happen in my life time so in the mean time- I just want to travel everywhere and anywhere on Earth that I can.

My dad just recently came home from a two week trip in Africa. He climbed Kilimanjaro and went on a Safari. Which is what I want to do- not climb the mountain, but go on a Safari. Seeing the pictures, now I want to go even more. I am itching to go. Baby Elephants, Giraffes, lion with a fresh kill, the trees. I want to see it all. And I can just image the inspiration for drawing/writing it would give seeing all that in person. Just the pictures alone make me want to write and draw. Which you will see the result below. He brought back some gifts which included an adorable Giraffe made completely of dyed wool. The dyes made all natural with plants, which is awesome. He is so cute! I have named him Arch and he is a rather happy little woolly Giraffe as you can see by his large smile.

Arch's close up

Doodle of Arch by Nekodra

 Little Arch there inspired some doodling. I really like how it turned out the the picture does not do it justice. I need a working scanner again. >.<;

It was so fun to doodle. I just love drawing checkers. I feel really comfortable right now with my current style of checkered pictures I have been doing lately. Love it. There are parts that bother me, like the leg, his ear, but that aside I think it turned out really well.

I also got two awesome metal bracelets. Some really soft comfy wool slippers made by the same lovely ladies who make the wool stuff animals. Awesome wooden key-chain's, some cans of this energy drink called Shark, which was tasty. It tastes like Red bull but with a strawberry twist. The lite version is a little iffy. Has this small hint of cough syrup taste a second after that other tastes fade. Its almost not there, so I can at least finish it. But the original was really good and I kind of wish my dad had gotten a few more, but oh well. The can states is from Austria, which is were Red bull comes from so maybe its also imported, we have Red bull, so maybe I just never noticed Shark before. I will have to keep an eye out for it.

Progress of Doodle by Nekodra

There is talk of my whole family going on a Safari sometime in the nearish future- which is a lot of people. Our Europe group was numbered at 13 people and that is not including the 4 family members who couldn't make it on that trip. And man, I will never forget that trip. Two weeks and getting a taste of Germany, France, Switzerland, and technically I was in Italy too. Oh can't forget Austria, which was so beautiful. I loved Austria and I will go back. I also will be going back to Germany for this awesome town's 1,000 year anniversary. 1,000 years! That's so awesome. I want to go back and spend more time at every place we went, but Geneva. I am good never seeing Geneva again, had a really bad experience there.

But anyways, I hope plans work for that because I really want to go to Africa. If I do get a chance to go- I plan to hopefully bring enough money to buy one of every different wool stuff animal they have. I will also bring a fresh sketch book and take so many pictures.

To the right there is a progression of Arch's Checkered Doodle I did. I am also worked on one of the wool tiger my dad got for my mom. Not sure if I like it as much as Arch, but it came along nicely. Which by the way, Arch was drawn completely with pen, first lightly with BiC and then inked with Uni-ball. Gimp was just used to brighten the badly taken picture with my phone and then watermarked.

I want to share a wonderful blog:
I stumbled across this blog the other day. WordPlay: Helping Writers Become Authors. I have only read a few older post, but the post I found first was- Most Common Mistakes: The Case of the Vanishing Setting Which is wonderful and I suggest taking a peek. Now I have an urge to go work on my story and fix some setting problems I am sure I have. ^_^; I want to do it while that blog post is fresh in my mind.

Modern Day Magic:
Is coming along nicely. I worked on it the other night and the results of what happened made me super happy. I think I can declare Chapter one officially finished aside for minor tweaking and editing that I am sure it needs. Chapter two is nearly that point. Chapter 3 is getting close but I can't quite figure out how I want it to end. Then on to actually writing Chapter 4, which I had ideas noted and I just have to figure out if that is what should come next or if there needs to be anything else. Need to think of a Shenanigan for it, escalate from the pretty minor things of the first few chapters and have some sort of actual problem. Enough fluff and getting to know the characters, its time to jump into the shallow end, enough of this tipping of the toes. Then it will soon be time to drive into the deep end. Get all bloody.

I also need to think of a better name for the eventual slayer character. I am currently calling her Shina. I don't know if I like it and I can't settle on a last name. I really want to use Helsing as a last name because she comes from a family of Vampire hunters, but it doesn't feel right. Helsing is used too much. I don't know what to do?! *throws up hands in frustration* Gah.

But! I have settle on the Queens name! I am so happy and I think it fits. I feel it works. *nods* Shall I say her name? I have told you everyone elses names.

Queen Madori

Yes, I am aware its a drink. It also green, has the word Mad in it. It has a nice ring to it. Queen Madori. Feels right. I feel it really fits.

But what do I do about Shina? Gah. Other that that, again, things are coming along nicely with Modern Day Magic. Now with the Most Common Mistakes: The Case of the Vanishing Setting in mind, I need to go over those first 3 chapters and make sure I am setting the scene right. Already fixed a few things, added a little more to the scene. I see it vividly, but I need to make sure my readers can see it as clearly as I do.

Current word Count from the last few days:

2/03/12- 20,161
2/04/12- 20,967
2/05/12- 21,901
2/06/12- 22,068
2/07/12- 22,778
2/08/12- 23,394

Still pretty distracted by Disgaea

Though I have been thinking- I know I want to self publish this book when I finish it, but there is one thing. What do I do about an editor? I want it professionally edited before I eagerly go to Amazon and set up the whole self publish thing. Does it cost a lot? How do I go about getting editor? I know I am a ways off from that point, but it just crossed my mind that other day and I can't get it out of my head. Where do I even start to look for one? >.<; When I get closer to it, I will actually actively start looking into that, but its still lingering on my mind.

Psych Count Down:

Other Promos Back in February and Psych Auto-tune Promo
Also can't forget the reveal of Psych Season 7 Officially announced 
Lol, I found this while looking for the Superbowl Promo, Psych/White Collar 

Which on the subject of Psych, I just finished the book Psych: Mind of Magic. I enjoyed it. If your a Psych fan, I suggest the books, well at least that one. William Rabkin captures the characters well, its completely Psych as you love it! But it book form. I can't wait to see how the other books are. Last I saw there are 5 in total.

Now I am reading the Doctor Who quick read, Magic of the Angels. Only a 3 chapters in so far, plan to read more later tonight. 11th Doctor is really growing on me, I have already laughed out loud to classic Doctor lines. Once I finish this quick read, I plan to debate which of the other 4 Psych books to read next or which of the 10th Doctor books I have yet to read. So many books I want to read! I also have about 50 samples on my kindle, its so hard to decide which book I want to read next. I also just picked up two sample books for studying, On Writing by Stephen King and 101 Creative Writing Exercises by Melissa Donovan who has the blog Writing Forward. Which reminds me, I haven't read a tip from 101 Writing Tips by Travis Thrasher in a few days. Note to self, at least read a few tonight.

So many books!

Also slightly of topic, but not- its Doctor Who:
I am currently re-watching this years Doctor Who Christmas special and I have have to say, Doctor Who always knows how to pull on my heart. It really does. I don't think any show makes me feel quite like Doctor Who does. I can't describe it other then, swelling love. Makes me chest swell and twist in bursting happiness and sadness at the same time. Amazing that Doctor. Just amazing, and everyone who works to make Doctor Who something I can enjoy. Amazing and Thank you.

Alright here are the side notes and have a wonderful evening:

-- Please Comment, I would love to talk!

Also any tips, suggestions would be loved. 

You can also email me at Nekodra-blog@hotmail.com
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--Follow me on Twitter. I will tweet every time I post on my blog. Nekodra's Twitter 
-
--If you have never seen Psych and you love comedies or crime shows, I highly recommend it! Currently on a mid-season break and will return on Leap year, Feb. 29th 2012! 20 more days!
So excited here is a Link to a trailer for the second half of season 6. Here is the new promo. I am so excited, can't wait for 2.29.12!
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-- Please remember, Modern Day Magic belongs to me, thank you.

~Nekodra K.D. LaCroix

Ohh We're Halfway there- Ooh Living on a-

Doodled yesterday/today, it was super fun. ^_^ I like it

Modern Day Magic:
YES! Over 20,000 words. I feel accomplished. 21,543 to be exact. I have a few new 'scene' ideas. I expanded on chapter 2, which I also made a decision about the detective. So Chapter 2 is coming along nicely now. The next thing is when I visit my boyfriend from the 13th-20th, I plan to play some Magic and use that 'battle' for a scene between Danny and Ember. So we'll let the fates decide who wins, aka he will kick my ass. >.< But we will see, he plans to make several new decks with his two boxes of Dark Ascension he got, so maybe the one I play against won't do so well against my Human/Spirit Token Shitting deck...maybe. >.> *cough*


So the conversation is moving along once more for Chapter 2. The ball is rolling again with ideas for Modern Day Magic. It feels nice. Still feeling out the characters, I have Ember down pretty well. Still have decisions to make with Cole. Edward is hard to write, because I don't have a brother. Though there aren't really any scenes to write with him yet, but there is a past scene I am working on and its a little hard. I always wanted an older brother, someone who would have stood up for me through grade school, someone who I could have talked to. Someone to have played with. I was a lonely child, well I had my books and Tv Shows. Heh. But still a few big things that need to be figured out, but its coming along. *Bounces* Over 21,000 words! *Plays Bon Jovi's Living on a Prayer* Ooh, better idea:

Only my boyfriend works at Gamestop and I am the one out of a job, but he is what keeps me going. I don't know what I would do without him, his support and love, honestly. I don't even what to think about it. *shivers* I would say that songs fits pretty well for this point in my life.

So Modern Day Magic:
I have plans for holiday chapters, the story starts off in early October. One holiday is pretty-- gruesome, so far at least. And with the magic, of course there is going to be a little Harry Potter tossed in, really, it can't be helped. lol.


Modern Day Magic Sample
The Most recent and last post with actual parts from Modern Day Magic for those who may have not read it and are curious. Please don't steal. lol. ^_^;; If you have opinions, please don't forget to say them. ^_~

Here is the current word count from the last few days:

2/01/12- 18,639
2/02/12- 19,759
2/03/12- 20,161
2/04/12- 20,967
2/05/12- 21,543 - so far today

Yay. I woke up this morning at 10am to my dad calling from Nairobi and I tried going back to sleep and I ended up writing about oh-- 200 words on my phone with ideas before I could pass back out of which I promptly did once my muse let me.


Then I had 4, yes 4, of those dreams where you think you're getting up. Then you suddenly wake up again, only once again you didn't. 4 times. I woke up with a slight headache from that. x.x Man and my boyfriend had bought me a pretty sweet swiss army knife and we were at this strange amusement park that apparently we both use to go to as a child. It was pretty nifty, old and rustic, I may add something like that to the story, it was actually pretty cool looking. Its so strange how dreams tend to re-write your history, fun, but crazy.


One of the times I 'woke up' all the light bulbs had decided to go out in the house and me and my mom had no way of getting more till my dad got back from Africa.


One time, I was at a pretty nifty school with past teachers I liked and I think Harper from Wizards of Waverly place was there. So was Ian from the first season of Doctor Who. I watched several episodes with the 1st Doctor before I went to bed. I admit, small crush on Ian. I was about to buy a Chai Tea latte with white chocolate from the star bucks on campus and I woke up! Gah, of course. I haven't had a Chai tea in so long because I don't have money and my dream couldn't let me at least have a sip before I woke up? No, instead in one of the dreams I ate a raw ball of meat, yes raw ball of meat. It tasted like a flavorless ball of mush. >.< uck.


Then one dream, I was in an art store and apparently wanted to learn to knit, but all the balls of yarn were 100 dollars, the starters kit was 1,000 dollars. I had no money, so I don't even know why I was there. The salesman was trying to get me to buy it all, he wouldn't listen when I told him I only had 6 dollars to my name. He kept showing me things I couldn't have. It was mean. My unconscious can be very torturous a lot of the time. 

Info on the Blog: 
If you haven't noticed, I can be very random with my blog updates and I am sorry for that, but I am just not a consistent person. And that's not going to change, so if you want to know when I make posts, I would either follow me on Twitter or follow by email or follow if you have an account here that way you know quickly and easily when I make a post. Just a little fyi. ^_^;


In case you haven't notice, I went through and put tags on my posts. A suggestion I got from another blogger. Here are some lovely tips from another blogger My Name is Not Bob and his post on 25 Ways to increase blog Traffic. I hope the words I pick work okay... I may have to go through and mess with them more, but I think I picked decent words for lack of better words. ^_^; So now you can see which posts I talk heavily about Psych, Red Dwarf or Doctor Who. Which ones have WOTDS, short stories, and when I talk about Modern Day Magic.

Psych Count Down:

(USA's site from Psych Calender Countdown)

Can't wait! Love you Lassie! And Psych is the only reason I will tune into the superbowl at 5pm on Sunday (aka later today <.<;; ). Just like I recorded White Collar just to watch the other promo, which of course was at the very end. >.< lol, I called that. I also don't know how many times I have watched it, >.> but more then I probably should have.....


Anyways, I think I have yammered on enough for 5:30am >.< I should probably go to bed. lol. But I will probably work on Modern Day Magic a bit more before I do. <.<;;


Night! or Morning!

Here are the side notes:

-- Please Comment, I would love to talk!

Also any tips, suggestions would be loved. 

You can also email me at Nekodra-blog@hotmail.com
-

--Follow me on Twitter. I will tweet every time I post on my blog. Nekodra's Twitter 
-
--If you have never seen Psych and you love comedies or crime shows, I highly recommend it! Currently on a mid-season break and will return on Leap year, Feb. 29th 2012! 27 more days!
So excited here is a Link to a trailer for the second half of season 6. Here is the new promo. I am so excited, can't wait for 2.29.12!

-- Please remember, Modern Day Magic belongs to me, thank you.

~Nekodra K.D. LaCroix

A Forgotten Rose

Forward


Sorry, I got distracted by friends I haven't seen in a long time. I have been bad and I haven't written anything sense I posted on new years. Heh. ^_^; But, that's okay, I should write every day, but taking a day off or two isn't that bad so long as I don't make a habit out of it. But, possible luck on jobs, keep your fingers crossed for me!

So here is todays, WOTDS:

Jan. 3^rd 2012

WOTDS

Loke (Hawaiian)- A Rose

Conservare (Latin)- To preserve

An beal (Irish)- The mouth

Tani (Polish)- Cheap

Di ung (Vietnemese)- Allergy

Lekhiika (Hindi)- Writer

(Korean)- Face, features, looks

A

Writers Forgotten Rose

The room came into view, rustic, old, forgotten in time. Paintings of fantastical worlds hung, once of bright colors, now some were sideways, some rested where they fell, faded, ripped. Everything was in layers of dust, and that dust had a layer of dust, but for a patch in front of a broken mosaic window of blues and golds from the wind that breezed through. 

There was one thing in the room, that time preserved, a ruby rose hung in the air, slowly turning with a slight bob..|

The writer pause, unsure, wavering with the idea of what should come next. Should it suddenly wilt, breaking, the head of the rose snapping off and falling to the unforgiving ground below? Perhaps, the dust should stir, whirl up in a vicious breeze, sending the rose hurling into the wall, the spell snapping, and the rose aging in seconds becoming another layer of dust on the crackled stone floor?

Suddenly the writers face scrunched up unbecoming, hand hoovering to partly cover her face, and then sneezed violently, with a curse to allergies. 

 

Though she was typing on her laptop, cozy and relaxed on the couch, she had a cheap BIC pen dangling from her mouth, partly chewed, fiddling with in one hand, glaring at the computer screen. 

 

With a sigh, she saved the document, and with a grumble closed the laptop pushing it off to the side, still glaring at it, chin resting in the palm of her hands.

(end)

Page of other WOTDS
Page of other Short Stories
Afterward 
It may not be much of a story, but what matters is that I wrote something. WOTDS is just an exercise to make sure I write and to help inspire something to write. It doesn't have to be epic, or really a plot, just to practice, to set a mood, to paint a picture. Normally I like to write about Nekodra, to help actually write Dreaming Reality, but just could think of anything with these words. 

 Oh, I feel like pimping a fellow blogger. A Legend in the Making That's her blog, she doesn't have many post yet, but here is a link to a post that has a lovely micro-fiction story, that I personally enjoyed and maybe you will too. Trip Down Memory Lane


So I hope you enjoy that, I will do my best to not slip on writing again, and to work on stories I should finish. That was part of my New Years resolutions after all. So here are the side notes and have a wonderful night!

--Follow me on Twitter, because I will tweet every time I post on my blog and I will post a link. Nekodra's Twitter and remember Sharing is Caring, retweet to your friends if they might enjoy this.

--If you have never seen Psych, and you love comedies or crime shows, I highly recommend it! Currently on a mid-season break and will return on Leap year, Feb. 29th 2012. So excited here is a Link to a trailer for the second half of season 6.

--Also if you have never seen Red Dwarf it’s a great British Sci-fi comedy, and a new season after many years will air September 2012 for Red Dwarf X. So excited they are currently filming, can’t wait!

-- Please remember feedback, I can’t grow as a writer from silence.

--Also remember unless stated otherwise, these stories and drawings belong to me, I wrote/drew them, please respect that.

~Nekodra K.D. LaCroix