Digital technology is fabulous, but is also incredibly fragile. We had a catastrophic system breakdown a while back, and it’s taken until now to get this site restored and up and running.
Although fiction will always be the raison d’être for Libreleft Books, at this point we are considering a foray into political nonfiction.
Libreleft’s most important task is getting “The Girl In the Blue Flame Cafe” back on track.
Murray
Self publishing encompasses a lot more than just writing a book and putting it out there, and Libreleft Books will be publishing “The Girl In The Blue Flame Cafe” this year. Since launching a book with fanfare can be a pricey proposition, I’ve decided to try my hand at crowdfunding with Pubslush, a crowdfunding platform specifically for books.
I’ve been using the excellent GNU/linux video editing suite Kdenlive to put together my Pubslush pitch video. Unfortunately a lot of other things have been competing for my time; consequently my crowdfunding campaign has taken rather longer than I had hoped.
As it turns out, the video I am making will very probably be too long for a pitch, but once I have the content the way that I want it, I expect to divide it into two (or possibly three) shorter videos. I’ve chosen to do them all together (everything is connected) because it gives me more options for all the videos. The extra video(s) will be available to anyone wanting to know more about my project.
Just now I’ve been putting together some small animations I will be incorporating into my video(s). Back in the day I played around with some animation at Sheridan College, but it’s been a while, and the tools for creating media have changed pretty drastically since then.
This was my first attempt:
Then I decided it would be nice to use a photo of my cat Murray curled up next to a book for the background. I had previously used this photo to illustrate my book review.
I thought the animation of might be too slow so I sped it up.
Which of the blue versions do you like best… the 4 second or 2 second version?
Getting “The Girl In The Blue Flame Cafe” ready for publication includes the creation of original artwork.
I need to pick one promotional image from the three digitally composited images I’ve created here. I worked hard on them all, but I’m having a hard time deciding which one to use, so I’m hoping you will help me choose the best one.
Incident at Union Station #1
“The Girl In The Blue Flame Cafe” ~ Promotional Artwork
on Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/laurelrusswurm/13676212375/
Incident at Union Station #2
“The Girl In The Blue Flame Cafe” ~ Promotional Artwork
on Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/laurelrusswurm/13676183175/in/photostream/
Incident at Union Station #3
“The Girl In The Blue Flame Cafe” ~ Promotional Artwork
on Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/laurelrusswurm/13676353894/in/photostream/
I’d really appreciate it if you can tell me which one do you think is the most effective. Which one looks the most real? Which image do you like best?
I’ll be sharing this across all my social networks in search of feedback because I can use any help you can offer, whether its a aimple “I like this one” or a detailed critique would, or anything in between. Let me know what you think with a comment here, or an email, or messaging me through social media.
Thanks for your help! 
Image Credits:
While the Union Station, the cell phone and the hand photos are all my own, the photographs of blood I incorporated were created by Jo Naylor and released with a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) License
I’ve just successfully validated my third NaNoWriMo novel “win”, with my draft of “Incoherent” which has been written during the 30 days of NaNoWriMo 2012.
At the moment, this first draft is sitting at 50983 words so far. This is, however, perhaps only as much as half way through the novel.
At some point, probably at the stroke of midnight, local time, the wordcount that will forever after be shown for “Incoherent” on the NaNoWriMo site will be frozen, even though there will be many more words written before this novel’s first draft will be finished. What I plan to do for most of the rest of today, November 30th, 2012, is to write more words, in an effort to boost the number immortalized on the NaNoWriMo site.
The first thing is a cute little “congratulations” video. It did its job and put a smile on my face.
There is the winner’s badge that we get to post on our blogs and websites. I’ll do all that blog maintenance in December
There is also a framable “winner” certificate, but it’s locked in PDF format. I’ve been unable to print previous versions in colour because NaNoWriMo employs the proprietary Adobe pdfs, which would not print in colour in the free software pdf reader I was using. Of course, that may have changed; I’ll let you know later.
There is also a big list of sponsors who offer gifts. The winner giftie that made my eyes light up was the 5 free Create Space volumes. That will probably take care of the hard copies I’ll need for my The Girl In The Blue Flame Cafe Beta Readers. Other than the requirement to use Flash fior uploading novel drafts, I have been very pleased with Create Space.
Later down the list is an offer from 48HourBooks.com to Print 100 books and receive 25 free. I’ve not dealt with them, yet, but it certainly sounds like something to check out.
Most of the prizes look to be discounts on software for writers. This does not particularly interest me because in the past most, if not all of these software deals were for software that was only good for MAC and Windows, making it totally useless for gnu/linux free software users like me. I don’t yet know if this is still the case, the jury is still out on this at the moment.
Anyway, I’m patting myself on the back for having made it through another NaNoWriMo. One of the things I like about NaNoWrimo is that it provides the framework of community.
My brother Larry Russwurm gave it his first shot this year. He wasn’t confident about being able to write so much every day. Yet he got off to a great start and persisted all month long, handily crossing the finish line a few days ago, far and away ahead of me. Good job!
Another first timer friend of mine, who made good on his debut commitment to NaNoWriMo, is my friend Gordon Sinclair, Across the pond in Scotland, Gordon embarked on an ambitious joint project and made it through with time to spare. Excellent showing! 
I’d also like to say “great job!” to all of my community of writing buddies, both virtual and otherwise. Everyone has lives and commitments, which can make the daily commitment necessary to complete something like NaNoWriMo impracticable. And of course, the unexpected can always throw a monkey wrench in the best laid plans. 
Whether you managed to “win” this year or not, just by virtue of participating — even if all you managed was a single sentence — you’re still a winner in my books! 
Meantime, I’m off to see if I can wring out a few more words during November…