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Showing posts with label YA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label YA. Show all posts

Thursday, January 19, 2012

All jazzed up...about Adobe InDesign

I mentioned before that I'm taking a certificate course in Technical Writing - part of my quest to transition from full time therapist who writes on the side to full time writer. I have a large family to support so no opportunity to write or market enough to make my a living off my books immediately- so this is a means for me to at least write for a living - even if its for others.

Anyway - part of my course includes learning about In Design. WOW - love it!!!! 

 I'm the type of person who only learns the tech that I need to use to do my work so In Design, while likely something you all know about - is new to me. I can't believe how much it can do and wish I'd known about it a long time ago.

My new quest with ID is to find out if I can put video of me talking to my readers (yes, I really do have some people who read my fiction and way more who read my non-fiction). What a great thing to be able to do. Don't know if Smashwords or Kindle can publish with that in the content, but as I re-do my non-fiction to sell from my web sites I can at least embed the video in those version.

I love getting all jazzed about new things - hasn't happened in a while so I'm loving it today.

Have any of you done this with ID? I would love to know how you've used it.

If so inclined - please check out my other sites - here and here. 

Friday, August 19, 2011

Reading influences...

On one of the writers' pages I participate in (yes, I get how bad that grammar is) - the question was asked - do you read books that are in the same genre in which you write? For me, the answer is no - I write in several genres - YA, fantasy, mystery, short story, and non fiction. What I read is normally dictated by what is available at the airport because the only time I have to read is on business trips and I buy something to get me through the trip. I know some people fear plane travel because they worry they might crash - not me, I fear plane travel because I worry I'll trapped on a plane for several hours with a book I don't like. 

I know that if I planned ahead then the books I bought would be very different - it seems that all the books at the airports I frequent are in the top 20  best sellers and are either about vampires or serial killers. I don't really like either, but since I can only choose one, I go for the serial killers. If I planned ahead and bought a book at real book store, it would more likely be something historical - more likely set in Asia or in WW2.

I devored Amy Tan's early books and I recently read the fictionalized account of Pearl Buck's early life in China by Anchee Chin and loved that. Of course, my all time favorite book is The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak - I don't expect to ever again read anything that innovative and well written. I also recently read Drood by Dan Simmons. That stunned me because I hadn't realized that a writer could take such bizarre liberties when writing a fiction about a person who actually lived. I don't like what Simmons did, but it was a good read and again, very innovative. 

I expect to start reviewing books very soon and I'll be using a Kindle for that. The Kindle will free me from airport book store choices and it will be interesting (to me) to see what tweaks my interest. 

Do you read in your genre?