Category Archives: The Fictorians

It’s the start of a new year, so it’s time to discuss a bit of pre-spring cleaning for your computer. For perspective, my “day job” used to involve working in an Information Technology department for a large corporation with 13,000 users, a field I’ve been working in since I started writing computer programs in 1977. I performed these tasks quarterly at a minimum on my personal equipment, and twice daily on the 983 servers I was responsible for.

1. Back Up Your Data

In the IT field, there’s an old saying: “There are two kinds of people, those who back up their data, and those who wish they did.”

Yes, everyone knows they should back up their data, but most forget to do it if the task isn’t automated. In the past, I was guilty of forgetting to do this on my laptop, and I’ve lost works in progress. So, like changing your smoke alarm battery every time there is a change to Daylight Savings Time in the United States, at the very least you should make a concerted effort to back up the data from the previous year.

I back up all of my fiction, articles, and poems onto a CD, then put it in a safe place. I also archive it on my website in case I need copies when I’m traveling. Make sure you label the disc and put it in a sleeve or CD case. Use a permanent marker, put on a sticker label (use the round ones so the CD isn’t unbalanced when spinning), or write the label directly on the CD if you happen to have LightScribe. Do not use ballpoint ink pens on the CD — use permanent markers like the Sharpie brand. Most people think the underside of a CD is the most sensitive to damage, but it’s actually the top portion that is fragile. Once the thin layer of laquer is damaged, such as from writing on a CD with a ballpoint pen, the reflective backing starts flaking off, destroying the CD. The underside may get scratches, but the CD writing process includes error correction, which is why many scratched CDs still work for data.

If you have a large amount of data, such as your story files, ebook files, audio files, and images, use a DVD-ROM to back up your work. The same rules apply for the care of the discs.

If you have a safe deposit box at the bank, consider keeping a copy there in case something happens to your house. I know several authors that were impacted by Hurrican Sandy, and several of them lost their homes and their computers.

In addition to backing up important files, I also recommend purchasing a USB external drive that comes with backup software. This way, your entire hard drive can be restored if you get a nasty virus or malware that destroys everything on your computer. One terrabyte external drives are around $100. Restoring your computer after you get hit by a nasty virus with a couple of clicks is priceless. Another option is to use an external storage solution like Dropbox (see May 4th’s post by Kristen for a writeup), Evernote, and Google Drive.

2. Anti-Virus Scanning

I’m assuming most of you have an updated anti-virus program running on your computer(s) and laptop(s). Good for you! If you don’t, there are several free anti-virus programs available, such as AVG and Avast. If your computer connects to the Internet, you need protection.

Now is the time to do something that your computer has been bugging you to do for a while. Close all of your open files and programs. Yes, that includes Facebook — don’t worry, you’ll survive the withdrawals. Open whatever anti-virus program you use and select “full system” or “full hard drive” scans, then leave your system alone. If you’re running a laptop that goes into hibernation mode if it doesn’t feel your loving hands brushing the touchpad, deftly sliding the mouse, or even stroking the keyboard, try setting your system to stay out of hibernation mode by adjusting your power settings. Leave your laptop plugged in, in case it takes a while to scan your data.

Your anti-virus program is going to scan every file stored on your computer. Depending on the number of files and the speed of your computer, this may take an hour or ten. If it finds any nasty lurking virus files, let the software kill or quarantine the offending data.

3. Dump Unused Software

If you have software installed that you never used in 2012, consider deleting it from your computer to free up space. Make sure you have the original software available should the need arise to re-install. A good example is getting rid of old income tax software. It’s doubtful you’re going to re-file your 2008 taxes again, so save your data files (onto a CD!), then uninstall.

4. Catch Up on Updates

Now is a good time to update your operating system … AFTER you have backed up your data. Allow your system to go online to download patches and updates, then allow your computer to install without slowing it down by surfing the Internet. If you have the urge to post a Twitter update, tweet using your smartphone.

Once your operating system files are updated and your computer is restarted, go through your programs and check for updates. Don’t forget programs like Microsoft Office, Scrivener, Adobe Acrobat, Java, Firefox, and any other browser updates (including browser plugins, if any.)

5. Catch Up on Writing

Now that your computer is backed up and updated, it’s time to get writing. No excuses!

About the Author:

Guy Anthony De Marco is a speculative fiction author; a Graphic Novel Bram Stoker Award^®; winner of the HWA Silver Hammer Award; a prolific short story and flash fiction crafter; a novelist; an invisible man with superhero powers; a game writer (Sojourner Tales modules, Interface Zero 2.0 core team, D&D modules); and a coffee addict. One of these is false.

A writer since 1977, Guy is a member of the following organizations: SFWA, WWA, SFPA, IAMTW, ASCAP, RMFW, NCW, HWA. He hopes to collect the rest of the letters of the alphabet one day. Additional information can be found at Wikipedia, GuyAndTonya.com, and GuyAnthonyDeMarco.com.

Orbit Xplorer

May 22, 2015

fictorians

Doug Dandridge Software World-building No Comments

A guest post by Doug Dandridge.

I was going to write a post about Ginger, a software program that helps writers find errors in their manuscripts. However, Ginger changed their interface to the point where it does not do all the stuff this writer was going to rave about. So on to something else.

I write very detailed military science fiction, and I like to get things right as much as I can. I’m sure I miss, but not from a lack of trying. In the bad old days, I had to do everything by calculator and graph paper, but now the internet supplies the tools to really get down into the dirt of astrophysics. There are a lot of programs out there that do a good job of simulating different types of orbital systems. Programs like Universe Sandbox and others. I love Universe Sandbox for simulating where asteroids are going to be at any given time in the future. For detailed orbits of simpler systems, enter Orbit Xplorer by Ottisoft. At $25 for a single site license the program, for all it can do, is a bargain.

Orbit Xplorer comes with a number of preprogramed simulations, a star visits the sun (bad), double star (cool), Kepler’s laws (educational), two colliding stars (also really bad, but cool as well). While useful, I found the simulations I could program to be much more useful, and I will give three examples below.

I wanted to work out Hohmann Transfer Orbits for a book idea about Mars. Hohmann’s use a least fuel curving orbit to put a ship into Mars orbit from Earth, and can only be accomplished over certain timespans. But for the book I wanted to see how much of a boost I could use to take days off of the transfer. Using the program and trial and error I found the optimal boost to achieve a least time transfer, and discovered that any boost after that just sent the ship flying out into the outer solar system.

The second example was working out the orbits for a book that was to be the lead volume for the second Deep Dark Well trilogy (which has been written but not published). The idea was that ancient humans had moved stars and planets into place, then put terraformed moons into orbit around some of the closer gas giants. The program allows the user to put whatever objects he wants in orbit around each other, setting the mass of each body as well the distances of the orbits. Again, it’s a trial and error process, and at some close distances the moons fall into the gas giant. I set up a situation where all of the terraformed moons were as close as I could put them, so that their days (which are the same as one orbit around the gas giant) would be of reasonable lengths, none more than fifty some hours or so. When I ran the program, everything orbited well for about fifty evolutions, as which point one moon curved in, hit another moon, and both collided with the gas giant (very bad), while one of the remaining moons was pulled out of orbit to go careening through the outer solar system, there to freeze (bad as well). Oops. Eventually I got it to run a thousand cycles without a disaster, and went with those orbits, which gave me the day night cycle of the moon of interest to the story, as well as the cycle at which phases of the other moons would be seen.

The final example is from my Exodus series, which has been called by some readers as a new level of worldbuilding. I won’t even go into the central black hole with eight stars in orbit around it, all with their own system. One of the systems I wanted as accurate as possible was the two Earth mass planets in orbits around each other, the capital world and it’s twin. Both were habitable, and I also wanted the capital planet to have a terraformed moon in orbit. So I modeled the two planets in orbit around each other first off, with the one parameter being that the day night cycle on both worlds would not be longer than about forty hours. Anything longer might cause problems with the earth like vegetation on the worlds. That was easy enough. I had two beautiful planets that each had a bright world in the sky in one hemisphere at night, and experienced daily short lived eclipses on their day sides each light cycle. The worlds were about ninety thousand kilometers or so apart, which would make each world many times larger than our moon in the sky of the other. I then added the moon, and found that it would orbit the one world at about ten thousand kilometers in a slightly elliptical orbit. I ran the simulation about a thousand cycles, and everything seemed to hold together.

One of the coolest things about a science fiction setting is how different we can make them. Planets in orbit with each other around a center of gravity, moons in orbit around larger planets. Multiple star systems. One of the coolest things I found about Orbit Xplorer was how it sparked the imagination, suggesting setting I wouldn’t have otherwise thought of. Setting can be another major character in your work, the more imaginative, the better.

Guest Writer Bio:

Doug Dandridge lives in Tallahassee, Florida, where he has worked as a full time writer since March of 2013. A graduate of Florida State University and the University of Alabama, and a veteran of the United States Army, Doug has been in love with the fantastic since an early age. He has over twenty-five self published books on Amazon, and has a half dozen novels that have reached the top five in Space Opera in the US and UK.

Making a Multi-Use Banner

May 21, 2015

fictorians

Guest Posts Writing Tools 3 Comments

A guest post by Tim Reynolds.

Most writers I know are on a limited budget for advertising and promotion, especially the self-published ones. Even the writers with traditional publishers may have to foot the bill for some or all promotional supplies.

I, myself, am both self-published (4 books) and traditionally published. When I’ve done book signings in the past I had some nicely done 8×10 covers in frames on the table, with teasers about the book and even reviews. It looked well and good and…cheesy. At multiple-author events, the authors who got the most attention (and often the most sales) had a LARGE presence in the form of a banner.

Banners are great for signings, readings, and trade shows. The problem is that many authors have multiple books they need to promote, though seldom all at the same time. They might have a signing for their YA novel tomorrow, then a reading for their sci-fi opus on Sunday, and have a table set up at World Fantasy Convention next week. You want your banner to promote your product, but that’s three products, which makes for three banners. Banners aren’t cheap. The stands can be reused, but a banner for each book gets prohibitively expensive.

My solution? An adaptable, multi-use banner.

STEP ONE: Design a banner that covers as many of your bases as possible, without using any specific titles. This is the hardest step. Many of you will want to get your banner professionally designed. I have a background in graphics, so I did my own.

Tim Banner — My author banner. 30″ x 72″

Here’s mine. It’s 30″ x 72″. I’ve cropped off the bottom because it’s not important right now. If you can’t read what it says, here it is:

“Timothy Reynolds. Spinner of Tales, Fabricator of Fictions, Twister of History. ‘Canada’s Modern-Day Aesop’ ~ Barbara Budd, CBC Radio.”

That’s my name, a catchy/cute way of saying what I do, and the best promo quote I have. It also has my author photo, a moon with a bloody screaming face, and a generic city scape at night…to add atmosphere. Much of what I write has a dark element to it, so this is not a light and fluffy smiles-and-puppies banner.

There’s no publisher name at all. Not even my own company. Why? Because if I put Cometcatcher Press on it, then I can’t use it when I’m promoting “When Anastasia Laughs”, which will be published by Tyche Books in 2016, or “Tesseracts Seventeen” from Edge Science Fiction & Fantasy Publishing, which contains my short story “Why Pete?”.

Tim Foamcoare — Covers as photographs, mounted on foam core and laminated

STEP TWO: Have your cover(s) reproduced as photographs, mounted on foam core and laminated for protection. Almost every film lab can do this for you. I use Western Canada’s best: London Drugs.

I had all four covers done as 5x7s. Why? Because 5x7s are lighter than 8x10s and will remain in place better.

STEP THREE: You will need magnetic tape. It’s available at Michael’s Arts & Crafts and 10′ costs less than $5. Cuttwo 5″ strips for each cover. Because the strips will maintain their shape from when they were on the roll, take the strips and place them on a flat surface, under a heavy weight, overnight. Once they are flat, they are ready to use.

Cover and magnets — A cover and the magnetic Strips

STEP FOUR: Working on a clean surface, place a cover face down. Peel the backing off of the magnetic tape, and place two strips firmly on the back of the cover, centred left-to-right and down a bit from the top.

Place the magnetic tape on the back of the cover. Press firmly.

Magnet back of cover — Place the magnetic tape on the back of the cover. Press firmly.

STEP FIVE: While the banner is hanging, place the cover where you want it to be, then place the second magnetic strip on the back of the banner, directly opposite the strip on the cover.

Back of banner — Magnetic strips in place on the back of the banner, holding the cover in place.

When it’s all done, you have a banner with one (or in this case, two) covers on display. You can do the same with the publisher’s logo and even a sign with the times you will be present. Other possibilities include: “Coming Soon”, “New York Times Bestseller”, or whatever your heart desires. Reviews, quotes, anything. All I suggest is to not overload the banner.

Covers on Banner — Two light-weight but sturdy covers magnetically attached to a banner.

The foam core is very light weight, as is the magnetic tape. I had considered using adhesive Velcro, but then the banner couldn’t be rolled up smoothly. This method with the magnets allows complete removal of the artwork and for the banner to be rolled and stored indefinitely without damage being done to its surface or shape. For a stronger attachment, put magnetic tape near the bottom of the cover as well.

(NOTE: I’m still not sold on the white borders I put on the covers, but with a sharp blade I can remove them easily.)

STEP SIX: Get yourself a 6×8 Rubbermaid lunch box for storing the covers, a hard plastic tube for the banner, and you’re all set for your next signing.

MATERIALS: Magnetic Tape: $5. Banner on heavy outdoor vinyl: $63 &Stand (includes carrying bag): $40 (both from Vistaprint), Plastic banner tube $21 from a local Digital Post store. BTW, VistaPrint is always having sales, so set up an account, do the design work, and wait. They will send you an email shortly with the latest sale. You can save anywhere from $10 to 33% of your entire order. Their online design & preview kicks ass, too.

Note: in some of the photos above you can see what look like creases on the banner. It was damaged in shipping. I called VistaPrint and explained the situation. Without seeing photos or getting witness statements, they immediately ordered a new one and it was shipped out the next day. It arrived in three days. Their customer service is second-to-none.

I hope this gives you some ideas and inspires you to get out there and promote your writing with a professional presence. Other things to help are bookmarks with the cover, where to buy it, and your website URL. If you don’t have your own website…GET ONE!

That’s it, that’s all.

Ciao for now,

Tim.

Tim Reynolds is a Canadian ‘Twistorian’, bending and twisting history into fictional shapes for fun & entertainment.

His debut novel, the urban fantasy, The Broken Shield, was released on July 21, 2014 on Amazon as a digital book and in March 2015 in paperback form. It covers over 2000 years of history and shows that even Lucifer knows “there’s an app for that”. His published short stories range from lighthearted fantasy to turn-on-the-damned-lights-now horror. His 100-word story “Temper Temper” was a winner of Kobo Writing Life’s Jeffrey Archer Short Story Challenge. In 2016 watch for his novel “When Anastasia Laughs” from Tyche Books.

He can be found online at www.tgmreynolds.com or @TGMReynolds on Twitter.

The Magic of Jutoh

May 20, 2015

Colette Black

Colette Black The Writing Life Writing Tools 2 Comments

As I said about Scrivener in my previous post, Jutoh is also a software program that can make you cry with joy or frustration…probably both. In both cases, I had to spend a lot of time on Youtube, forums, and the help page in order to figure it out. Other than the fact that they’re both extremely useful, the similarities end there.

Jutoh is a program designed to take your already written book from word processor format to ebook format, and it does its job well, including links, artwork, font, drop-caps, etc. You can write within the program, but I wouldn’t generally suggest it. My only exception to that might be game design. When I put together my game module, The Hologames, for Sojourner Tales, I outlined the game elsewhere but because of the intra-document links required, it worked well to do the writing within Jutoh.

Though I don’t generally use the program to write, I’ve never seen a program that can compile ebooks better, especially if you want some professional touches. To the right, you’ll see an example of a book manuscript in progress. This is the way it will look in epub format. This is a rough version, and I’m not finished with it yet, but it should get the point across. I can use graphics in my title or with my title, drop caps are a cinch, I can customize page breaks, etc.

When I’m done assembling my chapters, copyright page, title, contents (all linked, of course), glossary, author page, etc. I hit the “Compile” button and it puts everything together in the format of my choice: epub, mobi, ODT for smashwords (yes, this is a little different), and a number of other formats. I find that running my book through Jutoh then sending it back to Word in odt even makes for a cleaner document to prepare for pdfs and paper publishing markets.

Loading a document to createspace or kobi can be a fairly easy process, but often there are mistakes that you won’t see until your readers point them out to you. After compiling, Jutoh has another handy button, “Check.” Though problems that don’t really exist might come up, it tells you that it’s not likely a real problem. And real problems always come up. Wouldn’t you rather deal with them before you send your book out to the world instead of finding something you need to fix months after readers’ annoyance.

Last, but certainly not least, is the “Launch” button. With the download of a couple of other free software programs, Jutoh allows you to view your finished document in mobi, epub, and other formats. I can’t tell you how many mistakes I’ve caught just by looking at my book as it will appear to readers. It may be aggravating to fix, but it’s nice to get that aggravation over and have the confidence of a well-done product when you launch.

Last year, I won the first-ever IndieRecon Live Total Package Book Award. I credit much of that success to Jutoh. I put in a well-written novel, and Jutoh helped me knock out a great looking format. The combination allowed me my blissful moment of fame.

How about you? What’s your favorite way to get your book out into the world?

Bio: Colette Black
Colette Black lives in the far outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona with her family, 2 dogs, a mischievous cat and the occasional unwanted scorpion. She loves learning new things, vacations, and the color purple. She writes New Adult and Young Adult sci-fi and fantasy novels with kick-butt characters, lots of action, and always a touch of romance.