Good news first: The Sweep of the Heart adaptation from Graphic Audio will be released on Audible& other audio stores on February 2nd, a bit earlier than expected.
Me, in a post about the found dog: Jeaniene, if you are reading this, no, we did not keep the puppy. Stop laughing.
Yesterday: phone rings.
Me: Yes?
Jeaniene Frost: HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Also yesterday
Me: I know I saved this file. Where is it?
15 minutes, 2 searches, and eleventy million folders later…
Me: I had unzipped the tax documents into Baldur’s Gate 3 mod folder. I am a supergenius. Won’t Faerun be surprised?
Also, also yesterday
Making an audio book cover for Magic Gifts.
Me, after screwing with it for 2 hours: What about this?
Gordon: why is there a samurai?
Me: What samurai? Which samurai has a double-headed axe?
Gordon: I love you, this is a giant undead samurai.
Me: Grrr.
15 minutes later.
Me: How about now?
Gordon: Yes. Good.
Me, sending the file to Mod R for the second opinion.
Mod R: The model is great, concept great, silhouette of the draugr cool enough. I’m just puzzled by the intense winterscape.
Me, thinking: Do what now?
Mod R: It’s a warm spring in the novella…
Me, texting to the family chat: I spent the whole day making this cover and it’s spring in the book.
Kid 1: OMG, mom.
Kid 1: It’s okay, it’s a comment on global warming.
I need one of those green drinkies.
::cracks her knuckles and goes back to photoshop::
Also, for those who have the cold/bronchitis bug (it’s that time of year) here is the advice one of my patients gave me when I was fighting a bad cold:
Drink a hot toddy. What is a hot toddy I ask?
He looked me straight faced and said ‘Fix your tea, get a lemon, and a bottle of whiskey, and SIT DOWN. Because you’re not getting up anytime soon after you have your second one. 😝😝😝
I have heard Southern Comfort works in them too. Mom said Grandma made her hot toddies with rum. As a child she had bad asthma. Not something we would do nowadays but she was born in the 1920’s!
He forgot the honey. Hot toddies are an old southern US remedy for colds and flu: hot tea with honey, lemon, and a dollop of whiskey or brandy. Leave out the hot tea for a cough syrup.
LOL. From years ago:
Grandma’s famous cold remedy –
First you squeeze the juice out of two bottles of bourbon …
I made many separate file folders with internal folders to keep things organized in my work computer.
Stuff still ends up in the wrong place.
On top of that, I am a Geezer so I print out my emails and stick them on brads for each physical file.
Stuff still ends up somewhere in the piles on my desk.
Now it’s Tax and Law Society Filing time and I can’t find anything.
Why is organization 95% of all work? And why is Organization my own Karron. Full of the Crrupted (files and file folders). And no Dina or Sean in sight.
Sigh
LOL!
Thanks for the laugh – been there, want the green drinkie too!
My one year old niece had poured a lake’s worth of water down herself at stay and play on Tuesday, I’ve got her coat on to leave (against her protests), she’s saying goodbye nicely, I’m walking out to get the buggy when all the adults start calling me back.
Turns out I was leaving with just my socks on and had left my shoes back in the cloakroom. I then walked through with our coats on, put my bag on, said goodbye, opened the gates, and all without noticing my lack of footwear.
I recently shared a meme along the lines of “Hard to believe that tomorrow is already January 55th.” At least we are all wildly flailing through the month together.
Green drinks for everyone. Unless they really like blue, then they can have blue. I’m ok with that.
Good luck
It just means you have to write a new novella set in winter, and then you can use your awesome design for the cover of that book! Lol
ahh sending huggles
Yes, one of those days! Thanks for sharing your trials, helps me with mine!
the green in the drink is Midori – a melon flavor liquor that goes great with citrus
You poor thing. That’s totally something I would do.
Thank you for this! I giggled for several minutes because this is my life most days and it’s good to know I’m not alone.
Looks like spring fog to me. Winter skies in the Northwest are either crystal clear or completely covered by clouds. We get that wispy look only when the ground is wet and the sun has been shining during the day.
*hugs*
A real downer of a day. Nobody I know died, but that’s about the only positive in the whole day. I just spent 2 hours before heading off to bed listening to sad Russian songs on YouTube. No one does sad songs like the Russians.
lol,, it could be a late cold snap in spring…. just because you might not have described snow in the book, didn’t mean it wasn’t there… now needing to go back and reread small magics to see what weather was described #anyexcuse
Magic Gifts is in Gunmetal Magic, not Small Magics 🙂
nah, totally normal – nature hates us
now: we had a downpour of rain and not even an hour later a snow blizzard, go figure
Using AI illustrations disenfranchises the artists whose art was stolen to make it and who won’t be commissioned by people using the thefts. Surely you don’t support AI books written using your bibliography? I’m disappointed.
The cover mock up above is a photoshop composite, using neostock for the female model and adobe stock for the rest. The adobe stock images were found using Exclude AI filter.
Here are the images used for the actual cover:
https://stock.adobe.com/images/calm-romantic-light-in-foggy-forest-halloween-spooky-place/457067408
https://stock.adobe.com/images/viking-silhouette-silhouette-of-viking-wearing-bear-skin-holding-an-axe-the-silhouette-of-viking-in-a-helmet-with-double-axe-and-knife/635131903?asset_id=635131903
https://www.neo-stock.com/-/galleries/photo-stocks/urban-fantasy/elena-cinematic-thriller
Had I generated this cover with AI, it wouldn’t have taken half a day to make it.
FYI, photoshop now comes with its own AI that will remove backgrounds, generate background in an extension of content-aware filter, etc. So whether we like it or not, AI is here to stay as a tool.
Maybe don’t assume so much and be less disappointed. Perhaps phrase the comment as a question, asking if we used AI, rather than an accusation or rebuke. Might help.
You and you wife are so patient. Thank you.
It’s a beautiful cover. Would it be so hard to shift a few elements to depict a springtime landscape?
On Wednesday, I got lost on the way into work. Driving along, la la la, and it occurred to me that it was taking a LONG time to get to work, which was weird ’cause traffic wasn’t *too* bad. Then I realized that I didn’t recognize any of the exits or the scenery and where the h*ll am I, anyway?!? Called up the maps on my phone and i’d overshot my exit by almost 15 miles.
I’ve been working here 7 months. But this is a thing that occasionally happens to me.
Nice job on the cover!
Funnily enough, this is the colour palette I had in my head as well. I guess it’s all the fog etc…!
Sorry you had to deal with unfounded accusations. If this person followed you they would know your stance on AI…
I had a call at 10 am that didn’t start until 1030 and I was kicked off of it the first time around. And the call should have been a short call and went 1.5 hours.
Le sigh 😔
Hello! I saw that Humble Bundle is selling an audiobook bundle with Clean Sweep and Sweep of the Heart (and a bunch of other books, incl. ones by Jeaniene Frost). Is House Andrews aware of it/approve of it?
Not sure how it all works, just wanted to bring it to your attention.
Hi Elena,
Yes, the Humble Bumble sale is approved and we will have a promo for it soon too 🙂.
Thank you for watching out for House Andrews!