Well, it’s been a week, hasn’t it?
Huge love and sympathy to anyone from or with loved ones in Ukraine. I used to work with someone from Kyiv (note: if you say it Kee-yev, that’s the Russian transliteration from Cyrillic, whereas Kee-yiv is the Ukrainian). It’s a country like any other, with people like any other. What’s happening is horrific and the desperate act of a madman on his way out, who is undermining all of the things he’s achieved in his corrupt dictatorship. I hope this is his personal downfall.
Anyway. The 90s were a decade where bugger all happened and now we get days full of centuries.
I loved REM back in the day. This was a particular favourite, from their indie days before they became a stadium band. If you listen to that era, they were so fresh and energetic. This song was based on another—Bad Day, later finished and released as part of their greatest hits or best of or whatever—but it does that very fast lyrical flow way better than whatever that Billy Joel song that says Geoff Capes, blown away. As if anyone could blow away Geoff Capes! (I wrote a song called Geoff Capes Blown Away, which had a sample of him talking about keeping budgerigars. Anyone outside the UK has no idea who he is, for which the good lord invented google.)
Last Week
A lighter week to recharge my batteries. I did a fair chunk of redesigning covers, such as:
It hits all the tropes of the genre, which I like. And it roots it in a very specific location. And I’m learning a lot of technical skills in fauxtoshop (Affinity Designer and Photo, which are just as good as the Adobe products but a fixed charge rather than their rip-off monthly charges). The girl was a separate image, wearing a red coat, so I changed the colour of the coat to match the text and added a gradient map to match the lighting on the backdrop. Great fun! I’ve got drafts of the eight Cullen novels sitting there, which I need to do.
I finished editing LOST CAUSE, just some more teethbreakers from James around police procedure and some cool story points which I like. I’ve a feeling that book isn’t going to do so well, mainly as my audience like police procedurals and this isn’t, even though it pretty much is.
This Week
Well, I want to get the series bible to the secret new stuff finished. It’ll be a couple of days of tightening and tidying and making sure the fourth book actually has a story, then I’ll get some editing feedback on it.
I’m awaiting edits on the SECRET SCI-FI PROJECT, which I’ve got a fair old chunk of revisions to do already.
And I’m playing HORIZON FORBIDDEN WESST on the PlayStation 5. It’s half awful and half fantastic. Luckily the awful bits are skippable, so I can get on with exploring a post-post-apocalyptic world.
Hope the sky doesn’t fall and rain down bombs. Take care of yourselves and your loved ones.
Cheers,
Ed
Love the new covers you're doing
It is indeed