What are you writing about now?

[david_wendelken]

The title page and a chapter page, all laid out, with the approximate colours that will be used. The badge image is still a bit rough on the chapter heading, I need to learn how to process the image files better.

 

[WatcherWraith]

It looks lovely. I must ask, though, having read the letter, is the "that" in the...second paragraph, I think, a necessary "that"?
I do think the lettering looks lovely, in any case.

 

[david_wendelken]

There's a discrepancy between information presented on the title page and the first page of the first chapter. Anyone catch it? It's intentional.

Once you see it, does it post a question in your mind?

 

[david_wendelken]

It looks lovely. I must ask, though, having read the letter, is the "that" in the...second paragraph, I think, a necessary "that"?
I do think the lettering looks lovely, in any case.

Yes, it is! Not for grammar reasons, but because the historic character who wrote this particular letter isn't as skilled a wordsmith as you are, or the bard he's telling the story about.

 

[WatcherWraith]

There's a discrepancy between information presented on the title page and the first page of the first chapter. Anyone catch it? It's intentional.

Once you see it, does it post a question in your mind?

Well...while I did notice some date differences, those did not seem to be real discrepancies, only dates aligning with different facts...I don't think I saw anything, myself. Maybe another will.
I did go back and look over the two again, but still nothing looks off to me.

 

[david_wendelken]

Well...while I did notice some date differences, those did not seem to be real discrepancies, only dates aligning with different facts...I don't think I saw anything, myself. Maybe another will.
I did go back and look over the two again, but still nothing looks off to me.

The dates in the first chapter are being compared to the year of the War of the Ring, not the date the history was written. Good catch! I need to fix it.

 

[WatcherWraith]

You're certainly very immersed in your work :] I didn't realize what I'd seen. Glad my accident helped, in any case.

 

[david_wendelken]

You're certainly very immersed in your work :]

What a polite way to say that I'm totally nerding out and probably a bit cray-cray!

 

[WatcherWraith]

What a polite way to say that I'm totally nerding out and probably a bit cray-cray!

No, seriously, it's impressive. I hope to beat you in that respect with my own work someday. :]

 

[Glorfindel Goldtress]

What a polite way to say that I'm totally nerding out and probably a bit cray-cray!

You described everyone on the forum, and we are here for it! 😁

 

[david_wendelken]

I had a regional paper distributor send me some paper samples to test. I needed to test for both appearance and the strength to handle tipping in a hand-printed illustration.

I did my tests last night and found a winner! I've ordered 2 cases of 11x17 paper. A case has 2000 sheets in it and my book, at the moment, will need 112 sheets. (That's 4 pages per sheet.) That should get me enough paper to make up to 5 copies to test the printing/bookbinding process with, plus 30 copies of the book. That's more than enough for my needs. And the price is only $126 per case! That's way cheaper than I was concerned it would be!

 

[david_wendelken]

Beat my head against the wall all day long yesterday, but I finally got the knack of taking a line drawing in digital format, properly sizing it into a .tif file, and then making the background transparent. Adobe Photoshop is not intuitive.

I have 10 black and white line drawings done and placed properly in the book text. I have another 7 line drawings placed with dummy files. So I have the 7 line drawings and two asterisms to finish up and all the digitally printed components of the book text will be ready to print.

The asterisms are small and in color, the line drawings are in black and white. The line drawings are larger and look a bit sad with the colors applied. They don't look right because there's no shading in the coloring. I'm not willing to invest the time to learn yet another skill so I'm sticking with black and white. When I have time, either before or after the workshop, I'll print out the line drawings, color them in using coloured pencils, scan them back in and see how they look.

I need to do my taxes first.

Barring a catastrophe, I'll have a couple of printed copies in signatures ready for binding to take to my printmaking/bookbinding workshop the week after next.

 

[david_wendelken]

Tax data assembled, just have to record some subtotals and mail it to the accountant tomorrow.

12 digital illustrations for chapter first and last pages are done in black & white, 2 more are started.

 

[david_wendelken]

16 digital b&w illustrations are done, 3 more left to go and already started. Had to adjust most of those 16 to make the lines thicker so the drawings are dark enough. Should finish them tomorrow.

I was supposed to drive up to Durham, NC to pick up my book's paper on Monday (so the UPS or USPS rugby teams wouldn't play with the paper cartons on the way here). Someone mistakenly shipped them to me and they showed up today at my home. Cartons got a bit rough-housed but hopefully it won't be a problem (And it will save me a drive.)

In addition, I finally (after a year's worth of searching!!!) found a photograph I can use to model one of the illustrations. I mentioned to my wife about how excited I was to find it, because "I don't have any beautiful elf maidens lounging around the house willing to pose for me." She gave me that look like I had just insulted her, so I repeated the key portion of the sentence, "willing to pose for me." All is well!

Hope to finish up the three illustrations tomorrow and knock out a one page summary of book 1, then I'll be ready to print! If nothing else, I've got an extra day on Monday 'cause I won't be driving so much!

 

[david_wendelken]

Latest Illustration, a Chapter heading image. As you may remember, the Fellowship stayed at their groundside camp in Caras Galadhon, except that Legolas and Gimli would go wandering about together. Seemed like a good time to meet other characters!

I picked it because Gimli is from Erebor and events that happened there long before his birth were revealed.

 

[david_wendelken]

Preface with heraldic badges for Finrod Felagund and Amarië of the Vanyar. After I get the last page written and last 2 illustrations done, I'll see how they look colorized.

It's all coming together!

 

[david_wendelken]

MS OneDrive reported it was a bazillion percent over quota. I accidentally deleted the InDesign book files and their copies on OneDrive, too.

I didn't lose my MS Word book, nor the InDesign template, nor the graphics. So in a couple of days I'll be back where I was 30 minutes ago.

Not a good day.

At least I won't have to retype it in from the paper backup.

 

[WatcherWraith]

No! Agh, that sounds awful...I'm glad you at least don't have to start all over.

 

[Glorfindel Goldtress]

MS OneDrive reported it was a bazillion percent over quota. I accidentally deleted the InDesign book files and their copies on OneDrive, too.

I didn't lose my MS Word book, nor the InDesign template, nor the graphics. So in a couple of days I'll be back where I was 30 minutes ago.

Not a good day.

At least I won't have to retype it in from the paper backup.

Very sorry to hear! It must be very discouraging, but I'm grateful the main content was kept though; it would be a tragedy if everything was gone. You got this for what's to be restored and further to come! I'm sure you'll make this part of it even better than before! ☺️👐

 

[Tyelkormo the Fair]

This reminded me of an author of a very detailed, long and well-written fanfiction I read on ao3. She had posted two parts of it, them being 500-600k in total, but she lost the drafts for more than half of the part 3 when she was changing to a new computer. She reassured us she'd come back at some point but what happened had affected her too much and I understand her more now that I write myself too. It's been almost a year and a half since she last posted and almost a year since she last answered the comments on her comment section. I just hope she's doing okay.😔