My preview book arrived. My house sale date may have also come. I intended to spend a week reading through Grey Moon a hundred times before I released it Monday 5th of February. I don’t know if I have time for that now, so you all may have to wait a couple of months until I have a new house before I have time and a decent internet connection to release it. Sorry! In the meantime, yeah, Reala look pretty handsome as the leading lady.
Maya & Seth
I mentioned a couple of weeks back, Maya got me into a marketing course with Seth Godin. Holy heck is it hard! It narrows down who you are, what you do and what change you want to make. A slice of the course.
“My goal is to help people start the day with a smile.”
I want to make people grin in the morning. Make them groan at an awful cheesy punchline or give an “oooh” to a Twilight Zone’esqe plot twist. Help people start the day right. Like that first cup of tea (or coffee) of the day. Where you take a sip and say “good grief, I needed that.”
This Saturday at 9 pm UK time, Amberley (who won’t make lemonade), Alex, Layne and I will be watching the Twilight Zone episode, Cold Fusion. Followed at 9:30 pm UK time, by Theatre of Puppets, read by CreepsMcPasta. We’ll prattle along as always during the showing. If you’d like to join is, poke me on Twitter and I’ll be sure to @ you so you get in on the conversation early.
Properly surprised at how many people have taken the class and that it has a 100% rating. Apparently, this technique is more helpful than I gave it credit for. It’s going to remain free until the 1st of February. Once you have enrolled, it’s free to access for life.
A wee invitation for everyone. As many of you know, Alex, Layne and I watch films over the internet together on Saturdays and twatter about them on Twitter.
Last week, Alex slipped on a turtle and broke his back in 14 places. He is now paralyzed from the toe down. This may be an exaggeration. I don’t think he likes turtles. But we had a break from the norm and watched a Twilight Zone and CreepyPasta on YouTube. Quick, accessible, and we picked up another viewer.
This Saturday at 9 pm UK time, Amberley (who won’t make lemonade), Alex, Layne and I will be watching the Twilight Zone episode, Cold Fusion. Followed at 9:30 pm UK time by Theatre of Puppets, read by CreepsMcPasta. We’ll prattle along as always during the showing. If you’d like to join is, poke me on Twitter and I’ll be sure to @ you so you get in on the conversation early.
We hit play on Twilight Zone at 9 pm UK time, it lasts for 20 minutes. We then have a quick dash to loo break and hit play on the creepypasta at 9:30 pm UK time, which lasts for 15 minutes.
9 pm GMT – UK time
4 pm EST – New York time
3 pm CST – Central time
We time ourselves hitting play using so we can be a bit synchronised. The odds of us all getting hitting play at the exact time are hahahaha no sorry don’t go there lol rofl just no. But we can be close!
https://youtu.be/tkXmxX3Fsg4 “Hello Yuffie,” said Reala down the phone. “It’s Reala. Listen, I have a group of penguins here, and they are driving me mad. How do I get rid of them?”
“Wheeee,” came a cry from across the room.
“Mmhmm,” said Reala. “OK.”
“Whooooooo,” came another cry from across the room.
“What makes it worse is the black, then white, then black, then white,” sighed Reala. “OI! Would you lot stop playing in my revolving door!”
A short, 11-minute class, using free software, to do exactly what it says on the tin. It’s free for the last week of January. Once you enrol in the class it’s free for life. In February it will be switched to premium. Premium access to Skillshare costs as little as $0.99 for the first 3 months and gives you access to thousands of classes on everything from writing characters, social media and watercolour painting.
I am a prolific doodle. I love doodling. On the list of everything, I do in life, doodling ranks quite highly. There’s something about doodling. It helps me relax, focus, create new characters and honestly, I’m a simple man, I don’t own much stuff, so doodling gives me something to do at home other than watch the telly and play on my smartphone.
Now every so often I doodle up a new monster that I want to use in one of my Little Fears projects. It could be an art print a Threadless t-shirt or a Colour Collective portrait on Twitter. So I take my doodles into the free graphics software program, GIMP, and turn them into high resolutions .pngs that I can mix up into whatever project I happen to have that week.
Do you doodle as well? Have you ever drawn a simple image and thought, man, if that were tidied up a bit, I’d love that as a website banner? But do your eyes glaze over when someone mentions raster vs vector? If that sounds like you, this course may be of help.
She poked the fungus with a pen. It seemed to move, on its own. Like it was reacting to the probing. Then the mushrooms reappeared. She sighed, slipping into a long-sleeved shirt to cover the worst of it.
She looked back across the bed at her client, sleeping. Tight bastard. No amount of protection was going to save him from this.
There is still no #Colour_Collective so a wee update on what’s to come over the next few months on the Fears website.
The preamble, I’m still in the process of selling my home with no end date in sight. Post sale, I’ll have 2-3 months of rented accommodation, or I’ll be at the missus family home. Not a suitable working environment and both will have, at best, my phones 3g internet with Scottish hills reception. A lot of my plans are on hold until I get the new house and some control over my creative setting.
Two things I want to release before I move. First, my next Skillshare course. How to turn a doodle into high-resolution digital graphics. No scanners required and the technique uses free software. I’ll offer the class free of charge for one week then set it to premium. A handy course for anyone that doodles that’d like a new social media avatar, blog banner or an interest in Threadless and Society 6. I use this method to make my book covers, art prints and Threadless tees.
Skillshare Premium gets you access to the entire website for as little as $0.99, not just my lessons. It just means I get a few pennies from students.
The second thing I’d love to get released is the next book, Grey Moon. Currently waiting on Amazon for that. Not sure when I’m going to get the first copy of the book, and I need a week or two to check it over a hundred times before release.
You may have also noticed a minor drop in posting frequency. I’m currently spending as much time as I can on building a library of videos on my laptop so I don’t need to do them in the 2-3 months where I will have no privacy. At one per day, I need between 90 and 120 videos to fully cover me for three months. For anyone who has ever done video creation, you know how much time that takes.
Semi-related, after this week’s YouTube announcement, I am not entirely keen on uploading to YouTube long term. I may need to take a leaf out of Miles & Crawford’s book and start uploading to audio/podcast sites like Podbean and Soundcloud. I would have never had a chance of YouTube monetisation myself. My videos are too short to get views counted correctly. It’s not just WordPress that can’t do stats right. But after all the drama of Logan the week before, YouTube responded by stepping on the small YouTuber while raising up the big’uns like Logan. I always felt YouTube represented an idea that anyone could have a go. Everyone can still have a go, but YouTube will make it hard for you unless you make it big. Not an ideology I like.
ComicsExplained has a trending video on why he’s looking at Patreon and other options. I, unfortunately, do not read comics anymore, except for the odd webcomic. Certainly nothing mainstream. But what he says about YouTubes decision reflects how I feel about the situation.
The last thing in this update is my schedule for the next three months and beyond.
Until I have my new house, possibly three months away, I’ll be dropping to one story per day and one blog post per week. I hope to keep roughly on this schedule.
Monday – Capricorn horror story
Tuesday – Grey Moon story
Wednesday – Grey Moon story
Thursday – Grey Moon story
Friday – January story, with new video
Saturday – Little Fears, Big Update
Sunday – Spiders story, with new video
Once I have moved, I can return to the busier schedule with my posts returning to the same level as the last few months. Seven new stories. Three old stories with new videos. One big update. One art/work in progress post. One long-form story. One blog on blogging or creativity. All of that, every week. Soooo many puns and punchlines!
Thank you very much, everyone, for sticking with me. You’re an awesome rabble of groaning, pun-loving and horror laughing oddballs.
“No, an actual book,” replied Mabel. “The chapter describes what’s happening here, just before it happens.”
“Oh?” asked Suzy.
“Yes,” said Mabel. “It says I drink tea, and I drink tea. It says I eat a biscuit, and I eat a biscuit.”
Suzy laughed. “What does it say now?”
Mabel adjusted her reading glasses. “‘Then Mabel bashed Suzy’s skull in with an ashtray.'”
~~~
Sometimes the world just wants something to happen. When I created this video I forgot to justify the text on the title card to centre. On this tale, called Moving Words. Gave me a grin.
The second thing I’d love to get released is the next book, Grey Moon. Currently waiting on Amazon for that. Not sure when I’m going to get the first copy of the book, and I need a week or two to check it over a hundred times before release.
Little Fears 