Ben-Day Shots – Detective Comics #29

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Detective Comics #29

1939 July, Golden Age
Cover Price: 10 cents

This one starts with a great cover. I wish I had a better version, or could find a nice large version, but it’s awesome. We’ll see what Photoshop magic can do. Unfortunately, Batman is still running around bare-handed. Bruce, you’re supposed to be smarter than that. (and YES, I will harp on that until it changes.) The cover has dropped the hyphen in his name too, which is nice, cuz it was annoying to type ‘the Bat-Man’ over and over again. Bats is sporting more of a wing than cape look, which is nifty, if completely impractical. And our mad scientist looks like he has pointy ears. Hm.

But onto to the content itself.

The Batman meets Doctor Death

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Last of the bookmarks

Here’s the last of the bookmarks. Including color variations, this makes 15 designs, which I think is more than enough. I need to do a test print of all of them, make any needed changes, then buy ribbon and possibly beads for the tops. I’ll make five or ten of each for the show. They’re going to be cheap – probably two dollars each or three for five dollars.

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Commentary for Detective Comics #28 – Ben-Day Shots

Ben-Day Shots

Detective Comics #28

1939 June, Golden Age

Cover Price: 10 cents

Untitled Story (Frenchy & the Jewel Thieves)

Characters: Bruce Wayne / Batman (as ‘the Bat-Man’). First appearance of the Bat-rope (not called that).

CW: for ableist language as a nickname

I hope you’ll forgive me for the quality of the scans. Not my fault.

I love the intro for this.

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2 Drinks – Cocktail of the Night

CN: The drink name is the slur for Romani people. I didn’t know at the time.

This was rather impromptu. I hadn’t had a drink using a recipe in a while and decided to suddenly. (If you want to know, I’ve been drinking something of my own:

Half orange juice
Half cranberry juice
A couple dashes of Angostura bitters or a glug of sweet vermouth – these are VERY scientific proportions
A glug of grenadine or blood orange syrup or both

It won’t get you drunk, but if you’re like me and you forget to eat your fruits and vegetables, it’s a good alternative to whatever you usually drink. It’s sweet and a bit spicy and nice.)

But on to the actual drink. This is one of those simple classic cocktails. According to the book (The Bartender’s Best Friend), it dates from the 30s. Two ingredients, originally no garnish (and I didn’t use one), just a jigger each.

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“Reading is My Favorite Adventure” – Craft show update

Sorry about disappearing. Been busy and not feeling well. I have another cocktail of the night entry just about ready to post, but first I thought y’all be interested in seeing some of the stuff I’ve done for the craft show. Those of you who are Facebook friends have seen the first draft of one of them.

I’ve got three designs done, two of which are in two colors. These are all bookmarks and I’ll be adding ribbons. I’m planning on charging one or two dollars a piece for them. I’ve got 29 other quotes to make bookmarks for – I might do art cards for some of them as well.

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Working Title: Ostanes – Session Ten & Eleven

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I’m doing both, because I skipped over a big section while writing each of these so they’re rather short. I’m afraid, they need a lot of work, although they have a couple of good character moments.

I’d be willing to post Chapter 12, which is better, if I get, let’s say, three or more requests. Otherwise, y’all have to wait until I get the whole thing shaped up.

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Link Dump

I would post another chapter of ‘Ostanes’ except I had a stupid moment (they’re unfortunately not uncommon, but usually small) and left the thumbdrive with it at home. I may post it later today, since I finally have internet at home.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about doing a link dump, and then I saw the first thing and HAD to share it.

  • House with Bird Feet (from Tea with the Squash God). The start of a story from Ursula Vernon. As you may guess from the title, it’s got Baba Yaga. “If you’ve ever wondered how I write a thing (and lord, why would you?) the answer is that I sit down and write something like this one afternoon, and then I shove it into a metaphorical drawer and see if it ever bothers me again.” (This is about how I end up writing as well, except I tend not to write them down until they’ve been bugging me for a while.)
  • 19 Old-Timey Slang Terms to Bolster Your Vocabulary (from MentalFloss). I tend to find the lists there lackluster, but this one has good things like zib and John Hollowlegs.
  • Forest Tutorial (from the ConceptArt.org Forums). Basic, but useful. I imagine it would well for any sort of background as well, like cityscapes. The ‘duh! Why didn’t I think of that?!’ moment for me was ‘start from the back’.
  • Varying Your Body Types (from Fritter and Waste). Has naked female model, so probably NSFW. Personally, I’m good about not having all my women (or men) look the same, but this has some points I hadn’t thought about and it’s really well illustrated.
  • Vum (from Languagehat). Just a fun word from a language blog I like.

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Working Title: Ostanes – Session Nine

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Alright, I’ve decided I’m only going to post up to chapter 11. I knew it was a bad idea to post unedited stories, but I let my excitement carry me away. Creative types will know what I’m talking about (‘I’m doing this thing! It’s so cool! I must tell EVERYONE.’) But Chapter 11 is a good breaking point, and once I’ve edited it I’ll repost chapters 1-11 and then post the rest.

As always, comments are welcome, whether good or bad.

ETA June 2013: Trigger warning for discussion of Ostanes’ killing people (not much) and child abuse.

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Working Title: Ostanes – Session Eight

Nice long chapter, that needs some work (internalization, descriptions – which would clear up the whole ‘talking heads’ thing – better worldbuilding, changing ‘Dochia’ to something not chuckle-worthy – thanks to the person who pointed that out – and some more I can’t think of now. Ostanes’ first name is going to get changed at some point – probably to Michael – and that bit will need smoothing out.

In general, the only editing I’ve done is changing the place names just now, and removing about 2/3rds of the times Ostanes says ‘doc.’ And probably half the times Neill says ‘Ostanes,’ although those didn’t stick out quite so badly (when I’m voice recording I don’t have as clear of a memory of what I’ve said, and I tend to have people address each other by name far more than is necessary. Additionally, I know there’s some stuff I covered in two different chapters, but I think I’ve edited most of that out.)

I’m trying to resist the urge to edit right now – I really need to let it sit for a bit, and work on other things. It’s very tempting though.

Anyway, that’s more than enough rambling from me, now for banter and stuff.

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Working Title: Ostanes – Session Six & Seven

I decided I really didn’t like the old working title, so we’re back to basics. I realized I forgot to update Wednesday, so you get two chapters. The first one is short and will get expanded on rewrite. The second one is nice and long and I’m pretty happy with it, although I need to add descriptions and more of Neill’s thoughts. (I also still need to decide what to do about Ostanes’ accent, which shows up a lot more in these chapters)

I’ve been reading through The Other Side of the Story, which seems to be a pretty good writing blog. I’m bookmarking posts on things I need to work on. Mostly I need to stop thinking about this story right now and work on other things…

ETA June 2013: Trigger warnings for discussions of violence/death, corrupt doctors.

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Working Title: All Face – Session Five

This chapter is a little short, as are the next two. They’ll get expanded on rewrite. I have to decide what to do with Ostanes’ accent – I haven’t added it to all of his dialogue. I may do italics instead of the doubled letters or I may just drop it (I have a sneaking suspicion an editor would say ‘drop it, add a narrative note if you must’).

ETA June 2013: Content notice for mention of parental death.

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Novel news, general plan of the year

The first draft of the novel is finished. Yay! I still have to type up the last couple of chapters and I’ve made some notes of things to fix during rewrite. (I also still need to come up with a title or at least a better working title.) But that won’t be until the end of this year or beginning of next for a couple of reasons.

1) I haven’t ever heard of people recommending editing immediately. It’s good to let it sit for a while so you’re not so close to it (I tend to do some editing while I write anyway). It’s not uncommon to hear of writers letting them sit for a year or more.

2) I have a craft show coming up in October that I need to make a ton of stuff for.

So my plan for the rest of the year is this:

August, September, October: make bookmarks and art / postcards for the Solvang Faeriefest.  I’m really only hoping to make 50 or 100 dollars profit, but since I’m going to be selling everything for less than five bucks, hopefully it’ll be more. But the idea is more to get me crafting and doing artistic stuff again, that isn’t related to other projects (and thus I can show here).

November: Nanowrimo. I’m going to try to finish my other novel and 3 – 8 scripts of the White Knight. Should be totally doable, considering I just wrote a novel in less than 20 days while doing RenFaire and working full-time. November has lots of holidays.

December: possibly edit, probably try to work on the house again. I have a lot of projects I’ve put off and I’ll have more time off.

Anyway, thanks for everybody’s support on the novel. I haven’t decided if I’ll post the whole rough draft here or not. I may just do the first part, but then y’all miss my favorite characters…

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