Dated References Are the Best Kind of References

Internet, I'm going to let you finish, but Claudia at phatpuppyart just made me the best book cover of all time.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled interneting.

In Which I Resize

I ran into a problem a little while ago. I was reading the ever useful Self Printed when a line stopped me dead in my eye tracks. The ideal size for a book cover is 1563x2500 pixels.1 Okay, I paraphrased because I didn't feel like looking up the actual quote (that's a lot of book to go through, okay?)

Anyway, my brain spun into shock. Because the ideal size was 600x800 pixels. That's the size I make all my book covers to, because it's the size I was told was best when I first started making book covers years ago.2

But then this thing happened. Where screen resolutions got better so now picture resolutions need to be better. I'm a bit miffed about it. It means I'll need to resize the Junk Squad cover and my stock images now cost me twice as much to get them big enough to look good. Grr.

Admittedly, I'm also a bit miffed at myself for not noticing. I mean, I really should have been paying more attention. This is the problem with having learned all my designing/coding nonsense in the ice age.3

So now I'm resizing. The Junk Squad cover resized okay, I guess the images are high enough quality to handle it. I suppose this has been a good learning experience for me. This must be what people who've been doing things for longer than five minutes feel like. Confused and slightly annoyed because the things you spent time learning are no longer relevant.

When it comes down to it, though, if I hadn't put in all that now irrelevant time, I wouldn't have learned anything and my covers would be even worse than they already are. Just like how all that time I spent writing atrocious things wasn't really wasted, because I needed to write those things before I could write half way decent things. Like how I'm writing all these confused, topic-less blog posts in the hope that someday I'll be good enough to write something readable and full of wisdom punches.

Yay, wisdom! Wait, this counts as wisdom, right? Maybe it's just a case of getting a first hand slap from something I vaguely knew but never really bothered about.



Footnotes! Yeah, I'm all fancy now.

1. quick lesson: for anyone who doesn't know what a pixel is, it's like a measurement of size and it determines the resolution and everything. If you look up the resolution of the screen you're currently reading this on it's probably measured in pixels. Unless you're reading from the future where pixels have been replaced by something fancier. In which case, hi! *waves* Maybe this lesson wasn't so quick after all. 

2. not, like, real book covers but ones I put up on my nano page and mostly just made for fun (I have weird hobbies, okay?)

3. the ice age in the world of computers being three years ago

In Which I am a Fraud

I haven’t been writing much lately. I could make excuses about holidays and what not, but the truth is I just haven’t gotten around to it. Now the year is ending, and I haven’t even begun to plan for Milwordy yet. Plus I’m launching a book in February because I told myself I would and I can’t back out of so solemn a promise. I mean, the thing is mostly written, but still.

I haven’t felt much like a writer lately, even as I’ve been prepping to launch my writing career. That’s the funny thing about being a writer. I only call myself a writer when I’m writing. It doesn’t matter if I wrote something a couple weeks ago or have been working out plot points in my head. It doesn’t matter that I have writing up for everyone to see. If I’m not actively writing then I’m not a writer.

Of course, that definition is just silly. I don’t un-become a pharmacy technician on the weekends because I’m not actively working. Then again, that job pays me with this thing called ‘money’ while I put time into writing on the vague hope that I might someday eventually be paid for it.

Maybe the problem is the simple insecurity of knowing I’ll never know if I’m any good at this writing thing anyway. There isn’t a right or wrong way to go about writing, and while that’s in many ways freeing, it’s also a breeding ground for insecurity. Because I can’t compare what I’m doing to a set of rules and call it right, there’s no way to dismiss the fear that I’m doing something wrong.

I’m not sure what the solution to any of this is. If I had an easy answer, I wouldn’t be struggling with it. Do I simply accept that I will always feel like a little bit of a fraud? That sounds depressing. Do I sit under a waterfall until I discover the Zen secret to being satisfied with myself as I am? Except I’m not entirely sure I should do that, because I want to keep striving to get better. The last thing I want is to decide my writing is ‘good enough’ and stagnate in contentment. Maybe what I need is some sort of in-between point of contentment and striving, but I’ve never been any good at that whole balance and moderation thing.

Maybe I’ll just shrug it off and eat a sandwich.