A Time For Reflection and Plotting the Year Ahead

By -


Happy New Year everyone! Yes, I know it was a couple of days ago, but I'm still wishing you all the best for this new year. 

Like most people, I'm taking a look back at 2020 and what I managed to accomplish in spite of all the chaos we've experienced with this Pandemic. Helen and I have been extremely cautious to avoid getting it since both of us have conditions which would likely land us in the hospital if we were to catch Covid - 19. And here in California where we are, the ICU's are currently filled and overflowing. 

Mind you, I've been working full-time for the county in spite of the situation. So I haven't had extra time to work on personal projects as much as one might expect. Still, I did manage to get a number of projects completed in 2020. 

For starts, I managed to get my first audiobook narration out on Audible




I also created my 2nd and 3rd book trailers (both for Helen's "Forever Detective Series"),




I painted the cover for her book "Forever In Deep"


Amazon Link: Forever In Deep

On another front, my high school friend Richard Caminiti and I completed the first draft of our long-distance collaborative novel, "The Pass. This dark fantasy piece, that takes place during the Civil War will hopefully be available for sale later this year in either late September, or early October.


I also managed to finish recording Helen's second solo novel "Forever Haunted".


 I am currently completing final edits of the recordings, and will be submitting them to Audacity for review. Once approved, it will be available on Audible, so stay tuned.

Finally, I got myself an account on Instagram. If you'd like to follow me over there, here's my link:

https://www.instagram.com/allankrummenacker/

My goals are to network and entertain, as well as help promote our books and projects.

So what are my plans for 2021?

Well, for starters, finishing the final edits and getting the audio files for "Forever Haunted" submitted to ACX for approval of course. I've re-edited nine of the 18 chapters, as well as the opening and closing credits.

Once I've got those out of the way, I'll start recording "Forever In Deep".

I would also like to complete the 2nd draft of "The Pass" no later than February 28th, so we can get it sent out to the beta-readers Rich has already lined up. After we hear back from everyone, then we can get the final draft set up as well as add the pen and ink art that our wonderful Illustrator Gabrielle Callan has been putting together for the book.




As the year progresses, I'd also like to finish recording the remaining chapters of  my "A Christmas Carol" project for release on YouTube in December. I still have to edit the current files, as well as add more soundtrack layers for sound effects and other touches, as well as locate more public domain, and non-copyrighted images for the video.

I of course wish to have completed 1st drafts of "The Door" (the direct sequel to "The Bridge") as well as "The Vampyre Blogs - Family Ties" (which is a direct sequel to "The Vampyre Blogs - Coming Home).

There will also be book cover art that will require my attention for Helen's 4th solo novel "Forever Festive", "The Door",  and "The Vampyre Blogs - Family Ties"

Helen and I are also considering trying our hands at some podcasting, focusing mostly on writing, recording audios at home, and other creative endeavors.

I have dozens of other ideas, but I'm trying to keep things within the realm of actually getting done this year, without killing myself. I'm still working full-time at the county. Currently I'm alternating one week in the office with the public (which is nerve-wracking because of the pandemic) and then one week home telecommuting. So, trying to keep a balance of what's doable as opposed to moaning about what I can't get to, is really tricky at times.

And of course, I will be posting more here about my audio adventures, including more bloopers, as well as sharing thoughts on writing.

There's a lot on the agenda as you can see, so we hope you'll stick with us. And as always, keeping writing everyone.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SPECIAL COVER REVEAL!!!

By -
Image
 It's been several years since I released any books myself, as I've been mostly focused on voiceover work and recording the first 4 books of Helen's "Forever Detective" series (I'm currently recording the voiceover for her most recent novel "Forever Chosen" and her anthology "W. I. T. C. H. Hunters Forever"). However, this does not mean I have not been writing during that period of time. In fact I've been doing quite a bit of writing, along with editing and formatting all of Helen's books, along with my other collaboration with my old high school friend Rich Caminiti. And at long last, Rich and I are ready to present the cover of the first installment of a brand-new series of novels. And here it is... This beautiful cover was created by the very talented Gabrielle (Gabby) Callan, who in addition to being a fabulous artist, has recently added talented tattoo artist to her list of artistic talents. But in addition to creating this gor
Read more

Stealth Writer's Block

By -
Well, we're mostly settled into our new place in the Monterey Bay area, so the dust is slowly settling from all of that.  Still unpacking and organizing where we want things to go and how, but that's just normal after a move. But sometimes figuring out how to organize your story and where you want certain events or revelations to go can also be pretty tricky.  It can even lead to problems I'd never thought about, like Writer's Block.  Or, as it was with me recently,  STEALTH WRITER'S BLOCK! Now what I mean by that is a kind of Writer's Block you aren't even aware of.  To give you an example, this is what happened to me.  I had finished a particular scene in my current novel and had moved way beyond it with the rest of the story.   But for some odd reason, I kept finding myself going back to that scene and wondering about it.  It would happen every so often then I'd get back to where I actually left off writing.  But soon enough I was back to that sce
Read more

The Importance of Editing....

By -
The last 7 days have kept me busy.  I mean REALLY busy.  And the sad thing about it all is that some of this could have been avoided....up to a point.  Now I'm talking about re-editing my first novel AFTER it had already come out.  Why would I do that?  Because in spite of the combined efforts of myself and 2-3 other people checking the novel over for grammatical errors, a number of them got past all of us.  From day one, I was determined to try and put out as good a product as I possibly could.  And when I found out I'd failed, I felt obligated to go back and fix things. Now, I'm sure a number of you are wondering to yourselves, "Is he saying he never got it professionally edited?"  The answer is, "I did not."  Now, this is not because I was so arrogant in my own writing abilities, nor was it because I was being cheap and didn't want to put the money out.  The truth is... my wife and I have applied for Food Stamps and have been getting aid from my
Read more