Editing, Layout, and Artwork. Oh my!

Well, I know it's been a while since I've posted here. It's because I've been in this seemingly endless process of going over editing changes, laying out the book, and working with freelance artists. But I'll tell you all how things are going:

Editing

I have a freelance editor working on the book. It's none other than Ann Dupuis of Grey Ghost Games. She has done her first pass on 14 out of 15 chapters. I'm working to keep up with her accepting and rejecting her changes and doing any rework that she recommends that I feel needs to be done. I've finished through Chapter 10 of that process, so I'm doing well with it. Once Ann finishes with the last chapter, she will go back and do the final pass of all chapters that I've reviewed and sent back to her. That pass should not take long.

Layout

Early on I found myself in an awkward position. I used Quark XPress to layout both Now Playing and Ghosts of the Lady Grace. I liked the product, although it was pretty buggy. However, my new laptop runs Windows Vista, and Quark 6.5 (which is what I have) won't run at all on it. Luckily, I also have the Adobe Creative Suite, which includes InDesign (a direct competitor of Quark). It runs in Vista with no problems. So, I decided to bite the bullet and do the learning curve of switching to InDesign for Strange World. I love it! It's a much more powerful package and the transition was pretty smooth. However that all did slow me down at first.

I'm cranking along well now, though. I've laid out the first nine chapters already. I've been jumping back and forth between reviewing edits and making the changes, and doing layout. Basically, I've been laying out only the chapters that Ann has given me a first pass of. I probably won't need to make structural changes from pass 2, so working those changes into the layout should be pretty trivial. The hardest part is the artwork. I don't have all the art that I need, so I just have to decide what illustrations I need and then layout a picture box on the page with nothing in it until I can get the finished work from the artist. So, right now, I've got nine chapters laid out, some with art and some with white empty boxes where pictures will eventually sit.

Artwork

I've got three artists to work on the book. You may recognize Alex McVey from Ghosts of the Lady Grace. He does some pretty great creepy work. I also have Don Higgans, a local artist who does some great work. He is great with just about anything, but I picked him because he draws people with personality. I mean, I swear I would recognize them if I saw them on the street! Finally, there is Kathy Capach. She's an artist/gamer that I met at a gaming convention. She is not only a great artist, but she is a paleontology buff. She did some doodles of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures for me that were almost as good as a final product! And each "doodle" only took her about 10 minutes to do! So, you'll see a lot of her work on the Cryptozoology chapter. I haven't gotten her working on anything yet, but that's going to happen really soon.

Well, there you are. A lot has been going on here at Carnivore Games, and Strange World is moving along nicely. I'll try to post a lot more regularly from now on.

Take care,

Brad