Tag Archive: #publish


A Time For Reflection and Plotting the Year Ahead

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January 3, 2021


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

Amazon Link: Forever’s Too Long (Audible)I also created my 2nd and 3rd book trailers (both for Helen’s “Forever Detective Series”),

Link: Forever Haunted TrailerLink: Forever In Deep TrailerI 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. My goals are to network and entertain, as well as help promote our books and projects. If you’d like to follow me over there, here’s my link:

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

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.

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2019 In Review and What’s Coming In 2020

Filed under: About Writing, Coming Soon, Uncategorized — 2 Comments
January 3, 2020

New Year’s is a time for reflection and looking ahead… or so I’ve been told. My first thought was “I didn’t really get that much done this year. I don’t have much to say or show for it.” Then at the urging of Helen I pulled out a pen and paper and started making a list. The results surprised me.

                   

I created not one but three book covers. This is the most art I’ve done in one year in I don’t know how long. Two of them were of course for Helen’s new The Forever Detective Series. The other was a new cover for “The Vampyre Blogs – Coming Home” which we re-released as the first Young Adult (YA) installment of our Para-Earth Series.

Speaking of Helen’s new series, we created not one but two book trailers, one for each book.

 

 

This was the first time I’d ever made a book trailer and it was a blast. Helen wrote a short script for each and also found a bunch of images she wanted used in them. I not only supplied the expertise in turning it all into a video, but also the voice-over.

Now all this voice-over work, as brief as it was, led to yet another new project. At the urging of many others, I started looking into creating audiobooks. I spent a couple of months researching equipment and software and how to use it all. Eventually, I finally started recording a couple of our short stories from our anthology “The Vampyre Blogs – One Day At a Time” and got some seriously positive feedback, as well as some solid tips.

Here’s one of them:

I’ve recorded several more in the meantime, with the hopes of eventually having the entire anthology recorded in the coming months.

This leads me back to my efforts to get into creating full-scale audiobooks. In spite of all my research and blogging about all the technical aspects of creating an audiobook (there are seven entries in this blog already with a few more to come) I still wasn’t sure I was ready to fully go for it. Then in early November I went to a class about voice-over work and got the reassurance I needed from a pro. As she told me in an e-mail “You’ve got the chords for this…”

With this in mind I’ve been fully throwing myself into completing the audio recordings of Helen’s first solo book “Forever’s Too Long”. To date 20 of the 22 chapters are recorded and edited. I have re-record two more and get them edited. Once their done and meet with her approval (I had recorded them earlier but neither of us were happy with the results hence the do-over) we will be submitting the entire set to Audible. We’re hoping this will happen no later than the end of this month (January 2020). From there I intend to continue recording more stories from the anthology as well as begin turning her second book “Forever Haunted” into an audio, as well as “The Vampyre Blogs – Coming Home” in which Helen will be lending her vocal talents to bringing those characters more to life.

Some of you may be wondering why I haven’t started turning “The Bridge” or “The Ship” into audiobooks, instead of jumping to “The Vampyre Blogs – Coming Home” and “TVB – One Day At a Time”. The answer is simple, length. Both “The Bridge” and “The Ship” are much longer than any of the other books I’m tackling and will take a great deal more time to record. Plus, I still have to come up with voices for all the various characters in those two books. So until I’ve nailed down voices for everyone, those are on the slow track for now, but they will be happening.

But getting back to 2019, with all this artwork and recording, did I get ANY writing done? The answer is of course I did. Some of it was on the long-awaited sequel to “The Bridge” and “The Ship”.

“The Door” is fully under way, and will hopefully finally see the light of day by the end of this year if not sooner. As this book is a major turning point in the Para-Earth Series, I really want to get this book completed as much as people want to read it. However, some of it’s progress will depend on another writing project with my other collaborator Rich Caminiti.

“The Pass” has been one of the most ambitious projects I’ve worked on to date. It is also the only book I’ve worked on as a long-distance collaboration, which has involved trading off chapters and as well many, MANY Skype sessions. But Rich and I are closing in on a finished 1st draft and then the process of creating a 2nd cleaner draft will begin in another month or so. So I will have much to do on that front. After the 2nd draft, it will be sent to beta-readers and an editor for further clean-up. Our hopes is to have the book out by the end of the year, but we will see what happens. We refuse to rush the book without getting it as clean and exciting as possible. And on a side note, the 2nd installment of that tale is also under way as I write. So more on that will be coming in future blog posts.

Also on the writing front I completed 3 brand new short stories for our other site “The Vampyre Blogs – Private Edition”. Two of those tales were rather lengthy and took several months apiece to complete. Yet in spite of their length, they are still considered short stories and not novelettes or novellas.

So that covers most of 2019.

What’s in store for 2020?

Well, I’ve already covered the fact that I’m close to releasing a complete audiobook, which I hope to follow with at least 2 more before year’s end. As I mentioned earlier, one will be “The Vampyre Blogs – One Day At a Time” anthology, the other will be Helen’s 2nd book “Forever Haunted”. I’ve got voices prepared for both titles and depending on how things go I may get “The Vampyre Blogs – Coming Home” under way as well.

When it comes to my own writing getting “The Pass” into a finished 2nd draft and sent to beta-readers and an editor are the top demands. Rich and I would like to see it reach readers by the end of the year, but I know from experience that there’s still so much to do before that can happen. But we will see.

I’m already planning several new short stories for “The Vampyre Blogs – Private Edition” as well as beginning preparations to put together and 2nd anthology with several never before seen stories included.

“The Door” of course is another priority for me. I’d really like to see that finished and prepped for release this year. With luck, and patience, I hope to make that actually happen.

And of course, I’ll be making new book trailers as well as helping format Helen’s next two books in her Forever Detective series.

So that’s what’s been and what is coming. There’s a lot on our plates, but we’ll keep bringing you new posts regarding all these projects and more so stay tuned. Please accept this late wish for a HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all and as always keep writing.

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