Because I've started getting these sorts of questions, I thought I would put up what I know about self-publishing on this blog so at least I have something to refer people to if I ever get approached again on the subject. I may do something similar on writing and editing someday. Maybe.

Of course, I don't claim to be an expert on these sorts of things. If you're really interested in self-publishing and finding out more about the nitty gritty of producing e-books or building your brand or marketing your first novel, there are stacks and stacks of writing blogs out there that would probably answer your questions a lot better than I could. (Here, Google is your friend.) This post is just what I learned from the processing of creating and producing Kinds of Blue. I've talked a little about the process before. But I don't think I've ever explored it in more depth. So that's what I want to do here.

(A little later …) Hmm, it turns out I cannot do this in one post without it becoming an epic, so let's split this over several posts. Here's part 1:

Anyway, because it's a shame to put so much work into something and only use the material once, because people have been asking me about it, and also because the thing I love about speaking is not so much the speaking but the writing of the thing I'm speaking, I thought I would put the content of my talk online (but without the slideshow; I did think about using SlideShare, but then decided against it as audio takes longer to get through than text. Also, I'd have to edit the audio file as I recorded everything and I'd have to review what I said, but it's easier to edit text than audio [well, for me, anyway]). I'm going to edit it a bit to remove some of the things that irk me about written speech (e.g. overuse of sentences beginning with “And”; techniques that work well in speech that don't work so well in text, and so on). But I'm not going to convert it into a full blown article because at the moment it's not worth my time; I want to get back to the graphic novel as soon as possible.

Things have been a bit up and down lately. I don't want to go into details, but I don't want to gloss over it either. Ahem.

The main purpose of this post is to flag two things. Firstly, I was interviewed about Kinds of Blue for Kapow!, the comic book review show last week. Episode seven, which contains the interview, went live this morning (25:22 min). The episode focuses on women working in comics, and the interview they did with me occurs at around the 5:54-minute mark. Or you can watch it below (it goes for 3:43 min):

But this afternoon, I am trying to rest. Then this evening, I've got BFF support group. So I thought I'd write a little post about that because it's a useful little idea that others might find helpful. It came from reading Archibald Hart's Unmasking Male Depression, which was given to us years ago by a friend around the time when Ben's depression first started becoming more problematic.

So this week, Bec and I are heading to Supanova Melbourne to promote and sell Kinds of Blue, our anthology of short comics about depression. We've got a table in Artists Alley (Table Y, I believe!) If you're going to be there, please stop by and say hi!

I'm two weeks into the new regime I outlined in my last post, and the sadness has dissipated somewhat as I've worked through my grief. So far, I think the new regime is working well. Certainly last week rather productive: I spent the Tuesday afternoon brainstorming my talk for Moore Women (by the way, I'm speaking at Moore Women on the 10 May, if you are interested in coming along. It's on the internet, children and parenting), as well as brainstorming and writing down all my ideas for Bridget James's Diary, and then on the Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, I worked on my graphic novel (among other things) and actually completed six pages of script. (I've been using Scrivener and Anthony Johnson's comics template.) The graphic novel has been slow going—mostly because I'm still at the beginning of it and everything has to be described and set up (I've only completed nine pages of script so far). So maybe it will pick up the more I work on it. I've never done this before (and so have no idea what is a “normal” pace of writing), and this whole way of working/writing is rather alien to me. Unlike the ebb and flow of words that spring from the brain, down my arms and through my fingers typing on the keyboard, writing comics is a little more stop start because you have to take the time to think visually and make decisions about how things will be laid out on the page, what sort of perspective and composition each panel will have, and (obviously) make decisions on things like the way each character looks (and why), the way they dress (and why), their environment, and so on. Of course, you have to do that in other forms of writing too (short stories, novels, etc.), but it seems to me that in writing for comics, you have to be way more specific because you're trying to communicate something that's in your head to someone else so that they can draw it. So it matters a bit more than allowing there to be a bit of ambiguity in the minds of your readers. I do like to leave room for the artist to bring their own interpretation of the character to the work, but in this case, there are certain details about the characters that have to be specific because they're relevant to the plot.

So today I want to write something about The Divided Heart: Art and Motherhood (Red Dog, Fitzroy, 2008) by Rachel Power. I think of all the books I've read on parenting and motherhood, this one has to be the most useful of them all. I suppose that's partly because of who I am and my natural tendencies (so please don't expect to read it and feel the same way). But I think there are some characteristics of The Divided Heart that make it helpful for everyone.

So here goes. Again, apologies for the unstructured and rambly mind dump; I'm writing fast (thinking of Joanna Murray-Smith—I'll explain further down). And also I'll probably be repeating myself from earlier posts a fair bit, so feel free to skip those bits.

At the same time, however, I'm a lot more time-poor—or rather, I prioritise my non-Astrid time so that I'm focusing on writing (of which blogging is a part but not the whole) and resting (so that I'm more energised for the time I do spend with Astrid). This means that any time I spend blogging is backed by a conscious choice to work on this rather than something else. (It's the tyranny of life: it forces you to choose because you are limited. I wonder if in heaven we will truly be limitless and thus able to pursue all the roads we fancy in the duration of our eternal life.)

Today I choose not to work on the Writing Projét Dujour, but instead review a couple of books that I've found helpful—for parenting, yes, but also for marriage, art, creativity and writing. I'm reviewing them fast (I'm just trying to capture my initial thoughts about them instead of crafting a “proper” review the way I would for some sort of publication), so I'm probably going to miss a lot. But hopefully you will get the gist of why I think they're helpful. Anyways, here goes.

I also didn't keep as many notes as I did on what was going on. (That's not to say that there wasn't stuff going on. Buh: double negative.) Anyways, here goes (and apologies as always for the scatty nature of this post; I started writing it two months ago and am only updating it now):

I am hopeless at self-promotion! But since other people are starting to visit this blog, I should flag that I am appearing at Pozible's Let's Talk Crowdfunding event this Thursday, 16 February, along with other successful crowdfunders like Sam Buckingham and Kate Toon (who I will be meeting on the night!) I'll be talking about Kinds of Blue and its journey to publication. So if you are interested in the business of crowdfunding (which is, for the uninitiated, when you get a whole bunch of people together to contribute financially towards a specific cause), please come along (it's free!), but don't forget to RSVP! (RSVP using the above link, not to me.)

To give you a bit of context, our team ran a kids holiday program at one of the local schools. (This makes the term “beach mission” misleading since we were in schools the whole time and never made it to the beach.) I was part of the section responsible for looking after the adults—that is, any of the parents who decided to stick around for a coffee while their child was in the program. The first 45 minutes would just be for chatting and getting to know one another. Then at around 10:15 am, one of the members of our section would give a five-minute summary about what the kids were learning in the program that day (i.e. Monday = creation; Tuesday = sin; Wednesday = Jesus; Thursday = resurrection; Friday = heaven). After that, one of the members of our team would give a short (usually 10-minute) talk. I did two—one on parenting and rest, and the other on parenting and marriage. The parenting and marriage one won't be put online, but here's the parenting and rest one:

I realised something the other day about why I have issues with cooking and why I think I suck at it: it's because I don't understand the principles behind each recipe. (People think I'm a foodie because I take so many pictures of food, and therefore assume that I can cook and cook well. Not so: I love eating food; I hate cooking, and if I had enough money, I would totally hire a personal chef.)