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Wednesday Weekly Roundup


I hope you checked out the Cattatute bundle… Where else can you find so many cat stories all in one place? Read more about the 10 books in the bundle here, and make sure to click on each cover for a synopsis, reviews and preview of each book! 🙂

If you like podcasts, the D2D/Smashwords merging is on Joanna Penn’s blog, with Mark Coker and Kevin Tumlinson interviewed. I’m going to wait with the English titles until next month, and then we’ll see.

Last week I wrote a little over 10K by the weekend. It was finally the creative weekend, so I managed to finish the pencils of the strip, although now I have to ink and color it. I’m doing a shorter thing first, that should come out this week if everything goes according to plans.

Boy, I had missed spending a day and a half with someone else trying to pursue the same thing! 🙂 I posted videos on TikTok and Instagram, and I used her to have this picture taken of me and my paperbacks so far – the latest, in Italian, should have arrived by now, but not on Sunday when the photo was taken…

So, the pile is almost as tall as me, by the end of the year it should be taller! 🙂 Now, if you want to read on paper, take your pick! 🙂

This week I hope to wrap another project (of shorter works), so next week I can start on a novel – I already have chapter 1, but I still need to figure out the rest. I also need to edit a title in Italian this week, so I might not write much, but we’ll see.

And February is almost over… That’s all for today! Have a great week!

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by Barb on 23/02/2022  •  Permalink
Posted in Art works, indie publishing, real world inspiration, writing projects
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Posted by Barb on 23/02/2022

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2022/02/23/wednesday-weekly-roundup-124/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


My first goal is well underway, since I started the new year with almost 20K words written in one week (I reach that number if I count the weekend of the previous week, when it was already 2022). I doubt I can keep writing 20K a week all year, though, especially since I had two extra days last week!

January 6 is national holiday in Italy, and I was supposed to go back to work on Friday, but on Thursday a colleague let us know he had tested positive to Covid, so we weren’t allowed in the workplace on Friday, yay! I wanted to stay at home, and managed it!

Even if I had guests, it was two very productive days, and I kept going during the weekend despite other things to do (like filling the fridge and the biannual family lunch at my sister’s). I hope this week to wrap that project and read it all in one sitting to make sure I don’t contraddict myself. Still under wraps for another couple of months, though, sorry.

As for the second goal, well, I did my “birthday portrait” on Monday, but still have to get back to the strip. While publishing the latest on Instagram, though, I got the idea for the next comic, so I’m good. Whenever I get to it, that is! 🙂

As for the third goal, nothing to announce yet. I’m working on a paperback and then I hope to order all my author copies in one sitting. It should make for a nice box of books, LOL!

It’s not a new title, but the final final edition of SKYBAND – a Silvery Earth Graphic Novel currently available in PDF instalments only on DriveThruComics (but you can’t see it if the adult filter is on). It’s a full color 300+ pages graphic novel, and I thought I could try the hardback, but I fear it would be too expensive.

So paperback it is. I still have to figure out which color paper won’t make it too expensive to buy, but I’m afraid with paperbacks I don’t have much choice. Dead trees cost more than downloading a file! But they probably last longer and are definitely better suited for artworks.

That’s all for today! Have a great week!

by Barb on 12/01/2022  •  Permalink
Posted in Art works, indie publishing, real world inspiration, writing projects
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Posted by Barb on 12/01/2022

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2022/01/12/wednesday-weekly-roundup-118/

Random Friday


I would like to publicly thank Ilaria for “slapping” me and reminding me of the Happiness is vignettes. I hadn’t done one in too long, too busy complaining and whining and feeling blue. So here are the  latest three, with the new Chibi style.

For the visually impaired:

Happiness is… bouncing back! (after the umpteenth life-roll)

Happiness is… the first professional publication (got 100 likes and 30 comments when I posted the picture on my private profile on Facebook – a record, LOL!)

Happiness is… the excitement of a new project (in this case Silvery Earth Kids, I’m shown drawing with the laptop glaring at me)

After I showed Silvery Earth Kids to another friend who encouraged me, I also bought some strips at the comicon I was attending and became depressed because all those strips were semi-autobiographical, while mine are complete fantasy.

I considered writing Grumpy Old Barb, but really, who would want to read that? There’s still Me and Da Muses, but do I really want to redraw those strips that were still halfway from my latest style (and more like the first Happiness is…)?

Then Ilaria reminded me of the weekly vignette, so here we go. I shall endehavior to find more Happinesses to draw, chibi style. I’m sure Chibi Barb is nicer than Grumpy Barb! 🙂

And of course Silvery Earth Kids will start showing up somewhere at some point… I still have to decide where! 😀 Have a wonderful weekend!

by Barb on 31/05/2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Art works, struggles to get through
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Posted by Barb on 31/05/2019

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2019/05/31/random-friday-360/

Random Friday


So, after drawing Rithvik and Kerrien, I decided to get back to comics. Maybe a new strip, maybe a webcomic. Not sure yet about formats, but definitely for online consumption first.

Researching the topic I see some webcomics are single-panel cartoons, others are three- or four-panels comic strips that ave the same structure as newspaper format. I probably won’t use the “infinite canvas” and will do a mix of single vignettes and strips.

I hate the infinite canvas… I won’t be reading Ren Rou’s next comic When We Fall because it’s an infinite canvas – she says it’s comes out better on phones… pity I don’t read on a phone because guess what? I’m old, and I  can’t see the damn screen very well! I loved her previous comic Stolen and saved the page to print them out and read it offline, but I’ll have to pass on this one.

For comics I’m still very traditional. Yes, I might follow Facebook pages of cartoonist, but I’d rather go to comicons and buy the books, possibly with a little sketch on them! But I understand the need to evolve, so I will give this webcomic thingy a try. Althought there’s the problem of finding a format that can be future-proof.

Da Strip was like the Peanuts, four identical squares that could be put on a square or vertical or horizontal, so that might be a good format for this project too. I still have the four-panels squares that I used for Da Strip, so I may start with that.

In the meantime, here’s some sketches I did while toying with the characters. I have no problems at drawing human-like chibis, but the little dragon was a challenge… so here you have some studies, a sort of cover art and a first sequence… in WiP format. It will need clean-up and colors before going online, but I thought I’d give a sneak peek.

And since #8Sunday was so successful, I’ll keep going with Beautiful – and since I have the drawings, I’ll post the 8-10 sentences referring to that particular vignette… have a wonderful weekend! 🙂 By the way, tomorrow Himalayas goes live… book 4 of the Future Earth Chronicles is here! 😀

by Barb on 01/03/2019  •  Permalink
Posted in Art works, world creation, writing projects
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Posted by Barb on 01/03/2019

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2019/03/01/random-friday-347/

Random Friday


Since I don’t really recommend non-fiction books, especially if they’re not books on writing or publishing, I thought I’d talk about it here. It was part of my research for the vampire novel, since I’ve never been to Mumbai. Bollywood Boy by Justine Hardy was an entertaining experience on her year-long attempts to interview Da Muse the year of his debut. So we’re talking about 2000 and 2001 Bollywood “gossip” that read 18 years later is sometimes funny.

What amused me was that they wanted to pair him with Aishwarya Rai from the beginning – it took them until 2006 to actually get in a movie together and there was even a very famous liplock that, when interviewed at the beginning of 2001, he didn’t seem ready to deliver…

Dhoom 2 – best kiss award 2006 (according to Barb)

He was definitely a shy guy carried away by his own sudden success, with impostor syndrome regarding his dancing skills! He had a long way to go before becoming the Greek God, LOL! Anyhow, it was BEFORE – for me there’s “before Dhoom 2” and “after Dhoom 2” that came after a year hiatus and he’s the best villain that ever was – but I needed to read that book to get a feel of what it was like in the early 2000s in Mumbai.

It was a pleasant read, like reading Mrs Funnybones, but from a European point of view – and since my protag is European and living in India, I did need the different view, right? I might have chuckled slightly less, Twinkle Khanna is probably funnier, but it was entertaining and interesting anyway.

And then on Saturday I did a drawing – call it Da Muse or call it Rajveer the vampire in 2005… After 2 failed attempts I was very happy to finish a drawing! 😉 So this is Rajveer who will soon discover he has a very famous lookalike… in the coming book! 😀

That’s all for today… have a great weekend! (for me it’s a long one, since June 29th is a holiday only in Rome!) 🙂

by Barb on 29/06/2018  •  Permalink
Posted in Art works, reading
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Posted by Barb on 29/06/2018

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2018/06/29/random-friday-312/

Random Friday


Sorry this is short but I’ve had nausea for the past two days and a splitting headache yesterday that didn’t allow for any coherent thought. When you have a weight on the bridge of your nose and wish you could hack away your forehead to stop the pain, it doesn’t really help being creative.

So, I’ll make it Art Friday since it was Da Muse’s birthday last Tuesday (before I started feeling sick, haha!) and I had time to do the first pencil portrait of the year!

hrithik_roshan_by_creativebarbwire-daux9u0I still prefer winter to summer and cold to heat, but sometimes it’s really hard to get out of bed… it both cases, though! (I’m the one who hybernates in summer, so…) Now I’m going back to bed hoping that my brain clears soon because I’m on a deadline…

Oh, and it’s even Friday 13th… brrr! 😉 Have a great weekend! 🙂

by Barb on 13/01/2017  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 13/01/2017

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2017/01/13/random-friday-240/

Random Friday


To continue the Art Fridays related to my characters rendered by myself or other artists, we now have the Tales of the Northern Kingdoms!

So, let’s start with Quests book 1. I thought that story would be much shorter and I had planned to put it on the cover of Tales of the Northern Kingdoms, hence I ordered it before actually writing it. Silvano did the drawing from my B&W sketches and improvised the colors, so he couldn’t know, haha!

Anyhow, here’s Hinrik, Bellinda and Keneith on the cover of Tales of the Northern Kingdoms volume 1,

TNK1ebook_resizeand by Barb on the cover of Quests Book 1.

PathWaterEbookI’m still working on the cover of Quests Book 3, but here you have the protagonist, Sayla, in two attempts.

As for Tales of the Northern Kingdoms volume 2, again Silvano did the prince and the adventurer for me, based on the drawings of the comic I did in the 20th century… and that I sorta kinda recycled for the cover of Prince Splendor! 😉

Splendore and Billinda by Silvano

TNK2ebook_resizeand by Barb.

PrinceSplendorDTFHave a great weekend! 🙂

 

by Barb on 11/11/2016  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 11/11/2016

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2016/11/11/random-friday-232/

Random Friday


Re: the paperback of Male Lovers volume 2 – it had been linked to volume 1. I contacted Author Central and asked them to link it to the right kindle book. Took me some digging on the Amazon links to figure out what happened. That’s why it showed up correctly on Barnes&Noble but not on Amazon. Sigh.

Anyhow, I’ll do a couple of Art Fridays, but not just of my art (that sucks compared to the cover artists I hire, LOL!). More of the various versions of my characters, done by me and by another artist – or three. The first ones were Kilig and Hakeem, for which I did the covers of the single parts, but then hired someone else for the whole novel. And had them drawn also on the aforementioned volume 1. So here follow the various versions of the assassins/lovers of Silvery Earth.

Kilig and Hakeem by Barb

Kilig and Hakeem by Barb

Kilig and Hakeem by Cinzia Di Felice

Kilig and Hakeem by Cinzia Di Felice

Kilig and Hakeem by Sir Wendigo

Kilig and Hakeem by Sir Wendigo

kilighakeem

Kilig and Hakeem by Cristina Fabris

So, there you go! Four different artists’ take on those guys! Cinzia and Cristina added Guisarme and Sabre – you can see Sabre in Hakeem’s rival and here’s Guisarme by yours truly.

guisarme

This is a very tragic story for adults only. If you’d like to check it, here’s the link to the novel Kilig the Sword that gathers it all. In Male Lovers Volume 1 you can have a taste with the story that started it all, Saif’s Legacy…

Have a great weekend! 🙂

 

by Barb on 23/09/2016  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 23/09/2016

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2016/09/23/random-friday-227/

Random Friday


Let’s make it Art Friday!

bob_by_creativebarbwire-dacnrn0

Like I say on DeviantART, this should have been a cover. I did it and brainstormed the story, but then ended up not using it (I have a better painting by someone else) and will probably describe the characters differently anyway. Or maybe I’ll write their story too. Or maybe it was just practice.

It did help brainstorming the next story while coloring it! 😉 But now I’ll have to improvise and the guys in the story probably will not look like this. And it’s another light Star Minds Interregnum story, then I’ll probably write another dark one – again, to alternate, haha!

All these stories are short enough to submit them to traditional markets, so don’t expect any of them before 2017. I might not submit them all, but some definitely! 😉 I still have 3 Quests books and 2 Vampires Through the Centuries stories to publish along with a couple (make it 4) more collections, so I’m covered until December.

Rambling too much, so here’s to the end of Art Friday – refers to that story that made me cry when I wrote it.

crying4blogAnd to end on a colorful note: DeviantART’s birthday celebrated.

deviantart-16-4blog

Last but not least – The horrible hidden truth about self-publishing to keep you thinking until I come back… and get back to writing! 😀 Have a great weekend! 🙂

by Barb on 12/08/2016  •  Permalink
Posted in Art works, real world inspiration, struggles to get through
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Posted by Barb on 12/08/2016

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2016/08/12/random-friday-222/

Random Friday


Aaaand! You can tell my brain is fried from the heat because the previous post came out as Random Friday. Don’t worry, I edited it, so only on Facebook and Goodreads it’s still out as Random Friday because I can’t change what’s been shared on social media! 😉

Anyhow, this is the real Random Friday, since it is now Friday! 🙂 Let me mourn the old Goodreads homepage for a sec. I’m sick of social media changing stuff around that doesn’t need to be changed. I’m NOT downloading the GR app (which I assume is the reason why they changed stuff around AGAIN), and if becomes too bothersome, I’m going to just quit going there.

And then there’s the other new that Facebook is changing stuff around too! I’m sick of trying to keep up with social media for this author stuff. I hope my fans find me here anyway. If you “like” me on Facebook, please follow the instructions in the article, thank you…

I have another week before my week off, so we’ll see how many stories I managed by then. Two out of eight for now. Have a great weekend!

by Barb on 05/08/2016  •  Permalink
Posted in Art works, the Human being
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Posted by Barb on 05/08/2016

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2016/08/05/random-friday-221/

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