Random weirdness, etc.

Random weirdness - I typed the URL for my blog into the URL box and it redirected me TWICE to a Warner Brothers page!  Then when I tried it again, I got a dropdown list showing my blog's address and my blog's address with a redirect to the Warner Bros. "landing page"!  What's up with that?!

More random weirdness - Today's one of those days when spam shows up in my Yahoo inbox sprinkled randomly throughout all the e's there, yet they don't always drive up the "unread mail" count.  Why is that, and why are there some days, just every so often, when all these spams just dump themselves into my inbox rather than the spam box?

Etc. - I've been getting emails from readers of "Star Sons" wanting to know when the second book will be out.  Well . . . I've been stuck in rewrite-land, but the biggest problem is that I still have not come up with a decent title for it!  But I'm slugging away at it and hope to have it published by late winter/early spring.

Meanwhile, the HP story is coming along nicely, but once I get to a place where I've caught up with the ideas I had for the first part of that novel, I'm gonna concentrate on Star Sons 2.  SS2 began as a Nanowrimo novel ("National Novel Writing Month," which is November each year - writers who take the challenge try to write 50,000 words of a novel during November.  I got 90,000 words of SS2 done during Nanowrimo - it's now over 120,000 words, IIRC).  Finishing the revisions in November would be poetic or something.  :D

Off to do my writing for the day . . .

Writing vs. Rewriting

My HP story was off to a really good start - great opening, good scenes, good plot, everything moving along well when I realized I needed to explain some stuff.  Enter the flashback, which I hoped would be brief!  Unfortunately, I needed to share more detail in that flashback than was reasonable, and the flashback became unwieldy.  I finally had to stop working on the story.  I couldn't get it to move forward the way I wanted it to.  I liked it less and less, although I still loved the beginning of it.  If not for that beginning, I would've started over days ago!  I had even gone to the extent of writing out notes on the plot on note cards, something I've never found necessary or useful other than to keep track of character names and who died when, that kind of thing, but even that didn't help. 

Finally, I had to admit there was nothing to do but start over. So yesterday, I didn't even open the old file so my mind wouldn't be distracted by that truly lovely opening!  It took a bit of doing to get started, but once I got the story going, it rolled along quite nicely!  I wrote ten pages (and that's single-spaced!) yesterday!  I usually write much faster than that, but I've been truly stymied for a while.  I just couldn't bear to give up the lovely opening I'd written for the other one.  I will see if I can use it in this version, but if I can't, that's okay.  I'll keep the old version to look at from time to time and perhaps I'll find a way to use those opening paragraphs someplace else someday.  I sure hope so - they just SANG!!  But they were singing the wrong song for this fic!

When I get to the point of needing to stop writing today, I hope to have enough energy left to get back to polishing my novel, which I really need to finish.  I got frustrated with it and put it aside so I wouldn't ruin it by working on it while I was annoyed with it.  Sometimes that's the best thing to do for both writing and art.  If you're annoyed by what you're working on, that isn't the time to be working on it, IMO.

I got the mane finished on "Feather" today.  I need to rename him - "Feather" is his name as a Pegasus.  As a stallion, he should have some other name, but I don't know what.  Something else to ponder . . .  Anyway, I just have to finish detailing his tail and clean him up and I can ship him to the foundry, YAY!  I'm eager to see him in bronze.  I think he's going to be a really nice piece!

Happy Labor Day, y'all!  As a British friend commented today when he wished me a happy "Labour Day," it really is an oxymoron, since most folks spend the day doing anything but labor!  As for me, I'm plugging away at my usual work, sculpting and writing, while my husband finishes tearing down an old shed that's needed to be taken down for years.  He's nearly done with it.  The yard already looks much nicer with that eyesore gone!

Whether you "labor" or play or sleep all day, have a happy day!

Poor neglected blog

I'm a bad, bad blogger!  I've been so busy with my new horse (Ricos, who I got at the end of October - he's the one I'm riding in my new picture here) and learning to ride dressage that EVERYTHING else has been neglected!  Now I'm back to sculpting and writing and blogging as well!  And I'm still riding! 

My second novel is languishing in the land of neglect for the moment.  Other inspiration has hit me and I'm pursuing that for the moment.  The other inspiration is another original story (novel?  Perhaps) and a new HP story I'm writing to keep my fans happy and to help publicize the second novel when it's published. I'm venturing in a new directions with the HP story, which will be a good way for me to polish different ways of doing things before I get very far on the new original story.

I've nearly finished my Andalusian stallion sculpture, which will be offered as both a stallion and as a Pegasus.  I'll get one of the bronzes sent to me with no patina and will create wings that will fit him precisely, then mark on the bronze where they go.  After that, the foundry will know how to mount them the way I want.  I've tried every way I can think of to create an armature for a winged horse that would stand the vibration of shipping (I'm in Ohio, my foundry's in Oregon), but every one I came up with just wasn't stable enough.  Doing the wings separately seems to be the better idea.  You can see pics of him in progress on this page: http://www.thesculptedhorse.com/feather.html

My sculpting book, "Sculpting 101:  A Primer for the Self-taught Artist" Second Edition, ISBN# 978-0-9723805-3-9, is now published.  You can order it directly from me or from Amazon or other book sites, and from brick-and-mortar bookstores as well for $19.95 plus s/h. has been completely updated and has new chapters covering how to pack a raw sculpture for shipping, how to safely ship bronzes to customers and how to build a carriage.

I'm now on Facebook and Twitter, if you'd like to follow me there.  Just look for "Lynda Sappington."  That's me!

Book publicity

Wow, I've been busy, not that you could tell from my blog posts (maybe the lack thereof was a clue!). I've been busy getting business cards and bookmarks made to publicize "Star Sons" as well as working on other things for promotional purposes. Add to that the complete revision of my book, "Sculpting 101: A Primer for the Self-taught Artist" as well as two sculpture commissions I'm racing to finish, and I'm pretty much busy every minute I'm awake! But it's better than being bored! At least the Hollywood writers picked a good time to go on strike (and I'm glad the strike's over!) - I got a lot done all those evenings when I would've normally been watching TV!

I was interviewed about both "Star Sons" and my sculptures in January by Bill Schmidt of the Dayton Daily News. He did a very nice article on me that you can read here: http://tinyurl.com/2agdu4.

Helen Ginger, who writes and publishes the "DoingItWrite" newsletter and "StraightfromHel" blog (http://straightfromhel.blogspot.com/) has done an interview with me about "Star Sons" that will appear on her blog on March 13 and in her Doing it Write newsletter the same day. I'll post a reminder of the interview's appearance closer to its release date. Many thanks to Helen for giving me this opportunity to promote "Star Sons"!

My book's on Amazon!!

(sung to the tune, "Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay")

My book's on Amazon! (repeat 3 times then start over LOL!)

"Star Sons" is now available for pre-publication order on Amazon.com. It should be on Amazon.co.uk and BN.com soon as well. I've gotten word from several of my friends and readers that they've already ordered it, yay!

The ordering page is here: http://tinyurl.com/3655g8

I'm supposed to get a case of books today, one of which will go to the Copyright Office, another will go to Amazon for their "search inside" program, and the others are for reviewers and marketing the book to local bookstores (and selling to folks face to face, of course). I'm so excited!

YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, and my note in my previous post about the missing serviceman - he's been found! He isn't home yet, but he's safe. Thanks to those of you who prayed for him!

It's a lot more work than it looks like . . .

Getting a book published, that is. Yikes! I've gone through my novel close to thirty times now (I lost track a LONG time ago - it may be a lot more than that!), editing, polishing, proofreading, editing and polishing again, proofreading again, sending it to my group of readers and my copy editor for their input, editing/polishing/proofreading after input from each of them, etc. Then there's the proofreading after sending it to the typesetter. Thank goodness he's a patient man, because it's absolutely amazing how different the manuscript looks when it's typeset! I found errors that should've been caught in all the other proofreading and copy editing, which are being fixed, thanks to a kind-hearted typesetter. And today I sent him my final read-through. Once he fixes the few glitches I found (missing quote marks here and there - tiny things like that), it'll be done!

The BIGGEST headache to me has been coming up with a synopsis for the novel. I write long-form (novels) - short stuff is HARD for me! But with the help of a lot of writing friends, I finally managed to come up with one that's 150 words (which was my goal) and seems to be pretty eye-catching. Hopefully it will intrigue people enough that they'll want to buy my book! Telling the story is the easy part (124,000 words later, I'm a happy camper with a told story!). SELLING the story is HARD (synopsis, queries, whatever else - argh) - for me, at least.

Today I had the very great pleasure of looking at my second novel's manuscript for the first time in a very long time. I wrote the bulk of it (57,000 words) during Nanowrimo last year. It's now about 90,000 words and finished in first draft form. Now I can polish and refine it. I can't wait!

I'm supposed to be working on a short story for an anthology too. I need to get my first novel out of my head a bit so I can work with completely different characters, plot, setting, etc., and in short form, which isn't as easy for me as novels. (My second novel is a continuation of the series I started with the first one.) Various things about the short story intrigue me a lot - I just have to get immersed in it to get it going. With "Star Sons" out of my hair for a little while, anyway, hopefully I can immerse myself in the story of Robin and Cricket (Robin being a young woman, Cricket a cat with a tale to tell).

Watch for "Star Sons: Dawn of the Two" to appear on Amazon.com in a few weeks!! YIPPEE!!

This 'n' That

Alas, December Boys was gone before I was able to see it. At least the DVD will be available Dec. 11 - the same day as "Order of the Phoenix" is released on DVD! A friend of mine said it will be a Dan DVD weekend, LOL!

In better news, my carriage piece is bronze now and is SPECTACULAR! Even if I do say so myself! The trophy will be awarded this coming Saturday night. Here's a picture of it taken at the beautiful Lake Wallowa in the Wallowa Valley, Hells Canyon area, near Joseph, Oregon. My foundry is in Enterprise, Oregon, just a few miles away, and we were blessed with this spectactular autumn day after the first bronze (the trophy, which is actually #2 of the edition of 15) was completed, so we went out to find a beautiful place to take some pics of it. My customer is really happy with the piece (he's only seen pics so far - he'll see the real thing tomorrow, actually!), which is GREAT!

The picture to the right shows the detail in the sculpture, which is 1/9 life size. I sculpted in all those tiny buckles and the patineur buffed them off to show the natural pale gold of the bronze. He even managed to paint the browband red, a detail so tiny, I didn't think he'd be able to do it! And the bit looks like a real Liverpool bit - I don't remember ever seeing a small sculpture like this that had a real Liverpool bit-shank on the horse rather than a simple ring snaffle. Kudos to Brian, the metal chaser/fabricator who went to such great lengths to get the details as accurate as I could possibly hope for, and Bart, whose patina work is, as usual, fabulous!

As for writing - my novel, "Star Sons: Dawn of the Two" went to the book designer today after I did final revisions and made formatting changes to the manuscript. Hopefully, I'll have a published novel soon!!

Writing Stuff and Art Stuff

I've been too busy to update my blog for ages! Sorry about that!

Writing stuff: The book designer sent me his work on my original novel, "Star Sons: Dawn of the Two" to proofread. It's appalling how many mistakes I've found, nearly all of them glitches caused by Word being Word (not the book designer's fault). Argh. Paragraphs jumping up into the paragraph above, blank lines showing up just randomly (fortunately without deleting any text!) and so on, things that confuse the book designer so the section breaks wind up in the wrong places, etc. So I'm having to proof it very carefully to make sure everything's as close to perfect as I can get it!

Writing tip of the day #1: If you write in Microsoft Word, save your file frequently, but when you get to about ten saves, rename the file. Apparently, the more you save the file to the same name, the glitchier it gets. Kudos to my daughter for sharing this hint with me!

I've been busy writing a new Harry Potter chaptered fanfic that I promised my readers. It was unbelievably hard to get back into Harry's world after developing my own magical world, but once I got into it, it was just as much fun as ever to write. I'll include ordering information for "Star Sons" with each chapter as I upload it, so those who already like my writing will know how to order my original novel. It will be a handy marketing tool!

Writing tip of the day #2: Create a file for each of these categories:

*Characters (including their names, the meaning of their names if significant, what they look like, what's "important" about them, their relationship to other characters, their abilities, quirks, etc.)
*Settings (including whatever's important about these settings, locations, etc.)
*Incantations/Spells/Science of your world (if applicable)
*Anything else that seems important to you.

Also, start a "chapter outline" file, with an outline or paragraph or list of what happens in that chapter, who's involved, clues or "red herrings" you've planted, resolutions to clues from previous chapters, etc.

Keep these files updated every day, if you can! When you can't remember when little Sally actually broke her arm, you can look it up easily.

On to art news: The Friesian trophy ("Elegance") I've been working on is being cast in bronze as I write this! We'll be going to Oregon to supervise the finish work in a couple of weeks. "Finish work" involves how the parts of the carriage are put together, and the creation and attaching of all the little pieces that have to be made by hand for each sculpture, such as the bits, the driving lines, the terrets on the harness, the tugs, etc. I'm having three cast now, and the foundry workers will take notes and LOTS of pictures as we go along. Then when I order more in the future, they'll know how to finish them without me there. You can see that sculpture here: http://www.thesculptedhorse.com/elegance.html It will be awarded at the Friesian Extravaganza at the Clark County Fairgrounds, Springfield OH, the last Saturday in October. I will also have my booth there in the vendor area - come by and say "Howdy!"

Someone just ordered a perpetual trophy for the US Dressage Federation using my sculpture "Frolic" (http://www.thesculptedhorse.com/frolic.html). It will be awarded at the USDF Convention at the end of November. Detail and finishing work on both of these trophies has kept me very busy!

Once both of these pieces are awarded, they will go back to the Kentucky Horse Park to live in their respective organizations' headquarters, "Elegance" at the Friesian Horse Asso. of North America (FHANA) headquarters, "Frolic" at the USDF headquarters. With "Harmony" (http://www.thesculptedhorse.com/harmony.html) already in the USDF Hall of Fame, that makes THREE pieces I have at the Kentucky Horse Park! "Harmony" is just on loan (unless someone buys it and donates it to USDF), but "Elegance" and "Frolic" will be there forever! COOL!

I've nearly finished the sculpture of my husband that goes with "Just Trying to Help" (http://www.thesculptedhorse.com/trying.html, but the trophy work and proofreading "Star Sons" has put that sculpture on the back burner for the time being. I only have to finish his right hand and his paintbrush, then clean him up, and he'll be ready to send! But the delay isn't really a bad thing. I was afraid I'd have to send it with dry ice and overnight express, which costs a fortune, due to the heat wave in both Ohio and Oregon, but it's much cooler in both states now, so shipping can be done the normal way. Yay!

That's enough blogging for now! I hope some of my rambling has been helpful to you!