Design a Book Cover

Design a Book Cover

I am participating in a fun cover designing contest at A Writer’s Journey Go on over and take a look at all the fun covers and vote starting August 31st and ending September 7th. Back in the old days I had ClarisWorks on my Mac computer and I would spend hours manipulating clip art pictures, painstakingly cutting and moving and creating.  As I’ve become more and more fixated on writing, I’ve been forgetting how much fun working with images can be.  Recently I downloaded Gimp and I’ve been teaching myself how to use it.  I’m learning to use stock images and manipulating things on Picnic through Flickr.  I’ve also been learning to make videos.  So much fun!  I love using various media to put out a message of some kind. This is a...

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Posted by on Aug 30, 2011 in Blog, Updates on Ruth's Fiction | 24 comments

You Keep Using That Word

You Keep Using That Word

“You keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.” Words mean different things to different groups of people.  I’ve been noticing this more and more as I hang out on Twitter and other online places.  Several times I’ve felt a weird mental double-take with unexpected words. Here are my examples, what are yours? Dev To me this is a short-hand for my sexuality, known (stupidly IMHO) as “devotee” or “devoteeism.”  To the people at my work place and the geeky places I hang out online, this is short for “developer.”  It makes me jump every time someone at work calls out, “Who has the dev copy?” Para To me and others in the disability rights field, this is short for...

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Posted by on Aug 29, 2011 in Sexuality | 4 comments

Romantic Friday Writers: Smooth Sailing

Romantic Friday Writers: Smooth Sailing

http://fridaynightwriters.blogspot.com/ This blog has a challenge for writers of romance/love stories to write 400 words on a theme each Friday.  The theme this week is Smooth Sailing. Another very rough draft today.  Smooth Sailing is a difficult topic, since it implies no conflict!  I have had several requests for a part two on Priya and Deepak’s story Home Country.  I haven’t figured out a plot for it yet.  So today I’m playing around to see what I come up with. Word Count: 388, critique however you would like. *** Priyanka had never dared to believe she could have such a good life.  Well, maybe when she was very small.  Before her parents had died.  At that age she thought a good life would be wearing bright colored saris and dancing at...

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Posted by on Aug 26, 2011 in Friday Excerpt | 11 comments