Twinepathy (Part 27): You Have No IDIA

Hullo, everyone! I hope you had a great weekend, and a wonderful Valentine’s day! I hope you’re enjoying all of the post-Valentine’s sales… Enjoy the part, and check out part one if you’re new.

The drive home is gloomy and quiet. Denver must be thinking about our failure, while I’m just trying to figure this puzzle out. I’m smart, you know. I might not be able to match up with Jen’s brains, but I’m not an idiot. Right now, though, I feel like one. Why can’t I figure this out?

Mom and Dad are up when we get home, and Maddie’s helping them make breakfast. Denver gives them our story: we wanted to go for an early morning hike, which we actually do sometimes. They accept it without questions. Brooklyn’s still asleep, and I don’t blame her. We’ve had a rough week, her most of all. She deserves the rest. But that also means that I can’t go on the computer and check out this Keller person. Everyone else is too touchy about their computers to let me use them, especially since that one time I accidentally deleted Dad’s important twenty-one page paper. And that was five years ago. Yeah, my family holds grudges.

I help my mom with a few little things around the house and then turn my attention to Maddie. I think it’s high time she learned how to play Monopoly. I mean, she’s been here for about a week already, and we haven’t played with her yet! It’s basically a family tradition. So I convince Denver and Dad to join us, and we sit down in the living room, ready to play.

We play for about an hour, with me helping Maddie. She’s far, far ahead of all of us when the doorbell rings. Denver shoots up and races to the door like he’s on fire. What is he…

Ohhh. When he opens the door, I hear Ezra’s familiar voice. No wonder he was so eager to get to the door. He didn’t mention that they had any plans today.

Denver brings Ezra into the living room. “Let me just go get my stuff,” he says, moving towards the stairs.

Ezra nods and sits down, giving us a shy smile. She doesn’t know Dad very well, I know that much, and she always seems to have a little trouble talking to adults. Dad says hello and chats politely with her before excusing himself and leaving. I lean forward, moving my game piece to Go. “Hi, Ezra. Had any good IDIAs lately?”

Ezra gives me a confused look, but then it dawns on her, and she gives me a nervous look. She looks around and then leans in. “Does… does your family know?”

I know what she wanted to ask. Does Denver know? I shake my head. “No.”

Denver walks back in. “Okay, I think I’m ready. Albany, I think I heard Brooklyn moving around. You can probably go check on her.”

Finally. It’s almost lunch time. I don’t think she’s ever slept in this late. I nod. “Okay, I will. Have fun, you two. Make sure your phone’s charged.” I wink at Ezra.

Ezra and Denver both give me odd looks, but Ezra’s has so much more meaning. The front door shuts behind them, and I burst out laughing. Maddie gives me that funny look little kids give grown-ups when they do something that makes absolutely no sense. “You’re weird.”

I laugh harder. “You have no IDIA.”

Random Twinepathy Wednesday

Before you ask, no, this is not a new feature on the blog. I actually just have some awesome Twinepathy things to show you.

First off, I have a wonderful drawing, created by my wonderful friend Hannah, of Denver and Ezra. Isn’t it awesome?

This is the first fanart anyone’s ever done for any of my stories! Eek! Although maybe it doesn’t count, since Ezra is Hannah’s character… Ah, well, I’m counting it. 😉

And then there’s this Twinepathy fanfic written by Merenwen on her blog Shattered Fractals. The fanfic blew me away and made me tear up, because I know the future of these poor, poor characters. Poor, poor Finch!!! You should definitely check out the rest of the posts on her blog, and she’s getting ready to publish her first book! *throws confetti*

And, finally, some quick updates on Twinepathy itself. I just hit 32,000 words (!!!), completed Part 52 (!!!!), and reached 130 pages! This is officially the longest book I’ve ever written, and it’s still growing! I’m having so much fun writing this and sharing it with you (even if I am over 30 parts ahead of what you’re reading).

So! Just a short post today, but I can’t leave without showing you the punny creation I made yesterday…

I made that, guys. I made it. 😀 Have a great day, everyone!!!

Writing About Writing: Cover Design – Part Two

Hi, everyone! This is my official post for the cover design for Paralyzed Dreams. If you missed my last post with cover design tips, go check it out! This post will give you a sort-of template for designing a cover, using the cover for Paralyzed Dreams as an example. I used Photoshop for my cover, so some parts may be different for you. Note: I am not an expert… and this might not work for every book. This is just a basic outline.

1: Find a picture. If you don’t know what picture you’re going to use, make a list of important items in your story. See Cover Design – Part One for more details on this. For Paralyzed Dreams, the main elements were volleyball, the wheelchair, and Pam. After a lot of searching, I decided on the wheelchair and found this picture:

Look familiar? 😀

2: Next, find out what size your cover needs to be. Amazon KDP recommends that your cover be about 1000 pixels by 1600 pixels. If you’re going to put your cover on other sites, check to see what size they recommend. You may have to make several different covers, and you’ll have to make a separate cover for print books as well.

3: After you’ve figured out what size your cover needs to be, open a file in your cover-making program that is that size. This should be fairly self-explanatory.

4: Extra tip: Don’t mess with your background layer; leave it as is. This applies to all projects. Now that you’ve got your file, place the photo onto it. Move it around until you like how it looks. You can always move it some more later. (If you’re using more than one picture, this is where you would combine them. Maybe I’ll post on that sometime.) After this step, mine looked like this:

5: Add effects so your cover doesn’t look just like a plain old picture. I added a black gradient to the top so my white text would stand out and some swirls just for a nice touch. 😉

Gradient

Swirls

6: Add your text. To make your cover look more professional, try using different fonts within the title if it’s two or more words. Also, change the size around. Always try to use at least two fonts. I used three: Print Clearly for “paralyzed”, Alex Brush for “Dreams”, and Portmanteau for my name. Try to use a font for your name that you can use on all of your books to create an author brand. That way, everyone can recognize your books and name.

The Final Product:

I’ll probably do more posts on cover design at some point. There’s so much to cover! (Pun not originally intended…) What do you think of the cover? Like this post? Anything you want to know more about? Tell me your thoughts in the comments!