The Emo Bunny that Should - Illustrated Edition

Why an illustrated edition?

Why?  Because illustrations are awesome! 

Plus, it's a children's book, albeit for demented children.  All children's books should be illustrated.  All children should be illustrated.  That's why they draw on themselves all the time, right?

Why illustrate "The Emo Bunny that Should"?

Why?  Because emo bunnies are awesome! 

This is also my most popular story and the first of the Demented Children series.  It lends itself well to illustrations and the ones that have been included are absolutely beautiful.  They capture the emotions of Emo and all the other woodland creatures perfectly.

Evil duck wagon and beaten deer

Why choose Arlene Rose to illustrate and who the heck is Arlene Rose anyway?

Hey!  One question at a time.  Sheesh! 

Arlene Rose is a childhood friend of my wife's.  She's a wonderful person and has crazy talent that appears to have been hidden away from the rest of us.  Here is a little more info about her:

Arlene Rose is a freelance artist out of Houston. She is a stay at home mom to three and a fairly decent housewife to one. To her everything is art and art is everything. Nothing you can see, hear, taste or touch exist without some form of artistic expression and she loves to work and play in every medium life and the world has to offer  because she believes art isn't a learned thing, it is practical and yet wildly eccentric, it's a way of being...it's a matter of being born.

Pretty flowers

What is "The Emo Bunny that Should" about?

If I had known that there was going to be a quiz today, I would have stayed in bed.  Egads!


The story is about an emo bunny that . . . should.  Umm . . . Emo is a sad bunny that lives in a coffin and enjoys . . . ummm . . . prefers rainy days.  (He doesn't really enjoy anything)  Anyway, one day he gets involved, which, if you've ever gotten involved in anything, you know is a terrible idea.  So there's this Easter Bunny guy, and a factory and lots of little oppressed woodland creature and a cute girl bunny named Haylo.


That's what the story is about.

Easter Bunny, rabbits, squirrels, fox, robins, racoons, mice, chipmunks

What in the world is wrong with you, Mr. Carroll?


Hey!  Be nice.

Will there be other illustrated Stories for Demented Children?

Duh!  Of course.  

Arlene Rose is currently working on "Zachary Zombie and the Lost Boy".  I believe she is a natural artist who has a desire . . . no, a need to find an outlet for that art. :)  (don't tell her I said that! (Ignore the fact that she'll read this blog))  It is my hope that we are able to create many more children's books together and possibly even find prosperity by doing so.  (Prosperity is a sneaky little ninja that likes to hide)

Seriously, what's wrong with you, Mr. Carroll?

That's it!  I'm done.  Goodbye!

Angry duck

How to make a clickable table of contents in Microsoft Word

This is how I make my table of contents for Smashwords and Amazon.  If you would like to see how they work, you can download my first novel “Rojuun” for free.  (links at the bottom of this tutorial)

I would like to note that this is how I do it, but there is another way that uses styles to create different types of chapter headings, but it’s not something I’ve had success with.  I’d say there’s more than one way to skin a cat, but that’s just mean and my children will beat me up if I do.  This is a tutorial on how I do it.

Table of Contents

Here is a screenshot of what my hyperlinked table of contents looks like in my first novel.  As you can see, all the chapters have the blue, underlined hyperlinky effect.  (That is the official term)

You may notice that it says “Compatibility Mode” at the top of the document.  Smashwords doesn’t play well with Word 2007 and 2010, so I save everything as a Word 97-2003 document.  I’m using Word 2010, but I originally did this with Word 2003.  The process is the same, but Word 2010 has that ribbon thingy Bill Gates is so proud of at the top.

  

I like the left aligned table as shown here.  You could center it if you like, it’s a personal choice.  You’ll notice that I have my maps on there too.  If you have maps, I highly recommend it.

Okay, so now we get to how to make all of this. 

Make a Table of Contents.

We’ll start with this:

Nothing is hyperlinked, just written out.

Bookmarks

The first thing you want to do is create a bookmark.  Select “Table of Contents” and then go to your ‘Insert’ tab.  Click on ‘Bookmark’ in that ribbon:

and you will get a screen like this:

Type in ref_TOC  Then click “Add”  It is important to name it exactly that, because that’s what Smashwords Meatgrinder looks for.  I have this in all of my books with a table of contents.

Okay, the next thing you want to do is make a chapter 1.  We’ll make it 16pt font, centered and bold.

Now it’s time to bookmark “Chapter 1”  Do it exactly the same way, but let’s name it roj_chap1.  The ‘roj’ stands for rojuun.  The ‘_’ is because you can’t use spaces in bookmarks.  The ‘chap1” is because it’s chapter 1.  The reason I name it ‘roj_chap1’ instead of just ‘chapter1’ is because “Rojuun” is the first book of a trilogy.  I sell an omnibus with all three books of the trilogy.  The table of contents has ‘roj_chap1’, ‘ani_chap1’ (“Anilyia” is the second book), and ‘ket_chap1’ (“Kethril” is the third book).

Creating the links

Now it’s time to hyperlink the table of contents to the chapter.  Select ‘Chapter 1” in the table of contents, go to the insert tab and click on ‘Hyperlink’

You will get a screen like this:

On the left, you want to ‘Link to:’  “Place in this Document”.  That will bring up your bookmarks.  Select ‘roj_chap1’ (or whatever you call your chapter 1) and click OK.  That will make your blue hyperlinky Chapter 1 in the table of contents.

If you click on it, it will take you to the beginning of chapter 1.  Repeat this step for every chapter and you will have a working table of contents.  You can do the same thing for your maps too.  Select the map, the same way you did the chapter and add a bookmark to it.  I name mine ‘map_ryallon’.  Then hyperlink ‘Map of Ryallon’ in the Table of Contents (or whatever you call your map.

Linking your chapters back to the Table of Contents.

This is a wonderful tool for the reader to get back to the beginning of the book, especially if they want to be able to glance at the map and then return back to the chapter they’re on.

For this, you want to select the Chapter 1 heading and select hyperlink:

This time, select ‘ref_TOC’ as the place to link it to.  That will link it back to the Table of Contents.  You can do this with every chapter.  You get an underlined chapter heading.  (It’s purple now instead of blue because I’ve clicked on them)

Hidden bookmarks.

I discovered that clicking on hyperlinks within a document creates hidden bookmarks, like this:

The ‘Hlt…….’ Bookmarks are the hidden ones.  They are unnecessary and take up extra space, so before I publish, I always delete all of those.

In conclusion.

So that’s the basics.  If you want to test the links, just press shift and left click the mouse.  This works wonderfully on the Kindle Touch and Fire, which I’ve been able to test.  I hope this helps for you too.

Here are the links to Rojuun:

Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/31154?ref=johnhcarroll

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004TXS0DI 
Amazon UK:  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004TXS0DI

Apple: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/rojuun/id409277486?mt=11# 

B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rojuun-john-h-carroll/1029147189

Sony: http://ebookstore.sony.com/ebook/john-h-carroll/rojuun/_/R-400000000000000323599

Kobo: htthttp://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Rojuun/book-qoUvjfK78E-zViTlQf76Rg/page1.html?s=jgljIw3vyUShPcEYVypfdg&r=8

Diesel: http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/item/SW00000031154/Carroll-John-H./Rojuun/1.html

All my best,

John H. Carroll

March 2012 update on current projects

Hello all,

I've been rather quiet lately, so I decided it would be nice to let you know what I'm doing and what to expect this year.

At the moment I'm doing a community play with my wife and son.  It's a good way to spend time with them and something I kinda enjoy doing, although it interferes with my writing time.  *sigh*  I do love performing the play in front of an audience though.

Novels

As far as my fantasy novels set in the world of Ryallon go, I've finished the fifth book, "Ebudae".  It's currently undergoing edits and I plan to publish it in late May/Early June.  My three beta readers have given it rave reviews and tell me it's my best work yet.  The character Ebudae is a young wizardess with ability beyond her years and a natural toughness.  She's the sort of person who will save herself before ever letting a knight in shining armor do so.

I haven't started the next book, "Pelya", but I know how it's going to go.  Memorizing lines takes up the same parts of my mind as writing does, so I can't begin until after the play.  I'm guessing I'll have the first draft finished in July and publish it in December or January.

I also have the next trilogy (books 7-9) plotted out.  I know the overall plot as well as the basic plots for each of the books.  I can't wait to write them. :)  I'm hoping to publish all of them in 2013.

Short stories

I have ideas for my Demented Children series, but no plans to write one at the moment.  Currently, I have 8 short stories I give away for free and only 6 books I sell, so I'd like to reach balance on them.  However, the Demented Children series is very popular and I intend to write many more in the years to come.  In addition, I have other stories kicking about in the back of my mind that I may put on paper if inspired.

The best news is that illustrations for "The Emo Bunny that Should" are nearly done.  I also plan to go through and do another edit to the story to make certain it's perfect and easy to read.  We're hoping for an Easter release.  The artwork is beautiful and I can't wait for you to see it.  Here's a sample of the latest:

Copyright 2012 Arlene Rose

I'm going to sell the illustrated version for $5.99  I believe it's a good value for an illustrated children's book.  I'll keep the text-only version free.

Editing

At the moment, I'm going through and re-editing the Willden Trilogy.  A few reviews have mentioned that I over-describe things and that the books are too wordy.  I began looking at "Kethril", my third book, and found it to be true.

When I began editing it this time, I discovered that I had way too many descriptions of details that didn't advance the story and, in fact, distracted from the story.  I'm halfway through this edit and I've deleted 10,000 words from the total 123,000 original length.

I have to tell you that I'm appalled by this and I apologize to all of you who've read it so far.  What's extraordinary is that the story is still exactly the same even without those words.  They added nothing to the story.

I ask that you forgive me for them though.  The reviews have also mentioned that the books are enjoyable to read and the characters wonderful.  With these new edits, it should speed the reading experience and improve the enjoyment of the characters.  I'm doing "Anilyia" and "Rojuun" next.

I'm also learning a great deal in this process.  My fourth and fifth books are much leaner and faster reads.  I'll apply my new knowledge to the upcoming books to make them even better. :)

In Conclusion

I promise that I'm doing my best to provide you with the highest quality writing I can provide.  I'm constantly working to improve and learning how to master all the tools of my trade.  Thank you for taking the time to read my stories and I hope that they provide you with great enjoyment.  There will be many more to come. :)

All my best,

John H. Carroll

World Building: Creating Religion

World Building

I mostly write fantasy and sci-fi books.  One of the things I have to pay attention to is what things do I newly create and what things do I leave the same as people know them in this world?  At the time of this blog post I'm writing in the world of Ryallon, where I base my fantasy series.  Every once in a while, I'll share a little bit about the world building I do in the process.

When a person writes about something that happened in the past, it's wise to look at history books to get facts correct.  When someone writes about a completely fictional world, all of the details need to be built from scratch.

World building can be fun.  I'm certain there are a few would-be writers who have spent years building worlds of fantasy and magic, but have never gotten around to writing an actual book in the world.  It's also very popular among D&D players.

Creating Religions

In fantasy, it is common to establish a fictional set of religions.  Doing so can add great depth and definition to the characters and the people surrounding the characters.  An understanding of historical theologies can greatly add to the richness and realism of these religions.  It doesn't hurt to have read other novels with fictional religions either. 

Before you begin, it's a good idea to have a general idea of how different people in your world think.  There are usually many countries, though in fantasy it's possible to only have one.  But do all of your people believe the same way?  If you wish to have war in your worlds, multiple religions is one of the best ways to establish this.

One of the first things to consider is whether you want one god or many gods for your world.  Has it been that way throughout the history of your world?

How they get their power is important.  Are they powerful because they're gods?  Did something give them power?  One series I read, the Hawk and Fisher series by Simon R. Green, has gods gaining their power by the number of worshipers they have.

I have added the prologue of my fifth book, "Ebudae", below to give an example of how the Gods of Ryallon are set up.

An exerpt from "Ebudae"

While in the gloomy ruins of an ancient city below Dralin, Ebudae and Pelya had discovered a temple dedicated to an unknown god.  Within that temple was a book most ancient.  In spite of its age, the book was in perfect condition with gold and silver-filigreed bindings.

The cover opened of its own volition as the girls approached.  Gazing upon pages that flipped before their mesmerized eyes, Ebudae and Pelya understood every word with a clarity never experienced from any other book.  Neither left until the last page was finished and the cover closed.

The mysterious book told how the Gods of Ryallon came to be and a summary from it had remained sharp in the girl’s minds from that point on:

 

Chaotic energies swirl around Ryallon and its moons, extending far beyond to other suns and worlds, though they do not exist everywhere.  The energies give us magic and shape the life of Ryallon, though they are not the source of life.

Those who we call Gods were once normal beings.  When those normal beings drank of the chaotic energies too deeply, they gained vast powers.  There are many Gods on and around the world of Ryallon.  Some have great influence and power while others touch few.

The most ancient Gods have existed since before the beginning of humanity, but those are very odd to humans.  They are called the Unreal Gods.

The earliest deities of humanity are the Van Gods.  The oldest and largest temples are built to them in cities throughout Ryallon.

Others are new in the scheme of things, spawned from people or creatures who attempt to control the chaotic energies.  These are called the Crazed Gods, for when a being absorbs vast power too quickly, it can destroy the mind.  The Crazed Gods generally burn out and their energies spread back into the chaos. However, a few grow to power.

Less common are the Hushed Gods.  It is unknown when they came to be, but many believe them to be as old as the Van Gods.  They influence the world in subtle ways and have few followers.  This does not mean their power should be underestimated. Even Van Gods treat the Hushed Gods with great care.

And then there are the Dragons.  They are not Gods, but all Gods fear them; for they are Dragons.