Answering A to Z questions

For W, I asked what you wanted to know. So here goes -- and hey! I'd love to get your feedback!

What kind of graphic design do you do, and do you ever try to combine it with your scifi ventures? 

I got into graphic design through the back door. I started out as a proofreader and did fairly well at it. I was working in a very busy place and at first it was "Could you just do those little edits to the file yourself?" and then it was "This is an easy job, could you knock it out?" and after a couple years I noticed they were giving me job jackets that said "For your best designer."

It wasn't anything glamorous. It was one of those companies that sends you envelopes full of coupons, in fact. Not Val-pack, but the same idea.

For ten years or so, I was the one-person design/pre-press department in various small print shops, so I've done everything from business cards to 300-page books to custom die-cut promotional stand-ups to photomanip... still, nothing glamorous but very practical.

Currently, I'm freelancing and working temp jobs when I can get one. Feel free to email me if you're looking for someone with mad P-shop and InDesign skillz.

I haven't combined this with my writing... yet. Aside from this blog, which I hope does not grate on anyone's eyeballs. 

No favorites, love them all

Hello! What's your favorite color?? If aliens forced you to see only one color forever, which color would you choose?

I don't really have a favorite color -- they've all good, honestly. But if I had to choose a monochrome, I'd go with plain old black-and-white. Why? Because greyscale is actually easier to look at than any other color of monochrome. It's a quirk of the rods and cones in your retina. You'll pick up details quicker and with better definition in greyscale than if everything were shades of blue, for example.

That's a huge oversimplification, of course. But yeah, I'd go greyscale if the aliens put a ray gun to my head.

Have you ever thought about blogging a theme within a theme? Perhaps creating simple science experiment lesson plans for teachers and students? If science is your fiction, I'm sure you could expand your blog in this or some other way. What are your thoughts about this? 

I wouldn't mind taking up the theme of "Hey! My stories are for sale!" but they aren't, yet. So far as expanding my blog goes, I'm not clear on what more I could do within this writing theme that isn't directly related to my own work -- whether sales boostering or fanservice. 

And as far as lessons plans go, no, never thought about them. If these blog posts have helped anybody, I'm glad... have they? Carly Watters recently posted about platform-building for writers, and it raised a similar question: what do you keep coming back to my blog for?