Warbird - Beta read musings

[jeriendhal]

Thanks to a massive cock-up with our phones at work, I've found myself with a great deal of free time to play with Warbird. I might even get signifigant chunk of it down prior to NaNoWriMo's start this year.

Now, last year's project got its own LJ page at triumviratenano, allowing me to post my daily work for readers to comment on. I'm wondering if I should set up the same for this project, like I have for a couple of others, or perhaps just break down and create a generic LJ Beta read account so I don't have to keep asking whether you want to sign up to read my next Work in Progress.

[Poll #1776669]

On seperate note, given that I'm writing what amounts to a Generic Near Future Baen Books novel, I'm wondering if I should celebrate that fact by making sure the cover I eventually comission is both hideous and has nothing to do with the content. I'm seeing a hot asian chick on the cover wearing a skintight spacesuit and carrying a plasma rifle. [1]

[1] The protagonist is Chinese-American and female, but not hot from her own standards. Definiately not while wearing a standard issue NASA EVA suit. And no plasma rifles (or another directed energy weapons) will be involved.

Comments

[seawasp]

Obviously I vote for the option I've been using since 2005.

[seawasp]

RE covers, I have so far failed to get ANY proper exploitative Baen covers.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

I think they've gotten away from that. Even Cryoburn just had a bland generic cityscape (admittedly with a horrible foil printing).

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Do you actually get much feedback from beta readers here? If so, how do you do it?

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

I post the work in progress on a closed LJ that can only be viewed by people who have friended it and I've friended back. Usually I get good feedback on what scenes are working particularly well, and grammar errors I've missed while pounding it out.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Ah, let me rephrase. Where do you find these people in the first place? I get crickets when I do things like that.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

That's harder to answer. I guess I've just accumulated them over the years. Anke and Michael are my most persistent commentators, but a few others join in occasionally.

It helps that the livejournal postings turn the matter into a serialized story, so I've always got them speculating what might happen next, and in turn inspiring me.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I may try it again if I do NaNo this year. Although I suspect that my NaNo will be rewriting the sequel to Repeating History, rather that starting something new.