The contract for the anthology sale arrived yesterday, and I finally know how much money I'll get. I didn't know before, because the editor had said “counts as pro” and that's all I cared about, so I didn't think to inquire further. Only when a couple family members asked 'how much cash?' did it occur to me that there might be a reason to want to know these things in advance. I felt significantly less than professional when replying “Ah… I dunno. Does it matter?”
I guess it all goes to prove that I'm in this for the fame, and not for the merchandise. 🙂
I've now got three chapters of page layout sketches done for Flag in Flames, and I'm currently grumbling at the first page in chapter four which is being recalcitrant. Rather amusingly, one of my problems with it is the little matter of the space armor. My space pirates go into battle wearing armored pressure suits. When they aren't expecting to be fighting, they don't wear anything nearly that uncomfortable. Makes sense, yes?
So, where do they keep their space armor when they aren't wearing it? And when a pirate ship gets ambushed by another pirate ship, how long does it take everyone to scramble into their space armor, and how much of that do I need to show in order for the reader not to be bothered by the switch into space armor and back out again? (Maybe I should go the anime route, have them yell “Space Pirate PROTECTION!!!” and then do flashy lights and showers of flower petals until… TAH, DAH! bright new shining space armor materializes out of the N-th dimension, and the all the girls are suddenly wearing more makeup.)