{"id":1758,"date":"2017-11-01T21:10:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-02T01:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jkiakas.com\/site\/?p=1758"},"modified":"2025-03-21T22:32:34","modified_gmt":"2025-03-22T02:32:34","slug":"violins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jkiakas.com\/site\/violins\/","title":{"rendered":"Violins"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Okay so I know this is already going to be my second post to this dang blog\/site about this story and I’m sure there will be a couple more in the future. I’ve been going through files on my computer and cleaning up folders I’m mostly done with and since I’ve been fixing up my portfolio\/projects website and finalizing the VVV Trilogy entry I stumbled across some old promo pictures of the original print runs of this story and I had to share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe I can start by going through a bit of this story’s history. It is<\/em> twelve years old this year after all, I think it deserves a little tribute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First we have to scroll all the way back to 18 year old me. It’s 2010, I’m on my first year in CEGEP (which is… college? I think? for the non-Quebecers out there). I’m studying art and drawing, I’m a huge<\/em> nerd for nursery rhymes and have an obsession with the visual of plague doctors and white beaked masks. I sit down for my very first NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and I write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn’t the first thing I’ve written though, far from it. before this I had a couple drafts that made it to about 30,000 words before the self-doubts crept in and I stopped working on them altogether. I sit down for this one and it flies from my fingers. I hit a few snags along the way. Maybe a meltdown or two as I wonder what the fuck I’m doing and why I’ve decided to be the freak to do this in the first place. But its cathartic. Something about writing this ails a lot of bottled up depression and pain from years of struggling with who I am as a person. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 50,000 words I feel like I conquered a beast, a demon that’s haunted me for years and I feel fantastic about it. I print the draft double-sided on my dad’s home printer and I hold it in my hands, my very first completed manuscript. I held onto that thing for weeks, dragging it all around school and re-reading it and showing friends I finally had with great pride. I am absolutely over the moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So enamoured by my new story I err, will even admit that I wound up hand-sculpting 13 plague doctor masks, carefully hung to a huge marionette controller as my second sculpture project. I’m a bit sad that I took it apart, it would have been a nice thing to keep for the future. (I DO still have the masks though hehe). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyways, at the time NaNo was partnered with a few different programs (its how I got Scrivener which is now my ride or die writing program) and if you were a winner of the challenge Createspace was offering a free comp copy of your finished manuscript. You only had the year to use the code so it didn’t allow for editing and good lord I hardly had any programs to help me with formatting so the whole process was rather painful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wound up printing a small book, print & bookmark bundle for my first conventions in 2013 with this exact cover…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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UGH look at this thing!!! I have to say that cover still wrecks for as simple as it is and Yes I thought I was being real a real smartass putting Oliver’s pipe organ on a cover for a book whose title is ‘violins’. I printed maybe 20 of these I think? I sold like 2 of them and gave away the rest as I was reworking the story into a much stronger storyline. Uh, if you’re reading this and you have this copy above, congrats you’re like one of 20-30 people who have it also its almost 10 years old. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lets look at it from a few more angles why not?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And for good measure here is a couple of full cover spreads. This is the REAL first edition. What is a bleed? Who knows.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The above one is the version I printed for my comp proof copy, the one below is the adjusted one I printed for conventions in 2013. I am hONESTLY kinda vibing with this very simple iconic cover and my brain is swimming with ideas for the newest version I’m working on…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So okay, where do I go from here? I’m really pleased, so happy with myself. I flip through the story, its been a couple of years. I think I can do it better, honestly. So here comes the overhaul, part 1. I think as I sell (haha give away<\/em>) the ones above in the tail end of 2013 I start chipping away at edits. I do a very small print run of this guy below (for 2014-15):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I am honestly so sad this is the only photo of this guy that I have. I think my sister? A couple friends? They might have the original version of this edition (hi if you are reading this and you have a copy of this edition can we meet up so I can take pics?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I DO still have a full cover spread of this one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Back with my brief stint in watercolour and some full-blown ink-work. This one must have a good 30-40 copies floating out in the wild somewhere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But alas, in all this time I’m still writing, still editing still trying to hone in what I actually want out of this story. I rewrite a sequel twice (Cellos which would soon become Violoncellos). I decide it’s going to be a trilogy. I rewrite Violins one more time. I finalize a draft on Violas (which was originally going to be Fiddles as a title).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I get this hair-brained idea. This concept of crowdfunding creative projects reaches my ears and I am a hell of a hustler in my younger 20s so I jump into this too to fund the creation of this story as a trilogy of books. I pull a number out of my ass, loosely gauge the printing costs based on what I already know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(It’s an absolute mess, by the way. I launch this thing twice, and barely fund it the second time. It takes me a whole year to uphold my promise because I’m a fool who wanted to fully illustrate the whole thing but hadn’t started the drawings much until the campaign was done. There wasn’t much of a how-to back then. I learned everything on the fly…. I feel like that’s a post for another time though).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when I get these in hand, boy oh boy, am I elated. We drive to the printers in my mom’s small sonata hatchback, 900 books is a hell of a weight for a tiny car to carry let me tell you. We Very Carefully drove home that day and made back breaking work of unloading that car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You already know what these look like but its definitely worth posting them in tangent to the original versions above:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And yet as I type this I’m working on another draft. Maybe the last? Who knows. This might just be the project I’m eternally unsatisfied with haha. With each iteration of this story I find that elated upswing and absolute euphoria for this one completed work. But with each turn it’s weighted with a lot of baggage and heavy emotion. Maybe that’s why I’m never exactly satisfied with it? It keeps me chasing that high though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of all the projects I’ve done this one is my definite love-hate. I think I’ve given away more copies of this story than any other in my current repertoire (And I still am, giving away copies now in 2022 of this trilogy itself, hoping one day I can produce a version to my standard and to the interest of my audience).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You win some you lose some. I still can’t believe how far this thing has come and, ouf, this new version is going to be insane what with a 6-year gap between the two iterations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I look forward to showing it off in (hopefully) its truest to-form version now that I have the skills and the know-how to pull it off!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay so I know this is already going to be my second post to this dang blog\/site about this story and I’m sure there will be a couple more in the future. I’ve been going through files on my computer and cleaning up folders I’m mostly done with and since I’ve been fixing up my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,102],"tags":[101],"class_list":["post-1758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-self-pub","tag-selfpub"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkiakas.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkiakas.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkiakas.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkiakas.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkiakas.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1758"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jkiakas.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2176,"href":"https:\/\/jkiakas.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758\/revisions\/2176"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkiakas.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jkiakas.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkiakas.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jkiakas.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}