FraeLea TV - a video journal

We’re so lucky to have such great friends supporting our storytelling.

I think these two pieces constitute our very first fan art!

Find them online at Vigilante Woodworks and USB Micro.

Transcript for FraeLea Conversations #9:

RaeLea: Hi, welcome to FraeLea Conversations. I’m RaeLea and this is Frank. We’d like to do a short video to express some gratitude for our fans.

Frank: Yeah, just a short appreciation video. We are so blessed to have friends, family and fans; people that we never even met, that have been helping us spread the word about our burgeoning authoring career. Back this spring, we had bookmarks made. Little mini book marks, (holds up a bookmark) that were distributed. We had quite a few people, well over two dozen people, who volunteered to help distribute those book marks.

RaeLea: Yes, and thank you very much.

Frank: We’ve over five thousand of them, out in the wild, that has resulted in subscribers from Texas and all over the U.S. I think we had at least one in Canada, so it’s kind of exciting that way. Thank you so much, to all of you, who distributed those bookmarks. And then we had a few friends that actually went a little bit further. Sam Scheer, from Vigilante Woodworks, in Montana. (Holds up wooden sign) He made this awesome, CNC cut out of our logo, Frank and RaeLea, logo, on this reclaimed lumber from a lumbermill in northwest Montana.

RaeLea: It’s pretty awesome!

Frank: Thank you, Sam, and his wife, Devenne. That was so thoughtful of you guys. We have it hanging in our living room. It’s such a thoughtful gift, so thank you for that. And, the other one we had was from Rob Severson, at USBMicro. He made this (shows the ‘Break Glass In Case Of Fog’ box) after reading Fog Over Mandaree, our free prequal novel, that’s available at frhurt.com. And, if you can’t read it, it says Break Glass In Case Of Fog. It’s a reference to a scene, or several scenes, in Fog Over Mandaree. It involves MRE’s, which he’s got a meal ready to eat, some glow sticks. So, it was a cute little…

RaeLea: You’ll get it if and when you read the book.

Frank: Yeah, when you read Fog Over Mandaree, you’ll get the joke, I guess.

RaeLea: So, thank you very much.

Frank: Yes. Thank you, Rob. Thank you, Sam. And, thank you to all of you who have been so supportive to us. We’re just getting started. We really appreciate all the support you’ve been showing us.

As authors, we’re all about authenticity.

Being the stalwart troupers that we are, we’re here today to sample the infamous British delicacy of Marmite. We did this because we thought it would be great to have our protagonist love the stuff (she’s English).

Kids, don’t try this at home.

Transcript for FraeLea Conversations #8:

Frank: Hi, and welcome to FraeLea Conversations. I’m Frank and this is RaeLea. And, what are we doing today?

RaeLea: We are doing our unboxing of Marmite.

Frank: Of Marmite. And why are we doing that?

RaeLea: Because, we have to make it authentic. Our main protagonist, Ember, is so in love with Marmite that…

Frank: Can I interrupt you a little bit?

RaeLea: Yeah.

Frank: Alright, I’m going to back up and say that in Spark of Justice, in our Magic City Chronicles, there’s a protagonist, named Ember Wright. She’s from England and one of her little quirks is that she loves Marmite. So, that’s where you’re talking about authenticity.  So, we’re going to be…

RaeLea: Okay. Right.

Frank: This is us being professionals, here.

RaeLea: (Laughs)

Frank:  So, we have a box of Marmite that we ordered on Amazon. By all accounts, if you didn’t grow up with Marmite, you’re going to hate it. I did try a little bit of it years ago, and I did hate it. But, it’s been a long time so maybe I’m going to like it now. When I was growing up, I didn’t like sauerkraut, but now I love it, so…maybe it’s the same exact thing.

RaeLea: Oh, so I’ve got a little bit of anxiety here where, it’s going to be a love it or hate it and I’ve understood that it’s an acquired taste.

Frank: (opening up bubble wrap) We probably could have prepared this ahead of time, but we thought it would be a little more authentic if we’re opening this up.

RaeLea: Well, if I can get used to lutefisk, maybe I can get used to this.

Frank: I haven’t gotten used to lutefisk. So, this is Marmite and if you’re not familiar with it, we’re going to be terrible advertising agents for this, I have a feeling. It is a British…delicacy.

RaeLea: Delicacy.

Frank: There you go, we share a brain. And, nice jar, but it’s a yeast extract. It says, ‘Rich in B vitamins, 100% vegetarian’. Um, well, we’ll see here. So, it’s a brewer’s yeast, I think by-product, what my understanding was. And our character, Ember Wright, loves this stuff. Eats it like candy. We’ve got an Alpha Team member, Ian, who’s in Scotland, and he’s kinda told us about it, too. It’s kinda fun to have…

RaeLea: Apparently, there’s not a whole lot of people who can eat a half a jar.

Frank: (opens jar) Alright, it doesn’t smell too great.

RaeLea: (sniffs) Huh.

Frank: Alright, so we’re going to try some of it. (takes spoon) So, it’s kind of…oh…well, it’s kind of a molasses texture to it. So, apparently, Ian, our Alpha Member in Scotland, says that they like to put it on toast, very thin layer on toast. Or, his dad, he said, liked to eat it on cheese, not sure what kind of cheese.

RaeLea: They do have Marmite crackers, too.

Frank: Crackers and whatnot, so…cheers!

RaeLea: Cheers!

(clinks spoons)

Frank: Marmite! (eats) Mmm.

RaeLea: (eats – face scrunch) Oh, it’s so good.

Frank: Okay. I wish I would have taken a smaller helping, I got to be honest.

RaeLea: Oh, my.

Frank: It’s kind of like you took soy and tar…

Enya (Meepy): “Smells like poo.”

Frank: …and mixed the two together.

RaeLea: And that would be the winning…oh, a lot of soy. Soy sauce, or whatever.

Frank: Yeah, it’s very salty, soy taste. It’s actually not as bad as I was expecting it to be. Quite honestly. I don’t know, but if anyone wants an open jar of Marmite…

RaeLea: Free, giveaway!

Frank: …send us your address, we’ll mail it to you. I have a feeling we’re not going to be indulging in this. In Spark of Justice, when you get to that scene, if you haven’t already read that, as it hasn’t been published yet.

RaeLea: Where’s Lucky when you need her?

Frank: We won’t give you any spoilers, but, there’s kind of our little comedic relief in that part of the book. So, Marmite—Please don’t send us any! Until next time, I’m Frank, this is RaeLea, and you can see us on frhurt.com. Thanks for watching.

In our previous FraeLea Conversations video, we talked about our writing experiment: to write and edit a full novel in one month.

Fast forward, and Spark of Justice is finished! That’s a full-length novel of 81,000 words written and edited in about 30 days. This experiment was an absolute success.

Some discoveries (some were expected, most were pleasant surprises):

• Being held accountable made ALL the difference for motivation. Knowing we had a small group of people waiting to read a new chapter each morning lit a fire under our butts.
• A much shorter feedback loop meant more agile corrections. Normally, authors write an entire novel, only then passing it along to their beta readers to receive critique. With this experiment, we were getting near real-time proofreading and story insights from our Alpha Team. As such, we’re confident that Spark of Justice and the characters within will resonate with the public.
• Each day got progressively easier. At the start of the month, it took 11 painful hours to write and edit a full chapter. By the end of the month, we were able complete three chapters in about six hours.
• Quality improved with quantity. Not only did the words-per-hour improve each week, but the story came together more readily as a “flow state” was achieved most days.
• Obsession was the key ingredient. We lived and breathed this story every hour of every day. We talked about it when we weren’t writing, dreamed about it when we weren’t awake. I’m convinced that this obsessiveness helped make the writing time more productive.

Prior to this experiment, we were averaging just one chapter per month (that’s pitiful, really). During our experiment, we were cranking out an average of one chapter per day, with bursts up to three chapters in a 24-hour period. We’re talking about edited chapters (averaging 2,350 words) requiring only minor proofreading corrections.

We’re still pinching ourselves to have accomplished so much in such a concentrated span of time. We are continuing this experiment and will be refining the process with each new novel.

Above all, we couldn’t have done this without our treasured Alpha Team. As our protagonist Ember might say, “Cheers, volunteers!”

Oh, and look for Spark of Justice (Magic City Chronicles #1) to be published by February 2018!

Transcript for FraeLea Conversations #7:

RaeLea: Hi and welcome to FraeLea Conversations. I’m RaeLea and this is Frank. About six weeks ago we started a writing experiment and I think we’re going to update you on how that went.

Frank: That’s right. It was a little more than a month and a half ago. And, for our second novel, as we announced in our last episode, we had a writing experiment where we had volunteers, called our Alpha Team. We emailed, every morning, a new chapter, sometimes two chapters. I guess, in a nutshell, it went fantastically. We had great feedback.

RaeLea: I think the number one thing was the accountability. That was perfect.

Frank: Right. We went from, basically, taking a month per chapter, to write, which is not a good speed.

RaeLea: Not sustainable.

Frank: To a chapter a day, sometimes two. At the end, we had three chapters in a day. It was fantastic and we can’t thank our Alpha Team members enough. As a way of thanking them, in fact, we renamed a lot of characters after some of our Alpha Team members. So, you’ll see some of that. We also had these awesome Spark of Justice mugs made. They’re fifteen-ounce coffee mugs that we gave to our more active Alpha Team members. Not to all of them, but to the ones who gave us a lot of feedback and a lot of useful insight.

RaeLea: Thank you very much.

Frank: This sexy little coffee mug.

RaeLea: (laughs)

Frank: Yeah, I think it’s pretty sexy. But, it features the artwork that’s going to be on the book cover for Spark of Justice. Which, is ready to be published, now at this point, and will be published in the first quarter of 2018. Along with its next successors after that.

RaeLea: Right.

Frank: So, we’re going to be continuing our experiment with our next novel, Investigator’s Creed, which is starting, like pretty much now.

RaeLea: Yes, so expect emails soon.

Frank: Yes, for our Alpha Team members. And, if you didn’t get a chance to be a part of the Alpha Team and you would like to help, or you’d like to read what we’ve written, we are going to be looking for advanced review readers. Basically, you’re going to be getting a copy of the e-book in exchange for writing a review on Amazon, or wherever when it gets published. Send us an email if you’re interested in that. A big shout out to our Alpha Team members, and thanks so much for all the help.

RaeLea: And, again, find us on frhurt.com.

We are taking too long to get our next novel edited. We think we’ve figured out a solution, but we need your help!

If you are interested and are willing to indulge us with this experiment for the next 34 days, you’ll be formally credited in the published book, and you might even have a character named after you. Above all, you will have our gratitude and that’s pretty priceless, right?

Watch this video for details, and contact us if you’d like to help.

Click here to read the Chapter 1 preview mentioned in the video.

Click here to read the preview mentioned in the video for Chapter 1 of Spark of Justice.

Transcript for FraeLea Conversations #6:

RaeLea: Hi, and welcome to FraeLea Conversations. I’m RaeLea and this is Frank. Today, Frank and I are going to be discussing an experiment.

Frank: An experiment. Yes, that’s a good way of putting it. So, it’s been a year since we’ve started writing full time. And, I use air quotes on that because we haven’t really been working nine to five on writing. Part of that shows because in March of 2017, we published our first novel, Fog over Mandaree. To much critical acclaim. Well, not really, acclaim, but we had good feedback. And, now it has been a year, since we left our day job and we’re living off savings as we write. We’re not writing as quickly as we need to be writing. We’ll take full credit on that.

RaeLea: Yes, that’s totally on us.

Frank: We’ve got plenty of excuses. We’re managing a property. We’ve got summertime chores. And, there’s plenty of distractions.

RaeLea: Everybody knows about summertime chores.

Frank: But, bottom line, we’re not getting our writing done as quickly as we need to be. And our readers, you guys, have been very patient with us. We’ve had many people ask us, ‘hey, when’s the next book coming out.’ We do have the rough draft for the next three novels written. We’ve got an outline for two more novels after that. And, we’ve got a story idea for another series after that.

RaeLea: Plus, all the covers. The illustrations are done.

Frank: We haven’t released the covers because we wanted the novels to be done first. So, we’ve got plenty of ideas and work on our table and the bottom line is that we are not living up to our deadlines. We had a really good conversation the other day where we were saying, ‘why is it that we’re not doing so?’. The previous job we had was very high stress. Very demanding. We put out a report twice a day, at 4:00 a.m. and 1:00 or 2:00 p.m., and we were never late. We rarely had any mistakes, maybe a typo here or there. And, it didn’t matter what was going on.

RaeLea: Internet issues or blizzards; it was out.

Frank: Technology issues. We knew we had stakeholders and investors and clients that were waiting for this report. So, we were never late with that.

RaeLea: So, I think accountability is…

Frank: So, it was accountability. We knew we had people waiting for it. The deadlines were not ambiguous. They weren’t arbitrary like our current ones are. So, this experiment, long story short, is to try to recreate that. With your help, we’re running an experiment. We’re going to be releasing a chapter, one a day. We’re going to be asking for volunteers. You, if you’re willing to. To receive a chapter, one chapter per day, and you can comment on it. Give us feedback. And, hopefully, hold us accountable, too, if we miss a day or anything like that. What it will be basically doing is, we’ll be asking if you’re interested in doing this. If you can commit to reading a chapter a day and comment on it, if you like.

RaeLea: And, it’s going to be approximately thirty some chapters.

Frank: Thirty-four chapters, actually, is what this next book is. We’re releasing the first chapter today, in conjunction with this video. You can read it without signing up to any list to see if this the type of story you’d be interested in. If you’d be willing to help us out. And, you really would be helping us out if you do this, because you’ll be holding us accountable. Hopefully, creating some excitement, too, for us. We know we’ve got some people that are waiting for this. It’s going to be kind of an intense month of getting these chapters out. But, we kind of feel that that pressure is exactly what we need because we thrive under pressure. And, this is a positive type of pressure where we have people excited, hopefully. And, there will be other benefits, for you too! You’ll get to see the chapters way before they get published. Even after we’re done with all this, we’ll still have some final edits and whatnot that we’ll be doing before we’re publishing it. So, it’s probably going to be another six months, maybe, before we publish the first of these books. You’ll be able to see the whole story before then. You can opt out at any time, if you do decide to help us out. And, you’ll also be able to provide us feedback. If you decide the story doesn’t quite work for me, or…

RaeLea: Or, if something isn’t quite clear…

Frank: Right. If something isn’t clear, that’s a very good point. We’re kind of hoping, from our perspective, to close that feedback loop. Instead of writing an entire novel, sending it out into the world, and then finding out if it works or not. We love this story. It’s called Spark of Justice. It’s a Modern Fantasy, set in North Dakota…

RaeLea: In Minot!

Frank: … primarily in Minot, North Dakota. It follows the journey of this magic wielding young woman that is new to North Dakota and unraveling a conspiracy. So, again, the first chapter will be released. You can read it now. Let us know what you think and if you’re interested in helping us out. Either reply to the email newsletter or send us a comment on our contact form. You can send us an email that way and we’ll sign you on there. Again, you can opt out at any time if you decide it’s not for you or it’s too much work. But, we really would appreciate the help.

RaeLea: Do we want to tell them the name of the team that we’re putting together?

Frank: Yeah! We did decide to call it Alpha Team. You’ll be part of the Alpha Team. Which, is a pretty bad ass name, let’s face it. Our Alpha Team is basically our swat team to light a fire under our butts and keep us going. Hopefully, encourage us and get us to get this next novel out.

RaeLea: We just need that accountability. That knowing we need to get that chapter out a day.

Frank:  We’re going to be keeping this a small group. It’s going to be first come, first serve. But, this first one, if we can get a few dozen people that would be willing to help us out, that would be awesome. If you’re a fan of Modern Fantasy, if you liked Fog Over Mandaree, that would be exactly in your wheelhouse. If you could help us out, we’d appreciate it. We’ll pay you back in various different ways. We might name a character after you, or send you autographed copies of the novel when it is published. Or posters or what have you. We have all kinds of ideas. But, trust us when we say, if you’re willing to help us out, we’ll make it worth your while. I think that about sums it up.

RaeLea: Yeah.

Frank: If you’d like to be a member of our Alpha Team, let us know. Thanks again for listening to us.

After publishing our first novel a little over a week ago, we thought you might enjoy seeing the cover art concepts for Fog Over Mandaree.

Also: one of us may have accidentally unveiled a squirrelish surprise.

Also #2: Euleycat decides to weigh in on the cover art discussion. Apparently we were taking too long with this episode, and he was overdue for cuddles.

Transcript for FraeLea Conversations #5 – Cover Art for Our First Novel

Frank: Hello, and welcome to this episode of FraeLea Conversations. As promised on the last one, we are talking this week, about our book cover for Fog Over Mandaree. We’re going to go over the design process a little bit. Show you some of the iterations you didn’t get to see before. And, how we arrived at the final design. We’ll be showing you the versions, too, as we’re looking on our little tablet.

So, the first one, our artist, Benjamin Roque, he came up with this concept. And we had given him a description and we described the Gurgurran. Which is the monster that appears in the book. No big spoiler there, I think.

RaeLea: Not by now, anyway.

F: Hopefully, you’ve read it, if not, we’re not going to give any spoilers beyond that, but it’s called a Gurgurran, anyway and no, we’re not going to give any spoilers. And, so this first version, we had fog, is obviously a big component. We had the rig, that could provide some various photos that he could use for illustration. And, then kind of a description of Nick and Katrina, the two main characters of the story. And, so, he penciled this out. He had the fog, it was a little too green on this first version.

R: Both of our immediate response was whether it was too green. Too marshy of a fog.

F: Yeah, it looked like swamp fog.

R: Right, right.

F: Instead of winter fog, which is what it should have been.

R: But, I think both of our response when we saw the Gurgurran was wow.

F: Yeah, he has done a great job with that.

R: Definitely. The most unique one of them all, too.

F: We gave good description, I think, of how we wanted it. The head was a little bit off, as you’ll see in the next versions, but he gave a good starting point, anyway. The Gurgurran, in particular, has got really small eyes. He’s supposed to look like something that’s just tough. And, just a rough, mountain type creature. And, so, that was the first version we had. You could see the pencil outline of Nick and Katrina that he had on there. And gave him some feedback on that one, which the next version he started implementing. We wanted them to be running away from the monster, but we still wanted to see their faces. And to show them kind of looking back at it. He also, on this version, made it more winter scape.

R: Right, he cleaned up the green.

F: Yeah, that kind of the colors, that slate gray.

R: Yeah.

F: It’s still a little too bright here, but it fit kind of a winter fog type a little better. One thing I didn’t like about this one was the snow that he had on over the monster. It looked a little too fake, I guess. But, that’s fine, it was something that he was going to take care of on the next version. Which, the next version we had still had.

R: And that one had kind of a great story where he had opened up this version and he gasped.

F: He, as in me.

R: Frank, yes.

F: So, Ben had emailed us this version of it and we obviously wanted more detail on the human faces and this was the first variant of that that he painted. And, it’s digital painting, but it is actual painting. You’re actually painting these. This is not stock photography or anything like that. So, it’s all the more impressive that it looks so realistic. Even zooming in on it, it’s still, you know you can see the texture of it. And, one of the things that we were really trying to impress upon Ben was that we were going to be using this for marketing collateral. So, the bookmarks which we showed you in last week’s episode, but also the posters that we’re planning on making. And, eventually, print covers for a paperback. We’ve had a lot of folks ask about paperback and we are planning to eventually, but not yet.

R: So, we knew that there had to be excellent quality, especially with our protagonists, Nick and Katrina. And, their faces are just gorgeous.

F: Yep. So, when you look at that, you can actually see their expressions a little bit. With that, we wanted Katrina to have a little bit more fear in her eyes, a little bit more expression there. And, Nick had to have a scar. He has a scar in the book and that was something distinct about him that comes up in future books. So, we wanted to make sure that it was present. On the next one, he actually did add that and this is pretty darn close to the final version ended up being. He really nailed it on this. And, I think that there were only a couple lighting changes and positioning, we changed the positioning a little bit. The beauty of doing digital painting is that you can actually move elements around a little bit, more easily that obviously traditional painting. You are obviously kind of stuck with where things are at, so that’s kind of a beauty there. And, that’s basically what the final version was. He had changed the head of the Gurgurran, a little bit, too. The shape was a little bit. It was supposed to kind of have an anvil shaped head and that has significance, which won’t show up for several books. But, there is a reason for the shape of his head. So, the final version here, with the text and our author logo. I think it ended up turning out pretty decently. We’re very happy with it.

R: Yes.

F: Some good feedback.

R: Should we tell them about the little bonus?

F: No!

R: Okay.

F: Now that she said that, I, well, okay. I wasn’t planning to, but…I was planning on waiting until we have the series out and then we were going to have a kind of a “Where’s Waldo” clue hunt on our covers. But, now that somebody spilled the beans here. And, I don’t want to rerecord all this.

R: Oh, no!

F: That’s alright. But, in every one of our covers, we have a squirrel. Somewhere. We won’t tell you where, but there is a squirrel on every one of our covers. And this is only the first cover. The second one is being designed by Ben right now. But, there is a squirrel on it and you know, maybe we’ll do a contest on it someday. Now that the squirrel’s out of the bag. We probably won’t do that. Thanks for ruining Christmas. But, there is squirrels…are significant to us. We’re kind of a couple of squirrels anyway ourselves. So, we’re including that element in every one of our books.

R: I think it’s charming.

F: So, anyway. If you look closely enough, you may find it. It’s very subtle on this first one. A little less subtle on the next one. But, it’s in every one of our covers. And, just in time, speaking of squirrels, we’ve got our Euler. He has to make his cameo, here so, thanks for joining in here. We almost made an entire episode without a cat making an appearance. We’re professionals here.

R: We do professional.

F: We obviously, yeah, we’re pretty good. We know what we’re doing here. He probably wants to play his games on the tablet now. We’ll probably have to relinquish that. But, that will probably be enough for this episode. We’re going to be pinned down here.

R: Thanks for joining us.

F: I’ll see you, probably in a week, when he actually lets me up. We’ve got a twenty-pound cat here, holding me down.

R: So, again, visit us on FRhurt.com

F: And, we’ll see you next time.