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The Horror of Mistvale Hall ~ Colophon

By William Jeffrey Rankin, Thu Oct 31 2024

The Story

The Horror of Mistvale Hall was written using Wordperfect. In addition to the MS itself this includes story notes, chronologial and narrative outlines, and other supporting documents. Upon completion the MS was imported into LibreOffice Writer and the paperback and hardcover editions created. Body copy is Times New Roman and the title font is Rakkas, a Google font designed by Zeynep Akay.

The Covers

Three distinct covers (eBook, paperback, and hardcover) were created in GIMP. Vector elements (typographic and glyphs) were created using Inkscape. Rakkas was again utilized for the title and author text. The subtitle font ("A Jonathan Quint Adventure") is Futura. The back cover copy is Times New Roman.

eBooks

The eBooks (Kindle and EPUB) were created by importing the MS into Kindle Create. Kindle Previewer was used for initial proofing. The Kindle App (desktop and tablet) was utilized as well in the proofing stage.

Maps & Floor Plans

Maps and floor plans were created using Inkarnate.

Source Control

All files were versioned using Apache Subversion.

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    My Commonplace Book

    By William Jeffrey Rankin, Saturday Oct 26 2024

    A document consisting, to quote H. P. Lovecraft, "of ideas, images, and quotations hastily jotted down for possible future use in weird fiction." I've used several in my own stories. They are merely starting points to set the imagination working. A few are pulled from Lovecraft's own Commonplace Book.

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        Three Halloween Treats

        By William Jeffrey Rankin, Thursday Oct 24 2024

        Three Halloween treats for you: favorites from my Carnacki Casebook volumes. All in EPUB format and free!

        I hope you enjoy the stories. Happy Halloween!

        *Yes, that Thurnley Abbey. If you know, you know.

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            OpenDocument Standard Manuscript Format Template

            By William Jeffrey Rankin, Sat June 1 2024

            Standard manuscript format template in OpenDocument format for word processors like LibreOffice, OpenOffice, etc. Conforms to the basic page layout typical to manuscripts and contains several styles for content (Para, Para First, Chapter, Chapter Sep, Block Quotation).

            Manuscript.ott.zip, 15K

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                Hieroglyphics Highlights

                By William Jeffrey Rankin, Fri Sep 22 2023

                I recently read Arthur Machen's Hieroglyphics (1902). In the book, he explains (among other things) his theory of ecstasy, what separates art (in this case, fine literature) from artifice (merely well executed literature), whether the production of works that embody ecstasy is the result of a conscious process, and the utility of logic in such works. The book has many memorable passages, a selection of which are collected in this document.

                Download hieroglyphics.pdf, 62K