Pippa's Journal - 9/11/13

What. A Week. Well, where do I start?


Mission Success!

Okay, first the big announcement. I have signed two - yes, TWO - contracts with new e-publisher Definition House. Woot! One is the long overdue sequel to Keir - Keir's Fall - and the other a one-off SFR novella called Tethered. I am sooooo excited! Not only because I love these stories and can't wait to share them - Tethered missed out on being a LERA The Rebecca finalist last year by just one point - but because I know the team behind Definition House, and I know it's going to be a blast. They do have a somewhat novel approach to publishing - they're going to use crowd-funding to produce the books. Now, while this does mean that if the funding limit isn't reached, the book doesn't get published, it does mean Definition House can offer a generous 60% royalty on ebooks, and some extra little bonuses for contributors and authors alike. You can check out some of the details on their website here. It might seem odd that I'm willing to jump onboard with a publisher yet to prove themselves (but then, they all have to start somewhere) but I have full confidence in them. To find out why, you can check out my post over on the SFR Brigade blog here.

What else? Oh, The Rebecca. Okay, again I missed out on the finals, but got some fantastic feedback from the judges on my entry - a decopunk superhero romance that I started last year as part of Camp NaNoWriMo. As always, there's comments that conflict with one another, but the overall conclusion was the world-building was great, the conflict was well-balanced with some clear from the start and more hinted at, and they all wanted to read on. I'd had some doubts on the opening of this story and whether I should swap things around, but two said it started in the right place, with one commenting that they found it a bit slow but that it picked up nicely. Now I just need to sort out the mess toward the end of the story, polish it up, check it a hundred times, find a publisher, etc etc...

So, my aims for the rest of this year are to -
Finish the decopunk.
Finish two short stories that link to Terms & Conditions Apply.
Finish the short story that jumped on me a couple of weeks ago and has now already reached novella length.
Make sure I keep my publisher supplied with all the necessary info for my two books. >.<

Discoveries

A few Brigade members picked up on the article in Amazing Stories this week, and pulled it apart. I am not going to post a link to the article because I think the best thing is just to ignore it, and Laurie has already posted her reposte. The author not only bashed romance in scifi, but even went on the rage about zombies diluting his pure science fiction. To counter that, I'd like to point out a great upcoming issue special being run by Lightspeed Magazine, and urge everyone to get involved (note, they also take story submissions, and it would be great if one or two members could submit to that), Don't be misled by the title, but you can find out more information here - http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/press/announcing-the-lightspeed-women-destroying-science-fiction-special-issue/

Plus an interesting blog post on Seven Keys to Unforgettable Characters. Whatever genre you write, it's the characters you're going to empathize with, and there's some useful tips on making them memorable.

Happenings

On Friday I'm taking part in the Fall Into Romance blog hop, and I'm promoting...gasp...someone else's book! To find out which one, come visit me here.

Ping Pong

Donna, hope you're feeling recovered now. Great post on Mundane SF.

Laurie, glad to see you back after your hell month for the traditional burning of Badjuju. And hey, funny how straight after that I got my contracts. Also, wonderful reposte on the No Romance in my SF article.

Additional

I'd like to wish friend and fellow Brigader Misa Buckley a very happy birthday. Have a good one, Misa.