Pippa's Journal 9th October 2013

First, an apology. I've been AWOL from Spacefreighters for the last few weeks for one reason or another, mostly because I just couldn't come up with anything of interest, but also because I've been on a campaign to GET ALL THE THINGS DONE. Something about the approach of winter and year's end always triggers a sudden urge to finish things. To have them done. With writing, that rarely happens, because I always have several stories at various stages in the writing process. I have things from a folder of vague ideas up to completed manuscripts that need to go for submission or, in the case of two of them, that are waiting for the long process of publication to begin. I have four projects I really wanted out the door by the end of 2013, but had to trim that back to two as other things took over. Basically my schedule and my mind are a mess, but I am making SOME progress...

Mission Success!

Keir came third in the Paranormal/Time Travel/Futuristic category of the Heart of Denver RWA Aspen Gold contest! Woo hoo! This will probably be the last contest Keir is eligible for due to the copyright date, so it was good to finish on a high. And I have to say, the Aspen contest has been one of the best run I've entered. The very wonderful contest coordinator Janet Baltz kept us all updated about the process, sent us all invites to the award ceremony (damn, but I wish I could have gone!), and notified us of the results. And my fellow contestants were one of the friendliest bunch of authors I've ever had the pleasure to be in contact with.:) I'm now waiting on the EPIC results - I entered my scifi romance short Terms & Conditions Apply.And that's it for 2013 contests. In December entry should open for the GCC RWA Silken Sands Self Published Star Awards - T&CA came second last year, and I'm hoping to enter my short Imprint from the Tales from the SFR Brigade anthology.

My decopunk superhero romance Darkfall went out to beta readers at the end of last week - so far I've had three report back, and the overall verdict seems hopeful. They liked it! There are a couple of plot issues to fix - both things that had been niggling at me so not a complete surprise, but both solvable. In the meantime I'm working to finish my second story in the Venus Ascendant collection to go with T&CA. This one has reached novella length already, but along with two other short stories in progress also tied to the VA universe, it looks like I might be able to do a print collection of them in the not too distant future! These will all be self published works since the original idea belongs to the talented Misa Buckley.

Happenings

After some discussions and brainstorming between the SFR Brigade group admins, we're attempting to bring the much neglected SFR Brigade blog back to life. Kyndra Hatch has volunteered to be Blog Post Coordinator with the idea of getting regular posts by Brigaders going up on the blog. At the moment, Laurel Kriegler has volunteered to do a fortnightly Book Recommendation post on alternate Thursdays - these will not be reviews, but recommendations for SFR titles (not necessarily books by Brigaders) and some writing advice books. This is all still in the brainstorming phase, but I would like Brigaders to be aware that the blog is there to be used. We do have guidelines in the right hand side bar about the posting of promotional stuff, but really it's open to anything SFR related. Even if only a fifth of the Brigade's members offered to do a post each, we'd have one for every week of the year without committing anyone to more than one post a year. Please speak to Kyndra if you're interested in posting but are unsure how to go about it.

Next week, I'm doing TWO cover reveals, one on my own blog for Brigader Amy Laurens and her spec fic/fantasty anthology To Dust. The other will be for Butterman (Time) Travel, Inc. with a post on what time I'd like to travel to and why. Should be fun! I'll also have a post up over at Romancing the Genres on the 18th October - Superstition, Magic, and being a Teenage Witch. Bet you never knew that about me! There's also an If You Like Event being coordinated by Heather Massey of The Galaxy Express, where some of us will be taking big name SFR and PNR books, films, and TV series, and recommending some comparable SFR titles for your consideration. I have a list going up on the 22nd of my favourite films and TV shows, and what books I think you'd like that are similar. Charlee Alden will have a couple of lists going up on the 20th and the 23rd. And on the 21st I have a post on what started me writing over at the Indies R Us site.

The Sci-Fi Romance Quarterly is coming! The "go-to digital magazine for your minimum quarterly requirement of robots, aliens, clockworks, hyperspaces, hearts and romance!" Sounds exciting!

Ping Pong

Donna, loved your two part post on SFR, and it certainly opened up discussion. I think the big issue continues to be getting noticed - but also that our readers have as diverse a taste as the range of diversity that the genre can encompass. How the heck can we pull it all together?! Marketing and labelling - being able to get readers to where the books they want to read - seems to be the biggest problem. And clearly self-published works still have a stigma attached to them no matter how hard some of us try to ensure only good quality works are put out there. Sigh.