ALIENS INVADE IN SEARCH OF . . . CANDY!

So, whaddaya think of my Halloween costume?  LOL!  Not really, just some pixel magic performed by my wonderful photographer Joe Parker and his brilliant (and slightly twisted!) assistant Jessi Fitgerald.  I'd give a lot to be able to be out on the town in full Andorian regalia tonight, though.  I think I look pretty good in blue!

What about you all?  Send us a pic of you--or your offspring or your pet--in your Halloween best.  Maybe we'll even nail the most impressive effort up over the bar here at Spacefreighters Lounge to scare off Molduvian slimedogs.  We've had a lot of those lately.

Happy Halloween!
Donna

#BristolCon - Aftermath

So the one day SFF convention is over and I'm back home. And you'd like to know how it went, right? Well...

I've already done a post on what I took to the convention (which you can find HERE, and you can check out my indepth posts on the Brigade blog HERE from the 30th October) so I won't go over it again. Misa took download codes for all her ebooks, plus the print edition of three of her novellas bundled together as a collection in one book, as well as her bookmarks and a banner. The book bundle giveaway and Breathless Press wristbands aren't in the photo as this was our set up on the Friday evening before the event, and I didn't want to leave them lying around.

Mine and Misa's table at the con

The view from our table

How did it go? Well, it was nowhere near as terrifying an experience as several nightmares had tried to make me believe. BristolCon is a small, friendly, welcoming and predominantly SFF book orientated convention. The organizers are an awesome bunch of people set on ensuring guests, visitors and dealers are all happy. The panels I attended were fantastic (Death and Sex, and YA dystopia - I wish now I'd attended the Alien Sex one too, but I felt I couldn't keep leaving our dealers table all the time) and I felt it was completely safe to let my 12yo daughter wander around by herself, go to a panel, and spend an hour chatting to her favourite author (Janet Edwards) during a signing session (also in the company of MY favourite author Jaine Fenn, who signed my book and somehow ignored my ridiculous girlfanning while I chatted to her). I think my eldest actually enjoyed the convention even more than I did. I also treated myself to a little geek themed necklace to add to my sonic screwdriver necklace and lightsaber earrings. 

So on a personal level, BristolCon rocked for me and my daughter. On the level of an author looking to promote herself...maybe not such a success. I made ONE sale as a result of the convention (that I know of for sure. As an aside, I did see a small spike in sales the day after the convention (more noticeable because my sales had been nonexistent for the beginning of October, breaking my consistent sales since the end of July) AND gained three new Likes on my Amazon page, which had remained static for over a year. I can't say for sure these were due to BristolCon, but it seems a bit of a coincidence if not. The one sale was of great personal significance, though, as it was by an author I have a lot of respect and admiration for, especially as she made the effort to come to our table and chat TWICE (I suffered a dose of 'I'm not worthy!'). I did feel that being opposite the Forbidden Planet table - double length and full of glossy, big selling name books, many signed by the authors attending - put us at a big disadvantage, especially as it was the first thing most visitors saw on entering the dealers room (I will note that I didn't see them make a huge number of sales either, and they packed up about two hours before the rest of us. If FP couldn't sell a lot of books, I guess it's no surprise that we didn't either. Another dealer mentioned that he'd found it quiet too). 

I learned a lot. I can't discuss it all - it meant more to me personally than being of any use to anyone else - but any development as a writer is important. As a first experience as an author trying to promote herself at a convention, I'll say this was probably the best it could have been. 

So, my first convention is under my belt. I have a box full of stock ready for the next convention (and I do intend to do more, so at least I won't be paying out for new stuff), and when I go I will have more titles in print. I did have interest over my display copy of Keir (taken purely because I am still so proud of that debut novel, and I really, really must get it back out) which was both flattering and yet a little gutting since I still haven't re-released it. Soon! People loved my jacket. Apparently my bright, spiked hair are a recognized trademark. I got my book signed. I'm following a few new authors as a result, made some connections and friends, and pimped some lovely geek jewellery on Facebook. All in all, I would have liked to make more sales but overall I'm not disappointed with the experience.

For those interested in the process of making download cards, please swing by the Brigade blog from the 30th for a more indepth description.

Today is cover reveal day for my futuristic UF No Angel. This is my last reveal for the year, and also my last release for 2014 (it releases on the 19th December, with my superhero romance When Dark Falls releasing on the 21st of November). Wow, what a year! I now have so many titles, they don't all fit on my Goodreads author page, lol. Right now the only definite release I have for 2015 is Zombie Girl: Dead Awakened, the first part of a planned YA dystopian trilogy coming out in April. Other than that, budget and time will decide what I'll be self publishing next year, but top of that list is Keir, and the sequel Keir's Fall, both long overdue. 

Happenings

It's the last auction for Scream! For the Cure this Friday, and the final auction bundle is PRINT BOOKS! Urban fantasy and horror are the genres - please go and check it out HERE, and spread the word if you can. Any help is much appreciated.

I'm currently taking part in the Romancing Halloween blog hop organized by KM Fawcett, with a gift card grand prize. Check out the participants HERE. Tomorrow I'm one of the hosts for KG Stutts cover reveal for a new scifi novella series - the Amethyst Chronicles. Visit my blog HERE to see it! On the 31st I'll be telling you my top five fears as part of the Aussie Owned and Read Haunting Halloween blog hop, and my tour for Hallow's Eve will be winding to a close. 

And then it's November. At this point I'm still undecided on what to do for NaNoWriMo. Will this be the first year I actually fail to take part, having actually plotted and planned to do it? Dun, dun, DUUUUUUN! 

Ping Pong

Laurie, I am not a JD fan and don't know the song, but I know what a huge influence and inspiration music and lyrics can be. For me they've inspired characters, settings, plotlines, or even just the feel of a story. Without music I think I'd have written so much less, or found it lacking some of the depth that it has. What a boring world it would be without music.

Donna, spaceships are one of my favourite things about scifi. From the TARDIS to the Enterprise, X-wings to the iconic Liberator in Blake's Seven, they are a big part of what drew me into science fiction as a kid. But like anything else used as a setting, the basic logistics are important to make them realistic.

Farewell Andromeda & the Artist Who Inspired the Title

MISSION SUCCESS
Laurie's Journal

My novelette, Farewell Andromeda, is complete and standing for final inspection by two of my trusted beta readers.

I'm pretty thrilled with how this novelette turned out after receiving crucial feedback from fellow Spacefreighter and SFR author Sharon Lynn Fisher, who pointed out some issues in the first draft that needed further attention.

Now to wait and see if the retooled story gets the thumbs up from other peers. It has to be as near perfect as I can get it, because Farewell Andromeda is slated to be my first published work, with a planned release date in January just a few weeks before the first novel in my new SFR series debuts.

Farewell Andromeda takes place in the same universe as my series and has a few tie-ins that future readers will recognize, although the characters will not appear in any of the other stories.

Here's a peek at the opening paragraph:

I met the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with ten days before he died. Someday, I'll look back at that time on Andromeda Station and laugh.

Wait, you say, how can this story possibly have a happy ending? Well, that's the beauty of SFR, isn't it? The author has the freedom to solve romantic dilemmas creatively, or in ways you might not see coming. But no tragedies allowed! Being Science Fiction Romance, the stories have to have a satisfying conclusion for the readers.

So, yeah, I've got a lot riding on this tale of star-crossed (or is it galaxy-crossed?) lovers 2,000 years in the future.

Meanwhile, I wanted to post the video that inspired the title. Not only does the title fit the story to a T, but I think this upbeat tune pretty much captures how I'm feeling about the tale right now.

I'm truly honored to be able to "borrow" this title for my work in honor of the artist who inspired a generation to head west and find their own personal Rocky Mountain High. I've been a huge fan of John Denver from the early days of his career to his tragic death on October 12, 1997 when his experimental plane crashed into the Pacific.

John Denver (Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr.), truly a pioneer on many fronts, was an introvert-turned-superstar who shared his love of life, adventure and nature through lyrics and melody, much like writers share their feelings through phrasing and plots.

Farewell Andromeda is probably one of his most loved songs. Though the song has nothing to do with space exploration or science fiction romance or the galaxy of Andromeda, I think the spirit of discovery and adventure is infused in every word.

With a few tweaks to the words, these lyrics could become every author's anthem. (Just use your imagination here.)

Welcome to my morning
Welcome to my day
I'm the one responsible
I made it just this way
To make myself some pictures
See what they might bring
I think I made it perfectly
I wouldn't change a thing

Welcome to my happiness
You know it makes me smile
And it pleases me to have you here
For just a little while
While we open up the spaces
Try to break some chains
And if the truth is told
They'll never come again

Welcome to my evening
The closing of the day
If I could try a million times
I'd never find a better way
To tell you that I love you
And all the songs I play
Are to thank you for allowing me
Inside this lovely day

Welcome to my morning
Welcome to my day
Yes, I'm the one responsible
I made it just this way
To make myself some pictures
And see what they might bring
I think I made it perfectly
I wouldn't change a thing

--Lyrics by the late John Denver

So how about you? Were you a fan of the great JD? Tell us which of his songs was your favorite? Has his music inspired you or your writing?

Have a great week!

~~~*~~~

SETTINGS, PART II: THINKING OUTSIDE THE STARSHIP BOX

The Shadowhawk looks like this--only way cooler.

For this settings challenge we have to think outside the box, specifically a box that takes the shape of a starship in deep space.  That starship may be a sleek, glistening marvel of space engineering like the Enterprise, or it may be a scarred, battle-weary hulk like the Serenity, but essentially it’s a big tin can in the vastness of black that is space.  If your story is set on a starship, the ship itself is the very limited stage for your action.

First step, sharpen your pencil.  Because you’ll need to draw a picture of your starship, or maybe a few pictures.  What does it look like on the outside?   Saucer and nacelles?  Cobbled together like a flying slum?  What is the floor plan?  How do you get from one deck to the other?  Where are the engines, the cargo deck, Sickbay, crew and captain’s quarters, the bridge?  Where are the hiding places on your ship?  Its weak points?

You need to know your ship as intimately as any captain.  When I was writing STAR TREK fan fiction, I had a ship’s manual for the Enterprise that I used for reference (produced by some engineering-oriented fans with too much time on their hands).  As I was writing the third book in my Interstellar Rescue series, Fools Rush In, I sketched out the exterior and interior of Captain Sam Murphy’s Shadowhawk in as much detail as I could.  Since I’m a writer, not an artist, the sketches were rough, but they served to orient me as I set the action onboard and in the battle scenes with other ships.

Next, you’ll need to know how that ship will be getting around.  Its range determines the bigger canvas upon which your story takes place.  Are you just tooling around a single solar system, or does your ship jump from system to system within a sector of space?  Is the galaxy your oyster?  Okay, how many reference points do you use—planets, space stations, stars/star systems, jump nodes?  You know what’s coming next.  Yeah, you have to map them.

Now my map for Fools Rush In is even rougher than my ship drawings.  There is no “real” reference point, since the characters never visit Earth or any other place the name of which is familiar to us here on Earth.  (The naming part is significant.  Our astronomers have surely seen these places from Earth, but their referents are different.)  The wormholes, called “jump nodes,” by which my ship travels, are located on my map in relation to significant places my characters need to go.  I had to determine how long it takes to get from one jump node to another (the ship travels in ion drive between nodes), so I could determine how much time I had onboard ship for events to occur.

I write science fiction suspense romance, so I had plenty of things planned for my little voyage in space (besides space battles, which I’ll address in a minute), and still I felt trapped in my durasteel box as a wrote Fools Rush In.  What can be done when you face that problem?

Use the whole ship.  Make sure to set scenes all over to give the reader a sense of space where there is little.

Pay even closer attention than usual to pacing.  You can’t afford to wander aimlessly in description or irrelevant dialogue.  Important things have to happen with breathless velocity.

Tension must be maintained.  Both suspense and sexual tension must be heightened at every opportunity.  That doesn’t mean bodies dropping everywhere and the hero and heroine fighting constantly, but use every interaction to tighten the screws.

When all else fails, blow something up.  This is a trick learned from movie blockbusters, and I think it works if you have a hand for such things.  There’s nothing like a good space battle, on the page just as much as on the screen.  I got plenty of experience writing these when I did TREK fanfic, and the lingo serves just as well with other ships.  I just visualize those scenes—Kirk fighting Khan or the Klingons—and try to reproduce the feel of that bridge—the disciplined action, the taut orders, the controlled chaos, the sights, the smells.

Okay, so you’ve kept up the pace on your ship, you’ve blown stuff up, your hero and heroine are walking a razor’s edge and you’re only 150 pages into a 300-page novel.  (Of course, if you’re writing a novella, you’re home free.  Blessings on you.) Time to get off the ship.  It was STAR TREK’s answer, and it’s mine, too.  About this time in Fools Rush In, my heroine, Rayna, takes up her mission to infiltrate the slave labor weapons factory on the planetoid of Lin Ho (against the strong objections of her new lover, Captain Murphy).  Sam himself is soon captured by his former business partner for the bounty Sam will bring from Confederated Systems authorities (He’s a pirate, after all.) 

So the action moves to a broader stage for a while. The Shadowhawk is never far from the scene and returns as the major setting in the last quarter of the book.  She’s been gone just long enough for us to miss her.

Space opera noir--or is it just a visit from Dr. Who?

What, you ask?  No mountain roads?  No honky tonks in this book?  Well, no, but I do try to give my “dirtside” scenes a gritty NYC alley sort of feel.  For that reason I’d call Fools Rush In “space opera noir”, which couldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been thinking outside the box.

Cheers, Donna

#BristolCon - Approaching Take-Off

It's three days until BristolCon! Woot! In fact, I'll be setting off in two days, with my eldest in tow, to meet fellow author and Brigader Misa Buckley in Bristol. We'll all be staying Friday and Saturday nights for the convention Saturday. We may even set up our table Friday evening. And what am I taking?

Download cards - the idea here is that each card has a download code on it for the specific title. The cards I've created and printed myself, then purchased the codes from my publisher, printed those onto little stickers and added them to each card. This gives me something to display and something physical for a buyer to pick up and pay for. They then download the book from the site for free, having already paid for the card. On each I've put the cover, blurb, and full instructions on the back for use (plus contact details in case anything goes wrong). While I'm looking forward to having print books next year, this is awesome for anyone with only digital titles, with the advantage of it takes up far less space in your luggage than print books. I'll talk about creating these over on the Brigade blog after the event, so I can tell you how they sold (or didn't, as the case may be!)

Free Samples -
Both Breathless Press and Lycaon Press provide their authors with free pdf samples to print off or make available for download (I've put the downloads into my newsletter before now) so I've printed these off in booklet form to giveaway. These will be going into goodie bags with a Breathless Press pencil and a few bits of promo. I've also done some for my YA scifi Gethyon, so covering the three novel/novella length titles I have out. I haven't done this for the shorts since the samples would be too small to justify it. I'm hoping that even if the peeps who pick up these printed samples don't want to pay out for the book, they might take a peek at my cheaper/free shorter works since I've included a link to my website, as well as links to my publishers.

Goodie basket -
This contains a Wonderland Tales anthology from my publisher (twists on Alice In Wonderland stories written by the Breathless Press authors) and provided by Mia Aeon-Epsilon, a print edition of Tales from the SFR Brigade, a print copy of Ghost Planet by Sharon Lynn Fisher, and a notebook with the cover to my Halloween release, Hallow's Eve. Ticket sales will pay for posting it to the winner.

Promo materials -
Various. I have postcards, bookmarks, and business cards for my books, and postcards from Sabine Priestley and Rachel Leigh Smith (the latter will also be going in the free samples of Tethered as they're all SFR titles). I have free wristbands from Breathless Press that are eligible for a giveaway contest, pencils from the same that will be going into the goodie bags, and sweets to tempt people over. I'm also taking a clipboard for sign ups to my newsletter, if I can persuade people to sign up. I have SFR Brigade badges for myself and Misa, SFR stickers will be going on the Brigade material, and I have little promo cards for the Brigade and the anthology.

Myself -
I absolutely hate drawing attention to myself. But for the convention I'll be wearing a t-shirt with the cover to When Dark Falls (my daughter will be wearing one for Restless), my bright red brocade highwayman jacket, black leggings, black boots, bright red hair, and even nail varnish to match.

My daughter -
I'm hoping having someone younger on the table will make visitors feel less intimidated. Since she wants to become an author, I also think this will be good experience for her as much as for me. And her new favourite author is at the con (no, not me).

The tickets are bought, the outfit sorted, and hopefully by now everything is packed (at the time of writing this, it's Friday afternoon and I've barely finished printing the latest batch of free samples after spending a couple of hours fighting with the printer over cartridges. Ugh.) Next week I hope to tell you all about it, depending on how shattered I am and how much email I come back to.

Happenings

The cover reveal for my futuristic urban fantasy No Angel will take place on the 29th of October! This will be my last release for 2014, and possibly my last reveal for the year (I'm awaiting cover art for Zombie Girl, but since that isn't scheduled for release until late April 2015, I'm not rushing to reveal it before the end of 2014...assuming I have it). Apparently I gave the artist quite a headache with this one. The paranormal elements - no problem, but then she had to add a little scifi into it. It seems I make quite outrageous demands on my publisher's art department. :P

While I'm away, please keep checking out the posts and auctions at Scream! For the Cure and help support this great cause.

Pippa Jay, signing out...

AUTHENTIC SETTINGS A CHALLENGE IN SFR

Hard to get a "real feel" for a place you can't get to.

One of the huge advantages of writing the kind of “hearth and home” science fiction romance I do is that I can send my hero and heroine to real places here on Earth.  That “grounds” my settings in a way that is impossible to do when I put them on a spaceship or alien planet.  I work hard to give my alien settings substance, but there’s just nothing like actually being there to give a scene authenticity.

I envy the RWA Kiss of Death (romantic suspense) chapter members their field trips at the national conference.  They always visit the coolest places in search of gritty realism for their novels—FBI headquarters, forensic labs, police shooting ranges.  Fellow 2012 Golden Heart® Firebird Heather Ashby, who writes military romance, is a U.S. Navy vet herself and still finds her way onto every ship she can to keep a sense of place.  Some people live in small towns—and write about small towns.  Some people know everything there is to know about New York City, and their novels reflect that intimate knowledge of the streets, back alleys and sky-high buildings of that city.

Those of us who write SFR tend to be science and space geeks from early childhood.  We seek out any opportunity, slim though it may be, to stand close to something, uh, space-y.  Field trips to an observatory, to the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum or, if we’re lucky, to see a launch at Cape Canaveral bring squeals of delight.  But you have to admit, we have greater challenges finding a way to immerse ourselves in setting details for planets that exist only in our minds.

That’s why, in a way, I “cheat” by setting parts of my stories here on Earth.  (That’s true of the first two of my Interstellar Rescue series, at least.  The third book, Fools Rush In, is set entirely in space.)  It helps me as a writer, but I think it also helps the reader relate to the story.  If some of the places are familiar, then a reader new to SFR might have an easier time accepting the introduction of more alien places and ideas.  Of course, my ulterior motive is to hook these new readers and draw them in.  If they like the first two books in my series, then I’m hoping they’ll follow me into the more alien territory of the third book.

Meanwhile, outside forces are working independently to help me out.  Recently I discovered a website devoted to the history and culture of towns and counties along U.S. 219 through the Appalachians of West Virginia and southern Maryland (traveling219.com).  That highway is the back road my hero and heroine Ethan and Asia are forced to take to avoid the black ops kidnappers who are searching for them in Unchained Memory.  Now you can click on the link, and follow the route, learning about the history of the area as you read about places like Marlinton, where my lovers are holed up in a motel, or Elkins, toward the end of the route.

As my characters continue north, they enter the Adirondacks, specifically headed for a place called Big Moose Lake.  Yes, it really exists.  I’ve been there, as part of a road trip I took to follow their route.  I stayed at a bed and breakfast on the lake (in the book, they stay at his family lake house), in an area known for summer vacation homes. 

I had come up with both the route north and the location of the lake house simply by looking at a map.  I knew West Virginia, having family in the area, but the Adirondacks were new to me.  All I had to go on there was a long-ago trip to my husband’s family place in upstate New York.  Luckily I have a good mind for the details of setting and an even better imagination for using them.  When I got to Big Moose, it was as if I’d been there before.  All I can hope now is that my readers feel the same way.

The journey for Ethan and Asia begins in Nashville, Tennessee, where I grew up and still have both friends and roots.  Nashville is the starting place for the hero and heroine in my second novel, Trouble in Mind, too.  It just goes to show that even if we’re writing science fiction romance about aliens and spaceships and faraway planets, we’re still grounded in our own experience.  It helps if we can make that experience as rich and real for our readers as possible.

Cheers, Donna

Pippa's Journal & The Dreaded 'Sales' Word

Mission Success - Hallow's Eve Tour

So my paranormal short released last week, and this week the tour is in progress. You can check out the tour stops below. And how's it been going?

Well, none of my books are ever a straight tearaway success. Something that is quoted a lot about being a successful author in a niche genre is that it's a marathon, not a sprint. I've spent four years building my platform and readership as a Skiffy Rommer...and at this late stage I'm now diversifying into paranormal, superheroes, YA... So I almost have to start again in terms of finding fans in those genres, particularly the YA.

One thing I can say for sure is setting Hallow's Eve up for pre-order certainly made release day a lot less stress for a self publisher, and I'd do it again. It left me free to pimp, and to update my blog and website for the new release, instead of tearing my hair out when things didn't work and feverishly checking to see if it was up.

Tour Schedule for Hallow's Eve

13^th – Winter Bayne Fairies, Imps and Sprites

15^th - Going from Somebody to Nobody Three Little Things (story inspiration)

17^th – Liza O’Connor Red Hair Rocks

19^th – Kristina Stutts How to make a Woman

20^th - Layna Pimentel Review

21^st – Celia Breslin All Hallows’ Eve

22^nd – Sonya Clark Interview

24^th – Patty Hammond Five Facts about Hallow’s Eve

25^th – Paranormal Reads Review

27^th – Liana Brooks Hodge’s Spiced Elderberry Cordial

26^th+27^th – Paranormal Romantics Interview

30^th - Mark of the Stars Five Facts about Witchcraft

One thing I rarely talk about (in public anyway) is my book sales. Well, other than to occasionally sob on the virtual shoulders of my friends and fellow authors when I have a bad month. Despite the internet, it's harder and harder to get your book noticed because there are soooo many others out there. Like over 10 million on Amazon alone. If you said ten titles per author, that's one million authors. ONE MILLION. How do you get heard out of that lot? I'm still trying to figure it out.

Another reason I don't mention sales figures is because I think it would be disrespectful to my publishers to reveal exact figures. It's like discussing what you get paid with your work colleagues and having them complain to the boss that so-and-so is on a better pay scheme. But one thing that I've seen as being a 'guaranteed' sales boost is more titles (of course, there's no such thing as guaranteed in business, but I'm talking in general terms of relatively). And I'm going to tell you that I think that is true.

Okay, so I'm not in multiple sales figures per day--that much I will tell you. But since Tethered released in July, and with Restless In Peaceville coming out in August, my sales have been steady to date. And they've been my best ever. I don't think I'm going to hit any best seller lists just yet (although Tethered has sat at #5 on my publisher's website for scifi romance since August, then jumped to #4 at the end of September), but steady sales are unusual for me in the two and a half years I've been published. So I am cautiously optimistic. I had another release just last week and the tour kicks off today (details below), and I still have two more to go for this year. It's been exhausting and I don't think I'd do it at this rate again. But it's given me a good range of titles in varying genres, lengths and prices which I hope will give me a broader appeal (scifi romance is still painfully niche). It'll be interesting to see how it goes come January 2015 when they're all out together. Plus I'm attending BristolCon in just over a week, to put myself 'out there' somewhere other than the internet.

No, I won't be giving you exact figures. But I will let you know if it causes any jumps or changes in sales. In the meantime you should check out Cary Caffrey's series on marketing at the Brigade blog (I'm going to confess I've not kept up to date with them myself because I'm so snowed under, but I'll be looking through them after BristolCon).

Happenings

Scream! For the Cure:

Last Friday the first goodie basket was auctioned off for this cancer charity event, and the next is up for display HERE (this time a HUGE bundle of erotic romance). Please consider stopping by and lending your support by sharing the event even if you can't contribute. I even bared my soul and told my own story HERE. I didn't expect talking about it to be quite so painful, but it's for a good cause.

BristolCon:

I am freaking out a bit, I'll admit. I'm not the world's most sociable person, so putting myself in front of strangers is a nerve-racking experience. Fortunately I will not be alone. I did a practice set up of my table (I'm sharing with the awesome Misa Buckley so I think I may have to budge up a bit) but here's what I have so far. If anyone has any advice or suggestions for me, I'd appreciate it! Just ten days to go. *gulp*

Romancing the Genre:

I have my monthly stint on RTG on Friday, this month talking about my near death experience. Come and found out what it was, and what went through my mind HERE.

NaNoWriMo is coming! I was supposed to spend this month planning, but between preparations for BristolCon, releasing Hallow's Eve, and all the usual little tasks I have around the interwebs and at home, I haven't done a whole lot. I tentatively sketched out a plot for the WDF sequel...and got sidetracked by a sequel to Tethered, a sequel to RIP, and trawling through some of my older WIPs that I really should finish off. So what am I doing for NaNo? Come back in November and find out - I might even know myself by then. O.O

In the meantime, I've being doing some work toward Keir. Specifically, a key tattoo on his stomach that is also mentioned elsewhere in the book...and in other related stories. OooooOOOOooooOOO! Yep, not telling you anything else. But these are the two current designs under consideration (the final design will also be going onto the Redemption series books). Which do you prefer?

News

I finally have a definitive release date for my superhero romance! When Dark Falls will be out on the 21st November. You can check out the blurb and add it to your Goodreads TBR shelf HERE. Still loving that cover.

Ping Pong

Congrats to Donna on a safe move and a happily married daughter!

BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN

I’m ba-a-a-ck!  I’m moved in.  My lovely daughter is married (and currently enjoying a well-deserved beach honeymoon in Cancun) and I’m free to return to my usual pursuits.  No more excuses! 

So, yes, I’m faced with this:

 

On the writing front, at least, I have edits to keep me from facing that eternally blinking cursor for a while.  The editor and I are polishing Trouble in Mind, as we get ready for its debut in mid-2015.  The third book in the Interstellar Rescue series, Fools Rush In, is in final draft stage.  I’m incorporating comments from my beta readers on that space opera noir that will be hitting the market in early 2016.  (Oh, and I should have a cover launch coming up for Unchained Memory soon.  Watch this space!)

But work will inevitably have to start back up on the fourth book in the series (tentative title Follow the Sun), and the short story I started a while back to generate interest in the series, “Saturday Night in Devils Holler”.  Yikes!  My brain feels rusty and slow.  Who are these people and what are they doing?  These notes make absolutely NO SENSE!

But it’s okay.  I got this.  Writing is what we do, right?

As I come back from my extended immersion in family affairs, it will be more difficult to reestablish all my social networking connections.  I’ve been unplugged from Facebook for at least a month and haven’t cruised my usual websites to comment in at least that long.  Folks who know me mostly as a frequent commenter or poster must be thinking I’ve dropped off the edge of the earth.  When they think of me at all.  That’s the problem with social networking.  If you aren’t present, you don’t exist.  I’ve got to re-create that presence and put some energy into it ASAP.

I’ll be spiffing up my website and creating a new author page on Facebook in the next few weeks.  It so happens my website host, GoDaddy, is offering a new deal for upgrading my website (unlimited pages and other goodies) that looks very attractive.  I also want to start my own YouTube channel.  Then I could interview authors, do readings, get my artsy friends to do graphics and do other fun things. (Yeah, that’s ambitious, but easier in my mind than Twitter.)

Now that I think about it, the next few months promise to be pretty exciting!

PING PONG

--Congrats, Pippa, and best wishes for another successful launch!  You are on fire, girl!  And don’t forget, everyone, today is the day for the Scream! for the Cure cancer auction charity event.  Click here for more information.

--Yay, Laurie, I’ll be coming to RT, too!  Can’t wait to experience all the fun for the first time with you and Barbara.

Cheers, Donna