Get Ready For A Reunion #scifirom

I can't believe how quickly 2018 is passing, and that it's been almost a year already since I last released something. But finally, and after three years in edits (THREE YEARS?!), another chapter in Keir and Quin's adventures will be out. Reunion at Kasha Asor (set directly after Keir: Book One of Redemption) will be available from the 1st of September, but you can pre-order it now from all the main ebook retailers (just click the cover below for the sales links).
So here's an excerpt to tease you with...

The beating rain tore all the warmth from him as he turned, desperate to find a familiar landmark. Behind him, the jagged, broken spur of rock he and Quin had climbed to see S’rano’s distant island stood above the worst of the chaos, its water-drenched black surface gleaming.
Keir wrapped his arms around himself, shivering.
But that is not where I directed the gateway... 
Panic gripped him, stole his breath. He had focused on their hut, been sure of his target, however new to this talent he might have been. What power had sent him that astray?
The storm answered him with a blinding flash as lightning tore across the skies, matched by the earsplitting crash of thunder. The force of it drove him to his knees on the wet sand, and the sea took its chance to lash at him, almost pulling his legs out from under him. Gasping, soaked, Keir scrabbled for the safety of the nearby trees, but the ocean would not give him up so easily. It snatched at his ankles and ripped the sand from beneath his feet. Keir fell, clawing uselessly for a hold as another wave surged around him. As the ground shifted and washed away beneath him, sand and water filled his mouth. He choked, flailing for purchase, but the waves caught him, dragged him out, flipped him over. Hard rock smacked into his side then scraped his skin, tearing it as the sea threw him against the ridge of stone. For an instant, he surfaced, gasped a breath, before the water sucked him back under.
Blood pounded in his head, drowning out the crash of the sea and storm. His lungs burned.
No. Not again. 

Paradise isn't always what you expect it to be...

Returning to the island of Kasha-Asor, Quin and Keir need to reconcile a question of trust: of secrets untold and their precarious situation on a planet where Quin has already been betrayed once. Can they find the idyll they seek, or will they be forced to run?

A Travellers Novella and a side story in the Redemption series, Reunion at Kasha-Asor follows on immediately from the events in Keir: Book One of Redemption. 

The Long Hard Road to Reunion #amediting #scifirom

Jasmine: I help you, Hand that Feeds!
I do tappity tap on keys, you fetch me treats, yes?

It. Is. Done. The edits on Reunion at Kasha-Asor. I finished last Thursday, despite Jasmine's attempts to help and even though I dropped my laptop on the floor and had nothing but a black screen for a heart-stopping two minutes. I sent it off to my trusty proof reader for a check over.

This has taken an eternity to complete - well, it feels like it, lol. The original story is ancient, and mostly written as notes to myself about what happened in the year between books one and two of my Redemption series.

It was never intended to be a published piece...until my editor proposed starting her own publishing house and offered to publish book two - at that point rejected by then my publisher (Lyrical Press) who had published book one - as part of the launch. Since she was planning to use crowdfunding, I offered up Reunion as something to add to the bonus material for donors. Unfortunately the publishing house had to close due to personal reasons before the launch had really got off the ground, but by this point I figured maybe it was worth continuing with Reunion. I'd got the rights back to book one during a buy out of Lyrical Press which gave me the option to leave, and had decided to go ahead with self publishing both books. Reunion would be an added bonus...or so I thought. Checking back through my emails, the first correspondence I have with myeditor Dani on Reunion asks for more content. That was the 22nd of October 2015, so four months shy of THREE YEARS! Three years for a novella!

So maybe you can understand the overriding relief to have it done. Reunion has changed a lot from those sketchy notes to a story that, while not as tumultuous in the telling as the two main books, has certainly been traumatic on my side of it! And my poor, poor editor too. At 39K it's not the short bonus story it started out as, and I hope it'll satisfy those readers who have had to wait for more books, since I originally promised book three by 2017. Ooops?

Reunion was originally due for publication in May last year on the five year anniversary of Keir: Book One of Redemption. Now I'm thinking of an autumn release, to tie in with the season the book is set in. Being as it's already more than two years overdue I figure two more months won't make much odds. It'll be there for when everyone is back from their summer holidays and the monsters are back to school. ;) And since I know for sure it'll be releasing this year, I'm going to share a little teaser (this has kept me going with Reunion on the days when I just wanted to chuck it in the virtual bin. Which was most days).

And that's all you get. Bwahahaa!

Writing Update
And there's more. Not only is Reunion done, but I've set my Christmas short story off to my editor. A Very Merry-traxian Christmas is going to get a proper edit and an official release instead of being a winter freebie as it has been for the last two years. Hopefully it'll be ready for release at the start of December, but I'm not promising. I hate breaking promises...

Chook Update
The chicks will be eight weeks old tomorrow. Already! They're so big and fully feathered, and a right bunch of mischief! I am both happy and sad to say I have already found homes for four of them, with a lovely lady who adores the d'uccle breed and that I got talking to about them through a mutual group on Facebook. Knowing that they're going to a fabulous and caring home with a real enthusiast makes letting them go a bit easier, though not completely. The runt of the hatch - currently called Tiny Two-Toes because she has two toes fused together on one foot, though it doesn't stop her giving me the runaround - will be staying with us. I didn't want to sell on a bird with a deformity, or let all of my babies go. I've been so lucky that all of them were female!

With the roasting weather, I felt safe enough
giving two of the chicks a bath for their yucky mucky feet.
Not only do my girls sound and run like velociraptors -
get them wet and they look like them too!

Mama Firefly with her babies 

Tiny Two-Toes, venturing off alone again!

I spy...

...a feather out of place on my foot!

Littlies out with the big girls!

Quick preen

Backdate
I've missed posting about a few things. One was the first Colchester Geek Con, a new event to our town and hopefully one that will return. I got a selfie with the lovely Hattie Hayridge, who played the female AI Holly in the long-running UK comedy scifi series, Red Dwarf.

What a pair of Hollies!

Eldest got a shot with the chatty James MacKenzie, who played magical warrior Raven in the CBBC adventure game series of the same name.

13yo finally found a chair worthy of him, bwahahaa!

And yesterday I met my Doctor - at least, the one I grew up with - and one of my two favourite companions of that era (the marvellous Liz Sladen has sadly passed on): Tom Baker (4) and Louise Jameson (Leela) at London Film Fair. I've now met all four of the remaining Classic Who Doctors, but unfortunately it looks like my plan to meet Eccleston and Capaldi won't be happening after all, as will my hope to have met Jewel Staite (Kayleigh) to increase my Firefly cast collection. I just can't afford it. O well!

2018: Looking Ahead And Upwards #amwriting #amediting

2017 was not a good year, not one that prompted me to be optimistic either in real life or in fiction. However, much to my surprise and despite a hefty laptop repair bill right at the start, I finished the year almost $50 in PROFIT for publishing: my first in five and a half years as an author. Mostly down to not paying out for any promotion (which never pays me back in sales at the time and rarely leads to follow up purchases, so a waste of money for me). I currently have funds enough from the past two years to edit and cover another short story, or possibly a novella: a healthy starting point.

However, I still have two unpublished novellas with edits and covers already paid for, plus a short story from even further back. Financially, my publishing plans should be obvious - get those three pieces done, out, and earning back their costs before I move on, but I've really struggled with them. I'm not sure if that's down to burn out, actually getting worse at writing, or my editor expecting more of me than I think I'm capable of. I guess she believes in me more than I do. :P

Coming 2018...

The other nice surprise for me was, despite minimal promotion, my only release last year sold well enough in the first couple of months to have almost make its costs back (I'm about $8 down still). Not bad going considering (although probably down to my buying a premade cover for just $15 rather than my usual cost). Still, it proved to me I actually have a small band of dedicated readers who auto-buy my release, and that's a nice feeling.

Keir is still selling consistently, and there finally seems to be some follow on purchases for Keir's Fall. From what I've read on the success of series and a couple of review comments, it seems book three needs to be done...which means book 2.5 also needs to be done. >.<
So my writing/potential publishing plans need to be:
Finish up and publish the two outstanding novellas and possibly the short.
Finish book 2.5 in Keir's series. Publication of that and book three depends on finances. Right now I don't see me having the funds for a 2018 release (sorry!).
I would really like to finish up a couple of short stories and finally do an anthology collection, enabling me to release all the shorts in a print book.
I want to finish the sequel to When Dark Falls and turn that into a series (I even have a name for that!).
Even those aims are ambitious considering I have less time than last year, and I'm cautious about trying to do too much and end up with burn out again. It's taken me 18 months and a lot of readjustments to recover from that, so I really don't want to risk it again, not when I'm feeling just that little bit more optimistic. We shall see...

Status Update
Reunion is that little bit closer to done. I got the next round of edits back from Dani just after Christmas, but between chickens, work, and getting the monsters back to school I've not had time to really dig back into them yet. It shouldn't take me long but...

Chook Update
The weather's been rather mild so far, though that does inevitably mean wet (my girls' least favourite because it means I don't let them out into the wider world of the garden so often). It also snowed, which they took exception to, even refusing to come out of the coop - I can't blame them! I tried putting down some hay to help keep their feet off the cold ground, but they took a rather dim view of this strange new flooring even when tempted by mealworms. Silly things.

Snuggled up - left to right is Pitch, Effie, and Firefly
with Scoop and Kyru in the foreground.

But this past weekend we added to our flock, this time with a couple of Orpington bantams instead of Pekins. They're bigger than the Pekins, though these two youngsters still have a few weeks growing to do, and are reputed to be the sweetest chickens on the planet. At the moment they're rather timid and are going through the process of finding - or rather being told - their place in the pecking order, my least favourite part of chicken keeping. Fortunately it's mostly by them running away, placing them squarely at the bottom to the point where even little Firefly - smallest and youngest of the entire group - is rather lording it over the newbies and taking a bit too much extra effort in going up to them and having a go. I can't really blame her - she's enjoyed some protection from her higher ranking surrogate mum Pitch but still had to run the gauntlet finding her position...at the bottom. So I guess it's only natural for her to now take a certain pleasure from no longer being the new girl.

But let me introduce our additions. This is Kala, a gold laced Orpington bantam. She's the braver of the two and likes to keep up a quiet but constant commentary on her explorations. She apparently also likes to sit on a shoulder to get a good look around rather than be held.

This is Phasma, a silver laced Orpington bantam. She's much more reserved and nervy, though she's now found her voice which is almost a purr. She will tolerate being held but would much rather run away and hide.

At the moment, the names seem a bit ironic being as they're both from kick-ass female villains of rank, but the names fitted their colouring. Hopefully in the next few weeks they'll settle in and their personalities will emerge a little more clearly.

You can see the size difference between Firefly on the left and Kala on the right, but it hasn't stopped Firefly asserting her position!