Pippa's Journal - The End of the World...or just 2012?

This will be my last journal here for 2012, regardless of whether the world really does end on the 21st or not - personally I expect to wake up on the 22nd still intact but I won't be blogging for the 26th - I'll be recovering from Christmas Day! With my own blog set up with posts until the 6th January, my submission for the SFR Brigade anthology undergoing a final polish, and kids and hubs home for two weeks over Christmas, my chances of writing are small. Frankly after two attempts at NaNoWriMo this year, I think muse deserves time-out, although Christmas Day last year was when she sprang on me with a shiny new sfr, the one day I really cannot be writing. I'm hoping not to have a repeat. O.O

Action!
Neither Pitchmas or Pitchwars gained a request for Tethered, but that's not a bad thing. Both contests were an unexpected bonus, and the Pitchmas workshop for my 35 word and Twitter pitches was a genuinely useful experience. I also had good feedback from my three selected mentors in Pitchwars, even though they were all rejections. For one thing, all three gave me the same reason and a totally expected one - Tethered is too damn short. The expected industry length for scifi is 70-80K, and Tethered is just 43. What I did learn is that 70K is judged the minimum length required for decent world-building. As someone who has been complimented several times on my skill at world-building (excuse the lack of modesty on that point!), I dispute that fact. But in an industry where snagging an agent, particularly one who's heart lies in speculative fiction in the first place, is already a demanding task, do I really want to make it harder for myself by pitching something I know is under the word count required?
As someone with a tendency - a preference even - to buck the trend, it's a tough decision that leaves me with a quandary. The plan for Tethered was to submit it to my top two choices of publishers in early 2013. My number one choice of mentor paid me the highest compliment she could - that she didn't feel she could do anything to help me because I didn't appear to need it. She also, out of the blue, suggested my MS as a good fit for one of the publishers I'd already decided to submit it too. That made it seem like Fate. But do I stick with Plan A and submission, or do I look at the possibility of extending Tethered and making it my novel to pitch? I couldn't decide, although I know one area where I could add to the story without breaking it - not an extra 30K worth though. So, Tethered is now with my fabulous editor Dani to see what her feelings are on expansion. And while I fret over her findings and whether I have a 70K scifi left in me that isn't part of the Keir series already drafted, I have plenty of other things to work on.

My submission for the SFR Brigade is undergoing a final polish today. I need to have that finished and in by the 21st when my kids break up for Christmas. Edits for Gethyon will be arriving in the New Year and Tethered will either be going out on submission or being expanded. The future of Keir's Fall remains undecided. My two NaNoWriMo projects - dark superhero romance When Dark Falls and gritty space opera The Overlord's Consort - are projects for completion in 2013, and I'm hoping to finish and self-publish another short story after the good reception for Terms & Conditions Apply. And who knows what else muse might throw at me. I've also started plans for another SFR Brigade Blog Hop later in the year. The suggestion was for an Out Of This World theme, perhaps to boost the Brigade's anthology, and taking place over several days this time. Thoughts?

I'll also be doing a makeover of my blog and Facebook page, streamlining my social media platforms, and hopefully getting my website up and running. Here's a sample page of the site so far.

So what are your plans for 2013? Or do you think there's no point planning until after the 21st? :P

Happenings
The Mistletoe Madness Blog Hop is on! I want to know your favourite Christmas film to get into the spirit for your chance at a $5 gift card here, and a Kindle Fire with books. From the 21st until the end of the year, Lyrical Press Inc. has a Doomsday sale - 75% off all titles -including Keir for just $1.25. Then it's Carrie-Ann Ryan's New Year Blog Hop on the 1st January. On the 31st I'll be taking a quick look back over the past year and noting some of the landmarks. Wow, but it was a cracking year!

Six Sentence Sunday is ending! For those of you who may have missed the announcements, the last Six Sentence Sunday posting will take place on the 27th January. I owe a huge debt to the site, in terms of boosting my confidence, compelling me to blog on a more regular basis, meeting a host of new authors, genres, writing styles and techniques, but also for introducing me to Laurie A. Green. But for that, I might never have discovered the SFR Brigade and the existence of the genre, nor met so many talented and fabulous people. I'm sorry to see it go.

Discoveries
Last week I posted an article to the SFR  Brigade group about the use of male pseudonyms in order to market scifi titles - check out the full details here. I already use a pen name but since it's a derivative of my real name I still feel it's 'me'. The idea of taking a completely false name, or a male or gender neutral one - even if it sold more books - feels completely wrong for me - and that's not a judgement on anyone who does it, just the reason I wouldn't do it myself. What are your thoughts?

On a purely selfish note, I discovered I have a page with my new publisher Champagne Books, and Gethyon is already up there with the blurb. I'm so excited! You can check it out here.

Ping Pong
Laurie, your post on not knowing what to blog about certainly struck a cord. As authors, we're encouraged to be active on social media - I've even noticed more small press publishers now making an active internet presence part of the submission requirements - but deciding what to blog about, or even coming up with ideas can be a struggle. A lot of social media gurus say you should be consistent, both in schedules, themes and content. Perhaps it's part of being a panstser, but I'm much more in favour of sponteneity - it's more natural, and you can't always plan for events in the news or new announcements of your own. But sometimes even the well of creativity for a short post runs dry!

Donna, what an inspiration Vey is! But I think it's also a wonderful example of the power of books and how the reading and writing of them can do wonderful things.

Merry Christmas and a Happy Successful New Year to my fellow co-bloggers on Spacefreighters Lounge, and to you all!

Redesigning A Cover

Current Cover

The conversation with Dani ran something like this -

"Would you like to do an updated cover for The Bones of the Sea?"
I looked at the current cover. To be fair, it does look a little...shabby...compared to Keir and Terms & Conditions Apply. "Do you think Bones of the Sea needs a new cover? I know the text isn't great - I did that myself and the image was just a stock photo from Dreamstime." And despite having had GIMP for two years, I still can't figure out how to use it to put decent titles on my own cover art. Plus it is just a single stock image, one anybody can buy and use. But still...
"The text could be better, but I think it's a pretty good cover. I like the image."
I love the image but I would like the text to be better so we go for that. And so begins a day of ranting on Twitter, as not only do I fail to find the stock image on my memory sticks (always back up ALL your stuff, people!), but the DVD disk drive on my computer packs up. Argh!

Then Dani comes to the rescue and sends me this -

I was actually speechless. I LOVED it! Without even a discussion over image ideas, Dani had picked up on the key elements I'd always wanted in the cover but had neither the skills nor resources to achieve myself back when I published it in May 2011. I'd used a bought single stock image, with some text added - a wonderful image that I loved and I felt was evocative - but also easily available to anyone else to buy. This was just a rough draft she'd put together to get my thoughts on. And once I'd seen it, I wanted it.

Anyone who has read the story should be able to immediately identify with the image. Seeing this threw any plans of mine simply to put new text on the old cover. But the amount of bubbles meant that even at this size it was hard to make out the diver. At thumbnail - which is how most people will see it when browsing - it becomes impossible. So, much as I loved it, tweaking was needed. Below are three more versions, each with a tweak.

Larger Diver

No bubbles

Different diver

Dani wasn't prepared to give up tweaking until I was completely happy with the cover, and I have to say she's a joy to work with and one very talented lady. So this is my final new shiny cover for my free scifi short The Bones of the Sea - designed by Danielle Fine. Ta da!

Isn't it purty?! This will be replacing the old cover over the next week - I need to make adjustments to the interior of the book before re-uploading it to Smashwords. In the meantime, I highly recommend checking out Dani's website here if you're on the hunt for a cover design. (pssst, she also does editing and book trailers!).

In other news...

Action!

It's #pitchwars! This is "an upcoming event where agented authors, industry interns, and editors team up with aspiring writers to shine up their manuscripts and pitches to present to some awesome agents." You can check out all the details here. Currently the submission window is open until the 5th December for you to pick three mentors from the list (check carefully who is accepting what genres, as many are looking for those outside their normal preferred genre to read or write!) and submit your query and the first five pages of your manuscript. I have my mentors chosen and my query all ready to go, I just haven't...submitted yet. >.< This will be my first time pitching so I admit to being nervous. Yes, even with two book contracts under my belt. O.o There's also the #pitchMAS workshop on the 5th December here and you can see which agents and editors are judging the pitches here. The best of luck if you're taking part in either or both of those.

Discoveries

In line with Laurie's post about the latest space news, an article on io9 has shown the possibilities of exploring beyond our own solar system are getting closer to a reality rather than remaining a science fiction idea. Warp drive! Physicist Harold White is convinced he has a theory that will result "in an engine that can transport a spacecraft to the nearest star in a matter of weeks — and all without violating Einstein's law of relativity." Of course it's all theory at the moment - there's no time scale on when this might happen, but his convictions seems to take it from being more a case of if to when. So, it's unlikely in my lifetime - unless one of those technological leaps occurs - but perhaps our grandchildren will be hopping from one star to another in a matter of weeks. It's a wonderful thing to consider. You can read the entire article here.