THE SETTING FOR NOT FADE AWAY, PART 2

Not all of my new contemporary SFR novel Not Fade Away, Interstellar Rescue Series Book 4, is set on Earth. A large part of the book tells the story of secondary character Del Gordon, father of the hero Rafe Gordon, who was witness to the secret development of a terrifying weapon of mass destruction by the alien Grays. This took place at a labor camp called T7where he was held prisoner, Conditions at the camp, located on a desert planet were, well, not easy. Check out the snippet below for a hint of what things were like. 

His friend found a seat beside him in the lee of one building and pushed the blond hair out of one eye.  “Gonna be hot.”  

Del glanced up at the white sun peeking over the horizon. “Freakng hot. Young sun. And have you noticed the air?”

“I noticed there’s not a helluva lot of it. I’m wheezing like an old geezer.”

Del laughed at that. Shef wasn’t too tall, but he was built like—what did they used to say back home?—a brick shithouse. Though he’d forgotten what that really meant.

“There’s some small earth-moving equipment.” Shef nodded toward one end of the compound. “Ten bucks says we’re here to dig.”

The bets were a joke between them, something to help them remember, though they hadn’t seen anything resembling cash money since they’d been Taken. “I wouldn’t bet it even if I had it.” Del shifted his gaze to a row of squat shipping cases stacked beside a building to his right. “Those containers hold blasting gel.” 

“You can read Minertsan now?”

“See the marking on the lower left side? Looks like an inverted chevron with a check through it? We saw that before in the Depara mine.”

Shef cursed. “I was too busy trying to keep my ass in one piece. If I saw it at all I figured it meant, ‘Watch your ass.’”

They would have shared the laugh, but the guards were circling now. They put on their blank faces and made like zombies. Then they got up and got in line with the others.

The guards marched them out through the only gate in the 18-foot-tall fence surrounding the camp and over a dusty trail through rocky scrub. They hadn’t been walking long—just long enough to build up a good sweat in the already-sweltering day—when they topped a low rise and looked down into a bowl full of jagged rocks and scraggly brush.  

Del lifted his gaze up to the relentless white sun and dropped it back into the cruel landscape of their workplace. He was careful not to look at his friend. He knew if he saw Shef’s face he would not be able to hide his own despair.

Not Fade Away, Interstellar Rescue Series Book 4, is available for pre-order NOW on Amazon.

Cheers, Donna

THE SETTING FOR NOT FADE AWAY, PART 1

Hi, faithful readers. I'm coming to you even more virtually than usual this week, as I enjoy a long-awaited vacation cruising the Danube in Hungary, Austria and Germany! Since it's not easy to post from aboard my cruise ship, I've left this snapshot of the gorgeous North Carolina setting of my upcoming release, Not Fade Away, Interstellar Rescue Series Book 4, and a little snippet to put it in context. Enjoy!

Rafe gazed at the alien landscape. So many trees!  Mountains rolling like waves on the Sea of IzRa, with no cities to break their progress. The little town, an island in that vast ocean of green, its all-human inhabitants huddled together in modest homes and joined with the rest of the world by the thinnest of threads.

Rafe had grown up on Terrene, in a dense urban warren of sentient life—human and nonhuman, former slaves and traders and Rescue agents and all sorts of others.  As he’d gone out in the galaxy he’d seen any number of worlds, but few as lush—or as isolated—as this one. Earth still slumbered in her ignorance of the rest of the galaxy, despite the ongoing tragedy of the alien Grays and their abductions.  

Slaves taken in the night. Rescue trying desperately to get them back. A battle raging across the stars—and this little hamlet that would be his home completely unaware of it.

 Not Fade Away, Interstellar Rescue Book 4, is available for pre-order NOW on Amazon.

Cheers, Donna

Sea-ing the Stories #amwriting #inspiration

I talk a lot about how where I live influences many of the settings in my stories, but especially the sea. For someone who is supposedly a fire sign, I have a much greater affinity for water. Perhaps it was all those childhood holidays by a Welsh river or the annual camping trip to nearby Aldeburgh for the yearly carnival followed by fireworks on the stony beach. More recently it's the wide, golden beaches of Frinton-on-Sea, the mud and stones of Mersea, or hunting for prehistoric shark teeth at stony Walton-on-the-Naze. Alien mudflats, marine worlds, and tropical island paradises have all been created as a result.

Mud flats and weird sun shots at Mersea

Frinton

Odd stone formations at Mersea

Shark's tooth

Whichever, I love to be by the sea, and apparently for good reason. It's been proven scientifically that a trip to the beach changes your brain. It reduces your depression, makes you more creative, de-stresses you, and changes your perspective on the world. I guess that's why I not only find it calming but good therapy for the muse, as well as the sea ending up featuring so often in my stories.

But although we've had some glorious weather in the past two weeks, it's not quite warm enough to spend a day at the seaside, even though I was itching to do our first visit for the year, and you can guarantee it'll be colder on the coast than inland. However, Sunday's forecast promised a dry, warm, if somewhat cloudy and windy day for last Sunday, so I suggested a walk and a picnic.

Not exactly sundrenched...

The two boys weren't particularly enthusiastic, but it wasn't cold, we bribed them with an ice-cream, and apparently the conditions were perfect for an odd phenomena I'd not seen before and made things interesting...

Spooky, huh? It reminded me of a scene from Sleepy Hollow starring Johnny Depp, where faithful servant Masbath is watching the woods from his wooden hut and the mists creep out, reach up ghostly fingers and snuff out the torches. *shudder* In this case, it's just very dry sand being blown across by the wind, but a great effect, right? And it leaves cool patterns on the beach too.

We also picked up some interesting shells, including some Turrids (the long, pointy shells) which we'd never seen there before (great spot by my husband). Shells of that kind were the inspiration for T'rill's coral palace in Keir - a fact hubs actually remembered as I asked him to try drawing it for me many moons ago. I'm not sure what happened to the picture though... Unfortunately you can't see the glorious play of colour in the mother of pearl interior on the broken topshell in this shot.

Turrids and topshells

Something like, but imagine it as a giant shell in pink coral

Despite the high winds and heavy cloud, it was warm with patches of sun, and I definitely felt the benefit. Even a couple of hours at the beach has the same effect as going on holiday for me (although the scrumptious blackcurrant and clotted cream ice-cream helped a bit too), and it was blissfully quiet - something that won't last once the temperatures rise! I can't wait until we can go more often, even though it'll also mean busier beaches. Oh, for that private tropical island all of my own!

Status Update
We had some truly gorgeous warm spring weather last week, so I spent a large part of my days sitting in the back room with our patio doors wide open to enjoy the garden, and letting my chooks have the run of the place. So it's probably a bit odd to have spent some of that time working on a winter solstice SF mystery set on an icy planet that I started a couple of years back but still haven't finished. I hadn't touched it since May 2016 (what did I do last year?!). I have no idea when I might finish it, if I do, and I don't have any finances for edits on it anyway (though I do have a cover). But since I'm still very iffy about my writing and finding everything hard, even adding a few words I don't completely hate is progress, so I'm not going to complain about that.

Also, I've caved and decided to do NaNoWriMo. Yes, I know I said I was quitting writing. Apparently I'm not done yet. Camp NaNoWriMo will be used to complete edits on two projects I've already paid for so maybe I can put them out and start earning an extra pittance from them. And just maybe I'll feel a little less under pressure from all the unfinished WIPs I have hanging around.

The dress part of the Tauriel cosplay is done, as are the arrows. I'm moving onto her fighting daggers now - my first time working with foamboard - then all she needs is a quiver and sheaths. I'll post pictures again when it's complete. Then I'll be moving onto middle child's Witch-King of Angmar cosplay.

Chook Update
We're now getting two or three eggs a day (yummy!), and the girls have been out and about enjoying the nice weather with me. Or making themselves at home inside MY home!

Ah, this dust bath is going to feel soooo good!

Scoop

Pitch

Chook incursion!