SF CON TIME AGAIN!

Yes, TREKkers, Whoverians, STAR WARs fans and SF geeks of all stripes, it's that time again. Time for the biggest fan-run science fiction convention in the country--Shore Leave! I'm setting up shop as we speak in the Dealers' Room to sell and sign my newly covered Interstellar Rescue series novels, and I'll be sitting on two authors' panels this year, too. The topics couldn't be more my style: Writing Great Women Characters and Great Genres that Go Together--or Not.

This will be the 41st year of SF shenanigans in Towson, Maryland, with a long list of authors, scientists, and, of course, actors from a number of popular TV shows, both old and new. Nichelle Nichols (Classic TREK's Uhura, naturally) is making a stop on her farewell tour, for pictures and autographs. But I'm personally psyched to see Anson Mount (currently in Star Trek: Discovery as Captain Pike; formerly in Hell on Wheels as Cullen Bohannon), though it's difficult to slip away from the sales table to hear my favorite actor make a presentation.

Still, the best part of Shore Leave is watching the constant parade of cosplayers circling the Dealers' Room. Such creativity! And, of course, meeting readers and other fans just to talk SF/SFR!

Can't wait for the fun to start! (Follow the action with me on my Facebook author page!)

Cheers, Donna

Updates and Upcoming #amediting #scifirom

Almost two weeks into July, and the summer break for my monsters is fast approaching, with the usual increase in and around school events. My eldest began her first week of work experience yesterday, which means me playing taxi to her place of work, as well as attending various school meetings, arranging a couple of sleepovers for youngest, and packing for 12yo's adventure holiday next week. 

Somehow around that I have to work and get things set up to run for the seven weeks I'm 'away' from social media. Generally I set up some snippets to cover my absence, but I don't think I'm going to do that this year. For one, I don't think yet more reruns of my current books are going to be particularly interesting to those who already know them. The second is I just don't think I'm going to get time! Thanks to Hootsuite now demanding payment for more than ten scheduled posts (apparently it varies from user to user, but I got just ten) I'm already having to use both Facebook page scheduling and Tweetdeck to automatically run posts. I need to rename my Tumblr cosplay blog and finish scheduling posts for it and set up an RSS feed from that to its own specific Twitter account (@TheIGSeamstress). I've already got three new book reviews scheduled to go from Critique de Book, and all the current ones will rerun over the holiday to keep my FB page active. That's going to be quite enough work! And of course there's the chicks...

So today's post is really going to be a bunch of updates, and lots of chick pics. Admit it, you're only here for the last. :P

Status Updates
I'm still working through the first round of edits for Unexpected but am completely confident of having those completed by the July 14th deadline. It's been a bit of light relief working on something that doesn't need quite such intensive work after essentially having to rewrite Keir's Shadow over the last few weeks.
Talking of which, Keir's Shadow came back from analysis (very) late last night. There's good news and bad news. The good is it doesn't suck as bad as I feared. The bad is my editor wants the book that needs to come before Keir's Shadow but after Keir's Fall. I guess I kind of knew that was coming, having felt there was something deeply unfinished about Shadow and having started to write that 'missing' story last year. My subconscious clearly knew. The problem is that story has barely begun and at my current rate I can't see it being written this year, let alone ready for publication. Y'all weren't holding your breath on getting Keir's Shadow this year...were you? >.< I suppose at least now I have a viable project for NaNoWriMo...
The other bit of good news is I'll probably now be able to reuse a discarded book title - the original name for Keir's Fall no less - which makes me a little bit happy. I hate giving up on a good title.
In the meantime, I guess I have even more incentive to finish edits on Reunion and possibly Revived so that I put something out this year. However, there are things going on behind the scenes that could have major effects on further publications, so I'm just going to keep going and see what happens. I'm sorry I can't be more specific.

Chook Update
My girls have been enjoying the sun and the garden, although they're fascinated by what's going on in the other coop with Effie, much to Effie's irritation. Both Kyru and Pitch keep going to investigate, which makes Effie growl a lot. Yes, chooks can growl (and purr). I just haven't been able to video it.

Scoop sunbathing

Pitch playing at being a lap chicken.
She refused to believe I didn't have food.

Chook invasion!

And now the pictures you really want - the chicks! They're four and five days old, and already growing in their wing feathers. They all ventured out of the nest box for the first time yesterday - the day before only three of them were feeling that brave - and are foraging for themselves, though Effie is being a perfect mum by calling them to her when she finds food and breaking up anything too big for them. They've also mastered their feet and balance a bit better, and can certainly move at a pace now!

Front: Cuckoo, with Lemon behind, then left to right at the back
are Lavender, Mot, and Splash.

The gang's all here! Left to right: Mille, Lemon, Splash, Lavender, Cuckoo and Mot.

Left to right: Lavender, Mot, Splash, and Mille

                                       

Lemon was the first chick out, but Effie's intense dust bathing set her running!

Peekaboo!

And I found an unexpected visitor in our hallway this morning!

We encountered this chap on the way to one of the numerous school meetings.
Meet a British hedgehog, if you aren't familiar with it.

It's weird to think that by this time next week, the chicks should have lost most of their fluff in favour of their adult feathers, though they won't be fully grown for another six weeks on top of that. I will try to keep you posted on their progress over the holidays because they will change that fast.
There are more chick pics posted on Twitter @pippajaygreen if you would like instant updates.

A FAREWELL TO ANN CRISPIN

For the second time in less than a month I find myself writing in memory of a lost mentor.  On September 6, 2013, noted science fiction author Ann C. Crispin lost a two-year fight with cancer and died at the age of 63.

 

As A.C. Crispin, she wrote the first STAR TREK pro novel to hit the NY TIMES bestseller list (Yesterday’s Son, a sequel to the classic TREK episode ALL OUR YESTERDAYS).  She built on that success with two other wildly popular Vulcan-themed TREK pro novels, Time for Yesterday and Sarek.  In addition, she gave Han Solo a new love interest in a STAR WARS pro novel trilogy and wrote pro novels for the television shows ALIEN and V.

Despite being named a Grandmaster by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers in 2013, Ann created her own worlds as well, with the seven-book SF Starbridge series aimed at younger readers, and the Witch World series (with Andre Norton).

Science fiction writers knew Ann as a Regional Director, then Vice President of the Science Fiction Writers of America for a number of years.  But it was as co-founder (with Victoria Strauss) and lead watchdog of Writers Beware!, an organization created to protect writers from scammers and fraud, that scribblers of all genres owe Ann a huge debt of gratitude.

Before Ann and Victoria founded Writers Beware! in 1998, there was no one place to go to check out agents or publishers, to learn about all the ways you might be exploited as an author and to find out how to protect yourself.  There was word of mouth, of course, and there were a few good books.  Writers Beware! gave writers a place to check out iffy agencies and schemes that seem too good to be true.  Ann and her partner, Victoria, were tireless in their pursuit of the bad apples out there who tend to spoil the publishing barrel.  Victoria has vowed to carry on the good fight in Ann’s name.

Of course, a few lucky people have Ann to thank for a much more direct impact on their careers.  I consider myself to be one of them.  For many years, Ann taught a writers’ workshop at the Shore Leave STAR TREK convention in Towson, Maryland.  Shore Leave is the biggest fan-run con in the country, and it is heavily writer-oriented.  Peter David, Harold Weinstein, Kathy Rausch, Jacqueline Lichtenberg and others are frequent attendees.  The dealers’ room is home to plenty of fan fiction publishers, including Orion Press, publisher of my early TREK novels and short stories.

A couple of years in to my Shore Leave experiences, I got brave enough to sign up for one of Ann’s workshops.  This was no commonplace act of idle curiosity.  I’d seen Ms. Crispin charging up and down the crowded convention hallways, her curly red hair flying in her self-created breeze.  People scattered before her like wind-driven leaves.  They approached her with trepidation.  She was a Force To Be Reckoned With.  And I wanted her to read my useless drivel?  Ulp.

I didn’t feel much better after the general workshop session.  Oh, yes, she was funny and smart and her presentation was to the point.  I learned vast amounts about how to put a story together.  (Most important lesson and one I’ll never forget:  story is all about giving your protagonist problems, the more the better.  Now every time I see a movie or read a book where it seems the writer is just piling on the poor hero, I think of Ann.)  But she didn’t tolerate stupid questions—or worse, stupid answers.  And, God forbid that you would try to defend an indefensible position—fifty pages of dull exposition, for example.  She would cut you to ribbons along with your boring tale.

So I was sweating my individual critique session. (And, yes.  Ann gave individual critiques.  She read all of my 100-page TREK novella for the very reasonable price of this workshop.  I still can’t believe it.)  But I needn’t have worried. She told me the story was “perfectly publishable.”  Not that the powers that be would publish it.  My female lead was too strong—the editors would accuse her of being a Mary Sue.

Of course, Ann had to explain to me who and what Mary Sue was—I’d never heard of the term at the time.  But my lone wolf trader Captain Kate Logan, though not a Mary Sue, was definitely a strong female character—she had to be to capture the attention of Jim Kirk.  At least my rejection from Pocket Books now made some kind of sense.

I took another workshop from Ann the following year and submitted a little SFR short story of my own called “Rose-Colored Glasses.” This critique wasn’t such a success, at least I didn’t think so at first.  Ann called me out on a detail of life in the nursing home where the story was set, and then she made this momentous comment:  “You have a real talent for writing romance.”

I’m sure my face turned Security red.  Romance?  Really?  Well, okay, all my TREK novels had a lot of romance and, well, this story was a romance, but, it was supposed to be science fiction.  Hey . . . wait a minute!

I have to say that Ding! moment was a while in coming.  I shook my head over that romance comment for a long time.  Not until nearly a year later, when I discovered the idea of time travel romance in Karen Marie Moning’s Highlander books did I figure out the connection.  Yeah, I’m slow like that.

But all of a sudden the science fiction plot I’d been working on made much more sense—as a romance.  And Unchained Memory came to be.  When I’d finished the manuscript, I took it to Ann for a once-over.  She pronounced it ready for prime time, even suggested an agent and allowed me to use her name in introduction.  Although that didn’t lead to a contract, I’ll always be grateful for the encouragement.

One year at Shore Leave Ann dragged a young woman into the Pro Writers’ room all flushed with excitement and introduced her as a former graduate of one of her workshops who’d just sold her first book.  She was so proud of her, and the newbie writer was speechless with joy.  I’d always hoped one day I’d be in that girl’s shoes.  Now I won’t have the chance. 

There are others I carry with me, though they are no longer on this plane of existence.  Ann joins them now, and I hope she’ll still have the chance for a little pride in my accomplishments one day, thanks to the gifts she gave me.

Cheers, Donna