Happy New Year! Pippa's Journal

Happy New Year! Was the old one good for you?

I don't, as a rule, make resolutions as I've never kept those I did. At the start of 2012 I set myself a list of hopes and dreams for the year ahead, so I thought I'd look back at it. Funny to think this was only a year ago, and interesting to see what did, and didn't, happen. :)

My hopes -

1.That Keir will do well when it's released on the 7th May (or at least not get too many poor reviews). So far, so good!
2.That I will finish editing the sequel in good time, and that my editor and publisher will like it. No, yes, and no. The fate of Keir's Fall remains undecided, but at least it's finally finished.
3.That Gethyon will find a home with a publisher, even if that turns out to be myself via Amazon. Gethyon is due for release with Champagne Books in June 2013. :)
4.That my sfr short will be accepted into the anthology. This was Misa Buckley's proposed Andromedan Dreams which sadly never came to pass. However, I self published the story - Terms & Conditions Apply - in November 2012, and it's had good feedback so far. Also, this dream is still current, as I'm waiting on news for my entry for the SFR Brigade anthology. A bizarre coincidence...
5.That I will get my other scifi short completed and up on Amazon. Um, yes and no. After feedback on CritiqueCircle, that particular short - Samaritan - is still classed as a WIP, and goes back on the list for 2013. However, Terms & Conditions Apply filled the gap.
6.That I will figure out the rest of books four and five which are still a little hazy in my mind. No. Instead my crazy muse gave me two more drafts of one-off stories for NaNoWriMo, which are now three potential novellas.
7.That I won't run out of ideas and that my writing will just keep improving. Yes on the first and...well, judging by feedback I'm also managing the latter too.
8.That my friends and family will be happy and healthy, for this year and many, many more to come. Yes, but still on the list as a permanent wish.
9.That I will do more reading, and help clear a pending list of reviews. Sigh. Not quite.
10.To get into some kind of fitness routine to counteract the amount of time I now spend on my bum in front of this computer! Definitely not, so back on the wishlist...
11.A late addition, but a scifirom with succubi has got my muse all in a tizzy and I've already done 5K words on it, so I hope the fuzzy idea I currently have is going to settle down into a proper story. It's not quite my usual thing, so a bit nerve-racking, as well as exciting. This was Tethered, now complete and being looked over by my editor. I have hopes for this story. :)

2012 was a glorious year on the #amwriting front, and I'm expecting even better of 2013, and myself. You can check out my highlights here.

Christmas was an enjoyable and relaxing time with my family - and look what they bought me! A handy lap table for my notepad pc, something that's going to make the imminent edits for Gethyon a far more comfortable task.

Not my best side, lol!

Happenings

Carrie-Ann Ryan's New Year Blog Hop is happening right now, from the 1st-6th January. Aside from getting a cocktail recipe to celebrate the occassion, you can also win your chance at a $5 gift card from me by telling me your favourite New Year tipple and way to celebrate, be it champagne and a party to a cup of cocoa and an early night. The latter is my personal favourite. ;)

Champagne Diva

The closing date for entries to the SFR Brigade anthology has been extended until the 31st January. The Brigade is still looking for a few more entries, so I urge you to dust off that old short you have tucked away in your files, or scribble down that latest scifi romance idea that's been brewing over Christmas. Don't let the anthology fall! *begging*

It's been proposed to do a SFR Brigade-specific style blogging ring similar to Six Sentence Sunday which sadly finishes at the end of this month. More information will be posted in the Brigade Facebook group, once I've got my head around it. The suggestion is to post a paragraph around the 150-200 word mark on a Friday night. For the time being, this will be run as a test, and it is reliant on participants to make sure their post will be live and active on time - no one will be patrolling the links to check, so it's in your own interests to be up and ready. Stand by!

Bookshelf



Last year, I took on the challenge of reading SFR titles, partly to get to know my chosen genre better but also to learn more about the talented members in the SFR Brigade. I've not done as well as I could. At thirteen books, I've only achieved Earth level, and my TBR pile continues to grow faster than I can clear it. There's just too much excellent stuff out there! And I haven't managed to review all of them either. *slaps self* Highlights for the year were Even Villains Fall in Love by Liana Brooks, Unacceptable Risk by Jeanette Grey and Ambasadora by Heidi Ruby Miller. You can check out the rest of my list here, and also the reviews I have managed to get down for the majority of the titles. One New Year resolution for me is to dive into my TBR pile and get some more reviews up. For the year ahead, I'm looking forward to Misa Buckley's Tin Cat, a sequel to EVFiL, reading my copy of Downside Girls won from Jaine Fenn, and hoping for release dates on story drafts from Liana Brooks and Laurie Green that I've been lucky enough to get an early viewing of. What books are you hoping to see in 2013?

Ping pong

Gosh, what a year it's been for the crew of Spacefreighters Lounge! Two debut novels, two signings with agents, and yet more Golden Hearts! I'm so proud to have been a part of it all.  A round of Billins to celebrate! :P

I'm afraid this post is a little patchy - I still have my three little monsters home for another week, and once they're back to school, I have a list of tasks even longer than my TBR list. Eeeek!

May the New Year bring you all you dream of!

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!

Cover Reveal - Gethyon has arrived!

I have been sitting on this since Friday morning, and let me tell you  - it has been TORTURE! You try keeping a new cover under wraps for five days! I've been dying to show it off. It'll also be my last cover reveal for a while since I don't currently have any further titles upcoming. But this is the long awaited cover for Gethyon - a YA scifi novel being published by Champagne Books under their BURST imprint. I've been fortunate indeed in being paired up with the uber-talented Champagne cover artist - Misa Buckley - who also happens to be a fellow author, Brigader and friend. :) Isn't it gorgeous?!

 

I also have a little animated banner to match -

How cool is that?! And if you're after a cover or graphic yourself, I'm pleased to say Misa also does freelance work as Masquerade Graphics - please go and check out her work!

Action!
So, with my final reveal done, it's back to work. Last week I made my three submissions to the mentors in #pitchwars. Yesterday marked the start of submission for #pitchmas. I've entered my sfr Tethered for both of these - fingers crossed! Next Wednesday I should hear whether my submission for #pitchwars has paired me up with a mentor to help me polish and pitch! >.<
I've finished my short story for the SFR Brigade anthology! Yay! This despite a sick child which put me a couple of days behind schedule and left me fighting to catch up. Fortunately poor weather this weekend has meant I've had an excuse to be online and do a few bits, something that isn't normally permitted during weekends as that's designated family time.
Both Keir and Terms & Conditions Apply have now been entered for a couple of contests. Keir is in the NEFRA, both in the Paranormal/Furturistic Romance category and the Best First Novel. Terms & Conditions Apply has gone into the Silken Sands Self Published Star Contest as a short story entry. Wish me luck!

Happenings
I'm taking part in the Santa's Little Helper Scavenger Hunt organized by BTS and Freya's Bower - there's some great prizes, so check out the post here and see if you can grab yourself an early Christmas treat! I also have a guest post by Anna Hackett on the Carina Press Christmas SFR anthology - A Galactic Holiday - with details about the three authors who contributed and a snippet about their stories. There's also a giveaway - go here! I'm also a guest myself over on Backward Momentum tomorrow, courtesy of Jessica Subject. I'll be talking about avatars and my new sfr short story -Terms & Conditions Apply - plus there's a giveaway! However, if you'd like a shot at the prizes, here's the details!

One sparkly red and silver key ring

And one digital copy of my short in whatever format the winner desires. Both are available internationally, and it's open until the 10th December. Just enter the rafflecopter for your chance to win.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Terms & Conditions Apply received a second review on Amazon here that left me rather touched. It's short but sweet, and reassured me that the unconventional story isn't putting people off enjoying it. Phew!

Discoveries
Following a blog on sales stats by fellow author Gayle Ramage, I was directed to this useful little directory - Book Matchers, a kind of dating agency for readers with books, lol! Authors can list their books for free and are required to enter certain information about it. Readers can them come to the site, answer questions about what kind of book they'd like, and Book Matchers pairs them up with a hopefully perfect read. The service is completely free to use. Worth a shot?

I have to say I find myself very interested in sales figures from other authors. Generally the only ones willing to share are those selling hundreds a day, which leaves me feeling a little insignificant. I've not posted mine in public - for one thing, I'm not sure my publisher would be happy for me to do that - and I know there's a huge scale in differences between what some authors make. The majority I know generally have to work writing around a full time job, so I guess those in the higher sales rankings are the minority. Success for me wasn't about how much money I was making at the end of the day - although I'd love to be able to make a living from it!

What was your ambition when you first started writing?

Ping Pong
Donna, loved your post on cover design and glad I sparked something off. Maybe we should do a survey on what readers like to see most on the cover of a SFR title? I remember the majority liked my cover for Keir (although a few disliked it a lot) but I'm not sure conveys the SF elements of the story as well as it does the personality of my male MC and the tone of the story.

Laurie, I wonder how long we're going to have to wait for the news about Mars? All I've been seeing is confirmation of water on Mercury - incredible when you think how close to the sun it is!

Terms & Conditions Apply is Go!

Cover Art by Danielle Fine

Action!
This week my third title (and second self-published work) went live on Smashwords, Amazon US and Amazon UK. Woo hoo! *fist pump* I'm so excited! I've spent the last couple of months polishing this up with my editor Dani (who is also responsible for the stellar cover), and I've really been looking forward to releasing it. So how does it look? Looking pretty shiny to me. :D

I'm still working on the Kobo site - for some reason even though it allows you to upload .doc and .docx, there are some funny symbols coming out in the text on the preview I downloaded, so my editor has attempted a reformat with Calibre and I'm hoping to get that sorted before the end of the week. I could let Smashwords upload it to Kobo, but I'm trying to retain as much control over my title as possible. Being in the UK, uploading direct to B&N is not an option, so Kobo it is. However, when Smashwords eventually gets around to it, Terms & Conditions Apply will be available for the Nook. Just...maybe not until after Christmas though... :(

In the meantime, here's the blurb -

“Welcome to Venus Ascendant, a Public Grade space station in the Andromedan Galaxy. With our open-to-all policy, any being in the universe can find their perfect R & R, romantic getaway or dangerous liaison at our purpose built resort. The on-board empathic AI Ganesa ensures that anyone coming to Venus Ascendant will find their heart’s desire, with suites that transform from luxurious boudoirs to sunset-lit beaches to dark BDSM dungeons. So come to Venus Ascendant and find exactly what you’re looking for!”

It was meant to be a romantic getaway for Marie and the love of her life Jaisen; a chance for him to get to know her better after months of her denying him more than a few stolen kisses. Instead, Marie finds herself dumped and alone on Venus Ascendant with no credit for a transmat and the next starship home not due for another hour.

But the all-seeing AI isn’t going to leave anyone aboard the space station with their dreams unfulfilled. Marie's boyfriend might not have made it to the station, but there are others willing and able to take on the role - even if they aren’t entirely human.

WARNING - not suitable for under 18's due to adult content

And the first review is already in on Goodreads and Smashwords - 

Read on November 19, 2012

"A space station, a woman who's been dumped, and an avatar... ingredients for a romantic cocktail delicately crafted by Pippa Jay. There were several surprises along the way, and some fabulous characters one can really sympathise with.

Having read Pippa Jay's previous works, and thoroughly enjoyed them both, it wasn't much of a surprise that Pippa has once again created a setting that my imagination is immediately at home in. The writing is vivid, and drew me into the story with ease. This is a quick, easy read, and a fabulous scifi romance."

Self- publishing is a different experience to being contracted to a publisher, whether that's small press or traditional. The onus really is on you to make sure that everything is right, that you get it formatted, uploaded, priced, tagged, described and catalogued correctly. I'm all in favour of retaining creative control and really owning the book you produce, but like anything there are pluses and minuses to it. I've been lucky to have the continuing support of my editor Dani, and friends knowledgeable in the self-publishing process - even though I self-pubbed The Bones of the Sea back in 2011 before I had the contract for Keir, I'm certainly no expert. Even uploading to Smashwords where I published Bones required a refresher on the process, and a couple of tweeted questions. Publishing through Amazon was a new experience for me, and I have to say the wait for it to come out of review compared to the almost instantaneous publication on Smashwords had me burning with frustration. No, I'm not very patient. :-P

But I do like Smashwords for the fact you can have your book converted to all digital formats, and distribution to outlets such as Sony and Apple, and B&N in my case. Plus they'll assign you a free ISBN. Amazon - well, as much as a monster as it is, I can't deny that Amazon is the place to really get yourself noticed as an author. Despite my annoyance with them over removing author reviews from books (because authors can't possible be grown-up and unbiased, or not be moved by some kind of personal gain when reviewing, according to Amazon, tsk) and their heavy-handed attitude in general, at the end of the day I need to sell books to justify staying at home to write, and it's the best place to do so. Watch my conscience squirm!

When using Smashwords, I highly recommend you download and use Mark Coker's Style Guide. Seriously, it'll save you a lot of time and frustration if you work through it, at least for your first attempt. Without it you're likely to come up with all kinds of formatting errors and be refused admission to Smashwords Premium Catalog - which gets you onto the other sites such as Kobo. As for Amazon - well, I used the same .doc that had been formatted for Smashwords (I will admit that Dani went over this for me as well - an extra pair of eyes is always useful!) and it looked perfect when I downloaded the preview. As with all things - and the guide states it too - check, check, and check again!

Happenings

This week I'm taking part in the one day Black Friday Hop organized by Carrie Ann Ryan, with my wishlist for Christmas here. Next Monday is the monthly Amazon Tag party for the SFR Brigade. Just an FYI - the December tagging party will take place earlier in the month to avoid conflicting with Christmas week, although with the holiday so close I'm not expecting a huge entry that month. The January tag party will return to the normal last-full-week-of-the-month schedule. I'll be doing a small tour for Terms & Conditions Apply with a giveaway - I'll be visiting Misa Buckley here tomorrow, Monday I'll be guesting here with Chantal Halpin (one of my invaluable beta readers on this story) and at Backward Momentum with Jessica Subject on the 6th December.
I'm also planning to take part in #pitchwars. Yes, I'm agent hunting. I really didn't think I would be, and I'm not even sure the novel I've got is long enough - in fact, at 45K I'm not sure it's even technically a novel. But it seemed to good an opportunity to pass up. Pitch Wars is an "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." It opens "November 26: The coaches (listed on the linky below) will post on their blogs what genre/category they want to coach. They'll be very specific genres. Aspiring writers will hop around and decide which coaches best fit their manuscripts." You can find out more details here. I posted my three line draft pitches here for feedback, and I'd still appreciate any comments on those if you have time. *flutters eyelashes*

Discoveries

io9 published an article this week on Google's new star map called 100,000 Stars, which allows you to travel the galaxy from the comfort of your home. This is an awesome piece of space porn for anyone interested in astronomy, science or scifi. Want to map out the latest journey of your intrepid space travellers? Plan it out here.

On a purely personal note, I spotted a tweet on Tuesday that said '6 Must Read Sci-fi Romances'. I clicked on it, interested to see what someone had rated as their top six while desperately wishing I could feature on something like this. So it was quite a shock when I did see the list...and Keir was right there at the top! I had my hubs home sick that day, and I think my hysterical fit of cackling probably made him wish he was back at work. :-P With thanks to Anna Hackett for making my day with this list - and you should also check out her other recommendations on it here.

Ping Pong

Sharon - I've seen Ghost Planet popping up here, there and everywhere! Looks like things are going well.

Donna - here's to some decent scifi titles in the summer of 2013. In the meantime I hope people will be reading SFR if they can't watch it. :-P

Laurie - thanks for your pitch on my pitch. Printer failure has meant I haven't got around to working on a single master pitch with all the feedback I had, but soon!

Pippa's Journal - 11/14/2012

Action!
With Laurie slapping my wrist over the 'no successes' comment last week, I am quickly going to get one negative out of the way. I'm not going to complete NaNoWriMo. While some people might find that a fail, I don't. I've attempted NaNoWriMo twice now for different reasons, none of them being that I had to make the 50K mark at all costs. This time I'd been denying right up to the day it started that I would do NaNoWriMo this November, but I had a story in my head that I needed to get out, so I went for it. But at 21,297 The Overlord's Consort has gone as far as it currently can. I'm not at the end, but I've run out of steam and ideas, and it needs a lot of research and backtracking to make it a complete story, and that's not going to happen in the time remaining for NaNoWriMo. I'm not upset or disappointed by that. While I'm not sure what will become of the story, there's salvageable ideas and writing inside the mess, so it'll go into my WIP pile for a future project. And maybe the next NaNoWriMo I do will hit the target. :)

On the plus side, I have the final draft of Terms & Conditions Apply back from my editor, along with the tweaked cover. Squeeee! So I'll be spending this week writing a new blurb, formatting the MS to upload to Smashwords.com and Amazon, and throwing together a very small tour to celebrate the release with a giveaway.

After that it's back to working on the SFR Brigade anthology story. I, um, still don't have the edits for Gethyon yet. I feel like I've been saying I'm waiting on those forever! I probably won't have a cover reveal until after Christmas either. Ah well, the wheels of publishing grind slowly! :)

As a further note on NaNoWrimo - I've always been an advocate of writing on a regular basis, daily if possible. It was something I got into the habit of during my Creative Writing Course with the OU back before I got my contract for Keir. But one thing I learned with this NaNoWriMo is that it isn't always a good thing to force yourself to write every day. Normally I count writing blog posts, blurbs, emails etc as part of my daily writing, but sometimes there are days when you should really just step away and take a breather, and NOT FEEL GUILTY ABOUT IT! There are days when you're sick. There are days when real life things need to take priority. And there are days you simply just need to stop. One of my favourite authors - Jaine Fenn - posted this article about it here. If writing every day works for you, great! But don't feel bad about it if it isn't the right thing for you.

Sitting In My Happy Place

You see that patch of sun where the light has broken through the clouds? That's where I'm sitting right now. Oh, not literally. Today it's pretty dark and dismal out there, and I'm most definitely staying indoors. But have you ever sat out on a grey day and been hit by a sunbeam like that? Feels good, doesn't it?

That's how I'm feeling with my writing just now. A couple of projects that had really been hanging over my head are done. It's taken a lot longer than I expected, but now that they're completed I'm feeling pretty good. Well, aside from having caught a cold. So what am I so happy about?

Success!
Keir's Fall, the long overdue sequel to Keir, is done and off to the publisher. Yay! Of course, there's no guarantee they'll contract it. But the sheer satisfaction of completing it and turning what I felt was a pretty sucky first draft into a story I'm actually excited about and proud to submit is...well, it makes all the banging my head on a desk sessions worthwhile. At this point I have to say a huge, huge thank you to my editor Danielle Fine. Despite leaving my publisher, she's continued to be a massive support to me and my writing. Her input and encouragement with the sequel have been invaluable.
Dani has also been working with me on my sfr short Terms & Conditions Apply, both as an editor and as the cover designer. This story was originally written for an anthology call by Misa Buckley that sadly never came to pass. So rather than let the story go to waste, and with Misa's permission to use her anthology canon. I decided to self publish. This will be released sometime next month, and the gorgeous cover is also Dani's handiwork.

On that note, I read this post here on the demise of editors with some surprise. I know some self published works don't use editors - a good one costs money, and I know many authors who can't afford it, much as they'd love to. But is the role of the editor dying out? I hope not.

Action!
Last week I did something I thought I'd never do. I walked into a local independant bookshop in my home town of Colchester and asked if they'd consider stocking my book. At worst I expected I'd get laughed at. What actually happened was they promised to look into it. Okay, that may sound like a bit of a brushoff, but they were interested, in a typically quiet British way. Their main concern was that, being with a US publisher, shipping costs combined with the trade price might make it unfeasible for them to stock. But being a shop that favours speculative fiction AND local authors, they were intrigued by the idea and willing to look into it. I'm going back tomorrow to see if they've had any joy. Fingers crossed!

I'm working on a short story for the SFR Brigade anthology. If you're a member and interested in submitting, the closing date for submissions is the 1st January 2013 and the guidelines are here.

My SFR Tethered, which scored 26.5 out of 30 in The Rebecca, has come back with comments from my two beta readers - Gayle Ramage and Chantal Halpin. Overall, my three major issues with the story don't appear to give them any problem. But Chantal raised an interesting point about relationships between clones, which sparked a debate in the SFR Brigade's group on Facebook and led to a blog post here. The general opinion seemed to be that it depended as much upon the role the clones took in relation to one another as the biological connection. The generation gap also made a difference. I'd still love to hear more opinons on this subject if you have time to stop by.

Happenings:
The monthly tagging party signup is open here! Today is the last day to sign up your titles for tagging before the party tomorrow. Please feel free to enter older titles that haven't been tagged for a while if the list is quiet - with all the new members over the last few months, there's a good chance of some new tags and likes.
Keir got a mention over on The Galaxy Express last week as Heather Massey discussed her take on my not so typical hero. Heather says "...KEIR's hero is one type that can challenge readers' expectations about the hero/heroine dynamic in an interesting way." Also, Lyrical Press Inc. has a 50% off sale until the end of October so you can pick up a copy of Keir here, or snag yourself some other excellent titles at half the price.
I'm also a guest at Sarah Grimm's Friday Quickie here. Amber Norris, who visited Spacefreighters Lounge last week with a post on healthcare, will be guesting on my blog next Wednesday.

It's less than a week until the release of GHOST PLANET!!Woo hoo! Early reviews and articles are already coming in and you can check out the tour schedule by clicking on the link in the right hand side bar. :)

The Plant People Are Coming!

Actually, they're already here. Most of my friends and followers know I have a small big obsession with weird and wonderful plants. So not many would be surprised that this post - 10 Creepy Plants That Shouldn't Exist - was an instant must-read for me. Some might be surprised that even I struggled to find some of the plants beautiful. Bleeding Tooth Fungus. The Doll's Eye. And the Cedar-Apple Rust Fungus. Weird definitely (although I'm going to admit to loving the Chinese Black Batflowers). Anyone looking for inspiration for alien and or gruesome flora could certainly find it here.

But one plant on the list just seemed a step beyond reality - the Chinese Fleeceflower. Now I know that there are often photos whizzing around the internet of plants shaped like people (or more often of a certain body part, ahem). But this isn't just a one-off humorous coincidence. No. The plant typically looks like a human being, and often a particularly well-endowed male one.

Of course, these aren't sentient. They aren't going to start walking around and taking over the planet. But there are plants that can move. Venus Flytraps, Sundews, the Mimosa plant that folds its leaves when touched, and various tropical vines that grow so fast you can watch them doing it. Plants will move themselves toward sunlight. It isn't a huge leap of the imagination to thinking about a sentient form of plant life existing. If one doesn't evolve here, then perhaps elsewhere it already has.

Sentient alien life forms that are plants aren't a new idea. Zhaan from Farscape, Jabe (a humanoid plant being from the Forest of Cheem) and the Vervoids from Doctor Who, and even Flora and the Monster Minds from Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors (anyone remember that?) had human-looking intelligent plant life.  So imagine these strange human-looking Chinese fleeceflowers developing the ability to move, and perhaps to think, and an intelligent race of plants doesn't seem too farfetched. As long as the triffids don't come first...

Pippa's Journal

I had a lot of trouble sitting on this one yesterday, but I have an exclusive cover reveal for Spacefreighters Lounge - for my sfr short story Terms & Conditions Apply. Ta dah!

 


What do you think? Isn't it pretty?! This was done by the oh so talented Danielle Fine, who was my editor for Keir at Lyrical Press Inc.  She's now free-lancing - doing covers, book trailers and editing - and she currently has my story in her queue for edits. So no release date as yet, but I just couldn't wait to show off the cover. :)

So why am I self-publishing this instead of submitting it? Well, I did consider submitting. The story was originally written for Misa Buckley's planned Venus Ascendant anthology, which unfortunately never launched. I wanted to self-publish another short story earlier this year (Samaritan), but after receiving some feedback on it via Critique Circle, I decided it needed a lot more work and put it back into the WIP pile. T&C started to play on my mind. I considered rewriting some of the elements that removing the canon for Venus Ascendant would entail, but after a discussion with Misa, she graciously gave me permission to use those elements. I could probably have found a publisher for it (oh, the arrogance! No, seriously, there were several options for submitting it) but 40% of a short story sale isn't very much. I love the bit of creative control I have from self-publishing shorts while submitting my novel-length works to publishers, so it seemed more practical to do this one myself.

The one thing I decided I would do is that I would be charging for this short, unlike The Bones of the Sea (which I self-published last year). That is, and always will be, a free story. T&C is three times the length of Bones, and will be professionally edited - and with its beautiful cover - so I feel putting a price on it is justified. And with Gethyon contracted by Champagne Books for a release date of June 2013, that will give me four titles out in the world by this time next year. Not bad for someone who sat and started writing their first full length sfr novel just three years ago this month.

But before you think I'm too busy patting myself on the back, I do have one confession. I didn't complete Camp Nanowrimo. Between children home for the school holidays, having my other half home for two weeks of that, the arrival of the contract, and much other excitment, When Dark Falls sidled to a stop at 29,427 words. I'm happy with that word count, although I would have liked to complete it. Ah well, maybe next year...