A Last Look at 2017

(I wrote this yesterday but didn't have a chance to post until today.  Welcome to 2018!  Let us hope it is a good year!  One note:  It is no warmer.  This is not a picture from this year, though!)

Welcome to New Year's Eve, 2017.  First off, it is COLD. Seriously cold.   The temp right now is -9f with a -32f wind chill, and that's in the middle of the day.  It is going to drop to -21f temp and who knows what the wind chill will be.  No, not a pleasant New Year's Eve.  I hope people are wise enough to stay home.

My computer is so cold that it's making odd noises.  The office isn't that bad, but right up against the wall -- yeah, it is feeling the cold!

But let's talk about how 2017 went and what I want from 2018.

I started my writing year with Journey of a Thousand Truths on 1/1 and ended it on 4/23.  It's probably the best new novel I wrote this year.  It is novel #103 in my total count and came in at 126,752 words.

On 1/1 I also started the rewrite of Devlin 4 -- Missing Persons.  I'm glad to say that one went well and I finished on 3/19.  This was a shorter work at about 69,780.  I was going to do the next Devlin novel, but I actually need to get another novel in the story universe (but not a Devlin tale) done first because Devlin's team interact with those people in book 5.

On my birthday, 3/8, I began novel #104, Amusing Grace.  This is the sequel of Muse.  It went well for a few hundred words and then died out for some reason.  I restarted it from scratch for the second NaNo novel in November and it went fine that time.  I was done on 11/30 at 50,152.  I like it, but I see some basic things that need to be changed and added. That's fine -- that's the way my first drafts work.

On 3/22 I began the rewrite of the second Raventower and Merriweather novel, War.  This went very well and was done on 5/7.  This one is 135,520 words -- and so much fun!  I really like working with those characters and I do have a third novel getting ready in my little brain for 2018.

On 4/24 I started the rewrite of Circe's Gifts and started posting chapters on Wattpad as well.  That one is 84,880.  It's an older story, but I thought it came out very well.  It is a YA Fantasy with some lovely changeling characters.

And then the rewrite of Tales from Grey Station 9: Season One, a wonderfully fun science fiction project.  That one is one of my longest works at 181,260.  The rewrite went very well.

On 6/20 I began Dusty and Friends, a Flash Fiction serial novella that I posted on my Joyously Prolific blog and on Wattpad.  That one came in at about 28,000 words and is a nice little Young Adult, maybe Pre-teen (though the MC is  teen) story.  Anyway, it was fun to write.

The next one is another rewrite and one that did not work out right.  I began it on 8/1 and finished on 9/4.   Singer & St. Jude 1: The Lost Cause is already published by Double Dragon.  I have the rights back and I wanted to move it up in the overall time line with the rest of the Inner Worlds Council books so it could fit into the overall storyline.  When I was done, though, I realized I hadn't given it enough of a 'future' feel from the original, so I have to go back and redo the world building for that one and try it again, maybe in 2018.

I started the rewrite of Written in the Sand on 9/9 and finished on 12/10 (with a NaNo break in there).  This one went much better!  It's going to be my first publication of 2018, probably on New Years Day.  91,022 words of a desert fantasy story with a really fun set of characters.  I hope people will enjoy it.

Aegyptica Magicae was my first NaNo novel, started 11/1 and ended it on 11/15.  It is #105 of the total novels I've written and a true experiment as a steampunk/fantasy/Egyptian tale.  I have not reread it yet, so I'm not certain which parts of it I got right.  I know it will need more work, but all first drafts do, so that's fine.  I know that at 65,556 it is far too short for what I want.  (I was in the hospital for the three days prior to NaNo and that really threw me off this year. The second NaNo novel was Amusing Grace and my NaNo total was 115,708.)

And finally we have the rewrite of Differential Equations, a contemporary (well, late 1980's) YA mystery that I started on 12/1 and finished on 12/28.  It has formatting still to go through, but after that it will be ready to publish in early 2018.

There were other things I wrote as well like outlines, world building notes for larger universes, and flash fiction for Friday posts (those come to about 52k, including Dusty and Friends).  Also rewriting the 2YN class stuff.  I am also starting to republish updated versions of the 2YN books.  The first one went up last night, replacing the previous version.  I'll get the first five done and the last three as I rewrite the material for posts on Facebook.

My total word count for 2017 is about 1,006,000.  I'm still finishing off a few small things like world building notes and such, but I'll be done soon.

Publications for 2017 were:

3/20 -- Devlin 4 -- Missing Persons
5/7 -- Raventower and Merriweather 2: War
5/22 -- Circe's Gifts
9/8 -- Tales from Grey Station 9

This brings my total number of published novels to 45.  That does not include any of the writing-related stuff like 2YN books, Writing Short, etc.

You can find my publications here:

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/zetteG

https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004RS45YS

Personally, not a great year with illness, hospitalization, and all that fun stuff along with everything else.  I am still fighting with that but I've made it to New Years so there is that good news.  There is a lot about 2017 that was just bad for many reasons, some of which I just refuse to face and deal with, but even so ... here we are.

We are having a very cold New Years Eve (low of -21f and that is not the wind chill) so we will stay home, watch shows, enjoy stuff, and hope the weather gets warmer soon.  I plan on this little post being pretty much my last writing of any length for the year.  2018 is seven hours away.  Can I not write that long?  LOL!

I also took 14,581 pictures this year, including about 800 on the trip to the mountains. What a wonderful vacation!



What about 2018?

I have no outlines. This is rare for me, but I planned it this way.  I want to take at least some time to write without anything but the words flowing from me.  My first novel (or at least one of them) is going to be a brand new Devlin novel.  I also have a superhero story (something very new for me!) bouncing around in my brain.  I'll probably start them both on 1/1 and maybe a rewrite of something as well.

My other big plan is to write sequels to many of the works that need them.  I am looking forward to that part as well.  I mentioned the Devlin novel (which will be #10 or #11 in her series, I think), but I also want to write the sequel to Glory (Dreams), Kat Among the Pigeons (Kat Among the Penguins), Raventower and Merriweather #3 (Untitled), Summerfield # 4 (Spring Break) and Tales from Grey Station 9 (Season 2).  I don't know how many I'll get to.  That's a lot of new material for one year.

I spent too much of 2017 worried about sales.  I've decided not to do that this year.  I will write, publish, and hope people enjoy the books and say so to others and post reviews.  That's the only hope an indie writer really has for making sales.  I'm eclectic in my writing so I should have a chance of catching various types of readers.  If not?  Well, I'm still going to be writing and publishing.

I intend to have a good year.  I hope the rest of you do as well.

Happy New Year!

Preparing

I have not done a regular blog post in a couple of months.   I have kept up on the Flash Fiction serial -- can't miss a week of that one! -- but I just couldn't think of anything else to write here.  I got busy, I got ill, I got both busy and ill sometimes ... and I just ran out of energy.  And now....

Now we are only days away from NaNoWriMo!  The picture today is the cover for my main NaNo Novel.  I am not entirely ready.  The outline for the first novel (since I usually do more than one) is not done.  I can see the end, finally, but I have this blank spot between a significant scene and how it all turns out.  I can't even say how much is going to happen between the two spots.  Nor can I say WHAT will happen.

But I have a great set of characters and an excellent plot up to that point.  I know what my people are about to find and once I work out the implications, I will see where it goes.  I might not 'see' that part until I'm actually writing the novel.  Not a problem -- I have an outline to get me that far and I've never had a problem ending a story.
I realize that I have inadvertently borrowed the attitude of one character (a historical person) from one of C. J. Cherryh's stories.  That made me laugh because it seemed so logical.  I think she'll be amused.

It is amazing how many things affect our writing, and we don't always realize it.    Just a little hint of this, a memory of that -- and suddenly there it is in a story.  You might not even realize it.  This one was just obvious when I thought about the character.

So, I have most of one outline ready for NaNo.  I have a second outline all done, but it will be my second book since I already wrote about 2500 words on it.  Once I get at least one complete (50k plus) novel written, then I can go to it if I have time.  I'm not sure that I will.  My goal is only 100k this year.  I might do better, but I am not aiming at the 250k or so that I sometimes do.  100k is a calm NaNo for me.  Since I've been ill, I don't want to push too hard.

But I do want to have fun!  That's part of why I am less concerned with totals this year.  Last year was kind of tricky because I was trying to hit an overall total for all the NaNo's I'd done through the years.  I wanted 3,000,000 words -- and I made it.  This is year 17 for me, and I have always won.  I love the joy of finding all these writers in one place, and a good many of them having fun.  (If you are not having fun, don't do it.  Drop out.  NaNo isn't for everyone, and it will not affect your career as a writer one way or another unless you learn something from it.  NaNo is a good time to experiment, have fun -- and realize that you are not the only writer out there in the world who are dealing with one problem or another.

Have fun, NaNo or not!

When things don't quite go right

On August 1, I started the rewrite of Singer & St. Jude 1: The Lost Cause.  This book has already been published by Double Dragon, but I asked for the rights back because I wanted to move the story about a hundred years into the future and use the series (there are several more that have not been published) as the starting point for the Inner Worlds Council Universe.  The books introduce two important factors for many of the later works. The first is the introduction of the psis and their powers, as well as the fear that moves a lot of humans against them.  The second is the start of the organization that later becomes the Old World Morals Society, a group much like the Far Right of today with their insistence on people living in ways they have decided are correct.

So I started the work.  The rewrite has been going very well, in fact, at least on one level.

But something kept bothering me.  Really nagging at me every time I sat down and started typing.  I could not figure out what the problem was, however.  So I kept working.  I changed things, I nudged this and that.  I liked a lot of what I got, but I felt something essential was missing.

Missing is the important word.  What the story missed was a sense of the future.  I had a few terms and a couple gadgets.  I had a reason why this particular area of the world would not be as advanced as other places, but even so, the story lacked a feel for the hundred and some years that had passed.  I had, in fact, not done any real world building for the new version.

This is embarrassing.  My favorite author wrote a lovely quote for me: A talented author with a gift for world building.

She said that about me.  And here I sit with a story that might as well be taking place right now, except for the ruined city. 

I am finishing out this rewrite to fix the rest of the plot problems.  Then I will put the book aside and start thinking about how I might change things.  I don't think I'll work on the novel again until next year -- which isn't that far away.  I will, however, start looking at the world building aspects that I ignored.

Next up is the final run through on Tales of Grey Station 9.  And outlines.  Having trouble there, too.

But at least I finally figured out the problem with the current novel.  I can deal with problems I see even if they take me a while to fix.  The ones you simply can't find are the ones that will drive a writer crazy.

And Another One

Here is something you often hear from me.

I have a new novel idea.

This one will be an Egyptian/Steampunk/Fantasy/Archeology tale.  I am sure there will be awakened Nile Gods, though all I have for a plot is the opening.  Normally I don't do a lot about character families beyond the immediate ones needed for the story, but I've already charted four or five generations for three families with about 52 people, and I'm nowhere near done.  And yes, most of this will have a major role in the tale, even if some of it is not 'on screen.'

I have the other ancient world/Egypt-centered alternate history idea, but that one is going to take a step back, and this will be one of the four I outline for NaNo.  The other one requires too much world building to throw it together in the next three months, let alone do it along with other outlines.

Oh, and I did finish the edit/rewrite of Tales from Grey Station 9!  It is sitting at 175,036 words at the moment, with one last edit where I go through with all the notes I made and make certain everything lines up properly.  I will have the book ready for release next month.

It's going to be hard to concentrate on it with this new story leaping up and down like the proverbial plot bunny.  I have pulled out 39 books on Egypt from my shelves.  And yes, my study of hieroglyphs is going to help with some of the new story.

So, here I go, and you are present at the start of a new adventure.  I hope to write this one for NaNo in November, but it all depends on how hard of a time I have pulling it together.  I don't think that's going to be a problem.  At the moment, the book is titled Venatus Aegyptiaca which sort of translates to Dark Magic of Egypt.  This will be a YA adventure, at least as I see it from the start.  That can always change, but I think I see the main characters clearly and know how they are going to act, even though I'm not entirely certain about what the circumstances might be when they have to do something.

I hope it will be a fun adventure, though!

Missed a week!

 

I have been both busy and not feeling well.  I'm trying to get back into doing all these little things like the weekly blog post, but it keeps getting lost in the piles of other things.

Though writing wise, still doing okay.  On Sunday I crossed the 500,000 word mark for the year.  My major project is still Tales of Grey Station 9 and I'm a bit over half way on it.  The final version is going to end up close to or over 200,000 words.

Dusty & Friends is up to the third 1k entry.  Writing those little pieces takes an entirely different approach from a sprawling novel.  That reminds me of something one person once said (and she claimed to be an expert):  Writing novels is easier than writing short stories because you can make mistakes and it doesn't matter.

I remember reading that line several times and shaking my head.  Make mistakes -- and just leave them.  Don't worry.  The story is so long that no one will notice, unlike with her short stories which had to be perfect.

I am amazed, sometimes, at the things people say about writing.

I have one huge non-writing project right now.  The ezine I published for 15 years stopped publication two years ago.  (Honestly, it seems a lot longer.)  A good part of it has been sitting on an out of date Joomla! site.  Since there will no longer be any updates, I don't need anything that fancy and I really don't want to have to keep updating it, so I am copying off articles and preparing for a simple html site.  Nothing fancy at all, but with easy links to the categories and such.

Shouldn't be hard, right?

660 articles on the Joomla! site.  At least that many, and maybe more, that have to be moved from an even older site and added in to the newer articles. 

I've copied over 200 articles so far.  And this is where I sing the praises of Scrivener.  I have copied files over (both html and text, depending on the article -- but I'll probably stick with text after this) and used the little synopsis card on the right to list the title, category, author, and Vision Issue.  This will make it very easy to sort everything out into whatever group I want later.

But yeah, it is a lot of work.  Non-writing work, which is hard for me.  I do some of it, take a break to write, and then do more.

Over the next two weeks I hope to get most of the Joomla! material copied. Then I'll copy all the others into Scrivener as well -- though I wonder if it has a limit on word count/file size/whatever?  I'll have to watch that and divide it into more than one set if that happens.

This isn't what I had been planning to do.  I think fondly of the outlines I should be writing -- but the site had developed some problems and my provider would like some changes.  I'm doing the change that should mean I won't have to do it again.

Sometimes you just can't write.  Real life (or something like it for me) steps in and other stuff has to be done. 

But still -- half a million words so far this year.  I can't complain!

More of the same

I had hoped to go to the mountains this last weekend, but things did not work out.  I had expected that to happen, but I always kind of hope for some little surprise at the end.   I haven't been to Rocky Mountain National Park for fourteen years now.  The mountains, the desert, the ocean -- those are three things I love, but here I am in Nebraska pretty much far from any of them.  Nebraska is not a bad place to be.  I love the seasons and the storms -- but I still miss the other things.  I haven't seen the ocean in a long, long time.  The desert?  Maybe 1997?  The mountains were at least this century. 

I hope that year fifteen will be the one when we get a chance to go.  You never know -- it could happen.  I might even make a few sales and be able to afford something as extravagant as one night away from home!  LOL.  Two nights?  Nah.  My books won't ever sell that well!

So what did I do this weekend instead?  Well, we had an interesting storm on Friday.  Lots and lots of pictures.  Great clouds.  Saturday was much cooler and quieter, which was nice.  Didn't do much at all since Russ had company.  Sunday we had a nice ride out to a local state park, and I got a few pictures, and then we took some dirt roads and headed towards home.  I also spent some time cleaning up some shelves in the living room and hoping that I can get the area cleaned up enough to sometimes set up my photo studio equipment.  I can't even say what I really want to do for pictures, but it would be fun to have the opportunity.

Oh yes, I did write.  I am closing in on the last of part four for Tales of Grey Station 9.  This one should be the final really major rewrite out of the group of ten parts.  I might have everything done by mid-July, which would be nice.  This will be my next Wattpad entry -- though I think I might drop a couple shorter pieces in there as well.  I just thought of a fun new cover art project for Author Vs. Character.  People enjoy that story, and since it's free on Smashwords (and part of NaNo for the New and the Insane), I might as well put it up on Wattpad as well.  Oh, and do a quick edit, too.

So there are my projects.  Must keep moving.  Something might come of it yet!

This is what prolific looks like

It is almost half way through the year.  I keep thinking that I need to pick up my writing pace now, but the truth is that I really don't.  I'm not certain why I think I've dropped way behind on anything.   I'm sitting at 443,810 words for the year so far.  I might manage to write another 56,190 words and reach the 500k mark before July 1, but I'm not actively pushing for it.  I've published three novels and almost completed one WattPad novel (I should post the last of it before the end of the week). I rewrote and edited four older novels, wrote one new first draft with the start of a second, wrote and posted about 25 flash fiction pieces, and worked on four outlines for the upcoming November NaNo.  Those last have a long ways to go.

I've taken several more courses from the Great Courses group: History of Ancient Egypt, The Night Sky, Decoding the Secrets of Egyptian Hieroglyphs, and I am part way through Oceanography.  The hieroglyphs one has lead to more books and more study, too.

I am perpetually busy. 

And I am never bored.  Sitting somewhere outside my house with nothing to do?  It doesn't happen often I keep notepads in my purse and I write notes about the current story or practice hieroglyphs.  Often I have my Nook and I'll read and sometimes write on it as well.  I've only read 18 books so far, so not quite one a week.  Still, with everything else ... not bad.

I never leave the house without at least one of the cameras.  Going for a short ride can net me a hundred pictures.  I bring them home, load them into my computer, tag them, sort out the bad ones and work with one or two to post, and generally have a good time.  I put one up every day for the picture of the day blog.  I taken 6365 pictures, all nicely tagged in Lightroom, and did at least 152 pieces of art, mostly based on the photos.

What don't you see on this list?

Television.

Games.

There has to be a trade off somewhere, because there simply isn't enough time to do everything.  I find writing more entertaining than most shows.  I do on occasion binge on some series or movie I have on DVD, but those times are rare. 

Except for some time on line, I am not a sociable person, either.  Most of the time, I would rather be writing.

I worked out the problem for myself years ago:   If I wanted to write, I had to make the time.  If I wanted to write a lot, I needed to make a lot of time.  No matter how fast you write, and how well you edit, creating a story takes time.  Creating several a year takes as much determination as it does time.    It also takes mental flexibility to easily move from one story to another.  That takes practice.  I am able to write something new in a first draft and switch over to editing something else.  The stories are not the same and the process for each of those steps is entirely different.

Focus, too.  Oh yes, if you can't ignore the outside world (and many of you don't have a choice -- you have to listen), then creating writing time becomes more difficult.  At worst, my distractions are a group of cats all of whom seem to want to learn how to type.  Zaphod is the most persistent.  I sometimes leave his 'messages' in my first drafts and mark them with his name.  Other times, I kick everyone out of the office and close the door.

And then I write some more.

And the next project is....

I have started the rewrite and edit of Tales from Grey Station 9.  The first 10k went very well.  The next portion has slowed me down.  I see the problem.  I can fix it as soon as I find the right key.

And talking to myself helped.  I have someone who needs a little more time in the spotlight.

Edmond has a bad cold.  He's sneezing and coughing like mad.  We'll have to get him some meds next week, I suspect, unless he pulls himself out of this.  I feel sorry for the poor little guy, but at least he's not so sick he turns away from kitty treats.

Russ has been in New York for the last few days.  He'll be home late today.  Yay! It's been a long week. There was so much I wanted to get done, but I ended up wasting most of the time.  I'm annoyed about that part, but overall it was not too bad.  Until Edmond started sneezing.

I am once again trying to figure out how to make marketing work for me.  This is an on-going circle of try this, try that -- and wondering just how to make it all come together so that I do more than jab at people now and then.  I see people do cover reveals and launch parties -- and I just can't seem to do those sorts of things.  I am not a good marketing person at all.  Live things -- not going to happen, I fear.  The mere idea -- well, I don't need another heart attack. Online stuff is nearly as bad.  I don't do well with the presentation part of things.  Write, edit, publish -- yeah, nice things I do all by myself and just sort of wave at people in passing to let them know what I'm doing.  Beyond that?  It just is not happening.

So there is my huge weakness as an author.  No way around it.

I guess I'll go write some more now while I wait for Russ to get home.

Circe's Gifts is done!

I surprised myself with Circe's Gifts.  It barely took a month to do the rewrite and double edit.  I am posting on Wattpad at a couple chapters a day, but I'm also going to release the story in ebook.  I will continue posting on Wattpad, but I hope a few people pick up the finished work.  You know -- support the author sort of thing!

Next up might be A Plague of Rats, which I think people will like. That one seems to have the strongest call for me right now.  I might as well take advantage of that and leap in.

Russ is going to be gone for most of the week.  I'm not really sure what I'll do with myself.  I feel like I ought to have a big project.  Maybe a (gasp) house cleaning project would work.  I tend to drive Russ nuts with those because I move everything, get part way through, let it sit for a day or two, and then go back to it.  That might be something to think about, especially if it is going to be warm enough to not freeze in the rest of the house.

Okay, I just published Circe's Gifts on Amazon and Smashwords.  Smashwords will spread it out to all the other outlets.  I'll post links in a couple days when everything is cleared.  Here is the blurb:

Circe's sacred forest is a place where wounded and hunted animals can find sanctuary.  She and her long-time companions -- a one-eyed wolf, a cat with a limp, and a tailless mouse -- have lived quietly until a wounded young man wanders into her woods, followed by those who are hunting him.  When the All-Mother lets Circe know that she must help Tiernan, the best she can do is to send her friends to protect him, though they cannot go in their animal forms.

And that's it for me this week!  Still playing around with a lot of graphics stuff and having fun. The cats are still cats.  All is good in the world!

Another (manic) Monday

Welcome to another Monday in my crazed life.  Circe's Gifts is moving along so well that I will be putting up more than two chapters a week soon.  Raventower 2 is published.  I am starting to look at future works for Wattpad, and realizing I will be publishing Circe's Gifts as an ebook before too long.

Really, not too bad at all.  But I am in bouncy mode, mostly.  Lots of stuff going on and I want to do it all. And then I get headachy and annoyed and have to fight to do anything.  And then bouncy again.  I like bouncy.

I'm also working with the Topaz Studio beta graphics program.  So far I'm really impressed, though it does take a lot of my time because I want to play with it.  I can't do everything that Photoshop can do, but it does have a wonderful array of adjustments and additional add ins that make this one fun to play with if you like this sort of thing.  I do, and I've always been impressed with Topaz Labs programs.

I see interesting book covers in the future.

What I don't see much of at the moment is new story stuff.  I have four ideas for NaNo in November, but I haven't been able to get anything moving there.  I think that's simply because I've been focusing on getting other things done and out of the way.  Well, they're done, mostly.  Hello?  Ideas?  Are you out there?

Yes, actually, they are.  I just need to focus on them again.  It's not as though the stories have disappeared. These are the ones that have stayed in my brain for quite a while already, so I'm pretty certain they're going to last all the way through the outline phase and on into writing stuff.  I'll likely get to at least one of them before NaNo unless I spend the rest of the year rewriting older material.  That might happen.  I'm enjoying Wattpad as an easy step toward publication with the hope of finding people interested enough to read the book and maybe buy a couple others.  Oh and it would be nice if they pointed out problems they saw in the text.  I'd be very happy with that happening.

I am working a bit today at getting my photo studio set up again.  It's not a permanent set up, but I've been doing a little at a time clearing out the space where I want to work.  I hope to get it all ready by mid-week.  I won't be able to leave it up because of the cats, but I hope to have a place where I can quickly put things together whenever I have the urge -- and the time.

Oh, and another story idea just hit.  Maybe I can work it into one of the others?  Yes, actually, I think I can.  In fact, I think this might be a missing piece of the Lost City story.  It also has a great opening.

Okay, need to think this through and start working up notes and stuff.  On a lot of stuff.

Yeah. Time to get my brain bouncing around again!

Raventower & Merriweather 2: War and Wattpad

Yes!  Finally!  The second Raventower & Merriweather book is out! 

Here is a link to both of them in Smashwords

And here is a link to the new book at Amazon

War has come to the city of Kamere. The Atrian ships are blockading the coast and occasionally landing troops in attempts to either take the city or to capture some of Sedina's coastline.

The villages inland are in chaos, food supplies are already growing scarce, and several areas of the city are in ruins. However, the Sedina forces -- Army, Navy, and Air Patrol -- are keeping the mass of Atrians out.

Atrian assassins are still trying to kill Lord Raventower. More worrisome than that, however, is the Atrian's dangerous interest in the object lying on the ocean floor near Raventower itself.

Clockwork giant spiders, glowing women -- family dinner gatherings with the Merriweathers -- Micalus Raventower is not certain even the redoubtable Captain Merriweather and his clockwork creations can keep him safe from all the trouble he's attracting.

These are run Steampunk/Clockwork/Fantasy books. I hope you enjoy them!

And in other news, I have started posting a novel on Wattpad:

Circe's sacred forest is a place where wounded and hunted animals can find sanctuary.  She and her long-time companions -- a one-eyed wolf, a cat with a limp, and a tailless mouse -- have lived quietly until a wounded young man wanders into her woods, followed by those who are hunting him.  When the All-Mother lets Circe know that she must help Tiernan, the best she can do is to send her friends to protect him, though they cannot go in their animal forms.

You can find the story here.  Four chapters are up now and more will be added soon.  

Goals for the New Month

First, in the news this week -- I finally got my Twitter account back! @LazetteG there, but it is going to take me awhile to get used to checking it and posting things again.  Still, after nearly a year, it's nice to have it back!

That will be one of my May goals: Start remembering to post on Twitter, Forward Motion, and maybe do a bit more on FB that is targeted toward my work, and not just random posts now and then.  Also, there is still the WattPad stuff.  I believe I have the novel I'm going to place there.  It is a YA fantasy called Circe's Gifts.  I have a good start on the final edits and I can start posting as soon as I figure out all the extra little things that need done before it goes up.

I had hoped to have Raventower & Merriweather 2: War published before the end of the month, but I had a week of miserable illness where I spent most of my time curled up in bed under the heated blanket and wondering if the apocalypse might not be better.  I am still not well, but my brain has started to put words together and get them into something like a proper order again.   It's not quite up to things like formatting and publishing books, but I'm getting there.  The book will be out soon.  The last of the Surviving Elsewhere flash fictions will go up this Friday.  I hope to post the first of Circe's Gifts at Wattpad this week.  Busy stuff.  Lots of busy stuff.

I've had more than one person ask me this week if I always have multiple projects going.

Yes.  The only time I do not is in those hours after I finish the last writing on the last day of the year (yes, I plan it that way) and before I start the first project of the new year.  Which, by the way, I generally start a couple minutes after midnight.  It's fun.  It's my way of saying 'this is me, and welcome to the New Year!'.  Later in the day I often start my first rewrite and/or edit of the year as well.  After that, work just grows and lessens and grows for the entire year.

And I love it.  I really do.  I have written every day for decades.  Why not?  It's what I love most to do.  Apparently according to some people this is a sin when it comes to writing.  Oh, don't write so much!  Slow Down!  It's evil to write more!

It's a joy.  It's fun.  It is not for everyone.  I think I've mentioned this a few times already, right?  Writing a lot and writing fast does not mean you can't edit afterwards, and honestly, I edit slowly.  I edit multiple times.  I edit until I drive myself, my husband, my cats -- and probably the stuffed plot bunnies around my desk -- insane.  There is the 'it is never quite right' problem. 

Unfortunately, it never will be.

At some point you have to let go.  Maybe someone else will find something for you to fix.  Maybe others will hate it.  Maybe you could have written the novel an entirely different way -- change the POV, go with a different main character, change the setting....

And maybe you would be writing an entirely different book if you did any of those things.  At some point you need to stop changing things just to change them.  I know.  I've been there.  I've written over 100 novels and hundreds of shorter works.  They may not be the best stuff ever written, but I do understand how the process goes and what problems you can make for yourself.

One of the worst is not letting go and moving on.  So that's part of why I have multiple projects.  (See, this comes back to the point!)  If all I have is one story and I can't step away from it when I need to and work on something else, I am just going to nudge and jab at it forever.  So when I'm done, I close it down and work on something else that's already in progress, whether that is something new or an edit.  Just move away.

And sometimes I even get something to the point that I'll publish.  I hope to do so this week.  Wish me luck with the second Raventower & Merriweather book!

The End of Things, the Start of Things

In the last couple days, I have finished the major rewrite/edit of Raventower 2: War.  It will have one more read through/edit this week and I should be really done.  I also finished the first draft of Journey of a Thousand Truths.  I am within 2k of finishing the Saving Everywhere flash fiction set, which means I'll also be done with the larger collection which is Surviving Elsewhere, Going Somewhere Else, and Saving Everywhere.  The only major unfinished work I have right now is Amusing Grace.  I started that one on my birthday because I always start something new then, but I put it mostly aside so I could finish the other two major works first.

I will have the flash fiction set done tonight or tomorrow and it will be done and pretty much ready to post over the next two Fridays.

You know, for most of this year, I've felt as though everything was dragging and I was getting nowhere.  Then suddenly 'poof' and almost everything is done.  Now I'm scrambling to figure out what else I'm going to work on. What do I want for Wattpad?  Not Journey after all -- I just feel as though it is too soon to toss that story out for other people to see.  A Plague of Rats?  Circe's Gifts?  Maybe Circe's Gifts first, since that is a shorter one.  YA/MG fantasy with several shape-shifters.  That might be a good way to start to get a feel for what I should do.

Yes, maybe that one.  I even have a cover for it, though I might have to do some resizing and such.  Hmmm.  This looks like a real possibility!

As you have probably guessed by now, I am never without a few writing projects.  I have over 100 novels in at least the first draft format.  Actually, I have more than that, but those are the ones that are either already published or that I think have a chance of publication.  I keep writing more of them, too.

One completed for this year, another started, four more that are soon to go into note/outline phase for NaNo -- yeah, I have lots of manuscripts to work with still and except for having to decide 'what next' it's generally a lot of fun.  Oh, there are annoying moments during the writing, too, of course.  Journey of a Thousand Truths kept giving me problems.  I had not outlined it.  I do that every now and then, and while it was fun to just run with a story, it was horrible when I couldn't glance at a note and see what to do next.  The outline would have had the same sorts of problems while I created it, but they're easier to fix in outline when I can go back and tweak things without major rewrites of entire sections.  I suspect the rest of the novels this year will all have outlines.  I just don't have the patience I used to for wasting time.

So here is a piece from the little prologue to Circe's Gifts:

***

Few peasants from the village sitting at the forest's edge ever saw Circe, the Lady of the Woods.  Those who did chance to spot her when she walked the edge of her forest described the woman as an aged, gray-haired crone, with piercing eyes, and always followed by a horde of fearsome beasts.

They were wrong, of course, but they held to their myth even in the occasional face of reality.  No one ever looked for anything more than what they expected to see.  The Lady was ageless, not aged.  Her hair wasn't gray, but moonlight silver, and her eyes -- the color of the green forest leaves -- did not pierce; they simply saw the world in a way that humans could not.

As for the fearsome beasts -- well, her usual companions were a tailless mouse, a half-lame cat, and a one-eyed, soft-tempered she-wolf.

***

Injured wild animals come to Circe, but in this story, it is a wounded prince who wanders into her domain.  This really is an old-fashioned fantasy.  Yes, I think this might be the one to work on for Wattpad.

Let's see if this one sticks and I actually get so far as posting stuff.

Preparing

So, I am looking at ideas for NaNo in November.  I'll need two or three outlines.  Today I came up with something I think is going to be fun to write.

Let's say my characters are looking for a lost city.  This could be fantasy, science fiction, or even a fictional lost city set in the real world of today.  I am tending towards fantasy, though it might be Alternate Earth Urban Fantasy of some sort.  I only have the very basics of the idea so far, but it is growing enough that I'll start note taking and outlines soon enough.  Anyway, my characters are looking for some ancient place.  The name of the place is in a language no one speaks now.  Many people consider the city to be pure myth with no tie to reality, but my group of adventurers is going to prove them wrong for whatever reason they have for this quest.

They know the basic area, or so they think.  However, the land itself changes over time.  Harbors silt up.  Earthquakes bury ravines in debris.  Humans knock down hills or build new ones to suit their current needs and tastes.  Entire landscapes change; the lush farmlands of ancient times might be a barren desert now.

Or the area might be much like it had been thousands of years before.  Maybe the adventurers have traced what they seek to this general location, but they simply can't find any sign of the ancient city. They know they are close, but where is it?  They spend some time in the largest city in the area, hoping to find more maps, old manuscripts, perhaps even learn a few new myths.  They know they're close.

What if they're standing right on it?

Locations that are suitable for a settlement often remain good, even after slight changes around them.  Conquerers rename cities and the next conqueror names it again.  There was a city named Wasat once -- a powerful city, and it stood for three thousand years.  In fact, it still stands, but that's not the name you are likely to know.  When the Greeks conquered the land, they renamed it after one of their own cities. The current rulers of the land thought these ancient ruins looked liked palaces and gave it a name to reflect that belief.

So a city that was Wasat for about three thousand years in ancient Egypt became Thebes and now is Luxor, and in a fraction of the time the city existed, its old name is forgotten. Wasat is not a name you are likely to know, even though this is a city that was never lost.  The name is inscribed in stone and on papyrus, but until the last century, the ability to read those words was lost.  The ancient Egyptian priesthood had died out, and they took with them the secrets of the mdw ntr -- The Gods' Words.  Was, by the way, was the ancient word for power.  Waset means, basically, the city of power.

Istanbul -- which I believe means 'the city' -- had to be renamed because Constantinople, the city of the great Christian Emperor, would not do in a Muslim world.  Before Constantinople, there had been Byzantium, for which an entire area and era were named.  If you go looking for places, sometimes you need to look under the floorboards, so to speak.  The adventurers might not have to go out into the jungles or the desert wastelands.  Of course digging down into the heart of a populated city isn't going to be easy, either.  Add a few religious implications, and I can have everything up to assassins and riots.  Oh yes, this might be fun.

Another NaNo Novel is also playing in my brain.  I need to do the background work on that one, but it really is going to be a fun new Devlin novel.  Oh, and I haven't forgotten the 'Egypt rules the world' story, either.  I am just not ready to do that much research.

So there might be two major works in the planning stages.  We only have six full months and a couple weeks to get ready, you know.  It is crazy how fast this year is going.

I am also looking at doing something on Wattpad.  Have any of you worked with it?  I think the piece I put up might be Journey of a Thousand Truths as soon as I get the first draft done.  I admit that I don't fully understand Wattpad, but I am willing to expand out and see what it might do for my readership.  There are too many things for authors to try out there and I've been getting lost in the wilds for a long time.  I am not looking to be a top selling author, but I would like to reach a few more people who enjoy the same sort of stories that I enjoy.  I suspect that Wattpad will be another 'lost in the crowd' place, but if I am going to try it anyway.  I think I will be posting on Wednesdays.  Mondays I have this blog and Fridays I have the 2YN class on Facebook and the Flash Friday piece, so I want to get away from this weekend rush of posting.  Since I will have the novel done before I start posting (or close to it), I might even do two posts a week.

But it is all confusing, especially for someone who truly only wants to write and maybe play with pictures and graphic art now and then.  Oh yes and read -- and continue to learn more Egyptian Hieroglyphs.  I shouldn't grumble and complain because I do have the near perfect writing life, just lacking in funds now and then.  On days like today, though, with my back painfully reminding me of why I can't get a job out in the real world, I start looking more at what I can do to help the finances.  I can write.  I am still going to believe that will count!

Moving Along

I decided to skip Camp NaNo this month.  I already have two projects I'm deep into, and while I could use at least one of them in the Camp fun, I decided that maybe not adding to the pressure would be a good idea.  So I'm cheering everyone else on, and I hope they have a good time.

I have already written 24k for the month.  I might be up to 25k by the time this is posted (actually it is 26,249 as I get ready to post).  I've managed a steady 3k plus a day, though I'll drop down by that a few times here and there.  I do have a life, even if it doesn't interfere with writing very often.  This last weekend just happens to be one of those times. You know what?  That's good.  I don't need to spend every single moment tied to this computer.

Well, at least not if I can take my tablet with me.

You know what is taking most of my attention right now?

Yup.  Hieroglyphs.

I only have four more full classes, but this isn't something that you can watch and instantly understand.  I've been going back over the pdf file and reinforcing things like past tense and passive voice.  Negation, too.  Not to mention all the words.  My plan is to keep learning more after I'm finished with this class (this week!), and I hope to keep interest in it.  Russ surprised me and ordered the very expensive Egyptian Grammar book that the course teacher recommended, and it should be here on today, but no sign of it yet.  That's going to really help to keep going.

There are amusing bits to hieroglyphs.  For instance, there is a single sign that stands for the letters M+A.  But maybe you don't realize it has the 'a' sound, so for this word we'll write it with the Ancient Egyptian equivalent of the A letter beside it to remind you.  Oh, but this is the word for 'to see' so we have to add another 'A' to actually write out the word.  Huh.  You might not realize what that means, so let's stick the drawing of an eye between the first double letter symbol and the two 'A' letters.  There are a lot of words like this, especially ones with little drawings of things to help you remember the word, which is nice, actually.  It's like they knew someone without a clue was going to have to learn this stuff someday.

I can't seem to make the 'verb first' rule stick.  I don't know why that one is giving me trouble.  It's not that hard.

It is fun, though.  It really is, though I don't have a very steady hand for drawing the letters.  My normal handwriting is awful, but this might help since I'm learning better control.  And I've also come to realize that it doesn't matter if my letters in Ancient Egyptian are perfect or not, as long as I know what they are.  It's not as though I'm going to become a scribe and write hieroglyphs for a living.  I do enjoy the ability to read some of the ancient text, though.  I have a long ways to go before I am able to look at things and understand them (even with the help of little drawings at the ends of words), but I've been amazed at how some of it just suddenly makes sense.

I always suggest that writers spend time learning new things because it will improve your writing, even if you don't use the material directly.  This is especially important for those who write science fiction and fantasy novels.  When you aren't dealing with the reality of here, and now, you need to look for ways to make your world building.  Before I took the course on hieroglyphs, I took one on the history of Ancient Egypt. The two combined have cloned so many plot bunnies that I can't keep track of them all.  The way people write reflects on how they think, of course.  For instance, many people think that the Egyptians worshiped the sun as their god, Ra.  This wasn't true, and it is obvious when you look at the writing. They had a word for Ra, and the word for the sun was not the same.  The sun was a symbol of the god but was not the god himself.

And that makes me think of an aspect of some story where a group of people assumes something that they find is not true once they can read the language.  Something a bit more subtle that the 'To Serve Man' sort of thing, though I suspect the Damon Knight's original story probably was better than the Twilight Zone episode based on it.  Or maybe the show has just been satirized so much that I'm no longer able to see how remarkable it is any longer.

I have ideas, though.  This is what happens to me when I go explore new territory.  

And it is so much fun!

Missed Monday!

I missed my the Monday post.  I've been trying to keep up with a weekly schedule, but it just slipped past me this week.  Maybe I should have an alarm or something.

Not that I actually have anything going on.  Let's not pretend I missed the post because I had something neat and new happening.  Nope.  Just got caught up in writing, mostly.  The edits for Raventower & Merriweather 2: War are going along very well, so that's good.  Journey of a Thousand Truths took a leap forward and is sitting there staring at me again.  Learning Egyptian hieroglyphs has been a lot of fun and takes considerable amounts of my attention.  So I am busy, but I am not doing anything new a different.

 I hope to have both of them done by the end of this month with the Raventower novel ready to publish and Journey with a completed first draft.  I need to focus, though, to get there.  So far, I'm doing okay on that part.  The better weather is helping, too.

I did get Grammarly to work with Word finally.  That's good.  I enjoy working with the program and it certainly has helped to find some of my problems.

And that's it. Really.  Quiet week with just more writing going on. And Egyptian stuff.  And cats.

More Egypt

This is the last week of March?  A quarter of the way through the year already?  It isn't possible!

I still don't have Journey of a Thousand Truths finished.  It has stalled at a scene I simply can't 'see' yet, though I think another little piece of it came to me tonight.  I hope that it all comes to me in the next few days so that I can get to the ending.  I'm getting close.  It's silly to hold up here, but it happens sometimes.

Devlin 4 has been published and is selling surprisingly well.  I guess I won't wait so long for the next Devlin novel!

My current editing project is a major bit of work, though, and is going to take me a while.  I'm working on Raventower & Merriweather 2: War.  The chapters are long, and I am only getting through one of them a day.  Editing takes longer than writing the same amount of words, I think.  Or at least as long, but is more difficult.  Or something.  It takes a long time.  LOL.

The story is good, though.

I have watched ten classes on reading and writing hieroglyphs, and I am really enjoying what I've done so far!  In fact, I find more of my free time taken up in practice than in anything else right now.  The hieroglyphs are the simplified written style, of course, but once you start learning them, you can recognize the fancier versions chiseled in stone.  Learning to recognize letters is just the small step, though.  Learning to read them -- that's the fun part.  I'm beginning to recognize words!  As the instructor put it, we're mostly in the 'See spot run' phase, but I'm still amazed at how fast this is going.

I love learning new things.  This is probably one of the most challenging, and interesting, things I've tried to learn in a long time.  I love it.

And yes, something of it is bound to show up in a story at some point.  Russ pointed out how cool it would be to use in a mystery novel.  Back on 2/27/17, I wrote a bit about an odd story idea I had -- the letter one.  This might be another part of that plot, where perhaps the way in which someone writes a sentence points out that he or she was not trained in Egypt.  Oh, and there were female scribes in Egypt, though not many.

The reed pen is their child,
The stone surface their wife…
Death made them forgotten,
But books made them remembered.

Scribes sometimes wrote their name at the end of a text, apparently because of the Ancient Egyptian belief that 'to speak the name of the dead was to make them live again.'

Meanwhile, it's back to drawing the damned quail chicks (u,w sound).  I think I've finally gotten a reasonable vulture (a) and owl (m).  They used far too many birds in their writing.  I've never had a very steady hand, but as long as I can tell what I've written, all is good.  It's not like I'm going to go out and write hieroglyphs for a living.  Sometimes you just do for fun.

The End is Near

Devlin 4: Missing Persons is pretty much done.  Today I will be doing the final formats and then publishing at Smashwords and Kindle stores.

This is another of those books that simply should not have taken so long to edit as it did.  I knew something was wrong, though, so I kept bouncing off of it.  Once I fixed a couple problems, I moved very quickly through the rest of the work.

It happens.  You get to a point where you just know there is something not quite right with a story but you can't single out the problem -- or problems in this case.  I finally got everything to work together, though.

The other problem I am having is with Journey of a Thousand Truths.  It's not a huge problem, just a change in direction, more or less.  I had a certain set of scenes that I had planned for the end of the novel, but I realized that they don't work there.  They have to come sooner as the penultimate section of the story.  That shouldn't be such a problem, right?  But for some reason, my mind doesn't want to move to this part of the adventure, and I'm not sure why not.  This makes sense, story-wise.  I'm happy with it.

Maybe now that I have the Devlin novel out of the way, this one will fall back into place.  I like what is going to happen so I should get happy about writing it.

I also toned down some of the color in the cover that I posted last week for the Devlin book.  It was a bit too neon.  LOL.   

What else?  Hmmm.  So far this year I've come up with an idea for an alternate ancient world book (or series), a new Devlin novel (#10?), and now another book for the Inner World Council science fiction universe.  When I told Russ the idea, he thought it sounded great.  It will require me to do some research on other IWC books I've written (these include the Devlin novels and probably 20 or so others).  I need to trace the appearances of a certain character.  I do have a lovely Aeon Timeline made up for the IWC stuff, so that helps.  I just don't recall all the times the character has made an appearance.

Oh yes, and Amusing Grace, the sequel to Muse, is not moving quickly, but it's been fun so far.  Once I get Devlin out of the way, it should pick up.

Or maybe not.  I do intend to edit Raventower & Merriweather 2: War next.

Yes, that's one of the big parts of being a prolific writer. There is always something more to get done.  I need to do the pre-work on two ideas, the outline on one, finish two first drafts, and edit ... more stories than even I like to think about right now.

Oh, and did I mention the course on reading and writing hieroglyphs?  I'm having a lot of fun with that one!  I just need to find a way to set up my homework on it -- and I think I just realized what I need to do!  Notecards!  I have a ton of them around here somewhere.  I can sort them by letter and it will be far easier for me to find stuff.  I like it!  Of course now I won't be able to find the notecards that have been floating around here for a decade, right?  That's the way it always works for me.  I move stuff here and there and back again, but the moment I actually need it, the cats hide it somewhere.

Busy.  Very busy.  Having fun.

Oh, and it got up to 79f on Sunday!  SPRING!  A week ago, six inches of snow fell.  We could well have snow again.  We've had some incredible snow storms in April.  A couple years ago, it snowed on the first day of summer in parts of Nebraska.  I am ready for spring, though.  We're going to have a few days of cooler -- but not cold -- weather, but you can tell that warmth is on the way.  The big hope is that we don't leap straight into summer.

The Last Edits

I am almost done with the edits for Devlin's Team # 4: Missing Persons.  This one fought me for three months and then suddenly fell into place  I give credit where it is due -- to the two new stuffed plot bunnies I sat on top of my monitor and who are keeping close watch on me, along with their larger companion, also new.  This is stuffed plot-bunny season, people.  Go out and buy yourself one.  Or two.  Or three.  And when you do that every year -- well, yes, I have run out of shelf space and they are on the monitor for a reason.  (Also don't forget chocolate plot bunnies.)

I do have a large collection of stuffed bunnies, bears, cats, and even a few penguins.  I like them. They make me smile.  Yeah, people look at me oddly as I grab stuffed animals, but I'm a writer.  I am allowed to be eccentric, right?

Ummm, right. Back to the novel.  Devlin's Team # 4 had to have a lot of rewriting and editing.  I added entire chapters.  I changed the ending.  I rewrote it again.  I am finally happy with what I have for the story.  I'm not as sure about this cover yet, but it does show the sort of neon, futuristic city where the team is heading to investigate why scientists are being lured to the world and then disappear.  Devlin comes in thinking this should be an easy case.  Ha!  It's one of the cases where she makes a major mistake.  It's a good thing she has the rest of the team this time!

I enjoy writing the Devlin stories.  She and 'the boys' are fun to write.  Because of their work, and because the series does go on for several books, they are able to cross paths with some people more than once.  That's going to start happening with the next book in the series, The Aldebaran Stopover.  Just a quiet little stop on the way home, right?

LOL

This novel, though, will be done by the end of March.  I'm determined to stop nudging at it and simply get the work finished.   I have that problem sometimes.  I get very close to being done and I slow down.  I want to have it done and published, but the little doubts come in.  I should change this scene, I should add this bit -- I should rewrite the entire novel from scratch again.  Those are all my versions of the kinds of doubts all writers get.  I have to push past them. The last edits are going well enough and I think I've made most, if not all, of the major changes.  Right now I'm down to correcting commas, changing words, and maybe adding a touch more information in some places.

After that, I'll be preparing Raventower & Merriweather 2: War for publication.  The book is written.  I need to sit down with it and do the edits, which I don't think are going to be nearly as difficult as Devlin's Team #4 have been.  The Devlin stories are much older and need a lot more care.  Raventower and Merriweather are new and better written from the start.  I also have the start of an idea for book 3 in that series.  It should be fun.

Journey of a Thousand Truths is very close to being done in the first draft.  For my birthday, I started Amusing Grace, the sequel to Muse.  I've had this outline waiting for years.  It's fun.  So I have a lot of odd little bits and pieces of things going on, including the first notes on the 10th Devlin Novel.  Oh and yeah, that other one about the Egyptians is still playing at my mind.  I just refuse to commit to it yet.

I am looking forward to spring getting here so I feel less confined.  We were supposed to get less than an inch of snow last night -- we ended up with about four inches.  Not a horrible amount, but still annoying when you keep hoping to see green again.  It is pretty today, but far too cold again.  I would like to see some colors out there and have it warm enough to take one of the cameras out and find pretty stuff. 

But right now ... time to work on the novel again!

Smashwords Sale!

In honor of Read an Ebook Week, all of my fiction at Smashwords is either half price or free!

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/zetteG

Be sure to click on the 'view more' when you get down to the bottom of the list.  I have a lot of publications.  Smashwords provides formats for every major ebook reader, including Kindle, Nook, Kobo, etc., plus PDF versions so that even if you don't have a dedicated ebook reader, you can still read the books.

You can add as many books as you like to your cart and use a single code to get half off on all the fiction.  (This does not include the how to write books -- but they are only $0.99 each anyway!)  The code is:  RAE50

I have a wide variety of fiction from young adult mysteries to science fiction space opera.  This is the sort of thing that happens when you've been writing for a long time and you are prolific -- and also willing to try out different genres when an idea takes hold.


You might want to try my Silky fantasy trilogy, now on sale at a $1.50 each!  https://www.smashwords.com/books/byseries/4689

"Exciting, complex and richly textured, with a world you'll believe and a protagonist you have to cheer for -- Silky is wonderful."  Holly Lisle (Quote from original 1998 Embiid Publishing release.)

Captured as a child and sold into heartless slavery, life has robbed Silky of his magical abilities and left him with no expectations of a better life -- until his own act of bravery delivers him into the hands of a powerful Lord of the Land.

His troubles are far from over since Lord Reed is out of favor with the King and danger threatens at any mischance. Working with Lord Reed starts him along a path that will lead to power, danger and heartbreak -- and a future the young slave boy could never have imagined.


Or maybe you'd be interested in a science fiction novel?  Xenation: Draw the Line -- https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/328037

When humans found the abandoned -- and ancient -- space station, they moved in to study the place they called Xeno-Station, and then shortened to Xenation. Following them came three other races, all intent on learning secrets. Only now one of the humans has a dangerous link to the heart and controls of this alien place, and he's learning there are secrets and dangers no one imagined.


Or how about some steampunk fantasy?  Raventower and Merriweather 1: Secrets -- https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/673823

Lord Micalus Raventower is a genius at creating clockwork creatures and tinkering with steampunk engines, but that doesn’t explain why Atiran assassins are suddenly intent on killing him. Lt. Merriweather is assigned to protect Lord Raventower, a role she initially resents since it takes her away from the castle and any chance of advancement to the King's Guard.

Trouble is brewing for the city of Kamere. Atrian warships stand off the coast, and there are enemies even within the ranks of the nobility itself. Merriweather and the eccentric young lord will have quite a job keeping him alive as well as hiding his more unusual secrets. She soon learns there may be very good reasons for the Atrians to want Lord Raventower dead.  (Book 2 is due to be out in June!)


I love seeing this sale pop up because it falls over my birthday!  I always feel like this is a fun way to celebrate by having a nice price for fans and new readers and by getting a few sales as a present to me.

Please spread the word.  The sale runs from March 5-11.

I hope you enjoy the books.