For the fifth year, our own Veronica Scott and eleven other talented Sci-Fi Romance authors are releasing an anthology of stories starring romantic leads and their scene-stealing pets! A portion of the proceeds from the first 30 days of sales goes to Hero-Dogs.org (Service Dogs for America's Heroes).
So, grab the ebook and settle in for action, adventure, and romances sure to make your pulse race.
BUY IT NOW: Amazon | Apple Books | Nook | Kobo | Google Play
Fantasy Author.
Sounds easy, right? It's not. It's a damned sight harder than most people think. Do you know why? Because it's your baby. Y0u have spent God alone knows how much time writing this book. (My fastest was three weeks. My longest was over a year.) You have poured heart and soul and passion into this work if you're doing it the right way, and when you're done, you have to (gasp) Show it to other people!
And those people will tell you what they think of it. And the odds are decent you'll pay them to do so.
Listen, I get it. It sucks. People who know what they're doing (if you've done your research and found a good editor or five) will actually show you the changes they recommend. Some of them will merely do grammar corrections. others will make suggestions on story structure. Inside, you're probably going to bleed a bit. That's okay, it just means they're doing their jobs.
Now for those other rules you should follow: don't assume they're right. Some proofreaders are flawless in their approach and will do nothing but enhance your stories. That's a lovely thing. Don't assume that's the person you've hired, even if they have a long track record of success. Once they're finished looking everything over, YOU look over their work and approve or reject the suggested changes. I don't care if you hired them yourself or if they work for one of the Big Five. At the end of the day, this is still your baby. Take the time to do it right. Failure to do this can and doubtlessly will lead to awkward tense shifts and the occasional typo sneaking through.
It's a project for everyone but you. For you, it's a labor of love and sweat and passion and pain. for them, it's a gig where they're trying to make you better at what you already know how to do. The simple fact of life is that new eyes can see mistakes that you gloss over without consciously doing so. Wait six months after you write something and MAYBE you can see all the flaws but before that? Good luck!
Editing is a job. The people who do it well are worth the money. Those that don't? Well, they don't get hired as often, now do they? That's not me being mean, it's just a matter of fact.
Your mileage may vary.
Keep smiling,
Jim
PS: Working on Book Five: THE GODLESS. It's different being back in the world of seven war gods and two cashing civilizations. But I rather like it!
I write fiction, a little of everything and a lot of horror. I've written novels, comic books, roleplaying game supplements, short stories, novellas and oodles of essays on whatever strikes my fancy. That might change depending on my mood and the publishing industry. Things are getting stranger and stranger in the wonderful world of publishing and that means I get to have fun sorting through the chaos (with all the other writer-types). I have a website. This isn't it. This is where you can likely expect me to talk about upcoming projects and occasionally expect a rant or two. Not too many rants. Those take a lot of energy. In addition to writing I work as a barista, because I still haven't decided to quit my day job. Opinions are always welcome.
Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is Nitpicking - venting about things or thinking about the value of attention to detail.
I want to tell you all a story.
Recently, a good friend self-published a book. This is not Grace, btw. (I also discussed the initial part of the story on my podcast on September 24.)
But this friend is an accomplished author - more than two-dozen traditionally published books, multiple appearances on the top bestseller lists, winner of top industry awards - and she knows what she's doing in writing a book.
As a responsible self-publisher, she lined up an editor to proofread the book, scheduling them for two days to read an ~60K book. She'd also factored in a couple of other reads: one from her continuity editor and a couple of betas, including me. I read - and loved! - the book in about a day. I marked the very few typos I happened to spot and identified a few word-choice questions and one continuity error that could be fixed in five minutes.
In other words, it was a really clean manuscript.
Or, it was, until the "proofreader" got a hold of it.
H.G. Wells is credited with saying "No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft." There's a lot of truth to this. It seems particularly true when the editor is also an author.
Unfortunately, the proofreader succumbed to this passion and began making vast changes to the book. When I say "vast," I'm not exaggerating. It was on the level of a deep-dive developmental edit. Scenes were rearranged. Sentences deleted and new sentences added. Her personal opinions added to change aspects she didn't approve of.
Reader: this was not a proofread.
The resultant manuscript was in such terrible shape - with almost no time to sort it out - that my friend was reduced to stress tears multiple times. I was hugely upset on her behalf. So, I went to another proofreader, one I thought could be trusted to help sort it out, for help.
That person, however - also an author as well as an editor - scrambled the manuscript further. They didn't listen to the writer of the book either and made huge changes again. It took my friend days to sort it out. Time she did not have. Worse, they didn't even catch the typos as was the job they'd been hired to do.
Finally I - chagrined that I'd thrown my dear friend from the frying pan into the fire - found one more proofreader for her. By this time, so many people had made changes to this manuscript that it desperately needed another set of eyes. I'm going to tell you that I asked Crystal Watanabe at Pikko's House. I'm giving you all her name and link, because she did an amazing job. And you know what? She did exactly what she'd been hired to do: proofread. She submitted a quote, performed the turnaround in the agreed upon timeframe - and she didn't attempt to do any more than that. No bragging on social media about "saving" the book. No rewriting or trying to make herself look special by her affiliation with the author. She did her job and she did it well.
I've hired her to proofread my next novella.
All of this is by way of a cautionary tale. It's not always easy for Indie authors to find professional services that aren't predatory - and that aren't primarily a path for the service provider to advance their own interests - but it's critical that we do. And that we share those resources with each other.
My friend and I both learned a good lesson here.
Jeffe Kennedy is a multi-award-winning and best-selling author of romantic fantasy. She is the current President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) and is a member of Novelists, Inc. (NINC). She is best known for her RITA® Award-winning novel, The Pages of the Mind, the recent trilogy, The Forgotten Empires, and the wildly popular, Dark Wizard. Jeffe lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is represented by Sarah Younger of Nancy Yost Literary Agency.
I recently wrote a post for my own blog on why I decided to write STAR CRUISE: RETURN VOYAGE for this year's anthology, plus an excerpt and here's that discussion:
Every year it’s a fun challenge for me to figure out my
alien pet for the annual Pets In Space® anthology. Some years the choice of a
pet is driven by a plot I already have in mind and other years the plot arises
from the development of the pet and its attributes.
This year I went into the whole process fascinated by the
Afghan hound. I’d seen snippets of the big national kennel show on the news and
watched an Afghan hound prance by the camera. No offense to the aficionados of
this dog breed but I find them to appear a bit alien just the way they are, so
the animal made a good jumping off point for a PISA pet. I decided Verlaine the
Tajikka Hound would have some vaguely equine characteristics as well, like
black hooves and a somewhat horselike face. Our artist did his usual fabulous
job in creating Verlaine for me. (The animal just seemed to require an
aristocratic name, doesn’t he?!).
But who would need such an animal to support them on a trip
on a big luxury liner?
Enter Gianna Nadenoft, who survived the wreck of the
interstellar cruise liner Nebula Dream
in my very first published scifi romance novel. She was a (precocious) child of
three at the time of the events in Wreck
of the Nebula Dream so I felt it was a safe assumption she’d have had
post-traumatic stress symptoms of various kinds and might have needed a service
animal to help her cope with life after the wreck. Now she’s determined to
travel the stars to her brother’s wedding and reunite with old friends but
hasn’t left her own planet in the twenty or so years since the wreck. So of
course she travels with Verlaine on my new cruise ship, Nebula Zephyr.
It was a fun opportunity for me to revisit the original
story and to ‘see’ the events through the eyes of a child, and then to figure
out what her private agenda might be in forcing herself to travel on the Nebula Zephyr as an adult. And oh WOW,
did I have to check myself to make sure I typed the correct ship name every
time! I’d previously established that the two vessels were sister ships in
overall design, hence the similar names.
Dream was destroyed, Zephyr sails on…
Wreck of the Nebula
Dream was loosely based on the 1912 sinking of the Titanic and Titanic inspired
some of the futuristic conspiracy theories about the Dream and the Zephyr which
are a minor plot point in the current novel. There actually is a theory that
instead of the Titanic sinking on
that icy cold night, her sister ship the Olympic
sank and that everyone from the builders to the owners was covering up the
fact. Why anyone would do that, I’m not entirely sure but I came up with a
justification for my novel. After all, the essence of a conspiracy theory is
whispers about a sort of plausible explanation, right? No matter how thin!
Over the years I’ve received some snarky comments about my
original book’s title, basically to the effect it isn’t a true “wreck” because
it happened in space yadda yadda yadda. I greatly enjoyed having Gianna speak
to that very point early in this book! (And I picked the title for the first
book because it was based on an actual wreck. Plus it’s a dramatic, evocative
title…)
I also enjoyed dropping in a few references to other things
in my Sectors universe throughout this story, not enough to annoy anyone who
hasn’t read my other books, I hope, but…for example there’s a nod to the Khagrish,
who are the evil alien scientists in my Badari Warrior series.
The PISA authors try to make the pets an integral part of
the story we’re writing for the anthology, not just “and she had a dog”
walk-ons, so I had to really think through the events that would occur to make
sure I gave Verlaine enough to do to be a substantive supporting character.
Hopefully I succeeded!
He did make an immediate connection point between Gianna and
Lt. Trevor Hanson, the hero, who has PTSD issues of his own, stemming from his
prior military service. Now Trevor’s a security officer aboard the Nebula Zephyr, charged by his captain to
make sure Gianna reaches her destination with a minimum of stress.
Here’s an excerpt, with Captain Fleming giving Trevor his unusual
assignment.
A yeoman was waiting for him. “Captain Fleming wants to see
you in the wardroom. This way.”
Trevor followed the other through the short corridor and was
left outside the conference room to key the arrival button and receive
permission to enter. Stepping across the threshold, he saluted. “Lt. Trevor
Hanson reporting as ordered, sir.”
The captain was seated at the head of the table, drinking
real Terran coffee from the battered mug which bore the crest of his last
battleship command. “At ease, Hanson. Get yourself some coffee and come sit
down. I have a special assignment for you on this leg of the cruise.”
He wasn’t thirsty but no one refused the captain’s
invitation and especially not when the beverage on offer was the rare and
costly real coffee. Trevor picked up a Nebula Zephyr mug, filled it, spurned
the sugar and cinna spice, preferring to drink it black, and joined the
captain. His curiosity coiled in his gut. Highly unusual for Fleming himself to
skip protocol and give orders directly to any crew member. He was a firm
believer in the chain of command and military protocol, even now, commanding a
cruise ship.
The captain was staring at the big vid screens which showed
the planetary system the ship was fast approaching, a series of reddish tinted
jewels scattered across the black velvet of the galaxy, circling the yellow sun
in the eternal rhythm decreed by astrophysics and the laws of the universe.
Trevor sipped the strong coffee and waited.
“What do you know about the wreck of the Nebula Dream?”
Fleming asked, still watching the planets.
Pop quiz time I guess. “Worst passenger ship disaster in the
history of the Sectors, thousands of lives lost, heroics by a Special Forces
officer who happened to be aboard and saved hundreds. We had a module on it
when I was in training, sir, mostly regarding the decisions made by the
soldier. One of those ‘what would you do in his place’ type classes.”
“Nick Jameson,” Fleming said, supplying the name of the
officer under discussion. “His decisions in what regard?”
“At each point, I guess. To stay on the ship, to use what is
politely called classified means to contact rescue ships, and to fight the
enemy when they boarded.” Remembering more details as he talked, Trevor added,
“Guy was gutsy, smart and lucky. Oh and the cruise liner was way off course, in
enemy territory. May I ask why the interest, sir?”
“We’re a sister ship, did you know that? Not the exact
design but close, and of course we have different engines. No one uses the
Yeatter unstable technology nowadays, not if the shipbuilders are sane.”
Fleming sat upright. “What do you know about the survivors? The ones
specifically who were with Jameson?”
Suspecting the discussion was getting closer to whatever
point Fleming was driving at, Trevor shook his head. “Two women, a D’nvannae
Brother, couple of kids…oh and a Mellurean Mind but I believe she died on
board.”
“The main reason we’re in this system is to pick up a woman
named Gianna Nadenoft,” Fleming said. “She was a very little girl when Nick
Jameson saved her life on the Nebula Dream and she hasn’t flown in space since
her father brought her home after the rescue.”
Trevor absorbed the information and asked the obvious
question. “May I ask why she’s traveling now then, sir?”
“Her brother is getting married on Xcelon Four and she’s
agreed to attend and be a bridesmaid.”
Obviously the lady would be a celebrity passenger. The
Sectors’ fascination with the tragedy of the Nebula Dream never went away. But
what was his role in this? Maybe the Cruise Director should be here, not him.
Trevor abhorred being unclear on mission parameters and right now he didn’t see
his role in this discussion or the woman’s travel plans.
The captain stared at him over the lip of his mug. “Ms.
Nadenoft apparently has PTSD resulting from the events on board the Nebula
Dream and this trip is going to be a huge challenge for her. She does have a
service animal.”
Now Trevor had a sinking feeling and the captain’s next words confirmed his suspicion.
PETS IN SPACE® 5
ANTHOLOGY BLURB:
It’s time for an escape! Pets in Space® 5 is back for the fifth
amazing year! Escape to new worlds with twelve of today’s top Science Fiction
Romance authors. They have written 12 original, never-before-released stories
filled with action, adventure, suspense, humor, and romance that will take you
out of this world. The giving doesn’t stop there. For the fifth year, Pets in
Space® will be donating a portion of the first month proceeds to Hero-Dogs.org,
a non-profit charity that supports our veterans and First Responders. If you
are ready to forget the world around you and make a difference while you are
having fun, grab your copy before it’s gone!
STAR
CRUISE RETURN VOYAGE blurb: Gianna Nadenoft is a reclusive
survivor of one of the worst interstellar cruise ship disasters in the history
of the Sectors. Now a renowned artist, she hasn’t left her home planet in
decades, not since returning there after the wreck as a traumatized
three-year-old. With her service animal at her side, she’s going to attempt to
travel across the star systems to attend her brother’s wedding and reunite with
her fellow survivors.
Trevor Hanson is a security officer aboard the cruise liner Nebula Zephyr with his own traumatic
past as a former Special Forces soldier and prisoner of war. He’s assigned to
provide personal protection to Gianna during her time aboard the ship but soon
finds his interest turning from professional to romantic.
Onboard the Nebula Zephyr, powerful enemies are watching Gianna and making plans to seize this rare opportunity to gain access to her and the secrets they believe she’s still keeping about the wreck. Can Trevor overcome his personal demons and rise to the occasion to save Gianna from the danger waiting on his ship, or will she slip through his fingers and suffer a terrible fate deferred from her last disastrous voyage?
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The award winning first book Wreck of the Nebula Dream ("Titanic in space...") and Star Survivor, the sequel featuring Khevan and Twilka are available at all major ebook sellers...
Best Selling Science Fiction & Paranormal Romance author and “SciFi Encounters” columnist for the USA Today Happily Ever After blog, Veronica Scott grew up in a house with a library as its heart. Dad loved science fiction, Mom loved ancient history and Veronica thought there needed to be more romance in everything.
Most of us enjoy sunsets. We'll pause to marvel at the exuberant color and texture brought on by the day's death. Some of us make a ritual of stopping for the sunset, taking a seat to watch the show with a beverage at hand.
Why then do so many of us falter when faced with our loved ones' final days?
An uncle on my mother's side of the family lays in an ICU not all that far from here. Pneumonia. (Not Covid, not that it matters at this point.) The prognosis is grim. No one is allowed in to see him or sit with him or hold his hand. Not even his wife, my aunt. This is the part that Covid has stolen from us - the comfort and distraction of loved ones at a dying man's side. And you'd think that at this moment, that would be my aunt's sole occupation - worrying over her dying husband.
It isn't. It isn't, because it can't be. Not here. Not now. Not in this world where our lives have been forever altered by pandemic. No, at this moment, my aunt's worries are the business of dying. Who will pay the hospital bills. Where are the living will documents the doctors need should someone have to make the decision to pull life support. It's all lists and hurry and busy work.
There's no time (or safety) to sit at my uncle's bedside and pause of the final exuberant flush of life. Even without Covid, while we could sit at bedsides, most of us did so as a means of talking over death. We made timid small talk and watched shitty hospital TV to avoid the specter of death, no matter how close it hovered.
I don't say any of this to propose any kind of solution. Other than to maybe pause for a moment at endings of all kinds because sometimes there's breathtaking beauty to be found there.
Happy October 1st! Here in Minnesota it smells like fall and I love it!
I also love our topic of the week: what’s on your mind. Frankly, there’s a lot on my mind, as I'm sure it is with you since our world's on fire...literally and figuratively. And it's October which means I’ll be hiding out in my editing cave—busy busy—but with so much uncertainty it’s difficult to concentrate. Maybe the post should be what isn’t on my mind…hmm.
C’est la vie, and so the most important thing on my mind right now is finding peace.
I did a brain retraining class in the spring and one of the key points that stuck was the need to settle/calm the mind each day. Step one was breathing. Breathing! Easy…right?
Take one hand and place it on your chest and place the other hand on your belly. And breathe.
Which hand moves? My chest hand was the one going up and down…and it should be the hand on your belly. Chest breathing happens when your body’d limbic system is stuck and keeps you in stress-mode = not good.
Ever watch a baby sleep? Their bellies move, not their rib cage. Babies don’t stress, they sleep…like a baby.
Seriously, who breathes wrong?! Me, that’s who. I had to consciously breathe from my belly, and it wasn’t easy to consciously breath differently, but after a week or so I’d only catch myself chest breathing here and there. And it definitely made me more calm which made that whole calming the mind easier and also helps with yoga.
One step at a time. Now that I’ve done my yoga for the day it’s time to EDIT!
For those a step ahead of us chest breathers, coffee cheers to you! And tell me—how do you relax?
I'm a reader, writer, blogger, musher who pens Sci-Fi as A.C. Anderson and Fantasy as Alexia Chantel. Chronic Disease can't hold me down.
This week on SFF Seven, we're talking about whatever's on our minds. So, wheeeee!
Have I mentioned that my mind imagines it's a multitasker? It isn't, not really, but bless its little anthropomorphic heart, it does try.
One think: For the last few weeks, I've been reading a lot of newer SFF and noticing a pattern among the books that are getting attention. With a few fun, genre-typical exceptions, high-profile SFF of late feels very... literary. That is to say, it's got that sometimes confusing, deliberate, oh-what-pretty-words-you-know feel to it, which, being a former lit major, I totally enjoy.
A while back, the trend was to write a yarn that, only after a full reading revealed its intricacy and layers. Like, at first it just seemed like a genre romp, but later you realized it said something as well. Ursula K. LeGuin and Octavia Butler were masters at this. I'd put Neil Gaiman and Susanna Clarke -- of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, though I just started reading Piranesi and it has the same feel -- in there, too.
Some of my recent reads seem to have worked really hard to message at me and maybe lost a little of the engrossing storytelling along the way. No, I won't name them. They're absolutely worth reading. But what I'm finding is that achieving the perfect balance, hitting that sweet spot between genre fun and literary value, is really, really hard.
So, in an effort to improve my skill set, I looked into MFA programs. If you haven't done so recently, it might be a bit of an eye opener. They're...pricey. Plus, they appear to consist mostly of excellent critique groups with the occasional drop in by a well-known writer so students can gawk and hope. I dunno. If I trip over a bag of $50k, applying for an MFA program remains an option.
Failing a surprise inheritance, though, I think I'm back to iterating in private and hoping that I'm growing as a writer. I still keep writing things that I'm not confident sharing.
Oh! Except for one thing! (See what I mean about the badly multitasking brain? In Little Mermaid terms, somebody needs to nail that brain's fins to the floor.) Over the last year or so, I've been co-writing with the amazing Rebecca Royce. I know, right? Eee! I really enjoyed her SFR reverse-harem* Wings of Artemis series, and I messaged her and said, hey, if you ever get bored and want to co-write with me, I would be honored and thrilled. Shockingly, she took me up on the offer, and the first in our new Stranded Hearts series, The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, comes out October 12.
*Reverse harem, in case you're unfamiliar with the term, is a romance with one heroine hooking up with several men who all treat her really well and care for her and don't waste time posturing or being jealous of each other because they all love each other also and, just, there's a lot of love. We used to call these ménage books, but hey, terms change. If you're turned off by the word harem or poly stories in general, these books probably aren't your cuppa.
Also, it's almost October of an election year in the U.S., so I'm thinking of politics. No, I don't want to discuss, but if you live in the U.S., make sure you're registered to vote and once those polls are open, please do the thing.
In conclusion, pretty cover:
Once I figured that out, I wrote the damn book. It was ready to launch this summer, but I hadn't finished book 6 yet, and I didn't dare risk another two-year gap between releases. Book 6 in stark contrast took me six months to write, which is pretty damn good for me. It's now off with the editors, so I'm feeling fairly comfortable with a January launch date.
Book 7, the final book in the series, is in the outlining phase. I've known how the series ends since Book 2. Now I just have to make sure the characters I've grown to love have a proper send-off. How long will it take me to write? No clue. Even with an outline, some days (or weeks, ugh) the words don't come. Being unable to predict how long it will take to write a book drives me insane. The inconsistency of ease from book to book is... GAH!
Still, there's nothing greater than finishing a story and sharing it with the world.
Meanwhile, here is the cover reveal for THE EXPOSED SPY, courtesy of the team at Gene Mollica Studios, dropping late October.
Fantasy Author.