Pippa Jay

Finding Tom - Guest Post by Kerrianne Coombes

2012-02-24T00:01:00.010Z

Please welcome the very lovely Kerrianne Coombes to the blog, with a guest post on her upcoming debut romantic release Running Home.

Finding Tom….

When I start a story I always sit down and write a background for my two main characters. I always ask myself questions like, what do they look like? What is their temperament like? But I also ask myself, where are they from? I am sure that this is what 99% of writers do, but sometimes I go a bit too far ;-) I tend to ask myself what has brought them to the point where my story begins, and then I delve into the ‘soul’ of that character and write little snippets from their lives. I find that this practice makes me get to know my character and understand their motives behind certain parts of my story.

Take Tom for example. He is my leading man in Running Home. He is an ex-military soldier, turned recluse, who believes he is better off removed from society. *Awwww* He has taken on the small farm left to him by his parents—who both have sadly died *Another awwww* So when I first thought of him, I had to ask myself why he is a recluse.

The scene that I wrote—which I will not share, for lack of editing—is a scene when he goes into the local village and comes face to face with people who blatantly stare at his pronounced limp. This is not something that Tom is used to, nor comfortable with. Before his accident, Tom was a very fit, able bodied man. His whole life was about being super capable, and immensely in control of his body. And while I was writing this scene I understood how terrible this would feel for a man such as Tom.

My brother was in the military. He is someone who I am so very proud of. What they—military men/women—have to deal with on a daily basis, baffles me. I know I could not do it and come out sane. These people, are a cut above the rest—real life heroes—and so, I wanted Tom not to come across as a dick for stepping away from life. I wanted him to come across as a little vulnerable, without being annoying.

After writing this scene I found out that Tom stepped away from ‘normal’ life, not to feel sorry for himself, or mope. He stepped away to save the last vestige of his original self. On his farm, he is king, no one to judge, no one to watch him and question him about his limp. Tom likes to feel in control.

So imagine what happens to Tom when I throw Joanne Sloane into the mix!

Blurb

Tom Cane, Ex-military man and self professed recluse turned farmer, wants nothing more from life but the chance to wallow in his own pity. The shrapnel lodged permanently in his leg a daily reminder of his failings during his last tour of duty. On a cold, rainy, British evening fate delivers a new reason to live in the form of Joanne Sloane, the daughter of a socialite and abused wife of an up and coming businessman. Desperate and in fear of her life, she flees her home and stumbles onto Tom's land. Together their passions ignite and the need to rescue one another entangles them in a bitter fight for their lives.

Buy Link here.
Blog site.
Twitter.

Thanks to The Rasmus

2012-02-22T00:01:00.001Z

In 2004 I was heavily pregnant, suffering horrible morning sickness, and bored out of my mind. I started watching the music channels on the digital freeview since I was finding daytime tv beyond tedious. A song caught and held me, something a bit different and from a band I'd never heard of, in a style of music I'd never listened to before. The lead singer looked a bit odd, and the video seemed very surreal, but it caught and held me.

The song was In the Shadows, and the band was The Rasmus. I don't know why the song got under my skin so much, but it did. I listened to it repeatedly. I bought the album it came from - Dead Letters. Around the same time I woke up one morning with a character in my head and a name - Keir. I wrote twenty pages of story, not having written much in the five years before, despite having been an avid writer all through my teens. Then baby number two arrived, I became chronically depressed, and both music and story sank into the background.

Shift forward another five years. My three children playing happily in the garden over summer. Me, hugely overweight a year after the birth of my third child. Bored, miserable, tired. Feeling as though my identity was slipping away, aside from being a wife, a mother. Losing the person I'd been under labels that, although I was proud of them and took joy in being those things, had me wondering who and what I was any more. I needed something else. I needed my passion back.

I dug out the short story about Keir. I'd left him sitting in a dungeon, alone, dying, with no hope. Could I save him from that? And so save my own sanity? I started to write again. Once I'd started, I couldn't stop. I scribbled and typed endlessly, frenziedly. The words poured out of me. My husband thought I'd gone crazy. Maybe I did a little, but it felt so much better.

And as I wrote, I listened to music. I listened and I sang. In the years since I'd first heard In the Shadows, The Rasmus had two new albums out - Hide from the Sun and Black Roses. I LOVED them! So much of the feel in Keir is down to that music. It inspired me and kept me going. I'd found my passion again.

So Keir has come out of the shadows and into the world, and took me with him. Music carried us there, and for that I will always be grateful. I'm writing again, and I'm published. I've been to see a few bands over the last year and loved it, but now the chance has come to see The Rasmus live at last, and that is the biggest to-do on my list. I have my tickets! The past year has been an utter blast, and sometimes I have to pinch myself to believe that it's real. I'm finally the person I want to be - mother, wife, friend and author - and I couldn't be happier. :)

(Oh, and on the wildly unlikely assumption that this should ever get back to Lauri Ylönen - I apologise for saying you looked 'odd'. I should say 'distinctive'. Blame it on pregnancy hormones. :) )

The Girls From Alcyone by Cary Caffrey - Review

2012-02-20T10:00:00.004Z

My review of The Girls From Alcyone by Cary Caffrey is now up on the Critique de Book site here. Check it out. This makes book four of my SFR Reading Challenge 2012.

Ambasadora by Heidi Ruby Miller - Review

2012-02-17T10:00:00.001Z

My review of Ambasadora by Heidi Ruby Miller is now live on the Critique de Book site here. I gave it 5 stars. This also makes book three in my SFR Reading Challenge 2012.

The Adventures of Tintin - The Secret of The Unicorn

2012-02-16T15:00:00.000Z

With the half-term holiday upon us in the UK (and, for the first time, no writing deadlines during school hols) and three children off for the week, entertaining them comes first as writing takes a very definite backseat. First up on the list of events was a Saturday morning trip to the cinema to see the Tintin film. The Odeon cinemas run a Kids Club, usually at weekends but also during the week in school holidays, which means reruns of films for the price of £2.50 a child and accompanying adults free.

Now, my seven year old son is a bit of an enigma. He isn't really 'into' anything, not since he grew out of his Thomas the Tank Engine obsession. So when he saw a trailer for Tintin and announced he'd like to see it, I was surprised. He's never really been that interested in films. As soon as I found out it was the half-term film for the Kids Club, I grabbed the chance to go. I watched Tintin cartoons as a youngster, but wasn't a fan as such, so I was interested to see how the film would go myself. We went with friends - another 7yo boy and his mum - and my nine year old daughter who strangely insisted she wanted to go.

The start of the film does drag a little for the younger ones. Son's best friend announced loudly at one point "Oh, come on, hurry up!" but once the major action scenes kicked off, they loved it. There quite a bit of humour in it which had the whole theatre laughing. There's also a fair bit of violence (including one man shot by machine gun, although this is done behind a closed door so nothing much is seen) but it was carefully done and I certainly had no qualms about my children seeing it. At times you could almost forget it was animation, although in this day and age we do expect any CGI to be brilliant. The story is generally fast-paced - none of it dragged for me - and there's some great touches, like a fight between cranes (the mechanical kind, not the birds) and an Indiana Jones-style chase involving a tank, hotel, motorbike with sidecar, an eagle, a dog and a car - the best bit in my opinion. I was a little worried that Snowy, Tintin's dog, would be portrayed as an almost Scooby Doo-like character, but his 'performance' in the film was believable of a dog without venturing into making him some kind of canine caricature of a human.

All in all, for the fact that both adults and children enjoyed this, I have to give it an A. And at least now I have something to put on seven year old son's present list. :)

At Space Freighters Lounge - How Alien are your Characters?

2012-02-15T10:00:00.001Z

I've over at the Spacefreighters Lounge again today, with a post on why most of my characters are humanoid. Am I taking the easy option? Stop over and tell me what you think.

I'm at Backward Momentum's 1st Annual Valentine's Day Bash

2012-02-14T09:00:00.002Z

There's a Love, Lasers and Light Swords party going on over at the Backward Momentum blog for Valentine's Day, with posts on all things SFR-related and giveaways galore from a gang of authors including yours truly. Pop over and say hi! :D

Six Sentence Sunday #46

2012-02-12T00:01:00.006Z

Hello! Welcome back to another #sixsunday post. As always, thanks to all who visit and comment, it's much appreciated.
Still continuing with my sfr Keir this week. Despite her friendly overtures, Quin doesn't seem to making much progress with her fellow prisoner...

The words escaped him before he could call them back. “I am Keir.”
As if she had mistaken their exchange of names for permission, she crouched before him and held up her empty hand, palm outward.
Keir shied away as she reached out to him. Fear and anger gave him strength and he knocked her backward. “Do not touch me!”

Please check out the other fabulous participants this week by clicking on the banner.

Want to take part? It's simple. All you need are six sentences from any piece of writing, posted on a Sunday. Sign up each week on the website, and use the Twitter hastag #sixsunday to follow along and join in.

Fairies in February Blog Tour - Frances Pauli

2012-02-09T00:01:00.018Z

Please welcome author Frances Pauli to my blog. :)

If We Shadows Have Offended

I love that monologue. Puck is by far one of my all time favorite fairies, and the speech is doubly appropriate for The Changeling Race. The series features fairies, yes, but there is also an underlying theme about shadows throughout the books. Not so much Peter Pan type shadows, as in those we cast, but more Jungian shadows, as in the things we bury deep inside.
Like most secrets, our shadows have a great deal of power—both for good and ill. But it is the ones that we deny the loudest, that we bury and forget that have the most potential to cause havoc when eventually they sneak out…and they do sneak out. No matter what, they always leak a little.
So in the trilogy, I found my elves really needing a dose of shadow therapy. The whole bloody race needed serious counseling, in fact. I’m not sure where the idea came from. Maybe I had left over angst from old school RPG’s (you know the ones with paper and dice that don’t plug into anything.) I never did like how special the elves were, how much better than humans, how everyone wanted to play the elf. Whatever it was, when I translated my version of “elfishness” onto paper, they came off a bit, shall we say, arrogant?
Conceited? Haughty? Stuck-up? Pick an adjective. The elves that showed up to play in The Changeling Race had a major superiority complex, and I took great pleasure in showing them their shadow.
I’m mean that way.
Still, once the shadow is out and looking you in the face, you can deal with it, right? So I opened up my Elvin past and showed the perfect little buggers just how many flaws they actually had. I enjoyed it a great deal more than they did, you can imagine. A few of them took it better than I’d expected, but the majority pretty much went to pieces. That’s good in a novel. Chaos like that makes for some great plot.
It really was for their own good. I mean, who could live with that kind of pressure? Maybe a great deal of their stiff, Elvin arrogance came from having to live up to our expectations of perfection. I like to think that they’ll be happier in the future, that their attitudes will adjust and the elves of tomorrow—at least in the world of The Changeling Race--might have a softer side.
I can think of a few that will. Those were my favorites, the ones that stood up, dusted off and got over themselves. So maybe, while I was doling out the therapy, some of it leaked over onto me as well. Maybe I got over my elf discrimination as much as they got over their humans are beneath us attitude. That works for me. Because, after all is said and done, I really love them—stuck up or not—and I think we managed to end the series as friends.
Or as Puck would say… “Think but this, and all is mended.”

Thank you so much for hosting a stop on the tour. I am offering a free pdf of any book from my backlist to one commenter today, and for each stop on the tour that you comment on, you will earn one entry into the final drawing for print copies of all three books. Follow along and enter to win!

Bio:

Frances Pauli writes speculative fiction with romantic touches. Her books are published through Mundania Press LLC, Awe-Struck, and Devine Destinies, and her short stories are featured in various anthologies. More information on her worlds and writing can be found on her website and blog, and she offers free online stories, web serials, podcasts there as well.

Book Blurbs:

A Moth in Darkness

The boundaries between the worlds have fallen. Forced to integrate the creatures of fantasy into real life, humanity struggles against its disillusionment, prejudice and an inevitable feeling of inadequacy.

Once an agent for the embassy that mediates between the worlds, Elizabeth Larson has abandoned her past and slipped into a world of nostalgic addiction to fairy revels, dancing, and the dark lure of her own memories. But when Lockland Sheen, her former partner and lover, goes missing, she is pulled reluctantly back into service. She must venture once more across the borders, into the land that haunts her, facing a string of gruesome murders, the imposing Sidhe rulers and her own addiction in the process.

While the Embassy’s agents attempt to soothe tensions between the races, Liz and her new partner search the fairy realm for Lockland. Fighting the constant temptation of the revels, they piece together the trail of an unknown enemy. But the longer they follow it, the more it appears that the man they came to rescue is more villain than victim. And the more they rely on Elizabeth’s ties to the fairies, the closer she inches toward the madness that lurks behind her fantasies.

The Fly in Paradise

Something’s rotten in the Fey lands. While Marcus Bramble tracks the lunatic who started it all, Elizabeth and the crew at the Embassy sort through the evidence he left behind. With Lockland back, and the revels behind her, Liz’s world is slowly returning to normal. But on both sides of the borders, shadow creatures spring out of nowhere, and the dark legends surrounding the fey take on a whole new meaning.

Now time is against them. On the mortal side of things, protesters rally to close the borders, politicians descend on the Embassy, and something that shouldn’t exist stalks Elizabeth through the city.

Spiders From Memory

The Seelie court is gone, and the Tower has fallen into darker hands. Now nightmare creatures terrorize the Fey races, and the whole Fey world turns to frost and shadow.

Liz Larson holds the last remnant of the Seelie Sidhe's power. The elves look to her for guidance, but all she has to offer them is the disturbing story of their origin, the final truth that will turn many of them against her. With her dwindling number of allies, Liz needs to reopen the borders, to find the missing Marcus Bramble, and to avoid the sudden, terrifiying attention of the new Fey ruler, the Unseelie Speaker and new master of the Sidhe Tower.

While her friends in Mundanity race to pry open the gates, and Marcus searches for the answer to a puzzle that could save or damn them all, the Unseelie Speaker marches north, bringing his army and his wrath to focus on Elizabeth. What can one, fairy-touched human do in the face of the Unseelie court's full fury? How can she fight when the enemy's anger is only partly blind, when she can see all too clearly the traces of justice behind it?

Six Sentence Sunday #45

2012-02-05T00:01:00.008Z

Hello, welcome to another #sixsunday post. My sfr novel Keir has finally gone to galley, so I'm sharing the next six sentences. Despite Keir's threat to kill his new fellow prisoner, Quin is determined to be friends...

“You don’t look very dangerous.” She held her torch like a sword as she drew closer. “You look sick.”

He kept his arm raised as if to ward her off, though he shook with the effort of it.

“My name’s Tarquin Secker,” she offered. “But my friends call me Quin.”

Please check out the other fabulous participants by clicking on the banner below. :)

No, my book is not like Twilight...

2012-02-04T08:23:00.001Z

It's taken some time for me to feel justified in telling anyone that I'm an author when they ask what I do. Even once I'd signed the contract for Keir, the fact that it wasn't due out for almost a year made me hold back on awarding myself the 'title'. But now, with the galley to check through and most of my virtual book tour organized, the reality has sunk in that I am, indeed, a bona fide author. The title no longer has a squeak in it. :-)

So, when I was asked what I do at a ladies' pamper evening last night, I said, "I'm an author."
"Oh, what do you write?"
"Science fiction romance."
"What, like Twilight?"
Shocked silence. "No, more like Star Trek or Star Wars."
"Oh..."

Now, I personally have nothing against Twilight. I've seen a heck of a lot of debate on-line about the books and the films. They seem to be very controversial. But I've neither read them nor watched them, and so make no judgement on them either way. I haven't been interested enough to try them myself - my interest in vampires centred on 'Interview with the Vampire' and the books of Anne Rice. Since then I've had no inclination either way. (Although a friend sent me a set of True Blood books as a gift. Yes, I've read them. Yes, I enjoyed them, until it seemed like Sookie was spending all her time whinging about all these handsome supernatural guys chasing after her. No, I wouldn't say I'm a fan, but I didn't hate them either.) But I digress...

What bothered me was the fact that the person I spoke to had no idea what science fiction was, let alone scifirom. Now, I know that science fiction and fantasy are often seen as niche genres, and some kind of poor relation in literary terms. I've never understood that. I've always read speculative fiction. Perhaps because my parents were fans - Star Trek and Doctor Who were watched on a regular basis. They didn't have a lot of scifi books in the house, but as soon as I was judged old enough to jump on a bus by myself, I made regular trips to the book shops to buy fantasy and scifi titles of my own. I spent my teenage years reading Anne McCaffrey, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C.Clarke, David Eddings, Terry Brooks, Tolkien ... the list is endless. So it always comes as a shock to me when someone doesn't know what scifi is.

To say that it was sobering is an understatement. I don't expect people to be impressed that I'm an author. I'm hardly a best-seller. I'm not on the shelves of Waterstones. I haven't had block-busting films made from my stories. And I am not complaining about that. Even if I never have another book contracted, I am so proud of myself for doing it once. It's been the thrill of my life so far. But clearly there's a lot of work still needs to be done to make readers aware of the genre of sfr.

So, no, my book isn't like Twilight. And it's never going to be.

Book Feature - Never Gonna Let You Go by Jessica E Subject

2012-01-31T09:00:00.004Z

Please welcome author Jessica E Subject with the release of her latest sfr novel Never Gonna Let You Go. Just leave a comment and your e-mail address to enter the giveaway, and check out the other tour stops for more chances to win. :)

Never Gonna Let You Go Blurb

Caught in a tangle of lies, Calla Jacobs must sort through the truth to discover where she truly belongs. A biologist for Planet Core, she finds herself ensnared in a web of deceit. Sent to Airondelle, she must work with a team to prepare the newly discovered planet for colonists from Earth. But the mission does not go as she expected. Her former lover, Erik Edwards, shuns her, sending Calla into the arms of Melina Holloway, their commander, for the attention she craves and more. A confrontation among the trio leaves her with a broken heart, and fleeing from the two people she trusted most.

Attempting to break free from the lies that bind her, she discovers Planet Core has deceived everyone. And when she returns to Earth, Calla learns just how far Planet Core’s control reaches.

Available from Decadent Publishing and other ebook retailers.

Buy Links here

Book Trailer:

Excerpt

If only I could touch his sexy body again.

Standing at the edge of the camp, Calla Jacobs couldn’t stop staring at the toned and tanned body of Erik Edwards, aerospace mechanic for mission SFAE-3, while he worked to repair the core drill. She tried to tear her gaze away, willed her feet to move so she could get to the plains of Airondelle, but it just didn’t happen. She watched as sweat trickled down the center of his back, and she closed her eyes, breathing in his pure, masculine scent. The memory from years ago, of running her hands across the wide expanse of his upper body and through his thick, blond curls, only made things worse. She didn’t love him anymore—at least not in the way she had when they’d dated. And still, Erik would always hold a place in her heart. They’d grown up together, been best friends, even after they’d broken up, until he’d married Holloway.

Erik snapped open a bottle of water, took a large swig, and then poured the rest over his head with a heavy sigh. She could almost hear the water sizzle.

Oh, to be one of those water droplets cascading down his bare chest. She’d enjoy the water so much more if she could stand close enough to lick it off of his body before it dripped to the ground. Grimacing, she clenched her fists. Jeez, pull it together.

Their mission on the barren planet did not include sexual affairs. In fact, except for already established marriages, sex was forbidden outright; the mission could not be compromised by all of the emotions and distractions a sexual bond brought. She and Erik had ended their three-year relationship for that reason— they’d both dreamed of being a part of the mission responsible for confirming the existence of a planet capable of sustaining life. And neither of them had felt ready to get married. They’d promised to wait for each other until they’d served their time and had remained friends throughout their training. Two months before their departure date, Erik had eloped with the mission commander, Melina Holloway, a woman Calla could never compete with in terms of brains and beauty. A quick divorce had followed, but the short-lived marriage had left Erik with a chip on his shoulder. And he’d refused to talk to Calla about anything other than the mission, if at all.

Giveaway!!

As part of the Never Gonna Let You Go blog tour, Jessica is giving away a $20 gift certificate to either Amazon.com or AllRomanceEbooks.com. Simply leave a comment with your email address for your chance to WIN! Be sure to follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here.

Bio:

Jessica Subject started writing to encourage her daughter to read. Now she writes to keep herself grounded. Although she reads many genres, she enjoys writing Science Fiction Romance the most and believes everyone in the universe deserves a happily ever after. She lives Southwestern Ontario, Canada with her husband and two kids and loves to hear from anyone who has enjoyed her stories.

Update 30/01/2012

2012-01-30T09:00:00.011Z

Despite the majority of the edits on Keir being done (I've just had the MS back from my editor for a final read through after the line edits, with a pat on the back!), this year has started with a blast. In the last month alone I've had a series of guest posts, and done a couple myself. I signed up as the SFR Brigade Calendar Coordinator, got promoted to Deck Officer on the blog (and put my first post up there on Saturday!) and then received a very flattering invite to join the crew of Spacefreighters Lounge here. So even as Keir wings it's way off to go to galley, I'm not being idle. My inaugural post at Spacefreighters Lounge will go up on Wednesday. If you have any SFR related events coming up - a book release, signing, blog hop etc, please send me the details and I'll make sure it goes up on the Calendar so that all the SFR Brigade members can see it. Either e-mail me at pippajaygreen(at)gmail(dot)com, message me via the SFR Brigade website, or even tweet me a link @pippajaygreen.

In the meantime I'm still working on the sequel to Keir - Lost Serenity - in the hope that my publisher will want to sign it. I also have a rough draft of Tethered done (I know it says it's only 89.something % complete on my word meter, but the basic structure is there), a scifi short almost complete for self-publishing, and I'm waiting for news on two submissions of an sfr short and a scifi novella. I've also got two MSs coming my way to critique read that I'm really excited about! I've already been planning out the book tour for Keir's release, and you can see some of the dates and places listed in the 'Upcoming Events 2012' page. Having said that I'm no good at coming up with blog posts, the necessity of doing so seems to have sparked off a few. Long may that flash of inspiration continue!

Guest Blogging at Spacefreighters Lounge

2012-01-25T11:24:00.001Z

Hi all! I'm honoured to be blogging over at the Spacefreighters Lounge here today with what I hope are some helpful tips on coping with that first round of copy edits (or at least reassurances that we've all been there!).
Please feel free to stop by and say hello. :)

Working on promo stuff

2012-01-23T00:01:00.002Z

For me, the marketing side of being an author had come the hardest. I am not a salesperson, unless you count the tons of eBaying I used to do, and the odd car boot sale (for my US buddies unfamiliar with the term that's like a garage sale, but we do it out in a field usually, hundreds of us all flogging junk from the boots of our cars). Learning that I not only have to promote my book(s) but myself as well came as a bit of a shock.

It also seems like pretty much any kind of marketing and promotional items have been done to death. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the promotional items I've seen. I'll happily collect bookmarks if they're pretty. Postcards too. Fridge magnets tend to fall victim to my youngest child, often vanishing under the fridge until years later when we buy a new one. Sadly if they're of the paper/card variety they don't survive the interim. Bags and T-Shirts seem a step too far - certainly too expensive for my budget! If I'm going to pay out hard cash, I'd rather spend it on some decent advertising.

I've been blessed with a stunning cover, so creating a bookmark was an automatic must (but I asked my publisher's permission first!). I have a cunning plan you see...but I'm not giving that one away, mwah-ha-haaaaaa! Er, sorry... I've had a printing company recommended to me - sadly in the US (I'm in the UK) and their shipping costs to me were downright heinous! $83! Luckily I have a good friend there who will ship them to me if I send them direct to her for about a tenth of that. Another fabulous author told me that he prints his own and laminates them an A4 sheet at a time (after autographing them), and then cuts them up. I'm going to give that a try too. Well, as soon as I've bought myself some card and a laminator. :)

An idea I came up with when the SFR Brigade were looking for promotional ideas/swag was for an sfr charm bracelet, so I did a little research and even made one of my own. I'll be making one, or maybe more than one, specific to Keir at some point.

The other thing I wanted was a business card. I could just hand out bookmarks (since they'll have my blogsite address on them anyway) but I wanted something that related more to me than just my book. I mean, hopefully at some point I'll have more than just the one book to my name. I do have a short story I published myself although I probably haven't done as much as I could to promote that. Right now, everything is centering pretty much on Keir alone.

I'm not entirely sure about it yet. Just putting 'author' doesn't seem quite right, although the 'weaver of words' may be a little OTT. I need to play with it some more. I did think of using the banner from the blog, but since that's a free image I'm not sure I'm allowed. Also that bright glow in the middle makes it hard to place text that will show up. Something with a general sci-fi theme is enough for me I think.

So how are you finding the promotional side of being an author? Did you have a marketing plan set up beforehand? Did you have any idea it was coming? If you have any tips you'd like to share, please do so! :)

Nebula's Music by Aubrie Dionne

2012-01-20T06:00:00.001Z

I've just reviewed Nebula's Music by Aubrie Dionne over at Critique de Book here. I have to say I loved this book. It also makes the second book in my 2012 SFR Reading Challenge.

Guest Blogging with Liana Brooks

2012-01-19T13:36:00.000Z

Due to the SOPA protests, my guest post for the lovely Liana got moved a day. Apologies if anyone was waiting on it, but if you pop over to her blog here now, you should find out about some of the myths of being a published author. Enjoy! :)

Jaq's Harp by Ella Drake - Review

2012-01-19T06:00:00.001Z

I've just posted my review of Ella Drake's Jaq's Harp on the Critique de Book website. You can check it out here. A recommended read for fans of science fiction romance who like great world building and dystopian futures.
This is the first book in my 2012 SFR Reading Challenge, woo hoo!

Hunted by Elle Hill - Review

2012-01-17T06:00:00.003Z

I've just reviewed Elle Hill's Hunted on Critique de Book - you can check it out here.
A recommended read for those fans of paranormal romance, especially those on the lookout for something a bit different from shifter, vamps and witches. :)

SFR Brigade's Calendar Coordinator

2012-01-16T20:00:00.003Z

So it's official - I'm honoured to be the Calendar Coordinator for the SFR Brigade. Yay! This means you can send me details of any SFR related events, such as your upcoming releases, book tours, giveaways etc - basically anything that might be of interest to writers of SFR. If it's a book release, please send me your name, title, publisher, a brief blurb and a sales link. You can contact me via the SFR website, or as pippajaygreen(at)gmail(dot) com or even tweet me as @pippajaygreen with a link to the information. To check out the calendar feature, go here.

Six Sentence Sunday #44

2012-01-15T00:01:00.002Z

Hello and welcome to another #sixsunday post. Huge thanks to those who come by and comment each week. I'm continuing with my sfr Keir, with both the main characters locked in the dungeon. But there's not much sense of camaraderie going on...

She moved toward him and his old suspicions flooded back.

“Another step,” he growled, “and I will kill you.”

The girl stopped and squinted into the shadows. After a moment, she raised the light over her head. “That isn’t very friendly.” Her tone was calm and even, but the way she held herself told him she stood braced for any sudden movement, the lamp a weapon should she need one.

Please check out the other fabulous participants by clicking on the banner below. :)

Guest Post by Sandra Sookoo - FRACTURED

2012-01-13T13:00:00.050Z

I'm delighted to be hosting the lovely Sandra Sookoo on the release of her new scifi romance FRACTURED. Please make her feel welcome by leaving a comment! :) (and of course to be entered into the giveaway too.)

Giving fairy tales new life

Thanks for having me on your blog, Pippa! You're very welcome, Sandra! :)

Anyone who knows me also knows I’m a big fan of fairy tales—old, new and retold. Fairy tales are one thing every reader has in common. We’ve all read them in various versions. They’re comfortable. They’re warm. We all know going in that we’re promised a happily ever after.

Sigh.

Yup, that’s why I love them.

But, of course, I couldn’t march to the beat of my own drum if I didn’t try to put my own spin on the classics. When Liquid Silver Books announced their Silver Slipper call for reworked fairy tales, my brain went into overdrive thinking about what I could do with that. I was in heaven. I’d already had a reimagined fairy tale (which came out last December) but I needed more. My muse wanted another shot at something else.

So FRACTURED was born. It’s a blending of two popular fairy tales, and no, I’m not going to tell you which ones they are in this post. You’ll have to read the book and see if you can guess! The great thing about doing fairy tales in the modern day is…well, it’s modern with electricity and technology, but I went a step beyond that. I set FRACTURED in the future, but I didn’t stop there. I wanted the heroine to be something other than the usual fairy tale gals. I made her…well, I won’t ruin it, but let’s just say she’s purple LOL

And, here’s a secret exclusive to this post, the real-life event that set the whole story up was the US discontinuing the space program. Frankly, I’m still annoyed by that decision. I guess that’s why my hero Rick is too.

Here’s the blurb: What happens when beauty is the beast?

Major Rick Keenan has a near-impossible mission: repair his broken shuttle, rescue a missing crew member and get off an almost-dead planet. Angry that the U.S. is discontinuing the space program, he wants to find a discovery that will revise the government's position. Unfortunately, that discovery might just kill him.

Marin is one of the last of her people. Forced to flee to the planet in her childhood, she's kept herself hidden away in darkness, safe in a castle-like fortress, only coming out when she needs to feed--from human blood. Convinced she'll never fit in, she shuns all contact, yet taking Rick hostage as a food source chips away at her perceptions.

Though their differences threaten to tear them apart, their humanity binds them together. In a world where only the strong and determined survive, does a happily ever after stand a chance?

Book video:

And a short excerpt from the beginning of the book:

"Major, I'm under attack!" Static crackled over the com-link, but didn't hide the panic in Private Jenkins' voice. "...requesting back-up!"

Rick Keenan depressed the talk button on his handheld com-link. "Where are you?" He'd made the decision to send the lieutenant out alone. The man had escaped from trickier situations than this before. It shouldn't have been a problem.

Another long period of static broke the response. "...castle... couldn't see... Oh, my God!" The static gave way to a man's terror-filled scream.

Rick's gut clenched. "Be there as soon as we can. Hold on." He glanced around the Redemption's interior. Auxiliary power flooded the cramped space with anemic white light. Hoses hung from a few built-in compartments while the crystal panel gave off intermittent flickers then finally blinked off. We're so screwed.

"Reigen, what do we need to get this bird back in the air?" Rick barked out the question as he strode to the crystal panel. Down a power source, they'd be sitting ducks to any being—dangerous or otherwise—on the planet.

"Without a whole crystal array replacement, we're not going anywhere. Power core's busted, but I think we can get moving, given enough time." The wiry, red-haired man turned to face him, his long face tight with stress. "Core's needed for hyperspace; crystals are needed to get airborne. You choose which you want more. I’ll figure out how long we’ll survive without both."

"No time to argue. Grab your gear. We're going after Jenkins." Barely waiting for an acknowledgement, Rick strapped a dagger to his right thigh. "If we're lucky, we’ll find someone who can help us."

"And if we're not?"

"Then we'll have a fight on our hands."

Available at -

All Romance e-books

Amazon

Liquid Silver Books

I hope you’ll pick up a copy of this book. I had the greatest fun writing it, and besides, the ending is sigh worthy!

Want to connect with Sandra? Find her here:

Website
Believing is Seeing blog
Twitter
Facebook

Giveaway open to international guests: One random commenter will receive book swag (bookmarks, postcards, etc.) Please be sure to leave your contact info. Name will be drawn January 16th.

Thanks so much, Sandra! I'm going to put this on my TBR pile, and I absolutely LOVE that cover. :)

The SFR Pitch Tournament Weekend - Results

2012-01-13T06:07:00.002Z

I'm pleased to say that my new sfr Tethered came in the top three winners of the final heat. No outright winner was declared, but the feedback I got was incredibly helpful and encouraging. I should also add that Keir came high in the top heat. You can see the results here. A big thank you needs to go to the organizer Laurie A.Green, and to everyone who took part, voted and commented. You are AWESOME! :-)

Six Sentence Sunday #43

2012-01-08T00:01:00.007Z

Hello! Welcome to another #sixsunday post, and huge thanks to those who stop by and comment each week. I'm continuing with my sfr story this week - still locked in the dungeon - but skipping ahead slightly to give you a better look at Keir's new companion. I don't think he's very impressed...

She turned toward him, her gaze skipping across his hiding place as she lifted her lamp higher--the strange light a wand of white fire clenched in one hand. She had a slim, elfin face with steel-gray eyes, a small nose wrinkled by a slight frown of irritation, and translucent skin dusted with freckles. Pretty, in a strange way, perhaps, but not beautiful. The color of her hair alone marked her as an oddity. Was that the reason the Corizi had taken her prisoner? She seemed too frail a thing to justify sharing his punishment.

Please stop by the other fabulous authors by clicking on the banner. :)

The SFR Pitch Tournament Weekend!

2012-01-07T18:32:00.002Z

There's a pitch tournament running on the SFR Brigade site this weekend - 18 authors have posted blurbs for 24 titles, and each is up for a vote. Plus one lucky commentator will win an Amazon Gift Card, woo hoo. I have two titles in the tournament (yeah, greedy I know) - Keir (in Heat #1) and Tethered (in Heat #3) - but there's some great titles there worthy of support. You can find the pitches and voting forms here. :)

New Year, New Challenges.

2012-01-06T00:01:00.007Z

So, we're only a few days into the New Year, and already I have new things on the go. An idea that grabbed my muse on Christmas Day (a strictly 'no writing' family only day!) has refused to let me rest. Already I'm 11K into something I think could hit the 30K mark, and a somewhat hotter romance than I ever thought I'd dare to write. I even have a blurb for it! I spent about two minutes writing it, and then put it into the SFR Brigade Pitch Contest. A little rash, but at least I'll get an idea of the amount of interest it might draw. And whether I'm any good at writing a blurb off the cuff when I don't even have the story half written. Eeeek!
Also, in a moment of madness, I volunteered to be the Calendar Coordinator for the SFR Brigade. I think I was testing out that saying of 'if you want something done, give it to a busy person', lol. I'll find out how true that is in the near future, no doubt.
Of course, what I should be doing is working on Keir's sequel, but I'm putting that off until the kids are all back at school (which doesn't happen until the 9th) so that I have time alone to really concentrate. Well, that's my excuse and I'm clinging to it. In the meantime, I'm already putting together things for Keir's release even though that doesn't happen until the 7th May. I have some names and places jotted down, an interview and a couple of blog posts arranged. I've designed my bookmarks and business cards. I've some pretties ordered for a potential swag bag, and a few sneaky plans for promotion. A few people have been generous in offering their time or facilities to help with that - to you all, a huge thank you. It's much appreciated.
I should also be finishing the scifi short - one of Quin's early adventures - which I promised myself I would have up on Amazon in the New Year. Well, technically I still have another 11 months to get that done, but I was kind of hoping to get it done sooner. Damn my muse and her wild ideas!
In the meantime, there's plenty happening this month. I'm doing one guest post with the lovely Liana Brooks, and have two fellow sfr authors guesting here (Sandra Sookoo on the 13th with her sfr FRACTURED and Jessica E.Subject with her latest scifi release on the 31st). I'm going to continue with my sixsunday and sffsat postings. And with the SFR Brigade Calendar to coordinate as well, that should be enough to keep me out of mischief. Maybe... :-P

New Year Blog Hop Winners

2012-01-05T16:01:00.001Z

Below are the two winners commentators announced by Carrie Ann Ryan -

#192 from Malia Mallory's site - Lilaz won the Kindle Fire! I've already contacted her and her new Kindle should be on its way soon.
#2436 from VK Syke's site - June won the $80 Amazon GC. I've already sent it to her!

The winner on my blog of the $10 Amazon Gift Card is TrishWilson79 - congrats!

The New Year Blog Hop - A Memory

2012-01-04T05:44:00.000Z

A New Year's memory ...

I stared. The two pink dots stared back. They didn't move. They didn't change.

I looked at the instructions again. Yes, I'd followed them to the letter. Yes, I'd left the required amount of time pass - I'd even used a damn stopwatch for goodness sake! But I still didn't believe it.

Five years of trying. Five years of tests, some of the most painful, invasive and humiliating procedures I'd ever gone through in my LIFE! And only two more months of fertility treatment left before we were on our own and forced to pay for it.

But no more. Those two little dots were what we had been waiting for. I was finally pregnant. :) Happy New Year, baby!

And a Happy New Year to you too! As part of the New Year Blog Hop, I'm offering up a $10 Amazon gift card to a random commentator on my blog, winner to be announced tomorrow. Also, don't forget there's the grand prize up for grabs of a Kindle Fire too, with a second prize of an $80 Amazon GC. All you have to do to enter is comment on this blog and any of the others taking part in the hop. The more blogs you comment on, the greater your chances of winning. Woo hoo! Good luck!

To visit the other blogs participating in the hop, just check out the list below. :) And a huge thank you to Carrie Ann Ryan for organizing this event.

Six Sentence Sunday #42

2012-01-01T01:01:00.001Z

Happy New Year! Welcome to another #sixsunday post. Thanks to all who stop by and comment. This week I'm continuing with my sfr Keir, with our hero beaten and bruised, and locked in a cell. But he's not alone for long ...

The iron door of the cell clanged open, shattering the silence. A sickening jolt of fear punched into his chest.

“Get your hands off me!”

The voice, unmistakably female and strangely accented, carried clearly through the small space. Keir started. It was the first voice he had heard in uncounted nights and he longed to move out of his shadowed niche for a clearer view of the door.

Please check out the other fabulous participants by clicking on the banner. :)

2012 - Hopes and Dreams

2012-01-01T00:01:00.017Z

Happy New Year!

I don't make New Year resolutions. I have never kept the few I made, and I feel it just leads to too many disappointments. So, instead, I have a list of things I'm hoping for this year. :)

1.That Keir will do well when it's released on the 7th May (or at least not get too many poor reviews).
2.That I will finish editing the sequel in good time, and that my editor and publisher will like it.
3.That Gethyon will find a home with a publisher, even if that turns out to be myself via Amazon.
4.That my sfr short will be accepted into the anthology.
5.That I will get my other scifi short completed and up on Amazon.
6.That I will figure out the rest of books four and five which are still a little hazy in my mind.
7.That I won't run out of ideas and that my writing will just keep improving.
8.That my friends and family will be happy and healthy, for this year and many, many more to come.
9.That I will do more reading, and help clear a pending list of reviews.
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!
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.

I think that will do...

Do you make resolutions? Do you keep them? Or would you rather just let the year pan out around you? :)

2011

2011-12-31T00:01:00.048Z

At the end of 2010, I started to write a post about my non-resolutions for 2011, but never published it. As 2011 draws to a close and I'm clearing out drafts of blog posts that never 'made it', I came across my aims for the year just past. It made for interesting reading, in terms of what I'd achieved, so I thought I'd share. :)

Plans - I already had two book reviews to write, was awaiting feedback from my two critique partners on my unpublished SFR (Keir) before doing a final edit and polish, and needed to write a blurb, synopsis and query letters for submission. I'd signed up for a university course to start in the October and run through to February 2011. I had ideas for a dark fantasy, and wanted to write a scifi novella. I also had two sequels written to Keir badly in need of editing, another sequel half written with vague ideas for a fifth, and a promise to edit a fellow author's second book.

Results - The book reviews weren't completed until February/March time, but they were done and more besides over the year. The edits on Keir took longer than expected, and then the whole submission was delayed because I submitted the first 500 words to a critique contest and had it ripped to shreds. My confidence was destroyed, and so I didn't submit Keir until June. In the meantime I managed to write and self-publish a scifi short story on Smashwords - The Bones of the Sea - tied into the same universe as Keir. I was also asked to guest post about my short by Laurie A. Green on the Spacefreighters Lounge blog.

I passed my university course in March. I wrote and edited my first scifi novella - Gethyon - and had it ready to submit at the same time as Keir. I finished the dark fantasy - No Mercy - and submitted it for a short story competition in June, after which time I had further ideas to expand the 5K short into a novella at a later date. I read, critiqued and proof-read my friend's book which came out in July - Blowing Embers, a paranormal/fantasy romance by Lauri J Owen.

Keir received the offer of a contract from Lyrical Press Inc (squeeee!) in June, with a projected publishing date of May 2012, and I finished my first round of edits in time for the 12th August deadline. Gethyon received a revise and resubmit request (another squeee!), and work on that took me into mid-August, with a promise for feedback from a fellow author in September. In partnership with Lauri, we took it upon ourselves to compile and maintain a list of book reviewers, now over 170 strong.

My second university course was due to start in October, a far more intensive one than the previous which would have taken me into June 2012. However, as the study material arrived I discovered that the diploma I had been aiming for was being replaced by another that not only required twice as many credits, but also in different subjects to those I'd chosen to study. As a consequence I quit the course. In September, I FINALLY began to edit Keir's sequel - Lost Serenity - despite struggling with the MS for some time. I had one of those eureka moments, where I could see how to change a major element of the story and improve the whole. Book Three - Shadowcast - still awaits edits, and Book Four - Seekers of the Nine - is still incomplete. However, I have made inroads into rewriting the very original prequel to the Traveller Series, including a new title, and started one scifi novella and another short chronicling Quin's early travels.

My edits arrived from my editor at the start of November and WOW was there a lot to do! I was given two weeks but eventually had to ask for three to complete it. It also raised huge doubts over doing any further work on the series.Thank goodness I wasn't doing my course though! Gethyon got a rejection but went out on submission again. If all else fails, I'm thinking of self-publishing it. My fantasy short didn't get placed in the competition and has been put aside for future work - again, I may expand it to novella length and either submit or self-publish.I've just finished and submitted an SFR short for a fellow author's anthology. I've also worked on a scifi short to self-pub in the New Year - Samaritan - and even have the cover half done. A fellow scifi author has offered to trade tweaking the cover for a beta read. :D Keir now has cover art and a release date of 7th May 2012.

In summary - I hadn't set myself very much for the year. I'm not sure if that was because of time constraints - I have three young children on top of writing and studies - or because I had such little confidence in what I could physically complete. I don't think I always make the best use of my time, but going by how much I did actually get done this year, I'm pretty impressed with myself. Of course now I'll have an inflated idea of what might be accomplished next year. :(

So how did you do on your goals for the year? Do you believe is setting yourself resolutions, or letting Fate have her way? :)

Romance Contest

2011-12-26T15:53:00.000Z

This is a contest being run by my publisher - Lyrical Press Inc. It's for Romance and Erotica, and there's no entrance fee and a substantial $200 advance on offer. Best of luck!

The First Annual Lyrical Press How Lyrical is Your Romance? Contest opens on Monday, January 16^th. This contest is open to both published and unpublished authors.

Entries must be complete works, ranging in word count between 15,000-100,000 words, any heat level, and fit into one of the following subgenre categories:

Contemporary romance
Historical romance
Paranormal or urban fantasy romance
Romantic steampunk
Romantic Suspense

Prizes:

1^st Place: $200 advance and digital publishing contract (advance payable as $100 upon finalized contract and $100 upon publication).

2^nd Place: $100 advance and digital publishing contract (advance payable as $50 upon finalized contract and $50 upon publication).

3^rd Place: Top-scoring contestant in each genre category will receive an acquiring editor’s critique of synopsis and first 50 pages of manuscript.

Guidelines:

File type: .rtf, .doc, or .docx only
12pt black font (Times New Roman, Cambria, Courier or Georgia preferred)
Line spacing: 1.5
Margins: 1" all
Page-breaks between chapters

Please include a title page listing the following information:

Legal name
Pen name
Email address
Contact phone
Working title (include series name and details if applicable)
Word count
Genre/category

Entries will be accepted from January 16, 2012 through February 5, 2012, and must be emailed to contest@lyricalpress.com. Entries sent to an email other than the aforementioned will be ignored. Please include book title and contest in subject line thusly: Booktitle – How Lyrical Is Your Romance?. Attach full manuscript, and 2-5 page synopsis in .rtf, .doc, or .docx format (Booktitle_MS and Booktitle_SYN as file names--your book title replaces “Booktitle”). After February 5, the contest will close, but we’ll still be accepting submissions as always at our submissions@lyricalpress.com address.

No entry fee required. Judges reserve the right to Decline to Judge any entry if it does not fit our lines, level of writing is not acceptable, or submission guidelines are not followed.

Entries will be judged on the following criteria: Hook, Pacing/Plot, Characterization, Dialogue, Mechanics, and Author Voice.

Winners will be announced on March 12, 2012 via our blog http://lyricalpress.blogspot.com/ and direct emails to winners.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2012

2011-12-23T00:01:00.005Z

I won't be blogging much over the next couple of weeks, with Christmas looming and the kids not going back to school until the 4th January. The blog won't be silent though. I have some automated posts set up for New Year's Eve, and I'm taking part in Carrie Ann Ryan's New Year blog hop on the 4th - stop by for your chance to win a Kindle Fire, Amazon GC, and a myriad of other yummy prizes being offered up by all the participants. :) If I remember to sign up, I'll be back for the first #sixsunday posting of the New Year. I'll also be guest posting over with the lovely Liana Brooks on the 18th about some of the myths of being a published author. In the meantime, I'd like to thank everyone who has stopped by, followed, and/or commented - you've been awesome. To my family, friends, followers, supporters, minions, worshippers...er...sorry, seem to have slipped a little too far there - have a great Christmas, and may it bring you health, wealth and happiness. I leave you with one of my favourite Christmas videos. xxx

Review - Solaris Rising edited by Ian Whates

2011-12-22T09:03:00.000Z

My review of Solaris Rising, a science-fiction anthology, is now live on the Fantasy Book Review website here. If you're looking for your first taster in scifi, this is a good place to start. :)

Do you judge an Author by their book cover?

2011-12-21T00:01:00.008Z

I have to say, I ALWAYS judge a book by its cover. It's the first thing you see. In most cases with a new book, it's the first thing that attracts me, that gets me to pick it up and read the blurb, unless I've already decided on the title because of reviews or recommendation. The cover has to at least grab your attention for those few seconds your eyes skim over the thumbnail on Amazon or the shelf of your local bookshop.

But something occurred to me this weekend after several differing reactions to my cover. Not only might my book be judged by my cover, but would I be as well? The thought came as a bit of a shock.
Now, I love my cover. I think it perfectly captures the mood of my male MC and the story itself. Some people have found it a little...well...racy perhaps? More naked than they were expecting? Generally that's been well-received (predominantly by my female friends, which comes as no surprise!). It is not, I will admit, probably a cover to attract male fans.

Now that's a bit of a conflict for me. I have never written with a target audience in mind - I follow that adage of writing the book I wanted to read - so I guess that would make my main audience, intended or not, scifi lovin' women like me. At the moment I have a straight scifi story out on sub, whereas Keir is a scifi rom, so the cover's going to reflect that. But does it mean people will view ME in a certain way? Will they take one look at my cover, and decide the kind of person I am?

Does it matter? And should it? I'm a pretty modest kind of person, but I think Keir is a damn good story and I'm proud of it. I know there are going to be people who won't like it. I get that. Honestly I do. I know I can't please everyone, and I'm not going to twist myself in knots trying doing so. For those who don't like romance, I'll have straight scifi coming out - I already have a free scifi short out that isn't the least romantic, and another I hope to release next year.

But the thing is, I don't get to chose the cover. A lot of people, especially the non-writing ones, probably don't realize that's how it works with a publishing contract. I had a form to fill out of the kind of thing I had in mind, but I get no say. I can ask for changes to be made, but in essence the cover is decided by the publisher.

So do you find that people judge you by your covers? Has it ever come up? Perhaps I'm just being too paranoid about the whole thing!

Six Sentence Sunday #41

2011-12-18T00:01:00.016Z

Hello peeps! Welcome to another #sixsunday. Thanks to everyone who stops by and comments each week, much appreciated. Last week we were with Gethyon as he arrived home, but later that morning I got a nice surprise in my inbox - the cover for my first full length science fiction romance. Squee! So this week I'm going to share my beautiful cover and the six opening lines from Keir, due out on the 7th May 2012. Enjoy!

In the darkness and the silence, Keir sat with teeth gritted against the pain racking his body. With each ragged breath he sought to shift his focus from the agony of ribs that were surely broken. He tried not to feel the ache in his head where his hair lay matted with blood against his scalp. The cell's damp seeped through his rags and into his skin until he throbbed with the cold. He clenched his fists against the shakes that possessed him and wished he could force them still.

Wordlessly he raged against the injustice of it all, as though the anger could keep his life burning when all it really did was waste his energy, hastening the end.

Please check out the other awesome authors participating by clicking on the banner below. :)

A Very Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year!

Riding the Wave

2011-12-14T06:47:00.000Z

Several things have happened over the last couple of days that have really hit home the reality that I'm a soon-to-be-published author. After three rounds of edits, Keir feels like a whole new book, and much stronger for it. The essence is still there, the heart of it still intact, but it's been polished up and revamped. The flaws have been smoothed out. It's a good feeling.

But Sunday I got a wonderful new present delivered to my inbox. My cover! Oh, it was a shock at first. I had to stare at it for a while, leave the computer, have a little wander round and then come back. And then I knew. I loved it! It was dark and brooding, like my MC. It was clean and simple. Perhaps not the Keir I had in my head, but the guy on the cover is very...er...VERY nice, and I can see him as my MC. He is missing his tattoos, but there are limits with photo stock images, and I understand that. As soon as I got permission to flaunt it you can bet I did just that! Here it is -

But it's not just the fab artwork. It's seeing the title in lovely, flowing script. The tag lines that I came up with stamped on the cover. And most of all, it's seeing MY NAME on it, with the publisher's logo. It makes it real in a way that the contract didn't. That even the edits didn't. This isn't just some picture that I've put together in my spare moments for a bit of fun, or a poster off the internet. This is the real deal, a proper book cover from MY publisher, with MY name on it as author. It's a beautiful symbol of all the work I've put in, all the tears and moments of doubt, all the voices inside and out saying I couldn't do it. I have done it, and the cover is there to prove it.

And then there was more! Tuesday morning I got a tweet from Lyrical Press. My gorgeous cover was up on their 'Coming Soon' page for all to see. Not only that, but my name and author bio are up on the site too. I'm officially and publicly Pippa Jay, author of Keir, with Lyrical Press Inc. Oh, man, that's such a great feeling!

There's still a long way to go. More edits. More forms. More steps along the way. I've been compiling lists of useful information for the lead up to release day. I'm doing a New Year blog hop and a guest post on the 18th. I just got my first author interview too! As the year draws to a close, I know the first few months of 2012 are probably going to be the most hectic so far. Would I have it any other way? Hell, no! :D

Six Sentence Sunday #40

2011-12-11T00:01:00.002Z

Hello! Welcome to another #sixsunday. I wasn't sure if I'd make it this week due to edits, but I managed to squeeze myself in at the bottom of the list, yay! A big thank you to everyone who stops by and comments each week. So, another six from my scifi novella Gethyon. Our hero has made it home via a temporal gateway, but there's not much sign of a welcome for him ...

His footsteps sounded hollow as he entered the hallway. His shadow cast itself the length of the polished wooden floor, almost touching the edge of the stairs. Dust motes glimmered briefly in the sunlight, stirred into dance by his movement.

Gethyon hesitated. Had the house been abandoned in his absence?

“Hello?”

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Review - Silver Thaw by Amy Rose Davis

2011-12-09T10:12:00.000Z

My review of the fantasy novella Silver Thaw by Amy Rose Davis is now live on the Critique de Book review site here. "The ending left me with tears in my eyes and the intention to read it again very soon."

I Haz a Kindle!

2011-12-05T00:01:00.000Z

So, I've finally entered the e-book club. Well, actually I've been there for a while, by downloading and reading digital books on my computer, but there is definitely something to be said for having an e-reader at last. For one thing I'm hoping it won't make my eyes hurt quite as much! And I have to admit that holding it is a little exciting ... TMI? :-P

When I first started looking into publishing, the Kindle was a new and rare thing. E-books were just starting out, and self-publishing via e-formats and POD services were something that had become available to almost any author. With my own book due out in May next year (and with no definite date or eligibility for a print version) I stopped looking at an e-reader as an expensive toy I didn't need. Instead it became an essential piece of kit for me to have. After all, there's not a lot to be said for having an e-book out and not having the means to read it myself, is there?

This is my new (and first) Kindle. I got the one without the keyboard (and without the adverts. Okay, okay, I've been told the adverts - or 'special offers' as Amazon insists on calling them, sheesh - aren't that annoying, but with the amount of constant advertising we get thrown in our faces, I saw the extra expense of having the advert-less kind very worthwhile. I was rather surprised to find that there is an on-screen keyboard which you can navigate with the 5-way controller button - not much use to me in terms of writing, but an unexpected bonus (um, yeah, I didn't read up the specifications THAT well. ). The only annoyance for me was that I don't have a wireless connection. I thought (silly me!) that I'd just be able to download the dozen e-books I had sitting on my pc (including my own scifi short story), but nooooooo! You have to register the darn thing first before it lets you do anything other than charge it up! D'oh! Luckily for me, a quick trip to the local library with my Kindle to use the free wifi soon solved that one. Registration was dead simple (once the library wifi decided it was going to stay on - their problem, not one with the Kindle!).

I have no idea how this compares to other e-readers, or even to the other Kindles. I know there are Kobos and Nooks and Sony e-readers, but those few people I know with e-readers either have Kindles or iPads. I have no idea how it compares to the older Kindles either, so you're not going to get any technical kind of review here (sorry!). I knew what one looked like. It was slightly heavier than I expected - I'm assuming the weight is probably down to the battery. The manual said it takes three hours to charge, but it worked out at less than that. It came with its USB cable for connection to the pc which surprised me - I swear the blurb says you have to buy one separately, and I'm glad I didn't do that! The driver software set up automatically on both my old main pc and the newer notepad, so if you have any issues with yours, I'm afraid I'll be no help at all! I had a little trouble loading the e-books from my pc to the Kindle (for some reason it didn't put them into the documents folder on the Kindle so I had to cut and paste them in) but once I'd done that, it was simple.

So here is my new toy ... er ... I mean essential piece of equipment. With my own free scifi short story loaded up of course ( <cough> blatant self promotion <cough>). :-P

Here I must say a very special thank you to Liz Culver and Becky Thompson. Ladies, I am most sincerely in your debt. :)

Update 02/12/2011

2011-12-02T05:47:00.000Z

Soooo, I got an email overnight to tell me that my MS will be back to me today/tomorrow. In some ways it's a relief and exciting - although my stomach is tying itself in knots over what might still need doing and how long I'll have. However, I'm confident I can deal with it. :)

So expect a bit of silence for at least the next week. I had the foresight not to sign up for any weekend blog posts - not because I can't schedule things to go up, but because I think it's unfair for me to post when I can't be sure I'll have time to return reads to anyone. Apologies if you've come looking for my #sffsat or #sixsunday snippets. Hopefully I should be back in mid-December (just in time for the holidays, tsk!)

Keep writing!

Weird Wednesday #2

2011-11-30T00:01:00.006Z

Dragon's Skull

Don't believe that's what it is? Then what do you think it is? My husband found this on the beach at Frinton-on-Sea and we were stumped. It looks, for all the world, like a dragon. I thought perhaps an eel or maybe a fish like a gunard. I posted it to my Facebook profile (so some of my friends now know the answer to this mystery) but snakes, rays, even dogs were suggested.

The wonderful about the internet is that the answer was relative easy to find. But shocking nonetheless. This, in fact, is the pelvis of a sea bird. Yes, really! You can go here and see for yourself - this is obviously from a different species to ours (and we haven't been able to pinpoint exactly which ours came from) but the draconian appearance of it is amazing!

It's also incredibly light and fragile. How it survived at all, I don't know. I'm not really into bones and skeletons, but I can appreciate the beauty and delicacy in this, and the speculation over it's true identity.

So there you go. Dragon skulls on the beaches of the UK, there for the finding, to entertain your kids and friends. Weird enough for ya? :-P

It seems fitting with presenting this piece of weirdness to comment on the sad passing of the Dragonlady herself, Anne McCaffrey. As so many authors have said on the internet since the news was announced, a great loss and an inspiration to so many, myself included. Much sorrow.

Validity of Reviews - Free Books v. Purchased.

2011-11-29T06:42:00.001Z

A couple of days ago I took part (very fleetingly) in a discussion on Twitter. Apparently one of the reviewers I follow had had the validity of his review questioned because it was an ARC he had received for free. The implication was that, since he got the book for nothing instead of paying out hard-earned cash, his review had no integrity. That it didn't count.

Huh?! Call me stupid, but don't the majority of review sites all receive their review copies for free from publishers and authors purely for review purposes? Does that then make every single one invalid by default? Isn't the whole customers being allowed to post their own reviews on purchases a relatively new thing?

Reviewers are now required by law to state whether they receive a book for free or not. I've posted reviews that are a fairly equal mixture of free and bought, and yet given my honest opinion regardless. My philosophy is if I can't find anything nice to say about a book, whether free or not, then I simply wouldn't write a review. I like to enthuse about the books I love, not tear down someone else's work simply because the style/content/theme aren't to my personal liking.

I see no reason for someone to claim a review is invalid because the book came free - unless, perhaps, that is the philosophy of the person making the accusation. Judging by the mixture of good and bad reviews on sites that receive ALL their books for free, that clearly doesn't happen - at least, not as a general rule. Even in the occasional case where it does, the number of sites/blogs etc posting reviews, and customers rating their purchases on the sites where they were bought, should ensure a fair spread of reviews and opinions.

It's hard enough for some authors to get reviews. Unless you're a big name or can pay for them, or are lucky enough to have a publisher that submits to reviewers for you, it's a hard slog and a long wait to receive them with no guarantee you'll get one or that it will be good. So many people who buy a book from somewhere like Amazon don't leave a review. I confess I never used to. It's only in the last year that I've come to appreciate how much a review can mean to an author, even if it's only a star rating and a 'I liked/loved/enjoyed it.'

So please, do your favourite authors a favour and leave them a review. It doesn't have to be an essay, just a few words. And incidentally, if you're looking for a reviewer yourself, there is a comprehensive list in my Pages at the top of the blog - I think we're currently up to 144 and adding new ones every week. :)

Six Sentence Sunday #39

2011-11-27T00:01:00.001Z

Hi all! Welcome to another #sixsunday. This week I'm posting another snippet from my #scifi novella Gethyon. Having spent a year hidden in his mother's base on Lyagnius at her insistence, he decides to make a break for freedom and transports himself back home to Terris via a temporal gateway (a path through time and space - one of his many special talents) ...

A heartbeat later and it was all over. Another world opened beneath his feet. He took a shaky step forward, expecting the ground to fade but it remained. Long grasses in shades of blue snaked around his ankles and whispered welcomes as it danced in the strong wind.
Tears rose in his eyes and he lifted his head to stare out across the sea of greenery. He’d made it home.

© 2009-2011 Copyright Philippa J. Green All Rights Reserved

Thanks for stopping by, and to all those who comment especially. Please check out the other participating authors by clicking on the banner below. :)

The Dark Side.

2011-11-24T21:00:00.004Z

'Anger, fear, aggression... the dark side are they. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.' Yoda, Return of the Jedi.

WARNING: RANT AHEAD!!!

Today I had one of those days. It seemed like the whole world was determined to make me mad. Twitter spammers, scamming and marketing phone calls when I'm waiting for my gas engineer to get back to me with the quote for repairs (urgh), all three kids conspiring to make the morning routine a slow trip through hell - they were all out to get me. And they did. By lunchtime I was a seething mass of fury and frustration, with a headache brewing, a snap in my voice, and venting it all on Twitter and Facebook. I had taken the dark path!

I have a temper, I know. I get worked over things which, at the end of the day, aren't really that important. But I hate stupidity. I hate selfishness. I hate people harassing me for money I don't have, or for not getting the tedious things out of the way so they can go and get on with the fun stuff. I hate my precious time being wasted for no good reason. I know I'm not perfect, but I try my hardest not to offend, obstruct or upset people even if they don't (or can't) return the favour. I like to be helpful and supportive, and generally a good sport. I take pleasure in other people's happiness, and commiserate with their pain. It infuriates me that some people seem incapable of even the most basic empathy with their fellows, or the slightest smidge of consideration or conscience. And so I got myself in a rage. To what end? Only my own suffering.

The sad truth is there are always going to be things that ... well ... p*ss me off. Sometimes the fault will be my own. For all the good things in this reality, there are equally bad. I'm not really a believer in karma or cosmic balance, or anything like that. I don't believe in Heaven or Hell. Bad people will get away with their crimes, and the good will go unrewarded. I certainly don't believe that the meek will inherit the earth! But I won't tolerate some of it. If some people see me as bad-tempered and rude, then I'm sorry. You're probably the 15th person this week trying to sell me solar panels or telling me that your energy company is the cheapest in the world despite the hundreds of others claiming the same thing. Maybe you're the one trying to tell me I'm an idiot for choosing to go the traditional route for publishing. Maybe you're the one who thinks it's okay to tell me that someone I care about is ugly in your eyes.

And maybe I'm just a grumpy old woman who should go back to bed or eat some chocolate. :-P

Weird Wednesday #1

2011-11-23T00:01:00.020Z

A few days ago, my good friend posted this to my Facebook profile, with the note 'this made me think of you. It is the you-est you that ever youed. And you will undoubtedly think it's devastatingly beautiful.'

That told me two things. One, that my friend knows me extremely well. Two, that I am indeed a fan of the weird and wonderful - not a bad thing for a writer. The weird and the wonderful are great inspiration, although the mundane works just as well for me as often.
I have no idea what this is - a type of praying mantis at a guess. But it reminded me of a post on Google+ (yes, I'm there as well) also posted by an author as a piece of inspiration.

So, over the next couple of weeks I'm going to post some of the weird and wonderful things that I've come across, and maybe you'll find some inspiration in them too. Or maybe, you'll just realize what a total weirdo I am and never come back. :-P

Six Sentence Sunday #38

2011-11-20T00:01:00.026Z

Hello! *waves* I know, long time no see! No wasting time with idle chit-chat - this snippet is taken from a WIP going out on submission - a scifi novella entitled Gethyon. Here our hero has caught sight of his reflection, but finds nothing to admire.

As he passed the black reflective metallic panels lining a curved alcove in long strips from floor to ceiling, he glanced at his darkened image. A year spent training hard on Lyagnius had added muscle to his frame and broadened his shoulders to better match his height. After much nagging, he’d allowed the reddish hair to be cropped. Though the reflection carried no color, he knew the eyes glaring back were green, set in a face that matched his father’s too closely for comfort. He was tired of that comparison, of being another man’s shade.

I’m nothing but a dead man’s shadow...

© 2009-2011 Copyright Philippa J. Green All Rights Reserved

Please check out the other #sixsunday participants here.

Monsters in Mersea.

2011-11-13T16:39:00.000Z

Mersea Island, on the coast of East Anglia, might be more famous for its oysters (one of the reasons the Romans invaded Britain way back when) but for us it's the best place to go crabbing. I don't know if it's something done anywhere else in the world, but I grew up with it as a child. I can remember my husband's scepticism when I told him about it, but the stunned look on his face the first time we went together and I repeatedly pulled crab after crab out of the water is something I'll always remember. :)

I don't know if it's the time of year, but normally we'll just catch dozens of little ones - our record is 120 crabs in one session. Today was a day for monsters - and I don't just mean my kids. :-P We caught about five that were the size of my palm if you didn't count the legs. Usually a local seal hangs around in the hope of being thrown the scraps of crab bait at the end of the day, but he wasn't there today. Most likely because the number of crabbers has dwindled with the drop of temperature - we're just insane.

The local crab bait recycler

It's probably the last chance we'll get for such escapades with winter creeping in. Already the temperature has dropped a couple of degrees over the last few days. Tomorrow my dining room is being half demolished to gut the rotten wooden windows letting in a gale, to be replaced with some nice french doors - something to enjoy when, and IF, we ever get a summer in the UK.

So I finish with a last glimpse of sun for probably a long time to come.

Mersea beach

The walkway over the Mersea mudbanks

Emerging from the cave.

2011-11-12T09:28:00.000Z

Oh, wow! There's a whole world out there! And light! lol.

Sorry for the long silence, folks. I received my first round of edits from my fabulous editor and wow! they were intensive. :-o They also arrived on the first day of half-term holiday in the UK, so I had a week with all three children at home - not the most conducive working environment. Also hot on the heels of a rejection - tsk, Mondays!

Being a newbie to the whole business the edits came as a huge shock, and I have to admit to being a bit intimidated by the scale of them. However, I'm always up for a challenge, and after a little wobble and lots of emails to my beleagured editor, I got going with them. I have to say I learned a heck of a lot in the process and - fingers crossed - I'll make fewer mistakes the next time around. I saw more clearly what my strengths and weaknesses are. I had to change things I never thought would ever change, but I do think the story is much stronger overall.

Of course, I've still got to hear back from my editor to see if she agrees. I think it all has to be done and in by the end of November, and since I had to ask for extra time on this round (something I really didn't want to do but became inevitable), I'm hoping any other issues will be minor by comparison. Otherwise Keir will get bumped from May until August.

In the meantime - I had a gig at the Brixton O2 watching one of my fave bands live - Within Temptation. Woo hoo! The edits meant I didn't get time to make the fab coat I had planned, but there's always next time. In two weeks I get to see the fabulous Lacuna Coil in my own home town.

Hopefully I can back to blogging a bit more regularly after the hiatus. And once Keir is 'off', it's back to the SFR short for a fellow author's anthology, and then back to submitting my scifi novella Gethyon. That should take me up until the end of the year at least.

After that? Hmmm.... A series from Keir seems less likely at the moment, but I've been playing with the idea of 'myths meeting scifi' for another story, one entirely separate from the others I've done so far. One thing I love about writing is I never know for sure what will come next ... :)

There's no such word as "can't" ...

2011-11-02T00:01:00.000Z

That's the key thing I've learned while writing. The past year has proved that to me. I've hit milestones I never imagined I would ever see. Not just in my writing, but in my personal development too. But enough about me ... :-P

Of course the word "can't" exists. The phrase "there's no such word as ..." refers more to a state of mind. Of how we can convince ourselves, or allow those around us, to believe that the desires and dreams we have are unattainable. Foolish. Unrealistic and doomed to failure should we try. I've seen far too many people dragged down and held back by that fear. I've let it hold me down too.

Perhaps we do need to be realistic about things, to hold the thought that failure IS a possibility, but we shouldn't allow it to stop us trying. To try is to fail, but trying is equally the only way to success.

“To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.”

I have to remind myself of that every time I attempt something that could fail. Rejection hurts, but if I don't make a submission then there's no chance of acceptance. So prepare yourself for the pain knowing that it could come, but that it could just as easily be joy. Every writer has been there. Every writer has been through it. If, like me, you have a wide community of writing friends then you know you have a shoulder to cry on if that rejection comes. Equally, you'll have a round of applause for the acceptance.

Don't let it hold you back. Don't let it stop you. If all else fails, sheer stubbornness can get you through. :)

“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow.” Mary Anne Radmacher

My Halloween Celebration.

2011-10-31T07:28:00.001Z

Hi all! Apologies for the sudden silence that's fallen over my blog. No, I haven't been eaten by pumpkins or anything else appropriate to the season, but I'm deep in edits and with a deadline looming. So, as a very brief tribute to the day, here's my favourite Halloween film!

Author Interview and Giveaway - Elle Hill

2011-10-26T00:01:00.012+01:00

It is with great pleasure that I welcome paranormal romance writer Elle Hill to my blog, author of two urban fantasy books - the novella Hunted and the full length novel Hunted Past, both part of the Hunted series.

Please tell us a bit about yourself.

First, huge thanks for inviting me. I admit I’m a fan. (oh, you're welcome and thanks! *blushes*)

Secondly, if you don’t mind me quoting from another interview: “I’m an overeducated, underpaid thirty-seven-year-old who spends her days teaching college students and her night penning novels and poetry. In my spare time, I volunteer in my community, helping animals find homes and humans strive for social justice. I live with my sister and our cats in Southern California and find myself representing my profound ambivalence for the area in my L.A.-themed urban fantasies.”

Tell us about Hunted.

It’s my very first published work, and I’m so excited! It’s a 15,000-word novella that, like my subsequent novels, grapples – albeit briefly -- with the question of whether/when violence is or can be ethical. Also, it includes a seriously kick-ass woman and a hot scientist; she keeps him alive and he, in turn, teaches her how to cuddle. What’s not to love?

Hunted Past is part of the Hunted Series (btw I’ve read this book and it’s fabulous!). Do you have an idea of how many books you plan to have in the series?

Thanks for the kind words! They mean a lot to me, particularly coming from an author I respect. Here’s the chronology of the Hunted Series: 1. Hunted (my novella just released through Soul Mate Publishing), 2. Hunted Past (to be released October 28 through The Wild Rose Press), and 3. Hunted Dreams (just finished and sent to the publisher, so don’t expect it for a year or so).

The possibilities for future books are endless! My best friend – who, not coincidentally, is my biggest fan – made me promise to write a love story for a recurring major-minor character in the series, so I foresee at least one more! That said, I’ve already mapped out my next book, and although it’s still urban fantasy, it departs from the alternate Los Angeles reality of the Hunted Series.

What inspires/inspired you to write?

A never-ending supply of coffee never hurts. Just sayin’.

A little less logistically, I guess I have to say I’m motivated by the need to create universes in which the world moves to the rhythm of my logic. You may have noticed – or, at least, I believe – the real world tends to be obscenely and beautifully chaotic, crazy, amoral, bereft of inherent meaning. Boundaries, categories, meaning: these are all constructs we humans place on our environment in order to try to carve out an understanding and feel a little more in control of our lives and our environments. Real life is much bigger than us and our human need to create meaning from bundles of color, sound, and texture. Given all this, I like to create worlds that breathe with me, that have meaning in ways that make complete, holistic sense to me. Reality may not conform to my personal needs and understandings, but by god, my fictional worlds will!

Which comes first for you – a character's looks, personality or name?

What an awesome question! Definitely personality. All my book ideas start out as character sketches. I probably shouldn’t say this, but to me, my books are character-driven scenes with plot thrown in to help flesh them out as people. Their names come very last and, at least at first, are pretty incidental.

Any tips for aspiring authors?

Don’t wait for the muse. She’s awfully busy. I do a couple of things to get my creative juices flowing: begin and end scenes in the middle in order to make me eager to come back to them, and warm up with stream-of-consciousness writing. I really think we all need to devise strategies to move us beyond the little voices that tell us our wording sucks, this character wouldn’t use that phrasing, no one would ever do that, etc. It’s a first draft; let’s cut ourselves some slack.

If you had the power of time travel, is there anything you would go back and change? Why/why not?

I hate to be boring, but I wouldn’t change a thing. I am where I am and others are where they are because of every single event that happened in history, whether good, evil, painful, or ecstatic.

Questions for fun:

What super-power would you choose?

Transportation! I hate driving with a passion. Also, airplane travel is a nightmare for me: my fat booty doesn’t like those teensy airplane seats, and especially here in the U.S., airplane security is a ridiculous, farcical mess.

If you could have three wishes, what would they be?

1. An end to verbal, physical, financial, and ideological violence.
2. Engender in every human a respect for nature, animals, and our environment.
3. Being paid enough to continue teaching part-time and writing part-time.
I can’t resist this last one...
4. A minion to do all my annoying work. (I promise not to be financially violent to her or him!)

Coffee or tea?

Bring ‘em on! Cream, a little fake sugar, and we got ourselves a party!

What is your favourite book? (aside from one of your own!)

I have to be honest to myself and true to my childhood: Little Women. Versions of this book are still my favorite movies.

Favourite genre and why?

Urban fantasy, of course! All fantasy is amazing, since it brushes along the borders of real and unreal, self and other, genetic and cultural. Urban fantasy is especially awesome because it’s where one finds the fiercest female protagonists and the most compelling visions of current and future possibilities. Plus, with contemporary urban fantasy, I don’t have to know how to use phrases like, “Surely you jest, good sir! Good morrow to you!”

Favourite colour?

If it’s fiery, I love it. Give me the reds, oranges, and yellows.

Upcoming news and plans for the future?

I’m crazy excited about the October 28 release of Hunted Past, my first published, full-length novel. Also, be on the lookout for Hunted Dreams, since it’s by far my best work yet -- not that the other books don’t rock, of course!

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us!

My most loving and enormous thanks for chatting with me. Thanks for all you do.

Hunted is available here.

You can find Elle Hill at her website here, her blog site here and her Facebook page here. You can also follow her on Twitter as @ElleHillAuthor

But now for the bonus! I have a free PDF copy of Hunted to give away to one lucky person. Just leave a comment and a way to contact you, be it email, twitter id or blog. Open internationally until midnight BST (British Summer Time) on the 1st November. :)

Scifi Sunday #9

2011-10-23T00:01:00.017+01:00

Hi all, and welcome to another #scifi snippet this Sunday. No more Gethyon as the MS is out on submission, so I've pulled out another WIP with the working title of Samaritan. The main character in this story is Quin. This is one of her many adventures before her part in both Gethyon and Keir.

Quin stared out of the castle window and across the fields to the circle. Her legs trembled with the effort of standing and pains still gouged their way through her abdomen and back, pulses of agony that snagged her breath each time they seized her.

You can’t leave now.

Talien’s voice came soft and warm as a summer breeze into her mind, but it only intensified the pain. Quin squeezed her eyes shut against the tears, refusing to give in to them, to any of it. She would not be ruled by the past, by the Rion, by the pain. Her fate was her own choice.

“I can’t stay here.” Her reversion to physical speech, something only the damaged would use, would hurt Talien’s feelings. She knew it, and yet couldn't bring herself to open her mind to her friend. She had to be strong now, she had to do this …

No you don’t. Talien’s voice was full of tears and broke through the fragile walls Quin had raised against them. The pain thickened, crushing her chest, and she grasped the window sill for support.

“Leave me be,” Quin whispered.

“You haven’t even named them, Quin. You didn’t even look at them.”

Quin gasped. She had never heard Talien speak before. For a Rion to do so was close to blasphemy, and deserved a response. “Call the girl Callon.” More pain touched her at the use of that name, but it was an old hurt, scarred over now. “The boy is Gethyon.”

More warmth and a hint of gratitude washed over her. Gethyon had been the name of Talien’s father, an Eldar of the Rion held in high regard. It was a small gift to her friend when she had nothing else left to give.

The Crimson Pact: Volume 2 - edited by Paul Genesse

2011-10-20T00:02:00.000+01:00

My review for The Crimson Pact: Volume 2 is now live on the Fantasy Book Review site here. "If you like demons and dark fantasy this is definitely the anthology for you." Please go and check it out.

As an addition, if you're interested in having one of your stories selected to go in a future volume, check out the terms and conditions here. Submissions to the anthologies are by invitation only if you manage to impress the publisher with a piece of flash fiction submitted during their reading period, which is through 1 February 2012.

Inspirations - Scifi/Fantasy Films

2011-10-19T00:01:00.002+01:00

Staying with inspirations, these are my top five scifi/fantasy films that I wanted to share with you - let me know if you agree or what your alternative listing is! :)

1.Star Wars. Okay, slight cheat here as this refers to all three films of the original trilogy (and not the later-made prequels). If you want me to stick to the 'rules' then I'd put The Empire Strikes Back in the top slot. For me, this film is 'the Trials of Luke Skywalker' in the finest tradition of testing a young hero, and his struggle to deal with his new-found powers and his dedication to the Jedi religion while still being true to the people he loves. These were the films that converted me from my early love of fantasy to the world of science-fiction. Well, that, and a small crush on Luke Skywalker.<blushes>

2.The Fifth Element. Although I think the story is a little weak and Zorg (Gary Oldman) comes across as one of the most ineffectual villains I know, I love this film. Visually entertaining and with some fab music, it has redeeming features, the feisty and yet fragile Leeloo for one. There's also some great humour in this, and Zorg's crowning moment is his reaction when, having deactivated his own bomb, the device set by the Mangalores activates and explodes. The clip here is the Diva's performance - and it's probably not what you'd expect if you haven't seen the film. I love the mix of classical with funky electronica in this piece. Also evidence that I'm not the first person to have blue aliens, and to do so is not simply 'copying' Avatar. :-/

3.Galaxy Quest. A parody of Star Trek and similar scifi shows, this has some fantastic humour in it, but also rather poignant. If you were famous for a particular scifi role and the show got cut and you couldn't find another job, what would you do? Tim Allen as Jason Nesmith, the actor who played Cmdr. Peter Quincy Taggart, throws himself whole-heartedly into conventions and playing to his fans, only to discover that his 'crew' hate him. Just as he loses faith in himself and everything he's done, a group of aliens who have taken the show as reality - 'historical documents' - seek him out and ask for his help. The show's catch phrase of 'Never give up, never surrender!' is a cry all aspiring authors could adopt. :) The one down-point in this film for me is the death of Quellek. :( Strangely for me, I didn't feel my general nerdiness was being mocked - as scifi geek Brandon in the film says; I'm not a complete nutcase, you know, I understand it's not real. :-P

4.A Knight's Tale. Okay, this appeals more to my mushy side I'm afraid. I love the medieval era and have used touches of it in my writing. I adore Heath Ledger's character in this - a young man striving for his dreams, prepared to take any risk to achieve it, and despite the odd tantrum, he does so with the same nobility of the high-born knights he hopes to emulate. In fact, his behaviour is a darn sight more noble than some of the so-called champions he meets. The use of some classic rock music rather than the more historically-accurate kind makes this stand out for me, and the romantic elements are enough to touch my heart without making me cringe. Sir Ulrich and his lady Jocelyn are well-matched, and his heart-felt belief in himself and determination to succeed are inspiring!

5.The Dark Crystal. I adore this film. For me, it's unique and special. The skill that was needed to make it, the weird and wonderful characters - the whole concept of it. At a time when computerized special effects were laborious and still required the use of models and blue screen, in the early days of animatronics, this film is iconic. To this day, I still collect Brian Froud's fairies, and I even have a couple of the figures - Jen and Kira - that my husband bought me as a birthday present one year. My first full length story was based on this film. Am I gushing too much? :-P

So tell me your top inspiring films, and why they did it for you. :)

Scifi Sunday #8

2011-10-16T00:01:00.005+01:00

Hi all and welcome to another #scifi snippet. Thanks for stopping by. :) This will be the last posting for Gethyon as the MS is going out on submission - hopefully you'll get to see the full work in the not too distant future - fingers crossed. But that does mean the snippets I've posted will be removed.

So, the chase is over, but now Gethyon is forced to think back over the events that have sent him on the run ...

The night and the ocean seemed unending, a blackness that reached to infinity, touched by ghostly moonlight and flickers of distant silver shimmers where the water caught moonbeams and broke them into fragments. In his exhaustion, the line between reality and dreams had shattered. Gethyon flew over the platinum-crested ripples of the sea in a haze, protected from the chill of the air and the spray of the water by the buzzing shield of the Trilobyke. The whine of its engines blurred into the constant susurration of the sea, his hands locked into the controls so tightly that he felt as though his flesh had melded itself to the metal, that he and the bike had become a single entity fleeing into the night. The only warmth that touched him came from Callon slumped against his back, her arms still clasped around his waist.

As if from a distance he could dimly sense her sleeping mind reliving the nightmare of Dephon’s murder, and the terrifying pursuit that had followed. Gethyon’s own mind refused to contemplate the thought; surely, he couldn’t have killed someone? Had it really been him?

Jedi on a Shoestring

2011-10-12T00:01:00.030+01:00

At the age of eight I saw Star Wars on TV for the first time. I was instantly converted from fantasy to scifi (plus having my first crush on Luke Skywalker), and dreamed of being a Jedi. But try as I might, I never managed to get the Force to work, never built my own lightsabre and never flew an X-wing. However ...

A friend decided to hold a Star Wars party for his birthday last weekend. Fancy dress was optional, but I wasn't going to pass up the chance to fulfil another ambition. I decided I didn't want to pay out for a flimsy Star Wars costume off the web. For one thing, the only options in terms of female characters are Leia's slave get-up (not in October!) which I do not (sadly) have the figure for, the classic white Leia dress or Amidala's white two piece (again I no longer have a stomach I'd show to ANYONE!)

So I started hunting around. I'm not an expert dress maker, but one quintessential item of Jedi clothing is the cloak. You can find a basic pattern for one here which is dead easy to make. And while I'm not the greatest seamstress I can usually manage to stitch something together. I made myself a Blake's Seven outfit as a teenager without any pattern at all, but I did find this one on ebay.(see below)

This is from the States but ships to the UK, and very handy if you wanted to do Lord of the Rings as well. :) It wasn't too expensive either and came in good time. However, my back-up plan of raiding the local charity shops paid off well enough that I didn't actually have to make anything in the end (even if I did end up looking like Ewan McGregor's Ben Kenobi without the beard.).

And no, this isn't actually me

I bought a pair of cargo trousers, a heavy belt and a pale top with cross-over design on it that made up my basic Jedi outfit. My cloak was a bit of a cheat. My older brother-in-law does Roman/Celtic re-enactment, and loaned me one of his genuine woollen cloaks for the event. My nephew donated a lightsaber from his Star Wars collection, and my padawan rat's tail came from Claire's Accessories. It's cost me about £20 in all, and most of it I can wear again as 'normal' stuff.


This is me.

And, um, yes - that IS my husband dressed as Princess Leia. It WAS a joke!

(Incidentally, his dress is taken from the same basic pattern for the cloak, the link for which is here.)
So what do you think? Good enough? How have you gone about making your scifi costumes? Do you make them from scratch, shop around for pieces that will do the job or buy the ready-made ones? I wish you could all post some pics!

Scifi Sunday #7

2011-10-09T00:01:00.004+01:00

Hi all and welcome to another #scifi snippet. Gethyon's still trying to shake one last pursuer, but it seems other forces are at work ...

Tyos revved his craft alongside. For an instant he glared at Gethyon, the hate-filled expression demonic by moonlight, before a bright flash exploded between them and Tyos fell away. Gethyon darted a glance back, saw the craft blazing before it struck the water and threw its rider out into the sea. Had it been that badly damaged? The flash had looked like a weapon blast, but who would shoot Tyos down? Or had they been aiming at him?

Gethyon focused ahead and accelerated to top speed. I’m not waiting to find out either way.

Call For Science Fiction Submissions

2011-10-07T09:58:00.005+01:00

For all you #scifi writing peeps out there, just a quick post to let you know about some opportunities for submitting works of scifi and/or specualtive fiction/romance.

First up, author Misa Buckley is looking for SFR short stories for an anthology. Works need to be between 5,000 and 10,000 words with strong scifi and romantic elements, and to a unifying theme. Please check out her website here for details.

Secondly, Carina Press have put out a call for science fiction novellas with a winter holiday theme, from 18,000 to 35,000 words and featuring science fiction elements. Again, please check out their site here for details. :D As a new note - Carina are now open for general submissions in a variety of genres - check out the blog post here.

And thirdly (as a recent addition) Desert Breeze Publishing, Inc. are also looking for submission in the romance genre, including Science Fiction/Futuristic/Speculative Fiction Romance, Steampunk Romance, YA and Fantasy Romance. Again, please check out their requirements here.

Good luck!

Inspirations - Scifi/fantasy Series Part 3

2011-10-05T00:01:00.000+01:00

Well, I'd only intended one post on this, but we're up to three already! This, however, is the last, and I hope I've stirred up a little nostalgia with these. Or possibly just shown my age and poor taste. :-O

9. Sapphire and Steel. I loved these, even though only six episodes were ever made. The stories creeped me out. Sapphire and Steel are two human-looking agents who travel throughout time and space keeping humanity safe. These are more though-provoking than action stories, and the SFX and sets are very limited, but that intrigued me. As a child who suffered badly from nightmares, this particular episode had me so freaked out that I imagined I could see 'the darkness' moving around in my own room. This clip is the worst and probably the source of my Siah-dhu - the dark entity in Keir and the associated stories.

10. Stargate. I enjoyed the film and watched the first series, although I found some of the story-lines a little dubious. Their use of the 'stargates' annoyed me a bit since I already had a similar mode of transport in mind for my own travellers, but what can you do?! :-P A scientific/military team of humans travel across space through special gateways, encountering alien races and battling the tyrannical parasitic Goa'uld.

11. The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I LOVED Douglas Adams! Not just this spoofy scifi series but the Dirk Gently books too (which, incidentally, got me into the poetry of Coleridge). The accidental travels of Arthur Dent and his alien companion Ford Prefect had me hooked from the first episode. Frankly I was a little disappointed by the film version. I liked the idea that alien space ships weren't all gleaming metal, that sticking a fish in your ear worked better than a translator, and that Vogon poetry is the third worst in the Universe. "Oh freddled gruntbuggly." Oh, and don't forget your towel. :D

12. Space 1999. This didn't even come up in the comments from the first Inspirations post, but I have to mention it. This was compulsive viewing for me on a Saturday morning. I'm not sure the idea was terribly feasible - the Moon is blasted out of Earth's orbit after a nuclear explosion (fair enough) but the number of aliens and other worlds they encounter on their journey deeper into space seemed beyond reasonable coincidence. My favourite character was the shape-changing Maya. Even though most of the aliens were awful rubber suits, some of the stories really stuck with me, and the opening credits with their dramatic theme got me every time. :)

So that's it - 12 scifi/fantasy series that have influenced me along the way. Did I miss any of yours out? :-P

Reviews - Jaine Fenn

2011-10-03T17:02:00.000+01:00

This week I have TWO reviews up on the Fantasy Book Review website. Guardians of Paradise and Bringer of Light by Jaine Fenn.

Please stop by the review site and check them out. They also have a competition running until the 14th October -

Competition: Win a free copy of The Long Way Home by PD Blake (ebook)

Inspirations - Scifi/fantasy Series Part 2

2011-09-28T00:07:00.001+01:00

So, continuing with the scifi and fantasy series that inspired me to write in the first place and the upcoming new ones that encourage me, here are the next four. Enjoy!

5.Red Dwarf. Although this is more comedy than scifi, it has to be on my list. All four main characters have some of the worst and most extreme character flaws ever, added to that the fact that only one is actually (barely) human - a cat that's evolved, an android, the last human being alive and a hologram of one of the dead crew, all aboard a mining vessel piloted by an artificial intelligence called Holly who has the mental 'IQ of 12000 traffic wardens.' The series follows their misadventures through space, and occasionally time as they try to return to Earth after three million years lost out in space. The clip is from a 'dream recorder' and features the Cat.

6.Primeval. Probably one of the lesser known series, and temporarily axed when ITV ran out of money to make it. Thankfully the BBC agreed to help fund it (makes my TV licence even more worthwhile!). 'Stealing' my idea of gateways through time and space (oh, wait, that was Stargate too ... ), a mismatched team originally comprising a Professor of Paleontology and his big-game hunting assistant, a nerdy conspiracy-theory student, a 'lizard girl' from a wildlife park, and a reluctant couple of civil servants, they track down anomalies that lead to Earth's prehistoric past. My kids adore this series, so it makes for one of the few times of family viewing where we all sit quiet and watch!

7.Merlin. This is probably the most recent newcomer to my list. At first I was a little wary - 'oh, no, not another remake of the King Arthur legend, sigh' - but it does a fabulous job of it, with a twist. It follows the story of a young Merlin, new to his powers and trying to survive under the ruling of Arthur's father, Uther, who had banned all magic and executes anyone even suspected of witchcraft. Prince Arthur is an ass, even if a rather handsome, gallant one, and Merlin is a soft-hearted fool. The best thing is my daughter loves it too. :)

8.The Sarah Jane Adventures. Okay, okay, I know this one was really intended for kids, but again it's something I can watch with mine and for me it harkens back to the early days of Doctor Who before they revamped it with all the mushy stuff that gets in the way of the stories these days. Also, it starred my favourite companion, the first one not there solely to make the Doctor look good and to scream in all the right places. Sarah Jane had spunk and spirit! Sadly, the actress who played her - Elisabeth Sladen - passed away from cancer earlier in the year. Sarah Jane Smith was companion (briefly) to the dandy third Doctor Jon Pertwee, and then to the eccentric fourth incarnation Tom Baker. The new Doctors have made guest appearances in some of the Sarah Jane Adventures. No longer travelling in the TARDIS, Sarah Jane nevertheless continued to battle aliens intending to conquer the Earth, with the aid of two young side-kicks, an artificially created boy genius that she adopts as her son, K-9 and an alien super-computer.

So what are your top scifi or fantasy series?

Inspirations - Scifi/fantasy Series Part 1

2011-09-21T00:07:00.004+01:00

After a discussion on Twitter about a certain scifi series, it got me thinking about all those I've watched over the years and that I've fallen in love with or felt inspired to write by watching. Once I started writing the post, I realized there were quite a few so I've split the post into two parts to make it easier. So, in no particular order, these are my top scifi/fantasy series. Enjoy!

1.Doctor Who. Probably the first scifi series I ever watched, and mostly because my parents were fans. The never-ending (?) journeys through time and space of the renegade Time Lord, now the last of his people, has been running since 1963, which must be a record. The earliest episode I can recall was the very last Jon Pertwee adventure - Planet of the Spiders - and I often wonder if it was the source of my spider phobia. :-/
Of course, it's come a long way since then ...

2.Star Trek. The pure, unadulterated original series! Again, my parents were fans so it was kind of compulsory viewing in our household, but even so my love for ST took me to watch all the following versions. Out of all of them, DS9 was probably my favourite, with Voyager coming a sadly-disappointing last. I tired so hard to like Captain Janeway, but she just didn't cut it for me. Seven of Nine was the only redeeming feature. :( Star Trek is often quoted as being ground-breaking because of the mixture of races and genders working together in a form of equality that many are still striving for even now. The range of story-lines, often covering moral dilemmas as much as Kirk's reputation of 'shoot to kill' make up for the periods of dodgy acting and even more dodgy special effects.

(I really like the Flintstones mash-up of the original, lol.)

3.Farscape. I LOVE Farscape! It's probably been the biggest influence on my writing that I've been consciously aware of. I even treated myself to the complete DVD set including the Peacekeeper Wars as a Christmas present. The idea of a living ship, of an alien that's a plant, of travel through wormholes, and helium farts (yes, you read that right) - fabulous! The relationships between all of the crew and the gradual romance between Crichton and Aeryn are all beautifully done. John Crichton, astronaut, falls through a wormhole to another universe and becomes part of a crew of escaping prisoners aboard a living ship - a Leviathan - called Moya as they attempt to evade the Peacekeepers.

4.Blake's Seven. My husband mocks my fondness for this lo-budget old scifi, but I loved it. It had a fab alien ship, elegant weapons and a hodge-podge of the most psychologically conflicting and demented characters ever. The constant sniping from sardonic Kerr Avon kept up the friction even when poor scenery and the odd dodgy storyline let it down. The iconic Deep Space Vehicle Two - better known as the Liberator - is a state-of-the-art space ship high-jacked by a band of criminals and led by the moral crusader Roj Blake as they attempt to evade the corrupt and tyrannical Federation. You could consider it an early version of Farscape without the romance.

So that's the first four, and I'll post the rest next week. But what's your top scifi series and why? :)

Creativity versus Marketing?

2011-09-14T00:01:00.015+01:00

I've read a lot of blogs over the past year, and very recently, about marketing books. Many seem to be of the opinion that you shouldn't submit to a publisher without having researched your market for your book and without a foolproof marketing plan. Some say you shouldn't even WRITE the darn book without having researched it. What?! What happened to writing for the joy of it?! What happened to writing the book you want to read?! What happened to art for art's own sake?

The truth of it is that it depends entirely on why you decided to write and, more to the point, why you want to be published. A lot of people might say that I've gone about the whole process the wrong way. I wrote the story that I had exploding in my head, the kind of book I'd love to read but that no other author had quite gotten around to writing. I wrote the story that haunted my dreams, that consumed every waking moment, that had me scribbling frantically for six weeks as though my very life depended on it. In some ways my sanity certainly did.

Only then did I look at it and think 'Hmmm, now what? Maybe I could get this published?' I split the two stories I seemed to have, and concentrated on editing and polishing the first one. At the same time I started looking at the whole process of publishing and researched a (very short) list of agents in the UK that accepted scifi. I read blogs, books and articles on the whole writing and submitting process. I spent a year working at it and submitting with mixed results, and then hit a dead end.(As stats, I had one request for the full, two agents say it was well written, and various forms of rejection.)

At the same time I got to meet and friend a few writers on Facebook, all with differing views on the whole publishing system. One had just had her fantasy series accepted for publication, and encouraged me to submit to US publishers. Another opened my eyes to the potential of self-publishing. I had my view point adjusted rather severely on several subjects, and all to the good! I re-edited my book to US spellings and conventions and researched a handful of independent publishers that appealed to me and that I hoped would see my book likewise. I also researched the various aspects of self-publishing - you can see the results of my experiments by clicking the tags for POD, self-publishing and creativity. But I was very quickly offered a contract for my MS. The US clearly has a bigger appetite for scifirom than the UK!

So now I have the task of promoting myself and my work (or rather continuing to do so). I'm no expert in marketing, but I'm willing to learn and work hard. But I've gone from worrying about whether anyone would want to publish my work to worrying if anyone will buy it. :-/

I don't have any issue with those who write to the market with the intention of making at least a living out of it. I would love to be able to write full time, but I won't know if that's achievable until my book is released and I start to see some stats. But I don't think I'm the kind of author who could ever write solely to please the market. For me that would be a passionless pursuit.

Is there a way to be creative AND marketable? Absolutely. I believe it should be possible and I guess I'm going to find out.

So why do you write and why are you seeking publication? :)

Review - Consorts of Heaven by Jaine Fenn

2011-09-13T00:01:00.003+01:00

My review of Consorts of Heaven by Jaine Fenn is now live on the Fantasy Book Review website here. "A perfect combination of sci-fi and fantasy." :)

Review - Principles of Angels by Jaine Fenn

2011-09-12T00:01:00.003+01:00

My review of Jaine Fenn's Principles of Angels is now live on the Fantasy Book Review website here. "This is sci-fi with a fantasy twist and just a touch of romance." Loved this series and can't wait for the fifth book. :)

Scifi Sunday #3

2011-09-11T00:01:00.001+01:00

Hi all and welcome to another #scifi snippet. Thanks for stopping by. :) Gethyon is on the run - can he evade his pursuers or will he agree to their demands?

The bike jolted hard beneath them as though it had struck something. Callon screamed as Gethyon fought to correct their flight, but another impact set them careering perilously close along the cliff edge.

He yanked the Trilobyke toward safety, and straight into a collision with another modified bike. Both engines screamed as his opponent kept his bike abreast of Gethyon’s, the rider leaning hard into them. Gethyon drove his fingers deep into his controls to jerk his bike forward with a burst of acceleration, and the attacking craft dropped behind. With a swift glance over his shoulder, he turned right, away from the cliffs, darting across the path of the slower craft as they left it behind.

A shape zoomed up into the corner of his eye on the left, and he spared it a quick glance. Tyos, his augmented glider faster than Gethyon’s but lighter in frame, closed in on them and hovered millimeters from the rear vanes. To his right, another heavier Trilobyke moved in alongside and nudged them.

“Land!” the rider of the Trilobyke yelled at him.

I have a thing for Weird Plants ...

2011-09-07T00:07:00.000+01:00

... or so it seems. A friend of mine has commented on various plant photos that I've posted and told me that they creep her out. I don't know whether it's a perception on her part or a twist in my psyche. In my defence, I will say that my mother was a professional florist and obsessive gardener, so maybe it's a part of my heritage. Rather than being disturbed by it, said friend's astute comments have led to story inspirations, so I thought I'd share some of the pictures with you. Then maybe you can tell me whether I have a freaky thing for plants!

Bergamot

Passionflower

Aquilegia

Cone Flower

Clematis

This last one inspired one of my favourite pieces, and an unusually gruesome one for me.

As he stared down at her, Jinx gazed wide-eyed over his shoulder with bemusement written over her face as something velvet-soft draped itself across his shoulders in a gentle caress. Irritated, his focus on his captive, Keir shrugged it off, but soon more feather-light touches stroked over his torso. He sat up abruptly, releasing Jinx's arms and glancing behind him. Long, langorous petals petals like wide ribbons of deep rose satin with delicately feathered edges were drifting over him in slow, graceful sweeps. One wrapped itself lovingly around his injured arm and he flinched at the sudden sting as though acid had been dripped into his wounds, a hissed breath of pain forced from him at the shock of it as he tried to jerk his arm free. The petal merely coiled tighter with unexpected steel in its grip, prickling wherever it touched in sharp contrast to the initial softness of its caresses. More had entwined themselves unnoticed around his legs and waist in silken coils that had an impossible strength, and burned as he tugged against them.

So am I weird? Or did you find some inspiration among the petals too? :-P

Are Contests a Winner?

2011-08-31T09:50:00.000+01:00

What are your views on writing contests? Are you a big fan and a prolific competitor? Do you think having one or more awards helps your career and/or book sales as an author? Do they present you with an interesting challenge, or do you feel they are a waste of time?

Until this year, I'd never even considered entering a writing competition. I'd looked at a few and read blog posts on those who had entered and even been placed in various writing awards, but hadn't felt the need for it myself. I'm still not sure of the benefits, and at the moment have no plans to write anything purely for competition purposes. However ...

A book review site that I've written a few reviews for posted a short story competition a while back. They wanted a fantasy short between 2,000 and 5,000 words. By coincidence, I happened to be working on a fantasy short that came within that range, an oddity in itself! For one thing, I haven't written fantasy in almost 25 years and short stories are not my strong point. There's no award for winning. My interest was completely mercenary - the prize is an iPad, or two runner-ups get a Kindle, squee! So I went for it. Winners aren't being announced until November, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up. After all, I read stuff every day that I rate as good or better than my own.

But it got me thinking. I know various people who've entered competitions. I know you have to be wary about some of them. Does it really make that much difference to an author how many and what kind of awards they win? Does it encourage readers? Does it improve sales? Does it help you pitch a book if it won an award? I really don't know.

I've never been one for competitions but I've found myself looking some up over the past week. Maybe the fact that I've had my first book contracted by a publisher has finally convinced me I have something worthwhile of an award. That my lack of confidence is misplaced. Or maybe because I see so many of my fellow authors so excited over the whole process. Maybe I'm missing out on the fun. Whichever, I'm considering that next year I may put my book in for one or two contests. Anyone want to recommend some? :)

A Visit to Jimmy's Farm

2011-08-24T00:03:00.000+01:00

For those of you who haven't seen it, Jimmy's Farm was made famous as a series on the BBC. It was the story of one man's attempt to set up a farm with the rare breed Essex Pig, and has now become a tourist attraction. I was a little dubious about going as I've heard mixed reviews on the place even though I watched the series avidly, but I was pleasantly surprised. Of course, it had one magical thing that convinced me to go in the first place. It has a butterfly house .... :)

Clipper

I have to say, their butterfly house is one of the best I've been to! There were dozens flitting around the enclosure, and some amazing plants too. The ground was pretty wet and muddy underfoot, but it was worth it.

Bergamot

I'm not sure that there's enough on the farm to keep a family interested for an entire day, but it definitely took us the morning to look round it all and enjoy the butterflies. The entrance fee was less than I've paid for other attractions including a butterfly house alone.

Blue Moon Butterfly. The photo doesn't show it but those white patches with the indigo edging glow!

Blue Morpho.

But before I become completely obsessed and mislead you into thinking butterflies are the only thing there, they aren't. It's a pig farm so, yep, there are pigs! Mostly the Essex Pig which is pink with a black back and shoulders. But what about these little cuties?

Tamworth Pig

Peacock.

Rhea

Sheep

There are also goats, other varieties of sheep, ferrets, rabbits, chickens, ducks, turkeys, ponies and guinea pigs. There's a good playground, a couple of ponds that are pleasant to sit by and eat your lunch although the nearby railway track makes its presence known with the odd passing train. Then there are the woodland walks.

The walks are very nicely set out, and there are areas for the kids to do den building.

There's also a shop selling mainly whole and/or organic foods including meat from the farm itself. It's a tad on the expensive side for my budget but I did treat myself to a bottle of organic lime cordial that I haven't seen to buy anywhere else in years. There are a couple of craft shops, a restaurant and an outdoor cafe. You can buy animal food from the entrance although you're warned not to feed the pony as it bites, and there are signs telling you not to feed the pigs out on the farm.

All in all it made for a pleasant morning out, and my kids enjoyed themselves. And better still, all three fell asleep in the car on the way home. :)

Monarch

Ducklings on the pond

The last of Harry Potter?

2011-08-18T00:03:00.003+01:00

So, after much too-ing and fro-ing on Facebook, I finally managed to arrange to see the last Harry Potter film with a fellow fan. Wow. I had worried that the film would drag like the previous two, which were tedious to say the least, but this one kind of made up for it. :)

Okay, first a warning - potential spoilers coming up! If, like me, you've already read all the books prior to seeing the film, then you know the story. Of all the films this seemed to follow the book the most closely, although there were certain elements removed, and others that just seemed a bit of a bolt out of the blue or grasped from no-where if you haven't read the book. The story behind the Grey Lady seemed to have been seriously edited or lost along the way, which jarred slightly. The part of Dumbledore's brother, Aberforth, had been hugely reduced. I had considered taking my nine-year-old daughter to see the film, but the final scene at Gringotts seemed far more bloody and grim than I remembered from the book - unnecessarily so. I think probably most Potter followers have already got the idea that Voldemort is a BAD man and I don't believe that needed underlying quite so graphically. It also came as a major relief for Hermione and Ron to FINALLY get it together. I've fretted that ten chapters is a long time to get two of my characters to realize they love each other - seven books to do so appears extreme! And if, like me, you're a bit of a sap, prepare to take a generous supply of tissues for at least one section of the film that almost had me bawling out loud even in a public cinema.

The action is pretty much non-stop and all the familiar favourites are there. The final battle over Hogwarts is impressive and heart-wrenching. Clumsy plant-obsessed Neville turns hero and there's a brief happily-ever-after section at the end.Overall I'd rate this an A and I can't wait to buy the DVD to complete the set. I don't think I'll bother watching Part One of the Deathly Hallows again though.

Two years.

2011-08-17T00:03:00.029+01:00

My SFR story Keir is two years old today. Two years! I can't believe it. Two years ago today I sat at my computer, 10 pages of an old short story clutched in one hand as my kids played out in the garden, and going insane. I felt like I was disappearing. That beyond the labels of 'mother' and 'housewife' (both of which I was proud of but it seemed something was missing) 'I' no longer existed. I know saying that I wanted to find myself sounds a bit corny, but that's what it was. Reclaiming something of who I'd been, who I really wanted to be, before I completely lost touch with that part of my life. So it wasn't only Keir's redemption that I wrote over the following six weeks. It was mine.

Two years on and I can't quite believe how far I've come, and yet with the sobering thought of how far I still have to go. Keir is contracted to a publisher and I've just submitted my first set of pre-edits, but having a contract isn't the end of it. There's still plenty of work to be done to get Keir to its projected release date of April 2012. There will be promoting, marketing and editing to do. I'm glad in many ways for the advice of friends and fellow authors that have prepared me for some of it, but I know it won't be easy. I still have other pieces to work on elsewhere, a family and household to run and, come October, another university course to study. I'm facing the fact that I probably have another two years work in my current projects before I'd need to start anything new. I already have two follow on books ready to edit, another half written, a scifi novella just finished and a post-apocalyptic prequel that's about 15K into an anticipated 50K. I have a fantasy short entered into a competition for November and already have ideas for expanding it into a novella. I have a scifi short up on Smashwords and the vague idea of putting together an anthology of speculative fiction at some stage.

Gethyon - scifi novella

Sometimes I wonder where it all came from! But more, I can't wait to see where it goes ...

Sunday

2011-08-14T00:01:00.016+01:00

To anyone who has managed to find their way here without the link, my deepest apologies for feeling unable to post this Sunday despite signing up. Usually I have posts scheduled in advance but not this week. And then other things came up. Sh*t happens. :(

A huge, huge thank you to everyone who stopped by last week and commented, and to all my visitors. :)

Leaping Lemurs!

2011-08-10T00:01:00.004+01:00

So, as promised, here are the photos from my lemur encounter at Linton Zoo. If you happen to be near there any time in the future, it comes highly recommended!

This is one of the Mongoose Lemurs, who was so determined to get to the food bowl that he wasn't shy about using a passing human to reach his goal! Lemurs are named after the lemures (ghosts or spirits) of Roman mythology due to the ghostly vocalizations, reflective eyes, and the nocturnal habits of some species. I was curious about their weight - I've had a chinchilla as a pet and they're very light, more fur than flesh. The Mongoose lemur is smaller than the Red Ruffed and probably weighs in about the same as a fully grown kitten/young cat.

This is Ruby, a Red Ruffed Lemur and my favourite. Ruby and her son Charlie (see the picture below) were the only ones who would consent to be petted. The fur is amazing! I thought it would be like a cat's, but it's much denser, more like sheep's wool and yet very soft.

Charlie

That's carrot he's munching on by the way. Apparently their favourite food is banana and grapes, but too much fruit makes them overweight.

Their 'paws' are hand-like - the palms are bare skin (and a bit chilly from the feel of it!) with nails rather than claws. Ruffed Lemurs actually build nests for their young and can have up to six at a time - the only species of lemur that does this instead of carrying their young around. One parent remains at the nest while the other forages.

One of the Crowned Lemurs didn't care who or what she had to climb over for her stick of carrot. You can't get much closer than that! Did you know that in Madagascar, the poorer people eat lemurs? They make a cheap and easy meal because the tourists tame them. :(
Both the Crowned and the Mongoose Lemurs are classed as Vulnerable. The Red Ruffed is classed as Endangered. The lemurs aren't being killed directly. Human beings destroy the rainforests that lemurs need to survive. I find it sad that pure human greed is pushing this animals toward the risk of extinction.I'd love to see them in Madagascar one day, and I hope that in the future we won't all be reduced to seeing them just at a zoo because there are no longer any left in the wild.

Mongoose Lemurs.Baby Tia with her mum.

Crowned Lemurs. The one on the left is the female. Males have paler faces and less of the red hair.

A handful of lemur!

Ruby isn't too sure about that stick of parsnip.

Family portrait - baby Tia and parents.

Hitting 40

2011-08-03T00:01:00.026+01:00

For some people, turning 40 is the beginning of the long, slow slide toward old age, senility, and death. Whoops, sorry, was that a bit strong? :-P

What does it mean for me? Mostly, it's just another number. My younger sister will take the mickey that I've reached another 'landmark' before her. My husband already considers me to have hit my mid-life crisis two years ago when I dyed my hair for the first time, got my first tattoo and started street dance classes at the same time as diving into a writing frenzy. It's only recently that I've taken note myself of the fact that I'm not eighteen any more. But I have even more reason to celebrate my birthday this year.

For one thing, my first book is going to be published. Squeeee! Okay, not until April 2012 (fingers crossed!), but the wheels are moving. Less than two years after writing it I'm pretty stunned to be thinking about being a published author rather than just an aspiring one. As my sister said, that's the kind of birthday present that's hard to beat! :)

And for my bonus gift, I get to fulfil one of my lifetime ambitions (aside from the publishing one). A trip to Linton Zoo to feed lemurs. Lemurs! Another squeee! I LOVE lemurs. Especially the red ruff lemur. At my local zoo in Colchester you have to take a train ride to see the lemurs up close. This time, I'll get REALLY close. Apparently they jump on you. I can't wait! (and I'll post pics. Lots and lots of pics!)

I'm also hoping to save up enough money to buy a Kindle. I have to admit to having a rather sceptical view of ebooks until recently. I much prefer a print book. But since my own will be coming out in electronic form, it seems only right that I should have the medium on which to read it. Right?

And then I bought myself this gorgeous digital print. Isn't it beautiful? This is done by a friend of mine, Trée George, and you can click on the image to see it, and many others, on his website.

I also fulfilled another ambition by getting to wear a sari for the Colchester Carnival. It's been a good year for achievements. :)

All in all, turning forty IS a big landmark for me, but it's not about my age. It's about the things I have to celebrate aside from making it to the big four-o. And having the people I care about here to share it with me. :)

So what did you do for the big four-o? Or is it so far away that you wonder what all the fuss is about? :)

A Flutter Through Friday Woods

2011-08-02T08:05:00.002+01:00

My hubs is the outdoor type. Not the kind of Bear Grylls level, but he likes to be out and about. Yesterday he set me and our daughter a challenge - to take a photo of a dragonfly while traipsing through a local woodland. I'm not in the least competitive, but she is! So off we went with cameras at the ready and the two younger boys in tow.

Common Centaury

I'm not really a pink girl, but I thought these little flowers were pretty, and the local butterflies were being too unsettled for a photo. And then I got lucky.

The Small Copper isn't especially rare, but it's the first time I've gotten a photo. It did cost me two rips in my favourite skirt due to brambles, and I stuck my foot in a patch of stinging nettles. Ow.

A slightly tatty Speckled Wood.

Large White.

Small Skipper. Do you know how I know this is a Small Skipper and not an Essex Skipper, being as we are IN Essex? The ends of its antennae are orange. That's the ONLY difference! If it wasn't for my fab camera, I wouldn't have been able to see that.

As is normal for these little excursions, my hubs got us lost. I don't know WHY I still let him navigate when I know the consequences. But there you go. A short walk turned into a longer one, but we made it back within sight of the car park in the end. And on the way, my daughter won.

(Well, strictly speaking this is a damselfly not a dragonfly but shhhhh! I won't tell if you don't.)

Common Blue Damselfly

Facebook Friends and Transformers 3

2011-07-28T08:24:00.001+01:00

Not as odd a combo as the title sounds. On Wednesday I met my third Facebook friend in the flesh for the first time, fellow scifi writer Laurel Kriegler. :) As my house is currently in disarray with boxes of stuff everywhere, and flooring lifted ready for new radiators (and because it freaks my husband out a little to find my Facebook friends materializing in our home), I suggested a film and dinner. I don't get to do either of those much these days. So tickets were duly booked for Transformers 3 (in 3D no less!) and Laurel got to meet my little brood of monsters for a couple of hours. :-P

As movies go, it was pretty good. One scene especially reminded me why I love scifi so much over other genres. Sure, you can get car chases with explosions and smashes and gunfire, but how many have cars transforming into super robots that tear up the tarmac and somersault through the air? How many car chases have the hero thrown through the windscreen, tossed over the flaming debris of crashing trucks to be caught by an Autobot on the other side? Of course, spectacular special effects are considered the norm now and no film would be without them, but it still impresses me. Maybe I need to get out more ...

On the whole I'd rate this a good but not fantastic film. I didn't like the use of old black and white footage at the start, however authentic it might be. It seemed a bit rough and patchwork, and I've seen amateur movie makers do a better job. I'm not exactly sure what the point of John Malkovich's character was aside from a little warped comic relief. In fact, several of the secondary characters seemed to be hanging around without much of a part to play in the whole, aside from reminding us that they'd been in the previous film. And I hated the fact that the Decepticons seemed so very invincible in human terms, and yet we beat them in the end with our inferior human technology. The mega-huge Decepticon Shockwave seemed especially impossible to destroy and yet - yep - it was.

Having said that, the overall story line was good. There were a couple of good twists in it (can't tell you what they are as I never do spoilers!). I question some of the comic relief during the apocalyptic scenes at the end, and Witwicky's girlfriend Carly Spencer seemed nothing more than a compulsory glamour token proffering the required terrified screams at the appropriate time. However, the final battle was AWESOME! Leonard Nimoy provides an iconic voice for Sentinel Prime and you can play spot the Star Trek connections. Bumblebee uses a sound clip from Star Trek II - 'your friend' taken from Spock's line 'I am and always shall be your friend.' - and Sentinel Prime quotes 'The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.' from Spock's death scene. Alan Tudyk had a very minor role as Dutch but played his slightly deranged character well and John Turturro's character (Seymour Simmons) seemed a bit tongue in cheek as the ex-Sector Seven fruitcake but entertaining nonetheless. There's also the kudos of two real life astronauts (Buzz Aldrin and Bill O'Reilly) taking a part in the film.

The 3D was good for the battle scenes but I wouldn't pay out for it again. Overall, I'd rate this film a B+. Entertaining, visually impressive but the acting and the storyline sucked a little. If you want to know the whole story with spoilers you can check out the Wikipedia entry here.