My First School Event and a Reader's Poll

Next week I'll be going to the high school to talk to 3 English classes about the reality of being a writer. The teacher asked me to talk about publishing options, marketing and Nanowrimo. Whoo hoo! It's going to be a lot of fun.

There are so many things I'd like to talk about, but I only have an hour and a half. *laughs* Yeah, you know I can talk once I get started. So, to prevent me blabbing on forever on one topic, I've been working on a powerpoint to keep me moving forward.

The other thing I keep telling myself is to keep it simple and let them ask all the questions.

Have any of you visited local schools to talk about writing? How did it go? Any tips for me?

I'm really hoping that some of those 130 free copies of Stellar Cloud went to you guys. When you get around to reading it, chime in over at the poll for favorite story. ---> It's in the right sidebar. 

In other news...

• There will be more posts from the writer's conference next week.
• I'm plotting for my own Nanowrimo experience.
• Eagle Scout cake is on the schedule for this Friday. 
• Did I mention we got a new puppy when my mom took hers home? My daughter named her Rosalie, and she looks just like Chewy. Only smaller. 

And finally. I have to share this with you guys because I'm so proud of my son. He has such a kind easy going personality and this clip from his birthday highlights it perfectly. Set up: Hubby likes to tease and this was the first present we gave our 7 year old.

Reviews of Stellar Cloud

I'm so excited that I now have 4 reviews for Stellar Cloud on Amazon. The little snippets of feedback are very interesting and I'm enjoying them. And right now they balance my hubby's feedback.

He finally started reading them over the weekend. His comments were as follows.

The Rising--"I didn't get it."
The Sleeper--"I can't believe you wrote something so smutty." (Which means once again he didn't get the story. Makes me wonder if I'm just not clear, but he doesn't read science fiction so I'm trying not to worry too much.)
And I guess the next one he read had 1 swear word in it. So he stopped reading.

Reviews like that really make you hang your head. All night I wondered if I needed to go back and add to them so it was clear what I meant and not what he thought I was talking about. Then I remembered the whole "trust your reader" and the fact that hubby was not my target audience.

And then today I got this lovely review on Amazon.

"I hate short stories, because there is normally no character development, no fully developed scene, and the tiny stories are trite and end abruptly. This collection, however, pulled me in. It seems as if this set of stories was designed to set you up in a wonderfully written world, with compelling characters and then you get to imagine the story however you want. Each story leaves you with a feeling that it ended in the correct spot, that anything more or less would just ruin it. While I would love to read more, I'm actually happy with them as they are."

~J. Brook from New Jersey

Now I feel better. My one goal, the thing I worked harder on with these shorts than anything else, was making them NOT feel like the first chapter of something larger. So this review makes me very happy.

Stellar Cloud Poll, Weight Loss and Search For Knowledge

What a long week! I don't even know what I've been doing to be honest. Well, whatever it was, I'm ready for the weekend and visiting with my mom and sister who will be here this evening.

On Monday Amazon gave away 130 copies of STELLAR CLOUD (with my permission) and now I'm just hoping one of those people will be brave enough to write the first review for it. I'm really curious to see what people think of these stories.

I also hope those of you who wanted a copy grabbed one. If you did, Yay!! After reading it can you vote for your favorite story? I've put a poll over in the sidebar ---> Some of these ideas might become full length novels one day (and they might not), and I'd love to see which stories people connected to better. Consider yourself my guinea pigs!

 *sidenote--There are some really disturbing pictures online if you google guinea pig images*

And....moving on.

Last night I finished the weight loss portion of the MRC program and am now slowly adding new foods as I move into maintenance. Here are the numbers.

Total pounds lost (Since May 3rd of this year)--21.25
Total inches lost--------------------------------32!
Total percent body fat lost----------------------5.4%

No wonder I feel so much better. I'm going to try and get a copy of my before and after picture for you guys. And for myself as a reminder of what I CAN do and how I'd rather look and feel forever more.

Yesterday I also started a new chapter one to Search For Knowledge. Yeah, it's back on the table! I finally figured out why I didn't like it, and how to fix that. The conflict was "meh". Then the solution hit me. It was so simple and LOGICAL! See, my crazy erratic emotions simply mean it takes me LONGER to reach rational solutions, not that it's impossible.

I had Talia and Landry going off to find Orek (Jaron's homeworld) in search of answers all by themselves. In my mind I thought it would be best to keep things simple character wise by not adding people to the quest. DUMB! There questions are way too important and affect an entire planet. What government would send just two people to retrieve such information?

Now there will be a handful of people going with them (all still to be fleshed out and named), and of course at least one will have a slightly different agenda than our heroes. This will further complicate the problems already waiting for them on Orek.

Don't you just want to tell me DUH! Simple, STANDARD even, kind of fix. Now all I have to do is find a new and fresh way to do it.

STELLAR CLOUD is Live on Amazon

Well, I had a bit of an "accident" earlier this week. :)

I was in the process of setting up my Amazon account and testing the formatting for my short story anthology. It was late, I was drowsy from allergy medicine, and... Well, I hit "Save and Publish" instead of "Save as Draft".

Anyway, it is now up for grabs! I'd love for the reviews to come flowing in (hint hint). I also wanted to share the dedication page with you.

Thanks for always being here for me.

#Wipfire For My Anthology

Thanks for the great blogging ideas on Monday. Just feeling your support has helped me come up with stuff to write about.

Currently I'm focusing on just two of my writing projects--Fade Into Me (YA Fantasy) and Stellar Cloud (Science Fiction Anthology). They are the two that are closest to being finished so it's a logical place to start, don't you think?

Monday I went through two crit partners comments for Stellar Cloud and made a few tweaks. Then I went in search of an editor and cover artist. My goal is to get this done and self published by the end of October. I got so excited that I tweeted a wipfire for each of the six stories. Today I'm going to share them with you.

But first, did you know that 5/6 of these ideas started as something I wrote for a blogfest? True! They've changed a bit over the last year or so, but I just love the ideas in them. A couple of them have me asking, "How did they get here?" or "What might happen next?" But I have to say NO! Finish what I've got going and if I'm still thinking about these questions in a year or so I can pull them back out.

Here is a short blurb for each story followed by the #wipfire tweet.

The Rising
A soldier struggles with the emptiness left behind by amnesia until he learns he is more than the world would have him remember.

#wipfire If the vocalizers on the fallen ship still worked, the whole earth would feel his pain.

The Sleeper
The earth is desolate, and only one lonely ship of humans remains. They circle the solar system sending down one chosen man every twenty-five years to see if the planet is habitable.

#wipfire The other students chatted as they left, but Gareth stayed and wished for a real sky over his head.

Continuation
A woman must choose between a slow death from old age or submitting herself to the Continuation process. But does she really have a choice?

#wipfire Who knew that years of protesting Continuation would earn us the right to have our electrical impulses added to the human super computer?

Earth 4
A husband and wife may keep secrets, but this one could put an end to all of their dreams or be the beginning they longed for.

#wipfire Thank you for traveling on the Galaxy Gala. It’s been our pleasure to serve you and we hope you enjoy your new life.

Exiled
An assassin plays god, dealing out justice and mercy as he sees fit. When he’s put through the same process will he think it was merciful?

#wipfire I’d killed many men. Too many perhaps. This would be one of my saves.

Instinct
A mother’s instinct may be the only thing that can keep her alive on a deadly new planet.

#wipfire His last words echoed in my head, “Avalon is perfectly safe, I promise."

Thoughts?