All posts tagged Star Minds universe

Writer Wednesday


Last week I wrote almost 19K, but 15K were that expanded outline that was the original version. By Friday I was able to start adding meat (and deleting some of that outline stuff that didn’t really belong) and will continue this week before moving to Part 2 that has less prose outline underneath, since it’s a comic.

I have considered asking one of my artist friends to redraw that comic, but I’d need to rewrite the story first anyway, so I might as well just do the new prose version and forget the comic. But I recycled a couple of frames in Silvery Earth Kids, when Copperscales tells Torik some history, haha!

I have published Missions 6-10 of the Lone Wolves Team, but you can also wait until I put them all together in one volume. Missions 1-5 is out at 99c, this second volume is at 2.99$ as will the others be. Six in total, for 30 missions.

I’m slowing down the publishing after the summer, especially since l don’t think l’ll sell anything at Worldcon. I’m still debating if actually getting a table or not. Oh, and since the dreaded summer heat is here, I’ll also discontinue the Backstage Pass on the publisher’s page, at least until the end of summer.

You probably know by now that I hibernate in summer, and even though I have two scheduled trips to colder countries, I don’t think I’ll have the brains to do much. I’ll be home, writing, that’s for sure! 🙂 Wishing you a wonderful week! 🙂

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2 Comments
by Barb on 05/06/2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 05/06/2019

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2019/06/05/writer-wednesday-371/

Writer Wednesday


Last week I wrote almost 14K, wrapping the Lone Wolves and even writing the two short stories I need to submit for anthos. I already submitted them too. And I wrote a third that will possibly work for another antho, but I haven’t sent it to the curator yet.

So, productive week, hopping through series (Star Minds Universe, Future Earth Chronicles, Vampires Through the Centuries and Silvery Earth – yep, I think I touched them all!), the writing is still going great. Everything else… meh!

I lost almost an hour (bad connection? Firefox issues? Old computer? No idea, but it was very frustrating!) to gather the audiobook links after a Google Alert informed me I was on Audible. Firebird wasn’t there yet, but The Hooded Man and Otherside are available at most places at last. Except Kobo, still lagging behind. And I still have codes valid for US, AU and CA of Otherside in anyone is interested.

Well, I did publish the first five missions of the Lone Wolves Team, as promised. But, after Kris Rusch’s blog on Patreon and in spite of their recent ToS changes, I ended up closing my Patreon account, and after David Gaughran’s lengthy explanation of the MailChimp debacle, I closed that account too. My newsletter was discontinued anyway, useless to keep it open.

I didn’t open new accounts yet, though. After Tori was locked out of her Facebook account for a day, I was considering adding an admin to the author page, but then gave up the thought. I haven’t joined Pinterest or Ko-fi yet, and still haven’t decided which webcomics sites to join – but then, if there’s one project that might make me go through Kickstarter stress, it’s Silvery Earth Kids, so… I’ll ponder my option a little longer on that one.

As for the things that were on Patreon, I’m going to start a regular feature on the publisher’s page. Every Sunday Backstage Pass will take you behind the scenes of the books. So, for readers only, hoping they’ll follow that instead of the newsletter. I will post articles, deleted scenes, alternate openings, etc. starting next Sunday. If interested, be sure to follow UPB that doesn’t have a Facebook page because it was supposed to be a static place to find the books.

I might make the Pinterest page under that logo and Ko-fi as the writer/artist… I’ll think about it during this week as I get back to the Legends of the Moren Empire and Silvery Earth Kids… Have a great week!

 

3 Comments
by Barb on 22/05/2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 22/05/2019

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2019/05/22/writer-wednesday-369/

Writer Wednesday


And of course last week I wrote more than 20K… now that I had dived into Rogue! I even finished Draft Zero, but then, I always say I have trouble starting a story. And probably tend to wrap it up too quickly, so I’m going through it one last time before sending it off to the editor. Also because I added the flashbacks after I was done with the present, and I need to see if it flows! 😉

I have written Hal’s mother’s story and now I’ll be writing a couple of stories for anthologies (a charity anthology and a traditional market submission) before going back to Silvery Earth. About the Silvery Earth Kids, I now have more than seventy strips – six are taken for another anthology, and they will come out in black&white sometime this summer, I think – and still need to introduce a character.

I’m still busy with cleaning up, coloring and lettering, though, so I didn’t have time to do the visually impaired version yet. Tori knows she’ll get first look, though! As soon as I’m ready, hopefully sometime next month. The other two hopefully short stories will be one in 25th century Paris (that’s Future Earth Chronicles Book 5 for whoever will make it that far), and the other is going to be the Battle of Chittor from a new point of view (that’s Kristine the Youngest for whoever follows the Vampires through the Centuries).

The Future Earth Chronicles paperbacks are done, but in a weird way. If you buy all five, you’ll see they alternate cream and white paper. That’s because you can’t change that once the book is published, even if you haven’t sold a copy. Sigh. With Createspace there was only the white paper option, but still… Anyhow, I’m ordering my copies tomorrow and hopefully next week or the following I can show you how they all came out.

Speaking of paperbacks, I got my copies of the two portal anthologies… don’t they look neat? 😉 That colorful table cloth isn’t mine, I had them sent to my parents’ and opened the enveloppe at our local market…

And I believe there’s a new free story by Sarah Stegall up on the Infinite Bard, go check it out! 🙂 Have a great week!

1 Comment
by Barb on 15/05/2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 15/05/2019

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2019/05/15/writer-wednesday-368/

Writer Wednesday


Last week I wrote less than 10K (but more than 9K anyway), but since the yearly total so far il over 200K, I’m not really worried that I might fall behind. Also because I write consistently all year round, so even if a month or a week I might have a lower wordcount for various reasons, I usually catch up the next.

What slowed me down was getting into Rogue. I wanted to write it in the order you’ll read it, and just couldn’t get going. Until I decided to just write the NOW and add the flashbacks later. Originally I wanted to start with his mother’s story, which would have given me room for flashbacks, but then I started his story, so I wrote one flashback and simply jotted down “Write X flashback here” at the end of each chapter.

Hopefully this will be a productive week, since I’m also off DayJob, but I need to clean the house of some clutter (both on bookshelves and in wardrobes) and make some paperbacks – one a day, hopefully, if I keep to the schedule. For the first one, I had to unpublish the previous version, unlink it from the Kindle version and start a new paperback. I think Brainwaves was the last paperback I did with CreateSpace, and now it’s gone the way of the dodo.

I also updated the headers of the blog and the publisher’s page (although on UPB I had to ask for help, since it didn’t update) so the old, illustrated cover is gone, except on the book’s page, where I post also the old covers. And I took the Goodreads Author widget off, since it kept showing the same old ugly covers. I’m on Goodreads, look me up without going via the sidebar of this blog, haha!

The first May post on Patreon was late, but I guess nobody noticed… I guess I still need to get used to having two online venues where I should post regularly, LOL! Coming up this month more Silvery Earth Kids strips (every Sunday @3$), an original beginning and a Lone Wolves Mission (Wednesdays @1$).

Also, if you want to just follow without becoming a patron, that option will send you all the public posts as they come out. I’m not sure of how it works, since the people l started following haven’t done any public post yet, but it’s a new feature for Patreon.

I’m also doing a black&white version of six strips for an upcoming anthology, I shall announce it whenever the curator tells me to! And on this very blog’s header, you have a preview of what the Star Minds Lone Wolves Team ebook covers will look like. Hariel is by the awesome Ravven, the background is a NASA picture. It will be the same for all six books.

Now I better go back to writing! Have a great week! 🙂

2 Comments
by Barb on 08/05/2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 08/05/2019

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2019/05/08/writer-wednesday-367/

Writer Wednesday


Last week was another 11K week, wrapping up the Lone Wolves Team and adding something to Silvery Earth Kids. Now I’m on Hal the Rogue and probably I’ll add his mother’s story at the end, since, like the other Lone Wolves books, his story starts with the hunt for Mr. H – that’s year 5245 of the Star Nations or 2053 on Earth in the alternative future of Star Minds.

Yesterday two more audiobooks should have gone live, but I will try to provide the links next week. I’m still trying to find the links for Otherside on Amazon and Kobo, way over 30 days since I hit that “publish” button! 😦 If Findaway Voices can’t get me on Amazon, I don’t think I’ll do many more audiobooks with them. Maybe a couple more, because I loved two of the narrators and would love to hear their voices again, but that’s it. And not before the end of the summer anyway.

Next week I’m off DayJob and hope to catch up on paperbacks. Not that I hear anyone clamoring for them, but if I don’t do them, nobody will buy them, right? 😉 And I’ll need some paperbacks if I get a table in the Creators’ Alley at Dublin Worldcon. Booked the flights (even for 20BooksEdinburgh), now time will fly – hopefully. And the summer heat won’t kill me before I get there! 😀

By the way, I will NOT be a panelist in Dublin (my first Worldcon without panels, yay!), so I better start looking for a space in the Creators’ Alley and bring the curated anthologies to that table! I have at least one other author at the con, Fulvio Gatti, he might help sell some! 🙂

Two unmissable posts this week: Great Advice from Joe Lansdale reposted by Dean Welsey Smith and Taming the Critical Voice by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

And since it’s May 1st… here’s the link to the Infinite Bard! The first three free stories are up! 🙂 Go check them! Show us some love! Check all the awesome authors participating, including yours truly!

The Infinite Bard, an international collection of authors who banded together to offer free fiction: epic adventure, spine-tingling action, thrills, chills, romance, humor, mystery. The Infinite Bard launches with three exciting stories. A brand new story will follow every two weeks. Visit the hub at http://TheInfiniteBard.wordpress.com/the-infinite-bard/ to see what’s new, then visit each author’s web site to enjoy each new story as it’s released.

Dive in to the first of The Infinite Bard’s exotic tales of excitement:

Diamond of the Sky by Azure Avians
Blind Spot by Donald J. Bingle
First Command by Chris A. Jackson

And I guess that’s all for now! Have a wonderful week! 🙂

1 Comment
by Barb on 01/05/2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 01/05/2019

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2019/05/01/writer-wednesday-366/

Writer Wednesday


Last week I was back to almost 13K, so I’m doing just fine. I hope to finish the missions of the Lone Wolves Team by Easter so I can concentrate on the last Star Minds Lone Wolves novel, now called Rogue (instead of New Thief). I have no idea how long that story will be, so I might have to write a couple of shorts to go with it, LOL! Although a long-haired 20-something rogue might be quite inspiring…

And the anthologies are both live! Fantasy Portals eBook universal link and paperback. More Portals eBook universal link and paperback. Check out these great stories of portals! 🙂 And stay tuned for some authors interviews…

Publishing weekend means I uploaded also Legends of the Moren Empire Volume 1, although I won’t be writing volume 2 and 3 until mid-summer. Well, as soon as I finish with the Lone Wolves I’ll get back to it, so it might be June… But I won’t publish them before September anyway.

Anyhow, if you’re up for some epic fantasy, it’s available as eBook for now. I’ll do all the paperbacks for my own books in May.

I have 50 strips of the Silvery Earth Kids, but I’m still in the process of coloring and lettering them. At first they will be available only on my Patreon, but I’ll do a paperback at the end of the first 52 strips (one a week = a year) as well as a version for the visually impaired that will be in eBook form at first, and possibly in audio later – maaaaybe! 😉 And I’ll probably upload the strips to some webcomic site as well sometime next year!

Yesterday I didn’t write because I was brainstorming with my map and my Silvery Earth calendar where and when exactly the story takes place. I had to change a few sentences when I realized that Copperscales couldn’t be the daughter of a first generation Fajrulo (The Golden Goddess meantioned in The Sun Sword), so she’s Bloodfire’s granddaughter instead (he’s a main character The Sun Sword).

So the story is set in Inex, a northern town seen in The Path of Water but fifty years earlier, so it’s still just a big village with a castle, and a small kingdom of its own. And I drew the prince heir of that kingdom, Lambert who will soon enter the strip/webcomic. Here he is in all his plump childhood! 🙂 I wanted to add a rounder child but the only ones who might be overweight at that time could only be nobles or royalty, so…

 

After Easter there’s a series of national holidays for Italy, so I hope to put in some publishing stuff. I need to put the Vampires Through the Centuries on Draft2Digital for when they open the distribution to GooglePlay. I also added the distribution to libraries through them. Still trying to find all the links for the audiobook of Otherside, but still can’t find it on Kobo or Amazon.

And I’ll probably send out a newsletter as well, no longer regular, but it’s been four months and I think I have a few things to say to whoever is still subscribed there! 😉 I guess that’s all for today… have a great week! 🙂

 

2 Comments
by Barb on 17/04/2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 17/04/2019

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2019/04/17/writer-wednesday-364/

Writer Wednesday


Last week I reached my first 150K and the first three months of the year are not over yet. Although this week it will probably be a veeeery low  wordcount because I am putting together two anthologies and revising Legends of the Moren Empire Volume 1 before sending it off to Mighty Editor. So, just a little meat on what’s already there.

I wrote 17K in English and 4K in Italian on both projects. Now the Italian one is with a beta-reader who will hopefully tell me if I nailed the revisions and if the end is not too rushed. For the Legends of the Moren Empire, I’m sure Mighty Editor will catch any problem. Yes, she’s awesome like that! 🙂

I received my proof of Otherside paperback and decided to resave the cover as CMYK – the RGB version has too strong reds! 😉 So if you get it now, it’s probably going to look better. I might order more copies closer to 20BooksEdinburgh and the Worldcon this summer. Still no links to the audio book, but will post them as soon as I have them. It’s not been 10 business days yet.

Audiobook 2 is under production and I’ve signed the contract for the third narrator. I’m very happy I found ways to communicate to the second narrator how to pronounce certain words (namely, Zindagi for now, since it was the only one that came up in the audition).

I never tried to listen to the Kindle’s text-to-speech after the first attempts, but hopefully the audiobooks will sound more like I wanted the books to sound! 😀 I also had to check the pronunciation of other words for Otherside (namely, the kukri knife, it has 3 different pronounciations and the narrator had used the American one, but she changed it to my preferred version.

All in all it was an interesting experience! I’m glad I have a few weeks before I have to check the next audiobook, though! 😉 Back to ebook and paperbacks for now – the anthologies, and then for that too I can have a couple of weeks break before preparing the next ebook. I’ll probably do all the paperbacks of the books that came out so far in May, though.

Next week I’m going back to Star Minds Lone Wolves. Fifteen more missions of the Team and then I’ll write another Lone Wolf story, so that later this year I can do 3 box sets – the youngsters, the elders and the rest, haha! Also, in April Star Minds Lone Wolves Shorts goes wide at last, yay. KU experiment failed completely – not one download or sale – so no more exclusivity! 😉

Now I better go working to those anthologies,  hoping the publishing drama of authors caught plagarizing, stealing images and going wild ends soon… Have a great week! 🙂

 

3 Comments
by Barb on 27/03/2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 27/03/2019

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2019/03/27/writer-wednesday-361/

Writer Wednesday


Last week I beat my previous record! Last year one week I wrote 19K… Last week it was 20K+! Two brand new stories, most of the second written on Saturday when I churned out 6K!

Okay, I might have had it easy, since it was the prose version of a comic book from the late 1990s, so I already had an outline and most of the dialog written, but considering how I failed with Lovers, I’m quite glad with these two! 🙂

Now, since one is under 10K and the other over, I will publish them together, to give you, the reader, more “meat” – two stories for 2.99$, that’s a bargain, right? Right? No? Oh, well…

It has a nice cover unlike some of the Double-Feature from the past… 😉 I gave up trying to find the two guys on DepositPhoto and decided to have only one cover for the two stories.

Kindle Countdown starting on Star Minds Lone Wolves Shorts in the UK and US stores! If you’re Amazon-addicted, you know what it means… 😉 It’s always free if you’re on KU, of course… at least for the next two months. Then I’ll definitely go wide! 😀

Across Continents went live and next month you can have Himalayas or you can wait until May and get all four (or five if you missed Book 1).

I have considered following Dean in his challenge, but I still have a Day Job, and even though I’m fast and prolific, I doubt I can write 5 books in 100 days.

I’ll be writing more Fairy Tales Revisited this month and then I’ll probably go back to the Star Minds Lone Wolves Team… are you following me on Patreon yet? Why not? 😉 Just kidding…

Audio update #2: I chose a narrator for the first audiobook and got the production notes template. Yikes. It’s like when I first signed up with Smashwords at the end of 2010 and started uploading stuff there and on Kindle (a few months later) in 2011… Learning how to format and pass through the meatgrinder and all that stuff. I’m sure it will get easier! 🙂

No writerly links this week either, so I wish you a wonderful week! 🙂

2 Comments
by Barb on 06/02/2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 06/02/2019

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2019/02/06/writer-wednesday-354/

Writer Wednesday


Last week I got my 10K down… in the next couple of weeks I’ll only have three days to write as much, but it was all in the yearly planning! October is busy with non-writerly things, but surely between November and December I can make my goal of half pulp-speed (500K).

This week I did manage almost 6800words to the end of Draft Zero… And I added some meat to make it look more like a short novel! Hopefully taking this back on the road so I can give the final touches when I get back and send it off to the proofreader the first week of November, on schedule! 🙂

Are you gearing up for NaNoWriMo? I never needed it (I started writing long before NaNoWriMo was even invented and now I’m addicted, LOL) but if you want some inspiration and a great collection of non-fiction to kickstart your writing career, don’t miss the NaNo Writing Tools bundle!

Looky look! Curated by Kevin J. Anderson! And look at those guests! My own writing guru, even more prolific than me, Dean Wesley Smith! Craig Martelle of 50BooksTo50K that I hope to meet in Edinburgh next year! Joanna Penn! Kris Rusch (my other writing guru)! Blaze Ward – I met him last year! 🙂

And some day I’ll meet also Jamie Ferguson, I did a small contribution to her book on bundles! 🙂 It’s a StoryBundle exclusive and you should grab it now along with the other books! 🙂 Whooppee!

If you’re still on the fence about trad or indie, this post by D2D gives a pretty fair view on both. Of course it’s up to you and what you want to do with your writing career, but don’t forget your writing is IP. Might feel it has no value, but that’s not true. The sky might not be falling, but there are big earthquakes in traditional publishing.

Elsa’s story is now live and the pre-order for Kristine is up! 🙂 Don’t miss the closing book of the Vampires Through the Centuries and the mighty battle of Chittor! 🙂 Okay, it’s no longer historical fantasy, since it’s in the decade 2005-2015… tagged it contemporary fantasy, is that correct? Anyhow, meet Kristine Van der Aas, the Dutch girl who moved to Mumbai for love and became a vampire…

And while Da Muse is in Italy to shoot his latest movie, I shall head out of the country for a few days… Did I mention both Da Muses tend to come to Italy when I head out of the country? But then, even when they don’t (John Wick Chapter 2), I don’t go looking for them on the sets, so… I’m not a fan, they’re Da Muses, LOL!

Have a great week! 🙂

3 Comments
by Barb on 17/10/2018  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 17/10/2018

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2018/10/17/writer-wednesday-339/

Writer Wednesday


And my writing streak came to a screeching halt Saturday morning at 7K. I fell on my face (2 stitches on the chin), didn’t break anything, but my right wrist is wrapped until next Tuesday. I’ll slowly restart (as soon as the major aches are gone, and they almost are, tomorrow I go back to work), but it definitely fucked my schedule.

I had to postpone the editing I had booked since I won’t be able to finish Wanderlust before the end of the month with all the travel inbetween, sigh. And I’ll have to make the corrections on Kristine one-handed, but next weekend I hope to be able to set up the pre-order.

And I did manage to publish Cherry’s story, although not in September as expected. A few days later, there you have it, Mercenary, the winged chick with retractile wings based on Kol-ian’s old implant! 🙂 And I would like to thank Ravven for making 2 versions of Cherry, which made it hard to choose! 🙂 (yes, it’s stock rendering, but I realized I was following her on DeviantART and asked her if she could do a variation of some poses…)

And that’s all for now. On Friday I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing (besides recovering from the stupid fall). Have a great week!

4 Comments
by Barb on 03/10/2018  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 03/10/2018

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2018/10/03/writer-wednesday-337/

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