All posts tagged Star Minds universe

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


So, I’ve been kindly reminded (meaning it was a general reminder, not to me personally) that professionals never talk about what they are writing or wrote until it is published. Therefore I’ll keep updating you on my yearly wordcount, but not what I’m working on.

Last week I wrote a little less than 9K, but Friday before lunchtime I got back the manuscript from the proofreader, so I spent from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning catching typo faeries on those short stories I wrote in the past month. And mailed four of them on Sunday morning (the rest are not open yet, so I jotted down the date on the calendar, lest I forget to submit them).

And I published the prose version of Silvery Earth Kids with a couple of related short stories. You might want to check that while you wait for the release of Magical Friends, it’s a very nice introduction with not too many spoilers for the novel, but filling in the background! 😉

Or you can get the paperback of the strip… December is definitely going to be Torik and Copperscales’s month, as you can see from my Facebook page! Stay tuned on more on these two! Should I interview them like I did in the past? Would you like a character interview?

And you can tell me which version you prefer, I won’t be offended it you think Ravven’s depiction (slightly modified in its colors) is better than my doodles! 😉 I haven’t even downloaded DAZ Studio yet, can’t imagine doing art with it anytime soon! So I’ll keep my ancient way of doing things – pencil and marker on paper, then scan and digital colors.

What can I say, this Gen X gal who grew up in the age of the typewriter and used to handwrite her first drafts up to 2015 in spite of being a typist likes her old “tech” too much. New things and continuous upgrades actually get on my nerves (can you hear me, Facebook?).

But! There’s only ONWARD, therefore I shall stop looking back. Keep writing and doodling and publishing and all that stuff. Even if some of those stories will never get off my hard-drive (or my old notebooks… got still plenty of those from the 80s and 90s)… well, it’s called practice, isn’t it? 😉

And excellent article by Kristen Lamb for writers old and new. In a glutted market, how can authors stand apart? Go read it. Now. Don’t be like me! 😉 I’m sure eventually I’ll find my readers, it’s just taking longer than expected. At least I’m learning patience, LOL!

Also, if you want a preview of what Star Minds Kids and Teens strip will be like, go check I Like My Science…MAD (Blaze Ward Presents Book 2)!

How mad, you ask? Come with us on a twisted journey of science gone wrong and gods rising to threaten us all. Of private detectives on the moon and dieselpunk ladies saving the day. Academics making dark pacts and taking vengeance into their own hands.
Mad.

The second Blaze Ward Presents anthology asks writers and readers to envision mad science and entertain us all.

They succeeded. Come see.

I would like to thank Blaze Ward for kicking me into gear with that strip. I had been postponing it for too long! Go check the adventures of Child Kol-ian and read the other mad science stories in this awesome collection! 🙂

Here’s an open call for you cat-lovers out there! It should be well-known by now that yours truly has no pets and no affection for furry friends… but if you do, check this out:

It’s time to turn the “man and his dog wandering through a dystopian world” trope on its head, and tell the stories about cats and their women – their badass women – in appropriately dystopian settings. It’s time for CAT LADIES OF THE APOCALYPSE!
We’re looking for short stories feature a strong woman with at least one cat, in tales that bring hope in the darkest of times.
Length: 4000 – 8000 words
Deadline: January 15, 2020
Pay: Royalty-Share, via PayPal
More information: www.camdenparkpress.com/cats 🐈

And. last but not least, it’s Infinite Bard day again! Hop off to the site for a new free short story! 🙂 Have a great week!

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by Barb on 27/11/2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 27/11/2019

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2019/11/27/wednesday-weekly-roundup-9/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


Last week I wrote almost 10K (9965 to be exact) so I’m definitely back on track. Kaori’s story is a 15K novella, and then I wrote another 5K story to help me start on the Assassin story that I hope to wrap up this week, since on Sunday I’ll have to start writing for the Anthology Workshop, yay!

I will probably manage to write all those Star Minds Lone Wolves stories before the end of the year since there’s the Holiday break, but you won’t see them until probably the end of February. I still have to book the editor for the new year. I also made a list of what’s left to write (4 more Quests on Silvery Earth, a Vampire Through the Centuries or three, a couple more books of the Future Earth Chronicles) so that I’ll know what to do in the first half of 2020.

And last week I also sent live Silvery Earth Kids! So, if you’d like to gift this paperback for Christmas, you have plenty of time to order it. The Italian version (in case you wanted to learn Italian through a strip) is unfortunately stuck in review with Amazon, but hopefully eventually they’ll approve it. I also anticipated the release of Magical Friends, it will now go live December 1st.

I started drawing the Star Minds Kids and Teens strip, but that’s another project that will come out next year. And this weekend I’ll be busy catching typo faeries, formatting and sending out the stories I wrote for the anthologies in the past couple of months. Most deadlines are Dec.31, a couple open in January, but I’m ready.

Oh, and I sold a short story, I shall publish the link when it goes live. It’s in the Star Minds Universe, like the story in Pulphouse #5, and it’s even kinda sorta the same thing – a battery-operated boyfriend in one, a sex robot in the other. The Star Minds Universe is becoming famous for the wrong reasons! 😀 Also, kind of clashes with the Star Minds Kids and Teens strip, LOL!

About innovation/tech news, I ran into this article on how blockchain tech can be used for the good of the music industry. If this blockchain thingy actually works, let’s hope they apply it to books as well.

From the time Naspter begun offering free music content in the 1990s, music piracy has been a chronic problem with most people taking it as the normal way of getting their music.

Unfortunately this applies to eBooks too, for different reasons. A lot of people are not willing to pay for the hard work of many writers or other creative people. So until the mindset changes, I don’t think anything will change.

And speaking of mindsets, I shall close with Dean’s video on the attitudes of fiction writers, a speech he gave for 20BooksVegas but I heard him say it often enough in person to confirm everything! 😉 Have a great week! 😀

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by Barb on 20/11/2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 20/11/2019

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2019/11/20/wednesday-weekly-roundup-8/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


And last week I got back to my 10K or so, both writing that last story for submission (that will head for the editor’s desk with the rest next week) and starting a new project that should be quickly done so I can start writing for the Anthology Workshop at the end of the month.

After brainstorming with myself I decided to go back to the Star Minds Lone Wolves and next year will see three more longer stories and at least another ten Lone Wolves Team missions with new members. I’ve started with Kaori, who has shown up quite a lot in all the published books, and wrote her story. No spoilers for whoever hasn’t checked them out yet, though.

She’s on the cover of Star Minds Third Generation Snippets, though, as Galaxy Police rookie. The Lone Wolves are set ten years later, so her book is abviously titled “Cop”. Then I’ll have “Assassin” and “Smuggler” and more Team missions.

But going back to Silvery Earth, did you know November is Fairy Tales Retold Month? Yeah, I made that up, but look at the coincidence: I published More Fairy Tales Revisited and Fairy Tales Revisited came out in a brand new bundle curated by A.L. Butcher! 😉

The Backstage Pass is also about those fairy tales and how they came into being. I wrote them all months ago, but hoped to make it a book as long as the first one – except I didn’t actually found another Rithvik and Kerrien to play with! 😉 So there you have it, a shorter book waiting for more to become Volume 2! 😉

All in all I’m quite happy that last week I managed to finish the lettering on the Silvery Earth Kids strip (both English and Italian) as well as writing new stuff. Now I’m back to DayJob, so I’ll have to go around it – although I might actually be able to start working on the Star Minds Kids strip in the mornings.

On Sunday I watched How to Train Your Dragon 3 with Dear Nephew, and we had a lot of fun. I think it’s a nice ending for the trilogy, and I liked the extras (although some I watched alone, since he had to go back to Mom’s to do some homework).

By Christmas he’ll probably be taller than be, but he’s still pretty much into those 3D stories. He even sort of summarized for me a story he has in mind, but I don’t know if I’ll ever manage to make him write it, LOL! He says he has all the character names down, though – all in English, can you believe it! 😀

Oh, and Sunday night I updated the trailer for Silvery Earth! 🙂 Not a masterpiece, but at least I took out all the ugly covers and the books that are no longer available!

And it’s Infinite Bard time again! Go check the latest story! Happy reading and have a great week!

by Barb on 13/11/2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 13/11/2019

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2019/11/13/wednesday-weekly-roundup-7/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


Errata corrige: the previous week I actually wrote 11K. Last week only 6K, but I have reached a 440K yearly total and still have plenty of stuff to write in the next two months and a half. The less words are also because I started a new strip, and those have less words but more work on the drawings, LOL!

So this is one of the protagonists of the new strip – Star Minds Kids – and here you have a work-in-progress showing the birth of that particular strip. It’s similar to the ones I’ve done for Silvery Earth Kids. It was an upcoming anthology that spurred my imagination – very close to the deadline, even though I had been told about it months ago.

Nothing like a deadline to spur your muses into action, right? Next I’ll do something with the Cosmic Corsairs I already told you about and then develop that strip in the coming months. Again, it’s probably for next year. I guess that’s my way of procrastinating on the prose at this time, LOL!

I’m still trudging through my contemporary story and have jotted down notes for another short story that might take precedence when I’m done lettering the Silvery Earth Kids. I need to finish a proof of the English version before Friday, so I can order it on Lulu and receive it next week.

I plan on checking the paperback for changes and stuff, and then I want to take it to Lucca Comics and see if some publisher wants the Italian version before I go indie. So I might do little writing this week, but some projects need wrapping up! 🙂

Some links: 6 effective ways to treat depression – still have to sign up for a dance class or some other kind of moving with music, but there’s so much going on right now, that I’m not sure I want to start something yet. Maybe in November, maybe in January. We’ll see.

For the indie writers out there – the (in)famous 7 Kindle Keywords: use all 50 characters or not? I’m probably totally misusing those keyword spaces, but I really have trouble finding sentences for my books. Even when I went through the various books to update the manuscripts, I didn’t really add anything to those fields… I should have, I know. Sigh.

I know that my WHY has nothing to do with publishing and all that stuff. The beating heart that keeps my muse alive definitely doesn’t care about algorithms and ads and all that publishing stuff! 🙂 In fact I think I mentioned I have publishing fatigue, more than writing.

6 ways to stay productive in a creative slump – I think I’ve done some of these things even before reading the article, but it’s a good summary/reminder. I think I mentioned spending too much time doing research and not enough writing. Reading for research and not for entertainment.

Well, after discarding a few samples, I started reading a novel for entertainment. It’s traditionally published, but has plenty of mistakes. So I guess we can really live without traditional publishers. And the eBook was cheap, but is not very well formatted IMHO… but I shall tell more about it in my end of the year recommended list (or on Bookbub, since now my book recommendations are there and not on Goodreads)! 🙂

And a new story is up on Infinite Bard! 😉 Have a great week! 😀

by Barb on 16/10/2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 16/10/2019

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2019/10/16/wednesday-weekly-roundup-3/

Writer Wednesday


Slowly easing back into the writing routine. That handwritten stuff from during worldcon was about 1800words, but I added a lot more, finishing the week with my usual 10K. And then on Monday it occurred to me that the Paths Trilogy could simply be a single longer novel with multiple points of view (4 intertwined), so I’m going to try that now.

I have around 85K already and need to finish, so it might end up like Books of the Immortals – Air, around 90K (my longest novel, with multiple points of view – 6 or 7, if I remember correctly), possibly longer (but I’ll have to trim the duplicated scenes, so some version might end up on the cutting floor).

The weekend was spent cleaning up the Star Minds Universe (the series page and the documents + an update to the cover of the Star Minds Starter) updating backmatter for both eBooks and paperbacks, which means I got flooded by Amazon emails for updating both the versions of each title. And I even had to redo a cover I hadn’t touched. Sheesh.

This also allowed me to discover a few glitches in the move from CreateSpace to KDPprint, so if you haven’t already, go check the third “page” – territorial rights and pricing. But you have to start from the first page to confirm ownership of the paperback, and don’t forget to check blurb and tags, since once they were completely missing from the paperback version.

Findaway Voices announced shared royalties, so I might do another audio book sooner rather than later. Most sales through them are to libraries, and I’m very far to breaking even with the expenses for producing the first three audiobooks. But I’ve been told longer books get listened to much more, so I’ll have to try with a full-length novel eventually.

A couple of long but awesome posts from Kristen Lamb – In It to WIN It: How Committed Are You to Being a Successful Author? and Pitch Perfect: Can You Sell Your Story in ONE Sentence? Still trying to find those loglines for my books, but eventually, I’ll make it, LOL!

And that’s all for now! Have a great week! 🙂

by Barb on 28/08/2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 28/08/2019

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2019/08/28/writer-wednesday-383/

Writer Wednesday


Last week I didn’t do much writing, but I consider myself inbetween projects. This week will probably have no writing at all, and it will resume next week when I come back from Worldcon. Not worried at all, since I’m already at 375K anyway (for those coming in late, my target is 500K a year). The next Paths novel should take me to 400K and then I have a few more to write before the end of the year.

The Mission #30 was written, sent and rejected in less than a week, but since it comes after the epilogue of the Team‘s missions, it shall be the first of volume 2, coming out next year whenever I write another 20something missions. This team is still growing on me, and they’re keeping the name anyway, even though they’re no longer lone wolves! 🙂

And Rogue is out too, so the Star Minds Lone Wolves books are complete for this year. I updated the series page, redid the lettering on the single books covers and adjusted the backend matter. Now I’ll have to do it for the other Star Minds books, but I will do it in September. I did do a new trailer for the series, though! 🙂

I also added the Lone Wolves to Drive Thru, as you can see from the “sidebar”, since I sold a SKYBAND Omnibus in their Comics shop, but every now and then I get a sale even in the Fiction shop. We’ll see if a banner or two will make the Star Minds Universe soar over there too! 🙂

I also started unpublishing things. I made a list and will take down 25 Silvery Earth titles, 12 Star Minds Universe and 5 others. It will clean up my retailers dashboard and allow me to update the rest with less junk.

I’m mostly taking down shorter titles or single stories that are included in collections. I’ve been told that short titles sink faster in Amazon charts, so I might as well get rid of them since they don’t sell anyway.

So here’s the cleaned up Star Minds Universe and Silvery Earth on Smashwords. I have unpublished also from Kobo, Amazon and D2D. It’s been a long hot weekend, sigh. Let me know what you think of the new presentation of Silvery Earth on the series page, though!

An interesting post on how science fiction is dying again – the Hopepunk Edition. Considering the bleak present, I should probably write something about my apocalypse… and my vampires live through it, so they might be the right ones to tell that story! 😉

Currently flying to Dublin for Worldcon, so will update next week when I get back… If you’re there too, and see me wandering around, come and say hello. I have no panels, so I’ll be in and out of the buildings. And the curated anthologies will be available at Hodges Figgis booth in the dealer’s room (it’s a local bookstore for non-Dubliners). Have a great week! 🙂

 

by Barb on 14/08/2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 14/08/2019

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2019/08/14/writer-wednesday-381/

Writer Wednesday


The grand total for the writing retreat (even though I didn’t write every day, and definitely not when traveling) was 14600words, although I finished The Path of Metal on Sunday. I printed it out on Monday at the office and did a final pass, reading it all in one sitting before moving on.

Now writing those short stories to submit to traditional markets with very tight deadlines. Including Mission #30 of the Lone Wolves Team, that therefore is not included in the last volume of our adventurers’ jobs, out now. I will add it to the collection of all the missions if it gets rejected (or will wait until I can publish it in the whole collection, depending how long I have to postpone it, LOL).

Next weekend I’ll upload Rogue, then pause the publishing for a few months. I considered enrolling it in KU so I could participate in the Kindle StorytellerAward 2019 on Amazon UK, but unless my one true fan (yes, Tori, I’m talking to you) tells me she doesn’t mind waiting 3 months, I won’t. If I happen to win (which I won’t), means it would be stuck on Amazon only for much longer. If you’re in KU and have published between May and August, do try your luck, though! 😉

I learned a few things and got a few ideas at the conference, so it’s time I start working on that rebranding – or tending my garden, as they say. Since “just write more books” doesn’t really work, I’m studying the Reader Magnets. Although the PDF is outdated RE: MailChimp, but I have no intention of opening another newsletter yet.

But someone pointed me to StoryOrigin, and they handle Reader Magnets and review copies even if you don’t have a mailing list. So I might try that too in the coming months (as well as signing up for Pinterest when I have the rebranded covers ready – not all of them, but still quite a few, I’m afraid).

I haven’t done a priority list yet, although I have booked out a few weekends to start the revamping of the publisher’s site. Might also give me ideas for the Backstage Pass posts! 😉 Oh, and another link of something I discovered in Edinburgh (thanks, Josie, glad I didn’t spend all my time talking to the only face I knew beforehand and saw your link on the group discussion) – Hopepunk. Might be something to consider when I re-tag my books! 😉

Now, you might have noticed my re-blog on Sunday. Yes, the awesome A.L. Butcher put together another awesome bundle, Here Be Magic, that includes yours truly. Soon you’ll hear from some of those authors on this very blog.

Aaaand, you guessed it, it’s Infinite Bard time again! Hop off to the site and read another free short story for your reading pleasure! 🙂 Have a great week!

by Barb on 07/08/2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 07/08/2019

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2019/08/07/writer-wednesday-380/

Writer Wednesday


Last week I started on The Path of Metal and wrote 13K. I’m also adding strips to the strip, but I hope to wrap everything in Edinburgh. I have a few short stories to write bythe end of August, lest the submission windows closes! Hopefully those places have some kind of submission form, since one of my latest attempts was flagged as spam and didn’t go through. Sigh.

And we have another batch of missions of the Lone Wolves Team! Again at all retailers, then one more and it’s over… at least for now! I’ll do a collection of the collection at the end of August. Cherry is on the cover, as always by awesome Ravven…

Don’t forget this is the last week of the Smashwords Sale… it lasts only until the end of the month. You have a few more days to grab some of my books 50%off! 🙂 And check out the other authors too! 😀

Here’s an amazing learning opportunity for you IF YOU’RE IN THE US. I can vouch for Kevin J. Anderson and Dean Wesley Smith as teachers, but I always come back frustrated from the business masterclasses, because none of that applies in Italy. But if you’re American, you should definitely check them! 😉

And here’s some advice from Joe Konrath, 6 things writers need to stop worrying about. Very apt since I’m heading for a conference tomorrow! 😉

Also, if you plan on writing sci-fi, check this article. I did read that book of putting science into fiction, and it’s good! Also, the article is right down my alley too! 😉

Now I better go back to my fantasy world… but know that there are a few sci-fi stories to write when I’m done with Torik and friends! 😉

And last but not least, it’s Infinite Bard time again! Hop off to the main page and discover another new author, another free story… Have a great week! 😀

 

by Barb on 24/07/2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 24/07/2019

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2019/07/24/writer-wednesday-378/

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! 🙂

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!

 

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/

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