All posts tagged Star Minds universe

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! 🙂

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

Posted in struggles to get through, writing projects

Tagged ebook, Star Minds universe, writing

Posted by Barb on 03/10/2018

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

Writer Wednesday

Last week I wrote only 5K but I was busy editing and formatting and uploading and all that other stuff soooo interesting! Not. My yearly total is still 392K, so I’m doing fine, right? 😉 I wrote one last Star Minds Lone Wolves story, an extra scene for Kristine and that’s more or less it.

Ahem, well, anyway, after a weekend of struggles with KDPprint, I think I mastered it and can now do a few more paperbacks with less hassle than the first. I also figured out the difference between proof copy and author copy. So I’m not giving the paperback links until I checked that the paperbacks are okay, LOL!

But, the e-book links are fine! In case you missed it, Star Minds Lone Wolves’ Thief is out! Please meet Mr. H, thief, chameleon and my favorite character although I couldn’t use the actual person I had in mind. I had to settle with this sexy vampire hunter by Ravven instead.

And if you want a sneak peek of the other two coves, go to the Star Minds page and scroll down… Cherry will come out at the end of the month and Elsa on Oct.15th or White Cane Safety Day.

Now I shall move away from the Star Minds universe to write the next Post-Apocalypse Chronicle… and get ready for the October Business Masterclass! 🙂

That’s all for today! Have a great week!

3 Comments

by Barb on 19/09/2018 • Permalink

Posted in struggles to get through, writing projects

Tagged ebook, paperback, Star Minds universe, writing

Posted by Barb on 19/09/2018

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2018/09/19/writer-wednesday-335/

Writer Wednesday

I’m definitely more prolific when I’m on a deadline, LOL! Last week I wrote 17K, almost a full novella, and then came up with another story of the Star Minds Lone Wolves. So the Elders will have one novel and two novellas with two short stories. This week I’ll be busy checking Mighty Editor’s comments and formatting the first ebook for a mid-month release.

I also have to compose the three covers. I have downloaded the images I need, but I still need to put them together. I will be using 3D rendering models instead of pictures this time, because it was the only way to find Cherry and Elsa, so I adapted and found something for Hariel too, since the original isn’t available, LOL! (Yes, Hariel is Da Muse, and even if I did a mock cover with him, I didn’t dare ask the photographer, Dabboo Ratnani, for the rights to that picture, haha!)

This brings the yearly total to 387K and next week I hope to start working on Post-Apocalypse Chronicles book 2, that will have to be done by Oct.18. I might not write 10 novels in 100 days, but I’m sure I can pour out 40-50K in four weeks. Probably less unless I need to stop for research.

Last weekend I did my first book on KDPprint… allow me to bemoan the demise of CreateSpace. Proofs from Amazon come with a banner “Not for Resale” on the cover. If I even want to do a private project, I’ll have to go back to Lulu. Sigh. I did take everything down on Lulu, but I didn’t close the account – I probably knew something like that would happen, eventually.

Anyhow, next weekend I’ll try to set up the paperback for the Star Minds Lone Wolves – The Youngsters as well as uploading the eBook of the first Elder. Mighty Editor has been swamped these two weeks and I had to book an extra week for the last Vampires Through the Centuries novel, LOL!

Now I better go back to my editing, formatting and cover designing… Have a great week! 🙂

5 Comments

by Barb on 12/09/2018 • Permalink

Posted in struggles to get through, writing projects

Tagged e-book, paperback, Star Minds universe

Posted by Barb on 12/09/2018

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2018/09/12/writer-wednesday-334/

Writer Wednesday

I’ll have to admit September took me by surprise. In spite of celebrating Da Muse’s birthday last Sunday, the whole weekend didn’t feel like a new month. I almost missed the Happiness is post last Monday… maybe I need a vacation? I was off only four days last summer… well, the summer is not officially over yet, so this summer!

Anyhow! Another 10K written and books sent to the proofreader. I’ll have to finish the last novella before the end of the week or possibly the start of the next, then I’ll probably have two weekends busy with editing… and paperbacks. I actually even managed to link D2D and Findaway, but I can’t find the courage to start on audio books yet. Cause I hate them so much and can’t be bothered to listen to them. Maybe next year…

For sudden changes in DayJob schedule, I also started the translation of Brainwaves, so that as soon as I finish with the Star Minds Lone Wolves, I can get back to the Post-Apocalypse Chronicles and write book 2. And then the other books coming after that, probably. Writing the mini-series at the same time is actually better, especially if they’re either closely intertwined like Star Minds Lone Wolves or squential like Post-Apocalypse Chronicles.

Besides the online workshop, even Chuck Wendig says so!

Write all the books first. Write the series first. If it’s a trilogy, write the trilogy before trying to publish. If it’s a longer series, write the first three books, at least. Or, bare minimum, plot the books robustly, so that when the contract comes in you’re not rushing to figure out the story beats on a longer series.

And since the Silvery Earth Heroines are standalone, I can write them next year, even though I already have the covers by wonderful Federica Manfredi (she still has to draw the last one, but there is really no rush!). I’m also having fun doing covers with stock photos and rendering, so I might redo some of mine (meaning the ones I drew myself). I did an attempt for Firebird (one of the books I wanted to try in audio), but I still have to work on my skills, LOL!

In case you missed the announcement or are not subscribed to my newsletter, Otherside is out! Although D2D initially rejected it for Apple for links to competitors. I have no idea where they saw links to competitors, since I don’t put them anywhere in the books anymore. Only the publisher page, this blog and the newsletter subscription link. What will they do when I mention the competition in the text (with no links whatsoever) in Kristine the Youngest? Maybe Apple doesn’t want my books. Shame on them.

I downloaded all the reports from CreateSpace (50 paperbacks and the payments of the past four years) just in case they get lost in the move. Then I’ll probably just wait until they do it. My last paperback sale was a few months ago anyway. Not going to do it myself (it didn’t prompt me when I logged in, so I assume they’re already overworked by people moving before the closing).

Now I better go back to writing! The newsletter went out, the new title is up, I better get back to work! 🙂 Have a great week!

3 Comments

by Barb on 05/09/2018 • Permalink

Posted in struggles to get through, writing projects

Tagged indie publishing, paperbacks, portal fantasy, Post-Apocalypse Chronicles, Silvery Earth Heroines, Star Minds universe

Posted by Barb on 05/09/2018

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2018/09/05/writer-wednesday-333/

Writer Wednesday

And the third “youngster” is out! This is Jes-syd, Iso-bel’s ex-boyfriend, and he’s a hacker in the truer sense of the word (not a security cracker)! 🙂 Star Minds Lone Wolves – Hacker is now available as ebook at the usual suspects… and no WiP of the cover, since he wasn’t on a cover before.

And he isn’t inspired from a drawing either. I debated between two models and ended up choosing the one that looked more like the description I gave of him in Iso-bel Aya Shermac. I had seen that guy first and wrote the story with him in mind, so this time no NeoStock model for our Sire hacker! 🙂

One young man, two passions: computers and Iso-bel Aya Shermac.

Jes-syd lost his home planet at twenty, and with it his beloved girlfriend who survived but vanished on him without explanations. Five years later he works at the Serenaide Labs and has a new girlfriend, another survivor like him, but things don’t go smoothly between them.

The Tech Fair and a visit from Ypsilanti bring the news that there are more survivors on the dead planet, hidden underground in what’s left of the Vaurabi Labs. Jes-syd’s mother made it with a few more and Jes-syd hopes to get back with Iso-bel again – whenever he manages to find her and give her the good news.

A young Sire survivor who loves computers and his first and only love, a lone wolf hacker who is trying to fight his own grief. A Star Minds universe standalone story of hackers, crackers and survivors.

Bonus story: Wonder Man or how Hariel earned his Codename

And last week I wrote 11K of Hariel, our Wonder Man and the eldest of the future team. I hope to finish his story this week, so I can write a couple more team stories to submit to trad markets before the end of the month. I’m at 292K, so pretty much on schedule to reach my goal of half pulp speed before the end of the year! 🙂

For those of you who arrived late and have no idea of what I’m talking about, here’s Dean’s post about pulp speed. I’ve been trying to reach 500K since 2015 and it seems that this year I’ll finally reach the goal. And I hope to sustain it for the coming years.

And for those of you who just joined, I shall remind you that some books are discounted at Smashwords only for the month of July, if you want a taste of how I write. Or you can subscribe to the bimonthly newsletter and get some free short stories as well as the news from this writer if you can’t be bothered to follow me on Social Media or this blog.

David Gaughran on Amazon Algorithm – whatever that means. I don’t bother with it anymore. Obsessing with sales just hurts my head, so I don’t care anymore. Although I’m happy when I see those spikes at some retailer! 😉 Also, I certainly want to be a long term writer! 😉

And being a writer who has dabbled in screenwriting, I can tell you this review of Save the Cat is spot on. I haven’t read the book itself, but if it’s for screenwriters, it’s NOT for fiction/prose writers. Trust me. I tried it. I have a cinematic prose, I thought I can easily turn it into a movie screenplay… not! So unless you’re trying to break into Hollywood, just ignore that book! 😉

Now I would like to take your time to read the last instalment of Adventures of a first-time editor about the Anthology Workshop. What, you don’t want to join the Writer Club? Bad writer, you! I hope to see you in 2020 at the Anthology workshop. Unfortunately I can’t afford those offline workshops more often than every three years, sigh.

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

4 Comments

by Barb on 18/07/2018 • Permalink

Posted in struggles to get through, writing projects

Tagged indie publishing, p, sci-fi july, Star Minds universe, writing

Posted by Barb on 18/07/2018

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2018/07/18/writer-wednesday-326/

Writer Wednesday

So last week I did my usual 10K to be on track with the writing. Still with the Lone Wolves since it’s sci-fi July and soon you’ll get another book in the mini-series/sub-series. I’ve started another novel but will throw in more “missions” of the team anytime I finish the current project ahead of time – which normally happens, LOL!

And I also had time to format the first paperback! So if you’re a fan of dead tree books (means you don’t have trouble with your eyes like us elderly people, I had a friend asking me for the ebook because he can’t read the paperback…), you can get Sci-Fi Stories – Starships in paperback now. I’ll do the other as soon as the other anthology goes live, since there’s no pre-order on Createspace! 😉

Thank you all who bought either the above anthology or the bundle Sci-fi July Redux. Remember this bundle won’t be out forever and it’s 10 novels of sci-fi space opera for your entertainment, so if you like space opera, make sure to grab it now.

I mean, look at those names! Kevin J. Anderson! Robert Jeschoneck! Kristine Kathryn Rusch! Dean Wesley Smith! Barbara G.Tarn! Er… scratch the last one, she’s a nobody! 😉

But well, if I make it big, you can say you started following me before I got famous! 🙂 Before I got published in some traditional mag (which at the moment is scheduled for January 2019 – unless I sell something else in the meantime)! 🙂

If you prefer short stories, there’s always the curated anthologies… and hopefully soon more short story collections (gotta write them first, though!)! 🙂

Next weekend I’ll prepare Jes-syd and the second anthology goes live… In the meantime I better go back to writing. Have a great week! 🙂

2 Comments

by Barb on 11/07/2018 • Permalink

Posted in struggles to get through, writing projects

Tagged anthologies, e-book bundles, sci-fi july, Star Minds universe, writing

Posted by Barb on 11/07/2018

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2018/07/11/writer-wednesday-325/

Writer Wednesday

And inbetween projects – going through the stories one last time before sending them to betas – I wrote less than 5K but I’m still on schedule. This week I hope to write a couple of short stories of the Star Minds Lone Wolves Team then I’ll move on to the next project… I should stick to SF during the month of July, but we’ll see! 😉

Oh, and by the way… not only you shouldn’t read your reviews if you’re an indie author, but also you shouldn’t reread the rejection letters, especially if it’s a personalized rejection that points out something! I made the mistake to re-read a rejection letter and it gave me all sorts of self-doubts… lesson learned, never again! 😉 Acknowledge the rejection and send out again (it even ended with “I’m sure some other editor might enjoy it” or something like that, but what stuck was the critique… masochist types, we writers, aren’t we?).

And in honor of upcoming Sci-Fi July, enjoy this article on terraforming ourselves and the history of SF! 🙂 It’s a good summary of what I learned with the online workshop on writing science fiction – at least the origins of the genre. I do need to write Post-Apocalypse Chronicles book 2 where you’ll see that Earth is not that bad off after a couple of centuries, but maybe I’ll do it in August instead of July.

Anyhow, for Sci-fi July you get: on the 4th Sci-fi Stories – Starships, an anthology of 10 short stories with starships in them, aaaaand the Sci-fi July Redux Space Opera bundle, with 10 novels of space opera and adventure! Both are already available for pre-order and look at all those great writers! I had trouble deciding the order of the stories or novels!

The bundle won’t stay out forever, so grab it now. The anthology will be out until they allow us to keep it out there – there has been trouble with Nightly Bites volume 1 paperback – and it will soon be joined by Sci-fi Stories – Space Opera Mashup with another 10 wonderful stories because I got so many I had to make two anthologies! 🙂

And then you’ll get the other two short novels of Star Minds Lone Wolves, Pilot and Hacker. This weekend I’ll be putting together that second anthology and preparing the next Star Minds Lone Wolves (short) novel for publication… stay tuned… Shanell is coming your way! 😉 With her new look (the old look is on Sci-fi Stories – Starships, drawn by Techie Bro) and she’s still the best starship pilot of the Star Nations and don’t you dare deny it! 😉

Hacker will come out with the second anthology on July 14th… And no, I haven’t done the cover yet, even though I’ve chosen the model! But I’m not sure about the background yet… 😉 Have a great week! 😀

4 Comments

by Barb on 27/06/2018 • Permalink

Posted in struggles to get through, writing projects

Tagged BundleRabbit, curated anthologies, e-book bundles, Star Minds universe, writing

Posted by Barb on 27/06/2018

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2018/06/27/writer-wednesday-323/

Writer Wednesday

And l lost an afternoon to a bee invasion, that gave me a panic attack and didn’t allow me to concentrate. I even went to sleep at my Mom’s, and lost a few hours. Add the first heat and my low blood pressure and ants in the house… Sigh. Life rolls.

Now back on track, l’m revising the novels to send to Mighty Editor and writing one last short story before leaving the Star Minds universe.

In June l’ll go back to lndia with my mind, starting in Mumbai in 2005, where Rajveer, Kaylyn and Shashank’s stories ended. Yes, this will be Kristine’s book and l’ll try to drop in Alain (from Nightly Bites vol.2) as well. The novel will come out November 2 as usual and it kind of wraps up the first three.

Our curator let us know that Spring Surprise is on sale to 1.99 from 27-31st May – before it vanishes. So get it NOW because tomorrow it’s gone forever.

The only link I have this week is GDPR for writers. Honestly, this really sucks. I’ve been receiving emails from sites I haven’t accessed in years only because they have one of my emails on file (including the British Library that issued me a 2-weeks pass more than ten years ago and never wrote to me before).

I really want to move out of Europe. Can I apply to Canada? 😉 I even had to “turn on” the notice on the contact page because I’m in the EU! 😦 Please rest assured that I don’t keep your data, and if you contact me I won’t add you to my mailing list – you’d have to subscribe for that! 😉

Here’s more GDPR fuss – I know, it’s not stricktly writing, but it does affect my writing. What if I can’t access a site for research because it doesn’t comply with that damn thing? So far it affected only my Google Alerts (that are for entertaining purposes), but what if it starts affecting something else? GDPR Obsession indeed! 😦

That’s all for today… Have a great week!

3 Comments

by Barb on 30/05/2018 • Permalink

Posted in struggles to get through, the Human being, writing projects

Tagged GDPR, Star Minds universe, vampires through the centuries

Posted by Barb on 30/05/2018

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2018/05/30/writer-wednesday-319/

Writer Wednesday

cover art Cristina Fabris

And a “new” title is out, the collection of stories about the fall of the southern kingdoms of Silvery Earth. Please note that some of he older stories (previously included in Tales of the Southern Kingdoms) are adult-themed. I started writing clean fantasy later.

Which kinda leaves me in a conundrum with my two main series. Both Silvery Earth and Star Minds have adults-only books and “clean” books. No wonder I can’t find my readers, I guess. I displease both parties! 😉

Anyhow, the next sub-series will be clean, so you can wait for those to have a taste of those universes. Well, for Silvery Earth you can try the Quests books (Volume 1 and Volume 2 or as single ebooks). For Star Minds you’ll have to wait for the Lone Wolves (the first should come out this summer, with the second Heroines book – also a clean book of Silvery Earth).

Currently writing two Lone Wolves books at the same time and speedily. If all goes well, I’ll finish both by the end of the month and move on. March wordcount is 31500 (a couple of shorts, a shelved project + the current).

Writerly links: David Farland on the new world of publishing – what can be done now in 2018. Chuck Wendig on giving characters agency in narrative (caution – foul language as usual). On writing by Aaron Rosenberg and how to work with an editor by Joanna Penn.

I have my trusted proofreader and some betas that are more advisors on things I may not know enough about. I have given up on writers’ groups since I really can’t write by committee, but sometimes hearing a different opinion helps. Like someone pointing out that a certain story’s premise is totally absent and I clearly didn’t know what I was doing. Shelved project.

That’s all for today… have a great week! 🙂