All posts tagged Star Minds universe

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


A bundle so packed full of science fiction,
we had to assemble it in orbit.

Over twenty authors have joined the International Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers (IASFA) in a massive book bundle to warp the space-time of readers everywhere.

IASFA Book Bundles are a way for people to discover quality books written by popular authors. You know how it’s always hard to find something good to read? IASFA can help solve that with monthly free book promotions as well as through a massive Book Bundle like this.

https://20bookpacks.com/IASFA-Sci-Fi-Book-Bundle

The Science Fiction Book Bundle! From fantastic worlds to scowling spaceship commanders, from exploration to colonization to alien contact. There is something for everyone and probably your next favorite Science Fiction author can be found right here. We’ve compiled a bunch of hot titles and can offer them in a bundle for much less than a dollar each. Take a look and see what there is to see.

Books included:

Battlenaut Crucible By Robert Jeschonek
Cartwright’s Cavaliers By Mark Wandrey
Cygnus Rising By Craig Martelle
Day 115 on an Alien World By Jeannette Bedard
Emergence By Jacki Rawlinson
Forced Conversion By Donald J. Bingle
Forced Vengeance By Scot C. Morgan
Freedom By Fire By C.P. MacDonald
Ghost Probe By Craig A. Price
Hurt U Back By Tim Taylor
Janissaries By Chris Kennedy
Kaine’s Sanction By D.M. Pruden
On Station By J. Clifton Slater
Quinn of Cygnus: Lift Off By AM Scott
Salvage Title By Kevin Steverson
Standing the Final Watch By William Alan Webb
Star Compass By Anthea Sharp
Super-Sync By Kevin Ikenberry
The Chemical Mage By Felix Savage
The Chronicles of Jegra: Gladiatrix of the Galaxy By Tristan Vick
The Earth Concurrence By Julia Huni
Thief (Star Minds Lone Wolves) By Barbara G. Tarn
Tribari Freedom Chronicles By Rachel Ford
Uprising By Jerry Shepard
Warrior Wench By Marie Andreas

The International Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors (IASFA) is a professional organization focused on aligning readers with authors. We are building the organization that currently numbers over 600 authors published within the SFF genres and growing. Stay tuned as each month we’ll offer full book samplers for free along with less frequent paid book bundle promotions. Help yourself to find your next favorite author by joining the IASFA newsletter. https://iasfa.org/book-promotion-calendar/

The Science Fiction Book Bundle will be available from March 15th thru April 4th.

***

And now we’re back to your scheduled programming… I can’t tell you how excited and humbled I am of being in such company! 😀 I personally met two of those awesome authors (Robert Jeschoneck and Craig Martelle) and I know they’re all (the 19 of them) excellent storytellers! 🙂

Go check that bundle if you love sci-fi space opera! And if you’re not familiar with my Star Minds Universe, this is a very good way of grabbing a discounted book along with many more! 😉

Now, in my enthusiasm of having more or less tamed the WordPress Newsletter plug-in and wanting to inform my newly found subscribers of the above, I sent the welcome email with the free story and the IASFA bundle link two days in advance to the first eight awesome people who accepted the subscription (including Joleene Naylor)… sorry if that link wasn’t live yet on Friday night!

And then I realized (thanks to Tori) that the welcome emails were sent automatically – again with the link to the bundle before it went live. Apologies about that.

There are still glitches, apparently, so if you couldn’t download the PDF (again, thanks, Tori, for pointing it out), reply to the welcome email and I’ll send it over. Hopefully the problem is fixed and the new subscribers won’t have problems with the download.

If you haven’t subscribed yet, and want a free story that won’t be available for sale while you wait for the official newsletter #1 coming out for the 10th anniversary of Books of the Immortals – Air (April 1), you can still do it at the publisher’s page (couldn’t copy-paste the sign-up thingy anywhere else, sorry).

Last week I wrote almost 13K, finished book 1 and started on book 2 when I got the news that Rome and Latium will be in lockdown until Easter again. Sigh. One year later and we’re still at this point. What bothered me the most last year was the long lines at the supermarkets. Hopefully it won’t be so this year – and I’ll still go to work every day.

Anyhow, since I can’t move in the real world, I’m going to travel with my characters until Easter. They’re lucky to be able to move in the pandemic-ridden world, LOL! I planned my vacation time for the whole year, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to move around much anyway.

The Easter week I’ll have to work from home anyway, prepping that newsletter, some paperbacks and other publishing stuff, but I would have loved to be able to meet with my cover artist. We used to do creative weekends, then weekends became off-limit, so I hoped I could have lunch with her during the week, since I’m off DayJob, but no siree, we’re in lockdown, no moving around in Rome! 😦

Vaccines (not enough of them) are for the over-80, medical staff, teachers and immunosuppressed people like my colleague Marco who’s been working from home for a year, and despite the vaccine doesn’t know when he’ll be able to come back to the office. My father had his shot yesterday, my mother postponed to the end of April just in case he reacts badly.

Hope things are going better on your side of the world and we’ll soon be able to travel again. I mean, I don’t mind traveling through Google Maps and Wikipedia, but sometimes just going somewhere and actually meet people instead of reading Quora answers on places is better. And I’m an introvert! 🙂

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

by Barb on 17/03/2021  •  Permalink
Posted in reading, real world inspiration, writing projects
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Posted by Barb on 17/03/2021

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2021/03/17/wednesday-weekly-roundup-75/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


Last week I wrote less than 7K, but again, I’m between projects. Haden’t figured out what to write next. I had a couple of ideas, but I wasn’t sure they’d work. Besides, most of Saturday was spent formatting the two box sets of the Star Minds Universe for D2D (and I even sent a “help!” request, then managed to fix the issue by tinkering again and again with the manuscript).

So now you have them! Star Minds is 530K and Star Minds Lone Wolves is 320K. All in one nice box set (each, of course)! Kol-ian and the Falstelo on the first cover, Kaori on the second. Check them out! 🙂

The latest writing is now with Mighty Editor. I feel blessed I found her, because she’s both a first reader and a copy editor. That’s what I’d offer if anyone is interested. And yes, I pay her, so I’d do it for money too. Because that’s all you need to make your prose shine, a reader and a copyeditor. And no, I’m not giving you her name because she’s already over-booked, but I can do her job for you if you want! 😉

Since I sent out my last submission for the year, I can make a summary. This year I submitted 28 stories to paying markets and made two sales to be paid and published next year. And I had two acceptances from last year published this year – The Phantom Games and Breathe (paperback and eBook). I was also in two collaboration anthologies (royalty share): Blaze Ward Presents #3 a Blaze Ward Presents #4 and one curated anthology, Nightly Bites Volume 3.

And now another touting horn. I met both of these writers in Edinburg last summer, and look what they came up with!

Just released! Leveled Up Love – a Gamelit Romantic Comedy of epic proportions (150k words!)!

Dating Evolution is the next generation of relationship gaming with a real world twist! Did you ever wish your online skills translated into the real world? Now they can! Follow our quests to level up your love life and earn real life rewards!
Life was good for Zack Moore until his trustee managed to con him into signing up for DaEvo. Now, the buggy app has taken over his life, forcing him to leave his condo, interact with people in the real world and eat healthy to gain any gaming time.

Problem is, Zack has the biggest tournament of his life coming up. The Star Fury tournament is Zack and his team’s chance of going pro and making a name for themselves.

Now, Zack’s swapping women around like the components of his starship; trying to find the balance between love and DaEvo. Good thing Zack’s a pro at gaming.

But somethings can’t be quantified.

Like love.

Leveled Up Love! is a Gamelit comedy romance written by Tao Wong, author of the bestselling System Apocalypse LitRPG and A Thousand Li series, and A.G. Marshall, author of the Fairy Tale Adventures series of books.

This is a fully co-authored book. Both wrote parts of this work, combining their humour. It is very much a romance. So, yes, there’s a happily ever after ending. Meanwhile you can check it out at https://readerlinks.com/l/1566449! I read the sample and it’s a blast! 🙂

Also check out the two authors separately (although I’m told the final results isn’t like any of the single styles):

TAO WONG

Facebook

Website

A.G. MARSHALL

Instagram

Facebook

And now, some hope from this K-Shaped times!

We writers write out of our subconscious, and what’s infecting us all the most right now is fear. Fear of the unknown, fear caused by the uncertainty of our future, fear of catching the virus, fear of losing our jobs or our family or what we consider to be our own personal world.

That fear translates into the writing—whether it shows up as fear of a project (I can’t do that. It’s too hard) or fear of self-publishing (No one is reading right now, so why should I publish?) or fear of putting out an expensive product or fear of offending readers or fear of…well, insert your own personal negative tape right here.

We can’t really control the outside world right now. We can control our own behavior in it. On the virus level, that’s masking up and staying inside and getting the vaccine (yay!) whenever it becomes available in your area.

We can control how we handle our writing.

So anything you do is fine at this time. Publish a lot? Good. Publish very little? That’s fine too. Write a lot? Great. Can’t write for whatever reason this traumatic times are throwing at you? Don’t worry.

Help where you can. Do what you need to for yourself. And ask for help if you need it.

We’re going to get through this.

I promise.

And if Krish Rusch says so, I believe she’s going to be totally right. We’ll be fine. Even if I don’t know what my next project will be or if I’ll ever manage that collaboration with someone, even if 2023 seems so far away and I grow impatient by the minute because I’m sick of adulting. But this too shall pass, and we can only keep moving forward in the new world coming up.

A world where there might be a new copyrigth law and blockchain for authors and publishers in an age of artificial intelligence, when I no longer will see my older books with the ugly covers pop up on pirate sites and might even be able to sell from my own site. Not next year, no, but it’s coming.

Another article on GPT-3, that has evolved since the previous article I posted (referred to in this article)… It has learned to code (and blog and argue). But I’m not afraid it’s going to steal my writer’s job – or even my translator’s job, if I ever start one! 😉

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

 

by Barb on 09/12/2020  •  Permalink
Posted in real world inspiration, struggles to get through, the Human being
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Posted by Barb on 09/12/2020

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2020/12/09/wednesday-weekly-roundup-61/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


Last week was Editing Week, so I didn’t write much (for number lovers 3900words). Most of the writing was done on Sunday, when I was done going through the Future Earth Chronicles. And I stayed sorta/kinda in that area by writing from another point of view an episode that remains quite obscure in the books.

Like I told my Street Team (a public Facebook group attached to my Author Page, you can join it here), I know what I’m writing next. I’m going to write the apocalypse from the vampires’ point of view (so, a prequel to the Chronicles), starting from 2020! It will be multiple POVs with the various vampires spreading around in preparation for the Chronicles…

And then I decided the actual prequel is about mortals, some of which will live for centuries in spite of it all. The books from the vampires’ points of view will be in the Vampires Through the Centuries series, and I plan on publishing a collection of shorts that spans the 12th century to the 25th. Most are (or will be) already out there, but one will be new.

As I uploaded the latest title, I was reminded DriveThru also have a sale, called Christmas in July. So you have more discounted books there, as well as the still ongoing Smashwords sale. And the last Star Minds Universe titles are out! One is the giveaway I announced on Sunday (still going, in case you missed it) and then there’s Star Minds Interregnum Volume 2 (that includes She-wolves Team and a few more new stories along with reprints).

More stories set between the fall of the Galactic Empire and the birth of the Federation of Humanoid Planets.
The Chameleon (5204-5230)
A Wegan telepath loses his love and twenty years later discovers he has a son
Daughter of C’est’aran (5218)
A scientist’s daughter on SETH World challenges the woman who seems to want to take her late mother’s place
Mother (5225-5247)
A young woman meets a handsome young man who vanishes, leaving her pregnant
One Line of bad code (5240)
A battery-operated girlfriend malfunctions
Battery-operated Boyfriend (5242)
B.O.B Theft from the point of view of the B.O.B.
Codename Dark Lord (5245)
Assassin Cyrus Wildner finds his long lost mother
The Widower (5245)
Wealthy Terran widower loses a family heirloom but finds love
The Queen’s Niece
Arica of Sylvania’s daughter on her cousin’s starship
Smuggler
Azzadar owns the Vortu Sprinter and gets in trouble quite a lot…
She-wolves Team 5245
Arica’s daughter’s team of fixers is out in the galaxy
Wegan Woman (5250)
From Galaxy Police officer to independent fixer
Extraction (5260)
Retired albino assassin Elsa needs to extract her granddaughter from a Vilas Lok secret club

Since there are new people onboard and I got questions, I shall summarize here my indie publishing experience.  On January 2011 I uploaded my first title to Smashwords – it was the only place that allowed me to distribute in the US from Italy (or without a Mac in the case of Apple). But Mark Coker never managed to strike a deal with Jeff Bezos, so by April, when I uploaded the first novel, I signed up for KDP (Amazon Italia would arrive a few months later, if I remember correctly).

In 2012 I joined KWL, Kobo’s direct upload, and Draft2Digital, another distributor with no shop but better features than Smashwords. Some titles also go on DriveThruFiction or DriveThruComics, as you can see above. I did some attempts at KU/KDPSelect when it showed up, but so far it worked only for the Italian titles.

I’m still on Smashwords because of Tori (*waves*) and because every now and then I participate in their site-wide sales (like right now), or use their coupons to gift copies of my books, but I much prefer D2D and their free ebook templates. I distribute my box sets (except the first, Books of the Immortals) through them, and they send even to Amazon.

I send my books to libraries through them and even used Findaway Voices through them (they partnered with them before Smashwords) – now, I have no idea when I’ll do more audiobooks, but it might be the matter of a Kickstarter sometime in the future, LOL!

I usually format the collaboration anthos through D2D, since I don’t have Vellum, and then upload the files to BundleRabbit for distribution and splitting royalties – although I no longer put my books on BundleRabbit to be bundled (I’m still waiting to be invited to some StoryBundle, LOL!). Some are still there and some bundles are still live, but these days it’s mostly collaborations that go to the usual suspects (when KDPprint doesn’t throw a tantrum and doesn’t talk to KDP, that is).

So, since next year is my tenth anniversary, you can tell I’m not giving up. But then, Dean Wesley Smith is my guru and if he kept 3000rejections in 5 years and now is where he is, so can I! 😀 I still send out stories to magazines and anthologies, although I’ve lost count of the number of rejections, but if I find a topic that intrigues me, I’ll write it anyway.

That’s how I wrote a story for Nuns With Guns, for example. That’s why I’m going to write another couple of stories I won’t know where to put in my indie publishing, so eventually I’ll make a collection of those spurious stories, LOL!

My friend and cover artist Cristina Fabris needs to buy a new computer and graphics tablet, so she’ll be taking commissions and selling originals. She did the covers for my Books of the Immortals and the Southern Kingdoms  as well as a few more Silvery Earth titles, but she normally draws erotica. You can find her works here, and if you’re interested, contact me, and I’ll put you in touch with her (I’m her interpreter, since she speaks only Italian…)! 🙂

And I shall end with a video again… this is how I feel this week, with everything crumbling down around me… Have a great week!

by Barb on 22/07/2020  •  Permalink
Posted in struggles to get through, writing projects
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Posted by Barb on 22/07/2020

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2020/07/22/wednesday-weekly-roundup-42/

Sunday Surprise


And it’s a… GIVEAWAY!  Yes, for you, wonderful follower of this very blog! All you need to get this free book is a Smashwords account! 🙂

Star Minds Sire Teens.

The code is: TG65B

The code expires on: 2020-8-31

What’s this all about? Well…

A few light-years away from Earth, closer to the center of the galaxy, is a planet called Marc’harid. Seen from space, it looks very much like Earth, albeit with different geography. It’s inhabited by Humanoids that look pretty much like us, except they’re all blessed with telepathy. They call themselves the Sire and pride themselves on having the best technology in the galaxy…

Three generations of Sire teens, before and after the fall of the Galactic Empire.

That rainbow-haired girl on the cover is the same who, a few years later, is on the cover of Adventurer. Yep, that’s Iso-bel Aya Shermac, a.k.a. Icy Aya, before she becomes the assassin and lone wolf you get to meet later. Of course her visit to Earth is not new, since you can find it also in Star Minds Third Generation Snippets…

So, what’s new? Well, the first story is the prose version of the ongoing Sunday Strip on Instagram, so if you want to avoid spoilers, you might want to wait until that ends. But if you’re familiar with the Star Minds Universe, you already know how it ends!

And Shan-leo’s accident was in Star Minds Next Generation Diaries, but again, if you’re unfamiliar with the Star Minds Universe, you might want to check this out… a taste of the mighty Sire who once upon a time governed the galaxy! 🙂 This book is slowly going live everywhere for 99c, but you can grab it for freen on Smashwords with the code above!

Happy reading and happy Sunday! 🙂

 

by Barb on 19/07/2020  •  Permalink
Posted in struggles to get through, writing projects
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Posted by Barb on 19/07/2020

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2020/07/19/sunday-surprise-254/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


So last week I finished Book 10 and remembered I wanted to write a shorter sequel, so I embarked in Book 11 – a novella sequel. So by the end of the week I had almost 11K new words, bringing the yearly total to 300K+. Now I’m giving the final touches to that novella and probably in the coming weeks I won’t be that productive, but I can’t complain, can I? 😉

I still haven’t decided what to write next, I’m kind of enjoying writing on Earth, albeit in the future… I could either go back to the vampires in the past or work on that shelved project. We’ll see. I should write a few more Silvery Earth titles, but now is not a good time for secondary world high fantasy.

And you have a new title out! Tori, don’t rush to get it, since it will be included in Star Minds Interregnum Volume 2, coming out in 2 weeks. Just sayin’. Everybody else, if this cover speaks to you, go check it out! 😉 She-wolves Team is more or less contemporary to the Lone Wolves Team, in fact at some point they meet.

This was the first time in a long time that Amazon was the last to publish the title. I uploaded it on Saturday, and whether it was the 4th of July, Covid or the fact that Mighty Zon is in Seattle, it took them 48 hours to send it live instead of the usual 12. Oh, well. Considering that on Monday I missed the bus and had to wait 1hour with 37°C in the shadows for the next one to do 5km… It’s July!

Actually, Sci-fi July, LOL! With the last two titles of the Star Minds Universe (for now, unless I come up with fourth generation stories) and the two curated anthologies about Future Earth, we’re all set! And don’t forget the Smashwords sale, that is not just about sci-fi, but everything else! 😉

And my friend Rob Vagle also has a new sci-fi title out! 😉 I’m kinda bummed he didn’t send any of those stories to me for my antho, but well… here you go!

In a world . . .

Where a new form of execution transforms more than just the condemned.

Where a being made of gears and scales calculates a human life’s monetary worth.

Where a stranger courts away mirror reflections of others, leaving one narcissist desperate and alone.

Where the Earth holds what completes each of us to fill the hollow inside our bodies.

Where one woman glimpses her alternate lives in a strange and sudden room.

Where a burning creature of the sun pines for the little blue planet in the distance.

If you’re just starting, I highly recommend you get David Gaughran’s Let’s Get Digital – it’s free right now! I have the first edition and still haven’t read it (I know, shame on me) and unfortunately if there’s something I really cannot do at this time is read all those ebooks for authors.

I still have to read his Amazon Decoded and Kris Rusch’s Creating Your Author Brand, so… I’m going to pass on this fourth edition. But if you’re just starting, grab it. I sent the link to a friend who is considering indie publishing, and he thanked me for it.

Now I’m going back to write fiction even if I’m not maximising sales, but that’s really something I can’t handle right now. One thing is hiding in a fiction world (even if it’s Earth), another is to struggle to get through in the real world! 😉

And even though I can’t stand AC and the heat is probably going to send me in some kind of dreamstate, I will survive… hence closing up with Gloria Gaynor to cheer us up! 🙂 Have a great week! 😀

by Barb on 08/07/2020  •  Permalink
Posted in struggles to get through, writing projects
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Posted by Barb on 08/07/2020

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2020/07/08/wednesday-weekly-roundup-40/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


And the last Happiness is… actually applied to my weekend, since I got the idea for the next strip – or “waves” like they’re called on Instagram (or so I’m told). So I do have something else to draw whenever I feel like it!

Also, having written my 12K by Friday last week, I used the weekend mostly to upload the Star Minds Lone Wolves Team collection and working on other projects. Which kept me busy also on Monday, when I set up a couple of projects coming out in July – it’s going to be a very busy publishing month, stay tuned! 😀

So, the Lone Wolves Team is over, I have another shorter story about another team of fixers for the end of the month and a last Star Minds Universe title, then moving on. Although Future Earth Chronicles won’t start publishing until August, I’m afraid. But, like I said, plenty of awesome books coming up! 🙂

And while you wait for my own curated anthos, don’t forget to check Nuns With Guns, a fun collection of nuns and guns stories, available also in paperbacks. There are reviews on Amazon to check if it’s for you, if you don’t trust me to tell you it’s an excellent collection! 😉

A post on switching gears and various writing methods by David Farland. I’m mostly a one-draft writer who had a regular writing routine in the sense that I write every day until I finish a project, then I can take a couple of days off (like the past week). I might write short novels, but words add up.

So I’m already past halfway for my goal this year, and still writing mostly in the dark, although when I get to the story, I sometimes have to scrap whole chapters because I took a wrong turn. But it’s never wasted words, IMHO. Last February I learned a term that I loved – exploratory draft.

So yeah, I do a lot of exploratory drafts these days, but still get the job done. I’m fast anyway, because I’ve been doing it for so long, that I miss it when I’m not writing for too long. Perks of growing up in the age of the typewriter, with no internet to distract me! 😀

I also used some weekend time to rewatch some Bollymelodrama… the movie that started it all, Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (courtesy of British Airways on a trip to LA) and another Karan Johar movie, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham… – which according to some should be remade in Hollywood, but I still think in Cinecittà would be more appropriate, although I haven’t thought about the whole cast yet.

I mean, Italy and India have similar visions of family and parents and yadda yadda yadda – that’s not something I see in America much, so I doubt Hollywood could adapt that movie, but it could be an Italian comedy of some kind.

Next weekend we’ll see, since Techie Bro is moving homes and I might have guests… So if he’s game, I’d rather show him some Bollywood action, I’m sure he’d appreciate it much more, LOL!

Back to day job this week, so mornings are busy again, sigh. I better get back to writing, one more book for Future Earth Chronicles and then I can send the batch off to Mighty Editor… Have a great week! 🙂

 

by Barb on 17/06/2020  •  Permalink
Posted in struggles to get through, writing projects
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Posted by Barb on 17/06/2020

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2020/06/17/wednesday-weekly-roundup-37/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


Last week I wrote another 12K and started on the next (or previous?) book… proceeding slowly and almost in the dark, but that will make for nice author’s notes or possibly future backstage passes, LOL!

And RE: the latest Happiness is… (my first professional sale), Facebook reminded me a year ago I posted my author copy. It’s still out there, if you’d like to read it, in Pulphouse #5, although I plan on republishing that story soon.

If you have trouble with critical voice, now there’s a workshop to help you killing that critical voice. Personally, I don’t have a critical voice when I write, although every now and then self-doubt bites me when I’m least expecting it, but never while I’m writing. So if you need help in that department, to make writing fun again, go check that online workshop! 🙂

According to some, it’s the right time to read crime novels. Which is perfect for the release of my cover artist and friend’s first novel, Viral Sin.

I’m going to quote an Amazon reviewer, since unfortunately I’m never in the mood of reading thrillers and crime novels:

It was a debut novel by Shafali Anand and let me congratulate her for the work she has done. The hype around corona virus and it’s impact on us is unquestionable that made me read this book. The book starts with multiple characters who lives in different parts of the country having different backgrounds and different kind of lives but fighting against the same enemy. The author has beautiful and in a very simple language explained the effects of this virus on their lives be it temporary or permanent. Some lost their lives while batteling and few won the battle. But life must go on. I would like to recommend this to all those people who are afraid of facing the situation. It will definitely bring positivity to their lives.

So check it out and give her some love! 🙂 And there’s also this other friend of mine who has a suspense novel coming out soon. You can already check the pre-order at this link! Go check them out, right now! (One links to Amazon India, the other to Amazon.com, but I’m sure you can find your own Amazon shop if you’re not in those countries)

Me, I’m more for humor these days, so I’ll recommend this anthology about Nuns With Guns! How crazy is that? And yes, I wrote a story for this! 🙂 This is part of a series, and the previous two volumes had my strips in them. But this time it’s a prose short story, so no drawings! 😉

How’s the lockdown going for you? Are you a “covivert”? I am – I mean, I’m not thriving, but I’m not suffering either. Although I haven’t been in complete lockdown, unfortunately, since the demands of Day Job forced me out of the house! 😀

As announced, DeviantART changed its interface to the new Eclipse, which took away the only think I enjoyed – the llama trade. I was on DeviantART as hobbyist artist and I don’t care for all their new features – show of your portfolio and whatnot. So I’m giving it another couple of weeks, then I’ll close the account.

Some things better vanish from the internet, and the rest might end up in my Instagram. The Sunday Strip is still going, but I haven’t reached the newer strips (still to be colored, lettered and prepared for upload). I hope to catch up on that in the coming two weeks, when I’ll be off Day Job.

Meanwhile I added another mug to my Zazzle store, and hopefully today UPS should deliver my face mask, so next week I’ll post a pic! 😉 Now I shall wait with dread for the new WordPress Editor… sigh. What happened to “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it”? Can any IT person explain to me this need to upgrade stuff when nobody asks for it?!

Panic afternoon on Monday when I saw that D2D had sent to Vivlio the delisted Italian titles that I entered in KU. It ignored the delisted English titles, but probably decided that, since Vivlio is European, the Italian titles were meant to be distributed there. Erm, not.

Also, Vivlio seems to be worse than Apple for links inside the ebook… how dare I link to this very blog? So another title unpublished! 😉 The clean-up continues… Now I better go back to writing, I have another book and a half to finish! 🙂 Have a great week!

by Barb on 27/05/2020  •  Permalink
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Posted by Barb on 27/05/2020

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2020/05/27/wednesday-weekly-roundup-34/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


Last week I wrote almost 14K words. And after deleting 2K I decided to change the books order… so Book 8 will be Book 9! Glad I’m writing them all before sending them off to Mighty Editor and hit that Publish button, LOL! Although I did have to modify the book # on the covers I prepared, but it’s just one minor change.

I hope to finish this book in a couple of days and then I’ll have to decide if I continue to the next or go back to the one I skipped because I wasn’t expecting things to go this way. Perks of writing into the dark. I must say the second batch of books is really surprising me and keeping me entertained! 🙂

And of course there’s another Team Missions book out, in case you were waiting for it. Unfortunately the last 3 books have lost interest for my Kobo Australia reader, unless they’re in lockdown and haven’t realized the series is continuing. Oh, well. The full collection will be out mid-June, so maybe that’s what they’re waiting for! 🙂

And you can now buy face masks in my revived Zazzle Store, either with my strips characters or with yours truly. I also put the art on mugs, in case you broke all your mugs in frustration during lockdown.

Here’s the collection with yours truly…

And the one with the strips characters

I had a lot of fun preparing them, hope you like them! I ordered one for myself, but I haven’t received it yet, I’ll post a pic when I get it! 😉 They’re still working on my order, so we’ll see…

And the Smashwords sale ends soon! Here’s a link to the currently discounted books from yours truly. Next week I hope to post a link to the next project I’m in, an anthology I’m currently reading so I’ll be able to tell you more about the other authors who keep me company… stay tuned! 😉

I can watch only comedies at the moment, and I was in the mood for She-Devil because while writing I feel a little like Meryl Streep in that movie (although it’s from 1989, she has an electric typewriter and writes romance, the publishing world has changed A LOT since, but well… it’s Meryl Streep as Successful Romance Author! 😉 ), stopping and thinking of a better word and correcting and all that.

Although obviously I don’t have a palace overlooking the ocean and I’m not a successful romance author, but you get the idea! 😉 Things are slowly re-opening on this side of the world as we enter Phase 2, but spring has also exploded and the heat has arrived, making me want to move north immediately.

Unfortunately, even though in June we’ll be able to travel to Europe, I doubt I’m anywhere close to leaving the damn DayJob and moving to a cooler country. Sigh. I’m really considering going to IceCon in November, so I’d be able to see the Northern Lights and maybe book a tour or two with the Tour Bunny before or after the convention…

That’s all for now! Have a great week! 🙂

by Barb on 20/05/2020  •  Permalink
Posted in struggles to get through, writing projects
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Posted by Barb on 20/05/2020

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2020/05/20/wednesday-weekly-roundup-33/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


Last week I added another 2K to Books 6 and 7 (mostly Book 7, since it was and still is shorter) and then started on Book 8, that reached 10K by Sunday night. I also worked on the cover rebranding, but I’ll do a “new covers reveal” event closer to the publication of the next books.

It will probably be a Facebook event, either in my group or on my page, we’ll see. Let me know your preference – and if you’re not on Facebook, just say so, and I’ll do the event on this very blog! 🙂 By June the Happiness Is vignettes will end, therefore I’ll reinstate the Sunday Surprise posts, so you’ll have two posts a week still.

And here’s the year ahead… again for indies like me. You may have noticed I resumed my publishing every other week of books I wrote between the end of last year and the beginning of this one… So, another batch of Lone Wolves Team missions is out! Check it out at the usual places! 🙂 Two more coming this month, then in June the final books of the Star Minds Universe.

And the UK has decided to scrap VAT on e-publications! So you’ll pay the price I set up on the retailer, with no VAT added. My titles are usually between 1.99£ and 3.99£ (with a few 99p exceptions). For everybody else, sorry, I’m not the one who decieds on VAT percentages…

This week marks Phase 2 in Italy, so more people are allowed out and more places are opening, still with social distancing andf masks and gloves and all that jazz. I go to work by bus, and from this week it’s every day again, not just Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays like it was since March 12.

Monday morning I took the bus with new labels forbidding to sit too close to each other, so if a bus has 20 seats, you can use only 4 or 5. Which is fine at 7-30am, but definitely more “crowded” at 1pm. There were also more people around and waiting for the bus. And besides surgical masks, we got facial shields for work – which is much better, because you breathe better.

Still, only six people can be present at one time, so some of us will have to either work from home or take other forms of permits. I already used 15 vacation days this year, so thankfully my manager didn’t ask me to miss a day in May! 🙂 It’s sort of going back to normal, except there will still be long lines at supermarkets and now I have only Saturday mornings to go and buy food. Sigh.

I guess that’s all from this side of the world… stay home if you can, stay safe and don’t panic. We shall overcome! Have a great week! 🙂

by Barb on 06/05/2020  •  Permalink
Posted in real world inspiration, struggles to get through, the Human being
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Posted by Barb on 06/05/2020

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2020/05/06/wednesday-weekly-roundup-31/

Wednesday Weekly Roundup


By Wednesday last week I had finished Draft Zero of Book 7, so I had to stop, re-read, adjust, and so on. So only 8400 new words. Having found some mistakes on the first five books while writing 6 and 7, I decided to go through the paperbacks (something I used to do immediately, but since I moved to KDPprint and had to send the books live to order copies, I had shamelessly skipped the process) and catch typo faeries and adjust mistakes to what I’ve been writing.

It’s really minor changes for my one and only reader so far, and you can download the updated version from Smashwords for whenever you want to read them again. Whoever gets the series now (and on Smashwords it’s still 9$ for 5 books…) will get the corrected version. I hadn’t sold any paperbacks, so I’m not worried about those, LOL!

I won’t blame you if you don’t want to read the Future Earth Chronicles now, though. A side effect of the Covid-19 pandemic? Reading got a lot harder. Especially reading sci-fi:

Lisa Yaszek is also trying to be kind to herself. These days, the last thing the professor of science-fiction studies wants to do is read more science fiction. She already feels as if she’s living through a disaster, Yaszek said. She doesn’t need the excitement of somebody else’s.

Of course, she said, some might find comfort in dystopian stories, like E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops,” about a world where society lives underground, reliant on a giant machine to provide its needs, and the machine breaks down. The parallels are obvious.

Lots of science fiction is inherently optimistic, said Yaszek, who teaches at the Georgia Institute of Technology. It’s about the possibility that people might put down their differences and work together. Reading those narratives can feel discomforting right now, she said, because when you’re done, you return to this imperfect world, where people are making imperfect choices.

So don’t worry, the series will still be out there, possibly with five or six more books, when this is over! 🙂 We’re living through history, and it’s obviously keeping our minds busy with all the bombardment of contrasting news about the pandemic. Be kind to yourself and carry on! 🙂

What are your best practices? I can’t “write by committee” because I started on my own. In this time of upset, I moved brainstorming from drawing to playing Bubble Witch Saga 3 (sue me! 😉 ) and by now I’m well adjusted at doing my first draft on my writing laptop instead of longhand. The writing is not suffering, it’s everything else that went on the backburner! 🙂

Althoug I updated both the Future Earth Chronicles and the Star Minds Universe series pages. I’m still pondering if I should change the covers of Future Earth Chronicles – at least the ebooks. I’m working on new ones, experimenting before I buy the images for the next five or six books! 🙂

And our mighty curator A.L. Butcher put out another bundle! Here Be Aliens is now live on BundleRabbit and the usual suspects. In this bundle you can find Adventurer, the first of the Star Minds Lone Wolves books, along with a few more. Or you can check the series discounted on Smashwords (the first 7 books are 30%off as mentioned on this list of discounted titles).

This is science fantasy/space opera, so it should take you away from this planet for a while (although Adventurer starts on a different future Earth, where we have joined the Star Nations and are traveling to space, yay!). It’s also alternate future because the shift happened back in 2012! 🙂

Also, for your reading (dis?)pleasure, the trainwreck… of traditional publishing. I shall stay tuned for the indie version. The IASFA has also a Facebook group. And they’re NOT like the Author Guild mentioned by Kris Rusch in her post, that’s for sure.

Now off to working on the next book of Future Earth Chronicles... Have a great week! 🙂

 

by Barb on 29/04/2020  •  Permalink
Posted in real world inspiration, struggles to get through
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Posted by Barb on 29/04/2020

https://creativebarbwire.wordpress.com/2020/04/29/wednesday-weekly-roundup-30/

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