Now Available! Run With the Hunted 2: Ctrl Alt Delete

Happy Monday!  The long-awaited sequel of Run With the Hunted is now available in ebook or paperback form!

In the fast-paced, tech-heavy future, even hackers need to take a break. Bits isn’t working right now, and instead spends her days in VR, making necessary additions to the immersion’s neglected night sky. When Dolly shows up with a problem that needs solving, Bits can’t just boot her. Especially not when she finds out Bristol’s been arrested and they have a narrow window of opportunity to bust her out. There’s something wrong, more than jail, more than the effects of all that time in VR, but she can’t remember. She and Dolly have to hit the road first and figure out the details later, because if they lose track of Bristol now, they might never get a second chance.

Run With the Hunted preorder

Happy October, everybody, I have a surprise for you!

My cyberpunk novella "Run With the Hunted" is available for Kindle preorder! The release date is October 31, 2018.

"In the fast-paced, tech-heavy future, diamonds are still a girl’s best friend. Bristol is more than happy to get dressed up and crash a private diamond sale that her hacker associate, Bits, has caught wind of on the deep web. The job is unbelievably simple and the getaway is a breeze; Dolly barely even gets to fire a shot during the holdup. But in the days that follow, things start to go wrong. Bristol’s dinner party is raided, their buyer backs out, and they find themselves on the run in a heavily surveilled city. Now that it’s become clear these diamonds are more than meets the eye, the trio has to find out who wants them enough to kill for it."


I said this on Twitter, and I'll likely post about it at greater length at some later date, but "Run With the Hunted", in my head, takes place in the same near-future as "Daddy's Girl" and "Surveillance Fatigue". This isn't to say that the characters in those previous stories are involved; they aren't. Another notable difference is that the characters in "Run With the Hunted" all have names! But, it was a lot of fun to write, and I really enjoy the characters of Bristol, Bits, and Dolly, so hopefully I'll make a habit (series) of this.

July 2016 goals roundup

Well, July was more productive than I'd intended.

See, I'd set out to write a 25k word novella, a female-cast cyberpunk diamond heist. I thought it would be fun, I thought I'd have just a tight story arc about that one thing, kind of like how I wrote a novella on purpose in April. But no, I really liked the characters, I really liked the setting I was trying to pull off, and the story grew. Arguably, it's because sometimes I lack focus. Other times, though, the story length I intend when I get started isn't the one the story needs. I've done this before with two short stories I made into novels (The Last Song and the still unfinished biker exorcism novel). I'm doing it right now, I think, with a novel I'm making into a short story.

So my July project, instead of being 25k, reached The End at 44,400 words. I need to add about 20k more words of international hijinks in there (for whatever reason, everything just stayed in the same city until the epilogue, which doesn't really make sense for my larger vision of the scope, but works for a first draft. You can't fix what isn't written.

I've had great feedback on my short story "Sugar and Spice", published in the Summer issue of The Sockdolager. It was a story I really enjoyed, which has gone through a few iterations, though all very similar to the original, and I'm really pleased that it found a home.

I've also had good feedback on "The Lion and the Dragonslayer", in the Mosaics 2 anthology (of course I read the reviews. How could I not?) Several of the reviews on Amazon and on Goodreads mention my story specifically, and one of the reviewers say they really want more of The Lion! I do have other Lion stories written, but no others have been accepted yet. I should probably do a new one of those this year, edit it, and start it on the submission circuit.

In story submission news, I have 11 stories currently submitted. One of those is still an October Submission, and I'm interested to see if it will reach its submission birthday. How does one celebrate such a thing? By considering it a "no reply means no"? By drinking a miniature bottle of Kraken or Crystal Skull Vodka? I'm not sure it's a cake occasion, but maybe it is. Suggestions welcome!

April 2016 Goals Roundup

Mosaics 2 has launched! Technically, today (May 1) is the Kindle release date (smarturl.it/Mosaics2), but the Paperback became available on April 23.

 

Also, for right now (until Monday, May 2?) volume 1 of Mosaics is on Kindle sale for 99 cents (smarturl.it/Mosaics1 ). All proceeds from both Mosaics and Mosaics 2 will go to the Pixel project to end violence against women. 

There's even a promo trailer!

There are already 5 reviews on Amazon, and one of them specifically mentions my story (and some others), "The Lion and the Dragonslayer", as a "be sure not to miss!" and says "all names worth keeping an eye out for the future!" I know there's some rule about not reading the reviews or whatever, but apparently I can't not. I will not REPLY to reviews; that's the golden rule.

and finally, here is the art for my particular story! That's right, each piece has art!

 There is a Facebook Launch Party today, but we have a bbq thing and then Dungeons and Dragons, so I will not be hosting, just  (I hope) occasionally popping in to comment.

Mosaics 2 now available!

I announced my acceptance into Mosaics 2: a Collection of Independent Women back in February, and the time has finally come. It's here, it's here!

The Kindle date still appears to be May 1, but if you want to order the paperback, you could have it by Wednesday! Isn't it lovely, sometimes, to be living in The World of Tomorrow?

My included story is "The Lion and the Dragonslayer": when the village of Orford asked for help with a dragon, they didn't expect the king to send a woman, no matter how big her sword is.

(I was particularly pleased with my little story blurb there; I typically struggle quite a lot with producing an interesting summary of literally anything, much less what I've written.)

In conjunction with this publication, I've created a Goodreads author profile . I hope to see titles of other anthologies, and my own books, attached to it pretty soon!

Obviously, I encourage you to get the Kindle or paperback of Mosaics 2 (or get it from your local library! And request that your library orders it; mine is, as volume 1, anyway, was available through the book distributor Ingram) and I also encourage (entreat?) you to review it on Goodreads and/or Amazon. Every time you review a book, an author gets its wings. Or something.

Book Review: Winter Soon, by David Michael Martin

I guess I should preface this by mentioning the author of Winter Soon is my maternal grandfather. That little fact had an interesting effect on my reading, to say in the least.

It's always interesting to read something written by somebody you know. For everything you know about a person, or have talked about with a person, there's a lot going on behind the scenes. Maybe some of that is pulled back, with all of our microinstantblogging social network extravaggrandizement (I might trademark that phrase, be warned), maybe not. We have our public face and our private face, and our family face.

 (cover art by Marina Ermakova-Martin, linked from Amazon)

Smutception

Look, a Fifty Shades Generator! (totally raunchy and ridiculous and NSFW or whatever the hell. But if you're online at work, I salute and envy you. I can kind of go online at work, but it's mostly to look at stuff on Amazon [for when people are all "I'm looking for a book. I don't remember the title or author. The cover might be blue? It came out last year. Maybe it has 'nights' in the title'?" Some of these I magically know {the above is Blue Nights, by Joan Didion}, but seriously people? If you don't remember anything about it, how the fuck do you know you want to read it? Pick something else! AT RANDOM. It'll be just as good. Or bad. {But that reminds me, I wanted to read Slouching Towards Bethlehem by her. So thanks, guys!}])


(You can rent paperbacks on Amazon? Oh what the hell. Go to the fucking library.)

Things that happened since I posted here last

So, since I posted here last (July 11, if you're keeping track!)

I turned 30 (I'm rather ambivalent about this, and that topic will be a post in and of itself. I promise.)

There was a fight in the library gazebo (no, it didn't involve me really in any way. but it was certainly an event!)

I totally forgot about the August CampNaNoWriMo Until like, August 4. So, another fail. November will be better, right? Right.

I watched the movie Chronicle. Which was freaking awesome. I recommend it, definitely.

I rewatched original Fantasia. Elka watched it with me, at least the beginning part, which is mostly shapes and colors.

I've worked on editing a short story anthology that I intend to publish through Amazon.

I made pancakes on my own from scratch for the first time. I'm not typically a pancakes kind of gal. I'd made pancakes before in the past, but mostly as the flipper, without having a hand in the rest of the process.