Sci-Fi, Thrillers, Contemporary
Finally my subscriber’s copy arrived! That’s a smile on my face, I’m sure. Clearly too focused on working the new computer’s camera… but inside I’m smiling, and jumping up and down and turning cartwheels. Well, at my age, I can manage one cartwheel 🙂
Athena Setting is my latest novel. I had had an absolute ball writing it.
When I was a teen, knowing I wanted to be a writer, I would fantasize about the books I would write one day. I even drew covers for some of them. One was called Athena Setting. About a spaceship on a death plunge into Jupiter. You know, the kind of thing a teenage boy thinks about.
That cover sketch is long gone. But the idea still sat with me. And I guess some of that teenage boy is still with me because I went ahead and wrote the book. I had just the best fun writing it too. Kind of like I got to be that kid again.
The new cover is by ©Mik3812345 | Dreamstime, with a little tinkering by me.
Of course I don’t know if the novel is any good or not, but I like to think that the fun I had in the writing will come through for the reader.
Like my story Low Arc (free to read), Athena Setting is pretty hard sci-fi. No aliens, no distant star systems, just people going about the difficult business of exploring the solar system.
After Gretel and The Cly, this one marks my third standalone sci-fi novel in a row. Next I think I’ll be working on some series, both thriller and sci-fi. More new on that later.
With Athena Setting I’m doing the pre-order thing, in attempting to make it available on all platforms at the same time. Release date is 30th June. I set that date as part of wanting a tangible way to celebrate writing a novel during the month. More on June, the month of the novel here.
Athena Setting: eBook, $5.99, print $15.99
Available from Smashwords, Amazon and various other retailers. Check your favorite.
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve challenged myself to write a novel in the month of June. Looks like I’m on track.
20 days down, 44,102 words written. Running about ten percent ahead of target. Naturally some of those words will go before it sees the light of day.
While I’m having a ball writing the book, I’m finding I need to ensure I don’t borrow too much time from other activities. Sometimes that extra half-hour or so of writing each day pushes into the business of getting things formatted and out. Still, all a good learning experience.
In my last post I talked about my plans to write a novel in June. One of my Karnish River Navigations series (which only has one book out so far, but more coming soon).
My novels usually come in around 60,000 words (a couple of exceptions there – The Cly is 
around 90,000, but I got a bit carried away with that one. A theme for another post). With 30 days in June, that means hitting 2000 words a day. Through May I managed over 1900 a day, but I had a few days off work for focused writing. Usually I’m aiming for a 1500 word daily average through any given month.
I thought I’d update quickly with my last few days. I had Sunday at Au Contraire, the New Zealand Science Fiction Conference (again, a post for another time), so was busy on Sunday, but had Monday morning at the hotel, simply writing with few distractions.
Friday June 3rd – 2015 words
Saturday June 4th – 2150 words
Sunday June 5th – 2073 words (squeaked in there – up late writing after the SJV awards)
Monday June 6th – 3110 words -yay!
Cumulative total: 13980 (including 2478 and 2154 words from the 1st and 2nd). Feel like I’m on track. Some of those words are bound to end up deleted, I’m sure, so it’s good to be ahead.
Well, at the risk of making a fool of myself, I’m going to attempt writing a novel in June. And update with my word count as I go.
Now, I’ve written novels fast before – as little as forty days. But thirty days? That’ll be something new.
I know about NaNoWriMo. I know plenty of people take that challenge successfully. Right now I figure why wait until November?
Also, my plan is to write good copy. No sloppy writing to be fixed-up later. I want it as clean as possible so there’ll be minimal revision needed.
The novel I’m attempting is another in my Karnish River Navigations series. There’s just one book, Arlchip Burnout, available at the moment. I have the second and third written already and in the process of first readers and copyediting and so on at the moment. I hope to have the second book, Canal Days, available in a couple of months, followed by the as-yet-untitled third book a month or so after. The fourth, Guest House Izarra (working title), upon which I’m now embarking perhaps soon after that. If I can get it written and knocked into shape those might be October, November and December releases (notice how I let myself off the hook a bit there?).
As I work on this new novel, I’ll update periodically (weekly?) here with wordcounts.
Writing Guest House Izarra:
Wednesday June 1st: 2478 words
Thursday June 2nd: 2154 words
I seem to be lax in yelling out when I have a new book available, so I’m going to see if I can stop and just go ahead and post. Last week I mentioned my forthcoming publishing plans, including for my new novel The Cly.
I am writing and publishing a lot this year, so I guess it’s easy for me to forget to mention things in a practical, right-brained way (practical is right-brain, right?). While I’m fairly good and writing (as in, I spend a lot of time on it), I still need to learn an awful lot about marketing and business (writing is way more fun, so I spend a whole lot less time on marketing and business).
So The Cly is my longest novel in awhile – a shade under ninety thousand words. Mostly I’m clocking somewhere just north of sixty thousand. Initially I thought it would hit that shorter length, but the plot demanded more action and more resolution.
Here’s the blurb:
Tony Brock saved humanity once. But in the mess, he lost his relationship with his daughter.
Now the Cly pose a new threat. A threat that might destroy the Earth itself.
And the aliens won’t negotiate.
So Brock’s back in the thick of it. Chasing them down, and chasing the faint hope of seeing Bex one more time.
An alien invasion novel with a difference.
I should mention the wonderful cover illustrator – Luca Oleastri. Thanks for another great image.
Available from most ebook and print book retailers (ask at your local bookstore for the print version – all 500 odd pages of it).
ebook $5.99
Nook
Kobo
Smashwords
Kindle
Paperback $22.99
Amazon
Right now I’m busily preparing three books for publication. I’d like to have them all out by the end of May.
The first, my new novel, continues to trip me up. First, the title was not my working title, but that title doesn’t work. Titles trouble me (sometimes, more on that below). It seems the best one here is the name of the alien species (following Jack Vance’s novels The Dirdir and The Pnume, and doubtless many others.
Also the tag line (another thing that always trips me). “Earth on the verge of annihilation”. Sheesh, really. Well, that’s kind of what it’s about. Kind of.
And then, putting “Aurealis Award Finalist” on the cover by my name. Hmmm. It’s true, I have been a finalist for the award (lost out to Garth Nix there, so that’s okay). But is it okay to put it there when it wasn’t for this story? I guess I’ve kept it by my name, rather than by the title. And many authors do have all sorts all over their covers. Am I bragging too much there? Or in the right way? Should it say “Aurealis Award Finalist Author”? But then I’ve got “Author of Gretel” right underneath and doesn’t “author” twice in tags look silly?
Despite doing this for a few years now, I’m still second-guessing and learning and trying new things. I do like the cover – courtesy of Luca Oleastri/Innovari.
The other two books are stories, one a small collection and one a big collection. The first is titled “Celeste Without Gravity” and the other “Listen, You!”. I do like Celeste’s title (following on from above), not sure about the other.
Anyway, The Cly will be out by the end of this week, Celeste sometime next week and, all going to plan, Listen, You! the following week.
All in time and out of the way to get the next novel Athena Setting (my darling, see previous posts) out in early June.
I’ve been self-publishing/indie publishing for about four years now. Learning as I go. Kind of like a busker or a street performer. Out in public practising. Getting better as I go, I hope. Taking courses and reading books and learning all the time, too.
On occasion, some kind reader buys one or other of my stories, like tossing money into a buskers cap. It’s encouraging. I hope they enjoy the stories they purchase as I practise in public.
With the learning, as soon as I feel I’ve got a handle on the writing, I seem to discover some new technique or approach. Often things that seem obvious. Right away I incorporate that into my writing, with various degrees of success. When I look back over my stories, some I’m very proud of, others seem to have been written by a different person.
The other key thing I’m learning is business. That’s a much tougher road for me. I don’t think I’m a natural entrepreneur, so I have to concentrate. I have to make an effort to take those risks, invest some cash, and push into those realms that are a whole lot more uncomfortable.
One of the things I’m beginning to look at are some of those older stories, with bad covers and terrible blurbs. Case in point: Stone Goddess. It was a fun little story I wrote some years back. It got published in an anthology titled Horror Through the Ages from Lame Goat Press. No monetary payment (at the time I was fine with that: I was happy to be in print). It also got a podcast at Cast Macabre (and seems to be still available, for free). Again no monetary payment.
At some point along the way I realized that giving stories away was not a path to making a livelihood (slow to catch on, I know).
I started putting my stories up on Smashwords, Kindle, iTunes, Kobo, Nook and so on. Even putting some of the longer ones in print. I did my own covers. I wrote my own blurbs. Learning all the time.
Now, I’m going back and gradually updating some of those older works with some of the things I’ve learned more recently. So “Stone Goddess” has a new cover. To my embarassment, I’m putting the old cover next to the new. I like the new one better.
Original cover image by me. New cover image by © 1971yes | Dreamstime.com
I’ve redone the interior too, and added a couple of other stories to fill it up a bit (“Stone Goddess” is kind of short) for some value for money. A new blurb too:
Top Mars researcher Ben James loves getting out into the field. Under the stars. Into the dust and stone.
But today something’s amiss. Something’s out there. Calling to him.
Something he’s got to find.
Even if it means breaking every protocol.
A short story from the author of The Molenstraat Music Festival. Includes three bonus Mars stories.
I think it could still use some work, but I dare not show the old blurb (omigosh amateur ramblings).
The story is pretty much available at your favorite ebook retailer. I’m thinking about making a print version (though it’ll be slim). If you’ve read this far (thanks) here’s a coupon for a free copy from Smashwords. Click here and enter the following code:
Promotional price: $0.00
Coupon Code: XH22Q
Expires: April 26, 2021
Five years was the longest I could set the coupon for. I think you have to create a Smashwords login – if you’d like a copy without all that palaver, just let me know here.
All that said about going back, I am continuing to go forward. Trying to write better stories. Working on having consistent covers. And writing sensible, engaging blurbs.
Busking.
Back in mid-April I commented on Dean Wesley Smith’s blog post about choices. I realized that actually my comment fitted with my own blog and, in fact, could stand expanding.
When I was a teenager and wanting to be a writer and writing lots, I also drew covers for novels I would write someday.
It was kind of self-encouragement: in those days I had no idea how to write a novel. But it was cool to have a pretend cover with my name on it. In the intervening years I might have learned a couple of things about how to write a novel and I’ve practised plenty by writing a fair number of them.
So in January of this year, wondering what to write next, I remembered about that teenage dream. You know what? I sat down and wrote one of those novels. Now I have a book for my cover. Athena Setting. About a space mission gone wrong, a trapped crew about to plunge into Jupiter’s atmosphere while the would-be rescuers struggle to come up with a workable plan.
I will, of course, write a more attractive blurb for the release.
Naturally, I also have a new cover for my book (that pencil scratching would look out of place, and it seems is in fact long gone). A wonderful image by Mik3812345 sourced from Dreamstime.com. I’ve tinkered with that a little. I think it helps tell the story. I do think I’ll update that tagline too – maybe “One hundred hours till rescue, ninety hours till impact” which kind of sums it up a little better.
The novel should be out around the end of May (maybe early June) as both an ebook and in print.
But after saying all that, let me tell you, I had such a fun time with the writing of the story. I got to be that kid again. It might not be my best novel, but I hope my sense of fun and adventure comes through. The kid in me can’t wait to hold the book in his hand. And try out writing another one.
I’m thrilled that my novelette “The Molenstraat Music Festival” is a finalist in the 30th Annual Readers’ Award Poll. The story is posted on the site and available to read (for free). Looking forward to see the announcement of the winners in May (with baited breath and fingers crossed).
Sean Monaghan - Writer 