Ann Christy's Blog, page 11

Telepath Chronicles!

Sadly, I’m not in this one, but just look at the amazing line up of talent in there! I’m still reading but so far, I’ve loved every single story.

The Future Chronicles – of which The Telepath Chronicles is the second volume, is chock-full of awesomeness. I’ve already got the ebook and the paperback.

The paperback books of all the Future Chronicles are must haves for the collector. Why? Well, the amazing Patrice Fitzgerald brought her copy of The Robot Chronicles to a conference to get any of the authors in it that were there to sign it (including moi!).

Brilliant, I say! Since there is unlikely ever to be a time when you’ll be able to get one already signed by everyone (unless something unbelievably unlikely happens), getting one signed by everyone–one at a time as the chance occurs–is going to make for an amazing possession. I’m so doing it. I will be lugging every single Chronicle book around with me to every conference.

But…uh…I’m not stalking the other authors. I’m not. It will be purely when the circumstances permit.

 

Oh, look! Zombies!

Oh yes, that is exactly what it looks like. A new book cover!

I know, total surprise. It was a surprise to me, too. Honestly, I don’t know how it happened. Magic?

What’s it about? Well, zombies, but not really. It’s really Emily’s story. It’s not a hack and slash. Though there is a measure of head bashing in it, it’s not gratuitous or extensive. Here’s my initial hit on a blurb (most of it provided by the brilliant Logan Thomas Snyder):

“One of these things is not like the others…
Lots of kids grew up playing that game. Sorting blocks and putting things where they belong.
Of course, there aren’t a lot of kids anymore. Some. Not so many.
Still, even nowadays it’s hard not to notice when something is different from all the others. Especially when it comes creeping into your area, clawing at your fence, and bringing strange, unwanted news…
What would you do?
Would you turn and run? Or would you chance your fate on an In-Betweener?”

That blurb will get refined as I get closer to publication, but that’s a rough cut.

Those who read my posts know I’ve been working on some stories to hone my skills. Stories are great ways to do that because it forces me to consider how many words I use very carefully. After all, there’s only so many words I can use and it still be a story.

Well, in honor of the season (it was just before Halloween), I decided to go a little dark and started something I thought would be a story. I got to the end of it and realized I really liked it and that Emily’s story could be so much more in-depth and involved.

So, I sat there going, “Should I? Shouldn’t I?” Eventually, I succumbed and just started writing.

The entire thing just sort of fell together by itself and I was able to get it out to a few beta readers very quickly. All of them highly approved! In between writing the sequel for NaNoWriMo, I’m editing the first draft and expanding a couple of sections, but it will be in the talented editor’s inbox on December 1st.

When will it be out? I’m shooting for very early January, but I won’t know exactly until after the editor gets a look at it and tells me if it’s a big work for editing or a little work for editing.

Either way, I’ll be ready for ARC sign-ups in December. As always, I will have only limited spots for the ARC readers, so don’t delay when the call goes out. And yes, I’ll be sure to send out a newsletter when it goes live so that newsletter readers get it during the low launch-pricing period!

Strikers is a Kindle Daily Deal today!

Late breaking news!

Strikers is one of Amazon’s Kindle Daily Deals today and they’ve lowered the price to $1.99 just for today.

So, for everyone who held off wondering if the price would drop, this is the day.

I’m woot-cited, which is a combination of wooting and excited, at being chosen!

Read and Loved: The Humans by Matt Haig

This book rose to the Read and Loved section of my book list before I was even done with it. Bottom line up front: The Humans by Matt Haig is freaking beautiful.

Following my commitment not to give spoilers leaves me searching for ways to describe the story. I’ll do my best.

An alien without a name comes to our own dinky Earth in the guise of a professor named Andrew Martin. Everything about us…and the living things on our planet in general…disgusts and appalls him. He has a mission, of course, but in order to do it he lives Andrew Martin’s life. His wife, his son, his dog and all the other assorted characters in Andrew’s life must be interacted with in an appropriate fashion, but in doing so, he starts to see the wonder in what we take for granted every single day. And the journey is one the reader will remember for a long time after the last page is read.

Okay, so what makes that so amazing? The writing, the way the story is told and the absolutely genuine flow of the entire thing. I have a general rule when writing that comes from reading far more than I write and it is this: Too much striving for beautiful sentences exhausts the reader. It should not be the goal of every sentence, but rather the punctuation in the story. 

We’ve all read books like that, haven’t we? The ones where the sentences have been tortured on the rack so that everything just screams “labor of love” or “tortured writer”? Yeah, those. They’re so exhausting to read I eventually start laughing and saying things out loud like, “Oh, aren’t you precious?”

Never fear, this isn’t that book. But what Matt Haig does in this book is even rarer than the book filled with perfectly crafted sentences. This book is filled with perfectly crafted sentences that don’t read that way. The story is (and the sentences are) wonderful to read and so easy that it takes a second look to realize how much work had to go into it.

This is an amazingly well-written book.

And then there’s Andrew/Alien. What a portrait! Seriously, if I wasn’t so impressed I’d be pea green with jealousy! The way he looks at things is worth the read all on it’s own.

And the list at the end, Advice for a Human, is really enough to make a person cry and clap. If you listen to the audiobook (and I whole-heartedly recommend that because it was exceptionally well done) you’ll need to be sure you keep your hands on the wheel at ten and two for safety’s sake.

Am I gushing? Well, possibly. But in this case, it’s worth it. It’s no secret that I’m not in favor of ebooks that cost almost the same as paperbacks. It’s no secret that I tend to pass over those in favor of something more reasonable. I’ve made an exception in this case. I got the audiobook from the library originally for my terrible commute. After I got done with it, I immediately bought the book. It’s worth it.

New Zombie Book: The In-Betweener

Yes, I’ve gone there. A zombie book with my name on it. What is the world coming to?

It started as a short story that I was writing for my collection, a sort of tribute to Halloween. But then I looked at it and said, “Hmm, I like where this is going. Let’s see what she’ll do next.”

So, I kept going. I didn’t do laundry. I didn’t cook. I did go grocery shopping, but that’s pretty much it. I just pounded keys (a lot of them the backspace key). And voila…new book!

It’s not your typical zombie story. I think by now most readers know I’m into the development of the character over some particular hump in their life. So, there’s that as a major part of it.

As far as brain smashing and munching, not as much of that, though there is some inevitable bit of violence of the zombie style. I’ve got a few beta readers lined up, but if there are any other zombie aficionados out there who would like to take it for a beta spin, do contact me. You know how to get hold of me.

Life/Time in the New World Finished!

So, I’m home from the conference and tired…tired…tired. But also strangely energized as well.

National Novel Writing Month is just around the corner in November, where I’ll attempt to write 50,000 words of a new novel (or series of novellas). The catch is that it can’t be one I’ve already started, so I’m saving some of my novel energy for then. I’ll need it!

That’s kept me working on the stories for the upcoming collection. And one of them is now finished and ready to percolate for a while before I go into editing phase. It’s longer than a short story (no surprise with me!) and about the length of a short novella. I like it. It’s got a twist, because all my stories do, and one that I very much enjoyed writing.

So..what now? After all, I’ve got 11 days until November starts, right? Ahh…glad you asked. I’m working on another of the stories for the collection. This one has no final title name, and I’m entirely at a loss as to what to call it because The In-Betweener is already a title of a comic book character that is not related to the story in any way.

And, yeah, I’ve gone there. Zombies. But luckily, not normal zombies because I don’t do normal.

I’ll be putting up a sneak peek here pretty soon. So check back for that.

James River + the SciFi Ladies

So, a few of us decided not to wallow in the hotel rooms and go out for a good dinner instead. From left to right: Patrice Fitzgerald, Jen Foehner Wells, Rysa Walker and me, Ann Christy.

If you don’t know who any of those names are, go to Amazon and type in their name. It means you’re missing out on some good books.

So, Patrice (she is such a great organizer of humans, events, anything that descends into randomness and chaos) made our reservations at Lemaire, inside The Jefferson Hotel, which is my favorite here in Richmond. I confess, I was drooling at the thought.

And here is what was going through my head, in order. One: Meat Butter and Two: I’m going to pop this dress if I eat Meat Butter. (By the way, meat butter is just any meat you eat there. I have no idea how they do it, but all meat products almost melt in your mouth and force indecent sounds out of mouths. Truly.)

This is me before I left, dreaming of meat butter and fearing my zipper.

The above are snaps of my dinner. I know…I know. Why am I showing you food? Because I love food! And because I rarely get to eat pretty food. Mostly, my food is healthy, but not particularly attractive. I mean, I make a great home-made split pea soup, but it ain’t much to look at.

 

I wasn’t the only one impressed with dinner. I took photos of everyone else taking photos of their food. Whoa…deep. Okay, not really. The funny thing is, I did too and I believed that I posted them, but they never showed up. So really, who knows where they wound up and what I really posted. I’m not going to dig and find out.

Yes, I know I tend to be very straight laced about things most of the time. But I did let my hair down, so to speak, and imbibe a little. I won’t post the pictures of me later in the evening trying to totter my way up the ramp to the elevators. Not cute! For once, I’m glad of facebook scroll.

 

James River + Hugh

The first day of the James River Writer’s Conference went swimmingly! I posted a bunch of stuff on Facebook, but one of the great things I learned today in Hugh Howey’s class was to not consign my good stuff to the great beyond of the scroll. Anything really good that gets posted there should also be on my site. So…here we go!

Above is the group that went to eat and have a good chat after Hugh’s class. How many can you name? Well, there’s Hugh Howey, Rysa Walker, Jen Foehner Wells, David Gatewood, Patrice Fitzgerald, Kevin G. Summers and a wonderful guy named Ron Walker who has read books by Hugh, Patrice and me. It was soooo great to meet a reader! And we ate at the Tobacco Company, which is smoke free and quite yummy. I couldn’t barely eat a thing though cause my jaws were flapping.

 

And this is blurry, which I’m so bummed about, but this is Hugh and me. This guy absolutely changed my life…I was not a writer, didn’t dream of being a writer, had no intention of being a writer. Now I’m a writer with 6 books out and stories in three anthologies (more coming) and I’m about to go full time. Seriously…that’s amazing and I owe it to him. So, getting a picture with him is pretty awesome.

 

The Master class he gave was incredible. People were pretty much rapt and I know I was taking notes like nobody’s business. And I wasn’t the only one. I’ll make a long post on it when I return, but building your own platform as a writer seems easy, but most of us do it wrong (me included). People who did it smashingly good right out of the gate are Jen Foehner Wells (Fluency, great book, read it).

So, tonight it’s the Ladies going out to eat at one of my favorite restaurants, and surely one of the favorite in Richmond. It’s called Lemaire and it’s inside The Jefferson Hotel, which is my favorite here in Richmond. Go on, take a look. If you want a romantic getaway or just love staying in a place that looks like another age (or the inside of the Titanic), then you can’t go wrong there. I’ll try to get a picture, but as you tell above, my iphone is NOT very good at photos.

 

 

James River Writer’s Conference!

I’ll be in lovely Richmond at the James River Writer’s Conference starting tomorrow. I’ll be seeing some awesome folks in real life for the first time. It’s amazing that I can have published with people…in the same book…yet not met them! Such is modern authorship. I’ll be posting pictures and you might be totes amazed at who I run into.

Pulp-O-Mizer!

Through the random forces of the interwebs, I’ve discovered a very cool new tool. The Pulp-O-Mizer!

The main site…Retropolis…has an amazing array of pulp/steampunkish and otherwise retro promo products, but the actual Pulp-O-Mizer is here. You can see from my main image that you can make some super cool stuff.

The caveat is that you can’t use them for book covers, but then again, I don’t have books that could use them for covers. But you can use them for all sorts of other stuff. They have Facebook specific sizes, banners…you name it. And you can customize pretty much everything.

I’m wasting inordinate amounts of time trying to figure out good uses for these awesome images. Announcements, questions, sarcastic twitter posts when a TV show I like does something lame….the list is endless.