Julia Huni's Blog, page 6

Space Janitor Three Cover Reveal!

I’m almost finished writing the third Space Janitor novel. After working with my cover designer, I decided to change the title. I was never really enamored with my early title: Space Cruise Scrub Down. And it was too long to fit nicely on the cover.

Now that it’s ninety percent complete, I’ve decided to rename it. So, with no further ado, here is the cover of the soon to be released Stars, Stiffs and Stains: Space Janitor Three.

Duh-duh-duh-daaaaaah!

Cleaning the galaxy, one cruise ship at a time.

When maintenance technician Triana Moore gets temporarily transferred to a passenger liner, she doesn’t expect luxury and relaxation. Bot-minding is the same on a station or ship. But with twelve-hour workdays and five roommates in her cabin, Triana thinks she should have read the employment contract more carefully.

Days into the cruise, her boss, Les, goes missing. Triana dusts off her sleuthing skills to start snooping. Together with a retired Marine Corps dance instructor, a socially inept hospitality intern, and her favorite security agent, she must navigate more than just the solar system. They dodge dance competition divas, reality show cameras and the occasional wealthy sociopath to search for the missing supervisor.

Will they find Les before she goes dancing through the stars? And will they find time to hit the buffet before all the chocolate strawberries are gone?

Space Janitor Three will be available on pre-order within the next week, with a publishing date of March 2019 (or maybe sooner!) I’ll come back and add the purchasing link as soon as it’s available.

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Space Opera Libretti

I have some super exciting writing news!

Late last year, my sister, writer AM Scott, told me about an anthology called Space Opera Libretti. They were looking for humorous Science Fiction, which is kinda my jam. So, I wrote a story called Time Paws. By the way, it has nothing to do with Space Janitor. My sister (who’s always my alpha reader) and my good friend, Gwen Chapman, gave it a good read-through and their suggestions made it even better. I sent it off.

In January, I was thrilled to find out my story had been selected for the anthology! Today, the team officially announced the authors who will be featured (in no particular order):

Ingrid Garcia
K.G. Anderson
Jean Graham
Julia Huni
Tom Barlow
Harry Turtledove
EDE Bell
James Dorr
Larry Hodges
Cait Gordon
Dave D’Alessio
Minerva Cerridwen
Bruce Taylor
Alex Kropf
Dawn Vogel
Lizz Donnelly
Dean Brink
Spruce Wells
Jennifer Lee Rossman
Brian McNett

Do you see that name, two below mine? Yeah, that’s the Harry Turtledove!! I’m going to be in an anthology with Harry Turtledove! Excuse me if I’m fan-girling over here, just a little. Getting accepted for this anthology was exciting enough, but now I’m hyperventilating.

So, why the picture of the Cat’s Eye Nebula? You’ll have to wait until the anthology comes out in August to find out…

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Do you believe in signs?

I’ve been unhappy in my day job. The best thing about it is I get two months off in the summer. That, and the crappy pay check, are what have kept me coming back for the last few years. I almost quit this summer, but it’s hard to argue with a regular income.

It’s not a hard job. In fact, it gives me lots of time to do my own things — like write. But I was raised in a strong-work-ethic, Catholic-guilt family, so doing my own thing on the clock brings so much emotional baggage that I can’t really focus. So I spend a lot of time being bored, trying to make work for myself that will somehow benefit the organization.

Now, I’ve had some feelers out, and there’s rumor a job will be opening up come July. It will be in my local area, so less driving for me. It’s part time but has good benefits, so I’d have more time to write without the guilt. The people who work there would love to have me on-board. But, as with so many places, there’s some discussion as to whether the position will be filled, if it will stay the same or change, and if someone internal will have priority.

So there I was, two weeks ago, driving up the hill to work. I was having a conversation with The Big Guy, about what I should do with my life. It went something like this: “Listen, God, I need a sign. I need to know if I should stick it out in this job until next summer, in hopes the new job will be there for me, or if I should seriously start putting out resumes and try to find something new, now. I need direction–a sign. And it needs to be a BIG SIGN. None of these subtle little ones, but a big-ass “DO THIS” kind of sign.”

Yeah, I probably shouldn’t say “big-ass” to God, but He and I go way back.

I got to work, and my boss came out of a meeting, came in my office, and shut the door. In the three and a half years I’ve worked for her, she’s never done that before, so I was a little apprehensive.

She gave me the scoop: a soon-to-be-announced reorganization had been finalized. Major departments were to be shuffled. She and our admin assistant would be promoted. The other directors in the building will be given more responsibility.

“What about me?” I asked. I wasn’t worried about being let go, because our organization doesn’t do that–even when they should. “With you taking on a larger work load, this would be a great time to transfer more of the program management to me. You know I can do it.” I’ve been asking for more work for ages.

She nodded because she knows I can do it. Then she said, “We’re not going that direction at this time.”

Well, I asked for a big-ass sign. Everyone is getting promoted except me. That’s pretty telling. I went home that afternoon and wrote my resignation letter.

What will I do now? I guess I’ll have more time to write.

How about you–do you believe in signs?

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Curl up with a good book

The days after Christmas can be busy, if you’ve got family visiting and awesome things planned. Or they can be a drag, if people are working. Or, if like me, you have teens who want to huddle in with their new video games. If you’re looking for something short and fun to read, here’s the beginning of my Christmas novella, The Trouble with Tinsel

Chapter One

Now I’m no Grinch, but I just want to go on record saying, “I hate tinsel.” The garlands are bad enough—those fluffy ropes get caught in automatic doors and jam up the works. The long, stringy bits that are meant to resemble icicles are worse. Inevitably, someone will throw a handful, or twenty, into one of the float tubes, and we’ll find the stuff all over the station, well into February.

But the door-sized, foil curtains of fringe
are the worst. They’re all the rage on SK2 this year. Fluttering drapes of
bright, metallic tinsel wave across every corridor in the place. The loose
reflective nature of those curtains confuses the bots. And when the
two-meter-long strings break loose, they wrap around the gears inside the vacu-bots, sending them limping home to the garage.

Maybe I am a Grinch. Nothing stops up the
works like Christmas. Sticky Kakuvian pine pitch on the floors, wrapping paper
filling up the recycle shoots, drunken party-goers spewing in corners. The
cleaning bots don’t handle any of it well. Which means I have to. Handle it,
that is.

My name is Triana Moore, and I’m a maintenance technician on Station Kelly-Kornienko. In other words, I’m a space janitor. Keeping the bots working is my bread and butter, and at Christmas time, that’s no sleigh ride.

A flashing red icon catches my eye. I
shove the last of a Toasty Pie into my mouth and roll my chair up to the
console. Bot 23D is stuck. Running diagnostics tells me nothing, and the on-bot
cam shows only clear corridor. I dispatch a repair drone and turn back to my
Sweet Slurp.

A second flashing icon appears next the
first. The repair bot has stopped about twenty meters from 23D. They’re on
cross corridors, so the two bots are not in line-of-sight, but a quick scan
shows nothing near the repair bot. Now that’s odd.

I tap into the vid feeds, but that
intersection is dark. The cams are offline and can’t be rebooted. My eyes
narrow. This feels like hacking. But when I go into the operating system,
there’s no indication anyone else has been there. Hmmm.

I toggle the contact icon and tag the ops
supervisor.

“Ops, al-Rashid-Thompson.” The operations
supervisor, “Rash,” appears on the screen.

“Maintenance, Moore,” I respond. “I got a
couple bots up on Level 20 on the fritz. They aren’t responding, and I can’t
get vid.”

“Yeah, I noticed some cams were down. I
was wondering when you were going to get around to fixing them.” As he speaks,
a banner flashes across my screen.

Level 20. Cams down.

“Hello! Space janitor, here. I don’t fix
cams, I just dust them.” I lean in and swipe a sleeve over the cam I’m talking
into. Rash waits until I lean back to roll his eyes. “But I’ll take a look
while I’m out there.” I flick the banner and the details pop up. They’ve been
out for twenty minutes, so why didn’t the alert come in right away? “Why didn’t
you tag repair?” Two can play the finger pointing game.

Rash holds up his hands. “I did. I’m just
yanking your charging cable, Moore. We’ll watch the store while you’re out.”

I sign off, forward the calls to Ops, and
lock the MCC behind me. I bat the shiny green fringe of one of those zarking
tinsel curtains out of my way and stride out to the Level 2 concourse.

A thick airlock door separates the repair
and maintenance section from the rest of Level 2. I wave my ring at the door,
it cycles open. A wave of sounds slams into my eardrums.
I fight my way through another tinsel curtain, this time red, and out into the
crowded concourse.

Throngs of people crowd the open space,
everyone with a cup, mug, or bottle in hand. 
Inflatable reindeer and a huge sparkly sleigh hang from the ceiling. A
vendor sells something sticky-looking from a little cart on the far side of the
space. A bar has been set up outside the small pub on my right, and a line of
people wait in line for spiced wine. Fine, white confetti whirls through the
air, floating on the wafts of circulating air. Christmas is still three days
away, but when the holiday falls on a Monday, the party starts on Friday.

“Merry Christmas!” someone sings out, and
a cheer goes up.

Scents of cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg
tease my nose and I sneeze. Inane Christmas music plays over the concourse
speakers:

His little red spaceship shoots across the sky
With eight engines racing, just watch them fly!
A team full of elves printed presents all year
On the planet North Pole with the magic reindeer.
Space Santa! Watch him fly
Space Santa! He’s our guy
Space Santa! Bringing gifts to all
Space Santa! Space Santa!

Someone shoves a beaker into my hand. It
looks like eggnog, but the fumes indicate a high level of alcohol. I hand it
off to someone else as I make my way through the crowd. Puffs of white cottony
“snow” lie in drifts at the base of the float tubes. A stray tuft wafts up
inside the tube as I watch. Shaking my head, I step into the tube and follow.

At Level 20, the party continues. Here the
decorations are blue and white instead of red and green, and a two-meter-tall
dreidel spins above our heads. Someone shoves a glass of blue liquid at me, shouting
“Martzel Pop!”

I battle my way through the horde,
throwing a few gentle hip-checks along the way. Ducking into Radial 7, I hurry
out-station and turn again at C Ring. The sounds of the party fade to a muted rumble, and I wave my ring at
an access door.

Ducking through the entry, I scramble
through the quiet bot duct, bent almost double to avoid the pipes above my
head. Some of the bot access ducts are tall enough to allow easy access for
workers, but in these older, lower levels, a lot of them have been modified
over time. The conduits have been added for additional wiring and plumbing. The
space above them is often illegally co-opted by residents, providing extra
storage. Sometimes it’s rented out on the black market to bring in extra
credits.

A few meters in, I reach bot 23D. It’s
humming quietly, so I tap the control panel. The tiny screen lights up and
shows all systems green. “Why are you just sitting here?” I ask, but the bot
doesn’t answer. Which is a good thing—they don’t have voice response.

I run diagnostics, just to confirm the
green screen, but nothing pops up. Crawling over the bot, I check underneath
and all around. Nothing on the floor that would stop it from moving. Some of
the bots are designed to follow painted cues on the floor, but this is not one
of those bots. And the floor is clean. I hit the resume button, and then jump
away as the bot tries to continue on its pre-programmed route. It stops
harmlessly a couple centimeters from my legs. Looking up, I spot the girders
from which the conduits are suspended. I grab the girder and pull my legs up,
in the kind of crunch I’ve seen Kara do. As soon as my legs are out of the way,
the bot to trundles beneath me and away on its business.

I drop back onto my feet. Fixing bots and
getting a workout at the same time—way to multitask Triana! I rub my stomach,
wondering if one crunch counts as working out. It’s Christmas, so yeah, it
does.

The bot bleeps again, stopping about ten
meters away. Maybe there’s a loose chip or wire. This is going to take some
major diagnosis work. Opening the command screen via my holo-ring, I flick the
“suspend the route” button and input a “return to garage” command. Execute
another perfect gymnastic feat to allow the bot to head back the way we both
came. Two crunches—maybe I’ll reward myself with one of those sticky pastries
when I get back to Level 2.

With a yelp, I swing up into a third
crunch as the repair drone I sent up earlier whizzes toward me, hot on the
trail of the vacu-bot. I am definitely
getting the sticky bun when I get back down.

I wander further up the duct. Obviously,
the repair drone never reached the stalled bot. Maybe there was something up
here causing the trouble. I reach a cross
duct. A movement to my right draws my eyes. Then I do a double take.

A young-looking man with flowing
white-blond hair sits cross-legged in the center of the duct. His head is
bowed, his powerful shoulders nearly touch the duct sides, and a snug red shirt
stretches across his abs and pecs.

I straighten in surprise and bang my head
against the conduit. “Fork!”

The man’s head pops up and his startling
blue eyes fix on me. “Spoon?” he replies uncertainly.

Rubbing my head, I step closer. “Who are
you? And what are you doing in my bot duct?”

He cocks his head, as if considering my
question. “Is this your duct?”

“I’m a maintenance tech, so yeah, it’s my
duct.” I say, belligerent. “Who are you?”

He shakes his head, his thick hair
swinging around his face. “I don’t have a good answer for you.”

“Look, if you’re too drunk to remember
your name, I can get you some BuzzKill and send you on your way.” I’ve
encountered lost partiers before. “I won’t call security. But you can’t stay
here.”

He pushes a hand through his hair. “I
don’t feel drunk. I just don’t remember my name.” His eyes widen. “Or how I got
here. Or where I came from.”

“What do you remember?” I ran into some
criminals a few months ago who used a memory-wiping
drug. Maybe this guy got a dose somehow.

The guy’s stomach growls, loudly. “I
definitely don’t remember when I ate last.” He smiles at me, the expression
lighting up his face. “Would you like to join me for dinner?”

Do you want to read more? Get The Trouble with Tinsel

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Find a new book every day

I am excited to announce I will be on Romance Lives Forever Blog on Sunday, December 16, 2018! 

You don’t have to read romance to enjoy this blog — they feature a new author every day, and obviously, if I’m going to be on there, it’s not just romance! In addition to romance, they feature Science Fiction, Fantasy, Paranormal, Regency, Historical, and Suspense.

Come on over and check out all the fantastic books!

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Cozy Mystery Give-aways

All this month, a different author is taking over the Readers Love Cozies Facebook page. If you like cozy mysteries, this is a great chance to “hang out” with some fun authors. Play some games, answer some questions, and you’ll have a chance to win some swag including gift cards, books and more. And I’ll be there on Sunday the 23rd. Come on over!

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New Release: The Trouble with Tinsel

I just published The Trouble with Tinsel, my newest installment in the Space Janitor series. It’s a novella, so longer than a short story, and shorter than a novel! It’s available at all the big ebook retailers. I probably won’t print paperbacks, since it would be a slim volume, but I’ll combine it with a couple other stories and do an anthology someday. I hope you enjoy it!

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Goin’ Wide

In the Indie Publishing world, you’re either exclusive to Kindle Unlimited (KU), or you’re “wide.” Being in KU means your books are available to anyone who subscribes to KU at no additional cost. KU subscriptions cost about $10 per month, so for people who read a lot, they’re a great deal. Some of my first readers and reviewers were KU subscribers.

But there are thousands and thousands of books in KU, and getting noticed is tough. There are also some folks who think “good” books aren’t published in KU. Since traditionally published books–especially those from the “big five” publishers in New York–aren’t available in KU; since anyone can put up a KU book; and since KU books are “free” to subscribers, there can be a perception that KU books just aren’t that good.

I’ve read a lot really great books in KU, and I know many talented authors who publish through it. So when I started out, that’s the direction I went. But I haven’t seen a lot of action on the KU front, and there are opportunities that are not available (or less accessible) if one is exclusive to Amazon, such as eBookaRoo and Bookbub. Let’s face it: being a successful Indie Author means getting your books discovered. So I’ve made the decision to “go wide.”

This just means my books won’t be available for free through KU anymore. You can still buy them on Amazon! And if you’re a KU subscriber, don’t worry, I want to take care of any loyal fans! I’ll let you know via my newsletter when any of my books are free or discounted, so just sign up if you want the deets.

It also means my books will be available through Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and other online “e-tailers” in addition to Amazon.

This process takes a while since books are in KU for 90 days at a time. Murder is Messy is no longer in KU, but Dirtside Decluttering will be available there through the middle of December. Nanobots and Pudding Pots was never in KU, since you can get it free by signing up for my newsletter and KU doesn’t allow authors to give KU books away–except through them.

Also, a new Christmas story will be coming out next month, but it will be “wide” from the get-go.

And the reality is, I may come back to KU. A lot of authors find KU is better for them in the long run. I just need to spread my wings and find out for myself.

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Working on Space Janitor Three

Well, I’d love to say I’m hard at work on Space Janitor Three. And I am, but I keep getting distracted. Tonight, the mom of one of my daughter’s friends (did you follow that?) has invited the girls and their moms to a Halloween party. We’re going to have dinner, then go to the Scaregrounds in the next town.

This weekend, we were doing college visits. We visited University of Oregon, Lane Community College, and Pacific University. They are not very close together. Well, UofO and Lane are neighbors, but Pacific is two hours away. And all of them are several hours from our home. So it was a lot of driving. I did have time to do some writing. But, it wasn’t on Space Janitor Three!

That’s because I’m working on a Christmas story. Triana is going to discover her Christmas spirit and save the day, as always. She’ll meet a handsome hunk, be irritated by her mom, and eat too much sugar along the way.

If you want to hear when this story is released, sign up for my newsletter (you should have seen the popup by now if you haven’t signed up yet!) I’ll give you a free copy of my short story Nanobots and Pudding Pots.

What’s your favorite Christmas tradition? Maybe it will find its way into Triana’s Space Janitor Christmas.

Also taking suggestions on a title…

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Life gets in the way sometimes

I’ve been writing for a while. I started my first novel (as an adult) about eleven years ago. But then life got in the way. Kids were busy. I got a full-time job. We moved across the country.

I started again a few years ago. Wrote my first Space Janitor novel, and it sat on my harddrive for two years.

Now that I’ve published, and written a second novel and put it up for pre-order, life keeps getting in the way again! I’m working on Space Janitor Three, but I’m also working with a group that is forming a non-profit to provide housing for developmentally disabled adults in our town. That’s taking a lot of energy! But I’ll keep plugging away at Space Janitor Three.

In the meantime; I’ve written a prequel. It’s best read after Space Janitor Two, but it can stand alone. I’ll be giving it away for free to anyone on my newsletter list–details to come via email!

I hope you’re having a great week.

And now, here’s a picture of Pippin the Wonder Westie.

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