Reesa Herberth's Blog, page 6

In Discretion Blog Tour: Smart Girls Love SciFi & Attention is Arbitrary

 

Today I’m excited to kick off the official In Discretion blog tour at Smart Girls Love SciFi!  They hit me with a Fast Five interview- come see my answer to that most pressing of questions: Coke, Pepsi, or Other?

I’ve also got a spotlight stop at Attention is Arbitrary, where LisaT just gave In Discretion a four star review!

Stops for this tour:

December 29, 2013 - Smart Girls Love Scifi
December 29, 2013 - Attention is Arbitrary – Spotlight Stop
December 30, 2013 - Sid Love
December 30, 2013 - Live Your Life, Buy the Book – Spotlight Stop
December 31, 2013 - Cup O’ Porn
January 1, 2014 - The Novel Approach
January 1, 2014 - Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words – Spotlight Stop
January 2, 2014 - Pants Off Reviews
January 3, 2014 - Delighted Reader
January 3, 2014 - MM Good Book Reviews – Spotlight Stop
January 4, 2014 - The Bookaholic – Spotlight Stop
January 5, 2014 - The Galaxy Express

It’s Here: the Official In Discretion Blog Tour!

I’ve got all kinds of cool things in the works for this tour, including a fantastic giveaway, character interviews, exclusive excerpts, and more silly (but true!) information about me and the writing of In Discretion than you ever knew you wanted.  Keep watching- the tour starts tomorrow, and I’ll be posting here daily with details on the various stops and the ongoing trivia contest.

In Discretion (A Ylendrian Empire Novella)






Stops for this tour:



December 29, 2013 - Smart Girls Love Scifi
December 29, 2013 - Attention is Arbitrary – Spotlight Stop
December 30, 2013 - Sid Love
December 30, 2013 - Live Your Life, Buy the Book – Spotlight Stop
December 31, 2013 - Cup O’ Porn
January 1, 2014 - The Novel Approach
January 1, 2014 - Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words – Spotlight Stop
January 2, 2014 - Pants Off Reviews
January 3, 2014 - Delighted Reader
January 3, 2014 - MM Good Book Reviews – Spotlight Stop
January 4, 2014 - The Bookaholic – Spotlight Stop
January 5, 2014 - The Galaxy Express

In the Spotlight with Riptide Publishing

I got a nifty little spotlight interview in the latest issue of Making Waves, the Riptide Publishing newsletter, and I thought I’d share it here.

 

  Riptide presents, In the Spotlight withReesa Herberth, author of In Discretion!

In Discretion is a tale of biological disaster, unfinished business, and that awkward moment when you run into your ex on a space station at the ass-end of the ‘verse. Also appearing: explosions, psychotic middlemen, not!zombies, and tragic teenage backstory.

What was the very first sci-fi novel you ever read?

Farmer in the Sky, a Robert Heinlein YA about terraforming one of Jupiter’s moons.  I was 9, and I’ve been waiting to run away to the stars ever since.


What was the inspiration for In Discretion? How did you come up with the plot and or world-building? How did you come up with the title?
I wanted to write a story about two kids who grew up rough and made it out of their childhood hells, but couldn’t manage to hold onto each other when they escaped.  I knew bringing Thanson and Kazra together again would give me a glimpse into their past. To really see the men they’d grown to be since then, I was going to have to push them into a situation where they had to focus on their current problems as well as their unresolved issues.  Logically, the best time to hash out their tale of love, loss, and sarcasm was during a not!zombie outbreak on a crippled space station. As you do.


The title came from a combination of Thanson’s profession (he’s a member of a highly respected guild of sex workers and professionally discreet companions), and the ongoing themes of keeping secrets within the story.


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Sci-fi fans pre-order your copy of In Discretion now and, see for yourself why The Delighted Reader said “Those who enjoy M/M Sci-Fi Romance full of intense action should give this one a go.”

Draft Zero Club

I got my first tattoo over the weekend.  (No, it really doesn’t hurt that much, IMO, but your mileage may vary.)

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I toyed with a tattoo design for a long time, but it wasn’t until the meaning of “Draft Zero” gelled for me that I knew exactly what I wanted.

I wanted a writing related design, and I found the most awesome artist at a local place, Cirque du Rouge, and she was able to perfectly capture what I wanted.  Thanks, Kim! If you’re looking for a tattoo of your own, or even if you just like lovely art, check out her site: Kim Ewell Tattoos

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The detail in person is so sharp that the ink looks like it’s pooled on my arm.

 

Draft Zero is all about doing the work you love, and not sabotaging yourself by thinking that perfection is the only option.  It’s about putting the words on the page, the pixels on the screen, and the paint on the canvas. Draft Zero is about creating something before you tear it apart. It’s a reminder to myself that making something is more important than making excuses.

Want and Need

Here’s what I need to write:

Inside Job the sequel to The Slipstream Con. It’s coming. Eventually.

Jessup’s Run #2 which doesn’t have a title yet. Because it took me 3 years to come up with Afterdust, the title of the first book.

Shadowsmend because it’s going to be GLORIOUS, and it’s eating my brain.

 

Here’s what my brain has been stuck on, nonstop for the past two days:

Born Losers a prequel to In Discretion that I probably couldn’t even sell. I can picture every scene, I can feel the desperation of the characters. I can hear the music playing in the club, and smell the alcohol.

 

My brain doesn’t play fair.

Inchworm

I’m making incremental progress on edits for the mutant river otter book (which I probably shouldn’t keep referring to that way, as the otters play a relatively minor role), and I’ve been tidying up some other writer business with covers for two books, ideas for marketing, and plotting further stories.

I went to Iceland, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, but don’t expect to be seeing an Icelandic fantasy on my WIP list any time soon.  One of the things I enjoyed the most about being there was how deep the cultural roots ran, even in a modern, changing society.  So no, I don’t think I’ll be borrowing heavily from Norse myth, but I’m eager to create that same sense of permanence and shared story.  I was happy to see, in that gorgeous, windswept land, that many of the things I’d imagined would be impacted by the constant onslaught of the wind were adapted just as I’d seen them in my mind’s eye.

My garden is full of weeds, and my rosebushes need some massive pruning before winter sets in.  This weekend, my “down” weekend between Iceland, DayJob convention, and a trip to the Ohio Valley Filk Festival to catch up with some of my closest friends, I plan to get the garden into shape for winter planting and percolating.  And I think a walk along the edge of the lake might be in order, too, while autumn is busily sneaking across the land.

I grew up on the move, state-to-state, house-to-house, and I’ve always worried that I’d be forever rootless.  I think what I’ve learned is that I can feel at home anywhere I go, instead.

Suspicious Activity!

There seems to have been quite a bit of suspicious activity recently in Playa Escondida, enough so that it’s come to the attention of the press.  To that end, I’m reprinting an article that appeared recently under the topic of bizarre Florida.

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What’s Up with Playa Escondida?

 

Playa Escondida (PE to locals) is a town of natural beauty, Spanish Colonial history, and quirky characters.  If the rumors are true, it’s also home to an inordinate amount of strange occurrences.  Residents are notoriously close-mouthed when it comes to discussing the town’s supernatural reputation, but there’s no way to completely cover up the truth.

The town’s founding is shrouded in mystery, buried in a past filled with blood and death, in-breeding, and a schism in the local church.  What ghosts roam the beautiful beaches after all the tourists pack up for the day?  How do four generations of local families claim to have bought their first cars from the same man?  Why do white ibis with hauntingly human eyes walk the shoreline?  Who is the little girl with the lemonade stand whose rare and fleeting appearances always portend a disaster within the town?

While researching this article, no one at the local historical society thought it was odd to have a sealed annex.  Sealed not with dead bolts or even cipher locks, but with a steel box containing a small, stained ornamental knife.

Amongst the normal neighborhood watch flyers, the sheriff’s department sometimes distributes pamphlets about home security that include such recommendations as “lay a line of salt across your threshold on the night of the full moon. Some local wildlife is notoriously anxious to come inside on these nights, and basic pest control is much simpler than the lengthy process of extraction.”

After all this, I think we’re forced to ask once again, just what is going on in Playa Escondida?

Is PE a haven for the supernatural? A magnet for creatures outside the realm of the mundane? Asking a resident will get you nowhere–to them, PE is simply home. If there are a few more ghost stories than average; if nobody ever seems to recall exactly when they decided to plant rosemary at the corners of their garden; if, infuriatingly, nobody who lives there seems to think there’s anything strange going on that’s worth discussing with a respected paranormal investigative team, then we have to ask–what are they all so determined to hide?

It’s Time for Some Wishes!

“If Wishes Were Coffee” releases tomorrow!  And before I do anything else, I want to thank Less Than Three Press for making this happen.  Can I say how awesome they’ve been to work with?  Megan and Samantha are the best of all worlds… professional, friendly, highly-skilled, responsive.  In short, everything you could ask for in an editorial team.  And best of all, they set up a blog tour for me!

Starting today, you can get an inside scoop on the writing of “Wishes”, interviews with the characters, and an expose article on the deep, dark secrets of Playa Escondida.  It’s exciting, it’s funny, it’s everything you could WISH for!  *insert laugh track here*

Right, so without further ado, here is where you need to be visiting this week.  You know, after you buy your copy of “Wishes”.  Enjoy, leave comments, share the links!

Monday, September 16:  With What I Most Enjoy

Tuesday, September 17:  Babes in Boyland

Wednesday, September 18:  Pants Off Reviews

Thursday, September 19:  World of Diversity Fiction

Friday, September 20:  It’s Raining Men

 

Buy here!

 

Comment here for a chance to win your very own copy, personally delivered to your inbox in a flash of magic!

In Which There Is the Sale of a Tale, and I Wave My Arms and Flail

If you follow me on twitter, where I seem to do most of my talking, you might be aware that I recently sold my very first solo novella to Riptide Publishing.  In Discretion is set in the Ylendrian Empire, in a place that might be familiar to people who read The Slipstream Con- Station 43.

It’s a charming tale of biological disaster, unfinished business, and that awkward moment when you run into your ex, all during a mysterious outbreak on a space station at the ass-end of the ‘verse.  The cover is coming soon (COME TO ME, PRETTY), and it will will be released on December 30, 2013.

Which segues nicely into the next point of order- Peripheral People.  The sharp-eyed amongst you may have noticed at one point that the next Ylendrian novel, Peripheral People, was originally listed with an August 2013 release date.  Counting on my fingers, even I can clearly arrive at the conclusion that August has been and gone, and yet… no Peripheral.

The strangest part of the writing business is how your books sort of disappear into a void at some point.  Either there’s nothing happening with them, or, in many cases, there’s something incredibly exciting happening with them, and you can’t talk about it.  (Insert your own Fight Club joke, please.)  That’s very much the case with Peripheral People.  The book is sold, and will be released in 2014, but beyond that we really can’t say anything else yet.  Except that what’s going on with it, lost in that weird black hole of publishing, is pretty phenomenal.

Rest assured, we’ve got lots of work coming down the pike.  In fact, I think Michelle is going to be very busy in a couple weeks, introducing you to some new characters of hers, in a little town called– you know, I think I’ll wait and let her tell you.

Peace, love, and endless edits,

Reesa

New Name, now with 33% More Reesa* (*than products which contain 33% less Reesa)

Just a quick note to explain some of the housekeeping taking place on our various sites at the moment.  Remember when Panic! at the Disco lost their ! for an album? I’ve lost my “S.”, mostly because nobody can spell my name anyway, and I figured it was easier to knock a letter and some punctuation out of the equation and hope for the best.

Well, also because I haven’t gone by my given name with any frequency since I was about 14, so clinging to a name I don’t particularly care for in enigmatic initial form seemed kind of silly.  I don’t think there are a lot of other Reesa Herberth’s writing science fiction or romance at the moment, in any case.

Other site work you may have noticed- updated release dates, completed progress metres (with new stories to come!), and a link to the very cool professional organization we belong to, Broad Universe.

There’s more to come in the next few days.  Lots of announcements, both mysterious and absolute, not to mention news about Michelle’s blog tour for her upcoming release, “If Wishes Were Coffee”. (Which you can pre-order, at a discount no less, right now!)