S.J. Pajonas's Blog, page 38

Sunday Update – February 14, 2021

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

This will be a short update because nothing much happened around here this week. We’re all still mostly stuck at home due to covid-19 and snow. Lots of snow and cold weather. I would give anything for a vacation right about now. I was just looking at my photo memories and we were in Jamaica last time this year AND six years ago. Sigh. I want to go back there RIGHT NOW.

The kids had off Thursday and Friday and they have Monday off too. This is generally a mid-winter break for the schools (which is why we always jetted off to someplace tropical in the past) so we’ve been very lax about everything the last few days. Just taking it easy.

This week I finished up THE RISE OF SHIROI NAMI and sent it out to a few readers. Then I got started on a new website build. I’ll be working on that website AND starting a new writing project this coming week. Lots to do! The novella I’ll be writing is due July 2, so I want to get it done now in case I get stuck with the story.

I passed the 2000 minutes mark on Peloton earlier this week. That’s a good sign that I’m going to do well this year!

Ready for another 60 minute ride!

Hey Lulu! It’s time for walkies! *ignores me*

We have some giant icicles on the house! KP went out and broke this one off.

Lulu got all snuggly with me on the couch the other day.

Knitting with all my friends on zoom. I really miss seeing friends in person. Sigh.

I hope you all have a great week! Stay safe and healthy.

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Book Chat #68 – Books by Gin Stephens and Matt Haig

Two new books for you this week! Both a little out of the ordinary…

DELAY DON’T DENY by Gin Stephens

I picked up this book because I was looking for more clarification on intermittent fasting practices and the science behind it all. I’ve been doing IF since 2017 and seen a lot of health benefits from it, but I wanted to go further with added weight loss benefits. I enjoyed the conversational tone and appreciated all the links to the studies and in-depth books on the topic. This definitely sent me in the right direction! Highly recommend this if you’re also thinking about trying intermittent fasting!

THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY by Matt Haig

THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY was a book club pick last month! I hadn’t ever heard of it despite it getting glowing reviews and tons of ratings on Amazon. Overall, I really enjoyed the story and the way we got a glimpse at all of Nora’s lives as she made her way through her alternate timelines. About halfway through the book I knew what the ultimate conclusion would be, but that didn’t spoil the journey. It was a short and sweet read, nothing earth shattering, but fun and easy nonetheless. I immediately picked up another of the author’s books after I was done.

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Endurance Training – For Authors and For Life

You know what they say about boats, right? That they’re holes in the water that you throw money into. Now, I’m sure there are people out there that have boats and this phrase doesn’t apply to them, but there’s a reason why sayings like this exist. Sometimes, we throw money into things we love and want, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we get a lot out of them.

My husband and I joked that this is actually my author career — a hole that I throw money into. I certainly love being an author, like many people love their boats, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck away a considerable amount of my expenses every year. Despite the joking nature of our conversation, it did leave me feeling like the future was bleak for me. The boat would not stay afloat forever, after all.

After telling my friends this, my friend, Heidi, told me that, no. My author career is not like a boat. She said,

“It is like running marathons. Lonely. Expensive. Worthwhile if only for your personal sense of accomplishment… and whether others appreciate it or not, you keep going.”

Yes! This is actually more like it, and it brings me around to the topic for today which is endurance training.

Growing up, I watched a lot of endurance events on TV like the Tour de France and Olympic marathons. I’ve always been fascinated with endurance, going for the long haul, pushing yourself to go farther, endure conditions longer than those around you. To me, that’s the height of athleticism and it’s something I still admire.

Endurance events are not only a physical game but also a mental game. You have to convince yourself that, yes, walking 100 km is totally doable or riding your bike 50 miles in a day is sane or running a marathon is a piece of cake. Once you get over the mental hurdle, it’s all about your pushing your body to keep going and giving it the fuel it needs to continue on.

Training for endurance events is all about accomplishing small milestones along the way, building efficiency and strength for the long haul. You start small. 5 mile bike rides turn into 10 mile bike rides which turn into a few hours in the saddle. You build, bit by bit, until you’re ready for a bigger event. You don’t go straight from the couch to run a marathon. You train.

My century t-shirt for accomplishing 100 rides on the bike. Another milestone accomplished!

On my Peloton bike, I’m currently training to build endurance and power. I went from 20 min rides to 30 min rides to 45 min rides to 60 and then 75 min rides. Each milestone was another challenge, another time I needed to talk myself into riding. “You can do this, Stephanie. Just get on the bike and move your legs.” My goal is to ride Pelofondo either later this year or early next year with 50 miles in a weekend. I won’t get there without training.

The same can be true for authors. Training is comprised of many different elements starting with the basics of writing and abandoning many novels and shorter works, learning craft, getting critiques, taking classes on writing and storytelling, and then finally, actually finishing a novel…

But it’s not over! Novels need revisions, and even then, sometimes they’re not good enough for agents or publication. Even if you make it that far and you’re ready to publish, there are still more tasks and more books to write, marketing to fail and succeed at, new genres to explore, new businesses to investigate. Your feet are hitting the pavement and your pace is at tempo, but there’s still a long way to go to the finish line.

Together, we go far.

The finish line, though, is different for different people. In the publishing world, it can be just putting your book out there or winning awards or making a certain sum from your sales. The same is true of the athletic world. The finishing line can be just running for 10 minutes straight or entering a local 5k or running in the NYC marathon or riding in the Tour de France. The goal posts move depending on your success or setbacks, and there is always room to go further if you want to.

I’ve been on this journey for many years now, and I’m still running the marathon because I actually enjoy endurance events. I enjoy the tempo pace and being on the road with the finish line far out in front of me. I’m not a sprinter, in neither my athletic life nor my author life.

I’m in this is for the long haul.

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Sunday Update – February 7, 2021

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog.

Almost forgot it was Sunday! Even though I’ve spent all day doing Sunday things…

This week was a tough one! We got a massive amount of snow Monday and Tuesday. Like 2 feet of snow in 24 hours. And it was heavy snow, too. Our snow blower broke its bolts on the augers and gave us quite the fit trying to clear all that white stuff. It took me over two hours on Tuesday to clear the back stairs. Then compound that with snow plows going up and down the streets all night for several nights and the kids not having remote school because I’m not sure why, and I was exhausted! Like, my right eyeball was completely bloodshot by Friday exhausted.

To add to this, I was also working on Hikoboshi 4, THE RISE OF SHIROI NAMI, all week, and man, it needed A LOT of work. The story was alllll over the place and unbalanced. I had to delete a bunch of stuff I wrote and moved several scenes around. I finished up the first pass yesterday, and there’s still more work to do. It felt a little demoralizing to have to work so hard on it. It was the hardest edit I’ve had in YEARS. But I made excellent progress and I think it’s a solid novel. I just have a few more things to add Monday and Tuesday, and I hope to have it done and out to my first readers soon.

In fitness news, I did my first ever 75 minute Peloton ride yesterday and it was blissful. I really enjoy these long rides and I think I’ve found something special, something I can see myself setting long-distance goals for in the future!

EXTREME SNOW! We got a lot of it, and we got another few more inches today. Sigh. I hate it.

Lulu with her evening meat stick. She gets one each night to chew on.

Lulu snuggling in on a snowy day.

My husband has been experimenting with Ottolenghi recipes.

The day of snow shoveling led to a record setting day of exercise minutes.

Speaking of exercise, gotta keep getting on the bike, keep working out! I hit 100 strength classes on Peloton this week.

And finally, I took a “Pro Cycling” classes on Peloton with Christian Vende Velde. I really enjoyed the class and hearing his stories of pro cycling. Outdoor cycling is something I don’t ever see myself doing (too many openings for injuries) so I really admire these folks.

Have a great week everyone! Stay safe and healthy.

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February 2021 Goals

Ugh. February is upon us! It’s a short month but feels soooooo long. Here we go!

What happened with January’s Goals

Revise Skylar’s Novella, AN UNFORGIVING DESERT. This is totally done now. Revised, sent to readers, proofread, etc. Glad this is done and out of the way!

Post about FIRST FLYGHT all month. Done. I published something every Friday.

Continue on with SFR Station. Done, though I had to take one week off during the server migration.

Setup blog posts for my pen name for the January and February. Didn’t get around to all of this. I did January but not February.

Read the novellas for the anthology I’m co-editing. We ended up dividing these up and I only had a few to read. Most of those are done.

Celebrate my birthday on the 18th. Done! We had a nice birthday for me, and I’m happy to be alive at 45.

Start the Power Zone Pack Challenge. I am full into this challenge now! Two weeks down. Six more weeks to go. I can already see a difference in my power and endurance!

Back on My Fitness Pal every day. Nope. I have decided that I’m DONE counting calories. I will keep the same eating habits I established last year (which is approx. 1400 calories a day) and only open My Fitness Pal if I need to estimate calories for a different meal I’ve never had before. Instead I’m taking my Intermittent Fasting a whole lot more seriously.

Audiobooks, reading, and knitting. Finished a few books this month and I made sure to read every day! And my knitting is coming along. I’m nearing the end of this shawl!

February Goals

Revise THE RISE OF SHIROI NAMI and get the outline off to my blurb writers. This is coming along. I started this past week. I’m almost at the half way point, at which I will stop and outline the first half before I continue. Then once I’m done, I’ll just have to outline the second half before sending off to my blurb writer.

Reveal cover and pre-order for THE RISE OF SHIROI NAMI. As soon as I’m done with revisions, I will set a date for the publication and send off to my readers.

Brainstorm an idea for an anthology I’ve been invited to write in. I’ve been invited to write something for a very successful anthology! I need to brainstorm and rough-outline an idea for it this month.

Build two websites. I need to build a light website for the anthology I’m co-editing. And I need to figure out how to port over an old website to a new one for my freelance client.

Continue on with SFR Station. The usual needs doing here.

Setup blog posts for my pen name for February. I’ll be doing this today.

Continue with the Power Zone Pack Challenge and Peloton strength classes. I’m on a major streak on Peloton, so I’m going to continue that. There are four rides I need to do every week for the PZP Challenge, and I have set up a schedule for all my other strength classes I’m doing in February.

Continue with fasting. I have switched over to clean fasting (nothing but water or plain tea during my fasting hours) and only 6 hours of eating per day. I need to be strict about this. NO CHEATING! In July, I plan to switch to 5 hours of eating per day which I hope to sustain for many years.

Audiobooks, reading, and knitting. I need to continue my commitment to read every single day this year. Audiobooks for walks and knitting every weekend.

That’s it! Have a great month everyone!

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Sunday Update – January 31, 2021

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog.

What a long week! And a long month too. Something about January always feels super long, after a December spent living it up for the holidays.

This week was a lot of the same-old same-old around here. Lots of dog walking, Peloton, kids in school, running errands, and editing Hikoboshi Book 4, THE RISE OF SHIROI NAMI.

The only thing noteworthy that happened this week was that I slept on my shoulder wrong Sunday or Monday night (I can’t remember which) and I was in pain for most of the week because of it. My husband was horrified by the knot in my shoulder when I asked him to help me out with a little massage. It was bad. I had to tough it out for as long as I could because I don’t want to be dependent on ibuprofen for this kind of stuff. It’s not good for my stomach. Anyway, I did take ibuprofen on Friday night after heating my shoulders all evening and finally woke up pain free on Saturday. Honestly, I don’t expect it to last. I live with upper back and shoulder pain about 70% of the time. Yes, I’m in pain about 70% of my days. It leads to other things like poor sleep, too, so it becomes debilitating after a while. I just do my best to get through it, especially now that I don’t have access to massage with the pandemic.

I also did not take many photos, but here are a few…

Lots of working out happening. I love my trusty bandanas.

Here’s a look at what I’m doing in my training right now. Long rides and building endurance.

It was so cold this week I had a day when I needed two scarves to walk Lulu.

Speaking of Lulu, she still loves the sun.

And finally, we had Japanese oden and soba noodle soup for dinner last night thanks to a trip to the Asian grocery store! It was super delicious.

Have a great week everyone! Stay safe and healthy.

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California and Brazil – The Cultural Foundation for the Flyght Series

With the Flyght Series set in the far future, far from Earth, I had a lot of decisions to make. What could I do to make the series relatable to modern audiences? But still be fun and interesting enough to live in?

It was a tough choice! But ultimately I knew that I had to try to connect this series with a culture people could understand, and my other series that I have already written. There was a wealth of information for me. I just needed to get it all in the right place in the right story.

So when I decided to write the Flyght Series, I chose to use the same universe as both the Nogiku Series and the Hikoboshi Series. In the Nogiku Series, I explain that after a period of wars and then an Environmental Decline, ships from all over the world took off from different countries for different solar systems. They called this the Exodus, and they left behind only a small population on Earth. I have this mapped out in my notes! And there are even more ships that left than the few I have already written about. I have plenty of story fodder for years to come.

Photos of California – Depositphotos

My thought was, “What if ships that left from California and Brazil happened to go to two close solar systems and developed a partnership?” And that’s how I came up with the Duo Systems. These two connected systems, the Brazilianos and the Californikus Systems, have a symbiotic relationship that includes a shared military, trade, and culture. Using jump gates, ships would be able to come and go, get business done, and keep the systems in a sustainable equilibrium when it comes to food and other resources.

For me, choosing these systems was all about the culture and extrapolating it out to a starry diaspora. I gave a lot of thought to who would be on these ships and the culture they would take with them. It was a fun experiment and led to some great creative leaps.

Photos of Brazil – Depositphotos

In the Brazilianos System, all of the planets and moons are named after places in Brazil and a little bit Japan too (I had a lot of fun with Google Maps), and their culture still has some hold on the people that live in this system. I gave the name Rio to one of the most fascinating planets I’ve ever written that has its own alien ecology and floating cities in the sky. Vivian’s home plane of Ossun is the bread basket for the whole system, which is why she is very determined to hold onto her family farm.

Did you know that the biggest concentration of Japanese people outside of Japan is in Brazil? Seeing as I’m a student of Japanese culture and I’m especially interested in Japanese in the diaspora, I took this as a sign to make my heroine Japanese-Brazilian, and her whole family is a mix of these cultures. I did a lot of research and read a lot of books, listened to some interviews and read a lot of first person accounts before I went ahead and represented these cultures, however far-flung, in my main character. Of course, she is separated from Earth by a few centuries, so sometimes, we only get a hint of these characteristics and other times you see the direct impact it can have on her and her family.

As for the Californikus System, I pulled names for here from California too. This region of space has a very strong California culture of green spaces and preservation, plus a mix of Mexican and Latin American heritage. People here speak English and Spanish, and the cities are green and prosperous. The planet, Sonoma, is the bread basket of this system and also a place for wine and celebrities. Laguna, another planet, is the perfect vacation spot! I love the Californikus System! There’s a lot still here to explore in other series, as soon as I get to writing them.

When it comes to rich backgrounds and fun destinations, I figured these two systems, brought to the stars from both California and Brazil would be fun to explore. Hopefully readers love them too. Check out my Flyght Series Pinterest board for some great eye candy that will hopefully give you something to picture when you read this series.

Flyght Inspiration on Pinterest
https://www.pinterest.com/spajonas/the-flyght-series-science-fiction-action-adventure/

Don’t forget to download FIRST FLYGHT for free during the month of January, 2021! You can start this series now and enjoy your adventures with Vivian and the crew of the Amagi!

Download FIRST FLYGHT for FREE!

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Sunday Update – January 24, 2021

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog.

It was quite the week around here! A lot happened so let’s get right to it.

Monday was my birthday! I’m now 45 years old, which feels significant but not really. It was a good birthday. I spent most of the day on the couch after working out in the morning. We had takeout Italian for dinner from our favorite restaurant and then I requested we all watch The Martian together in the evening. It was fun!

Tuesday started the server and email migration. Thankfully that all went smoothly! Email was copied over first and once that was up and working, they copied over all my sites. I made sure they were all in place first. Once I was happy with that, I cut over the sites one by one by changing the DNS. As each one propagated, I put all the security in place and then moved onto the next one. They were all done by Wednesday afternoon! I’m very happy with it all and the new servers are really fast.

Wednesday was the inauguration! We watched most of the events of the day with the kids and celebrated in the afternoon and evening.

Thursday and Friday, it was business as usual. I sent off AN UNFORGIVING DESERT to my first readers and proofreader. With that taken care of, I spent my time reading anthology submissions. I also finished up my 3 Core Rides and 1 Accelerator Ride for the Power Zone Pack Winter Challenge. So far I’m really enjoying participating in the challenge and training. I can feel myself becoming stronger each day! I also hit my 45-day Peloton streak this week!

Saturday and Sunday, I spent the time working, reading, and knitting. I’m a little congested this weekend but hopefully it’ll turn out to be nothing like the last time this happened to me. With the weather dropping to well below freezing and the barometer dropping too, I’m not surprised.

My usual birthday photo. I try to take one every year!

My birthday dinner was my favorite pappardelle pasta with four cheese sauce (yum!) and then cupcakes for dessert.

Birthday gifts included ramen bowls with my favorite asanoha print and new socks from my parents.

45-day streak in Peloton!

I got these mushroom growing kits for Christmas and this one is really chugging along.

A friend of mine bought a Peloton using our referral code, which gives us each $100 to spend on accessories. I spent mine on this hoodie that I’m sure I’ll wear to death.

My husband went all out on dinner one night with saffron salmon, black garlic roasted brussels sprouts, and couscous. Yum! All inspired Yotam Ottolenghi. We watched his Masterclass and enjoyed it so much that we now have several of his cookbooks.

And lots of good drinks this week. Champagne for the inauguration and cocktails for my birthday.

Have a great week everyone! Stay safe and healthy.

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The Inclusion of Sign Language in the Flyght Series

I’ve always had a passion for language, but my passion for foreign languages didn’t come around until I was in college. I loved writing at a young age, which is something I’m sure tons of authors say in interviews (I’ve heard this said often enough in podcasts to know it’s true)! And I always did well in English classes despite not being a big fan of Twain and Faulkner (sorry, not sorry). Writing and language was my first love, and it showed. When other teens were off partying, I was co-writing my first screenplay at the age of 15. But I didn’t really fall in love with language until I learned a foreign language that was so different from the mainstream normal romance languages forced on us in middle and high school. You see, growing up in a small middle America town meant that I only had two choices for foreign language: French or Spanish. But then came college!

But then I arrived at this big, BIG campus — Michigan State University. And at the time, the course catalog was in paper and you could flip through it to see what was on offer for those extra credits you had to take each semester. I distinctly remember flipping through the catalog and landing on Swahili. Oh my god, you could take Swahili as a language! I really loved Africa and African culture at the time (still do) and so I thought, YEAH, I’ll take Swahili.

Photos of my Swahili and Japanese Language Books – S. J. Pajonas

Lots of people talk about turning points in their lives, and looking back, this was it for me. This was when I knew I really loved language. Because Swahili is so different than romance languages. The sentence structures and the way verbs are conjugated really made me think about English in a different way. And I loved my professor. He was so patient with us as we worked our way through the language. It was a lot of fun! I took two years of Swahili, and I would have gone on to take more, except I was on a budget and I had to pay for credits my junior and senior year of college that would go toward my major. It was a total bummer not to have a foreign language in my life for two years.

I graduated college in 1998 and immediately got a job as a web developer in Detroit where I met people who really loved Japan like I did. A friend of mine had actually lived in Japan and could speak fluent Japanese. Oh man, I wanted to learn Japanese too! So when I moved to New York City not long after, I found the Japan Society on 49th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues, and I took seven years of Japanese language there. It was fantastic to be learning another language again! And although I wasn’t writing at this time, it gave me an appreciation for all language.

Sign Language Photos – Depositphotos

This was when I found out that Japan also has its own sign language. Like America has ASL, there exists JSL as well. This fascinated me too, and I have spent many hours watching videos of the differences between ASL and JSL. If you’re interested in Japanese Sign Language, you definitely have to check out DeafJapanTV on YouTube! His videos are super informative and fun.

https://www.youtube.com/user/DeafJapanTV

Learning about JSL led me down the rabbit hole to many other sign languages too. Did you know, there exists anywhere from 60 to 300 different sign languages in the world today? And there are differences between British Sign Language and Brazilian Sign Language and American and Japanese and on and on… There is an International Sign Language too, a sort of simpler form that’s used in international meetings and when traveling. This page from the United Nations has some good information on sign languages: https://www.un.org/en/observances/sig...

And I love this video with examples of different sign languages from around the world.

So when I was developing the Flyght Series, I was thinking about the consequences of a genetic disease that had run rampant in the Duo Systems that my characters inhabit and what it could do to people. I thought it would be interesting to have it attack soft tissue, like vocal cords, and render some people mute. Not deaf, but mute. (It’s science fiction, so let’s suspend our disbelief for a moment here.) People in the Duo Systems speak a mishmash of English, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and some Japanese too. But I gave them all a Universal Sign Language (USL) that the mute citizens could use to communicate. In my mind, this is a mash-up of American, Brazilian, and Japanese Sign Language. I describe a few sign language gestures in the books, based on books I’ve read and videos I’ve watched, but otherwise I leave it up to the imagination of the reader.

But with this USL, I was able to give people a way to communicate and MIScommunicate as well. It was another layer of language to add to the mix, another point of reference to build the fictional world these people live in. The drama of it was a lot of fun! It was an interesting inclusion in the series, and one that I will continue on in this universe for more series to come.

Don’t forget to download FIRST FLYGHT for free during the month of January, 2021! You can start this series now and enjoy your adventures with Vivian and the crew of the Amagi!

Download FIRST FLYGHT for FREE!

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Book Chat #67 – Books by Susan Kaye Quinn, Carol Van Natta, and Sarah Raasch

This Book Chat is a combination of one book from the end of last year, and two from this January! I’m reading a lot of novella that were submitted for the anthology I’m co-editing, so it might be a few weeks before I have anything new to share.

WHEN YOU HAD POWER by Susan Kaye Quinn (ebook)

After hearing Susan talk a lot about the genre “hopepunk” and how writing this book brought her a lot of joy, I picked it up as soon as it came out. I’m so glad to say that I really enjoyed this story. I love the world that Susan built, full of joy, hope, and new ideas on sustainability and family. There’s a lot here to love including a diverse cast and a mystery to really sink your teeth into. Lucia is wonderful, always looking to the future with love in her heart and a fire in her veins. The family that she happens into is a lot of fun as well. I see this story as an allegory for our future, and I hope that we, as a society can come together to conquer all the things that are wrong from extremism to climate change. As it says at the end of the book’s blurb, “We’re in this together, now more than ever before.”

MINDER RISING by Carol Van Natta (ebook)

I was excited to move on to the second book in this series, and it was a real treat! This novel follows Lièrén Sòng as he rehabilitates and figures out the mystery of what happened to him and his fellow CPS coworkers during a brutal shuttle crash. There are conspiracies in every shadow and it takes a while but eventually Lièrén realizes that CPS has been lying to him as well. And then there’s Imara Sesay, a woman he comes to know who works the bar at the hotel where Lièrén is staying to convalesce. Their subtle romance really worked for me and kept the story moving. I found that in my off hours, I was thinking about this book a lot! And each time I set the book down, I couldn’t wait to get back to it. I can’t wait to read more in this series!

ICE LIKE FIRE by Sarah Raasch (audiobook)

As you all know by now, I’m not a huge fantasy fan, but this series really caught my attention. There were a lot of twists and turns in this installment of the story. I enjoyed following Meira through the different kingdoms and getting a glimpse at how everything worked. I found Meira herself to be quite daft at times, unfortunately. She just kept making rash decisions and not learning from her mistakes. I would have thought that by this point, she would have grown a little more. But it looks like the story wants to go in the “she must die to save them all” direction, so I’m not sure how much more time she’ll have to grow? Hard to say. Regardless, there was a lot of action and adventure here to make any reader happy, including me. And I do want to see how far Meira can go in this story. I’ll probably take a break from the series and finish it up in the summer! I definitely want to know how it all ends.

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