GUEST BLOG: Nancy Wood on "What's Next?"

Nancy Wood says: I live in Santa Cruz, California, where I've been lucky enough to make writing my career. For many years I made my living as a technical writer, working in software documentation. About six years ago, I was laid off from my job and decided to set up my own shop. Now, I'm a writing consultant for the high tech industry and get to spend every day grappling with words and sentences. I love it!

Due Date, published by Solstice Publishing, came out at the end of May. This is my first published book. I started it about six years ago, and am now working on the second book in the Shelby McDougall series, which I hope won't take quite so long!

What is the working title of your next book?
STALKING THE STORK (but I know that title needs work…!).

Where did the idea come from for the book?
The book is the second in the Shelby McDougall series and picks up the story a few years after the conclusion of DUE DATE. In this book, Shelby hunts the mastermind of the conspiracy she was involved in in Due Date.

What genre does your book fall under?
Thriller.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
Great question! I’m on a Dr. Who kick these days and I love Karen Gillan, who plays Amy Pond, Dr. Who’s companion in the 2010 – 2012 series. She looks like Shelby, plus she’s curious, fearless, and a bit impulsive. Unfortunately, she’d have to drop her lovely Socttish brogue!

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
When toddler Justin Boyd, one of the twins that Shelby McDougall put up for adoption two years ago, is abducted, Shelby drops everything—her job, graduate school, her life—to chase dead-end leads, only to find herself in quicksand: both the cops and the bad guys are after her.

Jaydium - Chapter 26

JAYDIUM

by Deborah J. Ross, writing as Deborah Wheeler

Chapter 26

Dawn came and the crystalline walls glowed with a faint iridescent sheen. Eril couldn=t remember falling asleep, just lying there, staring at the expanse of featureless luminescent gray. Wishing he could see the stars. Feeling the emptiness inside him. The not-caring that made his promises empty syllables and turned his life into one long bid for escape. He was human, he told himself, not hollow. He cared--about the Fed, about Raerquel and the future of its world. Yet something had gone out of him even before he jetted down to Port Ludlow in search of the brushie duopilot who was his only hope. Maybe in the bars and alleys of New Paris, one crazy scrape after another. Maybe as far back as Albion. 

Albion.

Eril winced at the memory. Compared to Kithri, he=d lost nothing there.

He sat up, his hip and shoulder bones aching. When he reached his arms above his head and stretched, his spine popped. Next to him, close enough so she could easily have touched him in her sleep, Kithri lay on curled on one side. In the far corner, Brianna had tucked up in a fetal ball, her back to the others. Lennart sat and stared blankly ahead, his legs folded in a complicated and uncomfortable-looking arrangement. His hands open lay, palms up, on his knees.

Eril clambered to his feet and continued his stretching. Even making allowances for the unforgiving sleeping surface, he felt stiff. He didn=t like the thought of getting old. But at the rate they were going, they would none of them live that long.

None of us, he repeated to himself. Not just me, none of us.

A door opened in the wall and one of their unnamed captors sat outside, ready to escort them singly to a newly sculpted sanitary facility in an adjacent portion of the holding platform. When they=d all made the requisite trip and an attempt at morning greetings to one another, the door opened again and Raerquel slithered in.

"Come, my human friends," it said with its usual graceful gestures. "We must return to the laboratory to prepare my defense."

GUEST BLOG: Pati Nagle on "What's Next?"

Pati Nagle was born and raised in the mountains of northern New Mexico. An avid student of music, history, and humans in general, she has a special love of the outdoors, particularly New Mexico’s wilds, which inspire many of her stories. Her fiction has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Cricket, Cicada, and in anthologies honoring New Mexico writers Jack Williamson and Roger Zelazny. Her fantasy short story ”Coyote Ugly“ was honored as a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Award. She has also written a series of historical novels as P.G. Nagle. She is a founding member of Book View Café.

 

Q: What is the working title of your book? 
A: CURSE OF THE FALLEN or CURSE OF THE ALBEN, not sure which.  What do you think?  Is CURSE OF THE ALBEN confusing?

Q: Where did the idea come from for the book?
A: Short answer: This is book 4 of my Blood of the Kindred series, inspired by my short story, "Kind Hunter" (which you can read at Book View Café - it's the free sample from the anthology DRAGON LORDS AND WARRIOR WOMEN).

Q: What genre does your book fall under?
A: Fantasy

Q: Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
A: Well, Orlando Bloom is the quintessential elf in my eyes, so I'd cast him as Turisan.  For Eliani - yanno, Zooey Deschanel might work!  For Shalár, I think Kaley Cuoco would do a very good job.  And for Luruthin, perhaps Matthew Gray Gubler.

Goals, Wishes, Intentions

I'm not big on resolutions, New Year's or otherwise. More often than not, all they do is set me up to fail, or put me in competition with others, and who needs that? However, I do see a great deal of value in taking some time to clarify where I'm going in my life, if it's where I want to be going, and what I'd like to see different.

Years (as in, decades) ago, a friend suggested making a list of goals instead of resolutions, and to break them down into 1-year, 5-year, 10-year, and lifetime goals. I did that for quite a while, and I still have the notebook I kept them in. It's fascinating to look back at what I thought I wanted, 30 years ago -- what I have achieved, what I no longer want, and what is no longer possible.

Along the way, I realized that some of these things were within my power to achieve, but others were not. I might long for them, but I could not bring them about, or not entirely by my own efforts. For instance, finishing a novel or studying Hebrew are things I can choose to do, but my children being happy, however much I might want to see that come about, is not something I myself can create. These things are wishes, not goals. Of course, many things are both. On my list is to write a work of enduring value -- I can write the best stories that are in me, but how they are received and how they endure the test of time is another matter entirely. I have no say over that.

GUEST BLOG: Jeffrey Carver on "What's Next?"

Jeffrey Carver says about himself, "Most people know me as a science fiction writer or as a dad. My most recent novels are Sunborn and Battlestar Galactica: the Miniseries (novelization). My continuing project is The Chaos Chronicles, and Sunborn is the latest tale in that series. I also wear the hat of educational web content editor, technical writer, home handyman, wrestling dad, dog walker, and private pilot temporarily grounded by funding depletion. (Maybe I wear too many hats.) I have a wife, two daughters, a cat, and a dog. I really should get more sleep. Though I grew up in Huron, Ohio, I have lived for many years now in the Boston area. Check out downloads of my fiction at http://www.starrigger.net."

1) What is the title of your next work?
The Reefs of Time.
It's Volume Five of The Chaos Chronicles. Or, to put it another way, it's the long-awaited sequel to Sunborn. It's also still very much a work in progress, and I don't have a publication date for you, unfortunately. Some of you have been waiting a long time for this book, and I very much appreciate your patience.

2) Where did the idea come from?
It continues a story inspired by chaos theory, which began years ago with Neptune Crossing, the opening volume of The Chaos Chronicles. The series chronicles the adventures of one John Bandicut from Earth, a survey pilot out on Triton (moon of Neptune), whose journey starts with a search for relics of life from outside the solar system. He finds it, in the form of a quarx—a noncorporeal alien who takes up residence in his head—and the translator, a powerful machine or being of equally alien origin. A lot happens after that—four books' worth, in fact. Worlds in danger, starting with Earth. Reluctant heroes. New friendships and loves where least expected.