Tag Archives: author

Ship in the Void – Pt. 6

Welcome back to the ship! If this is your first time visiting, I recommend starting with part 1. You can find all of these posts on the Dream Journal page. 

The story continues…

I floated in cotton. My mouth was dry, and my head stuffy. 

Muffled voices drifted toward me. “Do… any leads… shift?” 

“No, sir.” That was Flash, so the muffled person must have been Tryss. 

My hearing cleared up at the same time the pain returned. It was only an echo of what put me out, but I groaned as my eyelids fluttered in wakefulness. 

A hand rested gently against my forehead. “Easy, Bitsa. How are you feeling?” 

I blinked my eyes open to see one of the most cherubic baby faces on or off the planet. With big, blue eyes and a cap of golden-blonde hair, Magic Hands appeared like a grown-up version of a Rennaisance painting angels. 

He was the unit’s medic, and I had the biggest crush on him. It was no secret among the unit. I’m pretty sure even Magic was aware, but we kept things professional, and both ignored my uncontrollable blushing. 

“Arm hurts,” I said, smacking my parched lips. 

He held a cup and straw to my mouth. “I can give you a stronger pain killer, but it will put you off duty for 24 hours. That’s my recommendation, but it’s up to you.”

Pain and help the team, or get loopy and bored for a day? I thought.

This latest glitch increased the threat level. Too much more risk and we would need to abort the mission. If I went off duty, we would be stuck until my status changed. In the end, it wasn’t a tough choice.

“No.” I shook my head slowly. “I’ll stick.” 

Magic sighed and pursed his lips. “I can’t say I’m surprised. Let’s get you up and put the sling on.”

My head spun only once before settling, and I looked over to where Tryss and Flash stood watching.

‘Did you find Juicy? What happened to him?” 

“Juicy is fine,” Tryss answered with a smile. “He was clinging to you when help arrived, but Party and Block secured you both with anchors, giving us time to correct the gravity shift.”

I let out a gusty breath and felt tears well in my eyes. In my head, I failed him. He fell to his death when I couldn’t lift him high enough or stay conscious long enough to save him.

My breathing was shaky as the relief flooded through me.

Tryss squeezed my free hand, “You did good, Bitsa. You saved his life.”

I closed my eyes against the tears and nodded sharply. Letting out a deep breath, I was relatively calm again when I opened them to look back at Tryss. 

“Do we know what caused any of the malfunctions yet?” I asked.

She turned to Flash, who had already shaken his head in response.

“No.” He released a frustrated breath. “All preliminary tests are returning ‘systems normal’ responses.”

“But the gravity shift was recorded and responded to commands to revert to the prior settings,” Tryss added. “which indicates the errors are not related to reporting or interface assets and programming.”

Flash shook his hand in a “maybe”‘ gesture. His twitching eyes meant he interacted with his HUD as he spoke to us. “Likely, but it does not eliminate the possibility of problems with those systems. I’m pushing them down the priority list for now though.”

Magic finished hooking up my sling as Triss acknowledged Flash’s point. Her focus then returned to me with enough intensity to have me leaning back slightly.

“I reported our situation and initial encounters to Command. Our mission stands, but they’ve authorized a medical drop if necessary. It’s up to you.”

“My recommendation as your doctor,” Magic offered, “is to take the drop.”

“Can they do anything for my injury you haven’t already done?” I asked him.

He pursed his lips and snorted in frustration. “No, but with your injury, you are most at risk of further harm up here.”

Regulations required at least five people in a medical drop to ensure optimal assistance for the injured person on the descent. It would mean Tryss would lose more than me, and we would not even be on the ground to assist for twenty-four hours. It was not an option.

“Noted, but I’m staying.” I stood before my unit leader, pretty sure I hid the wince of pain as I rose. “Where do you want me?”

She pointed to a terminal across from where Magic worked. “Right over there,” she said with a jaunty wag of her eyebrows. “You get to keep Magic company in the infirmary. The data from your prelim runs is on the terminal. I want your assessment on those glitches.”

Lovely, I thought. I’m benched and given homework. Well, at least I would get to spend the day with Magic. Maybe I could finally convince him to fall in love with me.

“Yes, sir, “I said, and got to work on both missions.

To be continued…

Signing Event of the Century

…and by that, I mean my first signing event ever, and we are in a century. If you follow me on Facebook, you may have noticed the event I set up this morning for an official book signing! 

The broader event is called the “Meeker Street Nerd Party,” and is organized by a group of businesses located on Meeker Street in Kent. 

The Nerd Party promotes downtown local, small businesses by highlighting nerd culture in a street-wide event.  Small businesses between 2nd & 4th Ave on W. Meeker will host local makers, artists, and authors who specialize in nerd culture, science fiction, fantasy, horror — books, games, toys, and more.

– from the Nerd Party event page

With my paperback released—and looking amazing—I reached out to the event organizers and asked if they had any spots left I could fill. The answer was a resounding “well, all the good spots are taken, so you will probably be in an out of the way location.”

I jumped all over that. I’m calling it a “find Tiffany” scavenger hunt. As a prize, you can have a bookmark or wax seal, both of which I have ordered supplies to create these giveaways. I will also have copies of the paperback for sale if you have not already ordered yours from Amazon. 

If you are in the Seattle-Tacoma area on the evening of February 26th, 2022, then come to Kent and visit me in my corner of the bookstore! More information on the Party is here, and on my signing is here. I hope to see some of you there!

(Related note: If you received my newsletter on 1/15/22, you still have until the end of January to reply with your entry to try to win the signed paperback giveaway!)

Advertising

Also this week, I took the “5-day Author Ad Profit Challenge.” It is a free course via videos and social media put on by the Ad School. I’m only recently starting my advertising journey, so I thought a crash course was a great idea and signed up. 

I watched the videos during my lunch break and worked on the homework assignments in the evenings. The class focuses on creating Amazon Ads via their website and writing better ad copy (the hook lines you see on ads). I found the latter most helpful because I had already explored the ad website to some extent, but the tips for using the different types of ads Amazon offers were also beneficial.

Time will tell if the class can help turn my advertising profitable instead of what I’m calling a loss-leader. Overall, if you are interested in learning about Amazon ads and writing better copy, then I would recommend the free class, but make sure you have enough time to put into the assignments. As for the paid class, I am still undecided. Probably not this year, but I might consider it part of next year’s growth and training after Hidden Sanctuary is released on time. 

Happy Saturday all!

Paperback and Progress

I feel like I have been playing catch-up lately, and it has been forever since I have done a general status update, so here is all the stuff that I have not shared since the holidays began!

Holidays

I spoke before about seeing family for the holidays, which was great. I also received some great gifts from everyone. One was a cool cover for my ReMarkable2 notepad that can support it in different positions. It makes me feel better knowing it has something to protect the screen when I’m not using it. I’m currently wearing a blanket/poncho thing my parents gave me. Big Cat enjoys it as well for his lap time. A third thing I’m excited about is my new minimalist wallet arriving in the mail this week. I purchased it with a gift card received to pick one I liked. 

After Christmas, I was cat-sitting for my parents during their visit with my brother and family in Florida. That mission was complicated by the week of snow we had in the area. They live within walking distance, so I made the trip every day. Footing became a bit treacherous on the ice and more effort than usual tromping through the snow, but the cat was not without company. 

Going without trash service for three weeks during that period due to snow and ice became a bit more daunting. We don’t usually have too much trash, but a mix-up on recycling dates a month earlier meant we were already two weeks behind on that pick-up. Boxes were piling up in the kitchen with recyclables. When the bin emptied this week, we immediately filled it again. Hopefully, this catches us up for good this time. 

Business

You may have noticed some picture changes on the website already. If you did, you may already suspect I had some professional pictures taken, and you would be correct. I contacted a photographer to take a handful of “casual, professional headshots” for my author materials. A couple of the pictures are on the website, I changed my Facebook profile photo, and one is on the back cover of my paperback. 

This one is on another page, but Big Cat wanted to make an appearance here too!

That’s right! Hidden Memory is also out in paperback as of this week! I ran through a couple of author proofs to make minor formatting adjustments, and my first few author copies are on their way—probably still in the printing stage—now! If you signed up for my newsletter, you should have seen it in your inbox earlier today, and it includes a chance to enter to win a signed paperback! If you did not sign up in time for this giveaway, do not lose hope. There will be more in the future, so go to the home page and sign up now so you don’t miss out!

With the paperback complete, I’m focused on finishing up the current draft of Hidden Promise. I will pass polished chapters to my alpha readers and then revise Hidden Sanctuary in preparation for beta readers. On the business side, I’m learning about advertising on Amazon and hoping it does not cost me too much for the education!

I will end on a celebratory note this week. It has been just over a month since the book was released. I had a relatively successful launch, thanks primarily to word of mouth through my friends and family network to their networks. My advertising has resulted in eight additional sales. I have five reviews on Amazon, and I have two preorders for the next-in-series! Thank you all for your support!

Ship in the Void – Pt. 5

Welcome back to the ship! If this is your first time here, I recommend starting with part 1 and continuing from there. You can find all of these posts on the Dream Journal page.

The story continues…

“Why ‘Juicy?'”

I looked over my shoulder and smiled at the current owner of the name in question.

“Few units choose call names,” I replied. “What makes this one so bad?”

Sighing, Juicy followed me through another door into a wide hallway. The lift was to my right. To mix things up, I intended to walk down to the ship docking bay at the far end, accessed from this central floor, before we made our way through the rooms on the opposite side.

“It reminds me of that underwear company that came back in style when I was younger.”

I had to wrack my brain for a minute before what he was talking about came back to me. Laughing out, I stopped and put a hand on his arm.
“The ones with the words across the butt?”

“Yep.”

For a moment, the image of Juicy with the word “juicy” written across his backside flashed in my mind. A grin split my face. When Juicy saw it, he pursed his lips, rolled his eyes, and shook his head at me.

With a final laugh, I started walking again. “While hilarious,” I said, “That is not the origin of the ‘juicy’ name. The original unit commander had a thing for old movies. It’s from some monster movie from back in the day and means you are new like a freshly made corpse.”

He stopped and stared at me, blinking in confusion. “A fresh corpse?”

“Yeah,” I paused. “You’re still juicy.”

“That… I’m not sure that’s any better.”

I laughed again, but before I could form a response, the floor tilted beneath our feet. My head slammed against the floor as gravity shifted, sending us sliding down the hall, picking up speed as it continued to shift from horizontal to vertical.

“Bitsa!” Juicy yelled as he clawed at the carpeted floor.

Activating my boots had no impact. Instead of generating a charged connection with the floor, I continued my slide down. That meant the structure no longer carried a charge.

The automated doors in this hallway were flush with the walls, meaning there was nothing to grab to stop our descent. At the end was either a long fall through the force field and out into space or to the bottom floor far below. It depended on the direction of the pull once we left this hallway.

“Bitsa, the boots aren’t connecting!”

But the gloves might! I thought.

“Gloves!” I called out. We had less than 30 seconds, “use your gloves!” Even as I said it, I grabbed mine off my belt and put them on.

“I left them in the room,” there was terror in Juicy’s voice. “Bitsa, my gloves are back in the room!”

Ten seconds. I rolled closer to him. “Grab my hand! Juicy, grab my hand and hang on!”

Hands grasped wrists. As we shot off the ledge, I activated my gloves through the HUD and slapped my free hand down on the floor. The built-in sticky property activated at full power, and our combined weight tore my arm away from my body. I couldn’t tell if the suit was the only thing holding me together.

A scream ripped from my throat and tears fell. “Mother firecracker,” I whisper-moaned as we dangled there. “Juicy, stop moving.”

He looked up at me. “Are you okay, Bitsa?”
“No,” I said through clenched teeth. “I’m going to either puke or pass out, so you need to hold on.”

I activated the comms. “Mayday, Mayday. Bitsa and Juicy in need of immediate assistance in Lima dock. I repeat, immediate assistance needed in Lima dock.”

“Bitsa,” Flash’s response came nearly on top of my words. “Party Bus and Block Head are inbound. what is your situation?”

“We experienced—” I paused to breathe through a dizzy spell, “a sudden gravity shift 90 degrees. Entire structure of the hall—is not charged. Boots are no-go. I repeat, boots are no-go.”

“Are you injured?” Flash asked from far away as I closed my eyes. “Bitsa, Juicy, are you injured?”

“Bitsa is injured,” I heard Juicy say. “We are hanging over the docking bay by Bitsa’s glove.”

“Copy, Juicy. Magic Hands is also heading your way. Full-gear and anchors everyone. Take no chances.”

I faded in and out.

“Bitsa, I’m slipping.” The words held no meaning through the pain. “Bitsa.”
Juicy flailed, sending a fresh wave of searing agony through me.

“Juicy,” I mumbled, unsure if he could understand me.

“Bitsa, I’m slipping.”

I could feel his hands sliding down my wrist, over my hand.

“Can you pull up and grab my waist?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s try, Juicy. I’ll help.” I clamped my fingers around his larger hand as best I could without shaking him loose. “Now, Juicy!”

I screamed as I pulled up on my lower arm while Juicy curled up from below. He needed to be higher, but he was too heavy for me to lift. Darkness tunneled my vision at the edges. It wasn’t going to work.
His hand brushed my hip as I blacked out.

To be continued…

White Christmas

Snow on Christmas day is rare in the Puget Sound area. We’re more likely to see it in January or February, but there was some falling yesterday and has collected a fair amount as of this morning. We opened the back door for the cats. They are both indoor cats, but they find padding around in the snow intriguing. By “padding around in the snow,” I mean that if we carry them out they might slowly move about, and when we open the door they cautiously creep around on the first step. Either way, they are cats, with snow on their fur, so they are adorable.

“It’s so cold out there!” – Little Cat back from her snowy adventure.

I’m glad the snow held off yesterday though because it meant we were able to visit both parents and in-laws. This is the first time we sat down with some of them in a couple of years now. It’s challenging because not everyone is able to isolate as well as we can, and we are still trying to do our part by being careful. Our intent is to mini-quarantine for at least the next week just in case. Any risks we took should end with us.

Yesterday morning when my sister arrived with her kids, I just about–did–freaked out at them when my niece walked in saying nonchalantly “I got COVID-19 for Christmas.”

I looked at my sister with fire in my eyes. “Then what the F are you all doing here?!”

The two of them shared a look and started cracking up. I, of course, am unamused. They are not that selfishly irresponsible. I know they are not. But, there are so many people who are, and you hear stories like that all the time. For that moment, I believed they would do it.

It turned out my niece received a GiantMicrobe plush toy representation of COVID-19 in her stocking. The two of them conspired their little scene thinking about how hilarious it would be to get a reaction out of me. I can’t say I was sorry to rise to the occasion, and I’m glad they, and others, got a laugh out of it. As I said on Instagram, “well played, little one. Well played.”

We are big fans of Giant Microbes. The regular size plush tags always include interesting facts about the microbe in question.

Publication Update

My book was released just under two weeks ago. After the initial surge, sales have dwindled to a trickle. This is both expected, and not as bad as it sounds. You expect an initial surge driven by preorders, followed by a reduction. The sales still coming in are primarily due to social media sharing by friends and me. I have also had three of my ARC readers post reviews in various places along with one “verified purchaser” review. Through it all, I maintained a reasonable star rating.

I also set up a targeted keyword ad on Amazon Advertising, and I got my first sale from that effort on Friday. The cost per click and advertising cost of sales are…not great, but for my first book, it is going to be more about volume and bringing people into the series and along for the ride. I’m hoping for a preorder for book two to come in from one of these initial sales. I will have another little celebration at the sign someone likes the first enough to immediately sign up for the second.

Sales might see another little surge when I finish the paperback version. I have all the formatting done, and I’m going to try to order an author test copy in the next couple of days to see how it looks once actually printed. Barring any issues, I might have it out by the middle of January, ahead of the February target.

Reminder, I’m going to be doing a paperback raffle of sorts in my January newsletter (around mid-month), so if you are interested in trying for a free paperback and have not already signed up for the newsletter, you can do so below or on my home page.

For now, I’m back to editing and writing. Come back next week for another installment of the dream journal short story!

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