Nix Romipen

The sequel following The Morrigan is called "Nix Romipen".  Federi has a clear mission.  He wants to get to the bottom of the mystery that is the Unicate, once and for all, and root that evil organization out. To give himself a bit of space and have an excuse to get off the ship, he calls it a honeymoon and takes his essential backup along. 

Soon they find themselves in Romania, where Paean discovers the magic of Federi's birthplace, high in the Transylvanian mountains, and is drawn into the irresistible charm of the wild forests.  They reconnect with some free Tzigany, and so far everything seems perfect... but then...

That is exactly the point at which I need to start editing.  An essential emotional red thread running through the story is missing.  Federi's focus shifts.  Earth faces more aliens - this time nothing remotely human.  Things happen head-over-heels, the story splits as we try to follow Paean and Federi on their separate missions at the same time.  There is, to put it bluntly, chaos. 

For a while I thought it was ready.  It's not.  Please, be patient.  It's one of the strangest sequels in the whole series, as it seems to exist separately from the others.  It's very different in character from the others; also from the new series, "Shooting Star", following onto the Solar Wind series. It really is a stand-alone that belongs in neither.  It's a bridge but yet an individual.  I'll have to wrap my brain around it.

Why do I write?  Because if I didn't, I'd be crazy by now.

So amazing...

While I'm doggedly plodding through another revision of "Nix Romipen", Book 6 in the Solar Wind series, and that is after we thought "The Morrigan" was the last volume in that series, things are moving very fast in P'kaboo.

Times like this, I'm deeply thankful for all the help I'm getting, and that I don't have to run the ship alone.  Les, my excellent editor, is taking over going through submissions with a fine-toothed comb and approaching any edits with his usual, unusual sensitivity to the author.  Paul, our associate in UK, is taking over many details of the basic cogs and wheels concerning the overseas authors, approaching overseas book places and so on.  My young designer advises me on what works and doesn't work - mind, two other designers of ours have indicated that I do have an eye for visuals, but more advice is always great.  Interesting how the trends differ though.  The illustrator of a recent title has been giving more than her all to rectify quality issues with the original files of the release - working day, night, regardless to get everything smoothed down.  Two wonderful book bloggers are giving my authors spotlights, one by one, and two of my newest authors are pushing, L for Leather, the marketing and development of their works, one of them with such amazing success that a billboard ad will appear over a busy highway announcing her book available in a major UK book chain. 

If I didn't have my team around me, I'd be panicking, it all is moving so fast.  I'm deeply thankful to my wonderful associates as well as the strangers that are pitching in and helping.

Here's the poster that was created for Carmen Capuano, announcing her book in WHSmith:

To think that Bernhard, who created the cover for The Assassin and Almost Dead in Suburbia, originally created the 3D book image, and I've been using it all along, and now it has been deemed worthy of a billboard ad...

"The Morrigan" is done!

 

Last night I finally polished the last bits of "The Morrigan" up.

It's been sent to my editor, Les, for a final check-through (he already edited it previously, and all those edits were accepted), and after that it's ready for P'kaboo and Amazon.  This is very exciting.

I left this book for over 2 years, because there was something bothering me about it that I couldn't pinpoint.  Was it pacing?  Not really.  I have identified what it was, a number of subtle issues, and a few scenes that needed to be reworked, and now it works!  

I don't know whether there will be enough funds for a paper launch of both Raider and The Morrigan.  We'll have to see.

 

 

Federi vs Paean

From the very first part of Solar Wind 1 it becomes apparent how much Federi cares about Paean.  This is high-flying shenanigans between her and Wolf notwithstanding.  Federi takes a backseat, watches how she runs into a wall there - and quietly steps in to fix things when they break.  This is his nature.

Here's a little scene from the revised Solar Wind 1.  Paean is riddled with guilt, her hands full of blood that no amount of scrubbing can wash off.

Federi looked up from the console.  In  the door to the bridge hung a worried little redhead.
“You okay, Federi?”
The gypsy laughed.
“Fine, Paean.  Except that Captain’s making us sail into a – oh, hell’s gadgets, it’s fine!  We’ll be fine.  Federi’s an old coward, that’s all!  Anna bottle…”
“Coffee for you?”
Federi smiled broadly.  “Now that’s going to make all the difference,” he stated.  “Thanks, little carer!”
“Any day,” said Paean and handed him his steaming mug.  “Got any decks for me to scrub?”
What?  With death hanging over all their heads?  He didn’t think so!
“Funny thing that,” he said, then trailed off.  He could see how she’d had a lot of friends in Milly-Molly-Mandy street.  Anyone who cared for their friends like this, had friends.  He frowned.  It made no sense.  This was her true nature, he sensed it.  Whatever she had done that was weighing on her like that – it had been a fluke, a mistake.  When Captain decided to drill down to the truth – he’d be there protecting her, he decided.  And he glanced at her hands.
The skin was abraded away right up to the elbows from scrubbing.  He knew he’d been giving her a lot of decks to wash, and she’d taken on extra heads-scrubbing duty for reasons only she understood, but this...  it was something else.  He locked the steering and grabbed her hands to take a closer look.  And observed how she shrank away, her breath hissing between her teeth as she inhaled sharply.
All that blood...
“Got to get that seen to, shey,” he said.  “Put something on it.  Captain will think Federi’s working you to death.  Wait...”  He dug in his pockets and unearthed a small flat tin, and slid its lid open.  There was something grey and greasy-looking inside.  He picked out a gob of the stuff and slapped it on the back of her left hand. 
“What’s that?” she asked doubtfully as she spread it over her abused skin. 
Federi hesitated.  “Neomer polycarbon thixotropalene.”
She gawped.  “What?”
“Motor grease,” he grinned and pressed the tin into her hands.  “What!  You expect me to carry medical supplies in my pockets?”
She stared at her hands in horror.
“It works.” provided the gypsy.  “Keep it, I can get more from the machine room.”
Paean pulled a face, but obediently spread the dreadful stuff over her hands and forearms.  Federi was right; people would notice.  Good that he only thought it was from washing the dishes.  She glanced uncertainly at his face and caught him staring moodily into the dark beyond the bridge.
“Doesn’t matter anyway,” he muttered.
“What?” asked Paean.
Federi scowled.  He’d seen it before.  But by now it really was irrelevant.  They’d die in Hamilton, regardless what she was guilty of. Those Stabs in the harbour...
Did she sense about the horror he had found in the machine room of the Hun?  How could she sense, he thought.  And about the irony of Captain being prepared to rescue his arch-enemy…  sail right into the death trap that was Hamilton!  With all his crew.
“Störtebeker,” he said.
“Pardon?”
“Pirate called Störtebeker.  You should ask Sherman about him.  Federi can’t tell a story quite the same.”
“Tell me anyway,” pushed Paean, still rubbing at the synthetic compounding lubri-squatch he’d made her put on her hands. 
“Aw, alright.  Störtebeker must have been a bit like Captain.  This is long ago.  In the days before mineral fuels.  He and his whole crew got captured by the law, and of course piracy carried the death penalty even then.  So Störtebeker negotiated with the government that all of his sailors could go free past whom he could walk after he was dead.”
“That’s dumb,” commented Paean.
“Wait for it,” said the Tzigan.  “I said I can’t tell it like Sherman!  So they line up his crew and chop off his head.  Paean, atenţie!  He walked past his entire crew with his head chopped off.  All of them!  Before his dead corpse fell to the ground.”
“Whoa!” commented Paean disbelievingly.
“Is true,” said Federi.  “Was a historical figure.  Go look it up in the Sher…”  He sighed impatiently and stared out to sea.  “Go to sleep!”
Paean gaped at him in shock, then she shrugged and left the bridge.  Federi glared at the sea some more.  In his mind’s eye he saw Captain walking past the Solar Wind’s crew with his head chopped off.  Aw hell… and now he’d snubbed the little mockingbird!  For what?
...

Hardcover edition of the NEW Solar Wind

In celebration of the revision and re-polish of  Solar Wind 1, I published an exclusive hard-cover version of it on Lulu.com.

It is only available on Lulu.com.

It includes the new first chapter and has been honed and whittled down a bit.  Paean is paeansier, Shawn is shawnier, and Federi is more federitical.  The Solar Wind is windier and sunnier, and Ronan's true character shines through in the beginning.  (I know he gets buttered under a little as the series continues - he gets grouchy.  This is quite clearly due to overload, as the sensitive reader can understand.)

SW1 hardcover version comes in at $25, which is not much for Lulu.com (I don't think I could produce a P'kaboo case-bound book at that price), and for the first 3 months there will be a discount.  The discount diminishes over time, so get yours while it's hot!

"Don't know what you dragged aboard there, Federi."

At only fifteen, Paean's life is already over. Things have gone wrong, and now she is on the run. With her two brothers she escapes onto a ship - only to discover that the "Solar Wind" is a pirate vessel. Too late, they are already at sea.

Is it good or bad to be on a ship that is hunted by the military? Will Captain keep them on as pirates or pitch them overboard, and which is worse? Staying silent about what is eating her alive, is more difficult than she imagined for the extraverted young musician. Can she find allies, actual friends aboard? Or should she, as her instincts warn her, trust no-one at all?

Well, at least Captain is in for a lot of surprises!

As before, the book can be previewed at this link, and this is also where you can find reviews.

I'll eventually publish Lulu hardcover versions of Solar Winds 2 - 4 as well, and nr 5 when I'm ready to publish it at all (I'm not yet happy with "The Morrigan").  These hardcovers make excellent special presents for a read-happy friend or family member; and they'll look good as a series next to each other. 

Why exclusively on Lulu?

Because they don't have a lending system!

Damn!

Checking our Amazon royalties, I find time and time again that my books are being read - but I get nothing, because they are being read via Amazon's free library program.

The KU is like a massive lottery.  People download your book, and depending what the "pool" is that month, and what "percentage of the pool" your book is being read, you get a payout or none.  In my case, clearly, none.

But that's not the function of ebooks!  Dammit!  My stories being given away for free; people can just help themselves to reading them, and the author gets schneid out of the deal??  Gee, Amazon!

I went to the settings and saw that there are 3 different ways in which people can borrow a book - that is, you make a "sale" that then gets reversed (after they've already eaten the cake).  There is KU, which comes with KDP.  None of my books are enrolled in KDP (they all are also published on P'kaboo), so clearly the lending doesn't come from KU.  Then there is "KOLL" - a monthly subscription program in which people can read a certain number of books per month.  What does the author get?  A lucky draw - maybe something, more likely nothing.  And then there is "friend lending", which I've found the place to disable.  Ebooks are cheap to begin with.  How cheapskate must one be to borrow them from Amazon and then give them back? 

You can only switch off friend lending if you only demand a 35% royalty.  I looked critically at the situation:  My large, 140 000-word epics going for $2.99 and then still being returned.  Bull, as our author Marie would put it, Gold.  I upped the price - they are worth the up-price anyway - and reduced the royalty and disabled lending.  NO more freebies!

If I want to share scenes with you, dear readers, that's one thing.  But to be looted like that?  Does even one of those freebie-readers leave a review?  Well! 

And as for the Kindle Matchbook, I don't totally understand the function of this, I believe it's some sort of after-sales sweetie; but I've set them from free to 0.99 anyway.  99 cents for an ebook?  Dirt cheap.  Even we in South Africa don't blink or look up when we have to spend R10. 

Let's see if it works better now!  Grrr!  Fuming.

Werewriters and green selfish dragons, and a critical look at Solar Wind 1

Rereading some of my posts after discovering to the bogglement of my mind that my blog has stats - people are actually visiting the posts, possibly even reading them!

And yes, a werewriter, that's what I am.  On the "ant", I wrote a post after the third or fourth sorely sleep deprived night in a row (I'm now on #5 or #6), about the dragon that is emerging from my previously much nicer personality.  My old shell is splitting in two and the dragon, brand-new and shiny, enormously selfish and powerful, is emerging, spreading out its glittering wings in the sunset to test how wide a span they have.  It will fly; but for now it is merely testing functions.  Fire-breathing.  People-eating.  The furnace that burns in its insides powering it - a metabolism that doesn't allow for sleep.  Low tolerance for nonsense; high enthusiasm for great stuff.  X-ray vision that cuts right through the BS and to the truth, and a forked tongue that will not be tied.

I'm now seriously curious about the selfishness cult of Ayn Rand, for no better reason than to find out what fueled those people that worshiped her, that are all billionaires today. 

Adding a "Chapter 0" to SW1 was a good move, no, a great move.  I'm rereading the start of "The Search for Home Base" (Shooting Star 3) and the style is lightweight, entertaining and fast-moving - something SW1 has partially lost over too many careful edits.  Sure, ST3 still has lots of holes in it, and gaps where it should have action, and a lack of multilayeredness (at least, the layers are there but not written out, only hinted at, so there is still lots of work to be done), but - the style is better than SW1.  Stacks better.

Is this then what it will take?  A complete re-edit of the first book, so that the style is (back) in line with my original fast-moving-like voice?  Chapter 0 is great; Chapter 1 nosedives now.  Sorry.  Full circle, 9 years after I originally wrote that first paragraph that was only put in place to evoke a mood before the story takes off.

I still like that paragraph; here it is.

6th of April, 2116. Rust-coloured waves, calm sea fading into the haze towards the darkening east. A minimal breeze, just enough to keep the perfectly balanced white ship moving forward dreamily, southwest towards Bermuda. Young boy high up in the archaic Crow’s Nest, playing a haunting tune on an ocarina, carried down in snatches on the wind. Young man leaning against the foremast, newly bearded and unkempt from the day’s work, strumming on a Clarsach, a small Celtic harp. Ancient acoustic instruments, rare calm moment, the great sea hushed. Young sailor with red hair cropped as painfully short as her two brothers’, leaning against the rail with an infuriated scowl, humming a fragmented alto line. The fast-sinking sun painting the trio orange. Three musicians, the Donegal Troubles, hired for the Solar Wind in Dublin.

Dark eyes watching from the shadows of the jib stowage bay.

*sigh*  I so wish I were on that ship!