Once in a Blue Muse: Derelict

Showing posts with label Derelict. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

The Art of Halcyone Space

About a month ago, I revealed an earlier draft of this cover art for A STAR IN THE VOID for subscribers of my newsletter. Now, I'm sharing it widely in advance of the June 2018 publishing date of the novel.

Chris Howard has created original art for all 5 of the Halcyone Space novels.

Finally I can display all of these amazing covers together and talk about how each of the images captures the heart and soul of the novel it graces.

Derelict

While all of the stories center around an ensemble cast, each story has a single character whose arc stands out to me as primary. In DERELICT, that character was Rosalen Maldonado. At the start of the story, Ro is isolated. As a result of being moved from post to post by her emotionally abusive father, she doesn't have the emotional skills or experience in trusting other people.

The plot revolves around a derelict space ship and its damaged AI, but the story revolves around Ro learning to trust herself and trust others.

I love the way Chris depicts Ro as dwarfed by the cosmos, yet looking up and out as if hoping for a better future.

Ithaka Rising

This is Barre Durbin. The story of ITHAKA RISING is the story of brothers, loyalty, and sacrifice. Children of the space station's physicians, Barre and his little brother Jem have always been under pressure to excel. But ever since Jem outstripped him academically, Barre has felt like a failure. His relationship is particularly strained with his mother who can't appreciate Barre's musical genius.

The main storyline borrows from the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Barre, like Orpheus, relies on his musical skills to enter the Underworld and rescue a loved one.

I love the look of quiet determination on Barre's face in Chris's image.

Dreadnought and Shuttle

Devorah Martingale Morningstar (Dev, and she would be the first to mention how ridiculous her name is) enters the world of Halcyone Space in DREADNOUGHT AND SHUTTLE. She is a character who emerged as simply a minor player but after her first scene, I bent to the wisdom of my subconscious and let her be who she needed to be for the story.

She is a materials science student at the University Micah Rotherwood escapes to. She gets abducted in his stead and taken aboard a stolen ship by her captor. But she is far from a powerless pawn and uses her knowledge and skills to sabotage the ship.

Chris created her with an intensity that matches her character. The image conveys her strength, capability, and focus.

Parallax

In the 4th novel, PARALLAX, the cover features Emmaline Gutierrez. In all the other covers, the character shown is a viewpoint character. While we never see Gutierrez's point of view, she is a major mover of the story and we see her interacting with almost all the other viewpoint characters.

She is an old soldier whose loyalties are put to the test in this story. In a very real way, she is the last soldier standing from a conflict that she had already sacrificed body and soul to forty years earlier.

While she appears a bit younger than I see her, Chris nailed her expression, her body language, and her prosthetic arm. There is both amazing strength and vulnerability here. She may be my favorite non-viewpoint character in the series.

A Star in the Void

For the 5th and final book in the Halcyone Space series, A STAR IN THE VOID, I asked Chris to use Ada May as the cover character.

While she is only a viewpoint character for a brief epilogue in book 4, she is the character around whom the entire narrative of 5 novels centers around. She was there at the start of the hostilities over 40 years prior. It was her genius that created the first true AIs that made space travel possible. She created the hidden world of Ithaka and its quiet rebellion against the Commonwealth. And her actions at the end of book 4 are the catalyst for the entire plot of book 5.

One of the strengths of Chris's work is that he understands that the power of a cover comes not from depicting a specific scene, but from bringing forth the heart of the story. It should be no surprise that his is a writer in addition to an artist.

Here he depicts Ada's loneliness along with her determination. The title refers to many elements in the story: what it looks like to an observer when a ship takes a wormhole jump, the character Dev Morningstar putting herself at risk in the void for the sake of her companions, the hope Ada holds to for change, among others.

Taken together, these five striking images have helped me tell five individual stories as well as a sixth overarching narrative that spans the entire series. Chris has made magic here and I am grateful for his talent, vision, and time.

If these images and my commentary have piqued your interest, the first four books of the series are available at all online retailers. Links can be found: http://www.ljcohen.net

Book 5 is forthcoming in June 2018.

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Saying goodbye to my imaginary friends

The final book; editing phase

Halcyone Space began in a moment of anger and frustration. I was getting very little traction with my prior books and decided to write a story with an ensemble cast that nobody would like. (Yes, I am not proud of my 5-year-old tantrum phase.)

I created an unpleasant loner. A drug dealer. An obnoxious child prodigy. A stoner musician. In space.

And these were the protagonists.

Ultimately, my baseline good humor and equanimity returned and I was able to take the first premise, put forward during a fit of pique, and transform it into the story of a derelict space ship and its unwilling and accidental crew.

DERELICT was completed in 2012 and was my 8th written novel. It was published in June of 2014 and at the time, I had no real intention of turning it into a series.

But then something utterly unexpected and quite magical happened - it struck gold on Amazon and sold more copies than I could have dreamed of. And I realized there was more to tell about Ro Maldonado and her crew.

Since the publication of DERELICT in 2014, every summer has seen a new Halcyone Space book. The characters have grown and changed. The politics have become increasingly complex and compelling. The stakes have ramped up, both on an individual and galactic level. These stories have taken me places I never would have anticipated, especially to a post-climate change earth even more divided into haves (highsiders) and have-nots (settlement 'deeps' - displaced persons) than our world is.

Along the way, the characters have become quite real. Some writers describe it as the characters talking to them, or dictating the story. For me, it's more like the characters have taken up residence in my brain somewhere and when I'm fortunate, they allow me to eavesdrop.

Their voices and personalities have become quite distinct.

I have recently finished the major revision pass of A STAR IN THE VOID; the fifth and final book of the series. The characters are currently standing around looking puzzled. I'm feeling quite lost and more than a little lonely.

In some ways, this was the most difficult book I've ever written. (For those of you keeping track, this is book number 14). It took me a long time to figure out why and when I finally did, I totally had the "V8" moment: It's a lot harder to finish a series than to start it.

For each of the prior books, the world and the story expands. Have a problem as a writer? Throw a new issue at your characters. Now add a ticking clock. And someone or something in peril.

Easiest way out of blocked creativity ever!

But then came book 5.

Finally, I was faced with the need to pull it all back together in a way that fit the series organically and would be satisfying to the reader, without throwing in new shiny distractions for the characters. And all while saying goodbye to my imaginary friends.

The only thing that would have make it harder would have been to do it backwards and in high heels.

Metaphorically speaking.

Really, I'm a terrible dancer.

But I digress.

When I wrote the final chapters, there were moments when I cried. Studies have shown that what we imagine is as real as our experiences and I've been imagining these people and their world for a very long time. We've been together more than six years. As much as I've been the architect of their adventures, they've also changed me. I don't think you can create something without being altered by it.

So I will take some time to mourn the loss of this world that has been as real to me as my day to day life and characters who have become dear friends.

And now, as I prepare to ready this fifth and final installment of Halcyone Space, I understand that it is no longer my story. It belongs to the universe.

A STAR IN THE VOID.
Summer, 2018

Friday, December 29, 2017

2017: A Year in this Writer's Life

I suspect most of you will understand when I say I won't be sorry to see the last of 2017. With a few notable exceptions, it was a difficult year, personally, professionally, and in the world at large.

Still, I have been fortunate. I have good health care and our family has financial stability. Those two things alone make me an outlier.

And, while I haven't written as much in 2017 as I had wanted or planned to, it was still a full year of writing news and personal news.

Writing Life

Chris Howard knocks it out of the park again with this cover image.

Publications

2017 saw the publication of PARALLAX, the 4th book of my space opera science fiction series Halcyone Space.

I also contributed a new original short story to the anthology ORPHANS IN THE BLACK called "In the Clutch", unrelated to the universe of the Halcyone Space books. It's a bit of an homage to Earnest Shackleton and the Endurance mission. With reptilian aliens.

Writing in Progress

The drafting of book 5 (A STAR IN THE VOID) has been going more slowly than I had anticipated, but I'm still working within my original publication time frame of Summer 2018.

After several false starts, I finished another short story for an upcoming themed anthology and am awaiting editorial notes. It's a bit more on the literary side than my novels and I'll be interested in seeing what readers make of it.

In other new writing, the Vito Nonce project that I'm co-writing with Rick Wayne has taken a brief hiatus as both of us are working on finishing current series, but will be a focus in the new year.

So between novels, short stories, blog posts, and poetry, I've probably eked out 50,000 new words in 2017. Considerably less output than I've managed in prior years, but I'll take it as a victory.

Events and Honors

I addition to attending ARISIA (and garnering an invitation to participate in 2018) and participating in programs at BOSKONE and READERCON, this year marked a convention first:

One of these days I'll learn to to take goofy photos.
But not this day.

I was invited to be a Guest of Honor at G.A.M.E. in Springfield, MO. They folks at G.A.M.E. were gracious and welcoming and I had a great time meeting old and new fans and talking about SF&F tropes that needed to die.

This year also found me in Denver to attend MILE HIGH CON. The highlight was getting to meet Nathan Lowell in person for the first time since meeting him virtually 4 years ago.

DERELICT picked up a new honor in 2017: It was chosen as the inaugural title for a new Feminist Book of the Month Club, featuring speculative fiction titles. It also had another run on Amazon as a best seller during a sale in the fall, introducing the series to a new group of readers. (Welcome!)

This fall, I was able to spend a productive and wonderful week in the company of writing community friends from Writer Unboxed when we gathered for a retreat in the wilds of Vermont.

And finally, in December I was interviewed by my fellow Broad Universe member Rona Gofstein along with Kevin Ross Emory on their show: Dragons & Unicorns & other creative creatures.

So if you've ever been curious about my creative process, my stories, my ceramics work, or just what to hear my squeaky voice and watch me talk with my hands, have a look.

Personal Life

Star Field Farm rises

In January of 2017, my husband and I closed on a home in Central Massachusetts on a 54 acre piece of property that is part farmland, part Rivendell. Ultimately, it will be where we retire to. In the meanwhile, it will be a personal and writing retreat space.

In March of 2017, my gallbladder and I decided to part ways. It was less an amicable divorce than a forced separation. I don't know how it is faring, but I'm a lot healthier without it in my life.

My birth mother, circa 1962

The year ended with an incredible discovery: my birth family. After decades of searching, and after believing that door had closed permanently, I have made contact with aunts, uncles, and cousins related to my (late) birth mother. It has been quite a journey finding new family in my 50s and discovering that, yes, poetry and geek are carried in the genes.

I suspect that I'll be continuing to process what this all means for me over the coming year both in my journaling, my poetry, and my stories.

In looking forward to 2018, I wish you all a year of creative energy, of personal growth and breakthroughs, and most importantly, of peace and joy.

#SWFApro

Monday, July 03, 2017

I made a thing

When I need to recharge, I do better when I have a project to work on, rather than deal with unstructured time. So when a friend posted an image of miniature books on Google Plus, I was determined to figure out how to make one.

I'll be on program at Readercon later this month and I knew these would make eye-catching 'swag' to give away.

First, I looked at sources to buy dollhouse supply mini books. They do exist, but they are expensive - with the shipping, probably $0.40 or $0.50 each. I figured there had to be a simple way to make them.

Then I cracked my knuckles and fired up my search engine. I found this tutorial:

I experimented with different sizes of paper, and ended up cutting down 8 1/2 x 11" printer paper to several 3x5 rectangles. I then 'shrunk' the full cover of DERELICT to 1.25" by .80", printed it out, cut it to size, and glued it on to the little blank book.

This was my first proof of concept version:

Then I printed the cover on photo paper and at a higher resolution. The books came out much, much better with a clearer cover image and a more substantial feel.

Cute, right?

In an effort to cut down on the work involved, I found 3x5 scratch pads at Staples with paper that was almost as thin as origami paper.

Next step included adding some information inside the little book so someone could find and buy the book if they were interested. Luckily, I found some peel and stick labels.

And finally, I glued a bit of waxed twine to use as a loop for a pendant.

Now I have an opening to have a conversation and offer someone my card (or their own miniature book!)

My plan is to make a few dozen of each of the four book in the Halcyone Space series. It's a good project to have while I watch the Redsox play. :)

If you're at Readercon, come find me at the Broad Universe table and you can have a tiny book!

#SFWApro

Wednesday, June 07, 2017

Happy Book Birthday

I have done everything I can to give PARALLAX its best chance for success. The rest is not up to me.

So I have a book coming out tomorrow. It's a solid book. I'm proud of it. Now it's out of my hands & will have to find its readers. 1/
— LJ Cohen (@lisajanicecohen) June 6, 2017

Last night on twitter, I posted a bit about this - how by the time a book is out, it no longer belongs to the author. And let me tell you, that lack of control is terrifying.

Think about it: For the time it takes to draft a novel, the author is the Supreme Being On High. We create worlds out of our imaginations. We literally put words into our characters' mouths and thoughts into their heads.

So forgive me if I find this phase of the process enormously nerve-wracking.

I wrestle with the hope that PARALLAX will find its readership and be a big success along with the dread that it might not earn out its production expenses. Realistically, I understand that later books in a series never sell as many as the initial books. I just hope I'm in that sweet spot where it will sell enough to keep the series going and perhaps reignite interest in the first books.

There are some wonderful opportunities on the horizon including a partnership with the folks who brought you HerStoryArc in their new F-BOM (Feminist Book of the Month) project. I'm very excited at the prospect of bringing the Halcyone Space books to a new readership.

But, still I worry. It's the natural habitat of the writer. I'll be anxious about PARALLAX for some time to come, through it's first few weeks of sales, its first reviews. I'll worry that someone doesn't like it. Then I'll worry that no one's talking about it.

While I hate to say this part of it hasn't gotten any easier for me, despite the fact that PARALLAX is my 7th published novel, at least I'm in familiar territory. And that means I can acknowledge the intense emotions and keep moving forward.

I'm already immersed in a new world with new characters on a new project. That's the only antidote I've found to writer's anxiety.

And while I have your attention, let me remind you that PARALLAX is book 4 of Halcyone Space and all 4 books are available widely, wherever ebooks are sold. They are also available in trade paperback editions. You can find links to all purchase venues at www.ljcohen.net.

The novels of Halcyone Space

DERELICT (Halcyone Space, book 1): A group of teens stranded on a sentient spaceship must work together or risk being killed when the ship's AI wakes believing it's still fighting the war that damaged it decades ago.

ITHAKA RISING (Halcyone Space, book 2): A young computer genius struggling to function with a grievous head injury is willing to risk his life to get a black market neural implant, but what he finds is a planet that shouldn't exist and a rebellion that threatens the stability of the Commonwealth.

DREADNOUGHT AND SHUTTLE (Halcyone Space, book 3): When a materials science student gets kidnapped, she's drawn into a conflict between the young crew of a sentient spaceship, a weapons smuggling ring, and a Commonwealth-wide conspiracy and must escape before her usefulness as a hostage expires.

PARALLAX (Halcyone Space, book 4): Halcyone's crew is drawn into a conspiracy threatening to reignite a galactic war when they discover the hidden power brokers who have been quietly manipulating the Commonwealth for decades.

#SFWApro

Thursday, December 01, 2016

Back to School

"Classroom" Photo by William Creswell, used with attribution, CC BY 2.0 https://www.flickr.com/photos/crackdog/2533394592/sizes/l

(Cross posted from The Scriptors, a group writing blog)

While I have been a lifelong passionate reader, I didn't much like English classes (or as they are called now, Language Arts) when I was in school. Sure, I would rather have been reading science fiction or fantasy novels than Dickens or Hawthorne or Faulkner, but that wasn't the main reason I disliked class. No, it was the absolute assurance of my teachers that they knew what the author intended in every passage, every single word.

This was in the 1970s and educational philosophies were still very much in the top down/autocratic style.

Anyway, I used to fantasize about becoming a famous author and showing up in a class just as a teacher was set to make some pronouncement about author intent and meaning just so I could stand and tell them they were utterly and helplessly wrong. As I got older, I realized that there had been merit in understanding the context of the writer's world and worldview in digging through layers of meaning in the written word, but I still hold to a philosophy that meaning is made in the intersection of artist and audience and that intent may not be nearly as important as how meaning shifts and evolves with our experience.

I can look back at work I'd written years ago and see layers of meanings and themes I had never consciously intended. Indeed, humans are meaning makers par excellence - consider how we create logic even in the midst of the illogic of our dreams.

Now, all of that is a preamble to the point of this blogpost: There's a curriculum being developed around my Halcyone Space books. Young-Lisa is enjoying her moment of revenge-fantasy from all the boring moments in Jr High and High School having to read Dickens over and over and over again. (Sorry for all you Dickens fans, but for whatever reason, I ended up studying Great Expectations three years in a row. If I never look at the man's work again, it will be too soon.)

A few months ago, I got a message from a woman who is a writer, educator, and fan of my work. She wanted to know if I had any objections to her developing a curriculum for homeschooled High School students based on DERELICT, the first book of my Halcyone Space series. She was concerned that there wasn't enough out there for homeschool educators that was based around diversity and using texts that would appeal to teens.

She shared the draft curriculum she had put together and I was blown away. Each lesson connected to a chapter and contained vocabulary, outside readings, and engaging multi-media activities to enhance learning. Gone were the dry lectures of my own High School career, along with set meanings and spoonfed themes. This was a totally different kind of learning, one that brought the students' own passions and interests into the forefront. One that honored the constructivist mindset that I bring to my work.

Did I have any objections? I was *thrilled*. And I'm not ashamed to say I teared up some. I mean, how cool is it that High School kids will be able to study Language Arts, STEM, creativity, and diversity within the context of a space opera novel! And mine! From the press release:

DERELICT itself features a group of teen friends who unexpectedly blast off into space aboard an old spaceship they were repairing. The story follows the team as they discover their individual and group strengths against an array of challenges. Woven into the mix are LGBT, STEM, Humanities and personal development content.

[Belinda Y.] Hughes summarized each chapter and pulled out the vocabulary words. She then scoured the web and found engaging educational activities that were relevant to the chapter themes and appropriate to high school-level learners, including content from NASA.gov and Minecraft. “My goal was to bring this book to life in a fun, meaningful, interactive way, as well as lead students to think, and support them in their personal growth at a pivotal point in their young lives,” offers Hughes.

So, yeah, I've just been 'schooled' and in the best way possible.

You can read more about Belinda Y. Hughes and the development of her diversity curricula here, along with finding links to where the curriculum based on DERELICT is available. Her plan is to continue though the series.

I would be grateful if you would you please pass this on to any interested educators and homeschoolers you might know. Thank you.

(Just as an FYI, I have no commercial stake in the sale of Hughes's curriculum. That is her intellectual property.)

#SFWApro

Friday, June 17, 2016

Where to find me - virtually (part 2)

Dev and I are still hard at work!

The blog tour in support of DREADNOUGHT AND SHUTTLE continues! I've been hither and yon and my fellow bloggers continue to host my rambling - for which I am grateful. If you've missed any of the guest posts (and you definitely shouldn't miss any of them . . . there will be a test later. Okay, not actually a test, but a scavenger hunt. With prizes), you can find part 1 here.

Masha DuToit, whose fantasy/magical realism novels CROOKS AND STRAIGHTS and WOLF LOGIC rocked my world in 2015, (seriously - have you read them yet? Why not????) invited me over to her blog for a lovely interview. Want to know what book I hated and why? Head on over.

Randee Dawn is an absolutely lovely human being and talented writer who I have met through Broad Universe. Randee's brand new agent is shopping her fabulous urban fantasy book. I know it's fabulous because I got to read it last summer. All you mere mortals will have to wait until some lucky publisher snatches it up. Here's my guest post about integrating my medical/rehabilitation background with my writing life.

Spec Fic writer, geek dad, and fellow-in-the-trenches indie publisher, Ryan Toxopeus, was kind enough to interview me on his blog also. He asked me some wonderful and thought provoking questions - it's definitely not your generic author interview! His fantasy books are still on my TBR list. My only excuse is that I've been reading mainly SF these days.

Another fellow Broad Universe broad (EJ Frost) hosted me to talk more about writing injuries and disabilities realistically - a topic that is near and dear to my heart from my physical therapy past. My main point? Don't use an injury or disability as a plot device, especially not to engender false sympathy for a character or to motivate one either.

Another day, another interview! Phew! I know you're all dying to know everything there is to know about me and this interview gets us at least part of the way there! Thank you to Melanie Tomlin for allowing me space on her blog.

Hey - look - it's another of my Broad Universe colleagues! This time Sandra Ulbrich Almazan, fellow SF&F writer, who invited me to her internet home to talk about the importance of speculative fiction. You can read about why I think it is subversive and wonderful. And what I wanted to be when I grew up.

And last for this round up, but certainly NOT least, a post on Karen Conlin's blog about how it feels to work with an editor. Karen has edited three of my novels in the past two years and I lovingly say she is brutal in all the right ways.

Stay tuned for more posts next week!

And a reminder, if you are new to the novels of Halcyone Space, you can start with where it all began. DERELICT (book 1) is only 0.99 for kindle.

A group of teens stranded on a sentient spaceship must work together or risk being killed when the ship's AI wakes believing it's still fighting the war that damaged it decades ago.

#SFWApro

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Confused thoughts on representation

We all live at the intersections of multiple identities. Most of mine happen to be privileged or relatively so in our society. Some are not. Some vary, depending on context. It's confusing, messy, like all things pertaining to people.

Some of my identities include (in no particular order and certainly not an exhaustive list): white, cis-female, heterosexual, Jewish, American, feminist, neuro-atypical, and writer.

I include writer here because it's not just what I do, it's interwoven with the way I process the world. If I want to understand how I think about something, I write.

This post is an attempt to work my way through an enormously important issue that pertains both to myself as a writer, but also as any of my identities; that of representation in fiction.

Once upon a time, a white, cis-het, female writer wrote a space opera series.

That series contains an ensemble cast of a half-dozen principal characters, each of whom gets 'screen time' as a point of view (POV) character. Unless that cast consists of clones of some version of the writer, that means said writer is creating characters outside of her own direct experience. Not only are there male characters in the cast, but also characters from non-white backgrounds. There are also characters who are not heterosexual.

The writer did not create this cast as an exercise of filling out some kind of diversity bingo sheet. She grew up on the original Star Trek (albeit in syndication) and imprinted on the message (albeit somewhat flawed in the show) that the future was for everyone. And when she grew up, those were the kind of stories she wanted to tell.

Speaking for one, not for all

So, it's pretty obvious that writer is me. And in crafting the series and its characters, I worked hard to balance honoring the (not) diverse (enough), (not) inclusive (enough) world I live in with my vision/hope of a future that is more so. I was aware the identities that bring me privilege also put me at risk for drowning out writers with less. I was also aware it was not my place to speak for someone else's experience, especially when someone from an identity different than mine could speak with their own voice. And yet, I also knew that creating a future with a cast of characters who were all cis-het and white would be erasing the reality of the majority of people on the planet.

Imagination can only take you so far

I chose to create a cast of individuals who came from different backgrounds and who lived at the intersections of their own specific identities. Each of these characters are uniquely themselves. They represent, not a race or a creed or a belief system in any way, but a richness of individualities. They are each, based in part, on pieces of people I know who are themselves living at the intersections of many identities. I also draw on personal history and experience of simultaneously being privileged for some of my identities and disadvantaged in others.

But you're not . . .

Fill in the blank: gay, Black, Latino, Japanese, etc. There are characters in the Halcyone Space book who have those as part of their identities. By far, the most criticism I get is why I chose to make Ro (Rosalen Maldonado) and Nomi (Konomi Nakamura) gay. I have been accused of "ruining" my space opera with some sort of homosexual agenda. Never mind that their relationship is primarily a deep emotional one, with little overt physicality. (The novels are SF, not SF/Romance.)

My answer is something along the lines of 'because you're still asking the question.' I live in a world where I joyfully attended the wedding of my sister-in-law and her wife. Where my dear friends Alan and Paul used to tease me that I was their token 'breeder' friend. Where my son carries the name of my husband's former boss and mentor, who passed away while I was pregnant and whose family had disowned him for coming out.

Because when I introduced Nomi to the story, she was everything Ro needed, but didn't know it yet. Because I couldn't imagine a future where love between two women would be anything to remark about. They are simply two people who care for one another. That is neither revolutionary nor particularly worthy of praise.

And yet, and yet, and yet. . .

I'm somewhat dismayed that it has become something to notice - that there is a gay couple in a space opera series.

This is a screen shot from this afternoon. DERELICT is the 2nd highest selling book in the LGBT SF category on Amazon. When I took this screen shot ITHAKA RISING was 7 and DREADNOUGHT AND SHUTTLE 8. (It also made the hot new release category.)

On one level, I'm thrilled. I've worked hard on these novels. They are good stories.

On one level, I'm dismayed. First, that the bar is so damned low that a series with 2 woman in love as a very tangential part of the plot is enough to have the books rank this well in the subcategory. Second, that 3 of my books are in the top 10 of this list and I very well may be drowning out the voices of queer writers of SF in the process.

I don't know if I am or not. I do know I never marketed these books as LGBT SF. And yet, here they are. I can't pull them from the category and I wouldn't want to. I do know that I am proud of each of my characters and their individuality.

And I will continue to do my best to honor that little girl who grew up to believe that the future was for everyone.

#SFWApro

Monday, December 28, 2015

2015: Looking Back, Looking Forward, Ever Grateful

Perpetual Calendar, photo by Plenty.R, used under CC license

I have done these year end posts going back to 2007 ( 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014) and as ever, the consistent theme is change. From last year's post, my main goal was:

". . . to stay open to new possibilities and new opportunities as they arise."

Well, I'm pretty sure I've managed to meet that goal. And along the way, I've done a ton of work writing, publishing, and networking, despite a year that was also full of personal struggles and loss. But that is what makes up a life. And despite grief, setbacks, and disappointments, I know that I am extremely fortunate.

I both love and am loved. I have the support from family, friends, and readers to continue to do this writing thing that challenges and fulfills me. Stories and characters continue to surprise and delight me.

It's easy to lose perspective in the day to day slog of survival, which is one of the reasons I do these round up posts.

So here's what I accomplished in 2015:

In January of 2015, I published TIME AND TITHE, the sequel to 2012’s Fae Fantasy, The Between.
Between Fall of 2014 and early Winter 2015, I drafted and revised ITHAKA RISING, book 2 in my Halcyone Space SF series.
ITHAKA RISING was published in July of 2015.
Bill Burrows recorded and co-produced audiobooks for both DERELICT and ITHAKA RISING.
I wrote (and completed) the first draft of DREADNOUGHT AND SHUTTLE, book 3 of Halcyone Space.
Between this blog and others, produced close to 100 original posts, wrote dozens of poems, and a few short stories.

While the release of ITHAKA RISING didn't match up to the amazing and surprising success of DERELICT, I'm confident in my process. And I'm confident in the quality of the book. It will find its audience. I will continue the series through at least another book or three. It seems like the further in to the universe I get, the bigger it becomes and the more story I uncover.

What's on tap for me in 2016?

DREADNOUGHT AND SHUTTLE will be published Summer of 2016 (Here's a peek at the blurb!)

After Ro Maldonado, a reckless young computer programmer, resurrects the damaged AI on a long dormant freighter, she and the accidental crew of Halcyone grapple with explosive secrets they exposed from a war that officially ended decades ago.

Now, charged with protecting the location of Ithaka, the heart of the resistance, Ro and her friends must learn to lead double lives within the Commonwealth. But their plans to hide in plain sight disintegrate when an old enemy returns and threatens revenge. As they track him down, each course they plot endangers the life of his hostage and threatens to reveal Ithaka, brand them traitors, and reignite a war that could destroy them all.

I'm also working on a short story that takes place during the war 40 years before the events in the Halcyone Space books. It will be in STARBOUND, an upcoming anthology.

Draft book 4 in the Halcyone Space series
And finally, for something completely different. . . I'll be working on a new kind of story in a new kind of way. Author (and friend) Rick Wayne and I will be collaborating on a SF/thriller: Vito Nonce - A man who cannot be remembered is sent to kill the woman who cannot forget. I am ridiculously excited about this project. Getting to work with Rick is an amazing opportunity. I love his writing and can't wait to get going!

To you, who have taken this journey with me, I offer my thanks and my gratitude. Writing stories for readers to enjoy is an enormous privilege. Beyond the sales numbers and the Amazon rankings, and the frustrations of signal boosting and struggle to reach an audience, is the sheer joy of seeing a reader engage with and be moved by something I've created.

That moment of connection is magic. It's what drives me to keep going during the solitary times where I'm staring at a blinking cursor, not knowing how to find the next words.

Thank you. If you have read a book of mine and enjoyed it, if you have reviewed it, or recommended it to a friend, or sent me an email, or signed up for my newsletter, or added a word of quiet encouragement, I am grateful.

My promise to you is this: I will keep writing and keep creating worlds for you to lose yourself in. Or maybe to find yourself. If I can do that, I will be content.

Wishing you all the best for 2016.

#SFWApro

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Write the Next Book

Anyone have a defibrillator?

Expectations. They can be brutal and tricky beasts. As much as we (okay, I) work hard to stay in the moment, it's damned difficult not to give in to disappointment when things don't immediately work out the way you had hoped.

The launch of ITHAKA RISING, book 2 in my Halcyone Space series, has been one of those events where I feel both elated and depressed. Elated because the book is in the world, is selling, and is garnering excellent reviews and recommendations from readers and writers I trust.

"Usually I can point out one or two reasons why a novel wows me, too, but this one was just cover to cover awesome. Expect great characters, who actually grow and change and have to deal with new problems; a nail-biter of a plot, that manages to be both twisting and absorbing at the same time, settings that expand to take us to new and scary-thrilling places in this universe, and the kind of SF adventure you probably haven't read in a very, very long time (if at all.)"
--Lynn Viehl (AKA Paperback writer)

"space opera with a brain and a heart." -- Mike Reeves-McMillan (Netgalley reviewer)

So why depressed? Because compared with the launch of book 1 (DERELICT), ITHAKA RISING is flatlined. (Comparisons - they are evil.) It's hard to know why a book breaks out; certainly I didn't do anything significantly differently for each of these two novels, and, in fact, I believe ITHAKA RISING to be a better story. And I'm this strange mix of hopeful and confident that it will find its readership, even if that journey is slower than it was for the prior book.

It would be easy to let my discouragement get the better of me - and, yes, I have done my share of moping with my fellow writers (expectations - it's hard not to have them) - but I know I have no control of what happens after a book is released into the world. Sure, you can tinker with price, run ads, do an internet/social media blitz, but I'm not convinced those things will be the secret sauce that gets a book noticed.

As. Nathan Lowell, a writer friend/mentor keeps reminding me, your best advertisement is to write the next book.

So, I'm writing the next book. Book 3 in the Halcyone Space series has a working title: DREADNAUGHT AND SHUTTLE, and is the interlocking 'cat and mouse' stories of Micah vs the drug cartels and Ro & company vs the Commonwealth. I'm about 10% into the story and finding my writing groove again.

And there are other novels in the pipeline, including a joint project with a writer I respect the hell out of (waves to Rick Wayne!), and a revise/resubmit of a fantasy title to a medium-sized publisher.

While huge sales numbers and stratospheric rankings are the stuff that author's dreams are made of, what I'm really focused on is creating enough of a back list that selling in modest numbers will allow me to make a basic living as a writer. This is an expectation that I know is within my reach.

I also know I have the discipline and the focus to get there. ITHAKA RISING represents my 5th published novel, but in reality, the other three are low sellers - primarily because they don't appeal widely to an eBook buying readership. I don't regret writing and releasing them and it is my hope that they will also find their right readers in time, however, my functioning backlist currently consists of two novels: The Halcyone Space books. That is not sufficient to be self-sustaining.

In the next two years, I plan to add three additional novels to that pool. And I have no plans to stop writing anytime soon.

(#SFWApro)

Saturday, July 04, 2015

Interviews, Giveaways & Readercon, Oh My

Busy as a bee. . .
Photo by atramos, used under CC license

I've been here and there on the internet for the past few weeks, including a Q&A with Lynn Viehl (where I answer the question: If you could step into a time machine and visit any SF universe (including your own), what would you choose as your destination, and why?) and a guest post on Julianne Douglas' blog on the connections between writing poetry and writing speculative fiction. Julianne is running a giveaway of an eBook and signed paperback copy of ITHAKA RISING, so head over there and leave a comment for your chance to win.

To pique your interest, here is the opening to my guest post on using poetry tools in fiction:

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

. . . or how is writing poetry related to writing science fiction?

According to Lewis Carroll, there actually isn't a true answer to his nonsensical riddle from Alice in Wonderland, but I do have an answer to my question.

Having been a poet for a far longer time than I have been a writer of fiction, I maintain that poetry - or at least the tools of poetry - underlies all effective writing. Not only that, but in writing speculative fiction, those tools can enhance world building and reader immersion in fundamental and crucial ways.

The poetic tools I'm going to focus on are specificity, musicality, and comparisons. All three can heighten the reading experience of your novel, especially novels of speculative fiction.

If you're active on GoodReads, DERELICT (Halcyone Space, book 1) was chosen for one of July's group read picks on the Space Opera group! I have an author interview posted there and will be participating in reader Q&A.

This Thursday is the start of Readercon, where I'm going to be taking part in panels, reading, and signing. If you're in the Boston area, it's a great con, full of thought-provoking panels and great discussions about all things SF/F/H.

Here's my Readercon schedule: (You can also find me at the Broad Universe table in the dealer's room.)

Thursday July 09

9:00 PM    EM    Reading: Lisa Cohen. LJ Cohen. Lisa Cohen reads From ITHAKA RISING

Friday July 10

3:00 PM    IN    How to Read Poetry. Kythryne Aisling, Michael Cisco, LJ Cohen, C.S.E. Cooney, Samuel Delany, Elaine Isaak. Those who have never read poetry for pleasure often aren't sure how or where to start; even a short poem can look arcane and daunting. This workshop will explain how to get the most out of poetry on the page, from humorous doggerel to more complex works.

6:00 PM    E    Autographs. LJ Cohen, A. J. Odasso.

Saturday July 11

9:00 AM    G    Zombies as a Crisis of the Ecosystem: A Holistic Perspective. John Benson, Gwendolyn Clare, LJ Cohen, Meriah Crawford, Catt Kingsgrave. Zombie plagues, like all pandemics, are ecosystem crises. What aspects of the human ecosystem make it possible for such a plague to spread? (Long distance air travel, say, or science fiction conventions.) What would its effects be on agriculture, infrastructure, labor availability, public health (aside from the plague itself), telecommunications, and other elements of human civilization? Where most disaster novels zoom in on the struggles of a few people to survive such a crisis, we will zoom out and consider large-scale, long-term questions.

3:00 PM    G    Beautiful and Terrible as the Morn: Celebrating Spec Fic's Older Women. Beth Bernobich, LJ Cohen, Kelley Eskridge, Eileen Gunn, Diane Weinstein. In a 2014 blog post, Kari Sperring wrote, "Most women who are now over about 40 have been told their whole lives to be good, to keep their heads down, to keep on working away quietly and to wait their turn. And now, within sff, at the point when their male contemporaries are celebrated, these same women are being told, No, it's too late for you, you don't matter enough; that space is needed. Get out of the way." Judith Tarr concurred in a post on Book View Café, saying, "Our culture makes a cult of youth.... But males as they age manage to stay visible, and even manage to keep matinee-idol status—and if they’re writers, they become literary lions. Females simply drop off the radar." Women over 40 have been shaping the genre since its beginning, as readers, writers, editors, agents, publishers, artists, critics, and more. This panel will celebrate the past, recent, and forthcoming work of older women, and help to put it back on everyone's radar.

Sunday July 12

9:00 AM F Wish Fulfillment for Happy Adults. John Benson, LJ Cohen, Betsy Mitchell, Sheila Williams, Ann Tonsor Zeddies. Wish fulfillment for teenagers and wish fulfillment for adults with happy stable lives are necessarily going to be different. Speculative stories are great for navigating the trickiness of coming-of-age, but there's precious little for those who are already of age and have started to prioritize comfort over adventure. Female readers in particular often turn to romance novels for stories about familes and love and kindness, and to mysteries for stories about grown women with agency and purpose. Can speculative fiction draw in those readers by fulfilling different sorts of wishes?

#SFWApro

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Saturday, June 27, 2015

Happy Book Birthday ITHAKA RISING!

Happy Book Birthday to ITHAKA RISING!

One year ago, DERELICT burst into the world, fueled by incredible luck and timing, and hit the best seller lists on Amazon. What started with a junked spaceship and a computer programmer driven to escape her abusive father continues in ITHAKA RISING, book 2 of Halcyone Space:

A derelict ship and a splintered crew are not the rewards Ro had hoped for when she helped disrupt her father's plans to start a war with smuggled weapons. But with the responsibilities of full Commonwealth citizenship and limited resources, she is forced to take her father's place working as an engineer on Daedalus station while she and Barre try to repair their damaged freighter, Halcyone. Barre's brother, Jem, is struggling with the disabling effects of his head injury, unable to read or code. His only hope is to obtain a neural implant, but the specialists determine he is too young and his brain damage too extensive.

When Jem disappears, his trail dead ends at the black market. Ro and Barre race to locate Jem before he sells his future, risking his mind for an illegal neural implant. But they're not the only ones looking for "The Underworld" and its rogue planet, Ithaka. What they find endangers more than just the three of them and forces them to confront a very different truth about the war they believed was ancient history.

I would be pretending a degree of cool and calm I really don't have if I said I wasn't concerned about the book release. All my writerly insecurities have come out to play, in force. They try to tell me that DERELICT was a fluke. That ITHAKA RISING can't possibly enjoy the same success. That I was foolish to believe I had any sort of traction in the marketplace. That I'm a poser and a fraud and an asteroid will strike our house and velociraptors will eat my dogs.

Catastrophize much?

Imposter syndrome, I am in you.

The thing is, this happens every single time I put a project out into the world. It probably will always be the case. The blessing/curse of being an artist is that intense sensitivity to both the highs and lows of the creative life.

A book release is both at the same time: the high of seeing a project through from the wisp of an idea to a complete reality. The low of the fear that this intense work no longer is under your control. When I look back through the past year of creating ITHAKA RISING, I can honestly say I am proud of the work I put in. And I am honored to be sharing these characters and their story with you.

Jem shut his eyes tight, hoping the meds would ease the symptoms. Passengers were encouraged to fixate on a still point in the distance during a jump. The display screens helped by projecting a simple vista with parallel lines, like a forest, or monorail tracks. Something that gave a geometric reference helped the strange wobbly feeling that jumpers experienced from being slightly out of temporal phase. But Jem knew that trying to stare straight ahead would only make things worse for him.

It was like he was jumping all the time, his body at war with the signals from his brain and his eyes and ears. The times he had jumped since his injury were miserable. He braced himself. The ship spiraled into the wormhole. Colors swam across his eyelids. A star-scape sparkled through his mind. His vertigo surged and he lost all sense of his own boundaries. Jem knew that it was impossible for his body to actually turn inside out, but that’s what it felt like. Nothing held. There was no up or down, no stable gravity. His thoughts fractured into a thousand glass shards.

The memory of his latest consult replayed like a vid with a sync glitch between visual and audio tracks. After his parents had left the room, Jem asked the question that had been burning in him for weeks. The doctor’s mouth moved and then her answer hung in the air, the sound cycling in frequency from low to high, from slow to fast. “I’m afraid you’re far too young. And even if you weren’t, the damage may be too great for your brain to integrate the implant. I’m sorry.”

Sorry.

Soooooorrrrrrrrrrryyyyyy.

Sor.

Ry.

The word melted. The colors behind Jem’s eyes flared brighter and brighter, melding to a white that seared his vision.

Pain blossomed in the space the colors left behind.

After what seemed like an eternity, his body coalesced back onto the cushioned berth. The all-clear sounded.

One jump down. Two to go.

ITHAKA RISING is available in all eBook formats and as a trade paperback and can be purchased at all major online retail outlets.

Amazon
KOBO
iBooks
Google Play
(BN forthcoming)
Paperback (Amazon)

Signed paperbacks are available. Please contact me via email. (lisa@ljcohen.net)

#SFWApro
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