This update is for all the wonderful people who supported me and Mission 51 with a pre-order in 2016. Those pre-orders are gone!

Machiners!

Can you believe we flew past the one month mark since publication? Crazy times! This will be a quick update with some goodies to report.

First, The Last Machine AUDIOBOOK is coming! You read that correctly, this is going to be epic! And I don’t expect it to take very long to produce. After a highly competitive audition process - 60 narrators submitted recordings to read Jonathan’s story - I’ve selected the voice to read our story! Look for an update in the next month or so about a release date. Shooting for around July 1.

Super important: Have you read the story? Have you not left a review on Amazon? 

Then I need your help. It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate. I liked the Last Machine for x and y reason, etc. One or two sentences will do the trick. Want to write a longer response to the story? Please do - Reviews come in all shapes and sizes! We need to get to 100 on Amazon, and at the moment, we have 16. Many thanks in advance!

Amazon page for reviews: https://www.amazon.com/Last-Machine-Solar-System-ebook/dp/B06XRSS26Y/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8

Goodreads page for reviews: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30221887-the-last-machine-in-the-solar-system

Lastly, pics! From the book launch at Book Passage in the San Francisco Ferry Building. Oh, and the book in Huntington, NY at Book Revue next to some guy named George R.R. Martin.... I told you these were crazy times :-)

Celebrate! Celebrate! Dance to the music!

How exciting! After the first day of the Nerdist Sci-Fi Contest, Mission 51 is in First Place!

As most of you may recall, I started this project on Inkshares last year, in Feb 2016 to be exact. I had discovered Inkshares at that time and impulsively jumped into a contest that was already half-way through. I had a story in my head and started writing it down. I was thrilled at the early response and amassed a good number of pre-orders, but I was also overwhelmed by the time commitment. Writing the book, campaigning for a contest, and my medical work were really three full-time jobs. I eventually came to the conclusion that to do a good job, I needed the time to complete and refine the novel with as little mental pressure as possible. I took Mission 51 out of funding in August 2016 and Inkshares refunded everyone for their generous pre-orders.

I’m very glad I did that. Mission 51 is now a mature project. It has gotten great feedback from laypersons and professionals who have read samples. Personally, I think it’s a fun read. It is intricate, old-school science fiction which honors a solid foundation of sci-fi lore. It is also a historical fiction and period piece within the time frame of 1954-1969. More importantly, Mission 51 dances around issues of immigration, intolerance, and personal/societal ethics. Those might be heavy issues, but I believe I have kept it light and fun. Aliens help do that! LOL

So, if you supported the project when it was in funding last year, I ask that you please support it again now. Mission 51 is actually way better than it was last year! Your pre-order is essential for it to stay on top of the Nerdist contest leaderboard. The time for Mission 51 has come! The time for your pre-order is now!

Thank you very much!

Ferd  👽

Hello, readers! Long time no write. I haven’t been in touch for a while, and that’s mainly because I haven’t had a lot to write to you about! 

Work on Witherfist continues at a steady pace. Right now, I’m in the process of some fairly large adjustments to the structure of the plot. I’ve heard from other authors in the Inkshares community that there is a lot happening in the way of preparing, polishing and publishing manuscripts - which is really promising. Given the timescales being quoted, and my current progress with Witherfist, it’s unlikely that the book will see publication before 2018, as I’m going to submit my manuscript to Inkshares in Autumn 2017 at the earliest. 

In other news, Inkshares launched a new publishing contest this week, looking for the next big sci-fi novel. I’ve tossed my hat into the ring with an entry! Why not, eh? You can follow the book - tentatively titled 1000 Faces - and if you want to support it, you can preorder right now. 1000 Faces is set in the near future, in a society where all of the internets secrets have been revealed. To try and maintain a modicum of privacy and anonymity in public, people use ’digital avatars’ to mask their faces - imagine Snapchat filters that you wear all day! The book follows a digital avatar designer who ends up tangled in cyber terrorism, government conspiracies and a whole host of ethical chaos. It’s a dash of Mr. Robot meets A Scanner Darkly via Gattaca with an unplanned detour into Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  

As a little bonus, I’d like to share with you a piece of ’flash fiction’ that I wrote for a sci-fi writing contest earlier this year. The World In A Teacup is a story that I wrote in just 48 hours, based on a handful of prompts. You can download it for free on Amazon / Amazon UK. If you don’t use a Kindle, there are other download options available via Pronoun.

Thanks for reading, 

~ Jenny

Greetings hexers,

March is over, and it was incredibly busy but rewarding. Work on Human Resources has continued at pace, with an important milestone being achieved.

Developmental Edit
I’ve been working with my developmental editor to turn the draft manuscript into something that will truly shine. It’s been hard work, but during the last month we reached an important milestone — we finished work on the change plan (completed the new outline) and I have now started the rewrite. I wrote a blog about the developmental edit process and reaching this milestone on my website. I’m now flat out writing every night, preparing a new version of the manuscript. There are numerous new scenes, a lot of changes to existing scenes, and writing them will progress at an uneven rate (as a general rule, new scenes will take much longer to write than updating an existing scene). However, I’ll keep you informed (and myself on the hook) by reporting progress as I go! The chart below shows the current status of the rewrite.



Cover design
Work is commencing on the new cover design! Inkshares have an amazing cover designer working on this for me. Right now he’s gathering information before producing concepts to work through. 

Schedule
We don’t have a firm production schedule for the book — this stage of the editing process is just too fluid. What I can tell you is it should be sometime (early) in 2018. It is unlikely to be January at this stage, but I hope we’ll get everything in order to get the book out during the first quarter. I’ll keep everyone informed as we progress — the further along the process we get, the more reliable the predicted release date will become.

Say hello!
Don’t forget to jump on my Facebook page and hit like. I’m also on Twitter and Instagram.

What I love most about Maria’s drawing technique is the balance she strikes between stylistic interpretation and realistic detail. Her innate sense of what’s too little and what’s too much resonates with me, it always has, which is why I’m so excited to be partnering with her in this way. Like me, she’s learning as she goes (or, as my partner Michael would say, she’s building the plane while flying it). Maria’s making great progress, and her illustrations look fantastic!

For those of you who missed Maria’s introduction in my last update, you can catch the video here.

Other news

I’ll be receiving my editor’s comments on May 3, which basically makes me this owl, right now, and for every second until then.

(Photo credit: Naldz Graphics)

(Very exciting. Blink blink. I might puke I’m so nervous.)

Also exciting, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau paid Kitchener a visit yesterday. The folks at Vidyard hosted him. They took him on a tour of the office and chatted about many things.

I had the pleasure of tuning in to watch the livestream of the chat, which was fantastic (full recording here: http://demos.vidyard.com/watch/7VRMFw6CbkSfmFfPTsaaRH).

To everyone who pitched in to make yesterday seem so dreamy from the stands: Congratulations on doing an incredible job of hosting our country’s leader. Thank you for making such a lasting and positive impression. I’m proud to be part of a community where members push themselves to be compassionate and thoughtful, take risks, and behave transparently. 

End of news.

You can probably surmise that the phrase ’Your book is in the mail’ is my dearest haunt. I can’t wait for the moment when I get to call you up (email or text, more likely) and say those words. So I thank you for your continued patience and understanding. Most of all, I want to thank you for reading! 

Donna

Now for some fun bits... ;)

Maria’s creative process has been fascinating to observe. I mentioned how, like me, she’s figuring things out as she goes. Maria’s had to stretch her limits to overcome challenges, and in doing so, has developed her own techniques (read: hacked solutions together and I love it). 

It’s my pleasure to be sharing with you some of her midstream work.

(^ ERMAGHERD!)

I hope you’re tantalized by these small flashes. Stay tuned for more detail in updates to come!

Great news today! I received the Rites of Passage syndicate award! This syndicate supports first time authors, and I couldn’t be more proud to be recognized this way. 

I’ve submitted my manuscript markups to my development editor, and I like to imagine her pouring over them this week. Once I’ve heard back from her, I’ll move on to reworking sections of my manuscript, adding and deleting scenes, and changing back to the original point of view. It’s going to be a lot of work, but well worth it in the end. :)

Cheers, Debbie