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

Celebrate! Celebrate! Dance to the music!

Hello followers of Rasputin! Just a quick update: I have submitted the book to the Launch Pad competition. Super excited to enter my first contest, and here is hoping for good luck!!

  No particular news for Tantalus Depths itself right now. I’ve not heard anything from Inkshares about the next step in the production process, but it’s still early and I hadn’t expected to yet.
I am currently working on the promised prologue chapter, but I’m toying with the idea of making two smaller ones instead of one larger one, as I have two interesting ideas that can’t be easily combined. We’ll see how that goes.
My main purpose for this update is not for me, or even for Tantalus Depths. I wanted to take an opportunity to show my heartfelt appreciation for a good friend. 
I met Tahani Nelson through Inkshares during our mutual pre-order campaigning period. Her book, The Last Faoii, caught my attention quickly. Kaiya, her resolute protagonist, has a knack for overcoming impossible hardships without giving up even in the bleakest of circumstances, and is exactly the sort of character I strove to depict with Mary Ketch. I kind of see the two characters as cross-genre sisters.
As I’ve gotten to know Tahani better as a person, I’ve learned the true extent that the character imitates the author. She’s overcome no small number of impossible obstacles, and though they continue coming her way, she resolutely pushes through them without giving an inch of ground. She’s a real-life Kaiya, and so, in many ways, a real life Mary.
I felt a person like Tahani deserves to be immortalized in writing. The universe of Tantalus Depths is an unforgiving, dark place. Human civilization is a constantly imperiled thing; a child swimming obliviously among sharks. Yet, one of the core tenants of Tantalus Depths and any associated stories, is the notion that, in spite of these dangers, humanity endures. We may always be at the brink of destruction, but through determination and sheer force of will, we survive against the odds.
Tahani represents this to me, in life. To properly show what that means to me, I’ve named a planet for her, which I will include some capacity into the Tantalus Depths universe. If I can sneak it into Tantalus Depths somewhere during the revision phases to come, I will. If I can’t find anywhere to slip it in where it feels natural, it will be referenced at some point in the upcoming sequel. Either way, the presence of this planet in the Colonial Hegemony is now and forever canon.
Shields up, Faoii.