Once upon a time there was a friend. This friend asked me to join a contest, and I didn’t think about it too much and just did it. First mistake: had I known what I was getting into, I would never have pulled the trigger on Inkshares in August ’16 and started the journey that culminated in a publication deal in March ’17.
Second mistake: She asked me to join another contest, this one a flash fiction writing contest from Sci-Fi-London (the 48hr Flash Fiction Challenge), and I did that too. On April 8th I opened the site to view my story requirements. A title, a line of dialogue, and an optional bit of science. The maximum word count was 2,000 words, and I had just two days to write it in.
Title: NOT ON MY WATCH
Dialogue: When the clouds are this low it can be a nightmare to get a clean signa
lScience (optional): Augmented reality becomes so good we neglect reality, when the system to fails, the decay is revealed.
Except I worked all day on Sunday, so I really had just one day. And then I knew that in all honesty I probably just had Saturday morning to write it. The good news was I already had a pretty good idea what I wanted to put to paper. I popped open Scrivener (worth it’s weight in gold), wrote out descriptions for about seven story points, and then just...
...wrote.
I finished up a little over 2k words before noon, trimmed it down, sent it to some friends to read, edited the mistakes, and then sent it off. I’m not sure how I got that word count done so fast, but my brain was sizzling with ideas and I just let it get on with it.
And now YOU can read it! I published the short story through Pronoun, making it available for free on all major ebook retailers’ sites, and you can access it here: NOT ON MY WATCH. If you download it, please rate and review it! It’s only 8 pages, so it shouldn’t take you long at all. Every review or rating helps boost it’s status among other ebooks, and in return gives my author page more recognition, and all of this will help me when Fae Child comes out.
I don’t know if I’ll win the Sci-Fi-London contest, but hey, stranger things have happened? And those things I listed as mistakes at the beginning of the post? Actually they were probably the best decisions I could have made, regarding my writing. Thank you Jenny!
~ Jane-Holly
p.s. Of course, the work on Fae Child continues! We are #2 on Inkshares in Teen and Young Adult, how cool is that?
Dear Authors,
We are no longer offering signed copies as part of the incentive package for pre-ordering a book. As our author base has expanded globally, it has become logistically impractical to offer this option. In many cases, it makes it much more difficult to get books to backers prior to the publication date.
What does this mean for books currently in production? For both Inkshares and Quill, we are going to work with the author to find a solution that works best for them and their backers. In some cases, a signed book option will still be practical; in other cases, it might make more sense to have a signed insert like a bookmark or print. Of course, where backers don’t wish to have an unsigned book, we will refund their order.
We value our authors and readers dearly and regret any frustration that this may have caused.
Best,
Thad