To Critique and Partner or Not?

I don’t have critique partners or a critique group. The one and only time I tried anything of that nature was in junior college. It was an evening creative writing class and I lasted through the first time I had to read my WIP and receive feedback, and it was SO not this introvert’s comfort zone…I left at the break and never went back. I have wonderful, professional editors and I rely on them. They will tell me if I’ve taken a left turn or done something TSTL with my plot. As you might guess, they’ve had occasion to do that a time or two!  My process is my process and I don’t feel the need to bounce story issues off other people or gather inputs as I go, etc. Shrug. I get that it works great for other people, which just proves yet again that there’s no one “right way” to write. Thanks goodness.

On to something more exciting for me – this past week I did the cover reveal for my next science fiction romance novel, Star Cruise: Outbreak. Here’s the pretty cover, from Fiona Jayde. The book will be out on April 18^th.

The story:

She saved countless soldiers in the wars … but does she have the weapons to fight an outbreak?

Dr. Emily Shane, veteran of the Sector Wars, is known as “The Angel of Fantalar” for her bravery under fire as a medic. However, the doctor has her own war wounds–severe PTSD and guilt over those she failed to save.

Persuaded to fill a seemingly frivolous berth as ship’s doctor on the huge and luxurious interstellar cruise liner Nebula Zephyr, she finds the job brings unexpected perks–a luxe beach deck with water imported from Tahumaroa II, and Security Officer Jake Dilon, a fellow veteran who heats her up like a tropical sun.

However, Emily soon learns she and Jake didn’t leave all peril behind in the war. A mysterious ailment aboard the Zephyr begins to claim victim after victim … and they must race against time and space to find the cause and a cure! Trapped on a ship no spaceport will allow to dock, their efforts are complicated by a temperamental princess and a terrorist–one who won’t hesitate to take down any being in the way of his target.  If anyone’s left when the disease is through with them …

What Happens While You're Making Other Plans

 

You know the saying life is what happens while you're busy making other plans. It defines my relationship with long term planning. Yes. I need a plan, it provides direction without being as bossy as the GPS in my car. Plans, for me, have to be loosely held otherwise all life gets crushed out of them.

Owning the boat we do and living aboard it were long term plans that came to fruition. Publishing - also a long term plan that worked. Sorta. In true plot-twist fashion, nothing quite works out the way you'd envisioned. I'd imagined a long string of scifi titles to my name by now. Instead, the publisher asked for anything that wasn't scifi. Well okay. There's that bossy GPS after all, yelling at me that I'm taking a left NOW into other genres until I find home.

The reason the cat in the sunbeam is up there is that he illustrates one of the finer points of long term planning. Every single one of us tucks our hopes and ambitions and drives into our goals. Those goals reflect some of the finest points of our aspirations for ourselves. And then the universe hands us a situation that shows us that our priorities weren't what we thought they were. Or maybe I'm just a terrible planner. Point is, the elderly gentleman above has set his paws on his path out of this life. It's a long slope for him, one that could take another year to two years, if I'm lucky. The trade off is that I'm on call for him 24x7. Medications. Shoveling food into him. He cannot be left for more than four hours at a time. I understand it's a little like having itty bitty kids - cause he gets me up every few hours of the night to tend him. And not a bit of this was factored into my long term plans. Any plans, really. Sure. I still have long term plans and I am still working toward them. But let me stress how this guy getting sick utterly altered what I believed were my priorities.

Most of us think we understand our priorities. I'd submit that we don't. Not entirely. We're human and we operate from a particular blindness that assumes everyone and everything we love will remain the same - unchanged. Forever. Intellectually, we get that's not true. But until the severe mental illness strikes you or one of the people you most count on in the world, until that panicked midnight emergency run somewhere with someone you'd trade places with in a heartbeat, your priorities haven't been put to the test.

Every one of us are going to run into bumps in the long term planning road. It's why I've learned to hang onto my plans loosely. Because when life happens, it sometimes pays to examine your fistful of plans and cast aside any that no longer make sense. Once you've done that, though, the vital thing is to keep going. Creep toward the goal. Crawl if that's what you have to do. Just keep moving in the direction of the dream. Whatever it may be. That's where you'll find me. Out there hobbling along my road, muttering at my GPS to shut the fuck up.

Flash Fiction that Might Not Be as Flash as All That

Happy Friday the 13th!!

Our words:

zombie
combustion
delicious
gelatinous
piercing
bacon

There was another rule. Something about 149 words. I got those. Twice. Plus maybe a few extras. Brevity and wit apparently aren't my things.

SOMEWHERE IN SPACE

"Didja ever figure out what they are? Zombies?"

"Nah. They're alive. Indigenous life form. Carbon based, polysaccharides and a whole bunch more we don't know yet. Can't get samples easily. No one expected gelatinous oozes on a space rock. Now. Shut up. Bait doesn't talk."

The spacesuit encased man, lashed to a cluster of O2 tanks uttered a pained laugh. "Gelatinous ooze. I see the resemblance. I played that game in junior high."

"Didn't we all."

"You and the team didn't expect these things to eat through the expedition's stores, either?"

"Who'd have thought they'd have a taste for earth based food?"

With the piercing squeal of metal on metal, translucent blobs inched around the iron and nickel rich rocks.

"It's not just food, they have a taste for. Is it?"

"Nope."

"So you're just going to let them rip me apart?"

"Nothing like that. I mean to take the bastards out. You're my bait. And my bomb. Do you know how
hard it is to achieve combustion without oxygen?"

"You can't afford to blow these auxiliary tanks! Stop this!"

"Eh. The mining team found a frozen supply. We're good on that front. Just food, you thief."

"Look, Lieutenant, all I did . . ."

"Was steal supplies. We know."

"Dammit. I thought you said these things wouldn't come near while I was talking!"

"I said 'bait doesn't talk' to get you yakking. Turns out, they're attracted to noise."

"Lieutenant, this won't help! Killing me solves nothing! Why are you . . ."

"Because I'm a psychopathic bitch, Roberts."

"I didn't mean that."

"Sure you did, but I don't hold a grudge. Your problem is that I made a bet." She pressed a button. Before her shuttle view port, the twitching, struggling space suit, already engulfed in blue-gray ooze, vanished in a brilliant flash of orange fire. The short-lived fire ball burned off. Telltale, blackened carbon smeared the nearby surfaces. A charred space suit lay crumpled before a trio of oxygen tanks that had blown out like flowers blooming.

"Heh. Gotcha, you bastards. That'll teach you to steal our food. Sorry, Roberts. Plenz bet that you'll taste like bacon. Me? I'm going with revenge being delicious."