Jennifer Brozek | All posts tagged 'Melissa Allen'

Bubble and Squeek for 12 August 2015

Publication: "Rune's Avatar Cafe" has been published in the Shadowrun Worlds of Shadows anthology. It came out at Gen Con. I haven't seen a link for it yet. I'll post it when I do.

Sold: I sold my story "Feathers in Need" to the latest Valdemar anthology called Crucible. It's also the opening story in the anthology. I'm super happy about that. I will note that it is a happy story, unlike "Written in the Wind."

Kickstarter: Women in Practical Armor. I have nothing to do with this anthology except to cheer it on because I work for Evil Girlfriend Media. It's already funded and it is awesome! I'm all about cheering this one on.

Website: If you love the rain and miss it in this heat, Rainy Mood is the perfect soundtrack for you.

Cover Reveal: Here's the cover for NEVER LET ME SLEEP! It's the first book in the Melissa Allen series. Is it not the best? I have an actual teen on my YA book and she's not a stick figure.

Internet Lite

I need to take a break from social media so I can get my mind focused on the novel I have due soon. I’m going “internet lite.” No Facebook or Twitter until April 18th. I’m still going to be reading email, IMs, and text messages but only after I’ve made word count for the day. NEVER LET ME DIE has got to be my focus until I’m so far in the throes of it I can’t think of anything else. I’m sure the internet will survive without me. If you must get hold of me, email is your best bet.

When I type THE END

I've just typed "The End" on NEVER LET ME LEAVE at 51,000 words. But the book is nowhere near complete. When the novel hits "The End" for me, it isn't done. The bare bones have been laid. I have the shape of the story down and in my head.

But, I have a ton of notes that I've written myself that will add probably another 5K to the book. THEN there's the polish and descriptor adds so that I don't have talking heads in a white room. Here's some of the notes I left myself for NEVER LET ME LEAVE.

NOTE: Change floor to Level. Change “taser” to stun gun and describe.
NOTE: Figure actual, specific timeline for the book.
NOTE: Figure out when Carrie got the sedative.
NOTE: Mention the purse a couple more times.
NOTE: Figure out where stun guns and guns are for each chapter.
NOTE: Figured out where access cards are.
NOTE: Stairwells are black dark when red. Hard to get through. (find flashlights)
NOTE: Signs of eating and drinking.

While I'm adding these things I already know I need, I will mark certain spots to strengthen. Or that need a bit more an expert's advice. For example, I know just enough about computer programming to be dangerous. I broke software for a living before I became a writer. I need someone like The Husband to help make the technobabble not only plausible but real. Or get my friend, Joe, to help me with some of the stun gun details.This will add another 2000-3000 words.

After that, the manuscript is put away until January. January 1, I open the file and I start from the top, polishing, adding, fixing, editing. By the time that is done, I will feel like I almost have a real novel in front of me.

NaNoWriMo 2014

I am gearing up to participate in NaNoWriMo again, officially, this year. I don’t participate every year. My thoughts on it have changed. When I first started, back in…uh…2006?

[I know I participated in 2007. I wrote THE LITTLE FINANCE BOOK THAT COULD back then. But I think I did Regresser’s Evolution in 2006. There’s a novel that will never see the light of day. But, I digress…]

When I first started, I looked at NaNo as motivation to finally finish a novel in a concrete amount of time. Now, I look at NaNo as a conveniently placed “get shit done before the end of the year” motivator. Thus, I don’t always traditionally participate. One year, it was “finish all of the contracted short stories” NaNo. Another, it was “finish this damn RPG sourcebook” NaNo.

However, when the stars align, and I have a new novel to write, and it is scheduled for the fall, I try to schedule it for NaNoWriMo. This year, everything has fallen into place and it’s time for me to write the next Melissa Allen book, NEVER LET ME LEAVE. The first Melissa Allen book, NEVER LET ME SLEEP, was written during the 2011 NaNo in 13 days. That will not happen here. Mostly because it is a bigger book with more principle characters.

Now. Some people love NaNo. Some people hate it. I use it as a tool. It is an artificial deadline and it gets me working to deadline speeds. Most of the time, I look at my NaNo draft as a 50,000+ word outline and my next draft is the real book. This is my recommendation to everyone. Your NaNo book is your detailed outline. Nothing more.

I know I will do well because this is what I do the rest of the year. Only, I need to make my words publishable words. So far, this year, I’ve written about 145,850 new words of fiction. Never mind the emails, contracts, editing, etc… I’ve done. That’s just under an average of 15,000 new words to be published every month of the year. Or 3650 new fiction words a week. Or an average of 521 new fiction words every single day of the year.

Obviously, I don’t write every single day of the year. To date, my least amount of words written in one day (when I wrote) was: 11 (Jan 14). The most: 4512 (Feb 21, Rainforest Writing Retreat).  The point is this: I wrote steadily and consistently to an average weekly word count. If I wasn’t writing, I editing but thinking about writing.

It’s nice to be part of the yearly writing mob scene because people who don’t really understand what it is like to write every day get a taste of it. Some people love it. Some people don’t. I’m going to enjoy my NaNo time and the fact that people, for at least a little while, understand what it is to be consumed by story writing.

I’m GaanEden on NaNoWriMo. Feel free to become my writing buddy.

The Writing Life

My life is boring from the outside. All I can talk about is what I've edited or written. I'm in a groove of work and not much more right now. A number of projects are falling in my lap all at once.

I just finished the final edits of my Shadowrun novella, Doc Wagon 19. It's been officially accepted and all that. I also just turned in Never Let Me Sleep (Permuted Press), the first book of the Melissa Allen series, my YA SF-thriller where I kill a whole state in the first chapter. Today, I'm working on the page proofs of Shattered Shields and I know page proofs for Chicks Dig Gaming are on their way.

Now, I'm shifting to writing-writing-writing. I'm working on Chimera incarnate (Apocalypse Ink Productions), the final book in the Karen Wilson Chronicles. Then I will be all about Never Let Me Leave, which is Melissa Allen #2. I also have 3 short stories due by the end of the year. So, my days will be marked by word counts, revisions, and page proofs. It's boring from the outside but awesome for me. I'm busy but I'm happy.


Still to be released in 2014

  • August, Doc Wagon 19 (Catalyst Game Labs)
  • October, "Dreams of a Thousand Young," Jazz Age Cthulhu (Innsmouth Free Press)
  • November, Shattered Shields  (Baen Books)
  • November, Chicks Dig Gaming  (Mad Norwegian Press)
  • December, "Written in the Wind," No True Way and Other Tales of Valdemar (DAW)
  • December, Apocalypse Girl Dreaming (Evil Girlfriend Media) - Though, this may move to early 2015

 

My Melissa Allen series is sold!

I’ve been sitting on some big news as all the details were hammered out. While I was at Origins Game Fair, I got an offer from Permuted Press for the first three books my young adult SF-thriller series. The Melissa Allen series (Never Let Me Sleep, Never Let Me Leave, Never Let Me Die). As I told my parents… “It’s the kind of stuff I wished early Stephen King would have written for teenagers. So, yay! Only 7.5 years after I became full time freelance author!”

I’m super excited to be part of the Permuted Press family and I have to thank Tim Long and Katie Cord for making sure me and the head honchos from Permuted met.

Here’s a bit about the first book:

NEVER LET ME SLEEP
Troubled teen, Melissa Allen, wakes to find that everyone in her house, on her street, and in her town is dead. As she learns that the unexplained massacre expands well beyond her town, she discovers she is not alone and what hunts her isn’t human. With her only support the voice of DHS Agent David Hood on the phone, Melissa must survive long enough to break the signal that murdered everyone she ever knew and stop the creatures before their plans succeed.