Jennifer Brozek | All posts tagged 'Shadowrun'

Awards Eligibility Post

It’s that time again. Here’s what I’ve produced in 2022 that is eligible for awards consideration. Thank you much for taking a look.

Editing…

The Reinvented Heart anthology is my favorite of the year. I believe Cat Rambo and I showcase our skills as editors with this first in our Reinvented Anthology series. The Reinvented Detective comes out in 2023. When voting for short form editors, please think about us as a duo! “Jennifer Brozek and Cat Rambo.”

 

Writing…

Novel – Shadowrun: Elfin Black. High adventure Shadowrun tie-in novel set in the PNW.

Novella – Truumeel’s Light. High adventure space opera set in the FiveFold Universe. A story of love, family, and sacrifice.

Novella – Shadowrun: Unrepairable. Shadowrun tie-in novella. Vexing megacorps for fun and profit. A pair of twins have a rough day in the shadows.

Short story – “The Necessity of Pragmatic Magic.” Heroic Hearts anthology. Urban fantasy story set in the Kendrick universe with older women protagonists.

Short story – “Seven Stones to Throw.” Rogue Artists Origins Game Fair anthology. Inspired by the protagonists from “The Necessity of Pragmatic Magic” a gentle urban fantasy story of rogue magic.

Short story – “A Message From Mommy.” Wily Writers Present: Tales of Evil anthology. Straight up horror. Sometimes evil is disguised as love.

Short story – “A Test of Vigilance and Will.” Wily Writers Present: Tales of Foreboding anthology. Straight up horror. How much self-control do you have in dire circumstances?

Bubble and Squeek for 10 Jan 2023

Wrapping up stuff that happened at the end of 2022 and started this year. Releases, reviews, and interviews!

Miscellaneous: I finally made a linktr.ee site. https://linktr.ee/JenniferBrozek Just cause.

Release: My new FiveFold Universe novella, Truumeel’s Light, has been released!

Review: Review of Truumeel’s Light. They like it. Yay!

Review: A lovely compliment about me as a BattleTech author. Sometimes all you need is a brief, unexpected compliment to make an author’s day so much better.

Release: My latest Shadowrun YA novelle! Shadowrun: Unrepairable. This is my third standalone YA Shadowrun novella. Gotta tell you, things don't look good for the home team in this one.

Support: As always… if you appreciate my work and would like to support me, I love coffee. I am made of caffeine. This is the quickest way to brighten my day.

Video Interview: This was on GenConTV with Rem Alternis interviewing the entire FiveFold Universe author crew. It was good fun.

The 2022 End of the Year Wrap-up

Per usual, I like to round up the year to see what I accomplished as an author, editor, and media tie-in writer. This year was a bit unusual. Year three of the pandemic and I knew I needed more rest than normal because of the general trauma of it all. Between that and anniversaries of my parents’ deaths and a whole host of other things, I structured the year a bit differently.

First, the cold hard numbers…

  • New words written: 94,100.
  • Words edited (for me and others): 342,000
  • Works submitted: 13
    • Acceptances: 10 (76.9%)
    • Rejections: 1 (7.7%)
    • Still out: 2 (15.3%)
  • New works published: 1 novel, 2 novellas, 8 short stories, 1 anthology, and 2 books re-released (1 fiction collection, 1 novel)

New words written thoughts: For the first time in a very long time, I wrote less than 100K new words in a year. When I first saw the numbers, I was startled and a little upset. Then I thought about the three month writing break I put in the middle of the year because I needed it. Then I looked at how much I had edited: 2 novellas, 1 novel, and 2 anthologies. That was where my time went and why my “new words” number seemed low to me.

Sometimes authors put too much emphasis on quantity over quality. It’s a bit like watching the scale and wondering why you’re not losing pounds while you are lifting weights and gaining muscle mass even as your waist line shrinks. I keep track of the numbers to tell myself about how I worked and what affected me where. Travel, grief, other work, teaching classes. All of it counts. This is why I keep track of everything I do in a day. I can always tell when I had to stop and spend an hour looking at a contract rather than writing. Or when the words wouldn’t come because I was grieving. My Freelancer Summary is invaluable to me. I’ve had enough people ask me about it that I’ve created a blank 2023 RTF document for people to download and use as they will. (Direct Download Link.)

This was an excellent year for submissions for me. I don’t think I’ve had such a high acceptance rate before and that makes me feel good. I like to get my short fiction out there. I like it more when it is accepted. I will never get over the rush I get at an acceptance.

New works published: I had a Shadowrun novel, Elfin Black, and a Shadowrun novella, Unrepairable, published along with a FiveFold Universe space opera novella, Truumeel’s Light, published. Then there were the two re-releases: Apocalypse Girl Dreaming and Last Days of Salton Academy. Also, I’m quite proud of the anthology, The Reinvented Heart, I co-edited with Cat Rambo. Yeah, 2022 was a good publication year.

    

   

I’ve forced myself to take an actual break for the last two weeks of 2022. It’s been good but weird. Part of me is desperate to rest. Part of me is desperate to get back to work. I think 2023 is going to be interesting in a good way and I’m looking forward to it. There’s a lot to think about and a lot to plan for. However, that is for 2023 Jennifer to deal with. 2022 Jennifer is in “potato” mode. In the meantime, I’ve got a fiendish puzzle from my sister to work on.

Thank you to every single one of you who reads me and enjoys my work.
I hope you have had a lovely holiday season and I wish you the brightest new year.

Shadowrun: Unrepairable Has Been Released

In a stealth move worthy of the best runners, Shadowrun: Unrepairable has been released just in time for the holiday season! This YA novella is the third YA novella (with one more to go) in what I'm calling the "Mosaic Auditions." As before, this is a standalone novella and can be read in any order with any of the other Shadowrun novels/novellas I have written. You may recognize a character here or there...


Shadowrun:Unrepairable


VEXING MEGACORPS FOR FUN AND PROFIT…
Landon and Liana Hoffman are on summer vacation, and look forward to producing their Matrix repair show, the Right2RepairRigger, and hanging out at the local makerspace. But when they get a chance at a lucrative salvage run, they can’t say no—especially when they owe the fixer who’s hiring them.

Beyond settling their account, the job promises untold riches in salvageable, possibly beyond state-of-the-art gear at a secret, abandoned military facility. Aware of the dangers involved, the run is still too good to pass up. However, the place may not be as abandoned as it seems—and the clock is ticking.

Also, there are powerful enemies who don’t like what the Right2RepairRigger is doing, and are willing to destroy whoever they can to put a stop to it—including arresting anyone possibly connected with the twins’ program. Can Landon and Liana finish the run and save their family at the same time?

Available now! Books2Read (ebooks Amazon, Kobo, etc...) | Amazon | Barnes&Noble

(As an aside, I'm so pleased I got to write a dad joke in this one. It's the little things that count.)

Thinking About Thinking as an Author

Here’s something I do as an author: I think. A lot. About pretty much everything in regards to writing any length of work. Admittedly, the shorter the work, the less I have to think about it unless it is something in a very, very specific format or is on something I am not super familiar with.

Right now, I’m thinking about my next YA Shadowrun novella, The Kilimanjaro Run. It is the fourth in the series (even though each novella is standalone, there is a throughput line). It’s taken me weeks to figure out what POV this novella should be written in. Partly because I’m not familiar with the physical location where the novella will be taking place. Partly because I couldn’t decide who would be the best point of view character. That difficulty has come down to not having the confidence/experience to write the story from the POV character I would like to write it from. Thus, after much internal debate (and my editor’s approval), I will write it from the POV character I am most comfortable with, and the one the readers would be most likely to forgive should I muck things up. I have already hired a sensitivity reader. Hopefully, that will help with the not-mucking-up part of things.

In the meantime, I’m thinking…about the story…about the characters…about specific scenes. Basically, thinking about everything I’m going to write. I haven’t written much yet. Art notes for the cover (talk about putting the cart before the horse). An nascent outline. Character names with 1-3 lines of background. Facts about hippopotamuses and Tanzania. The first paragraph in the story (which I’m sure I’m going to toss out and start over, but it’s easy to start with a brief edit than to stare at the tyranny of the blank page). Probably about 600 words in total.

What does thinking about writing look like? For me, it looks like playing PokemonGO, cleaning my house, folding laundry, or doing some other bit of busy work that keeps most of me occupied while my creative part churns. I’m making inspired butter out of creative cream (or is that creative butter out of inspired cream?). Today, thinking looks like updating every single one of my apple devices because I bought more music for the first time in forever. It also looks like processing author bios for my anthology 99 Fleeting Fantasies. And eating lunch. And staring off into space, occasionally having an argument with myself or with the characters in my head. Not to mention writing this blog post.

While it doesn’t look like much, it is hard work. It is mentally taxing. It can be physically tiring. But it’s not the “sexy” part of writing. It’s not really a thing you can show without being stereotypical—and what you “show” is what writer’s block looks like. It’s funny how a writer thinking looks like writer’s block to someone who doesn’t write. It shows the fundamental disconnect between the writer and the reader.

The best way I can describe an author thinking to a reader who is not a writer is an earworm. An earworm of the literary kind in the best, most distracting, way. You don’t know the complete tune, nor do you know all the words, but it is enticing. You know it. But you don’t really know it, yet. You will…but only after it is on the page and has been edited a half a dozen times. Then you will know what the song/story really was all along.

So, that’s what and how I’m doing. What about you?

 

Mena being adorable in the cat tower.

Jennifer Brozek Items in the SFWA Worldbuilders Auction

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) has partnered once again with Worldbuilders, an organization of geeks doing good that supports humanitarian efforts worldwide, to run their annual silent auction. This auction runs from May 9, 12noon, Pacific until May 16, 12noon, Pacific.
https://www.biddingforgood.com/auction/auctionhome.action?vhost=wbi

Three items from me up for bid:
A 30-minute one-on-one virtual career session via Zoom with Jennifer Brozek, an award winning author, editor, and tie-in writer. Tell me where you want to go with your career and I'll do my best to guide you.
https://www.biddingforgood.com/auction/item/item.action?id=342557558

Four seats in a one-hour virtual author kaffeeklatsch via Zoom with Jennifer Brozek, an award winning author, editor, and tie-in writer. Come talk about anything gaming or publishing related. On request, I will go get all my cats to show you.

Seat 1: https://www.biddingforgood.com/auction/item/item.action?id=342557553

Seat 2: https://www.biddingforgood.com/auction/item/item.action?id=342557555

Seat 3: https://www.biddingforgood.com/auction/item/item.action?id=342557556

Seat 4: https://www.biddingforgood.com/auction/item/item.action?id=342557557

Jennifer Brozek will do a tuckerization for the winning bidder (or as a gift from the winning bidder to someone else). Tuckerization will be in a new Shadowrun YA novella and possibly used in a later Shadowrun novel.
https://www.biddingforgood.com/auction/item/item.action?id=342557560

Please support this worthy cause.
Thank you,
Jenn

Bubble & Squeek for 30 Mar 2022

This Bubble & Squeek is brought to you by many many release, re-releases, and reviews! Plus, bonus pictures.

Print Release: Here's the public print release of  THE LAST CITIES OF EARTH anthology by me and Jeff Sturgeon.


Review: Literary HubMarch's Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books: THE REINVENTED HEART anthology by me and Cat Rambo. It's always a joy to be on a "Best" list.

Review: nerds of a feather… Here's a good review of THE REINVENTED HEART anthology. Didn't tick all their boxes but did tick a lot.

Re-release: Speaking Volumes has re-released my Bram Stoker Finalist YA novel...THE LAST DAYS OF SALTON ACADEMY. Come read how I murdered all my friends in a zombie apocalypse. Also, that cover!


Re-release: Speaking Volumes has re-released my short story collection…APOCALYPSE GIRL DREAMING. This is my first short story collection. And again, that cover!


Publication: After 5 months of wrangling with Amazon, 99 TINY TERRORS, is published there, too. (The physical version will show up eventually.) Here's the universal link.


Publication: My latest Shadowrun novel: ELFIN BLACK is in the wild! How do the powerful deal with being powerless? Badly. Then with malice and forethought. I'm so pleased with this novel.


Support: As always… if you appreciate my work and would like to support me, I love coffee. I am made of caffeine. This is the quickest way to brighten my day.

Shadowrun: Elfin Black Has Been Released

For the Ides of March comes my latest Shadowrun novel, Elfin Black! It isn’t a direct sequel of any of my other Shadowrun releases, but it does have characters from Makeda Red, A Kiss to Die For, and DocWagon 19 in it. At least one with a major role (ahem, Imre Dahl).

 

TIES THAT BIND…

Mage Jonathan Leeds has built himself a comfortable life owning and operating an exclusive night club in London, far from the iron grasp of his family. But when his father, Gordon, abruptly summons him to the Seattle Metroplex, John finds himself a stranger in a strange land, thrown into the wilds of the ’Plex to manage a situation apparently only he can handle. Although he’d prefer to ignore his father’s wishes, John knows that no one—family or foe—says no to Gordon Leeds. At least, not if they want to live to tell about it.

But family obligations aren’t the only reason John is in Seattle. His patron back in England, Lord Callen Nassau, has asked him to look for a missing woman. John is only too happy to oblige, as the elegant elf noble is everything his father is not. But when Gordon’s and Callen’s tasks intertwine in unexpected ways, John is forced to question everything he knows about both men, and soon discovers not all that glitters is gold.

When the desires of these rich and powerful beings collide in the Sixth World, John finds himself a pawn in their vicious game. If he’s to escape the Emerald City in one piece, John knows he must take control of the situation—any way he can—or suffer the lethal consequences.

Happy book birthday to me! I’m very happy with this book. I’ve had it mind since I wrote “Dark Side Matters” for the Shadowrun: Drawing Destiny anthology. I hope you enjoy it.

Tell Me - Russell Zimmerman

Today, Rusty Zimmerman tells me what it’s like to put together a collection of game fiction that was written over many years. It’s a walk down memory lane.

 

Down These Dark Streets is a Shadowrun first-ever; a collection of a writer’s short fiction, gathered up from across all the various sourcebooks, setting books, rule books, magazines, and where ever else it first showed up.  A lot of Shadowrun fiction is spread out in intro pieces, short, punchy, stories that separate big chapters in sourcebooks, and that sort of thing, and The Powers That Be took a shot at gathering mine all together between one set of covers.

Readers can follow along as a handful of threads and characters weave from story to story, a sort of universe-within-a-universe that started with my very first piece of Shadowrun work, intro fiction for Attitude, two editions and *mumble* years ago.  The protagonist of that short piece shows up as part of a team in some later intro fics I published, that team shows up alongside Jimmy Kincaid in Dirty Tricks, Jimmy Kincaid’s entangled with Ms. Myth and the Shadowrun Fifth Edition crew in his novels, their nemesis Rook first showed up in some adventure intro fic, etc, etc. 

I’ve long felt like Shadowrun works best when the shadows feel small, tangled, and reputation-centric – everyone knows everyone, word gets around, and when you’re looking for reliable talent, the odds are good they’ve worked together before.  I wanted that feeling, and a sense of continuity, even in my seemingly-unrelated pieces that were initially scattered across books (and even editions).  Getting to see them all side by side in this book was a lot of fun.

What else was a lot of fun?  Writing intros!  In addition to a sappy love letter to Shadowrun that kicks off the whole collection, each and every piece has a small writer introspective from me.  In them, I talk about what the original pitch for the story was, I talk about cover art (sometimes changing cover art!) that inspired the piece, or I just share my thoughts on how it came together and what I think about the finished product.  Having the chance to open up and ‘chat’ with readers was a lot of fun, and I hope I’m not too cringe-worthy when I talk about what fun, and what an honor, it’s been to get to do what I do.

Also included among the already-published sourcebook and Game Trade Magazine-exclusive pieces are four brand new, never before published, short stories.  Some of them spun out of the ‘enhanced fiction’ line before finding a home here instead, but the largest story in the collection was written just for this book.  It’s a novella-length Jimmy Kincaid story, set as an ‘in-betweener’ in his novel trilogy, fitting in there any place before his latest novel, On The Rocks.

Assembling this collection was a good time, and the short walk down memory lane for the dozen years, now, I’ve been writing Shadowrun stories.  I was very excited to get to share a little bit of the creative process with readers, I was excited to hear there are paperback and hardback versions available right off the bat, and I’m excited for the future, to hear what fans think of the whole kit and caboodle. 

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Russell Zimmerman got started in writing as a freelancer for wargames like Warmachine, and since then has contributed to dozens of projects including fan-favorite fiction in Shadowrun and writing the international award-winning PC game Satellite Reign. His most noteworthy work has been for the Shadowrun role-playing game and associated properties, but he's spilled some ink in the universes of Vampire 20th Anniversary, Earthdawn, Wrath & Glory, and Mutants & Masterminds, and more!

Planning for 2022

In a previous post, I said that I’m going to slow down in 2022. I really need to. I ended up taking an unintentional vacation over Christmas week. The words just would not come and I didn’t have the motivation to force them. The last couple years have taken their toll emotionally, physically, and mentally. I’m feeling better now and getting back on the wagon, so to speak.

Here’s what I have planned for 2022, broken up by type of work. Some dates are subject to change due to the vagaries of the publishing industry.

Writing Projects:

  • FiveFold Universe project (Jan, actually quite excited about this project)
  • 3 contracted short stories (2 in Feb, 1 in ?)
  • Shadowrun YA novella #3: Unrepairable (3rd quarter 2022)
  • Shadowrun YA novella #4: The Kilimanjaro Run (Bonus points if I do it at all in 2022)


Editing (This is where I’m going to be resting):

  • Shadowrun: Elfin Black (final polish/proof, Jan/Feb?)
  • The Reinvented Detective anthology (Jan-Jun)
  • Freelance editing (recurring gig, Mar-Aug?)


PR (Social media bits):


Conventions/Events (*Planned for, not yet official):

  • Rainforest Writing Retreat (Feb)
  • Norwescon (Apr)
  • Origins Game Fair* (Jun)
  • Gen Con (Aug)

From one point of view, this is still a lot and it doesn’t cover any pop-up requests or the classes I will teach. What is important is that after January, I have no long fiction writing projects planned until the third quarter of the year. The recurring freelance editing gig actually is rest. I’m working, yes, and it is detailed work, but it isn’t hard.

I need these months to not be under contract. I need to rest and refresh the creative well. I need to let my mind wander and gambol and drift. I’ve been telling all my mentees for years to remember to rest. Mentor, listen to thyself. Besides, there’s an unwritten story I’ve been flirting with for years that has become more insistent and I want to think about it. It might be fun to just play for a while.

Of course, if my fabulous agent sells one of my books currently in circulation…all bets are off.