Now that we’re working on improving my life balance in our stay at home situation, I hope to plan some readings or something to give folks a taste of both Something Familiar and It Sounds Familiar.
The digital and trade paperback editions of It Sounds Familiar are starting to become available across additional platforms. This is the second book in the A Familiar Story series.
The first book, Something Familiar, a story about a witch looking for a familiar and a shape-shifter who has run away from home. You can read the first few chapters for free over at Curious Fictions, if you want to try before you buy.
The second book, It Sounds Familiar, picks up with our witch and familiar pair coping with the biases they face in a society that is widely opposed to shape-shifters.
It Sounds Familiar is now available as a paperback and ebook at Lulu, and as an ebook at the Apple iBookstore. It should be hitting Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Rakuten/Kobo in the near future.
Paperback is looking a bit delayed as businesses and distribution chain components need to close to keep their staff safe. This is a necessary thing, and we can wait it out with our digital media in the meantime.
While we have no known COVID-19 exposures at our house, my daughter and I are both at high risk for complications, so we’re effectively quarantined (or perhaps reverse quarantined) for the foreseeable future. It’s all a bit surreal, but we’re getting by.
As a result of a teachers’ strike followed by school closures, I’ve been homeschooling my son for a bit over three weeks and my daughter for two and a half. Now that we’ve adjusted a bit, and distance learning picks up next Monday, I’m hoping to get my writing time back.
We ran into some technical difficulties on the cover (specifically the back cover text), and then, of course the world pandemic became a thing. Ideally, I should have more time, once the kids, spouse, and I all adjust to our current state of encampment at home.
The ebook (ePub) edition of It Sounds Familiar is now available from Lulu. It should cascade out to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBookstore, and Kobo in the near future. I’ll post as I see those go live.
The print edition will be available once the page proofs arrive and are vetted.
Got through the final edit on the problem bits of It Sounds Familiar yesterday. As a bonus, revisions to the end helped me figure out some trouble spots in the overall plot of book three. It’s looking like Friday is production prep day!
I’m finally back to fixing the end bits of It Sounds Familiar for a March release.
It turns out that while I can meet my ambitious goals for writing and producing, it’s unfair to dump a new novel on my writers group and expect them to get through it in a month (unless it’s a beta read). Lessons learned!
More details to come as I get this wrapped up.
Cover of A Familiar Story – Book II: It Sounds Familiar.
I’ll be reading at Dream Haven Books &Comics from 6:30-7:45 pm, on April 1, 2020.The current plan is that I will read from It Sounds Familiar, which should be available by then.
This event is free and open to the public. And if my story isn’t working for you, you can always browse the collection of science fiction, fantasy, and comics to add to your own collection.
Parking is available in the lot and on the street.
Had another lovely MarsCon this past weekend. I got to do a little bit of everything I wanted, including talking writing with some excellent people (on panels and more casually out and about) and finding a few more anime shows to watch with the kids. We also got to see some of our friends who we don’t get together with nearly often enough.
Programming
I was on seven panels this year, five of which I moderated and two that were moderated by Kathryn Sullivan. We are frequently on panels together as she also swims in the young adult (YA) speculative fiction pool. My favorite thing about her is that she doesn’t beat around the bush on the tough issues, and she stays so positive while doing so.
I was able to coax Ozgur K. Sahin onto three of my panels. I’m always happy to have him at the table, because even if something goes horribly awry, no one will get bored with him there. Where I have home-field advantage on character building, Ozgur is by far better at plot, and he had a lot to add on both these topics. He creates historical fiction (and his book table display is an inspiration for the rapidly approaching point when I will need to manage a table at events). As he came to the indie writing path by a different route, it was great having him on my Saturday morning indie writing panel.
I was fortunate to run into T. Aaron Cisco, a Minneapolis author of Afrofuturism and hard science fiction on Friday night. I met him on a diversity panel at last year’s MarsCon, and we both read at Word Brew in October. In addition to being a genuinely nice person and an early Doctor Who fan (Whovians unite!), T. Aaron Cisco a really funny and engaging speaker. With a bit of help from social media, I was able to draft him onto my indie writer panel as well. This resulted in three completely different perspectives, which was what I was hoping for. It was probably my favorite panel of the weekend.
Kathryn Sullivan, T. Aaron Cisco, and S.N.Arly standing in the hotel hallway between panels.
My last panel of the con, wasn’t really a panel since it was just me at the table. I’ll be honest, I was not expecting much of an audience at 1 pm on Sunday to hear about Midwestern mythological monsters. However, the room was packed! And the audience became excellent participants as we discussed the reasons why so many writers go back to European monsters and what cool critters we could be using here. I’m super excited to explore ways to add these creatures into my own work.
Girl Scout Cookies and Kids at the Con
MarsCon has a long history of supporting Girl Scout cookie sales. We’ve had one-hour cookie booths the last few years. This year, the con was a little short on participating Girl Scouts, so we had three two-hour cookie booths. While it was kind of a lot, it ended up not being too much for 然然 (Ran Ran). We shared our cookie memes, got to see lots of people on their way to different events, and sold a bunch of cookies (victory thy name is Peanut Butter Patties). We sold 101 packages at the booth and 36 to people who contacted us ahead of the convention with pre-orders.
This year we gave the spawn a bit more free rein, and they handled it very well. They had a great time, stayed up waaaay too late, and managed to not get into any trouble, so it was a win for everyone. It felt like the tween/teen population was smaller than usual, and I’m hoping that’s just a blip that will resolve next year. Nerdy kids need nerdy social activities, and it helps if the nerdy kids are actually there.
Anime
Since my son 百仁 (Bai Ren) didn’t really have any con friends to hang out with this year (and herding the little sister is only fun for so long), we spent some time together primarily checking out anime in either the YA/Anime programming room or the Anime Fusion party room.
S.N.Arly as Elizabeth Lioness.
Now on our list to check out, having sat through a few episodes, are:
Full Metal Panic
Blue Exorcist
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Last Exile
Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water
All in all, a great convention. We’re already registered for next year.
S.N.Arly 