Crossroads and Character Building in Your Writing

Everyone of us makes choices. Every day we make probably a dozen small choices, so small we may not even realize we're doing it. But every now and then we look up and find ourselves at a crossroads, faced with a  major life choice that will tip the balance of our fate one way or the other and have repercussions for many years to come.

Do I go to college or go directly to work?

    Do I finish high school or drop out?

          Do I have kids? Do I get married?

     Do I follow my dreams into the unknown or do I stick with the tried and true?

               Do I allow others to dictate my choices or do I go my own way?

It's said our choices make us who we are. The same is true of our favorite fictional characters. Every main character should have a pivotal choice to make in your story, and that choice should make all the difference in how the events unfold.



In Vessel, Alana is a slave, but she makes the choice to free the prisoners that help her escape too. If Alana never made that bold choice, the story would not have come to pass and she would have died a slave. Certainly not as thrilling as striving for something more, is it?

What is the major crossroads your character starts at and how will their choices make or break the story?

This Writer's Goals for 2016~

Happy New Year!

Time to start anew. If last year was crappy, forget about it! You can always make the next one better. They say, and I believe it's true, writing down your goals makes them more achievable, so here it goes~

My goals for 2016 are as follows:

1) Read lots of books

Last year I read about 25 books, which is pretty good for me! I intend to keep it up. Join me over on Goodreads and set up your own reading goal.

2) Write lots of words

Between 50,000 and 100,000 words would be good. I'll probably take part in JuNoWriMo to get a good chunk of those. June works much better for me than other months. Summer in general works better for me than the school year. I'm in between projects right now with a rough draft to be edited. I'm sure I can have an outline ready by June though.







3) Travel

Going some place I've never been before always inspires me to write, so this is a definite "to do". Last year it was Hawaii. This year, who knows??


4) Exercise and eat healthy

I got a new Fitbit for Christmas and I think I love it already. All the incentive of tracking daily habits without the monthly fee of joining Weight Watchers. (I love you too, WW. Just not the fee.)

5) Publish

I have two novels I'm currently querying and a third rough draft that I'd like to get into shape for querying soon. With any luck, someone somewhere will want something of mine, right?

6) Grow a garden that survives

My garden was a dismal failure last year due to rabbits, voles, and a lack of effort. When I realized how much damage the varmits were causing, I kind of gave up. I still want a garden though. It's going to require raised bed - cages of some sort because there are still lots of rabbits around. I'll come up with something.


7) Save some money

I want to set up a seperate savings account that's never tapped into for normal bills and expenses so it can grow undisturbed. It's just a matter of setting it up and making an auto deposit. I have college savings accounts, so I know I can do it. I just have to make it happen.

8) Do some home improvements

This follows from the above obviously. I'd like to save some money to make some home improvements. I'd like to replace our gas range with an electric one so I don't set myself or the house on fire. I'm not a fan of open flames in cooking, at least not in my house. I'd also like to build a fireplace, but that's sort of a major undertaking. And a back yard patio and pergola would be nice. See? There's no end of reasons for Goal #7.

9) Meditate

My life gets pretty dang hectic starting in January through June, mostly due to my daughter's dance competition season. I get stressed out and cranky. I've meditated before and found it to be a nice respite from all my rushing around like a chicken with my head cut off. I plan to make time for it again this year.

10) Gratitude

Last but not least, I always want to remember to show my gratitude for the people I work with and the family I love, as well as all the blessings in my life. Life is fragile and it can be gone in a moment. 2015 taught me that once again. I don't want to waste a single minute of 2016 complaining or worrying,if that's possible.

What goals will you make for 2016?

Book Club Discussion Questions for Vessel

I recently crafted a short list of discussion questions about Vessel that are suitable for book clubs, book reviewers,  bloggers, and anyone else who likes to think about and/or discuss fiction. These are only to get the conversation started, but here’s what I’ve got:

1.   A catastrophic solar storm destroyed all electrical devices on Earth in Vessel. Do you think the human race could survive such an event? How?

   
2. In the future world of Vessel, Alana is a slave. We know slavery has been around for a long time and is still going on today. Could slavery ever be eradicated or is it part of the human condition forever?

3. Kinder behaves in strange ways throughout the story of Vessel. Do you believe his motives are benevolent or malevolent?

4. In Vessel, the Reticents “teach” their students by implanting a microchip in their brains and downloading information. Do you think such a thing might be possible one day? Why or why not?

5. Recks asks Alana at one point in the story where she wants to live. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?

6. What do you think happens in the sequel to Vessel?

Obviously, there’s no right or wrong answer to these questions. They’re meant to spark discussion, but I’ll give you my take on the answers.

1. Since I wrote the book, it’s probably already clear I think there’s a chance humans could survive a solar storm, but I think life would return to more of a hunting and gathering lifestyle. Things we take for granted, like modern medicine and life-saving drugs, would disappear. As a result, a lot of us would perish. There are many places that would be difficult to live without a reliable power source in the winter, which might favor people living closer to the equator. I also think its possible small pockets of humans could survive in very different regions, totally isolated and unaware of each other.

2. Regarding slavery, it seems like it’s been around in one form or another for a very long time. I wish I could say it could be eradicated, but it’s hard to see how.

3. Kinder was a fun character to write for several reasons. You never quite know what he’s up to or if he’s even a threat at all. He’s not 100% honest with anyone in the book.

4. Implanting a memory chip in your brain would be handy, don’t you think? Seems like it would be impossible, but scientists are already implanting electrodes in people to help stimulate paralysis victims’ muscles. I’ve even heard of studies where electrodes have been used to stimulate the brain to improve cognitive ability. I’d say anything is possible where human ingenuity is involved.

5. If I could live anywhere at all and money was no object, it would be on a beach, preferable a warm one with lots of tide pools, colorful fish, and gorgeous sunsets.

6. The story definitely continues after the events of Vessel, but that’s all I’ve got to say about that!

If you haven't read Vessel yet, you can find it on Amazon~

Pinterest Addiction for Writers or How Pinterest can Inspire You

I admit it. I am a Pinterest addict, but I have very good reasons for it. So much of writing is about creating mental pictures for the reader to envision. As a writer, real pictures help me see what I'm trying to create mental pictures about. Have you ever written something only to come back months later, reread it, and realize you've forgotten what you wrote? The same is true of experiences and sights. Seeing a picture of your last vacation can remind you of the little details you forgot - how much you loved that Hawaiian coffee or shaved ice, how delicious the flowers in the lei smelled, how your kid's temporary tattoo looked. These are the  kinds of vivid details you need as a writer. A picture truly is worth a thousand words.


The beauty of Pinterest is there are millions of pictures there, way more experiences than any one of us could amass in a lifetime, all there for your perusal.  A lot of writers make Pinterest boards of their dream movie cast for their books, but I prefer to make my boards more inspirational. I include anything that evokes the feeling or setting of the book, probably because I make a big deal about settings.  Here are my boards for VESSEL and HUSH PUPPY.  I also make boards as I'm working on new projects to inspire me. Here's the board for CRAWDAD, a new YA contemporary story I'm querying now.

A couple of other boards I have just for fun. I made one full of writing advice and one just of libraries, cause I love them. :)  I dare you not to get sucked in!

Other writing resources I put in my Places board, which includes potential story settings from around the world.  I also have a board just for pictures of People. I keep a Fantasy board because I sometimes write fantasy too. Even if I haven't been everywhere or met everyone, Pinterest makes me feel like I could at least write about it. Yes, it could be a distraction and probably is some days, but overall I love how it allows me to capture the feel of my work in pictures.

Summer's Last Hurrah on #MondayBlogs

I know I always say go somewhere you've never been before, but this year I went somewhere I haven't been in a long time - Yellowstone.  The last time I was there was 2005, so it's been ten years. It's changed some. Now, three million people visit Yellowstone a year, so it's getting really crowded with people. So much so that the parking lots couldn't even hold everyone's vehicles and folks are parking along the highways, making trails where they aren't supposed to. As a result, we saw a lot less wildlife than usual.  We did see these lazy elk in Gardiner, Montana.

And finally after much searching, we found the bison on the east side of the park. I was starting to wonder where they all went! I almost asked the activists who were demonstrating against hazing of buffalo that leave the park.

Old Faithful was magnificent as always and the hot pools/springs were impressive, although they seemed to have less water than I remembered from years ago. I hope it's not because of the drought.

I'm afraid people are loving Yellowstone to death. It is worth seeing, but wow, there sure are a lot of us.  No trip is complete without checking out the historic lodges. Here's a pic of the inside of the Old Faithful Lodge where we enjoyed huckleberry ice cream. Pretty cool. *apologies to the random people in the pic- you were in my shot! ;)

I took the opportunity to take a break from writing and editing, which I've been doing all summer it feels like!  I have two manuscripts I'm querying and I third I need to get edited for query, not to mention the two books I'm getting ready to self publish. (If anyone is a Microsoft Word format wizard, please help!)

When I got home, I did a bit of editing on Crawdad, mostly just adding dates to the chapter headings. Reading back over it, I realized how much I loved the story. Oh man, it's good stuff. I really want to share it with you. Cross your fingers I get someone to publish it cause it's some of my best and I don't say that lightly. C'mon publishing gods! Bring me some good news!

Feels like summer is coming to an end. My kids go back to school next week, but I'm not ready to let it go. At least I have my pictures to help hold on to the memories~

Always Learning ~ The Stones are the Path

I've always been a writer, but it was about 8 or 9 years ago I decided to get serious about getting published. I took the Institute for Children's Literature correspondence course because I'd never had any true "training" and I'm a firm believer in training. I wouldn't just assume I could be a geologist without schooling. Why would I just assume I could be a writer? Returning to school for an MFA wasn't an option, so I chose correspondence. 

I also joined some writer's groups. I struggled a bit to find the best place for me, but eventually settled into the Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). Through SCBWI, I attended conferences and workshops. I was able to pitch agents and editors I never would have had access to before and meet other writers just like myself. It was refreshing because, believe me, living out in the sticks can sure make a person feel isolated. I attended non-SCBWI events as well to expand my training and to make new connections.

Since I started, I've self-published and been published by two different small presses. I still don't have an agent, but it's not for lack of trying. Over the years, I've seen a lot of other writers go through the same experiences - some self-published, some traditionally published, some with agents, some without. No one's experience is exactly the same. I feel like I've learned some things about publishing, but by no means do I know everything. What I do know is there's no one single path.

As a writer, my main concern is that I am read by others. Would I like to have a high-powered agent and be read by thousands or even millions? Sure, who wouldn't? But if I had to choose between being read by a handful of readers or not being read at all, I'd chose the former. Some writers believe they must follow the traditional path: query agent, get agent, agent makes sale. Other writers don't believe that the absence of an agent means they can't be published. They find editors willing to accept un-agented material or they self-publish. 

Either path you choose, make no mistake about it, it is a long, hard, stony path with obstacles at every turn. But as a very astute friend of mine once pointed out, perhaps the stones are the path. 

It is the journey that makes the final results worth the effort and the journey never truly ends. Publishing one book does not mean you're on easy street. The next one is just as hard, as is the next one. The process is a circle, not a line. With every new book, you begin at square one again. You write it and then you do whatever it takes to get it to your readers. The outcome is never guaranteed, unless you have a multi-book publishing deal of course. :) And even then, you have a lot of hard work ahead of you. The take away lesson for me is where I'm at today is an accomplishment to be proud of, but I will always be learning more and always traveling to see where the path leads.

Here comes June~

June National Novel Writing Month that is! 

I've got my outline mostly ready. (You never quite know about those last few chapters, if the beginning will actually take you to that ending, but it's enough to get started.) I wondered about what I should do for a long time. 

It's been in the back of my mind for months actually...what will I do for JuNoWriMo?? But an idea finally struck me that I like very much and I always try to write what I think will be the most fun for me. It's a return to my old fantasy roots, very much inspired by my Storyteller Series and various short stories I've written over the last few years. 

The working title is Troll Teeth and Other Bedtime Stories. 

Fun huh?

I always thought this was the best cover. I still love looking at it. :)

Makes me want to read Storyteller again.

Anyway, I may be a little scarce on the blog next month, but I wanted to leave all my #JuNoWriMo peeps with some wise words I recently heard from an orthodontist. Yes, a wise orthodontist. The message applies to those of my peeps who are not writing a novel in June as well. 

Here's the story~

My daughter recently got braces. If you've never had braces, you may not know how important it is to keep your teeth super clean while wearing them. If you don't, you can get lots of cavities and white spots on your teeth that will never go away. My daughter's orthodontist wants to be sure his patients understand the risks of not brushing well so he sits down with each one and has "the talk".

Now this orthodontist isn't like other dentists I've know that just lecture you. He's more of a life lesson kind of guy and this is what he said:

Effort = Success

or more exactly:

The amount of Effort = The amount of Success

It applies not only to brushing your teeth, but to a lot of things in life. The more you persist in your efforts, the more rewarded you will be, even when things get tough or boring or tedious. He called it the "messy middle". You're all excited when you start something new, but then you get to the middle and gets hard to keep going, even when you know you should. He compared it to getting through high school or college, but it made me think of writing books. 

He asked:

Have you ever heard someone say "I wish I never graduated from college"? "I wish I never graduated from high school"? or if you're a writer like me "I wish I never wrote that book and published it"? 

No, because the rewards are awesome once you've achieved your goal. But in the middle, it gets hard.

Don't quit. 

Don't even think about it.

You're a superhero.

You can do it.

Peace~

M9B Two for Thursday Book Blitz: A Shimmer of Angels and A Slither of Hope by Lisa M. Basso with Giveaway #T4T

Hello and welcome to this week’s Two for Thursday Book Blitz #T4T
presented by Month9books/Tantrum Books!

Today, we will be showcasing two titles that may tickle your fancy,
and we’ll share what readers have to say about these titles!

You just might find your next read!

This week, #T4T presents to you the Angel Sight series by Lisa M. Basso:

A Shimmer of Angels
and
A Slither of Hope!

Be sure to enter the giveaway found at the end of the post!

Sixteen-year-old Rayna sees angels, and has the medication and weekly therapy sessions to prove it. Now, in remission, Rayna starts fresh at a new school, lands a new job, and desperately tries for normalcy. She ignores signs that she may be slipping into the world she has tried so hard to climb out of. But these days, it’s more than just hallucinations that keep Rayna up at night. Students are dying, and she may be the only one who can stop it. Can she keep her job, her sanity, and her friends from dying at the hands of angels she can't admit to seeing?

Available for Purchase:

WHAT READER’S ARE SAYING:

“A Shimmer of Angels was a fantastic, extraordinary book from Month9Books. I adored it! Every single page i turned, I kept being pushed and grabbed into Reyna's world, full of angels, and maybe a few murders in between.” – Michelle, That Girly Bookwork

” It has what every Young Adult loves to read in books: romance, a good-looking and nice angel, a hot, fallen angel, drama, mystery, suspense.” – Genesis, Gen Gen Book Blog

“This book has completely caught me off guard. I thought it would be good but I didn't know it would be amazing!! I mean look at that COVER who could turn away from it?? It draws you in immediately. Then you step into the book and realize its better then you could have expected.” –Courtney, Bookaholicsxoxo

Rayna struggles to piece her life back together, but hiding in plain sight from the police, the SS Crazy, and the Fallen isn’t a foolproof plan—something Kade, the World’s Worst Roommate, reminds her of everyday. The late nights of failing to teach Ray how to protect herself against the Fallen are getting to Kade, changing him in ways he doesn’t like, and after a family emergency sends Ray back into Cam’s arms, Kade decides he’s had enough. News of Rayna’s resurfacing brings both angels and the Fallen to San Francisco by the dozens, all eyes scouring the city for the girl with the gray wings. Rayna will need both Kade and Cam’s help to ensure her family’s safety, navigate the new dangers and enemies springing up all over the city, and manage the surprises that arise with her new set of wings.

Available for Purchase:

WHAT READER’S ARE SAYING:
“I was literally biting my nails because the intensity of the story was so strong…” – Genesis, Gen Gen Book Blog

“Suspenseful with a different take on angels, A Slither of Hope has only strengthened my admiration of the Angel Sight series and my place in the fandom of Lisa M. Basso.” – Laurie, Author

“She does a great job with the angels versus demons theme in both books and really makes the characters come to life for the reader so that we feel their pain and suffering and when they succeed we feel like WE have accomplished something too” – Erika, WS Momma Readers Nook

Lisa M. Basso was born and raised in San Francisco, California. She is a lover of books, video games, animals, and baking (not baking with animals though). As a child she would crawl into worlds of her own creation and get lost for hours. Her love for YA fiction started with a simple school reading assignment: S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders. When not reading or writing she can usually be found at home with The Best Boyfriend Fiancé that Ever Lived ™ and her two darling (and sometimes evil) cats, Kitties A and B.

Author Links: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Complete the Rafflecopter for a chance to win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Empty Cup Blog Tour with @Chapterxchapter

Welcome to the Empty Cup Blog Tour!  Enter the giveaway

and then read on down the blog for an interview with the quirky main characters!

a Rafflecopter giveaway



Winner will be drawn March 27, 2015

· Two (2) winners will received a physical copy of Empty Cup by Suzanne Costigan (US/Canada)
· Five (5) winners will receive a digital copy of Empty Cup by Suzanne Costigan (INT)

~About the Book~

Title: Empty Cup
Publication date: November 3, 2014
Publisher: Rebelight Publishing Inc.
Author: Suzanne Costigan

Mom’s new boyfriend is creepy.

On the night of her seventeenth birthday, Raven finds out he isn’t just creepy, he’s dangerous. He leaves Raven broken and bleeding, but Mom blames her for what happened. She kicks Raven out of the house with nothing but a blanket to protect her from a frigid winter night.

Alone.

Devastated.

Abandoned.

As Raven struggles with the aftermath of the ultimate betrayal, she seeks solace in her imagination and a teacher who seems to understand her situation. She ultimately discovers that her world won’t change if she relies upon someone else to do it. Real change begins within.

“…Sure to prompt reflection and provocative discussions on important issues.”
-Allan Stratton, author of Leslie’s Journal

“Not an easy story, but an important one. Compelling, powerful, and engaging.”
-Eric Walters, author of Power Play.

~About the Author~

Suzanne Costigan is a child welfare advocate, supporting high risk children in her home, and an active member of the Winnipeg writing community. Empty Cup is her first novel.

Connect with the Author: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

 

~Character Interview~

Author Szanne Costigan interviews Raven and Cole one week before the story begins:


Raven: Omg, are you stoned and we're being interviewed?

Cole: Uh, yeah.

Raven: You're going to embarrass me on this blog. 

Cole: Come on Raaavenn. I'd never do that. *LOL*

Interviewer: Did you just say that you're stoned? 

Raven: *points her finger* He is. He always is.  

Interviewer: Do you have a drug problem, Cole?

Cole: I'll take the fifth. Thanks.

Interviewer: The fifth? As in you're not talking about it?

Cole: Coorrrect.

Raven: He's dealing with some stuff... uh, his parents, umm--

Cole: Not talking about it. Neither are you, thanks. 

Interviewer: Okay. Well, we were here to discuss your plans for after high school. Should we talk about that?

Cole: I plan to watch TV. 

Raven *rolls eyes* I'm not sure what I want to do yet. I'll need to work and save up. I'll still be working at The Funky Bean and I'm hoping for full time so I can get my own place. Live with a friend maybe. Lyla.  

Cole: He He, yeah, you need your own place. You could live with me you know. 

Raven: Like hell. No way. 

Cole: What? Why not? 

Raven: Well for one - you're stoned all the time.

Cole: Maybe I won't be when you move in. 

Raven: I'm not moving in!

Interviewer: All right... so, Raven, you want to move out on your own. Do you plan to go to college or university?

Cole: You should, you're smart. 

Raven: I'd like to. But I don't know what I want to do yet. I'd need to pay for it, so part-time maybe. Ideally, I won't be here in Winnipeg, so I would go to school somewhere else. 

Interviewer: You just said you wanted to work full time at the Funky Bean. 

Raven: Yeah, I do. I mean. I will work there, as long as I'm living here. But one day, I don't want to live here. I want to go away, you know, with someone. 

Cole: Someone? Who?

Raven: I don't know yet. 

Cole: One of those knights in shining armor you always draw? Going to whisk you off into the sunset? *LOL*

Interviewer: You'd like to leave Winnipeg? 

Raven: Yes. 

Interviewer: If you left Winnipeg, where would you go? 

Raven: Anywhere my mom is not. 

Interviewer: Interesting. You don't get along with your mother?

Cole: *LOL* She's a high strung biatch! Raven shouldn't live with her now. 

Raven: Cole, leave it. I'll umm... take the fifth. 

Interviewer: I see. Ok, well... you like to draw?

Raven: Yeah, I love to draw. I have a sketchbook in my room. 

Cole: She's a good drawer.

Raven: Shut up, Cole. 

Cole: What? She is! You are!

Interviewer: Well, I do wish you both all the best with your last semester of grade 12. Cole, I hope your TV watching dreams come true. And Raven, you never know, maybe your knight in shining armor will find you and you both live happily ever after.

Cole: Ahem... I'm that knight. 

Raven: Shut up. Cole... 

 

Ramblings of an Obsessive Compulsive Writer~

Just an update for the peeps who might be interested in my writing journey.  I had hoped to report something new on the writing front by now - a new sale or a new agent - alas, no dice yet But!

I am completeing the final, final round of edits on Vessel this month and getting ready for it's release in May. The publisher Month9Books just announced an opportunity for book review bloggers to obtain early copies in exchange for honest reviews. If you're one of those bloggers and you want to read Vessel, go here!

 

If you're not a book review blogger, I guess you'll have to wait a little longer, but you can still put Vessel on your Goodreads list and tell all your friends to do the same. :)

 

In the meantime, I'll be finishing edits on two more manuscripts and continuing the search for their forever homes with the right publisher(s) over the next few months. I've enjoyed writing them simultaneously, even though they're very different from each other. One is Crawdad, a contemporary, multicultural story similar to Hush Puppy, while the other is a fantasy/adventure steam punk similar in some ways to my Storyteller series. If only writing them was a easy as making Pinterest boards for them. Whew!  Lots to do!

 

Happy Reading Peeps!

 

 

What are you reading right now?

I hope you're reading something! Give your brain a rest from television and dig into a book if you haven't in a while.

I've been reading science fiction lately from three very different authors and it struck me how very different their books are from one another. Is it because of the intended audience? Two are set in space and the third is about interdimentional travel, which is maybe more fantasy than scifi, but oh presented as if it's made possible by science.

The first book was Dawn by Octavia Butler set in space on an alien ship where the last remaining humans are being held captive until the Earth has recovered enough from WW III to be habitable again. And woah is it weird! Mainly because the aliens are rather sea slug-like and they want to hybridize with us humans. The humans don' thave a whole lot of choice because they wouldn't even be alive if the aliens hadn't saved them, but they sure don't want to be "owned" by these aliens.

This book gives an interesting look at what might happen if you throw the survivors of a catastrophic war in a room together. I'm afraid Butler's take is the worst of human nature comes out, not the best. It's like Survivor the TV show meets Animal Farm. (Butler wrote this long before Survivor ever came out.) It's well written and somewhat disturbing, but there's no purple prose. It moves along at a steady clip and has you wondering the entire time.

The next is Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton. Great cover, huh? I have to admit I'm nowhere near done with this one. It's like 1,000 pages long. I chose it because I've never read the usual popular science fiction, hard core stuff, (aside from Dune) and I thought I should give it a shot. It's all about world building, lemme tell you! Humans have colonized dozens and dozens of planets and are expanding their range. They've figured out how to rejuvenate their cells so they can live for hundreds of years and they've got wormholes to make interplanetary travel easy. The actual plot is a bit fuzzy for me because so much time is spent on this world building and hopping from one seemingly random character to the next. I'm sure they'll all meet eventually, but just how or why I'm not sure. So far, it strikes me as a detective/mystery story in space. There's something going on way out on a new planet and humans want to go see what's happening there, so that new discovery aspect is kind of cool.

Overall, I find myself wishing for a hero.  None of the characters sticks with the reader long enough for me to get attached to them or care about what happens to them. I'm really a character-driven story kind of person at heart. I need that to really enjoy a  story, I'm afraid, so while I can read this, I don't see myself falling in love with it unless something changes really quick! My biggest gripe with the book is humans are still driving cars on the ground. All this technology and we still don't have flying cars?? Really??

The last book is A Thousand Peices of You by Claudia Gray about some teens who have the ability to jump to other dimensions parallel to our own in persuit of a supposed murderer. While the Peter Hamilton book describes how every technology works in great detail, this book doesn't describe it's technology at all!  You just have to buy that it works because a teenage girl is telling this story, and she's not too wrapped up in the technicalities of it all. And I suppose that difference is because the audience is teenage girls, not scifi geeks. Which is fine. I'm all for knowing your audience and tailoring your writing style to that audience. Maybe call it scifi lite? Really, really lite.

It think this fact might have been the downfall of this book as science fiction, asking the reader to suspend TOO much disbelief. It follows 3 main characters that travel to like four different "dimensions", but some how these other dimensions seem way in the future or far in the past. One is very similar to the real one they live in with only a few changes, but the others are vastly different: futuristic London, czarist Russia, and a climate changed water world. They're supposedly jumping into the bodies of their parallel selves living in these other dimensions. Maybe the idea was, if something different happened at a key point in history, the dimension would be vastly different, but it's so glossed over I missed that along the way. The places they went, while cool, seemed very random. There wasn't a lot of reason so go to any of them, just that they were pursuing a supposed murderer.

I guess the take home lesson for me is each author brings a different story to a different audience. All of these books are well loved, best sellers for various reasons. What's your favorite science fiction novel?

Cover Reveal: Nobody’s Goddess by Amy McNulty #M9BFridayReveals

Welcome to the Cover Reveal for

Nobody's Goddess (The Never Veil #1)
by Amy McNulty

presented by Month9Books!

Be sure to enter the giveaway found at the end of the post!

In a village of masked men, each loves only one woman and must follow the commands of his “goddess” without question. A woman may reject the only man who will love her if she pleases, but she will be alone forever. And a man must stay masked until his goddess returns his love—and if she can’t or won’t, he remains masked forever.

Where the rest of her village celebrates this mystery that binds men and women together, seventeen year old Noll is just done with it. She’s lost all her childhood friends as they’ve paired off, but the worst blow was when her closest companion, Jurij, finds his goddess in Noll’s own sister. Desperate to find a way to break this ancient spell, Noll instead discovers why no man has ever loved her: she is in fact the goddess of the mysterious lord of the village, a Byronic man who refuses to let Noll have her right as a woman to spurn him and who has the power to fight the curse. Thus begins a dangerous game between the two: the choice of woman versus the magic of man. And the stakes are no less than freedom and happiness, life and death—and neither Noll nor the veiled man is willing to lose.

Title: Nobody's Goddess (The Never Veil #1)
Publication date: April 21, 2015
Publisher: Month9Books, LLC.
Author: Amy McNulty

Amy McNulty is a freelance writer and editor from Wisconsin with an honors degree in English. She was first published in a national scholarly journal (The Concord Review) while in high school and currently spends her days alternatively writing on business and marketing topics and primarily crafting stories with dastardly villains and antiheroes set in fantastical medieval settings.

Connect with the Author: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

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