Where Does the Time Go?

Okay, where did the time go? I know I put it here somewhere, but now it's all gone. Looking at the blog today I can't believe it was June when I last posted something. Don't get me wrong, I've been busy, but June?
 
I'll try to make this quick. The summer saw me finishing the rewrites on The Empress Sword and generally getting it into a final draft. I'd like to thank everyone who helped me out as a beta reader or doing line editing. The book is in pretty good shape (if I had my druthers I'd still be tweaking it) and they tell me it's ready for prime time.
 
On Labor Day weekend Michael Natale won the Parsec Award in the Best Speculative Fiction (Short Form) category that I was nominated in with his story Under The Bed from the Variant Frequencies podcast. Congratulations to Michael and all the Parsec winners!
 
While all that was going on in Atlanta, I was taking a two week vacation from my day job to record The Empress Sword for audio. My voice didn't hold out well enough to get it all recorded in that short time (and I had other distractions of a vacationary nature), but I have since gotten it finished and the episodes are almost ready for submission to Podiobooks.com.
 
I've been putting together the cast for the audio experience podcast and sent out scripts a couple of weeks ago. All of this is planned to drop on Thanksgiving Day. The podiobook version will be available, in its entirety, on that day and is a straight reading by me of the unabridged book. Also dropping that day will be the first episode of the podcast version which will include guest voices doing the dialog, background music and sound effects. There will also be some chatter about the book, my writing, the agent search and plenty of opportunity for listener feedback.
 
On the 1st of October I sent out queries to a bunch of agents. This is the first step in trying to get The Empress Sword published. I don't really have high hopes for this initial query and frankly I'll be lucky to have any of them even ask to read the book. I am the queen of form letter rejections after all! I'll be sure to let you know if anything happens.
 
So that's the quick and dirty catch up on what's been happening. Hopefully I won't wait this long again (not that I'm making any promises) because exciting things are in the works. One of those things may be the moving of this blog to PauletteJaxton.com in the near future. Hopefully I'll be able to get the RSS feed here to forward to the new location. If not I'll tell you when and where to re-subscribe.
 
Thanks for hanging in there. See you soon(er)!

It Really Is An Honor!

Hopefully you already know about my short story podcast, Form Letter Rejection Theatre. It was short lived, but I managed to make a little impact with it before my day job, the worsening economy and other obligations forced me to focus on different things. Just how much impact became clear this week when I was informed I'd been nominated for a Parsec Award in the Best Speculative Fiction (Short Form) category!

For those who aren't familiar with the Parsec, it's an award presented every year at Dragon*Con to the previous year's best science fiction and fantasy podcasts in one of sixteen categories. Founded in 2006 by Mur Lafferty, Tracy Hickman and Michael R. Mennenga, the Parsec has quickly become the premier award for genre podcasters. Being nominated is really quite something, especially because the nominations were made by the public, that's you guys!

I was asked to submit a ten minute sample of the program which I did using the story Thanks for the Memories. That has now gone to the Parsec Awards Steering Committee. They will judge the submissions and select the finalists. The winners will then be announced at this year's Dragon*Con on September 5th.

I know it sometimes sounds trite when an artist says they are honored just to be nominated for an award, but now that I'm in that position I can tell you truthfully that I am deeply honored. I know some of the other stories that have been nominated in my category and they're all quite awesome. Win or lose, I'm in humbling company.

Thank you all for making Form Letter Rejection Theatre what it was and for those who voted to nominate it for the Parsec Award, you rawk!

UPDATE: (July 24th) The finalists for the Parsec Awards were posted today and FLRT did not make the final cut. While I'm disappointed, I remain excited for those nominees who did make the list of finalists. Please go have a look and then visit the nominated podcasts. They're the best of the best this year!

Balticon 43 Was a Blast

And speaking of Balticon 43 which happened Memorial Day weekend, I had a blast! I was kept super busy with all the panels I was on, helping out with recording other panels and author readings, and babysitting for friends whose little ones are still a little too young to sit quietly while mommy and daddy are being awesome.

Balticon is the annual convention of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for inviting me to the con. I really hope I make the list for next year as well. I think I might, people whose opinions I really trust tell me I did okay for a first timer. Thomas "Cmdln" Gideon went so far as to mention me in his blog. Check it out at The Command Line and yes, I'm embarrassed, but also very thankful for such high praise.

I'm looking forward to attending more local conventions as a guest. Hopefully by the time I have The Empress Sword ready for podcasting, I'll also have a few appearances lined up. I'll be sure to let you all know when and where those may be.

Rewrites on the book are going well. I've finished a complete line edit of the first draft (boy where there a lot of little mistakes) and I've started rewriting a few chapters that I think can be better. I should be sending the final draft out to Beta Readers soon and then start the agent hunt. I'll be recording the podiobook version as soon as the pollen count gives me back my voice.

That's it for the updates. Hope you all have a wonderful summer!

Nina Kimberly pimpage

I started listening to the podcast version of Nina Kimberly the Merciless just before Memorial Day back in 2007. Coincidentally I met the author, Christiana Ellis, at Balticon 41 for the first time that same weekend. This is how I came to discover one of the most creative and funny people I know all in the span of a single week.

Nina Kimberly the Merciless is a comedic fantasy novel telling the coming of age story of a most unlikely heroine, the teenage daughter of the once feared barbarian horde leader Marcus the Merciless. Like most young girls all Nina wants is to find love and adventure in the world, if she has to lop off a few heads along the way so be it.

Christiana is one of the pioneers of podcast noveling and has since gone on to do a hilarious audio drama called Space Casey and a very funny stream of consciousness daily cast called Christiana's Shallow Thoughts that just wrapped up after a year of awesomeness.

The podcast version of this novel was a delight to listen to and I've been anxiously awaiting the print version for two years. The book is now being published by Dragon Moon Press and goes on sale May 15th, 2009. It's available from Amazon and you can help out Christiana by purchasing your copy on that date. I can't recommend this book too highly, it's a hoot and you will enjoy every funny twist and turn.

Balticon #43 on Memorial Day Weekend

It's kind of like coming of age for a new writer/podcaster to be asked to present at Balticon 43. I've never been a panelist at a convention before and being a guest at Balticon is a very great honor indeed.

Balticon is the annual convention of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society held each Memorial Day weekend at Marriott's Hunt Valley Inn near Baltimore, Maryland. This year that will be May 22nd-25th.

I'm scheduled to be on six panels over the course of the four day convention. (All dates and times are subject to change.)

• Fri. 19:00 - Podcasting 101
  
• Sat. 12:00 - Podcast Hosting
  
• Sat. 19:00 - Audio Craft Corner
  
• Sat. 22:00 - Social Media for Writers
  
• Sun. 19:00 - Podcasting 102
  
• Mon. 10:00 - Herding Cats
  

I'm actually chairing that last one, "Herding Cats; Organization and Editing of Large Voice Casts". Where I and a couple of veteran podcasters will share what we have learned about giving voices to our writing. And what you'll have in store for you if you choose to go that route.

I hope you can join me at Balticon 43. If you do, please drop in on one of my panels and say hello.

New Novel Started

I started writing my next project this morning. I was going to wait until I had done some more world building before beginning to write Priestess of the Flame, but I just missed writing every day too much and I couldn't help myself. It is a novel based on my short story Divine Fire and will follow the life of Celeste D'Anjou from her childhood discovery that she can control and manipulate fire, through her years of training to become a priestess of the Divine Flame, then the downfall of that religion and the subsequent persecution of all who believe in the magic of fire. The writing of it will be a long journey (The Empress Sword took me two long years to write), but I'll be sure to let you all know how it's going.

In other news I received the mapping software from ProFantasy and it is amazing. It will take me a long time to figure out everything I can do with it, but for now I have a basic map of The Empress Sword's kingdom of Caledon that I can use for rewrites and I'm working on city maps for the three main towns in the story. Priestess of the Flame will be set in a fantasy variation of France, so I'm also trying to figure out how to import real-world maps into the program.

I'm still waiting on some feedback from the alpha readers, but I'm chomping at the bit to begin rewrites on The Empress Sword. They've already given me some wonderful ideas for making the book even more exciting and I'm looking forward to letting you all hear the podcast version hopefully this fall. Stay tuned as I learn just how hard rewrites really are! ;)

First Draft Finished

The first draft of The Empress Sword is finished! I completed the second of two supplemental chapters I wanted to add this morning. That brings the final word count to 80,541 words, just a little over my target of eighty thousands words. I expect this will go up during the rewrite, as I have been getting some supportive feedback from my alpha readers telling me they want more.

My plan is to put the draft aside for a month to give me a little distance from it, then begin my rewrites at the end of April. In the mean time I'm going to be doing some much needed reverse world building for The Empress Sword as well as begin the process for my next book project Priestess of the Flame.

I promised myself that when I completed the first draft I would give myself a reward. I wanted something that would help me in the next phase and also be fun for a tech geek like myself to play with. So I purchased a set of mapping programs from ProFantasy Software. The programs are designed for use by the role play gaming industry, but can also be used for the sort of world building I need for epic fantasy writing.

A side benefit of using these programs will be that I'll have some wonderful maps and city plans to supplement the novel when it's released. My worlds will have a beautiful visual component to go along with -- what I hope are -- the stunning narrative descriptions.