Plans for 2024

First off, I have no plans for further books in the Viridian series. Sorry.

In person appearances

I will be selling the paperbacks at Craft Fairs again this year. I have the following dates/venues booked. I may add more after the summer. These are all in Hampshire, UK, except Chichester, which is West Sussex.

  • April 27th – Romsey Town Hall
  • May 11th – Chichester Meeting Rooms (provisional)
  • May 25th – Lyndhurst Community Centre
  • June 8th – Romsey Town Hall
  • June 22nd – Lymington Masonic Hall
  • July 13th – Chichester (provisional)
  • July 27th – Lyndhurst Community Centre
  • August 10th – Lymington Masonic Hall
  • August 31st – Romsey Town Hall

Prices have risen for 2024; I am hoping to keep the paperbacks at £14 for the Craft Fairs while stocks last, but the online RRP is £15. 40% of that goes to the retailer and distributor. Ebook prices remain the same.

Website maintenance

My websites have used the same format (with different colours and some design tweaks) for nearly seven years, which surprised me. I think they are beginning to look their age. So it’s time for me to modernise them, with extra thought on how it presents on mobile devices.

This website will be my testbed, since it is relatively small, intricate enough, and some sections could do with a revamp or update. Sometimes I can try things out and it not show, but sometime you might just come visiting when I’ve made it look a mess. Or when I’ve made it public to get some feedback, in which case, feel free to give feedback!

Zanzibar’s Rings is touring the blogiverse

Zanzibar's Rings Available now
Zanzibar's Rings virtual book tour

What’s in the virtual book tour?

Guest posts, interviews, reviews, and various other things. I thoroughly enjoyed doing the posts people asked for – a letter to the reader from one, a character interview for Maggie for another, several author interviews. Three versions of 10 things you didn’t know about….

Outside the organised tour, Patricia Josephine (aka Patricia Lynne) is featuring a post where she asked “why do I write science fiction?” That had me stumped for ages! I’d also like to thank Alex J Cavanaugh, Rebecca Douglass, Shannon at the Warrior Muse, WillowDot (WillowWillers), Steph Wolmarans and Natalie Aguirre for additional support, sometimes linked with the IWSG, sometimes just because they want to.

I’m slightly disappointed at the number of blogs for which I wrote unique content that don’t appear to have any commenters or social media presence. And only two review posts. The tour organiser is sharing them, though, so I hope it will have been worthwhile.

Book tour dates and venues

Tuesday, February 15

Virtual Book Tour Kick Off at PUYB Virtual Book Club

Alex J Cavanaugh feature

Wednesday, February 16

Guest Blogging at The Warrior Muse

Book Review at Book Corner News and Reviews

The Appeal of Science Fiction – guest post at PJ&L

Thursday, February 17

Guest Blogging at The Story Behind the Book

Book Feature Highlight at Jazzy Book Reviews

Monday, February 21

Interview at The Writer’s Life e-Magazine

Tuesday, February 22

Happy Book Birthday at PUYB Virtual Book Club

Book launch – Rebecca Douglass

Thursday, February 24

Guest interview with WillowDot21

Friday, February 25

Guest Blogging at b for bookreview

Tuesday, March 1

Book Feature Highlight at Sybrina’s Book Blog

Wednesday, March 2

Guest feature at Steph Wolmarans, Tea, Sigh, Create

Friday, March 4

Guest Blogging at All the Ups and Downs

Monday, March 7

Guest Blogging at Blogging Authors

Thursday, March 10

Guest Blogging at Lynn’s Romance Enthusiasm

Book Review at The Faery Review

Monday, March 14

Character Interview at The Literary Nook

Feature in the IWSG Follower News (Natalie Aguirre)

Tuesday, March 15

Guest Blogging at Dear Reader, Love Author

Thank you all for taking part. I really appreciate it.

Zanzibar's Rings Available now

Zanzibar’s Rings is the final book of the Viridian System series

Ebook links:  AmazoniTunesB&NKobobooks, and Smashwords.

Also in paperback

zanzibar's rings available now

See the book pages for full details.

September 2021 update #Viridianseries #amediting

zanzibars rings draft cover

September 2021. I’ve finished Zanzibar’s Rings. Well, enough to send it off to the editor and beta readers. I’m really honoured they should give up their time for this.

The rest of the plan

I hope to have all the comments on the manuscript back by early November, and work on rewrites until Christmas, and send it for checking again if necessary in the ealry new year.

If that goes to plan then we are on schedule for a launch date of 22nd February 2022. In English, that’s 22.02.2022. I couldn’t resist it when I realised.

Before that, I expect to have a cover reveal in early December, to start to raise awareness, if that’s possible. Although it has slipped out in a couple of places (will a couple by the time December comes, I hope not more than that). The monochrome ringed planet on the draft cover is just for now. More colour is coming! I will need people to host cover reveal (and/or launch) posts, so let pme know if you can help.

Then the launch plan. I don’t know whether to do very much. The last in series launch seems relatively low-key, since if most people haven’t read the first two… well, I suppose it’s an opportunity to grab new readers for the series, and that can only be good.

  • Launch post
  • Guest appearances
  • Possible virtual tour during February and March 2022
  • Giveaway

Those seem to be the things I’ve always done, and I still wonder whether they work nowadays. I probably should be doing video launches and podcasts. But I think I should stick with my skill set for now, and see what happens.

You can pre-order Zanzibar’s Rings!

You can–if you’re really keen, you can pre-order it already. That would be wonderful! Here are the links:

Amazon ~~~ Apple iBooks ~~~ B&N(Nook) ~~~ Kobo ~~~ Scribd ~~~ Smashwords

And, yes, there will be a paperback version. More news of that in the new year.

What comes after…?

I have some ideas for a new setting for a science fiction novel. It might give me scope to try some new ideas (to me, not to the scifi world, I’m afraid.) I may well keep this website as the showcase for all my scifi work, though. I hope that will make sense, in the long term.

Some of the Viridian characters appear in my short story collection Snowflakes and Shivers, due out in October. I have some other pieces written about the Viridian world, and as I’m planning to remove the VS Sampler from the Smashwords shelves, there may be room for a more organised library here.

And I was planning at one stage to put the Cavalieri-Chang Universal Word Usage entries here (the snippets beneath each chapter heading.) I’m not sure whether I will or not. It seemed a suitably offbeat thing to do in 2013, but now? Well…

Plenty to think about!

Zanzibar’s Rings – now editing

zanzibars rings draft cover

Zanzibar’s Rings has reached the stage of editing. This process is likely to take some time…

My process

First I read through and made immediate changes to typos, wrong words, and marked where I felt I had a potential continuity error. I also added notes about checking the science (there is some!), and a few other technical issues. If you read my blog regularly you’ll have heard about these, probably in my IWSG posts.

The next stage is to go through line by line and think of how the sentence works, how the scene works, and whether my Point of View is correct. I’m finding that difficult, particularly when I’m in third person POV for Pete, say, then he starts thinking or calculating his way out of a problem. I’m trying to treat it as unvoiced speech, but it looks odd.

I’m also making more notes on bits of plot that seem to contradict each other, or where I’ve started with one intention, then not carried it through. I’ll have to come back and rewrite bits later once I’ve decided what really happens. For now I’m trying to make it reasonably good.

After this run through, I’ll ponder the plot points that need untangling, and do anything I’ve told myself I have to do/decide before I go further. I know the timeline, and whether my current flow of scenes works, are part of that.

Next version

When I think I’ve got it in shape, I’ll write anything that’s missing, and cut things that don’t work (I’ll save them as an older draft and create the next file version).

Then the biggie… going through with a bit of computer help to find all my favourite words that I overuse, and all the trigger and filter words that need to be worked on. There’s quite a long list, but experience helps, and the computer finds every occurrence of them.

Then I’ll do another read through, probably out loud–someone gets the computer to read it for her, which sounds amazing and I might try that instead. That’ll pick up more wrong words, typos, run-on sentences, and things that just don’t sound right.

And after that, it should be ready for my beta readers….

And what I’d really like to do now is work on the cover, as I have to get a banner made for September. Watch for news of why!

I’ve finished writing Zanzibar’s Rings! #viridianseries

zanzibars rings draft cover

Finishing a book is a great feeling, so why was I so sad last night?  Well, I’ve written the last Viridian System book, and have to say goodbye to many people I like.

I’ve been fairly useless in the real world for the past week, I was so immersed in the world of my imagination.

First draft of Zanzibar’s Rings

zanzibars rings draft cover
Draft cover

This of course is just the first draft.  It is covered with notes to myself, whether the need to check (with the text written already, or with someone knowledgeable). There are several plot points that haven’t made their way in. Some names may be changed. There are places more description is needed. And apart from going through with the spellchecker, I need to go through looking for typos, including names inconsistently spelled, and my favourite over-used or wrongly used words. Plus generally just improve it; tighten up scenes, clarify some things I’ve done too cryptically. It’s currently just over 88k words. I expect it will finish up at around 84k or so.

I’ll set it aside for a month or so, to come at it fresh, and hope to work on it enough so that my beta readers have a copy to comment on by late summer.

At present I’m working on a target publication date of 22nd February 2022.

Pre-order already!

I’ve registered the ebook as a pre-order with Amazon, iTunes, B&N and Kobobooks. It’s listed as $2.99 but that might change (up or down). The date might change, too.

Here’s how the blurb looks now. It’ll be improved, and extended, as we near publication.

A Galactic crisis: the entire comms system destroyed. No waypoints, no navigation aids, no database access… and how will spaceships in flight get home–or to any destination? Dolores is stuck in warp with a very dangerous passenger, Pete gets his shuttle back home on manual. But how come anything in close contact with pure orichalcum fixes itself? Just flying through Zanzibar’s Rings solves the problem–as the Federation’s fighters find, as they descend on the Viridian System to take possession of the planets.

Zanzibar’s Rings by Jemima Pett, expected 22 Feb 2022

Beta readers wanted

I’m always happy to hear from people who have read the previous books and would like to be considered as beta readers.

Beta readers have to pick holes in the plot, spot inconsistencies in the story, generally give a reader’s view in the sort of nice way that doesn’t send me into the depths of despair, and get your responses to me in the right timeframe.

Just leave a comment to if you’re willing below, and I’ll pick your email address up from the system.

I’ve started writing Zanzibar’s Rings! #viridianseries

Zanzibar’s Rings is the third and probably final book in the series. “Probably’ because the intention is for everything to come together and end in a final situation.  But with my way of working, some other grand idea might turn up and insert something else which ends up needing another final book!

Zanzibar’s plan

My plan is to write it between now and the end of April, which is a target of only around 1000 words a day, and I generally write 2-3000 a day when I’m working on a book.  It kind of takes over my brain, and I live in the story.  It helps me remember what I’m doing and who’s doing what! So, unless I have a lot of changes to make to another book currently with beta readers, I should finish by the end of April.

But then the hard work starts. The checking, finding plot holes, double checking that everything follows on logically, that nobody is sent off to do something and never comes back (and nobody notices). Or comes back having done something else entirely but the thing they were to do has magically happened.  These things can be notoriously difficult even for the best of editors. One faux pas slipped through the final editing of one of my other recent books: it’s easy to change the ebook, but very difficult to change the paperback!

Target for publishing

If all goes well, it might be nearly ready by Christmas. But that’s a really bad time to bring out a new book so it’s more likely to be targeted at February or March 2022. I hope that will give me plenty of time to give the series a boost, and get more interest going.

It’s always good to get new viewpoints on a series, so if you’ve read either or both of the first two, and would like to be a beta reader, please let me know.

Would you like a sneak peak at the current first line (I told you it’s not a kids series!)

Lars Nilsson, sometimes known as the Swede, ambled into the kitchen, scratching his groin and yawning.

It might be cut, so don’t be surprised if it changes.

Short Stories

Meanwhile, I’m launching a series of flash fiction books, just 30,000 words or so for each volume, between the beginning of March and July. There’s plenty of fantasy and weird domestic science fiction in it, but very little set in space. Well, one or two. Mainly alien species 🙂 Look out for more details on Jemima’s blog on March 3rd, or click the badge for a special offer (expires end of 3rd March).

I also have some stand alone Viridian short stories roaming around. I may do a new version of the Viridian System Sampler, or just a second volume, because these are mainly backstory for the characters. But that’s for 2023, probably!

Flash fiction collection badge

Viridian System Plans for 2021

Looking back on past posts, not only has the news been sparse, it’s been somewhat repetitive. This is little different. Don’t get your hopes up too much.

Zanzibar’s Rings (VS #3)

The series was always intended to be completed in an interregnum between my other series publications. Since that’s now complete, I have no more excuses.

I have plenty of ideas for the third Big Pete and the Swede adventure, in particular making it more about Dolores and Maggie, and less about Lars and Pete. Several plot strands have developed and linked together in my mind. The story I wrote for the IWSG Anthology submission developed some history. These events will be crucial to Zanzibar’s plot. There is also a flash fiction I did years ago which is relevant, in fact it gave me the idea for giving the fourth planet rings and making it a place of interest.

What I don’t yet know is whether the arrival on Sunset Strip of the former inhabitants of Corsair will make a difference. I envisage Pete having some inner conflict about his priorities, now that his family are nearby. Then again, sometimes having family nearby leads to its own problems!

Lars is still dogged by the activities of his father in the area. I’ll have to check whether I’ve let that cat out of the bag, or whether you had already worked it out during book 2. I’m not sure where that ends yet.

Maggie and Dolores are characters I’m enjoying developing to take over the limelight from the men. I’ve pretty much sorted out most of Dolores’ character arc for the story; I haven’t done the same for Maggie. Some of the events taking place elsewhere may lead to Maggie taking a very different path from her current domestic bliss.

Will there be a book 4?

I don’t anticipate a fourth book. Something strange would have to happen for that to be the case. But stories develop in their own way, and who knows what strings will be dangling by the time I finish writing book 3.

What I will say, is that my development of a Space Search and Rescue Service (I’m sure the second S was something else before) could be included on this website, as it is in the same ‘world’ as the Viridian System, if not in the same time or space. I think I ought to develop a badge for it.

Housekeeping

I’ll be doing some housekeeping soon, to take off out-of-date posts like special offers. Progress reports will stay as that’s sometimes helpful when I look back. Hopefully I’ll be able to sort out the problem graphics as well.

End of Year sale

The Viridian books are in the Smashwords sale between December 18th and January 1st, so check that out if you need them. If you want paperbacks, you should be able to buy them at online stores or order from your local store using their ISBNs. They are distributed by Ingram.

Happy New Year!

pexels-photo-5716815.jpeg
Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

Technical hitch and work in progress

breakdown

Firstly apologies for the technical hitch affecting several images, mostly newer ones.  This is down to software handling my wordpress blog, which creates up to eight copies of an image I upload, in a variety of sizes. This creates a huge drain on the database, which means the website takes longer to load.  And if I exceed my storage space, it fails completely.

So, I went and deleted some of the biggest files, leaving the smaller copies that I use behind. And this is the result. Despite having all these pictures in smaller sizes I display, the software needs the original picture to produce them.  It sounds like a nonsense, and really, it is.  Someone had a good idea of how to speed image handling up, then failed to deal with the program aspect.

I was sort of hoping someone would fix it in a wordpress upgrade… but so far no joy.  I suppose they think everybody has unlimited space on their servers.

When I have more time I will housekeep on the site and restore the pictures to current versions.  Meanwhile I apologise for the question marks in the images.

Work in Progress

Really, all the writing and editing work in progress at present is on the Princelings series.  Lars, Pete, Dolores and Maggie are by no means forgotten.  I have two interesting strands for starting book 3 mapped out in my head… I must make some notes on file!

I’ve also decided once again that this is the last Viridian series book – but not my last scifi book.

There’s a small idea which I got at Christmas for a rescue service along the lines of the AA/RAC/Green Flag/AAA – or something like that.  It wouldn’t work in the Viridian System; it would have to be in a more densely populated area of space with lots of private shuttles flying around.  At the moment I’m calling it Space Shuttle Emergency Rescue Service or SSERS for short, but if you can come up with a service name I’ll not only thank you, but make you a character in the story!

That’s about all the idea is at present, but if you check out the blog on February 14th, you’ll discover a first stab at using the idea for a flash fiction.

First idea for Book 3’s cover

zanzibars rings draft cover

Zanzibar’s Rings is the title of Book 3 in the Viridian series, but I haven’t even written the first draft yet!

Why am I thinking about its cover?

I’m planning some promotional material ahead of the autumn and hopefully book stalls at fairs etc. And expenditure on a scifi series of three with only two book covers is a bit… wasteful, in my mind. I got away with only seven covers out of ten for my other series, but I sort of faded the eighth one (then in production) off into the distance in the bottom of the banner.

With only three books in the Viridian series, the banner and any promotional material should have three covers.

So, here’s your chance to look at my first idea for the cover. If I could get the titling to look like the others it would be even better.

Your thoughts are very welcome.

Zanzibar's Rings first draft. A saturn-like planet covers the lower foreground against a background of Viridian coloured space

Special Offer during July

While I’m here, I’d better tell you that The Perihelix is free during July at Smashwords, and Curved Space to Corsair is half-price. It’s the Smashwords Winter-Summer Sale, and runs from 1st to 31st, Pacific Time.

Nip over to my book page to check them out, along with all my other titles on offer.