Cooking Up Something New

Things kind of fell off a cliff for me after my last book. Who knew putting out 13 books in 5 years could be so draining? I tried a new genre and a new pen name, then I stopped writing for a bit. I went from having twenty stories in my head fighting for a place on the page to none, and I did my best to fill the time with other things. I learned Dutch, German, and Spanish until I could read at the beginner level. Then I forgot them all again. I volunteered at the theater until my body quit on me.

And I kept seeing that meme asking: would you be willing to be a pet to a race of super-intelligent aliens? That's where the idea for The Karshe Device began.

It's an apocalyptic sci-fi aventure with three distinct points of view: the human pet, a recently abducted human, and the alien who's trying to save the "galactic wildlife." When I started, I had no plans to publish, but as I reached the home stretch, I realized this is a story I wanted to share. 

To save her species, she must spark a rebellion. Coming soon!

Amp Squad and the Taking On of Labels

Over the past ten years, I’ve accumulated a few LGBTQIA labels - Asexual, Aromantic, Agender… I remember a time when the A stood for ‘ally,’ and I still encounter arguments on the internet about it meaning any and all of my labels. In more recent language, the list stops at Q… which used to stand for ‘questioning,’ but is now generally listed as ‘queer.’ According to some, ‘queer’ being an umbrella term for nonbinary and gender-queer identities, but depending who you talk to, the umbrella could be even bigger. There really can’t be one list that defines all sexual/gender identities because there are so many, and while some might try to use LGBTQIA+ and queer as synonyms, not everyone is comfortable with the queer label.

On the one hand, it’s just easier to say that I’m queer than to explain my assorted labels. It’s easier to say that I’m a queer sci-fi writer and that I write queer characters. Although the word was one used as a slur, language evolves, and (some) modern Pride movements have reclaimed the word, and use it as a positive affirmation. I’m part of a Queer Sci-fi community, and have grown accustomed to calling myself a queer sci-fi author who writes queer characters. Also, given how much in the minority my particular identities are, sometimes it’s just easier to say queer. It simplifies the conversation.

Last year, I wrote about my journey to accepting the trans label, because technically agender falls under trans, whether I feel trans or not. And the thing about labels is that they are personal. You don’t have to accept a label just because someone else thinks you fit in that box. (I wrote a screenplay about this a few years ago.) Part of being queer is realizing the labels you were born with (or the ones assumed to be default) aren’t the right ones for you.

Which brings me to Amp Squad. I debated with myself over whether to use this title, because in Ship Whisperer, the Amps didn’t like being called ‘Amp.’ Tabitha would use it for herself, but respected that others like her were more sensitive about the label, which was shorthand for “amputee.” Three of the five amputees did not advertise their missing limbs, and in the story, I deliberately did not address which limb(s) they were missing.

In Amp Squad, I develop a new terminology for those with super powers: Amplified Power Individuals. The characters appreciate the API terminology, because it shifts the focus from their missing limbs to their growing powers. It also gives the term ‘Amp’ an alternate meaning that they can latch onto with pride. The reclaiming of the word is a slow process, explored internally by the team as they test the label. The bigger battle for them it reminding the military that APIs are not soldiers. They are civilians… except for the main character, Tabitha, whose loyalty to the military is constantly challenged by their treatment of the APIs.

Labels are tools. They are a shorthand to describe something complex with a single word. But words have power — to unite, to divide. Take your word power, and use it for good.

***

PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY OF AMP SQUAD TODAY!

 

Amp Squad - Ship Whisperer 2 - Excerpt

Counting down to the release of Amp Squad, the exciting new addition to the Ship Whisperer series!

*~*

Feared by her own kind. Hunted by extraterrestrial forces. Can one super soldier find her place among the stars?

Lieutenant Tabitha Chiu is plagued by doubt and conflict. Still heartbroken over the loss of her AI companion and marooned on a faraway moon, the space marine and her ragtag team of super-powered civilians stand as the last line of defense against alien hunters. But when her powers pick up whispered threats of approaching invaders, she’s horrified to discover her own people have betrayed her squad.

Barely escaping assassination, Tabitha and her fellow psionics flee the hateful moon to the sanctuary of a single surviving combat ship where she hopes to reunite with her AI friend. But when her newly resurrected acquaintance hijacks the craft, the nonbinary fighter is torn between protecting those she loves best and saving humanity from annihilation.

Can this conflicted officer and her misfit allies defeat a formidable enemy intent on driving them to extinction?

*~* 

EXCERPT:

As Tabitha scrambled over the algae-coated rocks and into the makeshift city, hastily assembled from scraps of metal and rock, she heard shouting and saw a gathered crowd—about twenty people and growing. Words like ‘invader’ and ‘Yassi scum’ cut through the noise. Though most of them just stood watching, the verbal assault spread with added suggestions like ‘kill it now!’

“Sheriff, there’s a mob assaulting someone by the S-4 building,” Tabitha reported, reading the identifier off the nearest building. She relayed a similar message to the Nav’s master-at-arms and others she thought could help. The metal warehouses lining the street would become apartments one day, but for now they were either crowded with civilians or supplies. They had just enough insulation to protect people from the weather. S-4 was a supply building, conveniently out of view of casual gawkers.

Tabitha remembered Bailin talking about coming into the city to check on her godson, and she scanned for the child, but didn’t see him. She prayed he wasn’t in the middle of the mob with Bailin.

Bouncing on her heels, Tabitha grew impatient waiting for back-up. She hadn’t heard a telepathic cry from Bailin since the first. Pressing into the crowd, she forced her way closer to the center. There were three stocky attackers with gritted teeth, tattered clothes, and callused hands. Two of the assailants held Bailin upright, pulling her arms to either side. The third had an aluminum bat, and he tapped it against her limbs, taunting her. Bailin’s face was bruised and bleeding, and she could barely hold her head up. The guy with the bat smashed Bailin’s left arm hard enough to break bone, and Tabitha charged in. She’d trained in hand-to-hand combat for years, and as stupid as it was to take on a mob by herself, she couldn’t let them kill Bailin.

Heading straight for the leader, she punched him in the shoulder, grabbed his bat, and kicked his groin, leaving him down long enough to smash his face. She swung the bat with a light grip so she wouldn’t kill him, but she felt his cheek shatter anyway. 

One of the people holding Bailin instantly ran off, not interested in fighting, but the other one charged at Tabitha. She swung around with the bat, but didn’t have enough space to move, and hit them with a weak strike to the ribs. It was enough to make them angry, but didn’t slow them down. Their fist flew toward her face.

“Left,” she whispered, pushing her Yassi power behind the word. She couldn’t control people’s minds, but she could occasionally nudge in a misdirect. The blow glanced her cheek. Thrown off balance, her attacker fell on her, and they landed on the ground. The attacker grappled for the bat, but Tabitha rolled, kicked, and held on. She found her feet first, smacked the bigot’s shoulder with the bat, then hurried over to Bailin’s crumpled form.

The mob hadn’t scattered, but people seemed reluctant to fight her, and they started calling for the sheriff, and for her death. Blood trickled from her nose. If enough of them wanted to kill her, they could stop her heart with a unified thought. That was the fatal weakness of the Yassi, and why they preferred to fight covertly from a distance.

“Tabs, stay out of the city,” Ryo Takumi warned, speaking telepathically into her mind. She and Ryo had been imprinted since childhood, and once Tabitha’s powers activated, their weak intuition for knowing what the other was thinking had evolved into full-on conversations. “I’ll get her to you. Stay in the Nav borders!”

“Too late,” Tabitha said, sending him a mental image of her current predicament. The mob had her surrounded, which emboldened more fighters to try and take her on. Another two charged her, and when she swung the bat, one grabbed it and tried to yank it out of her hands. Not about to surrender the only weapon in the circle, Tabitha threw her momentum toward them, pushing them off balance and into the crowd. Then, she gave them an extra jab for good measure.

“Command them to run home,” Tabitha hollered to Bailin. The woman trembled and clutched her broken arm. Dented, actually. The arm was prosthetic. That didn’t diminish the brutality of her injuries.

“Trying.” Her voice was a whisper in Tabitha’s mind, which meant it would be a whisper in the crowd’s as well. Tabitha heard an echoed whisper say, “Stay down,” and assumed that was meant for the ones Tabitha had already injured. Still, down was never a safe place to be in a mob.

“Eyes covered!” Ryo warned, sending her an image of a flash. Tabitha dove toward Bailin, shielding them both from the light of the flash-bang. The bright light and loud noise startled the crowd, bringing many to their knees. Civil unrest had exploded since the crash-landing, and flash-bangs had become an unfortunately regular occurrence.

The concussive shock hurt Tabitha’s ears, but she knew she had only seconds to take advantage. Scooping up Bailin, she staggered through the frightened crowd, unable to see or hear.

“Ryo, where are you?” she cried. A map appeared in her mind, and she closed her eyes, letting it guide her. Even though foot traffic had worn down the path, the uneven terrain was difficult to navigate. The disoriented crowd bumped against her, but she forced her way through, moving to the edge so she could disappear between the metal buildings. Someone grabbed her arm, and she couldn’t jab without dropping Bailin, so she kicked. 

“Tabs, it’s me!” Ryo said, taking her arm again, guiding her away. He could have been shouting, but she couldn’t tell over the ringing in her ears. There was no time to stop and evaluate Bailin’s injuries. 

They didn’t slow until they reached the Nav border. In the days after landing, the Nav had separated themselves from the civilian population to keep order and maintain control over the supplies needed for salvage. The other officers could move freely in and out of the Nav section to visit family, but for Tabitha and the Amps, this protected area felt more like a prison.

Ryo tried to take Bailin from Tabitha, but Bailin gripped the front of Tabitha’s shirt and pressed her bloody face against Tabitha’s shoulder.

“I’ve got her,” Tabitha said. Her adrenaline had spiked in the fight, and she still had energy to burn. Still, she’d been lucky most of the mob had run from the physical fight.

Ryo shouldered his long-barreled stun rifle, and a few other soldiers flanked them, creating a protective bubble. Tabitha saw Commander Olsen pointing them away from the infirmary hut and toward the shielded Amp hut. The specially coated walls could theoretically protect them from a psychic attack if the city turned against them. Before they reached it, a concussive force knocked Tabitha off her feet. Bailin landed hard on Tabitha’s stomach, knocking the wind out of her. Smoke choked her lungs, and a blazing fire lit up the camp. Ryo crouched next to Tabitha and Bailin, arms wrapped protectively around them as the heat became nearly unbearable. The Amp hut burned at the center of the blaze! Their refuge—their home. Someone had destroyed it.

“Aiwu!” Tabitha hollered, crying for the AI companion who had raised her. While Aiwu’s body had been destroyed in battle, her memory lived on in a quantum cube. Saku gave her a hard time for carrying the cube around all the time, but Aiwu was family. Today was the first time she’d let his nagging get to her, and she’d left Aiwu in the hut. Tabitha crawled toward the flames, tears streaming down her face, but Bailin tightened her grip, grunting as she tried to get out the word “no.”

“Pick me up. Walk toward the forest,” she whispered in Tabitha’s mind, the order coming with a strong telepathic nudge. They’d promised each other they wouldn’t do that—they wouldn’t force anyone to act against their will.

“Hurry. Before someone else tries to kill us,” Bailin said.

“Sand. We need sand. And a perimeter. Make a perimeter,” Ryo said, bringing his shirt up to block the smoke from his nose and mouth. “Tabs—”

“I have to get Bailin safe…” Tabitha trailed off, the shock of seeing her home in flames numbing her senses. It wasn’t just Aiwu she’d lost. At this time of evening, all the Amps and AIs would have been in there. Tabitha and Bailin were the only ones left.

“Right. Medical tent. You stay there with her,” Ryo said, helping Tabitha find her balance with Bailin in her arms. Confusion compounded the ringing in Tabitha’s ears, and she stumbled into the darkness, the fire getting hotter against her back.

“Forest. Please,” Bailin whispered. The nudge came again, weak enough that Tabitha could resist if she wanted. At the moment, she was too numb to argue the alternative. Tears welled in Tabitha’s eyes as she realized what was happening—she and Bailin had to disappear.

*~*

ORDER YOUR COPY OF AMP SQUAD TODAY!

 

 

 

 

 

Words of Wisdom - Inspirational Quotes

 These are some of  the most motivational phrases in my life. They spur me toward a decision, to action, or to rest. They help me be less frustrated with the world. 

1. (my life motto) I can be everything I want, just not all at the same time.

Corollary: Embrace your right to dabble.

2. You can’t edit a blank page.

3. Don’t cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

4. Good ideas are a dime a dozen. Pursue the one where you have the most support. 

Corollary: Not all great ideas can or should be executed.

5. It’s a 10 minute drink, not a major life decision. 

6. There are always more dishes.

7. You can make a wish, but then you have to do the wish. It doesn’t just happen.

--

Go forth and make good choices. And remember to check out my newest book Amp Squad!

Unsolicited Wisdom From My 5-Year Self-Publishing Experience

 “You can make a wish, but then you have to do the wish. It doesn’t just happen.” -some kid

September 8, 2022 is my fifth anniversary of my being a self-published author. I did not plan to release Amp Squad on the anniversary; it just sort of happened to be a convenient day based on when all the pieces came into alignment.

In my original 5-year plan (I had a snazzy spreadsheet), I had planned to release 9 books in these 5 years, which seemed do-able, since I had first drafts of all of them. To my surprise, the muse would not be silenced, and more novels cropped up in between. Amp Squad brings my total to 13!

I have learned a great deal about self-publishing in the past 5 years (6 years, actually, because I decided to head down this road in 2016, about a year before the first release). For any of you thinking about self-publishing, here’s my unsolicited wisdom.

1. Self-publishing is not the fallback plan for people who can’t find a publisher. A lot of people put out a few queries to traditional publishers, get frustrated, and expect to self-publish without realizing how massive an undertaking it is. I made a previous post about the many hats of a self-published author. It’s a lot. You are a publisher using a single person’s work (yours) to support your entire company! It’s not the easy road. It’s just another road.

2. You do not have to publish a book a month to be successful. A lot of us are supporting our self-published author careers with a day job, and one book a year is a perfectly acceptable rate. Now that I’ve finished my New Dawn series, I don’t have a queue of first drafts anymore, so producing multiple books per year is both a time commitment and a challenge. I love writing, but part of what keeps it fresh is that I do other things and absorb other art. 

3. Marketing is hard. By far, the best thing I’ve done is align myself with author communities where advice is freely exchanged, and there’s no shame in asking a question that has been answered a hundred times because now it applies to you. My favorites are: Author Ad School, /r/selfpublish, /r/scifiwriting, and Facebook Indie Cover Project. These people *know* things, because they’re on this journey, too! Also, whenever there’s a private author community associated with a book or tool, join it. Buy at least one K-lytics report for your target genre, just so you understand the breadth of what there is to know. 

4. Hiring editors, cover artists, or anyone else to help you in your journey is a process. Do not be afraid to interview, get quotes, and ask questions. You have to work with these people, and you are the project manager. Make sure everyone knows the schedule, budget, and expectations. 

5. Your friends and family are not your target audience. Obviously, those that are fans of your genre and buy multiple books like yours are your target audience, but generally speaking, most are just buying your book to be supportive of you as a human being. But don’t take it personally if they’re not blasting about you on social media, fanning about your characters, and pre-ordering every book you write. Market to readers, discuss writing with writer groups, and let your friends and family be the ones outside who fill you with conversation and ideas, and become fuel for your art. 

I love writing and look forward to many more years of creating art. Happy reading, and be sure to check out Amp Squad! It's currently available for pre-order.

Nothing to Prove - From Apathy to Agender

 Last year, I released a book called The Qinali Virus, featuring an asexual aromantic character, because I wanted to see people like me represented in fiction. In this future society, gender isn’t assumed or assigned at birth. Children use neutral pronouns unless they express a desire to be otherwise. In one of the scenes, my main character Amber says she wishes she’d kept her neutral pronouns. It’s a passing thought for her, but this character was very much a reflection of me and I started looking at my own relationship with my gender.

I’ve been “cis-apathetic” for much of my life. I never felt like a girl, but I also knew for sure I wasn’t a boy. The nuance of nonbinary identity wasn’t part of my vocabulary, so apathy set in. I dissociated from my body. I remember feeling very out of place as a woman in science, because ‘woman’ wasn’t part of my identity. It was just a happenstance.

 

After writing The Qinali Virus, I figured out I was agender. I was very insistent on that label, because other labels seemed to imply the existence of gender, and I have none. It took time to accept that “not cisgender” means trans, because I didn’t feel trans either. I think it’s partly because society trains us to think and recognize trans along a binary. If you’re not girl, you must transition to boy. So it’s very confusing for the nonbinary, genderqueer, gender fluid, agender, and everyone else whose resting point is not on the binary or even on the so-called spectrum. I also felt that if I were going to be trans, then I had to do something to prove it, like change my name and pronouns. 

 

Which brings me to Ship Whisperer – the story of a nonbinary explorer who discovers she has the ability to talk to spaceships. It’s mentioned a few times that she is nonbinary, and early beta-readers even commented that it was easy to forget, because she’s not using neutral pronouns. But you know what? That’s just fine. She doesn’t have to change her pronouns to prove she fits the category. The phases she went through to find her pronouns aren’t part of this book, but she found them.

 

I’m not a woman. I often think of changing my name and my pronouns, but whether I do or not, it won’t prove or disprove my trans-ness. I’m agender, and saying it is enough.

Ship Whisperer comes out October 14! Pre-order now!

I knit because of sci-fi

I hate knitting.

No really. I'm very project oriented, so I'll buckle down and get it done to complete the project in my head. I'm amazed at the process of knitting, how I can just make knot after knot and suddenly have a hat. I feel accomplished for what I produce. But the process itself grates on my nerves.

I'm not great at knitting mindlessly. It requires my full attention. So I can't be listening to podcasts or audiobooks while I do it. I recently looked up left-handed knitting, and it made a lot more sense to me. I think maybe if I practice that, I'll get into a better rhythm, but I'm so used to right-handed knitting that I'd get turned around in the middle of a row. I'm very slow at it.

Also, knitting really rubs against my minimalist mindset. I don't like clutter. I don't like having all these finished projects lying around my house. I seriously don't need that much stuff in my life. I have this issue with all my craft projects. I love the act of crafting. I hate having to store the finished products.

So why do I knit?

Well, it started with a Jayne hat. It was kind of an icon in the Firefly fandom, and a friend of mine was a super-huge fan. (She worked hard to convert me.) Anyway, I decided to learn to knit in secret so I could make her this hat. I went on to make many more Jayne hats, and now you can buy them commercially. Back then, you needed a friend who was a knitter. I was that friend. Once, I even orchestrated a food drive called "Jayne hats for turkeys" and I sent out many hats to people who donated to their local food banks.

That's how it started. 

Where it stands now... 

Well, I was writing Ship Whisperer, and my main character Tabitha thought she could pay more attention during meetings if she had something for her hands to do. Like knitting. (I've seen this work for other people. For me, it's a very effective way to completely tune out a meeting.) As she started to struggle with a cable knitting patter, I thought "I want to learn how to cable knit." So I dug up some knitting needles and decided on a project.

The last time I avidly knit, I identified as cisgender, heterosexual. That's not the case anymore. So I chose some ace and agender themed colors (purple, green, black, white, gray). 

For the cable knit pattern, I chose arm warmers. Arm warmers are small, and fairly simple if you decide not to add a thumb hole. I discovered there's an issue. I have TWO arms! So after working the first miracle, I had to then replicate it.

I then moved onto a hat, for which I wanted vertical stripes. Vertical stripes are non-trivial, but I adapted a pattern and... such were things.

So now, I have a book, a pair of arm warmers, and a hat. And a ton of leftover yarn. 

SHIP WHISPERER

Maybe one day I'll find knitting relaxing. Maybe Tabitha will as well. But I love how her random thought of "maybe I should try knitting" not only turned into a wonderful character arc, but also a fun side project for me while I was finishing the story.

Ship Whisperer comes out October 14, 2021! Check www.valeriejmikles.com for details.

Power of a Prompt - The Inspiration for Ship Whisperer

“Where do you get  your ideas?” 

It’s a common question, and the answers are as varied as the writers. Did you know that a bonsai tree is genetically identical to the full-sized tree grown in nature? It’s the same seed, but nurtured differently. How many Cinderella stories do you know? Or Batmans? Your seed idea doesn’t have to be original. Your execution and your voice are what make your story unique.

For my new story, Ship Whisperer, it started with a prompt. It was a chilly October. (Or maybe not. I don’t remember the weather.) My writing critique group was meeting at the local Wegmans Café. I had just published my first novel, and my second was slated for rapid release a few weeks down the line. I was knee-deep in writing my series. (I had a five year plan.) At the end of the critique session, we had some time, so our organizer put forth a writing prompt. We had three words and fifteen minutes to incorporate those words into a story. Those words were: blue, Hawaiian shirt, and dog. 

These words don’t really scream “sci-fi story” do they? They didn’t to me, either. I could have written something contemporary, but I wanted to practice my brand of sci-fi. So I created a color-sensitive telepath who used an AI dog to communicate with her crew. The concept of my ship-whisperer had formed. None of the prompt elements survived to the final novel, but from them, I had a character that intrigued me and I wanted to write more of.

Using the character from the writing prompt, I then wrote a short story for my writing group to critique. That was when the military aspect came out, the alien war, and the idea of psychic imprints. The general feedback was that the idea was too big to be contained in a short story. Although, that may have been reader bias. Hardcore sci-fi readers can fill in a lot of blanks from established tropes. But I loved my characters and wanted to play more with them, so I added the story to my “To Be Written Pile.”

I poked at it between other stories, testing my thoughts, seeing what developed. Letting ideas percolate is all part of the process. Then I draft, I workshop, I get input from beta-readers and ideas evolve further. The tree doesn’t resemble the seed.

What would you do with that seed? What would you create? Take fifteen minutes and just write. See what you come up with. Stick with your favorite genre. Practice. Not every prompt inspires a novel, but it’s a fine place to start.

Ship Whisperer hits the shelves October 2021

Subscribe at http://www.valeriejmikles.com for updates

Hybrids, Half-breeds, and Spirits - An Intro to The New Dawn Universe

 

In the TV show Stargate, there’s an episode called “Citizen Joe” where an average barber has been receiving visions of… everything that happens in the show. As he does not know the reality of the Stargate program, he figures his muse is feeding him stories, and he begins to share them. As he shares, his friends complain about the twists and turns, and the fact that there’s more than one type of bad guy. At one point he yells “It’s not confusing! It’s complex!”

I sometimes describe my work as Firefly meets Stargate meets Jericho, but the part of Stargate I’m thinking about is not the militaristic side. Every book faces a different culture, and allows the crew to be the alien explorer. Also, in Stargate there are these powerful ascended beings who occasionally interfere in human affairs, but mostly stay out of the way.

In the New Dawn series, I create a world where beings that exist on an alternate plane interact with different cultures in different ways. Some humans have spirits, but most don’t. Some of these spirit-carrier humans give birth to half-breeds. Some humans develop metahuman (hybrid) powers on their own. Each culture reacts to its special mix, and decides whether to welcome or reject these gifts.

I define a few basic classes of beings:

• Spirit – A non-corporeal alien who has psychic and psionic abilities. 
• Spirit-carrier – A human who has become host to a spirit, willingly or unwillingly. The carrier may be aware of the spirit’s power, but does not control them.
• Half-breed – The child of two spirit-carriers. The half-breed has distinct physical characteristics: taller than humans, jackal-like face, pointed teeth and talons, wings. Half-breeds have paranormal powers like spirits, as well as the ability to shift between parallel realms. Half-breeds can display a range of paranormal abilities, but tend to have one dominant one.
• Hybrid – A human who has psychic, telepathic, telekinetic, or other ability. Abilities occur at varying strengths. Unlike half-breeds, hybrids tend to have one paranormal ability, and they look human. Hybrids are likely to be the child of a single spirit-carrier, but don’t have to be.
• Echo – these are rare humans, and can echo the power of a hybrid or half-breed. (More about them in Book 8!)

I decided to draw a picture of a half-breed once. I’m not that much of an artist, but I wanted to see the creature I had been writing about. There’s an artist I love called Sasha R. Jones who paints very similar creatures, although their work has a bit more avian influence. You should totally check out their work. It’s absolutely breath-taking.

In the New Dawn universe, I often speak of two realms or two planes: the physical plane and the spirit plane. (Very creative, I know.) Each of these beings has a different presence in each realm. The humans and the half-breeds are the only ones that are the same in both realms (although in the spirit-plane, the human is confined to their sphere of consciousness).

When I wrote it, the world seemed to form naturally, but in retrospect, I see the influence of not only science fiction, but of supernatural thrillers and stories of spiritual warfare. It has been an incredible world to explore: spaceships, other worlds, exploring lost civilizations, and finding the threads that bind humanity together.

It’s not confusing. It’s complex. And through it all, there is hope for tomorrow.

 

Check out The New Dawn series on Amazon today.

Do you feel like you are looking at a world that is fresh out of brains?

The outlook is not as bleak as you think!

This handy-dandy guide is guaranteed to start your apocalypse off on the right foot. (Assuming it hasn’t falling off yet.)

Get your free guide today!

***

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Hope for Tomorrow - The Inspiration for "Premonition"

 The New Dawn series started as a screenplay, then a series of novellas that I workshopped, stripped for parts, and expanded into novels. In the expansion process, I realized that the first half of Book 1 had a different villain than the second half, and the draft was split into two: The Disappeared and Sequestered. That’s why the first four days of the two books overlap.

About half way through writing the first book, I got terribly stuck with my characters, and so I did something that always made me happy. I made a fanfic. You see, by this point in the process, I knew my characters very well. I had two full novellas, I had scenes from multiple books slowly filling up files in a google drive. I had the whole series plotted. And yet, I was stuck.

And so I wrote a story called “Festival of Pairing.” I wrote it as a fan fiction of my own work. In fanfic, you don’t have to introduce the characters or explain the world. You just write the story because the audience already knows it. In a matter of weeks, I produced the nearly complete first draft of Premonition, the story of Hawk meeting and rescuing his Prince. The story of Danny and Sky getting past their inhibitions, of Tray and Saskia deepen their love, and the story of Amanda finding hope that her future wasn’t lost. "The Festival of Pairing" was the first fully drafted book of the series, and I decided to slide it into the 7^th slot, where I think it fits beautifully.

The story has evolved significantly since that first draft, but at the heart of it is the power of hope. The hope that there are those in the world that love us, and that tomorrow will be better than today is a driving force.

The culture the crew encounters in this story is struggling to keep their population up, and homophobic sentiments permeate the culture. Same sex couple keep to the shadows, they’re bullied into false marriages to keep up appearances, and sometimes they’re beaten or killed. When I wrote this story, I was still very new to queer cultures and identities. I was still transitioning from closet ally into a confident one. I worried my books would be rejected because they had queer characters, and I hadn’t even come to realize my own queer identity yet.

I thought about evolving the story and removing the homophobia subplot, but just because I have evolved in thinking doesn’t mean the rest of the world is there. Acknowledgment and acceptance were important steps for me to take, and this story is like a time capsule looking into a fear that I am now past.

I didn’t set out to write a story about two parents learning to accept their queer child. I set out to write a fanfic. A sci-fi adventure with a cast that I loved in a world where supernatural things seem to happen all around them. But the hope for tomorrow comes in the love and acceptance of others. There’s power in everything we do, and you never know when your hello is someone else’s hope for tomorrow.

*~*

PREMONITION
COMING DECEMBER 5^th

AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW 

 

Seeing the future is not the same as saving it.

When the first premonition hits, Amanda thinks it’s a hallucination. She doesn’t have psychic power; she echoes the powers of others. Her sudden ability to see the future has done little to help her crew prepare.

Can Amanda’s borrowed powers give the crew the edge the need?

 

ORDER THE WHOLE SERIES NOW!

 

 

Finding my truth in writing my own voice

By the time I set out to write The Qinali Virus, I had been an out and proud aromantic/ asexual for many years. I debated whether I wanted to write a character who was too much like me. But since there are so few people like me in the books I read, I went for it. People shouldn’t have to choose between a handful of books for representation. There should be so many that people can actually choose their favorite and feel safe to dislike some without derailing the genre.

The Qinali Virus features an aromantic asexual astronomer who learns she has the ability to astral project. Amber grew up in a utopic society, and one of the features is that gender identities are not thrust on young children. People get to choose.

The notion to use gender-neutral pronouns in the story came from a podcast I listened to, where I heard the salutation “Mx.” used for the first time. Mx. is the gender-neutral form of Mr./Mrs./Ms. I am sound oriented. I have seen Mx. used in writing in various queer safe spaces on the internet, but hearing turned it into something real for me. I have a PhD, but being called Doctor Mikles never did anything for me. I know other people feel euphoric about the achievement when they hear it. I’ve read that when some women get married and they hear themselves called Mrs. Husband’s Name, they get euphoric. In my case, Mx. is the salutation that stirs emotion. It makes me happy to hear it spoken out loud. And so I decided all the adults in the story would use it by default. 

It wasn’t until I finished my first draft and started editing that I realized Amber might be agender. There’s a discussion about how people choose pronouns in her world, and she mentions that she wished she’d stayed neutral. Her realization, and the fact that she’s very much a picture of me, helped me realize that I am agender. Over the years, I had started to assume that my lack of attachment to my gender was related to my asexuality, but in the last year, I’ve started being able to acknowledge it as a separate, but important part of my identity. 

While this book was intended to be a stand-alone, I've started percolating ideas for a sequel, and in it, I hope to explore more of Amber's desire to shed her gender.

I must be an alien (an asexual's perspective)

 

I wrote a song!

I didn't know I was ace growing up. All I really understood was that the people on TV who were most like me were not human. They were missing out on the "core of the human experience." But as a sci-fi fan, I was always sort of okay with my alien identity.

I was once doing a twitter Q&A for queer scientists, and I remember saying something about how asexuality defines something I'm not. Sure it's an identity label, but it's a label that has ruled out all other labels in its category. The same with aromantic and agender. It doesn't describe something I feel, but rather the absence of a feeling that seems pervasive in others.

I can honestly say that it was only in the past few years, when I started to embrace nerdy music about fandom, anxiety, cats, dinosaurs, and soda addiction that I started to realize that I share so much more of the human experience than my childhood led me to believe. I can be human. (I'm working on a song about that, too, but music is not my main writing.)

So in the last verse of this song, I talk about all that I am and what defines me as a human being. And if all that isn't enough, then I want to be an alien. So take a listen!

SALE - Trade Circle is on sale for $0.99

 

As we're leading up to asexual awareness week, I'm having a sale on my books featuring asexual characters. I wrote in a previous post how writing this book helped me understand my identity. I was so thrilled that one of my reviewers loved the ace character in this book. I hope you love it, too!

Discovering my queer identity: I wrote aces before I knew the word...

Before I ever took on the label of asexual, I drafted a book called “Trade Circle.” I wrote about a girl whose childhood friend had fallen in love with her, but she didn’t feel that way about him. She had never even thought of him in that way, and she tells him so. When my editor read that line, he asked me “why would she lie.” From his perspective, of course she’d thought of him that way. Of course, she must have considered it. Fortunately, in the time between the draft and the publication, I learned about asexuality, and I could put a name to my character's truth. She wasn't lying. It hadn't occurred to her any more than it had occurred to me. In the final draft of the book, I use the label, so that there is no doubt.

Another example… before I got knee deep into my novel writing, I was writing lots of fanfic. Mostly Firefly, but I have Chuck, Torchwood, Big Bang Theory, and a few others… Not all of it is G-rated, because after writing a few episode-esque Firefly novellas, I learned that adding romance got me more attention and comments. As I had no real experience, I was going mostly on things I could research or learn from other people's writing. (My experience with college boys started making a lot more sense once I learned what non-aces fantasize about.)

Anyway, in the Big Bang Theory, Sheldon made it very clear in the early episodes that he wasn’t interested in relationships. When he finally met up with Amy, it became clear that he was not interested in a physical relationship. It really bothered me (1) that Amy flipped the script and suddenly wanted more from him, and (2) that she kept pressuring him to be physical when he made it clear he didn’t want to. I was very happy when they broke up, because it became clear they were incompatible in this manner. And it made me sad, so I wrote, because I thought she needed to listen and respect him. I didn’t realize I’d head-cannoned him as being like me—being asexual. I’m sad the writers decided not to go that way.

It kind of struck me how important it is to address identity (even lack of identity) in a clear way. People can make their own head canons and deny what you wrote. (Fan pairings in fanfic is enough to prove that.) For me, calling a character asexual isn’t just about identifying what they feel, but in confirming 100% to readers like me that what they feel is real and valid, and they are in fact seeing themselves.

Guess What? I'm Asexual!

 Asexual Awareness Week is coming soon! Why do I care? Well, because I am asexual. I do not experience sexual attraction. I’m also aromantic, meaning I don’t experience romantic attraction. I discovered these labels when I was 32, and was so relieved that I wrote a story about it. A screenplay, actually. 

You can check out my comedic web series “Aces” about a group of asexual friends surviving in a hyper-sexual world. Check out the whole channel. “Aced It: Human Studies” is one of my favorites. I have a few more scripts in the queue, and I’d love to make more as soon as we’re out of quarantine and can safely gather in groups again.

I started with the screenplay, because realizing you’re asexual can be very isolating. As a novelist, even if I filled my novel with asexual characters, I didn’t think I’d capture the feeling of community in the same way. When I made my films, everyone working there was asexual, knew about asexuality, or learned about asexuality. (The learning was awesome.)

Here it is: Human Studies!

Self-Employee of the Month!

 I hate headshots. I know some authors like to put them on their book covers (or in their books). I know some readers like to see them. I think it's the weirdest thing. Humans are an inscrutable race. Nevertheless, every now and then I set up the green screen and the lights, I put on makeup and think about which shirt I wouldn't mind seeing the collar one in a photo, and I take a ton of pictures.

These are some that did not get selected for professional use. Now, I get to use them for entertainment purposes.

And calling back to my previous post about the many hats of a self-publisher, every one of these employees works in a different department, and they are all deserving of an award.

The awards are as follows:

• January - Valerie the Ad Content Writer, for composition and editing of book blurbs
• February - Valerie the Tax Accountant, for completion of business taxes
• March - Valerie the Market Researcher, for blog promotion reconnaissance 
• April - Valerie the Publicist, for her amazing efforts in hosting an online book launch
• May - Valerie in Human Resources, for negotiating a contract with editing services
• June - Valerie the Novelist, for great efforts in writing alien stories
• July - Valerie the Cover Designer, for tireless efforts in designing seven book covers
• August - Valerie in Advertising, for creating promos that doubled our previous month's page reads
• September - Valerie in Layout Editing, for efforts in preparing Book 7 for publication

Seriously, indie authors. Congratulate yourself for the volume and variety of work you do. Celebrate a little bit. I can't wait to see what other awards I get this year!

This dose of happiness was inspired by the Beardo "Self Employee of the Month" comic book. If you need a slice of life comic, check him out!