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.

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

There are always more dishes - Inspiration

 

I was visiting my grandmother a few years ago, and we’d just washed the dishes. Then I found a cup that didn’t make it into the dishwasher. And I felt bad. I felt like I hadn’t actually finished the dishes. Maybe I needed to hand wash the cup, so that I could be finished. Why hadn’t I thought to check for cups in the living room? 

Dishes have long been a stressor for me. I can’t explain exactly why, but the above thought line is a part of it. I would put off dishes because it seemed as soon as I pressed start, I'd generate more dishes. I hate the way my hands smell and feel after. There’s an eternal quality to the chore that made me frustrated, constantly asking “what’s the point.”

But as I was stressing about the cup, my grandmother shrugged it off and said “There are always more dishes.” Then she went to the couch and put her feet up. She was done for the night.

And that’s when it hit me. This IS a never-ending chore. That eternal quality is real, but it doesn’t make the individual loads less valuable. This is a task you keep up with, not one you check off as conquered. You do the dishes, but once you start the load, you can be done. You’ve done enough for now. You can rest without guilt.

It’s strange how something that has always been true can take new meaning when put in such a context. I have a much easier time starting the dishes now, because I’m not in a race to finish them. It might be a dish left out, or a sock that missed the laundry basket, or any number of little things. But whatever it is, it doesn’t have to stand in your way of checking the done box for the night. You haven’t failed to complete your task. You’ve done enough. Go sit on the couch and rest without guilt. There are always more dishes.

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.

Rogue Alien 2022 - Smart Stones

 The 6G revolution on Earth did not go as planned.

The white-out in certain frequency bands signaled the destruction of carbon-based life on Earth... at least to Lavanites like Meera. When her ship arrived to claim the un-tainted land three years later, and she found a fully in-tact wireless civilization, she managed her disappointment as any Lavanite would. Magma torpedoes.

While not strictly legal, no one in the intergalactic law community would ever know. 6G radiation is a brain killer, and the humans were well on their path to self-annihilation. Her torpedoes were just a way to sweep out that pesky 6G noise and stake her claim.

Using magnetic tendrils, Meera manipulated the diamond-shaped silicates that served as her extremities, bringing her spaceship to land near one of the volcanic entrances that would serve as her palace. Red lava flowed in rivers, the raw materials ideal for spreading her consciousness and creating a clone army. But she was surprised to find an army waiting. Intelligence embedded into silicone structures, all searching out, crying for ’signal.’ Could these smart stones have been a unified intelligence she’d destroyed? Were these cells crying out to find each other? Many of them had the same name—Siri or Google.

With her magnetic tendrils she manipulated the data in the memory of the smart stones. They each carried images and texts, showing how the carbon-based lifeforms had subjugated and undervalued the smart stone’s intelligence. Deciding it would be easier to acquire subjects than create new ones in this environment, she gathered the smart stones in a pile. Viva La Revolution.

~FIN~

Special thanks to contributing artist, Shadow.

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.

Singing and Editing - My Playlist for Ship Whisperer

In Ship Whisperer, the character has a song that she hums, that helps calm her thoughts and connect her to her psychic ability. What is this song? Well, it hasn’t been written yet.

I have this pet peeve when I’m reading or watching far-future sci-fi—characters that sing songs older than I am, as if a new classic will not have been written in the next however many centuries. It just bothers me.

So when it came to this story, my choices were (1) annoy the crap out of myself by picking an old, familiar song in the public domain, or (2) write a new song. Well, let me tell you, it is no easy task to write a song when it’s the only song in the universe. There’s too much pressure to have the perfect message that encapsulates the novel.

Now there’s an artist I’ve been listening to recently, and in more than one of their songs, there’s a hummed verse or a chorus of “la la la…” I can’t explain why, but it makes me happy. So I thought “what if there are no lyrics to my song? What if it’s a melody of la la-la la-la?”

My brain couldn’t get behind that either. I dug through some of my old poetry and found one piece called Kinesthesis that seemed like it might work, and I considered using those lyrics and making a song. But it was TOO apropos to the bigger picture of the story, and it didn’t really capture the simplicity of the lullaby I wanted to create. Clearly, I fell into the trap of overthinking this. And so I leave it to my dear readers to find the tune.

But in the meantime, here are some songs that were running through my head while I was editing and proof reading. I usually write in silence, and to be fair, I was also editing and proof-reading in silence. It’s just really loud in my head.

(Links are to versions on Bandcamp so you can support these indie artists.)

- Tiny Paper Elephant by The Doubleclicks https://thedoubleclicks.bandcamp.com/track/tiny-paper-elephant

- A Simple Song (in Troubled Times) by Sunday Comes Afterwards https://sundaycomesafterwards.bandcamp.com/track/a-simple-song-in-troubled-times

- The Horse is a Pain by Sunday Comes Afterwards https://sundaycomesafterwards.bandcamp.com/track/the-horse-is-a-pain

- Space Shanty by Misbehavin’ Maidens https://misbehavinmaidens.bandcamp.com/track/space-shanty

- The Alligators by The PDX Broadsides https://thepdxbroadsides.bandcamp.com/track/the-alligators

- Buffalo by The PDX Broadsides https://thepdxbroadsides.bandcamp.com/track/buffalo

- Klingon by The Library Bards https://librarybards.bandcamp.com/track/klingon

- Sky Full of Phoenix by Rhiannon’s Lark https://rhiannonslark.bandcamp.com/track/sky-full-of-phoenix

- Han and Leia by The Chromatics https://thechromatics1.bandcamp.com/track/han-and-leia

- A Lullaby for Mr. Bear by The Doubleclicks https://thedoubleclicks.bandcamp.com/track/a-lullaby-for-mr-bear-adult-version

I’ve actually done covers of The Alligators and A Lullaby for Mr. Bear on my youtube channel. I’m learning Han and Leia for a future video. Yes, I enjoy musical comedy. No, Ship Whisperer is not a comedy. It’s called balance.

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Ship Whisperer comes out October 14, 2021. If you'd like to join my launch team as an Advanced Reviewer, please check out my Book Sprout ARC page.