jana_denardo

January turned out to be a better month than I could have hoped for. I've written over 12K between three projects. Last year that would have represented about three months worth of work. So what's different? Part of it is I'm doing a little better depression wise. Not great, but better.

But before I get into how I've been handling 2018 so far let me share the best news which is Dreamspinner Publications has picked up Blood Red Roulette, my vampires in Vegas novel. I may have squealed a little. Might have done the happy hippo from Fantastia dance around the room. My friends know how much this story meant to me and how hard I worked to revamp it, no pun intended. It's been years in the making and I don't want to get into too much detail now (saving that for the blog tours to come). Just know that Arrigo and Luc are very near and dear to my heart and I'm so happy they're seeing publication. Oh, I'm sure I'll be whining later when the edits come for this beast but in the end it'll be worth it.

Now back to how I've been tackling this month. I've given myself some accountability. I'm sticking with the 'write every day' challenge a little better than before and joined Inking It Out on dreamwidth, a weekly accountability group. I don't care that I go to them with 100 words for the week, at least it's 100 words more than the week before.

Also setting some deadlines has helped. I set my own deadlines for finishing These Haunted Hills and Nine Star Press's deadline for the Lost anthology is helping with my Sacred Kin story (which is SO desperately in need of a title I can't begin to express it). And I've been chatting and sprinting with Lex Chase several times a week and believe me having someone there to talk to helps. That's how I work best and my usual partner for this over the last decade as a radically different work schedule than I do these days and we can't sync up like we used to.

Finding a place in some social media groups has helped too. Some groups are very helpful. Others, of course, are not. All of them have their little (or not so little) dramas but I'm getting better at navigating those waters. I've been part of both Queer SciFi and Rainbow Snippets for a couple of years now. They've been a haven and a source of encouragement and a fountain of inspiration. We all need that and I'm thankful I've found them. Lately Nine Star Press's author FB page has been all of that too and I'm still so glad they picked up my steampunk Christmas story.

Speaking of them, the expansion (yeah I know I said I wouldn't do this again but we all knew I lied) of Modified and Sacred (see, definitely needs a better title!) into a novella for their lost open call is going better than I thought it would. I'm up to 22K and it's looking like I could potentially pull this off. These Haunted Hills is going slower but it doesn't have the firm deadline that the Lost story does so I'm fine with that. And somehow, somewhere I started a lesbian paranormal for another of Nine Star's ongoing calls. We'll see what happens with that.

Here's hoping February goes as well as January.

I've been quiet because not much has been happening. I've been busy deep cleaning the house and tossing stuff in prelude to either moving or at least inspection by my new landlords and trying to keep my head above water with the new class.

But I did get the final edits on my steampunk Christmas story. I felt SO bad because somehow there was a problem with the file. I think having to convert it (using libreoffice) from Docx to the old doc file because my parents' computer still has the 2003 Word on it caused issues that forced the publisher to redo ALL the formatting. I know it's not exactly my fault but it still made me feel like an ass.

Hopefully though the next you hear of this I'll have the cover and the pre-order links.

It's just a short talk this time as it was a horrendous first week of the semester. It ate up all my time and emotionally left nothing for me when it came to writing.

I'm still waiting to hear back from my beta on whether or not she'll be reading more of Blood Red Roulette (things are nutso on her end too). So that's in a holding pattern.

I did however make tons of progress on my steampunk Christmas story. I 'm already through two rounds of edits and am waiting on copy edits. I've finally managed to get all of the author info, cover spec and blurb stuff in. I wasn't dragging my heels but I was a bit late with it. The first week of school and the week leading up to it are insanely busy so there's that.

The other writing thing I've done was editing on an old fan fic. I don't hide my fan fic roots. I'm proud of them. I had written a Saiyuki novella for a big bang at least seven years ago (which was the last time I had touched the file) but that challenge failed and it's been in the forgotten file folder. This year someone else started up another Saiyuki big bang so I blew the dust off the novella. To my shock, for being so old, it's not actually bad. There are some weak rough spots but when this goes live next week, I'll be happy for it. I miss doing a lot of fan ficcing. It's something i only do at the holidays for the various challenges.

I am very happy to say Nine Star Press gave me a contract for my Christmas Steampunk short story. It's a thrill to see someone not only want my unusual story but also hoped there might be more in this universe.

This is a very nice feeling. I hope that the readers will love it as much.

But it's more than just a short story sale. I'm making connections with another publisher and that is a good thing.

I need to, once I get Blood Red finally over and done with (hopefully soon), edit through those two novellas of mine and try them again.

I've also noodled a bit with These Haunted Hills so that's good.

I've not accomplished all I wanted to this week but it's been a good week regardless.

So Conned is now out, I'm happy to say (though it reminds me that I'm paying for QueerRomance Ink and I haven't put up ANY of my stories, idiot that I am). Check it out here.

Blurb Detective Roy Connolly never expected to find real elves and murder at his local anime convention.

Seeking a bonding experience with his formerly estranged son, Sion, a crown prince of the elves, takes him to something they both enjoy: a human anime convention. They both like humans and all their geeky creations so Sion anticipates an enjoyable weekend. He never expected an enemy assassin, armed with only a description of Sion's cosplay, to start murdering his way through the convention.

Detective Roy Connolly, a closet geek, heads to the same anime con without his friend, Amelia. He's surprised to find one of the most handsome men he's ever seen cosplaying in the same anime style as his own, and even more delighted that Sion can't keep his hands off him. Throwing caution to the wind, Roy jumps into a whirlwind relationship only to find himself in the cross hairs of an assassin.

Buy link You can find Conned here




I did end up giving up on the Halloween short story, both of them really. With all the drama with the work issues, I didn't write a thing and while I could conceivably finish it this week, (which I really do need to work on finishing lectures so that's not really an option), I'm on vacation next week and wouldn't have been able to edit it and that was before I learned my usual beta wouldn't be available. I would like to finish them, maybe there'll be a market next year.

So my camp nano, which I'm unlikely to finish even with the wimpy word count of 10K, is back to These Haunted HIlls which makes sense from a business stand point. It would be nice to finish a novel again.

Speaking of which I made considerable progress in revamping Blood Red.

That said, I'm struggling to write but that's not new. I hate this, the depression that is creating the inability to concentrate.

It's been a strange set of months for me lately. The writing has been way down between depression, work and my ability to focus (ADHD, Depression, diabetes converging)

However, I did get some writing done during the boring parts of my convention. I'm not sure I'll find a home for a Steampunk Christmas story but I tried it any how. It's nearly done.

I spent the plane ride to Utah and back again editing Blood Red Roulette. I'm shocked at how rough areas where, things I should have caught in earlier edits.

And my flash fic Falling Water has been selected for Queer Sci-Fi's flash fic anthology, Renewal. That made me very happy. The winners in the contest haven't been announced yet but even if I'm not a winner, I'm proud to get selected to be in the anthology again.

It's been a while I know since I've had anything of note to say here. My creativity has been utterly paralyzed. I have stories sitting in my head howling but when I sit to write the feelings of you can't do it right so why bother overwhelm me and I play online games instead.

I did do a little writing. I sent something in for Queer Sci-Fi's annual flash fic contest (check out their FB page for more details). It was the first idea that came to my mind quite some time ago when the theme of renewal was first announced and it came out mostly as I had envisioned it so I'm happy about that.

The last time wrote one of these I mentioned sending out Conned for ManLoveRomance's fae folk anthology and it was accepted. I'm SO happy. Actually I wrote that years ago for another anthology and it didn't fit. It languished around my hard drive all these years. What makes me very happy is this is the same elf character I've been noodling around with for decades. He and his family have made me very happy over the years but this was the first time I tried to publish one of his stories. I'm awaiting edits (and I already know a couple places they want me to expand). I'm looking forward to working with the editors at MLR as I've not worked with this publishing house before.

I should be getting the rights back to another old story that came out in Wayward Ink's Angels and Devils anthology now that the publishing house is folded. I'll probably just end up making that a free download.

I'm still working on congealing my Camp nano plot.

So yes, there is some good news but I still just don't feel much better about things in general but that is the nature of depression.

I did skip last week's for good reason: I really had nothing new to talk about. I don't really this week either but I didn't want to let it go too long. I am waiting on the edits of one scene, the lost scene, from my beta. You have no idea how happy I am to find that scene. It does something important for all that it's only 1,600K long. But now comes the task of what to cut to shoehorn it in. I have one scene I know is going but I'm not sure they're the same length (I doubt it).

Once that's done it's on to my usual beta and about three pairs of new eyes (and THANK YOU for volunteering. You know who you are!) Once I hear back from them Blood Red Roulette is going back out there.


I am working on rewriting the ending of both Conned (which needs a better title) and Cassadaga Nights (ditto). I'm also struggling to finish my steampunk Christmas story. It has to be done soonish if I'm going to make any of the early cut off dates.



I'm still struggling with my depression but one thing that has made me smile is the reception to These Haunted Hills in the FB community Rainbow Snippets. I'm so thrilled people are liking it. Now to find time to WRITE it. That would be nice. I mean this whole weekend was wasted for writing, for teaching, for literally anything. It's a shame too. And more a shame that it was warm and perfect for hiking except for the fact it won't stop raining. Sigh.

We'll keep it short as a) there's not much in the way of actual news b) it's been a depressing week with little reprieve on the horizon.

I did agree to do a flash fiction prompt thing for Lex Chase's blog. I have the idea. I just need to sit my butt down and do it and for it NOT to get insanely long.

I find myself wondering if there are any Halloween anthologies out there. I'm in the mood to write something scary but I haven't gone searching yet.

I'm up to chapter 28 on edits for Blood Red Roulettebut it's hard going for a couple of reasons. I'm to the point where I'm going to remove an entire plot thread so I have to be very careful that I get it out. Also I noticed another thing I need to do to the beginning so that means rereading the first 10 chapters AGAIN. OMG I am never going to want to see this again by the time it's accepted somewhere (or I self publish it). But if I do this thing, it will make Arrigo look less like a selfish dickhole so it needs doing.

It's hard also because every time I fix something it adds word count, not removes it. Sigh. I've managed to get 1k out of it but it needs more to go. It doesn't help that I keep seeing person after person posting about how no one wants fantasy/SF/paranormal romances because they're not selling. Granted they would never reach the levels of contemporaries but I can't believe they're not selling judging by requests I've seen in writing challenges, the sheer amount of people in communities like Queer Sci-Fi and how many of the authors who love writing it. I mean, if you love writing it, it stands to reason you're buying it. It's the ONLY thing I buy. I'll be pretty damn sad if I have to stop following some of my favorite authors because they've had to give up on genre fiction because they can't make it otherwise. (I've tried to read some of their contemporary stuff and while well written did literally nothing for me).

So wish me luck on getting Blood Red edited and sent to betas. Wish me even more luck on getting this depression under control.

Happy New Year and welcome to the first Sunday Small Talk of 2017. It's been a couple of weeks but the last two sundays were holidays and let's be honest, I haven't been doing much because of those said holidays.

For the last month, I took a small vacation from writing professionally because I use December to write fanfic for friends for the holidays. I suppose some will argue that it's a waste of my time but I mentioned on Queer SciFi when the question was asked 'how do you recharge your muse' the answer is I write fanfic. I DO find it recharging but I get to take a break from some of the harder parts of writing (world building, character creation) and just let the words flow.

So I'm looking at 2017 and trying to be better about my time. I need to get an ecalendar that emails me because I keep missing things I should be doing.

Nine Stars rejected Cassadaga Nights but were thoughtful enough to tell me what they thought did and didn't work and the didn't was something I had been worrying about so it's back with my first readers for opinions on how to change it.

Once I get Blood Red Roulette revamped (and god is this a bear!) I want to a) find first readers for it b) start thinking about the rewrites for Deadwood and dedicating it to my friend, Paulle who died this week. It was the last thing she beta read for me.

Other than that, once I get the start of the semester crap out of my face, it's time to get back into writing new stuff. I have four current projects: Behind Blue Eyes (SF), the Steampunk holiday story, These Haunted Hills (contemporary or paranormal, still working that out) and the one set at an anime con but I think I'm going to back burner that one for now.