Good news, everyone! I made a new website to support my multiple personalities different pen names! It's pretty and you should totally check it out!
More importantly, however, I have a giant box of FORTUNE'S PAWN paperbacks sitting in my living room! Is it time for a... GIVEAWAY?!
You heard the demigod! So, starting Monday, I'll be giving away copies of my new book plus a grand prize of some sort, so check back and win yourself something!
I've been pretty busy lately getting everything ready for new book, FORTUNE'S PAWN, to launch in November. There's a lot more involved with setting up for a new series than I expected: updating Amazon/Goodreads/Social Media to reflect my new pen name, a new website to support the addition of an entire new name, obsessively searching for reviews, etc.
All of this was made more complicated by the fact that the name on my new book is "Rachel Bach" not "Rachel Aaron," a decision I've gotten a lot of questions about, so I though I'd go ahead and give an official explanation...
Why my new Paradox Science Fiction novels are listed under "Rachel Bach" and not "Rachel Aaron" -- the long answer.
I am very very proud of my work in The Legend of Eli Monpress. To this day, I still consider SPIRIT'S END to be one of the best books I ever wrote. That said, FORTUNE'S PAWNis most decidedly not an Eli book, and I don't just mean it's Science Fiction and not Fantasy. Devi's story is told first person in the head of a very blunt, very violent space marine. Sex, cursing, booze, and violence are all present front and center (though it's not a dark or gritty series by any stretch. This is still me we're talking about.) That said, since my Eli Monpress books enjoy a younger audience, my publisher decided right off the bat that I'd need a new name/brand for this new series. And so I became Rachel Bach, Science Fiction author to the stars!
There were other reasons for the required name switch on my publisher's end (mostly having to do with marketing and sales), but branding was what sold the decision to me. Do I wish I'd gotten to keep my Rachel Aaron name? Well, yes, but I can understand why the decision was made to change my name, and part of working with a publisher means listening and trusting when they say "we need you to do this."
So does this mean Rachel Aaron is retired?
Absolutely not! Rachel Aaron is still my name for all new fantasy projects, including the (AWESOME) one I just finished and will be telling you all about as soon as I can!
So you're just writing books under two names then? And both names mention you write books under the other name? That seems kind of silly.
Yes, yes it is. Welcome to publishing!
I loved your Eli books, do you think I'll like the new series?
I certainly hope so! They are very different, but they've both got the same light, semi-humorous feel. Think of it as two meals made by the same chef. If you like one, chances are, you'll like the other, even if Science Fiction isn't usually your dish of choice. In any case, I sincerely hope you'll give my new series a try. I loved writing it a lot, and I think people are going to get a real kick out of Devi.
That said, this review by Lexie is probably my favorite yet - "Devi is AWESOME. She's stubborn, impractical and justifiably arrogant and I love her to pieces. I want to hang out with her (even if I'd probably wind up dead). I want to hire her to protect me (even though I would likely wind up in debt to my ears AND dead). And I really want to go drinking with her (even though I would likely wind up with alcohol poisoning then dead)."
A few other links to round out the picture: The Lazarus Project calls Devi "Samus done right," which is about as good a complement as I could ask for.
Sporadic Reviews loved it! "If you like Firefly/Serenity, Mecha Corps, or Alexander Outland: Space Pirate - Fortune's Pawn won't disappoint!"
While Tolerably Smart didn't care for the romance portions of the book, he liked the rest. - "If you’re in the mood for science-fiction promising epicness and love kickass heroines, give a Fortune’s Pawn a try."
And finally Romantic Times gave it 4 and 1/2 stars! The review is only for subscribers at the moment, but here's a quote, "Bach's space opera is a fantastic, action-packed and accessible exploration of deep space. Devi is hands down one of the best sci-fi heroines I've read in a long time...Fans of Douglas Adams, Scalzi and Forde will absolutely devour Fortune's Pawn."
There are more of course, but that's plenty to get you started. And if you want to try the book for yourself, go over to Goodreads and enter to win a copy! The contest is open all month to US residents (sorry, rest of the world ): ).
FORTUNE'S PAWN comes out November 5, and I sincerely hope you'll try it. Until then, I remain your author of two names, Rachel Aaron/Bach.
Just a note to say I haven't died or forgotten about this blog. My blogging time has been taken up by off site promo for my new SciFi book FORTUNE'S PAWN which, by the way, releases Nov. 5!
I'm also putting the finishing touches on a secret project I think you guys are going to loooove. I know I'm super excited about it! So bear with me and I'll make it worth the wait, honest! Won't be too much longer.
First up, I wanted to share with you a preview snippet from some promotional writing I'm doing for Fortune's Pawn. It's a bit out of context, but I'm so proud of this paragraph I think I might burst.
"I'd actually say that the most pernicious aspect of sexism in Science Fiction isn't that there aren't enough of us [women], but how often the women who are here and have made huge contributions to the genre get ignored and passed over in favor of their male contemporaries. This vacuum of recognition isn't just unfair and dumb (seriously, why would you want to ignore Ursula LeGuin? That's like ignoring cake), it leaves every new generation of women writers feeling like lonely pioneers when we're really just the latest addition to a long, wondrous, and tragically undervalued cannon of female authored Science Fiction."
Ahhhhhhhhh.
Okay, now that I'm done tooting my own horn (for now, at least), I want to talk about something much more serious. It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of SFF book review blog The Book Smugglers. I don't always agree with their reviews (because who always agrees with anyone?), but I absolutely love the way they approach genre fiction, a class of literature that often skates past critical scrutiny on the grounds that it's "escapism" and therefore below reproach, with the sort of serious analysis good writing deserves and bad writing needs. I especially love the way they call bullshit on sexism, racism, and privilege whenever they see it, and their take downs are some of my favorite reading on the internet.
But while Reader Rachel eats this stuff up, Writer Rachel gets a little nervous. This sort of criticism (which is by no means limited to The Book Smugglers. There's a whole host of fantastic review blogs out there putting genre books through the wringer and being entertaining and informative while they do it) sets a very high bar for thinking about my own choices in a novel--how I represent gender, is my cast all white, am I falling into any blind zones of stereotype, etc.
Now make no mistake, this sort of thinking is a Very Good Thing. Choices in novels should be carefully considered, that's what makes you a good writer instead of a thoughtless hack churning out unexamined drek. But at the same time, it's easy to overthink yourself into a panic, especially if your book is about tough topics like racism, sexual violence, addiction, or any of the other darker parts of the current human condition. You want to tell your story in an impactful, hard hitting way, but you (or, at least, I) don't want to get called out for being an insensitive jerk when that's not what you meant at all.
So how do you do it? How do you safely write about the hard stuff without softening it up? Well, the easiest path is just to stay away from controversial topics. No one can call you out for handling rape badly if you don't write it, right? And if you never write a character of a race, gender, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic background other than your own, you're safe on that score, too. We're also missing the point.
The truth is, it's pretty much impossible to write anything that matters safely. Art, even the stuff produced purely entertainment purposes, is meant to push boundaries. If it doesn't, it's only reinforcing the same old status quo, which is a problem in and of itself. But just because it's pretty much impossible not to step on toes when you're herding sacred cows doesn't mean we should just let them be. These are powerful stories, and they need to be told. The key, though, is to always be sure to allow these topics the room and depth they deserve within your narrative, and, most important of all, to be sure you actually know what you're trying to say and feel proud standing behind it.
That fact that you're even considering how to write hard things the right way already puts you miles above the really problematic authors (you know the sort), but it can still be a complicated minefield, and one I was especially afraid of entering. It took me years to gain the courage as a writer to start tackling the harder topics, but caution can be rewarding, and I think I've worked some good rules of engagement over the years to make sure I don't accidentally come off looking like a jerk. And since this wouldn't be a Rachel Aaron writing post without a list, here they are!
1. Don't be a jerk.
This is kind of obvious, but considering some of the author reactions I've seen, it clearly needs to be said. If you are an actual jerk with jerky opinions who writes jerky jerk work, then all the writing tips in the universe won't stop readers and reviewers from calling you out for it. That's the price of jerkdom; not being liked or taken seriously. This isn't to say that you can't be a mega-bestselling jerk, but if you insist on putting offensive material in your books, then you can't get mad when people get offended. You will get mad, of course, because you're a jerk, but you have no ground to stand on. Not that you'll see that.
Fortunately, you, my lovely reader, are not actually a jerk, and so this point is not for you. Unless, of course, you are a jerk, in which case I'm very glad to have made you aware of your jerkitude. Acknowledging you have a problem is the first step toward recovery.
Caveat: this isn't to say you can't include characters who are jerks. Villains are the obvious example, but side characters and even protagonists can be homophobic, sexist, entitled, racist assholes and still be good characters. The key here, though, is to make sure the narrative calls these people out on their awful opinions and behavior. Have another character say something, or have appropriately bad things happen to them as a result of their biases (Woman Meteorologist, "Don't go out there! It's acid monsoon season!" Jerk, "Pah, what do women know about weather?" *Jerk goes out door, is melted by acid monsoon* and SCENE.)
That example's a little extreme, but you get the idea. The key here is that you're using the narrative to separate a jerk character from the story as a whole. You may not be a racist, but if you put a racist character who says racist things in your book and then allow those ideas to go unchallenged, readers have no reason not to think that's what you actually believe. I'm not saying that every character who's not a well-adjusted saint has to get melted under an acid monsoon, but there's got to be something that lets your reader know that this character's bigoted opinions are not reflective of your own. Unless, of course, they are. In which case, see point one.
2. If you're going to tackle a big idea, make sure you give yourself the room to do it properly.
Say you have a character in your book who is raped. That's heavy stuff. Maybe it happened a long time ago, or maybe it happens during the course of the plot. Wherever or whenever the rape occurs, though, it changed that character enormously, and it's not the sort of thing you can gloss over or hand wave away. Rape is not character development, it's a real and horrible tragedy that 17% of your white female readers, 18% of your black or latina female readers, and 34% of your Native American/Alaskan female readers have personally suffered.
Think about that for a second. That is some heavy heavy ordinance, and it needs to be handled as such. I'm not at all saying that a raped woman's character needs to be defined by rape (god, PLEASE don't do that), but at the same time, it's not something you can ignore, especially since there are readers (myself among them) who often just won't read books with rape in them because it is so upsetting and it's often handled so so badly.
Does this mean rape is a verboten topic? Absolutely not. But it's also not the sort of thing you can just throw in because you want something bad to happen. You can't have a character get raped and then be fine in the next scene. You can't have a character rape another character and then patch everything back together with an apology and a thirty second "You know what I learned today" life lesson. You can't have a character condone or ignore a rape and then expect us to like them without a serious "oh God, how could I have been so wrong!" character redemption arc. Rape is the nuclear weapon of things that can happen to characters, and if you're going to put it in your story, you have to be ready to handle the fallout with the respect and care that it deserves.
Rape is just one example. There are plenty of horrible, horrible things that people do to other people, and if your book is going to be widely read, chances are that parts of your audience have suffered those humiliations and pains first hand. So if you're going to tackle a hard topic, don't insult your readers, the people who make your dream of writing possible, by reducing their tragedies to a plot point. Instead, give yourself the narrative space to explore the implications and consequences of serious issues properly. You don't have to pull your punches, in fact, I hope you don't, but you do have to think long and hard about where they land, and, more importantly, whom you're knocking out.
3. Don't make the victim the butt of the joke.
Man, this is getting heavy! Let's lighten it up. Let's say for a second that you're like me, and you like to write fun, action packed books, but you still want to include issues like racism and sexism because they're important and make for cracking good stories. How do you reconcile serious heavy matter with a lighthearted story? Is it even possible to joke about this sort of stuff?
This is a pretty loaded topic, but I'm a firm believer than joking about the hard stuff is actually the best way to start breaking it down into something we can actually deal with. The key (as always) is that you have to be aware of what your joke is doing. Even a joke about sexual assault can be funny, provided you never ever ever make the victim the butt of the joke.
For example, comedian Louis CK has a very famous clip about how there's no greater threat to women than men.
In this bit, he talks about how a woman agreeing to go on a date with an unknown man is an incredibly courageous act, and also insane, because men are the greatest cause of injury and suffering for women. “If you’re a guy, imagine you could only date a half-bear-half-lion," he says. "‘Oh, I hope this one’s nice! I hope he doesn't do what he’s going to do.’”
At its heart, this is a joke about rape. Yet unlike other, awful, white-hot rage inducing rape jokes, this one actually works, because the victim is not the one being made fun of. We are not laughing at the person who was raped, or rape itself, or even the rapist. We're laughing at how screwed up our society is where this sort of thing is still allowed to happen.
By pointing the joke in that direction, Louis CK gently leads his audience to consider "hey, that is screwed up." And then maybe they'll start thinking about it, and maybe the next time they see something questionable happening, they'll say something, or do something they wouldn't have done if they hadn't heard that joke.
That's the power of making fun of awful things, it tricks people into thinking in ways they're not used to, or don't want to. That's the power of fiction, too, but as Uncle Ben says, with great power comes great responsibility. This sort of humor takes a lot of careful thought and consideration, and even then, humor is subjective. What I find funny, other people may find in horrible taste, that's just how it goes. But if you think about what you do before you do it and always take the time to consider "whom am I really making fun of here?" you can find some really new and creative ways to tackle difficult issues in a non-depressing fashion, and that's always a good thing.
So that's my post. I hope my box of tricks helps you tackle your own stories. I'm always interested to hear how you've tackled this sort of thing in your own writing, so leave a comment below if you care to. Also feel free to leave comments telling me how you disagree. I'm not quite as happy to get those, but they are important none the less.
As always, thanks for reading, and happy writing!
- Rachel
Hello everyone! So, as you might know, DragonCon is happening this weekend in Atlanta. (Some of you might actually even be there already, in fact.)
Let's hope these guys show up again!
Because I'm tired of getting rejected by DragonCon's guest committee (seriously, guys. Two published series, a popular self-pub writing book, tens of thousands of books sold all over the world, WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME? *looks at accepted guest list* Oh.)
Ahem. Long story short, I will not be attending DragonCon in my official capacity this year. HOWEVER! I will be at the con in Saturday just as myself (can't stop the signal, Mal!). So if you are at the con on Saturday and you want to come hang out with me and talk writing or Eli or whatever (or get anything signed), keep an eye on my Twitter feed. I'll be posting updates on my location all day. Hopefully we can get together and have some good times!
In other good news, I am very happy to announce that a new version of my fast writing book, 2k to 10k, is now available! To be honest, I never expected the book to do as well as it has, and I did not invest the time to do due diligence in my editing. Well, 177 reviews later, I've learned my lesson. This newly updated version has been professionally edited and reformatted. I won't say it's completely typo free because that's just tempting fate, but I will say it is much, much better than it was.
There is no substantially new content, but I did also reword several sections on publishing to reflect the growing importance and viability of self pub, so there's that. If you already bought the book, simply update your Kindle and the new version should download automatically. If you were thinking of buying the book and didn't because you didn't want to waste your dollar on typos, I hope you'll give this new, polished version a try.
Thank you all for waiting so long, and I'm sorry I didn't do this before I published in the first place. I won't be making this mistake again.
That's about it! Enjoy the pretty new version of 2k to 10k and I hope to see some of you at DragonCon! Everyone else, have an awesome weekend!
Okay, so this is a true story about me and my writing. Namely, it's about me screwing up, hurting myself and my work, and then figuring out what steps to take so I don't do it again. As with every post in this blog, I'm posting it here in the hopes that you will spot the warning signs faster than I did and act more wisely. SPOILER: There are no actual cakes in this post. The cake is a metaphor.
THE CAKE IS A METAPHOR!
So you might recall back in the day I wrote a blog post about dramatically increasing my daily word output through planning and observation (side note: this is probably what will be inscribed on my tombstone. "Here lies Rachel Aaron, That 2k to 10k Lady."). What I failed to mention in that original post, however, was all the time I spend not writing. I'm not talking about writer's block or other creative lapses. I mean legit "I have real life crap to deal with and can't physically sit down to type" not writing.
Now, for the most part, this sort of interruption is natural and unavoidable, even healthy (can't write all the time). My problem came with how I reacted to said interruption.
As you probably noticed from the multiple time tracking spread sheets I've posted over the years, I tend to approach my work from a "best case scenario" angle. I'm the sort of person who will suffer a minor interruption in my work flow, and then, if I don't think I can return to an optimal environment, I will rapidly flip in to screw-it mode. This tendency can range from minor ("I finished a chapter at 4:30 and I have to stop writing at 5... screw it, let's just quit here and play Minecraft!") to enormous ("I spent the morning at the doctor and now I'm tired, I've lost half my day, and I have to start a new chapter. Screw it, let's take the afternoon off and play Minecraft!"), and it's lost me more time than I care to think about.
This sort of behavior drives me crazy. I can't seem to make myself be good, even when I know full well what I'm doing and what it's costing me. It's not that I'm lazy (no one who actually gets through a book can ever be considered lazy), but every now and then I'll just hit this wall, especially if my non-writing life gets unusually stressful. And once I'm off a little bit--a few days behind where I want to be, then a week, then a month--it gets harder and harder to push ahead and easier and easier to say screw it, until finally there's no "it" left.
I'm much better about this now than I used to be earlier in my career, but this summer, I had a serious lapse. A combination of family trips, vacations, and various other unavoidable interruptions poked my schedule so full of holes there was barely any time left. Combine this with the fact that I was between books with no solid story line to pull me along and I haven't gotten crap done since June.
Naturally, of course, I feel awful about this. Nothing makes me feel more like a failure than looking at a total word count that's off from it's goal by a power of ten. And I'm a full time writer! The whole point of quitting my job was so that shit like this wouldn't happen. It's like I worked so hard making this beautiful cake of a life, and then the real world came in and stomped all over it.
Now, normally, this is the part of the blog post where I'd present my genius solution to the problem. "You must protect your writing time!" I'd say, or "Plot out your lost time on bell curve and science will show you the solution!" Or I could go with the tried and true writer axiom, "Word harder, slacker! Stop letting life kick you around like wuss and just write!"
The truth is, though, I don't have a solution. Life is messy. No matter how many walls I build or steps I take or plans I enact, shit still gets through to stomp on my cake. For someone as obsessed with optimal numbers as myself, that's a bitter pill to swallow. Looking back, there are definitely places where I could have worked harder or used my time more efficiently, but I can also see why I didn't...and I'm slowing starting to understand that that's okay.
I talk a lot about writing skills on this blog--plotting, tension, character building, etc.--but perhaps the most difficult writing skill of all to master (at least for me) is the ability to accept failure without turning it back on myself. This is amazingly important, because writing is absolutely full of failure. It comes in all sizes, shapes, and flavors of humiliation, and since writing is a solo endeavor, it's all too easy to pin the blame squarely on myself, even if the failure is something I had absolutely no control over. Add in the fact that writing pays the bills at my house, and we're talking lethal levels of guilt.
For the longest time, I thought this guilt was just part and parcel of the writing gig, a side effect of responsibility. Recently, though, I've started to realize there's nothing responsible (or noble, or laudable) about tearing myself down.
As much as I might like to pretend otherwise, writers are not super beings. We're not robots either, tuning ourselves to operate at maximum output efficiency at all times. We're just human, and humans fall down. We mess things up and get tired and make stupid mistakes and say screw it. When you're handling such potent materials as Great Dreams of Being a Writer, it's all too easy to get caught up in the goal, and (for me at least) to hate and guilt yourself over every fumbled step and missed opportunity. It is very easy, in short, to become a guilt fueled writer. But while guilt works in the short term, it's a treacherous fuel source, and enough of it can poison the stream of creativity and shut down your writing forever.
The sad fact is there's no way to completely protect your cake from getting stomped on. You can't will or guilt or threaten yourself into being an infallible super writer anymore than you can will or guilt or threaten everyone into loving your books. That said, just because your writing life cake has a big boot mark in it doesn't mean it's destined for the trash.
Authorship, storytelling, and creativity are life long endeavors; journeys of thousands of miles and multiple peaks and valleys. While we're on the trail, it can be very hard to take our eyes off the immediate mud holes and backtracking. But if we take a breath and look up, we'll see that these problems, however huge, are dwarfed by the enormous, endless, breathtakingly beautiful expanse that is the writing life. And while a change in perspective won't do anything to fix the hole you're in, it can and will make that hole look smaller, and it's amazing how much that helps you find your way out.
I'm still working on that solution for not letting life's unavoidable mishaps take such huge chunks out my writing schedule (current plan: if I decide not to write during work hours, I must do some kind of planning or writing related activity instead. So far, it's going more or less okay.), but I am slowly learning to accept my own mess ups with patience and understanding rather than guilt. That said, I've got a long way to go. I wasted years, years, guilting myself over every little thing and making myself feel terrible for missing what, I eventually realized, was an impossible goal. I can't be a perfectly optimized writer. It's just not going to happen. I can, however, be a reasonably good writer most of the time, and that is perfectly acceptable.
So here is the "learn from my fail" moment of this post: please, please, whatever you do, don't waste your time making yourself unhappy for years like I did. Polish that vital writing career skill of accepting failure and disappointment with compassion and understanding, anddon't beat yourself up because you're not the kind of writer you think you should be, or someone else told you to be. Always remember that we're in this for the long game, not the short sprint--the career, not the novel. Anything else is just a form of self sabotage.
I'm going to wrap up here because I'm getting insufferably cheesy, but I really can not stress how much unnecessary pain and teeth gnashing I've put myself through over all this, and the idea of someone else going through all that pointless suffering for no good reason turns my stomach. So if you're mad at yourself and your writing, if you're frustrated with your lack of progress or characters or whatever has you blocked, know that you are not alone. You are, in fact, the opposite of alone. We have all been there, and while we all deal with it differently, I am going to go out on the limb and say that I feel you, and it's okay.
A few missed days or weeks or months of writing might feel like an epic failure, but in the long scheme of things it's just a blip. A long list of rejections definitely feels like the end of the world, but one story chalked up to a learning experience is just a tick on the long list of books you have yet to write. The only thing that really matters is that you get back in the saddle and keep writing, because the only thing on this Earth that can make you stop writing is you.
Life already stomps on your cake enough. Don't help it along by stomping down yourself. Focus on your Stories instead. Life's much more fun that way.
2 posts in a row?! Well, sort of! A few weeks ago, Rebecca Harwell, author of the pretty boss sounding THE THUNDERBIRD PROJECT (which releases TODAY!), got in touch with me to let me know how much she enjoyed my writing book, 2k to 10k, and asked if I would be interested in a guest post. Since I am always interested in hearing about how other people are using my tools, I thought it sounded like a great idea, so here we are! And now, without further ado, here's Rebecca! 2K to 10K, Rachel’s amazing
book on writing efficiently, wasn't yet published when I wrote THE
THUNDERBIRD PROJECT, but I wish it had been. There’s one simple
trick Rachel talks about briefly (amid tons of other helpful advice)
that would have saved me a painful revision.
Know your ending before you come up
with your beginning.
It sounds contrary to the linear nature
of storytelling, but it’s a gem. Here’s why. While the beginning
hooks your readers, the ending is arguably the most important part of
the story where all the threads come together in some sort of
satisfying conclusion. In many ways, an ending is in the entire book
in miniature as all the important characters, plotlines, and symbols
are present. It also captures the tone of the entire story.
Tone is where
knowing your ending first comes in handy. With THE THUNDERBIRD
PROJECT, I did a rough, linear outline before I sat down to write the
book. I started with a strong image of the beginning and a fuzzy ‘the
good guys win somehow’ ending. The opening scene of my first draft
had a lighthearted, almost humorous tone to it. It was told through
the point-of-view of a rookie cop who didn't quite know how to
handle the situation of an injured metahuman interrupting his morning
patrol. I loved the scene; I still do. But it wasn't the right
place to start the story, and I only realized that when I came to my
ending.
The story began getting darker and
darker as the stakes got real and the bad guys didn't pull any
punches. While the good guys did end up winning somehow in the end,
it was at an enormous cost. The second half of the story had a grim
tone that didn't match the beginning.
Rachel note: OMG I can't say how many times this has happened to me!
I ended up having to go back and revise
the beginning for tone. This was hard. Mainly, because tone isn't
something simple that can be deleted or added. It permeates the plot,
characters, and prose, and takes many drafts (in my case) to change.
Eventually, I got the consistent tone I wanted. I added a new opening
scene and revised the old one so while it still had some humor, it
wasn't as lighthearted as the original version. No one who reads
the opening chapters now will expect the rest of the story to be a
feel-good romp.
If I had known how my story was going
to end before I thought of a beginning, I would have been able to
tell what kind of story I was writing (another piece of Rachel’s
advice) and avoid a long and hard revision. By coming up with your
ending beforehand, you know what to set the reader up to expect in
the beginning so they don’t feel they signed onto a different
adventure than the one you delivered.
About the Book:
Not all superheroes live a glamorous
life.
The Thunderbird project was an FBI-run
group of superhumans until they were unceremoniously disbanded and
sent out into the world to live normal lives. But unfortunately for
the red-headed, mean-tempered Jupiter being 18-foot tall makes
blending into society pretty much impossible. She resigns herself to
living in warehouses and searching for a place where she can just be
left alone.
Some just want the world to forget
them.
Four years later, after being followed
for days by unmarked vehicles, Jupiter is attacked and left for dead
on a bridge, narrowly rescued amidst screams and camera flashes by an
old teammate. She discovers that members of The Thunderbird Project
are being targeted and one is already dead. Jupiter reluctantly joins
the newly reinstated group.
But some people won’t forget and
just want them dead.
With a whole lot of pain and past
between them, the team struggles to find the identity of the
assassins so they can all go back home. Since any chance of getting
away from the world disappeared the day she crawled onto that bridge,
Jupiter just wants to make the guys who came after her pay. And if
that means sticking it to a world that hates her…so much the
better.
You don’t get a ‘happily ever
after’ when everyone considers you a freak.
About the Author
Rebecca Harwell grew
up in small-town Minnesota and spent most of her time reading fantasy
novels and comic books, obsessing over people who don’t actually
exist, and writing novels for fun. Despite becoming an official adult
last year, nothing much has changed. She is currently studying
creative writing and Japanese at Knox College with an eye on getting
her master’s degree in library science. Her debut novel THETHUNDERBIRD PROJECT, a dark superhero tale, is available from Bedlam
Press, an imprint of Necro Publications. Visit her website at
www.rebeccaharwell.com.
Thank you very much for stopping by, Rebecca, and congratulations on your release! Thanks everyone for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the guest post. Hooray for new authors doing new and cool things! - R
First off, I want to thank everyone who helped spread the word and make The Legend of Eli Monpress's turn as the Kindle daily deal a HUGE success! I made it to #9 in the overall paid Kindle store. NINE. For a few glorious hours there, I was #1 in Fantasy. The Eli in me is most pleased! (Now I just have to make it to #1 in all of Amazon, BWA HA HA HA!)
Seriously, thank you all so much! And if you're one of the lovely, lovely people who bough my book over this last week, I'm so glad to have you!
Now, let's talk about sex and fighting, cause that's how we roll here.
Sex and Sword Fights
Way back in the day, when I was but a wee little newly published author at her very first convention, I was put on a panel called "Writing Sex and Combat Scenes." Now, at that time, I hadn't actually written any sex scenes for publication, but I had written a lot of sword fights, and I guess half-qualified was good enough.
I don't remember much about the actual panel (I think we went off topic a lot, though saying "authors went off topic at a convention panel" is like saying "dogs went off topic when they saw a squirrel"), but that implied connection between sex and combat has stuck around in the back of my head ever since. It's only now, though, with 9 additional books, multiple sex scenes, and uncountable sword fights (as well as gun fights, fist fights, ship fights, and myriad other forms of conflict) under my belt that I've really begun to understand just how true the premise of that panel was. And so, to prevent you, lovely reader, from having to slog through all of the above as well, I'd like to take fifteen hundred words or so to talk about how writing sex scenes and writing fight scenes both work pretty much the exact same way.
Since this post is about to go R-Rated and slightly NSFW (assuming your boss is reading over your shoulder, I promise/apologize that there are no pictures), here is a cut to protect those who'd rather not be assaulted with this sort of How To on a Monday morning. ;)
So there's been noise around the internet about this article by Tor UK editor Julie Crisp. The basic gist of the post is that the low number of SciFi books by women on the shelves isn't because publishers are locking the door on women, it's because they just don't get a lot of SciFi submissions by women, and they can't publish what they don't receive.
Now, there have been some thoughtful posts decrying this as buck passing: "Oh, it's not our fault the vast majority of genre books coming out are written by dudes. Lady authors just aren't writing the stuff. Step it up and solve sexism, women!" And while I don't entirely agree that's what's going on here, (okay, that's exactly what's going on here, but I don't think it's being done mean spiritedly), the truth is that sexism everywhere, but specifically sexism in genre fiction, is far far FAR more insidious and deeply rooted than this sort of "the numbers don't lie, boss" reductionism would imply, especially when it comes to Science Fiction...
...Annnnnnd since, (SHAMELESS PLUG) I have a SciFi novel coming out in November that is not only written by a woman, but has a female main character (DOUBLE RAINBOW!), I thought I'd take a moment to explore why many women aren't drawn to space in books.
The lack of women in SciFi fiction is really strange and striking when you consider the overwhelming female fanbase for SciFi in other media franchises. Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, and (everyone's favorite) Firefly all boast impressive female viewership and fandom (and fanfic writing). Clearly, women are capable of understanding and enjoying the hell out of space stories, so why aren't more women writing/publishing Science Fiction novels?
Well, first off, women ARE writing Science Fiction. I actually grew up reading SciFi written by Anne McCaffrey and Ursula Le Guin. I also read Dune and a metric ton of David Brin, and of course all the Hitchhiker's books. Today, I read Anne Aguire and Elizabeth Moon and Elizabeth Bear. But while there are lots of women telling successful Science Fiction stories, the undeniable truth is that they are the vast minority of the Science Fiction out there.
I think a big part of the blame for this discrepancy can be placed squarely on the shoulders of Science Fiction's rep as a "man's game." For example, all those female authored SciFi books in the last paragraph that I grew up with? They were from my mom's shelf. I read them in the classic tradition of teenage reading: because they were what I had. And I loved them, don't get me wrong, but when I grew up and started buying my own books, I went almost exclusively into Fantasy (UF and Epic) and all but ignored Science Fiction. Looking back, I did this because subconsciously I knew that SciFi was "for guys," and even though a specific book might look interesting, it would probably just be a bunch of dudes doing manly, dude stuff with no female characters of note. So I didn't buy.
Was this dismissive of me? Sure. Did I miss a bunch of awesome books because of my own preconceptions? Almost certainly. But I got those preconceptions--that space stories aren't for me, that I wouldn't understand, that I'm not welcome in this genre--from Science Fiction itself. From the way it is marketed and discussed, from the covers, from the truly sexist SciFi dudes who make it their mission in life to keep girls and their girl cooties away from their hallowed spaceship tomes. True, no one ever stood in front of a bookshelf and told me I couldn't buy Science Fiction, but there was definitely push back, and as a woman in a book market where I had so many choices about how to spend my reading time, I simply didn't see the point of putting in the effort to read a genre where they didn't want me around in the first place.
This is the cycle that has ultimately created such an enormous gender disparity in Science Fiction readership and authorship. Stories are written by men and then marketed to men, who read them and become inspired and write their own male-centric stories that get published and then marked again to men, and the whole thing starts over. In general, it's not a mean or vicious "No Girls Allowed" sort of thing (though that does happen). It's just the rut, and ruts are very easy. Sexism, in general, is easy. It's a lazy way of thinking that replaces complicated actual experience (ie: women are people and thus come in every personality imaginable and are often self contradictory) with a label (Women, yeesh! Amirite, guys?!) which is why it's so so so hard to combat.
The trouble is, this sexist rut is hurting everyone. Even as popular culture at large becomes nerdier and nerdier with big SciFi movies like Star Trek and Pacific Rim coming out as the huge summer blockbusters, Science Fiction as a written genre continues to be small and stagnate. It's not for lack of quality, amazing books are coming out, but so long as SciFi continues to allow itself to be perceived as old, sexist, white guy reading, that will be its audience.
It's almost laughable that a genre built on big new ideas and pushing boundaries has let itself be pigeonholed into such a small box. But if it wants to break out, then everyone involved in the genre--marketing, publishers, writers, and fans--needs to work together to break down the harmful stereotype that Science Fiction is a boys club. How you ask? Any number of ways! How about covers that feature female characters doing badass things? How about marketing Science Fiction book that also feature strong romantic plots to Romance readers? How about writing more interesting and rounded female characters into your stories? How about making sure Science Fiction conventions are places where women can feel safe rather than excluded and/or preyed upon? How about having a main cast that is something other than overwhelmingly white and male?
There are any number of ways to open up the Science Fiction genre to a wider audience, and we should be scrambling to do them. These stories deserve a wider readership, and, in turn, a wider authorship. Because writers tend to write what they read, and until the SciFi readership is balanced between men and women (and people of color) we're never going to see a true parity of male/female authorship in the genre or a wider range of non-white authors, and that's just sad for everyone, especially people who want to keep reading new and amazing SciFi stories.
To be clear, I'm not hating on or attacking Science Fiction itself. Hell, I wrote three freaking books about a powered armor user who shoots aliens and flies through known space on a trade freighter. I love me some Science Fiction, and I want to write a lot more of it, which is why I'm writing this post. Because Science Fiction as a whole is never going to escape the low sales numbers corner it's painted itself into by catering only to white men until it starts reaching out and welcoming a wider readership.
So let's stop digging in our heels and passing the buck on sexism and start working to change things. Because this genre deserves more than this. We deserve more, and we can have it if only we have the will to reach.
After many setbacks, I can finally reveal the cover of Fortune's Pawn to you in all its spacey, helmeted glory!
Devi Morris isn't your average mercenary. She has plans. Big ones. And a ton of ambition. It's a combination that's going to get her killed one day - but not just yet.
That is, until she just gets a job on a tiny trade ship with a nasty reputation for surprises. The Glorious Fool isn't misnamed: it likes to get into trouble, so much so that one year of security work under its captain is equal to five years everywhere else. With odds like that, Devi knows she's found the perfect way to get the jump on the next part of her Plan. But the Fool doesn't give up its secrets without a fight, and one year on this ship might be more than even Devi can handle.
So as you see, my name is Rachel Bach for this one. This is because the Paradox Series is 1) science fiction rather than fantasy, and 2) much more R-rated than my Eli books (cursing and KISSING O_O). The main character is Devi Morris, a powered armor mercenary with more ambition than is probably healthy and a critically underdeveloped fear of danger. The book is fun and fast and a bit scary, full of shoot em' ups and big mysteries. There's also a romance that is probably my favorite thing ever in the world!
There are 3 Devi books total--Fortune's Pawn, Honor's Knight, Heaven's Queen--that work together to complete a single arc both meta plot-wise and romantically. All three are already in my publisher's hands, and I can not WAIT for ya'll to read them!
So, if you liked my Eli books, love powerful, flawed, take-charge female main characters, and think that your own suit of powered armor sounds pretty damn nifty, I invite you to check out Fortune's Pawn when it hits shelves later this year! I'll be doing all sorts of give aways and so on closer to the release date, and I'll be putting up sample chapters soon as well. In the meanwhile, thanks for reading and I promise I'll get some more real blog content up soon.
