Young Adult novel to be published

It took eighteen months longer than planned, but I have completed my Young Adult novel, Guardian of the Sky Realms.This story has an amazing origin, starting off as a short story inspired by a painting, and now it is a polished novel of 62k in length.

It only needs final proofing and a cover – I have been in touch with the artist who painted Wings in the past, and I am now trying to negotiate the use of her painting as my cover. It is only fitting, and it will look spectacular.

Well, I am guessing this will be published in October. Wish me luck!

.

Dr Eisenmajer

OK, not big on plugging people, even generally. However, re my previous post, I have to say this guy is great. I saw his introductory dvd and I am won.

Let me explain. Throughout the 3 odd years that my wife and I have dealt with our daughter’s condition, it has always been, in many ways, uncertain, and certainly unscientific. Initially it was a case of "development delay" with the possibility of low spectrum autism. Then it was likely to be "autism", and finally, last year, it was diagnosed formally. "Asperger’s Syndrome" is a name used to keep clear of the baggage that goes with autism. The trouble was, for Jen and me, that the extent of her condition, and the prognosis, was never clear, and despite having a terrific group of people helping with early intervention — all helpful to one degree or another — we are still in the dark on the myriad of little things we need to fine tune our ability to help the little darling, and no-one to give us definitive answers.

Then we saw the dvd. This guy described to a tee the symptoms of what our daughter had, and talked about the way autistic people think. Gave us strategies. It was a major help for us.

Contentment

Had the pleasure an hour or two ago of finishing the core edit of Biola Olatunde’s novel, Blood Contract – which IFWG Publishing will publish in a few weeks. She is a lovely lady living in a part of the world that we can only partially understand how dangerous and hard life can be, and yet she is a poet of impressive skills, and has written a short novel with a lot of narrative capability, and a strong social message. Given the circumstances she is in, I consider editing her work a privilege and I most certainly look forward to seeing her novel become available to those readers in the world who like a good adventure yarn set in an unfamiliar part of the world and circumstances, and with some thought provoking messages. I dearly would like to see her work become successful – and we certainly will do our best to help!

Turning Points

This title isn’t meant to be an oblique and very ‘in’ joke referring to my friend Jack Eason’s novel in progress. Rather it refers to something real happening to me and my co-owned company, IFWG Publishing. It amazes me how often when something important happens, or not happens, it seems to clump together with other things following the same pattern. I suppose one could call these punctuated moments on someone’s time line, as being a turning point.

Over the last week some ugly things happened in my day job (‘day jobbe" as Jay Lake would call it), but not in terms of job security, more in terms of forces majeur affecting professional outcomes. I was assigned a six month job with an engineering firm to put their house in order, but unfortunately internal politics will probably unravel all of my work. We will see ( 🙂 )

I didn’t get short listed in the Text YA Writing Contest. This was disappointing, but hey, am used to it. It is a long journey to get regular acceptances – have to deal with it. I will, of course, now actively try to get Guardian of the Sky Realms published, or actively represented.

In terms of my company (my night jobbe), had a big breakthrough yesterday – Paul Goat Allen, an excellent and respected spec fic blogger-reviewer, actually reviewed Jack Eason’s Onet’s Tale, and provided good words, a mix of positive and constructive statements. This also reflects on the company, and this is all very good for all of us. I am hoping we have an ongoing relationship with Paul.

Finally, the company has matured sufficiently where we had to make decisions about the scope of our work. We chose to narrow our genre focus to non-fiction, children/YA stories, and spec fic – with some narrowing in that field as well. Of course, we are, and will continue to, support those authors we have committed to who are outside of this new scope.

So…a lot happened and I guess I could last week a turning point.

Finally

Finally completed polish of Guardian of the Sky Realms. Jenny will post to Text Publishing for their YA Contest tomorrow. Friday is the deadline.

Took longer to write due to distractions, hence the small margin for error… but very satisfied with the results. 60k of what I think is original, exciting adventure – now to convince others!

Will do a little editing this month and then… wow, back to my Evyntyde novels!

A Good Day

Yes, a very good day.

My short story, David Rorshach’s Dream Comes True, was published today in Silverthorn Press’ eZine. While I have had a few stories published before, this was satisfying as it is my first scifi story being recognised. While the zine is not huge in readership, I respect Silverthorn and its owner Corbin, immensely.

Another reason why I consider this a good day is because I actually had a coffee with one of IFWG’s authors – Paula Boer. Her novel will probably be published by us in a few months – a very nice travel adventure novel. She and her friend were great company and it was pleasant to actually be face to face with one of our authors, instead of the usual (and necessary) virtual form. I learned something from this experience – how important a role I play in ensuring that an author’s dreams come true. While cognisant of it, talking to someone in the intimacy of being face to face, highlights it. Humbling and something to be proud of.

Yes, a very good day.

A Nice Joke (with Erin in mind, & perhaps political correctness)

This was sent to me by my day time boss, and I can’t help but think of this sort of thing being said by Erin in a year or two. Enjoy:

Our teacher asked us what our favorite animal was, and I said, "Fried chicken."  She said I wasn’t funny, but she couldn’t have been right, everyone else in the class laughed.

My parents told me to always be truthful and honest, and I am.  Fried chicken is my favorite animal.  I told my dad what happened, and he said my teacher was probably a member of PETA.  He said they love animals very much.  I do, too.  Especially chicken, pork and beef.

Anyway, my teacher sent me to the principal’s office.  I told him what happened, and he laughed too.  Then he told me not to do it again.

The next day in class my teacher asked me what my favorite live animal was.  I told her it was chicken.  She asked me why, just like she’d asked the other children.  So, I told her it was because you could make them into fried chicken.  She sent me back to the principal’s office again.  He laughed, and told me not to do it again.

I don’t understand.  My parents taught me to be honest, but my teacher doesn’t like it when I am.  Today, my teacher asked us to tell her what famous person we admire most.

I told her, "Colonel Sanders".

Guess where I am now….

A crying shame

Just had a twitter conversation with someone who viewed IFWG Publishing‘s website and came up with some wacky conclusions. And statements. This exchange is hardly worth repeating, or for that matter, thinking about for more than five minutes, but it does symbolically represent the state of the publishing industry. Wacky.

It seems to me that there is so much disruption and confusion, and misinformation (deliberate and unintentional), how does the average Joe Bloggs have a hope to have a decent idea of the state of play. And if Joe Bloggs wants to be a professional author, or even a small press publisher, then we have a serious set of obstacles in the way.

I don’t want to state the truth about publishing here – there are very good bloggists who can help you – Jay Lake, JAKonrath, Doctorow, Don Linn, etc, and following them you will get a much better idea of the state of play. However, with their help or not, for me the real issue is being able to tap into the correct intention, the morally correct.

While this person who twittered with me wanted to argue every point, this person also doesn’t know that my effort in my company is first and foremost to make the authors successful. Can’t easily prove that in a fledgling small press. Just have to watch this space.

Just to make sure the message has gelled with commentators, the following are facts:

  1. IFWG Publishing is a traditional small press. Nothing more or less. Authors don’t pay a cent to submit, and we take 100% financial risk to publish. As per usual.
  2. We  believe in epublishing and its growth, and its value for new writers. All our publications simultaneously publish in print and eprint.
  3. We are generous with royalties for the author.
  4. We publish speculative fiction, but are happy to publish almost any genre if its good.
  5. We also publish magazines – a company has to make money, heh?
  6. We run a biannual short story and illustration contest called Story Quest. This year, we offer a leg up with a novel publication.
  7. We have a biannual magazine where it touches on our authors etc, but which also provides good short stories and articles in any genre.
  8. We enjoy doing this!!!!

Just for the record, folks.