You Knew I Was Writing, Right?

I have just finished writing what I am tentatively calling A Rag Doll's Guide To Enchantment And Murder.  I'm going to be badly frazzled for the next few days, but one of the many things I need to do as soon as I'm coherent is send it out to beta readers.  I lost the email address I used last time to collect addresses to mail to, but basically it's time to start volunteering and I'll work out a system very soon.

Teaser And Exploration

Cyberpunk is winning in my head because there's so much fun goofy stuff to mine.  Here is potentially the first two paragraphs of such a book:

“Get up. Shower. Brush teeth. Spike my hair with oil and lean it over to one side. Dust below my eyes for the ‘punched in the face’ look. Apply a very small amount of green lipstick, one shade darker than my hair. Begin putting on spiked leather bands. Continue putting on spiked leather bands. Add some pre-torn clothing somewhere during that process. Check mirror to confirm I look like death. It takes a lot of time and effort to not be pretty

No piercings. Too retro. I couldn’t afford a cybernetic arm, even with trade-in on the original. I found a metal skin-web once, but Mimi stole it from my trunk and Cosmos stole it from her mattress and Ajax beat Cosmos up and took it and Chaos blew up Ajax’s trunk to give the web back to me because he’s sweet and Liriel put a glamour on him and took it and buried it in the yard so it wouldn’t corrupt our auras or whatever and Fidget watched her do it, dug the web up, and sold it for an AR Monster before anyone else could steal it. Death Rooster is wicked cool and I can’t be mad.”

Whence Forth?

And now, the positive side!

If not Supervillain, then what?????

I ain't short on ideas.  I ain't ever short on ideas, kids.

The biggest problem is that my ideas are so often weird.  'Metal, Candy, Flesh' weird.  I mean, even A Rag Doll's Guide To Here And There is pretty weird.  I have been informed, and I agree, that human protagonists that a teen can empathize with are important for a popular series.  I hate Everymans, but like Penny, that just means I give the main character a lot of personality.

It will be a girl between 12 and 15 with a tendency to be the bad guy.  Sorry, I just love that kind of thing.  I just hate the implication it will replace the Supervillain world.

Okay, so, I have two ideas and this is where you guys come in.  I could use your opinions on which is better.

First idea:  Space Western.  I actually even have an experimental title for the first book, 'You Must Be This Tall To Steal A Spaceship.'  The main character is Pixie, or as she puts it “With a name like Pixie, most people assume I’m an annoyingly hyperactive optimist with a compulsive attraction to trouble, and they are correct.”  I have rigged up a physics explanation that means the galaxy is very frontier, with all FTL travel and communications centering around small ships.  Piracy, scavenging, exotic ports of call, treasure planets, sarcastic teammates, weird aliens, and spaceships crewed by cowboys, ninjas, pirates, clowns, and any other cliche I can think of.  Pixie and her crew are already well defined to me, and stealing spaceships and scavenging precursor technology sounds like a hoot.

Problem:  I don't think a space setting is very relatable.  Pixie has almost no regular kid problems.

Second idea:  Cyberpunk.  I don't think anybody has done early teen cyberpunk.  There is a whole lot of potential there.  A giant, endless city under a smoke-choked sky.  I get to use my "All We Wanted Was To Make You Happy" crazy robot idea.  Weird people, weird crimes, and most importantly, goofy 80s and 90s futurism weird, which is hilarious and fun.  Cyberspace.  Fake magic.  You know the saying 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic?'  The Embraced have taken advantage of that to make themselves feel like wizards and witches and elves and all that.  I get to put Emma Dark in an orphanage, which while not the standard child experience should give her enough connection points.  While Pixie craves adventure, Emma is driven by curiosity and rebellion.

Problem:  The world itself is literally fairly dark, even if Emma's adventures will mostly be fun, and it's a damn shame wasting Pixie and her well-developed characters that friends are telling me they like.

So.  Your thoughts and preferences?

The Reason Why

Alright.

I guess there's not much point in keeping this a secret anymore.

The odds of there being another Supervillain book any time soon are low.  I am learning more and more what a miracle it is that the series got to finish.

It's not my willingness to write, and it's not the fan reception.  You people are beautiful, and you buy every book with gluttonous fervor as if you understand me for the writing god I truly am.  I love that world, and there are plenty of characters to write in it, even if I'd like to space things out with the kind of exotic weirdness that is my first love.

My publisher is a mess.  'Stealing my money' a mess.  I cannot be sure they're going to ever pay me again, I'm going to be consulting a lawyer when I get Heartfelt's book finished and have that emotional room, and I'm never going to send them another book.  The problem is, I've talked to agents and no publisher is going to touch a book that Curiosity Quills can make even the most laughable legal claim on.  That is any book in the Supervillain world.  Until my publisher closes down, and hoo boy are they obviously on their deathbed, I can't write more of those.

Has this year and a half process of my publisher disintegrating, getting no support for them and having to fight again and again for my royalties been stressful, depressing, and interfered with writing and my whole author schtick?  Why, yes.  Yes, it has.  I resisted telling the public because I felt at first that it was unprofessional to air my publisher's dirty laundry, and then because it would interfere with getting the thousands of dollars they still owe me.  I've run out of patience on both of those.

I don't know who my next publisher will be.  I've been told there's no point in shopping for an agent until I have a new book ready to go.  I'm writing the second to last chapter of A Rag Doll's Guide To Here And There, so that will be soon.  Celestia only knows where things go from there.

So, that's what's been happening.  I was going to ask a very important question of you folks, but I think I'll put that in a separate post so we can put this behind us and focus on the positive!

PS - Yes, I'll need beta readers in a few weeks, but wait for it.  A cross country trip is going to slow things down a bit.

Just Say No To Hans Christian Andersen

The release looked like it went well, and I'm back to writing A Rag Doll's Guide To Here And There.  Unfortunately, I already shared like the first third here the first time I was writing it, so I can't really give WIP chapters.

But I ought to do something with this blog, so today I will share a warning!  Hans Christian Andersen sucks and is not what you have been told to expect.

CRIMINY, IT'S RELEASE DAY

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, buyin' time's here.  Most of you got to be beta readers, but for those who have been incredibly patient as my publisher derped around in a circle for five months, you can finally throw yourself off the edge of that cliffhanger and buy the final Penny Akk book!

Here is your Amazon link!

I expect paper and audio versions to be very late, but I don't actually know for sure.  I will be checking up on it, that I can tell you for sure!

Oh!  Anybody who has already read the book, LEAVE A REVIEW, please!  Pretty please!  Those don't just encourage other readers.  Amazon gives nice advertising bennies to authors with a lot of reviews.

Finger Crossing Update

My publisher is aiming for an april 10th update.  That's a goal, not a set date.  At this point, I think the only thing left to do is the cover art, but cover art is a huge bottleneck issue.  I'll let you know if/when I learn more!

UPDATE 4/7

WOOHOO CHECK THIS OUT!

I think we'll actually make the April 10th release!  I'll put up a link as soon as they tell me it's on Amazon!