Sunday, January 31, 2016

Journey into the Future

Good morning and welcome to another winter Sunday, the last day of the first  month of the year. By now, most resolutions have been scrapped, but so far--knock on wood, fingers crossed--I've managed to keep mine.

So what is this resolution I've managed to keep? I'm trying to increase my promotion efforts by posting specifically about my books weekly on Twitter. That means that during any given week, I'll have tweeted at least once about each of the books I have available. I will Facebook and TSU promote at least three times a week. It may not seem like much, but if you consider my previous efforts were hit or miss at the best of times, well, so far I have 100 percent improvement!

It also means that this morning, I'm going to talk about the sci-fi adventrue I've undertaken. My husband is a great fan of sci-fi, specifically Star Trek, all franchises from it, Babylon 5, Andromeda, and Firefly. With that in mind, I decided to begin a sci-fi series for him--episodes, just like on television, that would tell a story over time. So far, I'm still setting the stage for the space exploration adventures yet to come.

Tales of Eloisia is planned as a multi- episode adventure. Each segmanet, will deal with an issue faced by the last survivors of Earth. Set one thousand years in the future, it allows my crazy imagination to have fun. It's sci-fi, yes, but it's way more than that--it's romance, suspense tinged with horro, and paranormal adventure all rolled into one.

The basic premise of the story:

Earth is gone. Colonel James Striker, space marine and captain of the Intergalactic Peace Council’s Explorer class ship, Eloisia, must find a new planet for the six hundred people aboard his vessel. Sounds easy enough. The coordinates are plotted, and he and the ship’s crew and passengers go into cryogenic sleep for the duration of the thousand-month trip—but something goes wrong. 
When Striker awakes, the ship’s computer has malfunctioned. The vessel is racing through space, and he and those in his care are lost in time and place. One third of the passengers and crew are dead, their cryo units damaged and more than half the ship, including Engineering, is without atmosphere. Chief Engineer Mags Magregor works to repair Alpha, the advanced android computer running the ship. The sooner they can figure out where they are, the better. 



Episode One: Stowaway 
Marines searching the cargo bays discover two stowaways. Darla Edison doesn’t understand how she came to be aboard the Eloisia, but the camoid telepath will do whatever it takes to protect herself and Patrick … And if that means exposing her talent to others, so be it. 
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0145HD7XU
Episode Two Secrets 
When six bodies and unknown cargo are discovered in the ship’s farthest cargo bays, Striker, with few memories of the days before lift off fears he may be the one who sabotaged the ship. He asks Darla to scan his mind and find the truth. What she finds, secrets even she doesn’t understand, may lead to more dangers than either of them anticipated.
http://www.amazon.com/Eloisia-Episode-Two-Secrets-Tales-ebook/dp/B015JEOETO










Episode Three: Sabotage
The adventure continues. Aware of his hidden telepathic talent, Colonel Jim Striker is disturbed by the thoughts of all those around him. Adding to his discomfort is a strong sexual attraction to Darla, an itch he can’t scratch without repercussions. 
Determined to find the traitors aboard his ship, Striker plans to slowly revive the passengers, but that plan fails when all the cryogenics tubes activate themselves, putting and additional drain on their already depleted power. Discovering their food cargo has been poisoned increases their danger—if the replicators fail, they’ll starve. 
When Mags, his Chief Engineer charged with repairing the ship’s AI, informs him the Eloisia is armed with banned weapons capable of destroying all life on a planet in a matter of days, Striker is stunned. Someone is doing their best to alter the ship’s mission—why?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01AF3OSTK

So, Why not hop aboard the Eloisia and find out what life has in store for the intrepid travellers? Tales of Eloisia is available exclusively through all Amazon e-book retailers.

Sunday, January 24, 2016

Writing in This Day and Age



Good morning, I wasn't sure what I'd do with this particular blog. I've been blogging on another site for three years, and I use it for everything--posts, promotion for other writers, and reviews.  In fact, I've used it for everything. The thought of having another blog didn't even occur to me until I attempted to take my turn posting the Tuesday Tales.

I'm not sure that anyone, other than myself, can see this blog. It doesn't have any followers as far as I know, although it may show up in Google+, but when it comes right down to it, this blog forum is a mystery to me. Since it's a sort of nether world, I decided to use this blog as a  diary, a place where I can rant, weep, or dream about my life in general and my writing career in particular.

I suck at promotion! There, I've said it and admitted it. I don't really promote my books basically because I don't know how. Flooding my Facebook pages with "buy my book" posts bothers me. I feel like I'm forcing my books down the throats of my friends. As far as Twitter goes, I'm tweet illiterate. I check it periodically--not as often as I should, retweet and tweet on an irregular basis, but again, posying buy my stuff for my followers seems inappropriate, although, like Facebook, I do it.

I've tried to build a fan base with my other blog, Living the Dream and with my Website but I haven't been too successful. The same thing goes for my Amazon author site and my Facebook author site. I blog periodically on other sites, hoping to increase my range, but that's it!

Recently, I joined the local writers' group, but most of them are recreational writers, so I'm not sure how helpful that will be--fun and interesting, to be sure, stressful, possibly, when I try my hand at the writing assignements they read and share at the meetings.

One thing is certain. Unless I figure out the promotion game, I'll never achieve my writing dreams. Paying for promotion isn't possible right now, and that doesn't help. So what is my goal for next week? I will try to tweet at least three times to promote one of my books. Will it work? Who knows, but if I don't try...

Have a great week.




Saturday, January 23, 2016

This Old Dog Can't Seem to Learn a New Trick!

Welcome to my first ever Blogger blog. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm old! My eldest grandchild is 15 today, so gone are the days I can pretend to be 35, even 40. There had to be a child in there who was born, grew up, had a child--you get the picture. Bottom line, I'm old.

Now, I used to believe age brought wisdom, but that doesn't apply today. My six-year-old grandson can use my tablet better than I can. My ten-year-old grandson accesses the DVD player, blu-ray, Netflix, whatever he wants, and I can barely turn on the televison. But, I always thought I was reasonably good with the computer. My phone--not so much--but the desktop, even the laptop, I could manage. Not now.

Now, I feel completely out of my depth, out of my element, and lost. It's a sobering and depressing feeling.

Do this--it will be easy. NOT! For the past two hours I've been struggling to figure out how to do a blog on this site--more precisely on this blog venue, but on another site to which I have access. With the help of dedicated friends, I've managed to bring up the site, but the bttons that are supposed to be there to ensure I'm on the right page are missing.

While I'm not the sharpest tool in the virtual computer toolshed, I've always thought of myself as able to cope, to figure it out, to manage to make it work, but I'm on the verge of yanking my hair out. So where do I go from here? I have no idea. The button that's supposed to be there simnply isn't, and no matter how many times I close the page and open it, it doesn't appear. The Internet keeps phasing in and out and driving me insane. If I were struggling to finish a book, it would be great, but since the Internet is what I need right now, frustrated doesn't begin to describe how I feel.

I'm going to take a deep breath and try to figure out an alternative to this, but man, this old dog hates learning new tricks!


Why is Everything so complicated?