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Author: Janet Gershen-Siegel

I'm not much bigger than a breadbox.

Publishing, Published, Positive Reviews, Middling Reviews, Bad Reviews, Teasing, Blurb, Query letter, Elevator pitch, teasers, pitmad, rejection, Easter eggs, Starting, Digital Publishing Game, pocket conflicts, Manuscript Wish List, Reading, Submission Guidelines, Set Dressing, Hairstyles and Costumes, Aroma vs Odor or Stench, Mixing a Score in Words and Music, Disgusting vs Delicious, Hot or Cold, Publishing Stats, Jewish characters, trust your readers,

Your Elevator Pitch

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on June 13, 2024

Let’s Deconstruct Your Elevator Pitch

We have all heard of what an elevator pitch is. It seems like it is the kind of stuff for overly eager new sales associates looking to make an impression on the big boss between floors.

But there is more to it than that.

Someone has just turned to you and said, “You’re a writer. What’s your book about?”

Don’t just stand there! You’ve got to be ready.

Your Verbal Elevator Pitch

Try something like this on for size.

Imagine if animals started talking, and they told you what to do in a topsy-turvy world.

My book is about Alice; she’s a young girl, a little bored on a sunny afternoon, when she spots a white rabbit. The odd thing about this rabbit is, he’s wearing clothes and talking. She follows him down a rabbit hole, but then she can’t get out.

That’s less than seventy words, and the person asking has the basic plot, the name of the heroine, and a reason to want to know more.

Your Pitch in Writing

Yes, you need one of these, too. But but a written elevator pitch a little different.

Even if readers know you for writing sweeping, epic sagas, you should still write some short stories. They can be in your universe, or not, although it might help with both marketing and your own personal creativity if they can fit somewhere within your universe.

They do not even necessarily have to be sent out for publication, but they could be good for anthologies. Don’t knock that; this is exactly how a lot of people get their starts. In fact, if you are having trouble breaking in, or want to impress a publisher, try submitting to anthologies. You can get a published credit and impress the publisher of the anthology. There’s a win-win right there.

Point them there, if someone wants to read a sampling of your work. Don’t make them commit to a 100,000 word novel.

On Balance

Finally, have fun with it. Is your main character funny? What about quoting one of her best zingers, assuming you don’t need to explain the joke? Now there’s an idea for a pitch.

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Self-Review – Eros vs. Thanatos

Short Stories, Road, My Aliens, Last Patient, interview, Surprises, Props, shipwrecked, child, Killing Us Softly, Ditte, Band, three minutes, Longest Night Watch, Nothing Good Ever Happens, Complications, Your Call, Darkness into Light, canaries, gentrification, Cynthia, True Believer, Short Stories, Wilder Bloom, Dish, Mitalisque, kitten, Last Try, Minnesota Wish, Dominick and Angela, Alix, Alix’s Apocalypse, A Chance Encounter in Time, A Crime in Time, A Show for the Galaxy, Alien Justice, And the Band Played the Apocalypse, Babel 2.0, Side Pages, Frozen Assets, Julie's Dollar, Mandy Goes to Aspen, Martin's Choice, Mike’s Grades, Out of the Work Camp Frying Pan, Sarah’s Invention, Small Acts of Defiance, The Future Has No Foundation, Unexpected Help, You Will Drink Your Coffee and Like It, Unreliable, East Side of the Universe, Eros vs Thanatos, Dust Between Our Stars, A Show for the Galaxy, A Fairy Tale for Skeptical Adults, A School for Scavengers, Frozen Assets, Out of the Work Camp Frying Pan, 1960s Temporal Crimes, Lizzie Borden is Vital to the Timeline, Walls Came Tumbling Down Again, The End, Will's Dog, Building Trust, Message in an Odd Bottle, The New Kid, What's an Animal, A Touch of Gray Hair, Guilty of Imperfection, Jared's World Turned Upside Down, Caring for Carole, Nuremberg Redux, Art Has All Sorts of Effects, When Russia Invaded Texas, Failure, Tumble in a Tomb, Beauty is Only Earth Deep, Peddler, Escape Violinist, Shimmering Wasteland, Cave Canem and Cave, Skating, Uninformed, Stellar Stowaway, dinosaurs, fragments, none of this is real, buzz, quartz, water, verity, quarrel, rivalry, breakout,

Self-Review – Eros vs. Thanatos

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on June 6, 2024

Review – Eros vs. Thanatos

In part, I admit I wrote Eros vs. Thanatos to get out of having to come up with a whole new plot for NaNoWriMo 2024.

But it was also because I wanted to give Peri Martin a better fleshed-out backstory. And, I wanted to really show Charlie Hollis alive. This helps to give more dimension to her character and the Obolonk universe as a whole.

Background

One great part of this story (for me, anyway) is being able to show Peri and Charlie actually working together. I also used it as an opportunity to reveal just how hot guns came to be.

This story also serves to bridge between The Dust Between Our Stars (first contact) and The Obolonk Murders. In the latter, it’s obvious that we have been in a society with aliens and semi-sapient robots for a while. But how did we get there? In part, this story fills in the reader.

Plot

It’s a time of change. As a condition of getting her divorce from Anil Deshpande, Detective Sergeant Peri Martin trades her engagement ring for the deed to the downtown Boston apartment. When her department partner, Vic Frontieri, retires to an orb in the Uranian System, she gets a new partner, Charlie Hollis.

Peri navigates a mixed-up work and at times romantic relationship with sometimes-married Charlie while they deal with rival gangs blowing each other away with a new weapon, the hot gun.

Personal flamethrowers are the nastiest feature of Pandora’s box. It doesn’t help that the talented engineer making these weapons even more lethal is mob princess Kiki Madden.

Can Peri and Charlie stop the gang war and rein in the arms race before everyone’s remains end up small enough to fit into a ring box?

And speaking of rings, will a mutual love of an obscure fandom bring together Kiki and Burnside mob scion Marius Burnside—and maybe bring about peace?

All’s fair in love and engineering.

Characters in Eros vs. Thanatos

The characters are Peri Martin, Charlie Hollis, Dennis Dolan, Greg Shapiro, and other members of the New England Meg Police Department. Other characters include mobster Dutch Burnside; his son Marius; and his ex-wife Noreen. Also, rival mobster Melinda Killeen Madden; her husband Philip Madden; their daughter Kenisia (Kiki); and witness Nate Johnson.

There are also some moments with Anil Deshpande, Sudarshana Deshpande, Doug Anderson, and an Obolonk named Method (They Say This One is Very Methodical).

Memorable Quotes

The next morning, Peri was awoken by a ringing in her left ear. This was nothing unusual, for she had had a mini-phone implanted in her ear for years. Groggily, she flipped a small switch behind her earlobe. “Hello?” She yawned.

“This is Bettybot One Four Six. I have a Mrs. Sudarshana Deshpande to speak with you.”

“A robot is calling? What?” Peri tried to shake the cobwebs.

“The connection is being slightly delayed as a courtesy since it is before your stated awake time. If the connection is refused, this robot will inform your caller and will take a message of no more than one thousand characters or fifty words, whichever is longer.”

“Oh, um, yeah. Put her through, I guess.” Peri glanced at her tablet. The time was 6:23 AM. She blinked several times. Oh yeah, Mumbai-Bangkok is ten hours later than here.

There was a click and then an annoyed woman’s voice with a moderately heavy Indian accent. “Perdita! Why didn’t you pick up right away?”

Peri winced at the use of her full name. I don’t even like it when Mom and Dad call me that. “Oh, er, hi, Sudarshana. What a less than pleasant surprise. It’s not even six-thirty here.”

“Oh. Well, it’s almost four-thirty here and your time zone is nonsense anyway.”

“What do you want?” Peri whined.

“What?”

“Your demands. What are your demands this time?”

“Demands? I do not make demands.”

“You only call me whenever you want something. In case you hadn’t noticed, Anil and I are no longer married. Why didn’t you call him at this ungodly hour instead?”

“My son is busy.”

“Yeah, busy boffing my replacement, in our apartment downtown, to boot.”

Rating for Eros vs. Thanatos

The story has a strong MA rating. Peri and Charlie deal with some extremely dangerous people, and the deaths and injuries are particularly gruesome. I am not kidding.

Takeaways

I love writing Peri, so picking up her story again was like coming home. As for Charlie, he was a revelation. He’s just as much of a jackass as I had originally wanted him to be, but he’s also truly skilled. And smart.

Want More of the Obolonk Universe?

If the story of the Obolonks resonates with you, then check out my other articles about how our society turns tripartite, with humans, robots, and Obolonks.

Character Reviews: The Obolonk Murders

Humans
† Peri Martin
• Greg Shapiro
† Rachel Gifford

Robots
† Tommy 2000
• Selkhet 3000

Obolonks
† TSTITO

Character Reviews: Time Addicts

The Good Guys
• Josie James
† Carmen D’Angelo, MD
• Dalton Farouk
† Tad Lewis
• Cyndi Mendez
† Bobby Brodie
• Keisha Darnell
† Vera Travers

The Bad Guys
• Peter Ray
† Dae Ou Xiang
• Elston Young
† Corwin Zachary

The Obolonk Universe

Speculating About the Future

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on May 30, 2024

Let’s Consider Speculating About the Future

Speculating is fun. However, future predictions can be notoriously inaccurate. I’m still waiting for my flying car, for example.

However, some predictions have been eerily on the nose, such as cell phones, which are a lot like Star Trek’s communicators. So here’s a few idea on how to essentially build your own crystal ball.

For writers, this kind of speculation can be helpful, either to set a scene or to spark some other idea. While science fiction and fantasy are natural genres for this, probably just about any genre could work. Maybe the couple in your romance are inventors.

Or the victims in your horror are dispatched with cutting edge (pun intended) stuff.

Extrapolation

The easiest way to speculate and predict is to take what currently exists, and then extrapolate from that.

Transportation

For example, consider transportation. Your car gets a certain degree of fuel efficiency and it has a particular top speed. It holds a certain number of people. And it has a particular styling. So what happens when you stretch those characteristics?

And so you can consider a car that can go faster yet safely. Maybe your futuristic vehicle is self-driving, or a robot ‘drives’ it.

Since parking can be a pain in a lot of places, why not think up a car which can park itself, or can fold up so it doesn’t need a conventionally-sized parking spot? Maybe your new car is partly powered by solar or nuclear fusion. And how sleek and aerodynamic should it be?

Communications

And you can consider other basic areas of life. Let’s look at communications next. Because nearly all of us already have smart phones, think about the trends. Sometimes, phones get smaller, and are more lightweight and compact. However, at other times, they become larger and almost could be thought of as tablet hybrids.

What do your characters need? And what are the limitations on either scenario? How small can a phone become? How large?

Can it be embedded?

Speculating About Feeding the World

So what about food? People still starve. However, that’s usually due to distribution problems rather than growing enough crops or the existence of enough arable land. Hence how do your characters (or your setting) solve this problem?

And so you can look at any basic area of life, from finding love to consuming entertainment or buying clothing. See where extrapolation takes you.

Employment

When I graduated from undergrad, in 1983, there was no such thing as social media. In fact, I well recall cutting and pasting paragraphs in papers by literally cutting and pasting. Sorry, rain forest!

While computers already existed of course, they had not made it to the mainstream yet. But once the price started to drop, in the late 80s, mid 90s or so, computers started to become more ubiquitous.

So, that year, the prospects for employment using a computer were really just programmer or someone who taught programming.

Now, of course, many of us use our computers every day at work. And this doesn’t even get into how often we check and use our cell phones. But back in that year, would any of us have come up with so many varied uses for computers in work?

And what about AI?

Off the Wall

And then there’s the somewhat pie in the sky, kinda crazy stuff. For example, let’s think about the second Back to the Future film. Doc Brown uses fusion power to make the DeLorean go, but one of the things he grabs for fuel is a discarded banana peel. What a brilliant off the wall idea!

Off the Wall Fashion

So let’s look at, say, fashion. Maybe it’s the opposite of today, where everything is covered up but genitalia. But what kind of a society would support that?

Or maybe everyone wears a uniform, but the uniforms look really odd.

Consider hair when you consider future fashions. Does the mullet make a mainstream comeback? Or do we all just say to hell with it and shave our heads?

More Speculating Out of My Overly Fertile Imagination

Cars could be six stories tall. Communications could be facilitated with chewing gum. Maybe you vote telepathically. The sky, as always, is the limit.

Takeaways for Speculating About the Future

In short, thinking about our future, you may want to consider today, back a few decades, when today was the future. How did everything change? Was it gradual or radical? Did celebrities and influencers steer the ship? Or did it come up from grass roots?

Depending on your genre, and how much room there is for humor, your ideas about the future can go in any number of directions.

Decide on how plausible you want everything to be. And don’t forget to take into account professional predictions like Moore’s Law when speculating about the future!

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The Weird World of Being Published

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on May 28, 2024

What is The Weird World of Being Published?

Published? Me?

Well, yeah, actually.

I suppose, in the back of my mind, when I was first starting to write (age four or five or thereabouts), I had an idea about becoming a published author. I also wanted to, at times, be a cowgirl, a veterinarian, an archaeologist and other things.

Becoming, for real, published, makes up one weird world.

So, sit down, and let me tell you all about it.

Origins Story

No, I was not bitten by a radioactive spider.

For probably any aspiring author, the road is a long one. When I first started writing, it constituted what you would now refer to as graphic fiction. I was a child and so I would draw little figures in addition to a few words. As I got older, the words began to dominate, and I have never written, as an adult, a graphic novel.

Maybe I should one of these days. Except my visual artistic endeavors have not truly developed beyond what they were when I was in grade school. So, maybe not.

I wrote fan fiction for a while and then began to migrate over to wholly original fiction. Furthermore, I had wanted to write for NaNoWriMo back in 2012, but I did not have a decent idea that year.

I also wanted to make what I wrote wholly original fiction. In 2013, I was fortunate enough to come up with a great idea and so Untrustworthy was born.

I submitted it to a contest held by Riverdale Avenue Books and was lucky enough when they chose me as the winner in February of 2014. My thanks, of course, goes out to the wonderful people there, particularly Lori Perkins and Don Weise.

The Start of the Wild Ride of Publishing

I took a few months for things to really start clicking along. Lori was busy, other submissions came in, plus of course they had a business to run. I was in school at Quinnipiac and so, while I noticed the time passing, I was okay with it.

In November, Lori contacted me and we started to get down to the nitty gritty. This included editing the manuscript.

It also included getting together a blurb about me and getting an established person in the business to review my book (a thousand thanks to Cecilia Tan!), and deciding on a cover.

I felt that the aliens in my novel would be too difficult to draw, and making up a model like them would be costly (such things are at issue if you’re a first-time author, folks) and wouldn’t necessarily evoke my vision.

Hence I instead suggested an image of broken glass.

Adding to that effect were the concepts that (a) the moon, Wecabossia, would be nearly the same size as Caboss, so it would be rather large in the sky and readily observable during daylight hours, and (b) the Cabossians breathe methyl salicylate, or wintergreen oil.

Those gave the cover designer (the incomparable Scott Carpenter) some design elements and ideas to work with.

I truly love the cover and how the huge moon gives a sense of foreboding as the one broken window amidst a mass of perfection is a nagging hint that something’s not quite right.

Note, by the way, that there is a newer cover, meant to evoke The Handmaid’s Tale as Untrustworthy is cut from fairly similar cloth.

Nuts and Bolts

A ton of strange things happen when you are published. For one, you need an Amazon Author page! But you can’t make one until your book is actually for sale on Amazon, in any format. Furthermore, Amazon’s many domains have different rules. You can make author pages on Amazon.com (the US), Amazon.co.uk (the UK), Amazon.fr (France), Amazon.de (Germany), and Amazon.co.jp (Japan).

Amazon Author pages exist on Amazon.ca (Canada), but you can’t change them! For Amazon.it (Italy) and others, there are no Author pages. I hope Amazon makes this feature more uniform across the board.

As for what to put into your Author page, you need a good recent headshot of yourself (mine comes from four years ago; I could use a newer one) and links to things like your Twitter stream and your blog RSS, if any.

For works available in countries with non-English native tongues, you might want to have a trusted friend help you with translations (or do them yourself, if you’re able to). Trusting Google Translate is not in your best interests. Get a native speaker.

Autographing When You’re Published

Dealing with autographing books is interesting when someone hundreds of miles away asks you to do this. I’ll pass along this tip from New York Times bestselling author Dayton Ward: arrange it all through PayPal.

For him, the best way to take care of this means to collect the cost of the book and two types of postage: one goes to his home or a post office box, and the other goes to the fan’s location.

I’ll add to this – if it’s a person you know, and you don’t mind giving out your address (or if you have a PO box I suppose your relationship with them would be moot anyway), have them have Amazon (or Barnes & Noble, wherever your book is available in dead tree format) ship the book directly to that location. Then all you need to collect is return postage.

Conceivably, someone who doesn’t want to work with PayPal could even supply a money order and slip it in the mail to your PO box.

Reviews are gold and you need them. But how do you get them? If your friends are buying your work, once they say they’ve finished, ask them to write you a review.

Reviews can be short – a five-word sentence is better than nothing. There are also book bloggers. Do your research and find some that are (a) semi-available, (b) write decent, unbiased, honest, and constructive reviews, and (c) read your genre.

Oh, and bad reviews? Not fun but don’t be discouraged! For many brand-new authors, having unmitigatingly positive reviews and five stars all over the place feels, well, kind of suspect.

But a bad review, here and there, and a single star or no stars will help you. Because readers will see the reviews as being far more authentic.

Takeaways for Being Published

It’s all rather satisfying but also a tad freaky. Every now and then, I just want to run around screaming – I’m a published author!

‘Cause I am, you know.

By the way, one big piece of publishing is covers. Check out what I’ve written about colors and covers!

Want More About Creating, Commissioning, and Deciding on Book Covers?

If my experiences with book covers resonate with you, then check out my other articles about getting the best cover for your book. Because, like it or not, we all use them to judge books..

Book Covers and You, the Writer

• Color Theory, Part 1
† Color Theory, Part 2
• Part 3 of Color Theory
† Part 4 of Color Theory
• Color Theory Videos
† Working with a Cover Artist, Part 1
• Working with a Cover Artist, Part 2
† Covers, Working with Them
• Video on Working with a Cover Artist
† The Weird World of Being Published

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Self-Review – Unreliable

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on May 23, 2024

Review – Unreliable

My decision to write Unreliable wasn’t just based on the fact that it would be a lot easier than coming up with a new plot for NaNoWriMo 2023, heh.

It was also because I wanted to correct a lot of the issues in Untrustworthy. I was also glad to be able to add to the Untrustworthy universe, and fill it out a lot more.

Background

Tathrelle really had no childhood in Untrustworthy. But she had to have had one! When I scoured the old book, one thing that really leapt out at me was a throwaway line about remembering an earlier life of vagrancy. So, I took this one short line and I ran with it.

Plot

The plot of Unreliable is essentially Tathrelle, Ixalla, Velexio, and Adger before the events of Untrustworthy really kick off.

Before the events of Untrustworthy, Tathrelle runs from a man who reminds her of her father. When she runs into Ixalla, her life changes. And, at the same time, the lives of all Cabossians start to change.

Unreliable Characters

The characters are Tathrelle, Ixalla, Velexio, and Adger. Students aren’t really seen but they are heard. Ixalla’s supervisor, the Lead Instructor, is also present, but this is the person in that position before Untrustworthy starts.

Are the characters truly impossible to rely on? Are they lying to the reader (or, at least, to Tathrelle), or are they simply ignorant of reality?

Memorable Quotes

The fashion of the day—such as it was—was sensible monochrome slacks and tunics, regardless of age or gender or fertility status. The only colors anyone ever wore were various shades of tans and browns. The entire populace of Caboss could blend in effortlessly with the reedy herbs growing on either bank of the Central River if they chose. Tathrelle’s mismatched patched tunic and slacks could fit in even more seamlessly.

But that camouflage was only good for the sides of the river. It did not work for an urban setting. The buildings, as uniform as the people, were all done up in shades of gray, their brutalist architecture spare and lean and efficient with no niceties or flourishes.

The only thing differentiating a school from a medical facility, or a nutrition market was an equally boxy, squarish sign, its letters perfectly, uniformly painted in black against pure white, no serifs allowed.

A Rating That is Anything But Unreliable

The story has a T rating. There is a particularly violent flashback. I am not kidding. You have been warned.

Takeaways

Unreliable answers questions which range from why the Cabossians have such stilted speech to whether a planet with transportation sleighs is covered in ice.

I think what I love the most about it is that I am a much better writer than I was when I wrote Untrustworthy. The proof is in the prose.

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How Do I Write a Book?

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on May 21, 2024

So, how do I write a book?

Aspiring authors ask this all the time. While there are any number of people who simply work off inspiration, there are others who are filled with doubt. They ask: how do I write a book?

Well, I’m here to tell you. But keep in mind: your personal writing process is valid, too. There’s no one, right way to do this.

How Do I Write a Book and Get Started?

You should start with short stories. Seriously. Much lower stakes. And write lots and lots and lots of them. Funny, sappy, scary, sad — it doesn’t matter. Fanfic is totally cool; so is nonfiction. Tropes are fine, of course. However the spirit moves you.

Write about 1500 – 2000 words per day if you can, but don’t beat yourself up if you miss a day here and there or you miss word count. No biggie. Stuff happens. This is also how to win NaNoWriMo, an activity I highly recommend.

Do this for at least a year.

What Happens Once that Year is Up?

At the end of the year, if you’ve written 2000 words per day, you’ll have written 730,000 words. The vast, vast majority of them will be garbage. This is nothing personal. It is life.

Usually you need to write a good million words or so before things start to get good. By this point, you’ll be nearly 3/4 of the way there.

Time to Review

Then look back, particularly on your older stuff, and you will see how you’ve improved. You will also see how some of your work could be expanded. Maybe it could get a sequel or a prequel. Maybe you need to describe a character better. Whatever.

Edit and Expand

Do that expanding. Of course this also counts toward your million words. A million isn’t some magical number; it’s more that it’s easy to remember. And it tends to show quality because by the time you’ve written that much, you’ve gotten the garbage out of your system.

Get Inspiration

Observe the world around you. Family. Friends. Work. School. The people on the bus. Nature. Traffic. Etc. etc. etc. Write down what inspires or interests you, even if it’s just a phrase someone utters or the scarf they’re wearing. Use those observations as fodder for more of those short stories (yes, you should still be writing short stuff).

Keep Going

Another 6 months or so and yeah, you’ve hit a million written words. Again, look at what you wrote. See if you can change it, combine it, expand it, and otherwise mutate it.

How Do I Write a Book? Now’s the Time to Start Converting Your Short Scribbles into a Book

If you like organization (I personally do), then write an outline for what you think might be a decent book. Steal from your short stories for that book. They are a bank. You have made thousands of deposits. Now it’s time to make some withdrawals.

Tie it together with transitions. You really just care about characters –> conflict –> crisis (also called the climax) –> change. The scene is a particular species of character.

Get to at least 75,000 words. Send it to beta readers and listen to what they have to say (but keep in mind, they may be wrong). Edit it until it bleeds.

Reread it as if you were a fan, not the writer. Fill the plot holes. Sew up the loose ends. Edit again.

And voila, you’ve got a book.

How Do I Write a Book and Have it Go Anywhere?

So that’s the answer to ‘how do I write a book?’ For the answer to how do I get it published, read on.

How do I write a book? It’s easy. It’s hard. Yeah, it’s both.

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Self-Review – The East Side of the Universe

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on May 16, 2024

Review – The East Side of the Universe

While I will admit one reason I wrote the East Side of the Universe was to get out of having to come up with a whole new plot for NaNoWriMo in 2022, there were other reasons for it.

One was to address a few issues with Ceilidh, particularly concerning why and how she would be so eager to leave behind Ballyvaughan and everything she knew.

Another was because, in all honesty, I wanted to visit with her and a lot of the gang in The Real Hub of the Universe again!

Background

One of the harder things for beta readers to swallow was the question of why Ceilidh would leave her family so easily. She would not be the first woman to simply accept her lot in life.

Also, Ceilidh isn’t someone who goes to salons or is otherwise getting exposure to the more radical ideas of the 1870s, such as women’s suffrage.

So, I hit upon an idea. She would be changed by someone she meets briefly. Just like sometimes you can pour your heart out to someone you sit next to during a long bus ride, she would pour her heart out to someone she would only be in contact with for a few days.

But who would come to backwater Ballyvaughan and only stay a few days, who wasn’t family?

And then… I got an idea.

Plot of the East Side of the Universe

Ceilidh O’Malley’s life is forever altered by two events in her past. One is the death of her beloved father, Ryan. The other is the arrival of a rogue—Michael Hollis.

Hollis isn’t just a rogue, though. He’s also politically aware of what is going on in England and Ireland at the time. This makes him a threat to upset the ‘apple cart’ that is Ballyvaughan.

Characters

The characters are Ceilidh O’Malley; her mother, Mary; her sister Maeve; and various village residents. There’s also the Barnes family, mainly Nora, Jack, Johnny, Father Paul, Christopher, Harriet, and Alfred.

Plus a pivotal character in her life—Michael Hollis.

And, yes, Michael Hollis is a direct reference to The Obolonk universe‘s Charlie Hollis.

Memorable Quotes

“Has it never occurred to you that there might be more than one Michael in the world? Then again, if you’ve only seen the people in this village, then I suppose I can’t fault you for thinking it’s the center of the universe, the hub of everything. But it’s not. It’s not even the east side of the universe. It’s a lot closer to being a lot of nothing.”

“Ballyvaughan is far from being nothin’. An’ I still don’t think ya’re Michael.”

“What’s this other fellow Michael’s full name?”

“Michael Sweeney.”

“Well, then I ain’t him. I would tell you mine, but like I said, there’s an awful lot to explain, Miss…?”

“O’Malley. Ceilidh O’Malley. An’ now ya’d best tell me your whole, true name, an’ show your face, so we can be properly introduced.”

“Promise you won’t say anything to anyone?”

“I can promise ya nothin’ if I don’t know ya, now, can I? So, show yourself so I can make up my mind.”

“You’re a hardheaded woman, Miss Ceilidh O’Malley. It is Miss, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ‘tis Miss, if ya truly must know.”

“Ah, you wound me, Miss O’Malley. But my loss of face is something I should have anticipated. After all, turnabout is fair play.”

Rating

The story has a K+/T rating. Johnny’s antics are neither cute, nor are they excusable.

Connections to Other Writing

If you saw the surname Hollis and thought of the Obolonk universe, then give yourself a cookie or whatever small reward you like. Because Michael is related to Charlie. Is he a direct ancestor? Probably not, particularly given Michael’s circumstances at the end of this piece.

But I absolutely intend a connection there.

Takeaways for The East Side of the Universe

For Ceilidh to truly grow as a person, she has to change from a rusticated farm girl to a Boston servant to, eventually, a person with a degree of standing in the world. And to be able to accept the science fiction aspects of the Real Hub universe, she has to have an open mind.

While there is no science fiction in it whatsoever, I think The East Side of the Universe contains the events that open her mind.

Want More of the Real Hub Universe?

If the Real Hub Universe resonates with you, then check out my other articles about Ceilidh, Devon, Jake, and the others as they keep the Earth from becoming collateral damage in the War of Knowledge.

Character Reviews:

Ceilidh O’Malley
Dr. Devon Grace
Frances Miller Ashford
Johnny Barnes
Shannon Duffy

Prequel: The East Side of the Universe
Self-Review: The Real Hub of the Universe
Self-Review: The Real Heart of the Universe
and also Self-Review: The Real Hope of the Universe

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Advice for Dealing With a Rejection

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on May 14, 2024

Dealing With Rejection

Rejection stinks. There’s no two ways about it.

Here are three things you can do if you have received a rejection from an agent or a publisher.

Mourning a Loss/Rejection

1) Mourn. Yes, mourn! It kinda hurts so allow yourself to feel hurt. But! Put a time limit on that. As in a week. Then consider yourself done with mourning what was.

Leave it!

2) Stick it in a drawer for three months, minimum. Let it go and move onto other things (another good reason to work on a lot of stuff at once).

Review it!

3) After the magical three months (or more) have elapsed, take out the file and the rejection slip.

Objective Considerations

Consider a few objective things: (a) was it the wrong genre for that publisher? Then be more careful next time and keep track of which publisher accepts which kinds of works. (b) was it not submitted correctly? Then take the time to do submissions right.

Do they want an attachment? Then send one next time. Do they want just the pitch and three chapters? Then send that.

Do they just want the pitch? Then only send that. You get the idea. (c) Did you submit to more than one publisher when this one said they didn’t like that? Then don’t do that again.

See what I’m getting at? Pluck the low-hanging fruit, as it were. Don’t get knocked out of contention due to what are essentially unforced errors.

Subjective Considerations with a Rejection

Also consider subjective things: (a) did they not understand what your story is about? Then you need to work on your pitch/blurb. A writers’ group is a great place to do that.

Or (b) did they say they had trouble getting through your story? Then you need to edit that sucker. Never mind if you already did. Edit again. And consider working with a pro editor. They are pricey but that is for a good reason.

If you absolutely cannot afford a professional editor, then you need to hack away at your work yourself. So determine whether scenes or characters can be combined, as a start. Go back to beta feedback (you did work with beta readers, right?) and figure out what you hand waved away and work on what they told you to do. Because they were probably at least partly right.

Or (c) did they say it just wasn’t for them? Then figure out why.

Maybe they got three other moose detective stories before yours. Or maybe they’re closing the imprint you queried to. Maybe they’re just swamped.

Moving On from a Rejection

Most importantly, keep the fires burning. Keep works in five categories:

† Idea stage. You’re just kicking this one around.
• Outlining stage. If you don’t outline, then consider this the ‘serious ideas’ stage. At the absolute minimum, write down the bare bones so you don’t forget anything!
† Rough draft writing stage. Get it on paper or pixels.
• Beta reading/editing stage. Polish that prose and alter your work in response to feedback.
† Querying stage/publishing stage. If you’re self-publishing, then this is just the publishing stage.

The mourning, etc. I listed above? Call it stage #5a, or #4a if you really need to go back into the guts of the piece.

Your writing in any form is worthwhile, even with a rejection. If nothing else, always consider it to be a learning experience.

You can do this.

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Self-Review – The Dust Between Our Stars

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on May 9, 2024

Review – The Dust Between Our Stars

I wrote The Dust Between Our Stars, in part, to kind of get out of having to come up with a whole new plot for NaNoWriMo in 2022. But there is a lot more to this story than that.

I also found, after I was done with the Time Addicts trilogy, that I really liked the Hawthorne family. But I had no real way to write about them again. And then I realized—the original history would be the way to go.

This story neatly fills in an enormous gap in the Obolonk universe. That is, what the heck happened when the Obolonks first came to Earth? And more importantly, how did we avert what could have been a real disaster?

Because it should be pretty obvious—a lot of people, particularly Americans, would shoot first and ask questions later if they ever met a space alien.

Background

First contact stories are nothing new. Hell, there’s even a Star Trek film with that name. And, they’re not news to my writing, either.

A lot of The Enigman Cave centers around the protocols for a first contact. Complicating matters in that book is the fact that the technological differences are so great between us and the Enigmans. But at least we’re in the driver’s seat.

But with Dust…, I wanted us to be on a more equal footing than with the Enigmans. Yet it’s not perfect. They do have faster than light travel, after all. In the first trilogy in that universe, I also establish that also they have fast terraforming methods which we just plain do not have.

But for the purposes of this plot, I only needed the FTL travel bit. The Obolonks need it to get to us, naturally. And by only really focusing on that as being a major piece of technology way ahead of ours, I was able to add more relatability to the alien beings coming for a visit.

Plot

Divorced mother Drusilla Hawthorne takes her children on an Earth Day hiking trip to the Grand Canyon.

But their comfortable life is upended—as is everyone else’s—when Kent Crossier, a guy with a decent-sized but not professional telescope, spots something orbiting Jupiter, just above the Great Red Spot. Something big.

Complicating matters is the fact that Drusilla is high up in the United States military. She has got to report this, whatever it is. And that means someone will at least be considering the use of military might.

Characters

The characters are Trinity Hawthorne; her brother Neo; their mother, Drusilla (a general in the US Armed Forces); Tim Mayfield, Coralynne Anderson, Trinity’s extended family, Kent Crossier, and reporter Belinda McKey-Ross.

Of course, Neo and Trinity are named after characters in The Matrix. But where does Belinda’s name come from?

Very sharp-eyed readers (as in, blink, and you’ll miss it) may spot the first half of her surname as matching that of Craig Firenze‘s boss, Chet McKey, in Mettle. It’s probably the tiniest Easter Egg I’ve ever added to a story.

But there’s a second Easter Egg pointing much more directly to Mettle. It’s the satellite radio station, KOLD. The real KOLD is in Cold Bay, Alaska, but in my universes, it’s in Houston. This also means it points to The Duck in the Seat Cushion.

And there’s even a third, because a RickRoll also shows up in The Obolonk Murders.

Memorable Quotes {Trini is driving to the Grand Canyon while Neo sings along to EVERY song and commercial jingle on the radio} from The Dust Between Our Stars

Arizona truck drivers were impatient with her speed, but Trini was mindful that Mom would ground her if she sped too much. Then the truckers started pantomiming to her to take off her top. Yeah, like I’m gonna flash you, ya losers. She flipped the bird to more truckers than she could count.

Neo’s constant caterwauling was getting on her nerves. And it made sense that truckers would be pressing for her to either speed up or drop her top. Past the exit for Route 93 south, there was nothing but tumbleweeds. It was boring.

Neo was giving his entire heart and soul to belting out, “Never gonna…” when she changed stations.

“It’s K-O-L-D, the cold gold! Coming to you from Houston and all points north, south, east, and west, via satellite radio! Up next, it’s Patsy Cline, with Crazy…”

“Damn, Trini, I was just about to go in for the big finish. Now I’ll have to go all weepy and pretend I’m an alto.”

“I’ll make ya an alto if you don’t shut your cake hole, Neo. You are giving me a massive headache.”

Rating for The Dust Between Our Stars

The story has a K+ rating. While nothing truly awful happens, there are the very real dangers of what could happen if we were to meet aliens on our turf, where we would essentially be the primitives.

Takeaways for The Dust Between Our Stars

This one was a great deal of fun to write. Neo in particular was like taking dictation.

And I would like to think that someone with the authority of Drusilla, the audacity of Neo, the persistence of Trinity, the faith of Coralynne, and even the Alpha male nonsense of Tim would realize that the people of Earth would not be served by anything but a peaceful gesture.

And as for what the dust between our stars really is, well, you’ll just have to read the story to find out.

Want More of the Obolonk Universe?

If the story of the Obolonks resonates with you, then check out my other articles about how our society turns tripartite, with humans, robots, and Obolonks.

Character Reviews: The Obolonk Murders

Humans
† Peri Martin
• Greg Shapiro
† Rachel Gifford

Robots
† Tommy 2000
• Selkhet 3000

Obolonks
† TSTITO

Character Reviews: Time Addicts

The Good Guys
• Josie James
† Carmen D’Angelo, MD
• Dalton Farouk
† Tad Lewis
• Cyndi Mendez
† Bobby Brodie
• Keisha Darnell
† Vera Travers

The Bad Guys
• Peter Ray
† Dae Ou Xiang
• Elston Young
† Corwin Zachary

The Obolonk Universe

Prequels

• The Dust Between Our Stars
† Eros vs Thanatos

Self-Reviews: Obolonk Trilogy

• The Obolonk Murders
† Self-Review: The Polymer Beat
• The Badge of Humanity

Self-Reviews: Time Addicts Trilogy

† No One is Safe
• Nothing is Permanent
† Everything is up for Grabs

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Pulling Together a Plot and Outlining a Novel Using a Starburst Method

Published by Janet Gershen-Siegel on May 7, 2024

Starburst Method for Writing a Novel

Starburst Method? What is it?

I’ve found it helps to consider some scenes. Not to write them. You may even want to role play them. And consider, e. g. when, say, a main character named Jennifer reveals she’s a zombie (or whatever your story is about), then there has to be some time before where the other characters think she’s a normal person. Hence that scene doesn’t come at the very beginning.

And I am suggesting a middle or even ending scene like this and not the start because I think it puts less pressure on me (your mileage may vary).

Dependencies

Hence the idea is to consider dependencies. I also will use a kind of (it’s not the official ‘snowflake method‘) starburst method where I will take a legal pad and write a major character’s name (or what the character is if I don’t have a name yet, e. g. the cab driver) and circle it. Just write it in the middle of the sheet.

Then draw spokes coming from the circle, as many as you like, and write more character names in circles, on the other ends of the spokes. Then, along the spokes themselves, write the connections. Not every character needs to connect to all of the others.

Connections

So in the example, Jennifer the zombie might connect to a cab driver because he picks her up after a concert. Some of those connections might turn into scenes, some of them might become back story. Or they might be scuttled. There’s no need to write absolutely everything.

Now we have Jennifer at a concert. Maybe she’s performing. And so we can work backwards a little, to determine a bit about her life or even when she became a zombie (maybe it was during music school).

Plot Advancement with the Starburst Method

We also go forward with the plot. Where does the cab driver take her? Maybe he takes her home. Or maybe he takes her to wherever she reveals she’s a zombie. Or maybe he kidnaps her. She might even make him her victim.

Consider where you want her story to begin. With her schooling? When she became a zombie? Right before she gets into that cab?

Consider where you want her story to end. With her revelation? Or with people accepting her new condition? With them killing her? Or with her striking back?

Hence you also ask questions (and you can have your friends ask you questions if you like, such as how she got zombified or whatever).

It’s not perfect; you still need transitions, but it works.

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Author: Janet Gershen-Siegel

Let’s Deconstruct Your Elevator Pitch

Your Verbal Elevator Pitch

Your Pitch in Writing

On Balance

Like this:

Review – Eros vs. Thanatos

Background

Plot

Characters in Eros vs. Thanatos

Memorable Quotes

Rating for Eros vs. Thanatos

Takeaways

Want More of the Obolonk Universe?

Character Reviews: The Obolonk Murders

Character Reviews: Time Addicts

Prequels

Self-Reviews: Obolonk Trilogy

Self-Reviews: Time Addicts Trilogy

Like this:

Let’s Consider Speculating About the Future

Extrapolation

Transportation

Communications

Speculating About Feeding the World

Employment

Off the Wall

Off the Wall Fashion

More Speculating Out of My Overly Fertile Imagination

Takeaways for Speculating About the Future

Like this:

What is The Weird World of Being Published?

Origins Story

The Start of the Wild Ride of Publishing

Nuts and Bolts

Autographing When You’re Published

Takeaways for Being Published

Want More About Creating, Commissioning, and Deciding on Book Covers?

Book Covers and You, the Writer

Like this:

Review – Unreliable

Background

Plot

Unreliable Characters

Memorable Quotes

A Rating That is Anything But Unreliable

Takeaways

Like this:

How Do I Write a Book and Get Started?

What Happens Once that Year is Up?

Time to Review

Edit and Expand

Get Inspiration

Keep Going

How Do I Write a Book? Now’s the Time to Start Converting Your Short Scribbles into a Book

How Do I Write a Book and Have it Go Anywhere?

Like this:

Review – The East Side of the Universe

Background

Plot of the East Side of the Universe

Characters

Memorable Quotes

Rating

Connections to Other Writing

Takeaways for The East Side of the Universe

Want More of the Real Hub Universe?

Character Reviews:

Like this:

Dealing With Rejection

Mourning a Loss/Rejection

Leave it!

Review it!

Objective Considerations

Subjective Considerations with a Rejection

Moving On from a Rejection

Like this:

Review – The Dust Between Our Stars

Background

Plot

Characters