Jennifer Foehner Wells
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Ticking Things Off the To-Do List--Check! ✔️

8/25/2014

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There's so much going on lately, my head is spinning.

I have a to-do list a mile long and every time I check something off, I think of two more things to add.

(Every accomplishment earns me a sip of my favorite cocktail after my kiddos are abed, so let's get started!)

I updated FLUENCY's Kindle file over the weekend. There were two typos and a grammatical error that my proofreader missed. (She's an amazing grammar nazi, but she's also human!). 

I grew up using drug as the past tense of drag (instead of dragged). I must tell you, dragged just sounds wrong to me! It's a regional usage apparently, that grates on some peoples' nerves--especially, but not limited to, those who speak the Queen's English. <Ahem > However, I've been told many times that 'drug' is wrong and thus I have painstakingly (and quite cheerfully) gone through all my files and corrected the mistake within the manuscript. Check!  ✔️
So, if you would like the more perfect version, please go to Amazon and click on "your account" in the upper right corner. Then, "Manage your content and devices." Once that page is open, you have three headings to choose from.

If you click on "Settings," and scroll down, you will have the option of "Automatic Book Update." If you have clicked that on, then you'll get updates to all of the books in your library when Amazon deems that improvements have been made. 

That's all I can do from my end. If Amazon doesn't deem the change I made to the document as an "improvement" then there's not much I can do. All new copies going out now are proper. ✔️

The paperback version is a smidge more difficult to wrangle. I'm still working on that one. It should be available in updated form soon.

 ALERT: BOOK SIGNING COMING UP

PictureRobots and Rogues New and Used Books
I'll be doing another book signing at an amazing SFF bookstore in my state called Robots and Rogues New and Used Books on September 13 from 11 am to 1 pm. 

Here's the event's page on Facebook. Let us know if you're planning to attend! 

If you're in the area, stop in and check it out. I'll sign your book and you can explore this amazing shop dedicated to all things Science Fiction and Fantasy. There are very few independent bookstores in existence that are quite like this place. Let's keep it open by buying lots of books! It's worth a trip! Check! ✔️



WANT A SIGNED COPY OF FLUENCY? HERE'S HOW:

In addition, the owner of this shop has graciously agreed to stock signed books for me and ship them. If you would like a signed copy of FLUENCY, send an email to Tricia at: robotsandrogues@gmail.com and she will send you an invoice. 

It will be a flat fee of $19 for a signed book in the US ($13 for the book and $6 for priority shipping with tracking and insurance). International shipping is available. Just ask Tricia for a quote and she will invoice you. I'll go in from time to time and sign her stock so they will always be available. 

Please don't ask her for other shipping options. I'm grateful that she's doing this for me and don't want to create extra headaches for her or her co-owner, KEvin. ✔️
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That's all for now! The website is giving me fits. More soon!
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GISHWHES Happy Fun Time

8/11/2014

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Ten days ago, I'd never heard of GISHWHES. But my Twitter feed suddenly blew up with a flurry of GISHWHES tweets which seemed all obfuscated and abstruse. Naturally, I was curious. So, off I tromped to the Google, to find out what this exciting nonsense was all about. It turns out it stands for:
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Greatest 
International 
Scavenger 
Hunt the 
World 
Has 
Ever 
Seen

And the acronym seems to be true, since it's broken the Guinness World Record five times. Hosted by actor Misha Collins, it's an international hunt involving stunts and acts of kindness and tons of fun, crazy, GEEKY stuff. (Yay!)

I was intrigued. Then, out of the blue, I found out about item number 78 on the GISHWHES list, when I was asked to fulfill it:

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Misha Collins, hunky actor dude

"Get a previously published Sci-Fi author to write an original
story (140 words max) about Misha Collins, the Queen of England, and an Elopus [an elephant/octopus hybrid].
"


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Credit: Rob Stewart/Niwa Graneledone taniwha taniwha octopus.
Wow. It almost seemed like the category was INTENDED specifically for ME!!! Right?!?!

Being pretty new to authorhood, I expected that to be the end of it. I wrote one up and sent it off to team fishwishesLovespwincessbubbakwup and got back to the business of writing writing books.

Then I saw a tweet from John Scalzi, lamenting that he was besieged with GISHWHES requests. "Heh," I thought. "Must suck to be famous."

Little did I know the requests had only just begun. I got another...and immediately decided Scalzi was right. 😊 Though I wanted to help out, and writing the little stories was fun, I couldn't honor every request because that would be all I'd be doing. I agreed to write TWO and posted publicly that that was all I'd be doing. At least one other contestant was disappointed. (I hope they found someone to do it for them!)

So, the big hunt is over and I'm now allowed to share my two (extremely brief) stories.

#1
MISHA IS THE MACHINE

Pictureimage credit unknown
Misha Collins slid soundlessly from the lift, dropping camouflage. He’d gone undetected, but he wanted Queen Victoria LXXIV of the NovaUK to see the man that assassinated her. It was her or him. Freedom or death.

QVLXXIV turned her head as much as was possible. She was inextricably linked to the throne along her spine, a cybernetic composite of flesh and machine. Not so different from him, the hypocrite.

The genetic monster beside her slipped from its acrylic tank, a leviathan—half elephant, half octopus—100% lethal.

The battle that followed pushed him beyond his limits. Ultimately, he lost. As his body succumbed to the python-like compression of the elopus’ tentacles, his mind was intact. His mouth moved to say, “I may be merely machine, but I have free will. I chose this. I die free.”

“HOLD!” she commanded.

#2
COLLINS AND THE TROPHY

The elopus silently slipped one limb at a time through a scupper and onto the deck of the human vessel. She’d been hunted across miles of ocean floor by a big game hunter. She worried for her untended eggs. She’d lured Collins away, though. He’d never find them.

She glided across the deck, keeping to shadows and the smallest crevices where no human could follow. She found herself in an opulent stateroom. That was when she noticed she was leaving a trail of blue blood. She was so tired.


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Mural on the streets of London by Alexis Diazby Christopher Jobson
The clack of shoes. The world was dim. A wrinkled blue-haired woman with red lips and an imperious manner. Gentle hands. Soothing darkness and cool waters.

A scuffle. She opened her eyes, blinking with weariness. Misha was there! Panic!

The most terrible sound.

Queen Elizabeth IV held a smoking pistol.
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The one where I tell you about FLUENCY

7/24/2014

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Fluency
FLUENCY has been out for about a month now. The response to this little scifi novel has been simply astonishing. 

A whirlwind. 

And for the most part I’ve just been speechless at the warm reception it has received. I’m grateful for the support the novel has gotten from scifi readers around the world. Questions are pouring into my inbox, so I decided I would take a moment to address them.

First and foremost on readers' minds seems to be: Is FLUENCY the first in a series? Will there be a sequel? When will that sequel be available?

YES.

FLUENCY is the first novel in what I’m tentatively calling THE CONFLUENCE SERIES. I have plans for at least 2 more books, possibly 3, in this series. So, yes, rest assured that Jane Holloway, Alan Bergen, and Ei’Brai will be back, searching for clues about who caused the genocide of the crew of the Speroancora as well as coming up against the Swarm. The next book in this series will be called CONFLUENCE and will describe Ei’Brai’s homecoming to Sectilia with Jane and Berg.

When will this novel be ready to read? That’s hard to say, because right now it’s just an outline. The actual writing hasn’t begun. My best guess is that it will be at least a year, perhaps 18 months, before I can get that book to market. It needs the time to be written, revised, edited and proofread. You’d be surprised at just how time consuming that can be.

Additionally, I have to finish that process on another book that is approximately forty percent written. DRUID is set in the same universe as FLUENCY, but with a different cast of characters and all new challenges. DRUID is a contemporary superhero origin story, centering on a young woman named Darcy Eberhardt, whose life is transformed by two unrelated but devastating coincidences, which unmask a secret she was unaware was dwelling within her.

Furthermore, I have a few other smaller projects cooking along. For example, my local SFF writing group, Working Title, is in the beginning stages of writing an episodic storyline that will be a series of short stories/novellas/novelettes, narratively functioning very much like a season of a television show. We are having “writers rooms” every Friday night and pitching ideas to our Showrunner: fellow blogger/SFF writer Brandon Stenger (Twitter: @BStenger Web: Typing As Fast As I Can. Soon we’ll be coming up with story arcs, character arcs, and then assigning episodes. As this project goes live, I’ll keep you well informed via this blog and social media (so follow me on Twitter, Facebook, G+--or sign up for email alerts now!). This project will demonstrate how talented the group I work with really is and I can't wait to dig my imagination into it.

Susanna BurneySusanna Burney
Keep in mind that I’m a stay at home mom with laundry to do, dishes to wash, and toilets to scrub. My kids need me to watch over them. Summertime disrupts my writing schedule because they aren’t in school and need to be ferried around to various classes, camps, appointments and playdates. So, I’m always busy, busy, busy. I work from morning til bedtime every day. I push myself hard. I want to read the stories evolving in my head too!

Other things in the works include an audiobook for FLUENCY. I recently hired the lovely and talented Susanna Burney (IMDb: Susanna Burney Twitter: @susburney) to narrate the book. She started work today and in a couple of months it will be uploaded to Amazon, Audible, and iTunes. I can’t wait to hear her bring the story to life.

These are exciting times to be a writer!

Thank you so much for your continued interest and support. These last few weeks have been among the best of my life and made the last two years of hard work worthwhile. I'll try to be a better blogger from here on out, I promise.

ONWARD!

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    Jennifer Foehner Wells

    I'm an author of the Space Opera variety.

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