E-Shorts: Why Read and Write Them?

Last month, my co-author Meagan Spooner and I released a free short story set in the same world as our Starbound trilogy. Titled This Night So Dark, it's designed to be read before or after These Broken Stars.

We had heaps of fun writing and releasing it, and the response from fans has been amazing! We've been asked lots of questions about it, so today I'm going to talk about the best reasons to release a free story like this, and why we did it.

It's a chance to give something back to the fans.

This is, above anything else, the best reason to write and release a story for free. We've been bowled over by the response to These Broken Stars -- from the emails to the letters, the awesome fan art (hoooow do you guys do that stuff?) to the recipes! Quite simply, we wanted to thank our readers for being amazing, and a free story felt like the best way to do it.

You can tell a story that doesn't fit into the big picture.

At the start of These Broken Stars, you learn two things about Tarver very quickly. First, he's considered a 'war hero'. Second, he doesn't want to talk about how he earned those medals. Meg and I always knew the story behind his fame, but there wasn't any place in the novel to tell it. It would have been a distraction from the main storyline. Releasing it as a short story gave us the chance to share it in a different forum, so those who have been wondering (and judging by the emails, you guys really wanted to know!) can find out the truth about Tarver.

It's a chance to meet new readers.

Picking up a whole novel is an investment in terms of time and money -- a short story is a way for an author and reader to get to know each other with less commitment. Think of it as catching up for a coffee, instead of launching into a dinner-and-a-movie date straight away. Short stories and novellas are a great way to check out the writing and world of a new author, to see if you want to jump into the series. We hope This Night So Dark will be a chance for new readers to check out the series, and perhaps join in the fun.

It helps with the wait!

Authors are readers too, and we hate waiting for the next book in our favourite series as much as you guys do! We can't waaaait to share This Shattered World with you all, next month. In the meantime, short stories are a great way to bridge the gap, help with the agony of waiting for the next instalment, and they're also a great way to ease you back into a world before you pick up the next book.

What about you guys? Do you read e-shorts and e-novellas? I'd love to hear your favourites!

Lark Ascending Ascends Today!

Meagan Spooner's Skylark was written in my spare bedroom.

Not many books you can say that about, right? This series is incredibly close to my heart--I remember the first words Meg got down, I remember her bedroom walls covered in post-it notes as she carefully revised the novel. I remember carrying printed pages and a red pen on the train to and from work, getting home each night to hand over my notes and demand the next chapter. Neither of us had any experience with publication, and neither of us knew a lot about what we were doing, but she was writing this book, and I was hovering over it like a proud aunt, cheering at every tiny milestone.

I remember crying tears of joy when the series sold, and losing my cool completely when I held a copy in my hands for the first time. The day it came out in Australia, I visited five different bookshops, just to admire it on the shelves. I wanted to grab passers by and show them this amazing thing, right there in front of us!

These days I have a published series that I co-author with Meg. We talk every single day about our work, dividing up editing and emails, brainstorming chapters, troubleshooting and exchanging entertaining gifs. These days, writing is our normal, and we love it, and we're grateful for it every day.

As Lark Ascending releases today, I'm reflecting on my gratitude--for this book, for the path it made for its author and me, for the fact that it paved the way for me to spend every day working with Meg.

I'm also reflecting on how much I love this series. Skylark, Shadowlark and Lark Ascending go dark places, and ask questions you don't hear every day--questions about what it is to be human, what it is to lose everything, and what kind of person you'd be if you had to start again. Though I've read these stories over and over, this trilogy still makes my heart pound, the imagery and poetry makes my breath catch, and as I finished book three, I cried—not because it was overwhelmingly sad, but because it was the end of a poem, simply perfect. It was the right ending for this story, and though we’d talked many times about where it might all lead, I didn’t know Meg’s final answer until I held my finished copy in my hands.

Set in a world where magic is a resource--indeed, the only thing that will keep you alive--and centred on an ordinary and extraordinary girl who refuses to accept the status quo, this series takes you across a twisted, post-apocalyptic landscape on a journey you'll never forget.

To celebrate the release of Lark Ascending, you can get Skylark for only $0.99 and Shadowlark for only $4.29, but not for long!

So, grab this series with both hands, read it, love it, let it challenge you and make you think.

Space: The Final Frontier

Okay, so that sounds a little Star Trekky, I know. I am a big fan of Star Trek, especially the TV series, The Next Generation. (Most of the others, you know, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and/or Enterprise, I never did get as into.)

Maybe it was Captain Picard that really spoke to me, or how you can watch any episode in any order and understand the story, but I enjoyed Star Trek: The Next Generation. I know the graphics, and technologies, and special effects aren't as grandiose as today's standards (and the films coming out now!), but it was this series that first sparked my fascination with space travel.

Now, I have yet to pen a space travel novel, but I absolutely love novels set in space. There's something equally exciting and perplexing about being trapped in space. Yes, I view space as a place where I'd be trapped. There's no air out there!

Films like Gravity make me glad I'm on earth, watching as someone else endures the brutalities of extreme temperature and lack of oxygen. I've also enjoyed novels like Across the Universe by Beth Revis, These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan, and others.

It seems as though novels set in space are a bit of a trend right now, a "hot thing." I really do think it's one of the final frontiers, where the possibilities of new worlds, new species, new ideas, is endless. Maybe that's what draws authors and readers to write and read novels set in space.

How do you feel about space? Novels set in space? Space travel? 

Interview with the authors of THESE BROKEN STARS

I'm so excited to have you meet Meagan Spooner and Amie Kaufman via this interview today. It's rare when authors collaborate on a YA book, but these two do it from across the universe (yes, League joke). I think you'll find their process as fascinating as I do. - Lissa



         Meagan Spooner                                                                                           Amie Kaufman


Whose idea was it to write as a team and who came up with the idea?

We'd been writing together, a series of collaborative story-telling games, for years before it ever occurred to us to write a novel together. The idea for THESE BROKEN STARS came when we were ready to start one such new game, and Amie wanted to make the setting a shipwreck, and Meg wanted to make the setting space. We came up with the idea of a shipwreck in space and intended to write a bunch of little vignettes to entertain each other, all about the little groups of survivors. But we got completely carried away by the very first such group we made: Lilac and Tarver. We never got to writing any other survivors, and ended up playing with the characters for over a year before we started to wonder if maybe other people might have fun reading about them too.

What is your writing process together?

We often play out conversations and events together via instant messenger long before we start drafting the book, just to make sure the characters are well-established, and we have a vague idea of the events to come. Once we feel we've got a good handle on our characters, we then alternate writing chapters; Amie writes the boys, and Meg writes the girls. In revision, however, all bets are off, and we both rewrite stuff from each other's chapters. There are actually significant chunks of THESE BROKEN STARS where we honestly can't remember who wrote what.

Is it faster or slower writing as a team?

It's usually faster to write together, because we can literally work around the clock--due to the time zone difference, Amie's going to sleep in Australia around the time Meg's waking up in America. We usually do a little hand-off, recapping what we did and where we're up to, and then the other one takes over. That said, it's much slower to revise as a team. With revision we're much more careful to discuss everything, and make sure we're not making unwanted changes. That requires us to find more time to be online at the same time, and a LOT more working around the time difference, so it often requires more time than it would if there was only one person making decisions.

Any advice to writers considering writing as teams?

Communicate! The number one thing we see that tears collaborations apart is a lack of communication ahead of time. You have to make sure your goals are the same (do you want to get published? are you just writing for fun?). You have to make sure your expectations are out in the open (how fast do you expect your partner to work? how much of the book does each person write?). You have to make sure you agree on where the story is going--and if you don't agree, you have to know exactly how to work out that dispute. We've known each other for so long that we already had that communication in place, but it can be frustrating to work with someone whose expectations don't match your own.

Anything else you'd like to tell the League readers?

Thanks so much for reading, guys! If you want to know more about THESE BROKEN STARS, we put up all our news, along with contests and sneak peeks of upcoming projects, on our newsletter. You can sign up for that here. You can also find Amie and Meg on Twitter at @amiekaufman and @meaganspooner. And finally, if you've got questions, we're both on Tumblr: meaganspooner.tumblr.com + amiekaufman.tumblr.com. Isn't social media awesome? Authors and readers, a click away from each other.

 

 

 

 

Launching THESE BROKEN STARS by Leaguers Meagan Spooner and Amie Kaufman!

Okay, so it's that time again: Launch Time!

THESE BROKEN STARS by Meagan Spooner and Amie Kaufman releases in the US tomorrow, December 10. You MUST pre-order this book right now, because you're going to LOVE IT.

I happened to get an early copy of the book on NetGalley. I started reading it at the gym (because that's where I get in all my reading time), but it became very apparent very soon that I was going to need to carve out some additional reading time. Because 45 minutes on the treadmill 3 times a week wasn't going to cut it for this book.

So I stayed up late reading. And went to work bleary-eyed, and then stayed up late again. Then I may or may not have sent this email to Meg and Amie: "I just finished THESE BROKEN STARS and I think it's my favorite book I've read this year! It is SO FANTASTIC!! You did such a great job, and I can't wait until it's released into the wild!

Just wanted you to know. :)"

And I think that's still true, even though I've read a few more books now. It really IS a fantastic book, and my favorite read of 2013.

Let's learn more about it, in case you haven't heard of it.

Isn't this a beautiful cover?

About THESE BROKEN STARS: It's a night like any other on board the Icarus. Then, catastrophe strikes: the massive luxury spaceliner is yanked out of hyperspace and plummets into the nearest planet. Lilac LaRoux and Tarver Merendsen survive. And they seem to be alone.

Lilac is the daughter of the richest man in the universe. Tarver comes from nothing, a young war hero who learned long ago that girls like Lilac are more trouble than they're worth. But with only each other to rely on, Lilac and Tarver must work together, making a tortuous journey across the eerie, deserted terrain to seek help.

Then, against all odds, Lilac and Tarver find a strange blessing in the tragedy that has thrown them into each other's arms. Without the hope of a future together in their own world, they begin to wonder-would they be better off staying here forever?

Everything changes when they uncover the truth behind the chilling whispers that haunt their every step. Lilac and Tarver may find a way off this planet. But they won't be the same people who landed on it.

I found Lilac and Tarver to be well-developed and fully imagined characters. Lilac especially intrigued me. She's a rich girl, hardly having to do anything but look pretty. But she has a past, and in the book, she finds her spine. It is an amazing journey to watch her go through some of the things that happen on the planet.

Tarver is equally likeable, with an equally interesting past. Since he's military, he takes the lead on the planet, but my favorite scene is when Lilac has to take care of him. It shows them both in a new light, and I really loved their relationship.

But lest you think the whole book is simply a romance, let me assure you that it's not. There were several twists and turns in the book that kept me up late (two nights in a row!) frantically trying to guess what was going to happen next. I NEEDED to know.

I had to find out what those lights were (no spoilers!). And what was with that canteen. And why all the trees were different here. There's an element of the supernatural at play, and I love that sort of genre mashing: science fiction with paranormal with romance. Sign me up!

I hope you'll get THESE BROKEN STARS this week. Heck, tomorrow--on release day! Here's where you can get it:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Kobo
• iTunes
• Indiebound
• Book Depository
• Or your local bookstore!

You can join Amie and Meg's newsletter, and find out way more about THESE BROKEN STARS here. You can also see their launch day festivities here.

Congrats Meg and Amie!

The World of Shadowlark: Behind The Covers

Today is release day for Meagan Spooner's Shadowlark in the UK, and (most importantly, of course) here in Australia! Now, if you're in the US, you may already be familiar with the gloriousness of THIS:

I knooooow, right? Bethany's already talked about the amazing world of Shadowlark, and the US cover sums it up beautifully. It's a glimpse through the tunnels of Lethe, the underground city Lark's search for the truth leads her to -- and oh, I loved Lethe. From the cramped tunnels to the marketplace, Lethe is literally full of secrets within secrets, and no person are place are entirely what they first seem to be. Built from the ruins of the city above, Lethe's tunnels aren't a safe place, and the way the path on this cover bends out of sight gets me every time. Meg's writing is strong, poetic stuff, and she drags you into her world and into her story, submerging you completely. This cover is the perfect invitation to set your foot on the path.

But apparently there's no cosmic justice in the universe, because the Cover Gods gave Shadowlark not one, but two incredible covers. What's the star on the cover, you ask? I'd love to tell you... but I'm going to make you read, instead. The citizens of Lethe are protected underground from the Empty Ones above, and the mysterious star you see plays a part in that!

I simply loved Shadowlark -- I mean, you could wrap this book in brown paper and I'd still hug it close to my heart -- but for those who like to judge by a cover (and it's all of us some days, including me!), how lucky is Meg?

This is a powerful, poetic series that's dark and beautiful, often both at once, and you should run out and grab Skylark and Shadowlark today. You won't be sorry.

Growing a Story From A Seed

Where do ideas come from? There are too many answers to that question to count, but today I’m going to focus on giving you a snapshot of one way to tackle the getting of ideas.

I once heard Neil Gaiman say that everybody has ideas, but writers train themselves to notice them. To notice the playful daydreams and the ‘what ifs’ that float through all our brains on a daily basis. 

For me the ‘what if’, followed by the ‘what next’ are perhaps the most important parts of the daydream-to-idea-to-story sequence, and it all starts with a seed.

I recently saw an article about a group of medical specialists who have learned to oxygenate blood with an injection. It came about when one doctor watched a little girl die for lack of oxygen, and started thinking about ways to help her breathe that didn’t involve getting air down her windpipe. Now, they’re at the point of being able to oxygenate blood for up to half an hour via injection. A development like this, once widespread, could gift paramedics with the ability to save lives.

But, the article asked, what else could this mean? Could it help us spacewalk? Deep sea dive? What about climbing Everest without oxygen tanks? 

I thought this was fascinating, and for me, this is where the writer’s brain kicks in. The ‘what if’ is fascinating, and the ‘what next’ turns it into a story. What if we could spend extended periods of time underwater without any need for oxygen tanks? What next? Where would that lead? Could we explore underwater environments with greater ease? Could we look at ways to make them habitable? After all, with global warming, we’re looking at diminished landmass. Or we could take it in another direction—could I commute to work across the bay? All I’d need would be an injection, a waterproof suit to keep me dry, and some sort of propulsion. What would it be? An underwater motorbike? What would a city look like if rivers and bays became, essentially, roads? What sort of person might live there? Who could face an interesting dilemma?

The questions go on and on, and that’s before I even get to the question of spacewalks! Building a story is as simple—and as difficult—as that. A seed of an idea, and then a thousand iterations of ‘what if’ and ‘what next’, until just the right one comes along!

SF TV: My Unrequited Love

Most of the time we League members talk books, but every so often we slip across into other media, and that’s what I’d like to do today. Today, I want to talk TV.

Oh, sci-fi TV. You have such a long history of breaking my heart.

Remember SeaQuest DSV? I do! For a start, my high school years were spent in love with Jonathan Brandis, but I loved the near-future world the series created, seeing what had changed and what was different. I loved that the series traced big, bold plots, and intense human stories as well.* And then they cancelled it.

And what about Earth 2? I’m in love with stories about new settlers on unknown planets, and always have been – Earth 2 had everything I wanted and more, from unknown terrain to planetary mysteries, to a great and varied cast of characters with their own, very different, motivations. Cancelled.

I’m barely even ready to talk about Firefly yet, even though it’s been a while. Joss Whedon. Enough said, really. Space, Nathan Fillion, snappy dialogue, smart plots, mystery, heart-in-mouth tension and laugh-out-loud comedy. I can’t bring myself to say it—but you all know what happened.

Most recently, I dipped my toe in the water again with Terra Nova, and I went back in time 85 million years, watching humanity attempt to rebuild, and deal with an invasion from the future. So many mysteries laid out – mysteries I’ll never see answered, because season two isn’t coming. Wah!

The world’s attention has turned to fantasy and Game of Thrones rules the airwaves – and that’s fine with me. I’ve been reading the series for years, and it’s great to share something I’ve enjoyed with a wide audience.

In time, though, the next awesome SF TV show will come around, and broken heart or not, I’ll be waiting! In the meantime, I’m marathoning Battlestar Galactica – I know that one makes it to the end!

What’s your favourite SF TV? Anything you’d love to have seen last longer?

* Please note, all show descriptions may be coloured by the author's rose-tinted glasses and a considerable dose of nostalgia. If it turns out the shows of my childhood weren't quite what I remember, then ignorance is bliss, right?

4 Things To Consider When Ending The World

Inspired by yesterday's post from Mindy on drinking your own pee (we are a classy bunch here at the League), today I've decided to turn my mind to those unexpected problems we writers can hit when bringing about the apocalypse. Whether you're worrying about keeping a character alive, or you're an evil genius and planning on actually ending the world, be prepared! It pays to think these things through, people....

1. What do you do with all those dead bodies? We're talking disease here, people. So your protagonist is immune to the bug that kills 99.9% of the population? Better come up with a way to make sure all those nasties you can catch from decomposing bodies don't get her.

2. No infrastructure. No toilets, no lights -- everything's a struggle now! This can be fabulous, stakes-raising goodness, but you can also end up with a whole lot of water in plastic bottles in the sun. (And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, check out Mindy's post.) Be prepared, or die of horrible illness!

3. It takes a really long time to walk everywhere. For reals, people. I watched my co-author Meagan Spooner as she worked on her debut SKYLARK, and that girl was google mapping all kinds of hikes to make sure she moved Lark around at the right pace. Which wasn't fast! Also, you're walking the whole time.

4. Caffeine. The internet tells me instant coffee can last up to 20 years (which raises some worrying questions), but with coffee beans, we're talking a couple of years at best. You know that saying 'I'd kill for a cup of coffee'? Well? Everybody else will, too.

So, next time you're thinking of ending the world, think ahead!

5 Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner

Hi, Leaguers! We're so excited to be new contributors! Allow us to introduce ourselves...

1.       We met online, through a fantastic creative writing community! It was one of those rare clicks you sometimes find in life – we found we could seamlessly collaborate. The future was right there in front of us, but we didn’t know it yet!

2.       We’ve lived together for nearly two years over two separate occasions – though Meg’s American, she’s done two stints in Australia living with Amie and her husband. If you can negotiate who does the dishes, you can definitely co-author a novel.

3.       We have road-tripped around the US and America. Our favourite trip might just be the time we scored the high rollers’ suite in a major Vegas casino.

4.       Amie’s a dog person, Meg’s a cat person. Meg fell for Amie’s dog while she was living in Australia, and he still loves to hear her voice on Skype. Amie continues her attempts to seduce Meg’s cat, and lives in hope of one day touching him without getting bitten. He’s kind of a one-girl cat.

5.       If we were shipwrecked, we would grab chocolate, cheese, bacon and our boxed set of Firefly as the ship went down.

And here’s one thing almost certainly did know about us, as we kind of took over the internet yesterday! Our debut novel, These Broken Stars, has a brand new cover! We're just a little bit excited about that! We'd love you guys to check it out, and we'll have our fingers crossed you win one of the six ARCs up for grabs!

Conventions: Think Outside Your Genre

Leaguers, meet Amie Kaufman, an Australian-based writer coming out next year with her YA science fiction debut titled THESE BROKEN STARS.

I’ve just come home from the inaugural GenreCon, an Australian convention for “anyone who gets their own section in the bookstore”. I met authors of romance, mystery, science fiction, fantasy, crime, horror, thrillers and more. It changed the way I see conferences and conventions.

Writers, editors, agents and the occasional reader (without whom we are nothing!) attended discussion panels at GenreCon on everything from “writing adult themes” (that one ran late at night, after drinks!), to research, career tips, world building and so much more. Multi-award winning authors taught workshops on everything from writing effective fight scenes to author platform. Teams lined up for a hilarious Plotters vs Pantsers debate. Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books gave us some live cover snark and introduced us to the were-platypus. International guest of honor, author Joe Abercrombie, admitted he’s just like the rest of us—he would totally sleep with Mr. Darcy to get Pemberley.

While the Aussies were having a fantastic time at GenreCon, half my Twitter feed was in Toronto at the World Fantasy Convention. All year I watch friends head off to WorldCon (the world science fiction convention) or the RWA Conference, or recently (to my intense envy!) LeakyCon – that’s right, Harry Potter!

There are lots of reasons to go to these conferences and conventions. You can improve your craft, meet your heroes, network like crazy to find anything from a critique partner to an agent, hear all the news that’s too hot to print, and remind yourself that although writing can feel like a solo sport, it’s anything but. I go for all those reasons.

But at GenreCon, I found something a little different. I took a workshop with award-winning historical romance author Anna Campbell - on how to research historical fiction. Incredibly useful for the steampunk book I’m tinkering with, and the romance authors in the room came at the question of setting the scene from a different angle to my science fiction brain. I listened to Aussie horror author Martin Livings talk about the visceral thrill of a horrifying moment, and what draws a reader to pursue it. I look for these moments in my work, but Martin has more experience than I ever will in this genre, and he knows his craft. I listened to Sarah Wendell talk passionately (and hilariously) about why romance challenges those who criticize it, and the strength of plots that empower women—a lesson that can go far beyond the romance world. I attended a world building panel featuring a fantasy author, a crime writer and a regency romance author, and heard three distinct points of view. I chaired a panel on researching your world, and heard from a historical author, a science fiction author and a medical/crime author—again, they all brought wonderfully different perspectives to the same question. They challenged the way I thought.

It was fantastic and different to mix it up with authors of crime, romance and horror, none of which are familiar to me as a reader or an author. I saw ideas through a new lens, found new plans of attack for old problems, and drew a new kind of energy from the discussion.

You know what was the same, though? The fact that no matter what genre you’re talking about, the genre community rocks. Everyone I met was warm, inclusive and welcoming, whether they were talking to a guest of honor, or an aspiring writer.

In 2013, I challenge you to look outside the box for conferences and conventions in your area—try something that’s not of your genre, and see what you learn! I guarantee you’ll find a new angle on your work.

Amie is the co-author of THESE BROKEN STARS, a YA sci-fi novel coming in 2013 from Disney-Hyperion. You can find Amie at her blog, on Twitter or on Facebook. Amie lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her husband and rescue dog, and this week she's reading her first ever regency romance.

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