As I slog toward the end of my current, manuscript, there's been a couple of "yee haas!" to push me toward the goal. Sojourn, the first book of the Time Rovers(TM) series is a finalist for a Foreword Award in the science fiction category. There are fourteen finalists, four of which are from Dragon Moon Press. Awesome.
The other good news is that I've been chosen as one of the winning authors in Aberrant Dreams' Writer's Challenge. This contest was unique. AD readers chose an illustration, wrote a synopsis of a short story and then chose the author who would pen that story. So my work will be included amongst such big-name pros as Ian Watson, S.P. Somtwow, Alastair Reynolds, Howard Hendrix, etc. Wow.
It's been an incredible week. However, next Thursday loometh and there's this hassle I'm having with one of my characters so it's back to the business at hand.
Thanks for sharing the good times with me....
2 comments:
I'm very happy for you, Jana. I'm about 3/4 the way through Sojourn, and I'm very impressed. A few anachronisms here and there--"normalcy" wasn't in the lexicon until 1920, when Warren G. Harding coined it and made it part of his slogan. But from what I've read so far, you deserve the honors.
I'm happy you're enjoying the book. Getting the language of time correct is an absolute bear.
Normalcy I didn't check, though I do most of more "modern" words. I use an online etymology dictionary. I did a quick check -- they state usage in 1857, though in the mathmatical sense. If I'd seen that, I probably would have passed on using it.
It's weird -- some words are kosher, but you don't dare use them -- facsimile, for example. Everybody in our age things "fax".
I did miss some stuff, politely pointed out by a Brit (bless him!) I use cream in my tea (and so do my characters). Brits use milk. And I use the work "cop" as I found it in a newspaper article in Britain at the time (I did have concerns on that one). They didn't and still default toward "copper".
That's one thing I've found hard to overcome -- no matter how much I study Victorian England, I'm not English or a Victorian. Bummer. Of course, if I was English and Victorian I'd be dead and couldn't write the books....
Let me know what you think of the tome once you get all the way through. And I'd love to know what else I got wrong. That way I can make new mistakes in future books (wink!)
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