Writing My First

Back in October, I had my very first idea for a holiday themed story, although too late to have it out for Halloween. In the space of six days and from the inspiration of another book title, I managed to pump out 11K of a paranormal romance based on the original pagan holiday of All Hallows Eve. I surprised myself! The last couple of years I've cursed myself as each holiday rolls past and I have nothing to tie into any of them. And although I'll now have to wait a year to share this one with the world, I'm really excited about it. For now, I can show you a rough draft of the cover I'm working on. What do you think?

I'm keeping the title a secret for now, ready for a big reveal next October. It was odd working on a paranormal, switching from aliens and spaceships to magic and fae. I'm a scifi girl at heart, although I have written fantasy in the past. Back in 2010 when I did a creative writing course through the Open University, my tutor made it clear from the start she wasn't a fan of speculative fiction. But even then, I managed to slip in a couple of ghost stories, magic realism and time travel. I just can't help myself!

And it was a lot of fun researching pagan traditions and sprites after a month on theoretical anti-gravity systems and what happens to a body in vacuum (did you know if you don't hold your breath, you can survive 90 seconds exposed in space without a spacesuit, and without any long lasting effects? Don't fancy trying it though...). But I couldn't completely escape my  scientific leanings. Chemistry became alchemy as I looked up the chemical composition of the body for a spell, and calculated what household equivalents could be used (I was an analytical chemist before I became a stay at home mum). Google Translate helped me put a roughly worded incantation into Latin.

And now I'm thinking about the other holidays. Did you know every Christian holiday we celebrate is actually set on the dates of pagan ones? It may well be that any further ideas for holiday themed stories will have to be paranormal for me, but I do know some scifi based ones. Why don't you try these three out?

Do androids dream of electric sugar plums?

A detective who refuses to modify her body teams up with her cyborg rival to track down a burglar who is putting toys into homes. A solitary ice miner finds love and friendship while stranded on the surface of Galileo. And two hardheaded negotiators put their differences aside to evade an assassin and save their planets. Enjoy these visions of Christmases yet to come with three science-fiction novellas from Carina Press.