Losing it All: Writing In A Pandemic #scifi #coverreveal

Hi, I'm Pippa Jay, author of sci-fi and supernatural stories with a romantic soul. It's been a while since I actually had a WIP, but I suppose the pandemic has had some positive outcomes. When I was first sent home from work, I threw myself into doing as much of my job as I could from home, closely followed by as much physical stuff as I could to keep my mind off the state of the world, and because the glorious weather just called me to spend time outside (and with my chickens). The thought of writing at such a time... didn't seem possible. I was worried about my family, my friends, my work colleagues, my job, my animals...the list was unending. 

But as life in quarantine settled into the new normality, boredom set in. Apparently boredom is a major trigger for my muse. I had several pieces in my files that were finished, or close enough to finished that really they shouldn't be much work to complete. I pulled open three of them, but one seemed to call into particular. A missing part of my main series that my editor said was needed before book three, that I had half written and knew what the rest of the story should be, but hadn't had the dedication to really stick at until done.

Like several of my stories, this was done more as background between books two and three so I had the details down for reference, but that had never been intended as a piece to be published. My editor was of a different mind. After assessing book three and repeated comments of 'wait, what, who are these people? Did I miss a whole book somewhere?!' I figured I'd better get it done. And what could be a more perfect time? Despite being started years earlier, the darker, more destructive tone of the story was at least in resonance with the near apocalyptic reality!

So months, if not years later than it should have been done, Redemption 2.5 is in the final round of edits. It is not the most romantic chapter of my main characters' life, that's for sure, and I have yet to determine a release date (I originally planned to release it just before book three, but as yet don't have the finances to send that to my editor for edits and a cover). Instead, I have two other pieces booked for edits in September - a winter solstice scifi mystery that I would like to release close to the time of year that it's set, and an angel short that will release next summer. In the meantime, you can read the blurb and get a look at the cover. If it doesn't give you the shivers, I'm hoping the story will...

How could a moment's anger destroy so much happiness?

It's a question that will haunt him. When an old enemy comes to Kasha-Asor to kidnap their daughter, armed with a weapon that could end everything, Keir is forced to leave an injured Quin on Lyagnius. But his quest for a cure and their missing daughter will come at a terrible cost.

A #Romance Across Time #amwriting #timetravel #scifi

Hi, I'm Pippa Jay, author of scifi and supernatural stories to engage your emotions. And my main romance series includes time travel. Why?

Rocking my Anakin cosplay on the Iron Throne!

Well. While I'm a huge Star Wars fan (and it's the universe I tend to focus on for my cosplay creations), I'm also a life long Whovian. My parents were fans. My earliest memory from Doctor Who is The Planet of the Spiders--the final adventure of Jon Pertwee, the Doctor's third incarnation, and the episode I can possibly pin my spider phobia on! His companion Sarah Jane Smith was my first heroine inspiration.

Me aged 18, with the then 7th Doctor Sylvester McCoy

So perhaps it's not surprising that my debut novel and the main series it started are time travel romances/adventures. Even the book I refer to as my 'Star Wars' story--Gethyon, set about twenty years before my time travel series and sharing some of the same characters as well as the same universe--still has a time travel element to it. While not a romance, my hero accidently catapults himself twenty years back in time to meet a girl he falls for. He comes to learn and hate some of the restrictions this kind of travel carries while being thankful for it as well.

Gethyon

But in my main series I have to deal with how and why they time travel, the limits of their abilities, the benefits and consequences. For example, at one point my heroine has to face an ancient nemesis responsible for the death of her sisters, her home world, and even the powers she considers more of a curse than a blessing. But she can't kill her because it would directly impact the very existence of the hero and cause a paradox. She also can't leave the woman free to cause any further harm. What to do?

There are also things they can't go back and change. Their method of time travel involves a certain amount of focus on a place or person to work. So if someone dies, the knowledge of their death stops anyone from going back to any point in their life before their death and possibly preventing it - a psychological block rather than a physical or temporal one. There are also certain worlds that can only be accessed by special portals - gateways.

So it's a little more complicated than jumping in a TARDIS, though probably just as haphazard. The thing I love most about time travel romance is I can have my characters jump anywhere, any time, exploring alien worlds but also the ups and downs and complexities of time travel, and how even love can cross such barriers between those destined to be together.

Keir

Keir's Fall

Want to chat? Find me at my website or blog, but my favourite place to hang out and talk all things geek and scifi romance is as @pippajaygreen on Twitter.

A Quintology crossing Time and Space #timetravel #scifi #romance

Hi, I'm Pippa Jay, author of Scifi and the supernatural. This month we're celebrating the first book in a series at Romancing the Genres. My first series book was also my debut novel, making it a first in more ways than one. When I wrote Keir originally, I had no plan in mind. Certainly no intention to write a series. All I had was an unfinished old short, a need to find myself, and a flood of words waiting to break free. By the time I'd finished the first draft of Keir some six weeks later after frenzied scribbling and a real epiphany, I realized I had two very separate stories. I split them and focussed on Keir. But once that was finished and I turned to the second story, I realized muse wasn't done. By the time I was ready to submit, I was querying Keir as book one of a five book series. Yes, five books. I knew roughly where I wanted the overall story to go although I didn't write book three until a year later. And while I call it the Redemption series, I also refer to it with a smile as a quintology. Why? Well, quintology means five. But it so happens my heroine is called Quin.

With book one re-released last year and book two just last month, I'm currently working on a side story due to release in May. The draft of book three is done but in serious need of an overhaul - I've learned so much in the almost four years I've been published. Books four and five are half done disaster zones, and another side story is knocking on the door. Rather like Douglas Adams whose Hitch-Hiker Guide books became a 'trilogy in five parts' the Redemption series is sprouting extras!

Will it end at five books? Well, the fifth has a very definite finale. The working title is Endings. But I can always do more side stories from the series, and I have plenty of other characters in the same universe shouting for their own adventures that I know I will never be done with it completely.

If you'd like to know more about the series, you can check out the books on my website, on both the Available Works and Coming Soon pages at http://pippajay.co.uk, or I always love to chat on Twitter as @pippajaygreen