February has been a bit of a wild ride for the world it seems. Even though it brings chaos, wild rides can be a great time to log your experiences and use them to influence your work. If you see something that your community needs, see if there's volunteer opportunities you can help out with. For instance, working at a community kitchen for the homeless can give you a chance to hear stories you'd never hear otherwise. And that can lead to all sorts of inspiration for all sorts of art.
So to keep our wonderful writer fueled up, get some coffee and buy one for Jenn. Jennifer runs on coffee. You can show her some support by buying her a coffee! Pick up the latest anthologies, Shadowrun books, or dig into some of her great re-releases.
What's up from Jennifer:
Run-up to “Dear Penpal, Belgium 1980” kickstarter: This is it, the kickstarter for my passion project goes live on March 26th. Yes, I will email everyone when it goes live but, in the meantime, you can get a sneak peek, and sign up for information/to show your interest on my backerkit page here: https://bit.ly/dear_penpal
Publications: One of my editors declared February “Jennifer Publication Month” as I had both a novel, Shadowrun: Auditions, released and an anthology, 99 Fleeting Fantasies, released. Both in print and in ebook.
Publishing Tip of the Month:
This month’s tip is on editing your completed draft. It is all about moving—moving yourself and your manuscript away from where you first wrote it. Both of these techniques will allow you to see your manuscript in a different light
First, if you can, move your draft from one medium to another before you begin your edit pass. From your desktop to your laptop. From your laptop to your phone. From your phone to print. By shifting your manuscript into a different medium, it changes how it looks to you and how it looks on the page. It makes you look at it with fresh eyes. If you cannot move your manuscript from where you normally write, change the font. Make it bigger or smaller and move from a serif font to a san serif font. (Note: if you handwrite your first draft and type it into your computer on the second, you are already doing this.)
Second, shift your work location. If you have a desk, move to the kitchen table to edit. If you work in a coffee shop, shift to the library. If you cannot shift where you usually work at, for whatever reason, try to shift the time of day that you do your editing. Morning to night. Night to lunchtime. Lunchtime to morning. Moving the time of day will shift how your brain processes the information because we are creatures of habit. Once we move out of our usual place/time of work, the brain has to process the new circumstances and it allows you to be more aware of details.
Conventions/Classes
Conventions
2024
Norwescon (March) - Dealers, Panels
Crypticon (May) - At the HWA Seattle Chapter table
Origins Game Fair (June) - Authors Alcove, Panels
Gen Con (August) - Writers Symposium, Workshops
Can-Con (November) - Editor GoH
Classes
Jennifer and the Cat Rambo Academy for Wayward Writer Classes.
You can find all the information from this one link. Spots and scholarships are available.
http://www.kittywumpus.net/blog/faculty-jennifer-brozek/
Money Management for Creatives March 10, 9:30 am
Bubble & Squeek
Pre-order for Shadowrun: The Mosaic Run Auditions is live! I’m so happy with this book! Shadowrun: The Mosaic Run Auditions
Interview at Productivity Alchemy episode 337
Go watch: Broken Hearts Club Buffy Live Play mini arc at Shadow of NOX Twitch/Youtube chanel. Jennifer plays Bethany a psychic.
Blog Post: Flailing About
Blog Post: Happy Publication Day to Me
Blog Post: The Broken Hearts Club Buffy RPG Mini Series
Tell Me: Amanda Cherry
Recent Releases
99 Fleeting Fantasies Anthology
EVEN A DREAM CAN BE CAUGHT IN PROSE…
There’s nothing better than a moment of whimsy and a dash of the fantastical to get the mind wandering. 99 Fleeting Fantasies is a flash fiction anthology readers can tiptoe through for a bit of wonder or while away an afternoon as they meander from old-time tales to far-flung fables to serious snippets of legend and lore that come from all over the world, including Australia, Canada, England, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, and the United States. Featuring stories from the imaginative minds of Cat Rambo, Charles Stross, Crystal Frasier, Jody Lynn Nye, Jonathan Maberry, Premee Mohamed, Seanan McGuire, Wole Talabi, and many more!
Shadowrun: The Mosaic Run Auditions
FOUR SECRET AUDITIONS…
Fixer BlotterBabe must have exactly the right actors for a production that requires very specialized talent. The actors must not only be skilled, they need to have the right attitude and an ability to adapt to extraordinary circumstances.
A Kiss to Die For: Kintsugi and Sartorial choose love over duty, but their respective families will do everything in their considerable power to stop them from being together.
See How She Runs: Terrapin witnesses a murder and is handed a package destined for some important and lethal people. Now she is running for her life.
Unrepairable: Landon and Liana love vexing megacorps for fun and profit with their Matrix show. Unfortunately, the megacorps always play dirty, and will do whatever’s required to shut them down for good.
The Kilimanjaro Run: Charlotte, Neema, and Elijah embark on an unexpected adventure that turns into a nightmare when they discover nothing is what it seems. They are left with no choice at all when choosing between the abhorrent and the right thing to do.
FOR THE MOST DANGEROUS RUN OF ALL…
Having auditioned thousands, BlotterBabe is out of time. It’s come down to these few teenagers. Either they will save the day or lose it all…
The Reinvented Detective Anthology
The evolution of crime, punishment, and justice in the future.
What happens when time and technology change the definition of crime and punishment? Science fiction often focuses on future technology without considering the society housing it. Social norms may change as tech changes — or not. What will criminals, investigators, judges, and juries look like in a complicated future of clones, uploaded intelligences, artificial brains, or body augmentation? What stories emerge when we acknowledge the possibilities of new laws, new police methods, and the birth of sentient Artificial Intelligence, as well as all the ways they can clash or combine?
Edited by Cat Rambo and Jennifer Brozek.
The Many Deaths of Jennifer Brozek
An author can live a thousand lives through her work.
She can die a thousand deaths, too.
From 2014 to 2015, Jennifer Brozek wrote an “Author Story Card” for every convention she went to. On one side would be a piece of flash fiction: The Many Deaths of Jennifer Brozek: [Convention Name Year]. On the other side was a list of her currently available books and a QR code on where to find them. They were free for the taking and were a huge hit.
(A fact that still occasionally disturbs the author.)
With this edition, all of the convention story cards have been gathered up into a single collection, for the first time in ebook format. It debuted in the Gen Con Writers’ Symposium limited-edition ebook bundle to benefit Symposium writers and programs. Now it is available for you to enjoy.
Also included is Jennifer Brozek’s chapbook, Mastication. A chapbook created for Gen Con 2009 in an act born from desperation and a lack of experience because none of her books arrived in time to be sold at the convention.
Never Let Me Omnibus, the Melissa Allen trilogy (re-release)
Never Let Me Sleep. What would you do if you discovered that everyone, in your house, on your street and in your town was dead? Then you discovered you weren’t alone–and whatever was out there was hunting you? Melissa Allen knows. With only a voice on the phone to help her, Melissa must find out what happened, stop it from happening again, and do it before the monsters get her. And that’s just the beginning of her story. Finalist for the Bram Stoker award. This special edition features all three books in Jennifer Brozek’s Melissa Allen series: Never Let Me Sleep, Never Let Me Leave, Never Let Me Die as well as the bonus short story, “Never Let Me Feel.”
Written by the Shadow Minion.
Edited and approved by Jennifer.
Thank you for reading.