Friends in Command – Page 3 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

It’s done!

Yesterday I finally finished the second draft of Friends in Command (Sons of the Starfarers: Book IV)! I know I’d said I was working on other projects, but those were intermittent—this was the main one I was focusing on. I still need to run it by my first readers, but I’m pretty sure this is the version that I’ll publish. If all goes well, you can expect to see this go up on pre-order before the end of March.

While working on the revisions for Friends in Command, I more or less plotted out the rest of the Sons of the Starfarers series in my head. There are going to be nine books total, most of them around 40,000 to 50,000 words (or 150 to 200 pages). It will probably take me between two and four months to write each of them, including sending them off to first readers and implementing their feedback. If my first readers come back with problems, though, it might take more like five or six months.

While I’m definitely committed to finishing up this series, I’m probably not going to work exclusively on Sons of the Starfarers. As much as I would like to wrap up this series and get it all out there, there are a lot of other projects calling out to me—projects that I’ve been putting off for far too long. Here are just a few of them:

STAR WANDERERS: CHILDREN OF THE STARRY SEA

Yes, I have another story in the Star Wanderers series to tell. This one is a full-length novel, though, and it takes place about sixteen years after the events of The Jeremiah Chronicles. It’ll be fun to bring back all the old characters, but this story is mostly about their children (hence the title). This WIP is still in the early outlining stages, but I have lots of ideas with where to take it. I’ll probably write it sometime over the summer, unless there’s enough demand for me to write it sooner.

THE SWORD KEEPER

This is my epic fantasy novel that I’ve been writing on and off for the past two and a half years. I put it on the back burner last summer after I got blocked, but just last month I figured out what I needed to change to get the story flowing again. I could probably finish this one in a month if I focused on it. Hopefully, this is the year that I’ll finally get this one finished and publish it.

QUEEN OF THE FALCONSTAR

This is the passion project that distracted me while I was working on Friends in Command. I wrote about three chapters, put it on the back burner, and then daydreamed the whole rest of the book. Needless to say, I’m eager to get back to this one. I think it has a lot of potential—Star Wanderers was an unplanned passion project just like this one.

KING WASHINGTON

This is a new project that I haven’t blogged about yet. I’m collaborating on it with a friend (the story was actually his idea), and we’ve spent the last two or three weeks plotting out the entire series. All that is done now, so all we have to do is figure out our collaboration style and write the thing. We’re doing it in season/episode format, with five seasons of 12 episodes each. The episodes are each going to run about 20k to 30k words, so once we have our workflow down we should be able to pump out an episode every four to six weeks.

Lots and lots of stuff to work on—that’s partially why I haven’t been blogging much in the last few weeks. I hope to change that soon, though. And even if I’m not quite so active online as I have been, don’t worry—I’m still writing!

The love languages of Star Wanderers

So I’ve been reading this really interesting book recently called The Five Love Languages. Maybe you’ve heard of it. The basic idea is that all expressions of human love and affection fall into five basic categories or languages, and that we’re all better at speaking or understanding one language than we are at the others. There’s actually an online test where you can figure out what your primary language is (mine is physical touch), and learn how to better speak the others.

As I was reading this book, I couldn’t help but think about the characters from my books, especially the Star Wanderers books. Just for fun, I decided to figure out what their primary love languages are. Just as a warning, there will be unmarked spoilers below.

Jeremiah

Jeremiah’s primary love language is definitely physical touch, and that’s probably why I was able to write him so well. For him (and for me), physical intimacy implies an emotional commitment, which is why at first he turns Noemi down (he doesn’t want to make a promise that he can’t keep). When they finally do get together, the language barrier isn’t so much of an issue for him because he gets all the love and affection he needs through physical touch.

Noemi

Noemi’s love language is quality time. For her, physical touch is more just a means to an end, which is why she’s okay with offering herself physically to Jeremiah before she really knows him. But at the various points in the series where it looks like he might leave her for a while, she freaks out a bit, even when she knows it’s only temporary. Because the Ariadne is so small, and she and Jeremiah are basically forced to live on top of each other, she’s able to bond very quickly with him because of all the time they spend together.

Mariya

Without a doubt, Mariya’s love language is acts of service. It’s not until Jeremiah saves her family by getting them a berth on the Hope of Oriana that she really starts to fall for him. She tries to express her love by offering to help translate between Jeremiah and Noemi, which has the added benefit of making them both dependent on her to some degree. When Lucca rescues her from the pirates, she starts to fall for him instead, which culminates after he helps her to save everyone else.

Lucca

I’m not sure what Lucca’s love language is exactly. I want to say it’s acts of service, because he also doesn’t really fall for Mariya until she saves him. At that point, she goes from being the pretty trophy he won in the contest with the pirates into an actual human being that he can love and respect. He also has a bit of quality time going on, since he really comes to love her after the time that they spend together.

Jakob

At first, I thought that Jakob’s love language would also be acts of service, because of how he slaves away to support his family and feels rebuffed when they don’t appreciate it. But then I remembered that his pride makes it hard for him to accept acts of service from others. After thinking about it some more, I think his primary love language is words of affirmation. Salome’s constant nagging really grates on him, and her harsh words nearly drive him to the brink of suicide. He’s too proud to admit that he needs to be told that he’s loved, but he really does.

Salome

Salome’s love language is almost certainly receiving gifts. When Jakob’s work at the Oriana Station dockyards take him away from her, she feels unloved because he isn’t giving her the gift of his presence. More importantly, when he sent both of their sons away on the Medea, she felt as if he had taken two of the most important things in her life away from her—the exact opposite of giving gifts. The fact that they’re so poor certainly doesn’t help things.

Just for fun, let’s do a few characters from Sons of the Starfarers as well!

Isaac

Isaac’s love language is probably physical touch. He feels like he has to be within an arm’s reach of Aaron at all times, which is one of the reasons that Aaron resents him. He’s also hyper-aware of Reva’s no nudity taboo, and is very careful not to touch her when she isn’t wearing any clothes. When she puts a hand on his shoulder, he has a minor breakdown, and when she gives him the henna tattoo, that’s also a big deal mainly because of how it involves physical touch.

Aaron

I’m pretty sure that Aaron’s love language is words of affirmation, though I haven’t fully thought it through yet. He misbehaves and acts irresponsible because of how Isaac constantly nags him, and when he’s surrounded by friends who give him verbal encouragement, he starts to shape up rather quickly.

Reva

I’m not sure what Reva’s love language is. It isn’t physical touch, and it isn’t words of affirmation—her father wasn’t very good with words, but she still knew that he loved her. It isn’t receiving gifts either, since she doesn’t think much of the clothes that Isaac buys for her. So just by process of elimination, her love language is probably either quality time or gifts of service. Of those two, I’m more inclined to say that quality time is the more important one, which should become obvious in Book V: Captives in Obscurity.

Mara

Mara’s love language is almost certainly words of affirmation. In the first chapter of Book IV: Friends in Command, she has a nightmare that should make that abundantly clear. She’s also closed herself off in a lot of ways, to the point where she’s no longer comfortable with giving or receiving any sort of affection. That’s why she can be so harsh when she’s criticizing Aaron—though, to be fair, she always strives to make her criticism constructive.

So there you have it! Six characters from Star Wanderers and four characters from Sons of the Starfarers, with all of their love languages worked out. For the characters I’m not so sure about, I should probably take the online test for them just to see how it ends up. That would be a fun project, but for now, I think my time would be better spent writing the next Sons of the Starfarers book.

Take care, and let me know what you think!

Upcoming plans for 2015

I think my favorite time of the year is the week between Christmas and New Year’s. It’s a time for reflection, of looking at what you accomplished in the previous year and setting resolutions for the next one. In that spirit, here are some of the writing and publishing things I’d like to accomplish in 2015:

Publish at least six new books
Put out print editions of all of my books (except for short stories)
Get to the point where at least 50% of my book sales are outside of Amazon

I’ve got a lot of projects on the back burner, and I’m sure that I’ll start lots of new ones in the coming year, but these are the ones I really want to focus on in 2015:

Heart of the Nebula — This is one that I definitely want to release this year. It’s the fourth novel in the Gaia Nova universe, a direct sequel to Bringing Stella Home, and I’m really, really excited about it. For the past month or so, I’ve been in “finish this damn book mode” (which is why I haven’t blogged much), but I’m set to finish it by the end of this week and send it out to my first readers. You can definitely expect to see this one soon.

Sons of the Starfarers — The main reason I haven’t released Friends in Command (Book IV) yet is because my first readers told me it has some serious issues, which need to be fixed by adding another viewpoint character. It shouldn’t be too hard to do that, but before I do a major revision I always try to take a month or two off to work on other things so that I can come at the project with new eyes. I’ll pick up Friends in Command in January, and write the next one, Captives in Obscurity (Book V) immediately after.

Will I finish this series in 2015? I honestly don’t know. The books started as novellas, but each one has been a little longer than the last one, so by the end they’ll all probably end up as full novels. I could probably still do it if this was the only series I worked on all year, but I don’t want to limit myself in that way. Definitely, though, you can expect to see at least the next three books before the end of 2015.

The Sword Keeper — This unfinished fantasy novel has been sitting on my hard drive for about two years, and it’s time that I buckled down and put it out there. I tried to finish it last summer, and the main obstacle was that I had to do some serious world building. For a speculative fiction writer, that should be easy, right? Well … I’m kind of weird in that I tend to do most of my world building from the seat of my pants. But now that I’ve figured out what the holdup was, it shouldn’t be too hard to fix.

These are all books that I want to release before the end of 2015. I’m sure there will be others—perhaps even for story ideas that I haven’t come up with yet. It will be exciting to see how the year turns out!

Cover reveal for new fantasy release!

A while back, I wrote a short fantasy novelette about a group of orcs setting out to found a new clan. Well, I’ve decided to self-publish it! If all goes well, it should be up on Amazon by this weekend. Here’s the blurb:

IS THIS THE HILL ON WHICH YOU WANT TO DIE?

That is the question on Garak-Nur’s mind every time he draws his trusted sword Blacknife. A battle-hardened mountain orc and warrior chief of his clan, he knows when to turn from an unwinnable fight—and when to face death head-on, sword in hand.

Garak-Nur is ready to meet his fate, but the rest of his clan is not. A Witch King has risen to power in the north, impressing all the mountain orcs into his massive army. To preserve their freedoms, Garak must lead a band of warriors and she-orcs into the wilderness to start a new clan.

But the challenges they must face are great, and the lands they must cross are teeming with danger. Dwarves, dragons, and rival orcish war parties all stand in their way of finding a new home. Even if they do manage to start a new burrow, their fledgling clan may still not survive the winter.

One day, Garak-Nur will climb his last hill and meet the fate that awaits him. But for the sake of all those who look up to him, that day must not come a moment too soon.

WARNING: Contains mature content including rape and sexual violence.

And here’s the cover!This book is a fairly wide departure from my science fiction stuff. I have no idea how well it’s going to be received, or whether there will be enough interest for more books and stories in this universe. If there is interest, I do have more stories that I can write. First, though, I want to see how well this one does. If you enjoy it, please leave a review to let me know, so I can decide whether to write more stories in this universe!

For those of you waiting on my ongoing science fiction series, don’t worry—I haven’t given up on those. Friends in Command (Sons of the Starfarers: Book IV) will probably be out sometime in February, and Captives in Obscurity (Sons of the Starfarers: Book V) will be out sometime in the spring. These stories are running a lot longer than I’d planned for them too, so for those of you who want something longer than a typical novella, you’re going to get it.

That just about does it for now. If all goes well, A Hill on Which to Die should be up on Amazon in the next 48-72 hours. Keep an eye out for it!

Back from unannounced hiatus

Wow, it’s been forever since I last blogged. One of my real-life friends even asked me why I never post anything anymore. That’s when you know you’ve fallen off the face of the Earth.

In truth, there’s not a whole lot to report. I’m plugging away on Heart of the Nebula, making good progress. My goal is to finalize this draft before the new year. After that, it’s off to the first readers, who should be pretty happy to see another Gaia Nova novel. It’s been far too long since I’ve written one of those.

As for Friends in Command (Sons of the Starfarers: Book IV), the first draft has some problems that can only be fixed by throwing in another viewpoint character. For that reason, I probably won’t be publishing it until February or March. I could drop everything and try to push it out by the end of January, but I want to make sure that I’m putting out the best possible book that I can. Besides, there are other pots on the back burner that I need to stir.

Speaking of pots and back burners, while I was at my sister’s for Thanksgiving, we got to talking about all the cooking and gardening that I’ve been doing recently, and she suggested in jest that I start a homemaking blog. Well. I have to admit, it sounds like fun. I’m going to write it under a pseudonym, so I don’t want to say too much about it, but it’s going to be about the intersection between homemaking, emergency preparedness, and self-reliance.

Of course, I’ve got a lot of other work to do before I can afford to spend much time on a hobby blog. So at this point, I’m just trying to keep my head above water. With the holidays coming on, there’s a lot of publishing stuff that I need to get done, on top of all the writing. But don’t worry, I’ll still find time to post a thought or two on this blog. And I plan to run a few more Goodreads giveaways in the future, so keep an eye out for that!

Just in time!

Orc Chieftain by Wulfgnar on deviantART

So yesterday was the deadline for the fourth quarter of the Writers of the Future contest. I’d submitted the Gettysburg time paradox story waaay back in July, but after workshopping it with some friends, I realized that it wasn’t quite up to par. On Monday, though, I workshopped another story with the same group of friends, and got some amazing feedback that helped me to turn a great story into an awesome one.

I originally wanted to submit that story to Tor.com, which opens up to submissions again today, but after finishing it up I wondered if maybe I could withdraw the Gettysburg story from WOTF and submit the better one instead. The thing about Tor.com is that they have a ridiculously long wait time–145 days average, up on The (Submission) Grinder. Since WOTF has a much shorter wait time (no longer than three months, since they announce the winners each quarter), I wasn’t too keen on taking this story out of the loop for more than a quarter.

So I emailed Joni yesterday afternoon, just a few hours before the deadline, but I didn’t think she’d respond in time to submit it. To my surprise, she responded in fourteen minutes (fourteen minutes!) and told me that the old story was withdrawn, so I was free to submit the other one! Awesome!

So now I’ve got a story in the contest that I’m super super proud of and think might actually have a shot at placing. And even if it doesn’t, the sooner I can run it through WOTF, the sooner I can run it through the other markets I want to submit it to (there’s only three more after this), which means the sooner I can self-publish it and get it up for you guys to read. It’s kind of hard talking about a story when none of you guys can read it, but trust me, I think you’re really really going to like this one.

Workshopping it Monday gave me an AWESOME idea for another short story / novelette in the same universe, about a runtling orc who uses his wits to free the hero from the dungeon and get him to kill the orc high commander, freeing all the disgruntled warriors to desert the Witch King’s army and return to their clans (which is what all of them want to do anyway). I am super super excited to write this story!

For those of you waiting for the next Sons of the Starfarers book, though, don’t worry, that’s coming along as well. I’m about halfway through Book IV: Friends in Command right now, and it should be finished (the rough draft, anyway) by October 15th. If all goes well, I’ll have it up for pre-order sometime in November, with a release date of January 1st.

Brothers in Exile

eBook: free!

Author: Joe Vasicek
Series: Sons of the Starfarers, Book 1
Genres: Action & Adventure, Military, Science Fiction, Space Exploration, Space Opera
Tag: 2014 Release

Isaac and Aaron are nothing if not survivors. Their homeworld lost and their people scattered, all they have left is each other. Then, in the Far Outworlds, they find a dead colony with a beautiful young woman frozen in cryostasis. She is also a survivor—and she needs their help.

More info →

Get the ebook FREE from my online store!

Get the audiobook FREE from my online store!

Also, I’m happy to report that Book I: Brothers in Exile is now free on the main Amazon store! If you haven’t read it yet, feel free to pick up a copy, and if you have read it, I would appreciate it immensely if you could post an honest review. In order to feature it on a couple of sites, I need to get at least ten reviews, preferably with a high-star rating, but more than that I think it’s important just to have reviews that are honest and thoughtful. Anything you guys can do to help with that, I would appreciate it.

And that’s just about it. I have a lot of writing to do, so I’d better get back to that. See you guys around!

Print, pre-orders, and points of business

For those of you who are reading the Sons of the Starfarers series, I have a few updates and points of business that I think you may be interested in.

First, Sons of the Starfarers: Omnibus I-III is now up for pre-order on most of the ebook sites. It will go live on November 1st, but the print edition should be available on Amazon and CreateSpace about two weeks before that. All I have left to do for the print edition is the typesetting, but that takes a lot of time, so I’m shooting for October 15th to have the print edition ready.

Now, here’s the interesting part. Amazon has a program called MatchBook where people who buy the print edition can get the ebook edition for cheap or free. For the omnibus edition, I’ve set the discount ebook price for $.99, which means that if you buy the print edition, you can get the ebook for just $.99 extra.

The big question is how this applies to pre-orders. If you pre-order the ebook and buy the print edition before the ebook comes out, will Amazon charge you the full $5.99 or the $.99? I don’t know yet, but I plan to ask an Amazon representative to clarify. Because if ordering the print version while the ebook is still on pre-order means that you get the ebook at the discount MatchBook price, I will do everything I can to get the print version out in time so you can do that.

For links to the omnibus, keep an eye on the front page: I haven’t added it to my blog yet, but I plan to do that shortly. Or you can just go over to your favorite ebookstore and search for “sons of the starfarers omnibus.”

Finally, I’ve decided to drop the price for Brothers in Exile (Sons of the Starfarers: Book I) from $2.99 to $0 and make it permanently free. The trick now is getting Amazon to price match with the other retailers, since you can’t technically set the price of an Amazon book to $0 (you have to mark it down on a competitor and let them know). So if you have a few moments to help, I would appreciate it! Just follow these steps:

Go to the Amazon page for Brothers in Exile and look for the link that says “tell us about a lower price.”
When you click the link, it should bring up a submenu that asks you where you saw the lower price. Click on “website.”
Where it asks for the URL, copy and past either the link to iBooks, the link to Nook, or the link to Kobo (or all three!).
Where it asks for the competitor’s price, enter “0” and click “submit feedback.”

That’s it! If you could take a few moments to do that, I would greatly appreciate it. And if you haven’t read Brothers in Exile yet, here’s a great way to get it for free!

For those of you waiting for Friends in Command (Sons of the Starfarers: Book IV), I’m happy to say that progress is coming along very, very well with that one. I hope to have it up for pre-order before the end of October, and the tentative release date will be January 3rd. It’s going to be a bit of a crunch to get it all done in time, but I’m really eager to write this story and I think I can get the first draft done in the next couple of weeks.

That just about does it. Back to writing!

Cover reveal for first SONS OF THE STARFARERS omnibus!

Great news! The cover for the first Sons of the Starfarers omnibus is here–check it out!

Since the omnibus is just the first three books in one collection, I should have it up for pre-order in the next few days. The release date will be November 1st, and I plan to set the ebook price at $5.99.

One of the reasons for the delay is so that I can get the print edition up and launched at the same time as the ebook. I could probably get the typesetting done in less than a week if I dropped everything to work on it, but right now most of my attention is focused on writing Book IV: Friends in Command. If all goes well, that book should launch sometime in December.

Lots and lots of work to do–you guys are definitely keeping me busy! I know that some of you are waiting impatiently for the next book, so I’m working on that as quickly as I reasonably can. Until then, take care and thanks for reading!

Reasons why September is my favorite month of the year

Chilly mornings
Campfire smoke
Farmer’s markets
Crisp Gala apples
Home-cooked chili
Autumn leaves
Labor Day weekend
My birthday
Start of the school calendar
Old friends coming and going
Last chance to go mountain climbing
First chance to take out winter clothes
End of the summer slump
Beginning of harvest season
Orion and the Pleiades
Clear blue skies
Indian summers
Long, chilly walks by moonlight
The peace and quiet between summer vacation and the holidays
Getting back into writing after a long and eventful summer

I’ll post another excerpt from Strangers in Flight soon (as well as a cover reveal for the omnibus!), but I woke up this morning feeling like life was awesome, and I had to share why. Of course life is awesome in more months than just September, but it’s my favorite month of the year, as you can definitely see!

Progress is going well on the next Sons of the Starfarers book! I’m on the third chapter, and it’s really picking up. My goal is to finish the first draft before the end of the month, then write book V in October while book IV is with my first readers, so that I can have everything squared away for a release in December or January. But if all goes well, it should be up for pre-order by November.

That’s just about it for now–better get back to writing. Take care, and have an awesome September! 😀

STRANGERS IN FLIGHT coming out soon! (and other updates)

So, I have great news! Sons of the Starfarers, Book III: Strangers in Flight will be coming out in just a couple of days. Everything is squared away for the release–all I need to do is finish approving the edits, write a teaser for the next book, and put the ebook together!

This will probably be the last time that I publish a book without putting it on pre-order first. From now on, I want to have the next book out on pre-order before the last one is released, so that my readers can pre-order the next book while it’s still fresh in their minds. Also, this will give each book a firm release date, so that readers know when the next book is going to come out.

Until now, there’s been no advantage in holding a book until it’s ready to be published. Smashwords and the iBookstore started allowing pre-orders about a year ago, but since most of my sales are on Amazon at this point, I held off from taking advantage of that option. Perhaps that was a mistake.

In any case, now that Amazon allows pre-orders, I plan to retool my publishing process in order to make that a part of how I do things. However, since I’m still writing Book IV: Friends in Command, that means that it probably won’t be until Christmas when that book comes out. I don’t want to upload anything less than a finished product for pre-order, so I need to build up a queue in order to get things going.

However, the first Sons of the Starfarers omnibus should be available for pre-order in just a couple of weeks. All I really need is the cover, and my cover designer is already working on it. So if you haven’t bought the first book yet, or don’t mind waiting until October, the omnibus should be a few bucks cheaper than buying all three books individually.

In other news, I’m back in Utah, getting into the swing of things after a lengthy family vacation. I’ve got a bunch of short stories on submission now, which should be interesting if/when they get picked up by the magazines, but that’s more of a long-term thing (and besides, I still have a lot to learn when it comes to writing short stories–it’s much harder in some ways than writing novels!). There’s a couple of other side projects that I have simmering on the back burner, but right now, Sons of the Starfarers is definitely taking most of my focus.

That just about does it for now. I’ve got some chili cooking on the stove, so I’d better get back to that and then finish those edits. Later!