Ninety-Nine Cent E-book Sale and a Little Excerpt from Tryfling Matters (TGTG3)

Greetings and salutations, fine peoples! 

Just wanted to let folks know, I've put The Purloined Number (TGTG2) on sale for $0.99. If you haven't picked it up and you like humorous scifi, you might just want to check it out. 

It's set up so you don't have to have read the first There Goes the Galaxy book to read this one, even though it is the second in the trilogy. The first book is also currently at $0.99, so it's a pretty wallet-frugal investment right now for some cosmic fun. You can access book two here:

http://www.amazon.com/Purloined-Number-There-Goes-Galaxy-ebook/dp/B00FLYGDWE/

And in other news, I've been hard at work on writing the third and final book in the TGTG story arc, Tryfling Matters. So I thought I'd start sharing some snippets here. Today we see Rozz's new day job is not without its mysteries.

Rozz knew nerds—hell, by all reasonable assessments, she was one. But these days, most people in the Nerd-American community had expectations for a certain level of comfort and amenities commensurate with their job skills. And very few of them would have been all, "Oh, well. Whatever" about working conditions where Cthulhu could have rocked the nine-to-five one cube over.

Lots going on in this book. I think you folks are going to enjoy it.

Stay warm and don't get eaten by polar bears! --Jenn

Go, Go Power Ponchos, Ancient Alien Meme-tasticness and Doodly Fun

I keep seeing the above image on Facebook, in an ad for an online fashion site. And each time I do, my brain automatically comments: "Mighty Morphin Power Ponchos."

Clearly, someone needs to get a group together to wear these garments-- one color of each-- and strike ninja poses in the various open spaces around Pittsburgh. Y'know, to liven things up between Furries Conventions.

"Go, go, Power Ponchos!"

(And um, no, I am not volunteering. I'm the Ideas Person. Implementation is free for someone else. :) )

Speaking of ideas, there's this meme going around where you go to Google Images, you type in your first name and the word "meme" and see what images pop up related to it. I decided to try it for my lead alien character Rollie.

This is what came up for that.

For folks here who are familiar with my books, I am open to any and all suggestions of what exactly Rollie did to the Ancient Aliens guy. Go ahead! Be creative. Because with Rollie, it really could be pretty much anything.

Speaking of Rollie, I've been doing a few little doodly illustrations in the evenings from the books-- just for my own entertainment. Below is Bertram and Rollie at the Lunch-n-Launch Diner from The Purloined Number.

Bertram does enjoy digging into the alien chow!

Below is Rollie on Altair-5, from the perspective of an Altairan Carnivorous Daisy. Yup, them's some big angry posies!

And the last drawing is also from The Purloined Number-- my character Meena showing her sculpture at the art gallery on the planet Gwash. Meena's art is done in backspace materials, like paper mache, architectural salvage and despair. Oh, and she'd want me to tell you, she accepts commissioned work! :)

Anyway, that's it from me. I've got various holiday tasks to do this weekend, including trying to find gifts for people who don't want anything, and clumsily taping pretty colored paper onto non-conforming objects.

I swear, if anyone at this time of year ever asked me what superpower I would like, I'd say: to make wrapping paper bow to my will and not cause every present to look like some kindergartener hepped up on sugar plums wrapped the gifts.

---Jenn

Humorous Sci-Fi $0.99 Sale Cosmicness!

Heads up to my reader buddies on here!-- I decided to have a little summer sale for my humorous sci-fi books during the next week. Both There Goes the Galaxy and The Purloined Number are now available on Kindle, Nook and Smashwords for $0.99 a piece. They're also available proportionately cheap in the UK, Canada, etc. on Amazon-- I just didn't want to overload folks with too many links.

So if you were looking for a good time to pick up a copy of either of those to books, this might just be the time to snag them. Or if you know someone who enjoys sci-fi in the general Hitch-hiker's Guide or Terry Pratchett tradition, I'd love it if you would pass the sale info along. The details are as follows:

Kindle US:

THERE GOES THE GALAXY:
http://www.amazon.com/There-Goes-Galaxy-Jenn-Thorson-ebook/dp/B005M2RRRA/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0YS20BHKMBK785SVFVNA

THE PURLOINED NUMBER:
http://www.amazon.com/Purloined-Number-There-Goes-Galaxy-ebook/dp/B00FLYGDWE/


NOOK:

THERE GOES THE GALAXY:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/there-goes-the-galaxy-jenn-thorson/1106635958?ean=2940013437449

THE PURLOINED NUMBER:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-purloined-number-jenn-thorson/1117024694?ean=9780983804536


Smashwords:

THERE GOES THE GALAXY:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/370575

THE PURLOINED NUMBER:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/370632

Thank ye much, and I now return you to your regularly scheduled Tuesday! :)

Off-Orbit Art and the Fun of Getting to Draw Aliens, Invisibility and Skull Buckets

I have just a few more drawings to share with you for this week. The first, above, is the one I was still messing around with last post-- the scene with the Underworld snitch Skane in Vos Laegos. I discovered white colored pencil over marker is a great way to show high-tech alien camouflage... while simultaneously not showing it. 

The next one I thought would be fun to work on was Rollie and Meena in the bar on Gwash. This was once I got the general idea roughed out....

And this one, is the finished piece. Apologies, the straight lines look a little bendy due to the paper...

One of my favorite parts was getting to draw a bucket made of an animal skull. The other was giving Rollie sunburn. Poor guy! Altair-5 is not made for the average Hyphiz Deltan.

So that's it from me for now. I hope you all have yourselves an out-of-this-world week.

--Jenn

Doodles, Details and Dayjobs

With the dayjob sucking a lot of my writing brain away lately, I've enjoyed a replenishing break doing some doodling. Lately, this has gone from more simple, static figures, to actual scenes from There Goes the Galaxy and The Purloined Number.

It's always surprising to me what I learn from doing this. For instance, when I decided to draw Bertram in the discount souvenir crap he picks up at the Lunch-n-Launch diner in The Purloined Number, I had NO IDEA he'd gotten himself the questionable orange and green logo pants he seems to be wearing here. He just needed something extra, and they APPEARED. (I'm sorry, Bertram. I'm really sorry. But at least you look happy about it.)

Rollie below was fun because I finally got a better bead on those heavy-treaded boots he's always clunking onto things. I liked adding the little frayed bits to the bottom of the coat, too. I don't imagine Rollie bothers with having many wardrobe options in his closet.

I wanted to draw Xylith, who's integral in both books, here doing a little pick-pocketry... her speciality. Here, I knew about her very strange feet, but I wasn't aware until I started trying to design the boots and clothes that her people may well be amphibious.

I also wanted to try to draw Rozz, the other main Earth person in the series. From comments online, Rozz apparently looks like a fuchsia-haired Felicia Day. I would have liked this drawing better if it wasn't limited by my crappy handwriting. Missing those first grade penmanship classes--- it still haunts me! :)

On the plus side, I have a better idea of what the Print Liberation Lounge logo and company colors might be.

One of my friends at work, who'd been following along with my drawing projects, requested a scene from the first There Goes the Galaxy, wanting to know what the Seers' Tower on Rhobux-7 looked like. I wasn't sure if I was up for doing such a complex scene, but it was really fun to try to figure it out!

That got me thinking about that big lime green eyeball (The Receptionist) inside the Seers' Tower. I was pretty happy with little details like the sweep of Rollie's coat, and the hole in poor Bertram's sock.

I also thought it would be fun to see what the Peace Guards on the planet Podunk-17 looked like. I knew they were lizardoid. But I didn't expect they would be inspired so much by tropical aquarium fish.

So, that's where I am currently. I'm working on the picture below today.

This is in Vos Laegos, in The Purloined Number where Bertram and Rollie visit with Rollie's snitch acquaintance, Skane. Here the challenge will be in doing Rollie's high-tech camo. It's supposed to be visible but not visible, so it's an interesting balancing act for me. I don't know if my drawing skills are up for it. But I'm preparing for takeoff anyway. :)

If any of you have suggestions for a scene you'd like to see doodled, I'd be happy to hear it!

--Jenn

On Introversion and Sci-fi Audiobook Excerpts, Now With Bad British Accent!

I decided to consider it a character-building exercise (pun unintended, but applicable) to act out and record a couple more snippets of my second book. It's an interesting sort of dichotomy I feel about these things. There's that introverted part of me-- the writer who discovers hours have melted away while imaginary worlds sprout up-- that understands the satisfaction is in the ideas and process itself. The something from nothing. The personal challenge.

Then there's the part of me that knows the real tangibility of a creation is not always in one's own head, but when it resides with others, too. As if it becomes More Real with each person it meets.

Now when I write, I read aloud all the time. It's a great tool for flow, for making dialogue sound natural and for figuring out what should be cut. It is also uniquely personal because it means committing characters to a sort of tone. Like illustration, it means offering some sort of guide to the reader of, "This is what I was thinking so-and-so was like."

So as I contemplated doing any readings, I initially hesitated. Did I really want my version of the reading-- my amateur acting, my interpretation and most of all, my bad British accent (for whatever reason, my alien character Rollie has always sounded English)-- out there guiding readers?

But here's the thing I decided. It's genuine. It was the best I can do for this moment. And as a writer, you can only keep those walls up so long before you can't see over them yourself. If I were taking them down, I might as well give it my all and go the whole way.

So at the top of the page, you'll find part one of chapter two. And here you will find the second part of that.

It's not perfect, but it was fun. And the view from over the wall is not bad at all.

Humorous Sci-fi Goes Audio -and- the Winter of Our Self-Burglarization

Well, it's been a 24 hours of firsts for me. The first, er, first was summoning up the courage to not only read my work aloud but share a snippet of the first chapter of The Purloined Number with real and actual people. Normally, this is a performance only experienced by my two cats. And of them, only Alice is really ever very interested. 

So, yup, if anyone was ever curious about what I sound like, this is pretty much it.

The second first for me was this morning, when Old Man Winter decided that all the snow-shoveling wasn't enough to ensure I got a good ab workout. Nope, he thought that for funsies he should call on his buddy the SnowMiser to seal all of my car doors shut.

It was somewhere before any tears escaped to freeze on my cheeks that I realized I could, however, get my trunk open. And the trunk does have fold-down seats. 

So, into the trunk I went, sliding into the back seat, kicking the back door open, and then climbing into the front and giving that a good kick, too. It was like Ocean's 11, only more Thorson's One, so kind of low budget.

I must say, there's a certain surreality about climbing into your own trunk. I feel like I have a better appreciation for characters in mafia flicks now.

So that's the news for today. Me, I'm off to have a cup of tea, which I plan to use mainly to drive circulation back into two of my fingertips. I'd like to keep them, if I can. They balance out the hand so nicely.

Hope you all are hanging in there okay during this winter of our discontent. --Jenn

________
PS-- OHHH! I almost totally forgot! I wanted to mention here some very cool news. I now know the title for the third and final There Goes the Galaxy book in the series! It will be called Tryfling Matters.

I had been driving to work, not really even thinking about the title, when it just popped into my head. The aliens in my book's universe call our planet Tryfe and the people here, Tryflings. Plus, much of the action this time around centers on Tryfe.

Gotta love the human mind. Always on the job!

One Half Alien Inspiration and One Half Cosmic Perspiration

Just a little sci-fi motivational poster for your morning-- all the way from Beddsyde Manor Wellness Center on the planet Daglann-Da!

(Or, y'know, a quote from the second There Goes the Galaxy book, The Purloined Number. However you prefer to look at it.)

Hope your Tuesday is a stellar one! --Jenn

Folks who have already read The Purloined Number will understand why a friend drew my attention to this photo and said, "It's happening, but with Nine." :)

Hope everyone has a good Wednesday. And that all your numbers are in order and your floors are right where they should be. :)

Howdy, Strangers!

Greetings, friends! And long time, no see! I've been away for ages due to a 330-some page baby called The Purloined Number. It's the second humorous sci-fi book in my There Goes the Galaxy trilogy, and it pretty well sucked the time from my days and the energy from my blogging fingers. But on the plus side, it was great fun to write and I'm really happy with the direction the characters have taken.

My friend, Dave White, did this cover as well--and I think he outdid himself. I mean... LOOK at the spacely awesomeness! The man was making planets, fer Pete's sake—and then, on the seventh day he rested and ordered delivery.

Anyway, the book came out in paperback in late September, and in ebook versions in early October. It's on Amazon, Barnes and Noble online and Smashwords, if you're curious and want to take a gander.

So far, the reviews are pretty stellar.

That out of the way, I'm hoping to get back to updating this site more often now, while I work on the final There Goes the Galaxy book. (The one jokingly called: There Goes the Galaxy: No Fraggin' Title Yet.)

Hope things have been well for you all, and I look forward to getting to interact with you again!