Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

My Publishing Worlds

In Times Passed: under reconstruction

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I thought I should mention that I have pulled my first book (In Times Passed) from publication because I feel it needs redrafting.  Certainly, I did not have it in mind to publish my book and then remove it, but as time went by, I began to feel that the whole story was not there.  So, as noted on my Books & Projects page, it is back in edit, under remodel, reconstruction, etc.

A fellow author agreed that sometimes this is necessary, and she encouraged me to feel good about my choice.  She found herself making a similar decision some time back regarding one of her books.  Like me, she wanted her work to be at its best.  So the first in my series of Students of Jump books is on temporary hold.  Likely, the second in the series will hit publication shortly after this first gets back on the e-book shelf.

End of the Month of July Sale at Smashwords

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The last days to purchase my book at Smashwords are here.  

Anybody who knows me knows I hate this stuff.  But if I didn’t mention again that my books are on sale at Smashwords (half price, making each just .99) and one can download them in any of the popular formats for ereaders and computer eBook readers, I will be berating myself in a few days.

I can just hear it now, “Really, you couldn’t plug your books just once more.  It is not like you have been creating traffic jambs on the internet with your broadcasting efforts to sell your book.  One time really?”

It wouldn’t be pleasant. So, one more time: I have two books, In Times Passed, a time travel novel that can stand alone from the series it begins, and Gardens in the Cracks & Other Stories, an anthology of short science fiction stories.  See my books page on this blog or follow the links for details.

Really one dollar.

What do I want in the books that I read & write

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I am at the beginning of redrafting my second book in my Students of Jump series.  In the process, I started thinking about what it is I like about the books I like to read.  Knowing that will help me make sure my book has those qualities.  So what is it that holds my attention when I read a science fiction novel?

1. depth of humanity:  I like my characters to show their fears, joys, fellowship to other characters
2.  activity:  I don’t mind a lull especially after a heavy action or emotional scene, but I don’t want the lulls to last too long, and they must have purpose.
3.  well-developed characters that I can sympathize with even if I don’t like them.  I understand why they are doing what they are doing.
4. humor:  life always has moments of humor, and I want any stories I read to have it, too.  Silly moments, puns, laugh instead of cry, etc.
5.  emotional involvement: some catharsis for at least the main character
6. connection to other characters:  relationships that show the main character has family, friends, co-workers, enemies, pets.  I don’t like when they exist in isolation.  Everybody has backstory and forward reconnections to others
7.  I want to see (hear, smell, touch, taste) the environment, things, actions described.
8.  Sense of local: where are they, where are they going?
9.  the fiction of science: space travel, technology in every day life, the stuff that is related to but not of this contemporary time.
10. I like to get lost in the story: (I don’t mean the author dropped me off a cliff, and I have no notion of where the story is going and has gone).  I want time to go by that I didn’t notice because the story caught me up and carried me away.

After looking at my list, it is clear I have set myself up for a challenge.  I had better get onto it.

I was nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award

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This week I was nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award by Nic at Bookmark Reviews.  Since Nic is one of my favorite followers (and someone I follow as well), I am taking it as quite a complement.

According to the rules, I have a few things to include here. 

7 facts about myself:

  1. I read science fiction, especially novels written with character-driven plot lines
  2. Both my parents have passed away, and I miss them
  3. I am crazy about technology and am looking forward to the day I can have a flying car that will drive me where I want to go and a electronic maid to keep my house clean.
  4. I love to kayak and waterski
  5. I do not drink coffee, soda or alcohol (maybe a glass of wide once a year)
  6. I have a BA in English (writing and discourse emphases) and a Master’s in Teacher Education
  7. I used to live in Oregon and still wish I did

The blogs I am nominating for this award
Chompasaurus Reviews
Coffee Cups and Musings Moments
Guerrilla Warfare for Writers
Molly Greene Writer
Pretentious Title
The Art and Craft of Writing Creatively
Paperback Princess
Storytellers Unplugged
WritingRaw
Stories About Books
iAuthors.org
One Good Thing
Mythic Scribes

What we read is certainly part of what we write.

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When I was a teenager I didn’t always have a book available, and I was an insatiable reader.  So I would go to my father and ask if he had a book to spare. He was always going on business trips and read whenever he was on a plane. Frequently, he would ask me not to lose his place, and he would tell me when his next trip was so I could get it back to him, and then he could pick up where he left off.  I read science fiction, and he read action adventure, but to me a book was a book was a book. If it had words placed in sentences, I was going to read it.

So I read a lot of John D. MacDonald, Ian Fleming and Mickey Spillane novels, though I wouldn’t hand them to my own teenage daughter. I came to know their series characters, such as James Bond and Travis McGee, pretty well.  I have been shaped by those books and characters.  And I know my writing was influenced by them though I don’t write in that genre. I think the character development and dialogue style of my own writing is built on the foundations of those works, as well as the authors I read when I could select the books for myself rather then beg for reading material from my father. So interior dialogue, the aside and internal motivation vs external motivation are as much central to my writing as the genre of science fiction is. And then I read The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything.  Time Travel became my favorite fiction, and I saw MacDonald in a whole new light.

Ray Bradbury: a fire in the belly

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I have read a few of Ray Bradbury’s books.  They offer more than enjoyment and an easy way to pass the time.  He had such a way with metaphor (was it a real snake or a stomach pump tube, a jet overhead or a scream?) and was one of the most literary of the major science fiction writers.  I have read Fahrenheit 451 numerous times, as well as The October Country, Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Martian Chronicles.  He was a writer that made the reader think, and think deep.  I was not so much captured by his characters as by his ideas.  I have taught, like many English teachers, Fahrenheit 451.  It has always made my students look at their education in a new way, a privilege they don’t ever want to lose.  For that alone I could thank him profusely.  But he has also taught them tolerance, the beauty of a well-turned phrase and how people can be manipulated into not trusting what they know.  Most importantly, he showed that the human being must question, must seek greater understanding and failing that will surrender to madness.