Theresa released her debut full-length novel, Broken Skies in March and is just taking over the Sci-Fi world. Seriously, who knew aliens could be this hot?? And if that wasn't enough to get you excited, she has a novella series releasing soon!! I am obsessed with these lately and cannot wait to find out more about this super cool world. The prequel, Dark Expanse is already available.
And now, here she is... Theresa Kay!!!!
Hi all! I’m Theresa Kay,
author of Broken Skies, a
young adult sci-fi novel, and Dark
Expanse, a new adult sci-fi short story that is a prequel to a set of
serialized novellas to come. I’m also a member of the Rebel Writers, the writing
group/author co-op that Caylie
Marcoe talked about last week.
I too would like to start off by thanking Rachel for giving
me this guest post opportunity (Gosh, Caylie, you took all the best lines) and
for going out of her way to support and encourage me and all the other Rebel
Writers.
Today I’m going to talk about Veronica Mars… okay, so maybe
not since this is supposed to be about me. However, I’m particularly awful at
writing about myself, so please excuse me if I ramble on (though I am more than
happy to discuss VM or any other fandoms over on my Facebook and Tumblr pages).
What I’m really going to talk about today is my publishing
journey and why you should give science fiction a try.
I’ve known I wanted to write from a very young age. It all
started when I was seven or eight and we had to write a story in school. Mine
ended up being about six pages, front and back, and easily the longest one in
the class. From then on, I was hooked.
Throughout school I HATED homework with a passion unless it
somehow involved writing. Research papers, essays, book reports…whatever. If it
was an assignment I could write, I was happy. I was so enthusiastic about it
that my parents actually got me a subscription to Writer’s Digest when I was
eleven.
So my childhood and teenage years involved a lot of writing.
There were some elementary school writing contests, the middle school literary
magazine, creative writing classes and the high school paper. Most of the
things I wrote during this time period, I still have and sometimes it’s really
fun to look back on them.
And then…life got in the way. I put my dream aside and
didn’t write anything for at least a decade.
In 2009, I started hearing about this thing called a Kindle.
After I did a lot of research and debated with myself about spending the money
(they were much more expensive then)…my husband bought one for me. I started
off with freebies, downloading almost every single one I came across. I’d
always been an avid reader, but it was the Kindle that really got me back into
daily reading and it was through my Kindle that I first started meeting indie
authors.
I’ve always been very fangirl-y and between Kindle opening
up the world of indie authors to me and social media giving me a way to connect
with them, I was ecstatic. Not only could I read all these amazing books, but I
could directly tell the authors how much I enjoyed their books and even chat
with them about other things. I formed
some online friendships, but at that point I was still strictly a reader.
Then the indie author movement really started picking up
steam. These were real people that were
writing their own stories, publishing themselves, and having some great success
doing what they loved. Some of the authors I was following started posting on
their blogs telling their publishing stories and that little voice in the back
of my head started telling me that maybe I could do it too.
It still took over six months before I actually acted on it,
but in June 2012 I participated in and completed Camp NaNoWriMo (the summer
offshoot of the November NaNo where you write 50,000 words in 30 day) for the
first time. I did it again two months later in August. And again in November.
I did my first three NaNoWriMos pretty much on my own, but
by the time Camp NaNo rolled around again in April of 2013, I was ready to
start participating in the writing communities related to it. I joined a cabin
and we started a Facebook group, generally just chatting back and forth.
During this time period, I’d also started joining a few of my
favorite author’s street teams and it was in one of those teams where someone
asked for beta readers for her work in progress. I’d done beta reading before
and her story sounded interesting, so I hopped over to her website and signed
up.
A little while later, she emailed me and I ended up with a
crit partner instead. We traded chapters of our works in progress and when June
rolled around there was a new challenge with the same basic premise called JuNoWriMo
and we both went into it together. It was during that month with Elizabeth’s tremendously helpful
feedback and support that Broken
Skies was born—well, the first draft anyway. It’s changed a lot since then, but it was my
first completed project that I actually felt had the potential to be a real
live book.
A few months later my support and encouragement system was
expanded even further with the Rebel
Writers…and I think my story (and my advice) from that point is mostly the
same as Caylie’s
On to science fiction and why you should give it a try…
I read almost every genre and sci-fi is one of my longtime favorites. Most people see the genre as all epic space battles and lots of complicated tech jargon. Quite a bit of it is… but that’s not all it is (though I personally really enjoy that stuff too).
Science fiction
includes subgenres such as post-apocalyptic, time travel, steampunk, and
dystopian. On Amazon, The Hunger Games is listed under science fiction (among
other categories). Yet, sometimes just classifying a book as sci-fi can turn
some readers off.
I knew this going into it with Broken Skies. I knew it was
going to be a tough sell just because of the genre, even though the book itself
is *not* heavy sci-fi. The story takes place on Earth. There is some tech, but
not a lot. And there’s a romantic subplot to it. (NOTE: Dark Expanse, though it is
heavier on the sci-fi elements, is also focused more on character relationships
than tech.)
There has been a lot of new science fiction coming out in
the YA, NA and romance categories that any reader of paranormal or fantasy
books would probably enjoy. If you enjoy Rachel’s books, you’d probably enjoy
mine, regardless of the sci-fi label. And there are many more out there that
that you might LOVE. So, go browse those science fiction categories on Amazon.
There are tons of great books there just waiting to be discovered by new
readers. You might be surprised at what you can find!
If I’ve convinced you to join the Dark Side (what post
discussing sci-fi would be complete without a Star Wars reference?) and/or, if
you’re looking for a YA novel with a strong-willed yet vulnerable heroine that
just happens to include aliens or a quick NA sci-fi read, please pick up a copy
of Broken Skies or Dark Expanse. And if you still
aren’t sure, you can always try one out for FREE by borrowing it through your
Kindle with the Amazon Prime Lending program.
Please check out the Rebel Writers website too! It’s a
little quiet right now, but we’re gearing up and soon it will be filled with
discussions on reading, advice on writing, our book recommendations and lots
more.
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