A.J. Maguire

Tag: Enemy Souls

  • The Year of COVID

    Normally this is my favorite post of the year. The moment when I look back on all the work I managed to get done and begin planning out the next projects. I look forward to it. I make notes of things I deviated from, new projects started, projects scrapped, and generally remind myself that I do enjoy this whole writing process.

    This year…

    I am learning to be forgiving, both of myself and the people around me. Because I know we’re all struggling to find our footing on what feels like slippery slopes.

    So instead of looking at what I tasked for myself this year, I’m going to hone in on my major victories, give them a brief nod, and move on.

    My number one victory this year was putting out Enemy Souls. It has done quite well and continues to accumulate positive reviews, which I have to admit I love. For those unaware, it is a sci-fi romp through Saturn that highlights the Barlow family as they struggle to carve out a living while on the run.

    My second victory was completing National Novel Writing Month. But I have to admit that the very last week of the month, the day before Thanksgiving, I lost a beloved dog and switched projects as a matter of dealing with the grief.

    Sad, yes.

    Still a victory.

    Because when I am finished with this project and it makes its way to readers across the globe, everyone will know who Molly was and what made her special.

    Which brings me to the whole moving on portion of the post.

    With the world still unsteady, COVID still ravaging the population, I have decided not to make any future goals beyond the novel in front of me. The goal is simply to finish this book, and I’ll figure out where to go from there.

    For my fellow authors out there, I hope you have managed to hoard your writing time this year. I hope you have still gotten words on the page, even if it’s only 500 a week like me. And I hope that in the coming year, you are able to add to those words every day.

    For all my fellow humans, I hope you stay safe. I hope those you care about stay safe. And I hope that, if you have already lost someone, that peace makes its way to you.

  • Chagrin – Tempering the Writer

    A while back I finished my 3rd and I’d hoped final revision of Song of Bones/Melody of Bones/that dragon story I always wanted to write but kept putting off. My stubborn brain insisted it was complete, that I had told the story the best way I knew how, and that it was time to set it free. Since I’d written the synopsis in the middle of the process, I waited a scant two weeks before I started submitting to agents and editors.

    Without, you know, re-reading more than the first pages required for the submission process.

    I can hear the rest of you writers out there cringing.

    And you’re right.

    After thirteen unsuccessful submissions I fell into that funk we all get at rejection. Because, you know, rejection is painful. I know editors and agents hate to do it, too. I think most of what makes the whole process bearable is knowing that they are in that socially awkward position where they must say; “No, thank you.”

    Unless, you know, you get that editor/agent who enjoys tossing rejections like snarky confetti, but those are few and far between.

    Mercifully, I stopped submitting after thirteen. And I know some of you are going to point to James Patterson’s 42 rejections before he sold that first novel, but I promise you this was the right move. Because six months after I sent that first submission I opened up the manuscript again and realized how much I’d gotten wrong.

    My dragon culture was not fully fleshed out. The first chapter was trying to cram too much information without enough characterization. And I was struck with the fact that I needed to keep the novel centralized in one setting rather than trying to fly between continents.

    My Muse seemed to be snickering at me from the corners of my writing space.

    I had broken that cardinal rule of writing – Thou shalt wait at least three months before picking up the work in progress.

    If I’d given myself the time and space, I could have saved myself and the agents/editors who I submitted to a lot of awkwardness. I could have saved myself from a little of that funk of rejection.

    I say a little because I know in its completed form that Melody of Bones/Song of Bones will still be rejected by those agents/editors who do not feel it is a good fit for them.

    I am so grateful that I gave myself the time I needed with Enemy Souls. (That novel hit shelves on September 8th and is doing quite well! I am supremely pleased by the reception it has had and should be working on the third installment of the Tapped series during National Novel Writing Month this year.)

    Dear writers, learn from my mistake. Put that manuscript away. Give it fermentation time. And, of course, read the thing before you start submitting it.

    Trust me, you’ll thank yourself later.

  • Embracing the Super-Soldier Cliche

    From Achilles to Captain America, Perseus to Luke Skywalker, our stories have been saturated with soldier heroes. We play them in our video games, we read them in science fiction; super soldiers who have the strength to fight when others fall behind.

    AVAILABLE September 8, 2020

    We love them because they fill us with hope.

    And because they can do really cool things on the screen or on the page.

    When I set out to write the Tapped universe, I was researching pressure points and Chinese legends about chi. For those unfamiliar with the term, chi is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as:  vital energy that is held to animate the body internally and is of central importance in some Eastern systems of medical treatment (such as acupuncture) and of exercise or self-defense (such as tai chi).

    But that dictionary doesn’t bring out the cool stuff.

    The cool stuff, are legends of people having such mastery over their chi that they could perform kata’s (martial movements meant to practice control of the body) while balancing on top of, and not breaking, delicate teacups.

    Think Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

    Now we hit the pressure points – these are specific spots on the body that, when manipulated in a specific manner, can bring about significant pain or other effects. Like the Vulcan neck pinch, only with practical applications like acupuncture.

    Enter Fiction Author Brain, which asks; “Hey, what would happen if we developed that more? What would happen if we decided to try shoving those acupuncture needles in specific pressure points on a permanent basis? Would we be able to permanently access our chi?”

    Thus was born the Tapped soldier, whose surgery to unlock their chi managed to unlock an entire universe of energy.

    As an author, I knew I couldn’t go giving that power out willy-nilly. I also couldn’t have them invincible. That’s just boring. So, while my Tapped soldiers can access the energy around them, they can only do so within the limitations of their own bodies.

    I know, I know.

    We have a lot of super heroes.

    As a fan girl who squeals with delight any time a new Star Wars anything comes out, I know that we have sooooo many super soldiers out there for entertainment purposes that it can be overwhelming.

    We’ve even started debates meshing worlds together to see who can beat who. Hulk vs. Superman, that sort of thing.

    So why write a story about super soldiers when we already have too many to choose from?

    Long answer?

    Because the compelling parts of a super soldier’s story are never the feats they perform. Sure, it’s cool to see Captain America race through a battlefield and take out a dozen enemy combatants, but it isn’t what keeps us watching him.

    It’s the choices he makes with those powers that keep us watching. We want to see why he fights, not just how he does it.

    Short answer?

    Because I wanted to.

    So here’s me, embracing the cliche, and I welcome you to join me! Maybe we can all learn a little something about the power of human choice in the middle of it.

  • Daphnis Up Close – For Science Fiction

    Daphnis was discovered back in 2005 by the Cassini mission team. Before that, scientists had suggested that there was a moon there based on the ripples they could see in the Keeler Gap, but hadn’t any solid proof it was there since… you know… the planet is so far away from us.

    What the mission discovered is that Daphnis has a mean radius of 2.4 miles and completes one orbit around Saturn in 14 hours. It’s about 5 miles in diameter and what’s causing that ripple effect in the rings would be none other than Daphnis’ gravity brushing up against the ice particles lingering there. These ice particles move slower than Saturn, but faster than Daphnis, making that pretty wavy pattern we see.

    In the grand scheme of things, that’s not much information, but as a novelist that was plenty for me. Especially since I was working on the idea that a station was placed inside the moon instead of on its surface. We do have one scene where a character is outside on the surface of the moon, trying to fix the hull of their broken ship, and I took a moment to imagine what sort of view they might have.

    I mean… I had to.

    That’s half the fun of science fiction, isn’t it?

    Anyway, the relatively small space required that I keep this abandoned space station on the small side. I could only have the station so many level’s deep, after all, before you wound up on the other side of the moon.

    And here’s where we suspend disbelief.

    Because, you know, science fiction.

    I put an oxygen farm in the center of the station. Which meant a literal farm of trees and plants in a greenhouse situation. Because it makes sense to me that if we ever do voyage out into space, we’ll want to bring plants with us both as scientists and for the practical use they provide.

    There’s also a big fight that happens here.

    Because I am nothing if not an action fan, and that shows itself a lot in my writing.

    Which brings us to my topic for next week… Super Soldiers – Embrace the Cliché.