Bethany J.
Full Member
Visit me at my blog (simmeringmind.com) or my Facebook page (Bethany A. Jennings)!
Posts: 176
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Jun 9, 2012 20:05:13 GMT -5
Post by Bethany J. on Jun 9, 2012 20:05:13 GMT -5
Hi! I've already made a few posts, but I thought I'd pop in here and briefly introduce myself, since I haven't been on the forum long. My name's Bethany Jennings. I live in New England with my short, fair, and handsome husband, our hilarious 14-month-old son, and our teeny daughter, who is still in the womb but likes to throw her own dance parties. I write primarily science-fiction, although I dabble in fantasy as well, and I bounce between projects frequently. My main WIP is a soft science-fiction trilogy that has had me in its clutches for 7 years and counting - in short, it's about siblings involved in a war in another world to protect Earth from invasion. My other current WIP is a dystopian book about conservative-homeschooler refugees who are hiding from the child-snatching totalitarian government in deep space. (So, sort of like "Firefly" meets the pilgrims on the Mayflower? Not quite that awesome, I'm sure, but hopefully almost. ) I also blog at www.simmeringmind.com. I'm excited to be here! In Christ, Bethany J.
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Jun 9, 2012 20:25:45 GMT -5
Post by mldonovan on Jun 9, 2012 20:25:45 GMT -5
Welcome!
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Jun 9, 2012 20:47:29 GMT -5
Post by Christian Soldier on Jun 9, 2012 20:47:29 GMT -5
Welcome to the Anomaly! Sounds like you'll fit right in here. If you ever have some short stories available, feel free to submit them to the Cross.and the Cosmos
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Jun 9, 2012 22:45:42 GMT -5
Post by yoda47 on Jun 9, 2012 22:45:42 GMT -5
Welcome!
And I'd say the current story sounds more like Firefly meets present day homeschooling in most parts of the world!
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Jun 10, 2012 7:02:48 GMT -5
Post by birdnerd on Jun 10, 2012 7:02:48 GMT -5
Howdy!
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Bethany J.
Full Member
Visit me at my blog (simmeringmind.com) or my Facebook page (Bethany A. Jennings)!
Posts: 176
|
Hello!
Jun 10, 2012 20:38:52 GMT -5
Post by Bethany J. on Jun 10, 2012 20:38:52 GMT -5
Thank you, everyone! christian Soldier - Sadly, short stories are not my forte, but thank you for letting me know! yoda47 - Yes, sometimes that dystopia's world is uncomfortably close to reality...
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Jun 10, 2012 22:03:12 GMT -5
Post by Kessie on Jun 10, 2012 22:03:12 GMT -5
Nice to meet you, Bethany! I found this place right after my third was born and I desperately needed some kind of human interaction.
I'm tossing around an idea for a middle-grade series about homeschooled kids who all have magical powers (which is why they're homeschooled). I was homeschooled and I think it'd be fun to have the kids whine, "But Mom, we have to save the world!" And she replies, "Yes, yes, but first, two pages of math."
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Bethany J.
Full Member
Visit me at my blog (simmeringmind.com) or my Facebook page (Bethany A. Jennings)!
Posts: 176
|
Hello!
Jun 11, 2012 14:21:48 GMT -5
Post by Bethany J. on Jun 11, 2012 14:21:48 GMT -5
I was homeschooled and I think it'd be fun to have the kids whine, "But Mom, we have to save the world!" And she replies, "Yes, yes, but first, two pages of math." Hahaha, that'd be awesome. I recently wrote a short vignette about a playgroup where a bunch of superhero moms gathered with their babies. I just wondered to myself what "talking shop" would sound like between moms whose infants have special abilities like flying or becoming a living flame. It was pretty fun to write (I posted it on my blog, too). I hope to write some more extensive superhero fiction someday; I wrote a series about my friends and I as superheroes when we were younger, but since then I've only really had snippets of ideas...nothing that could form a whole book. I was homeschooled too, btw - K-12th grade. I loved it.
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Jun 12, 2012 14:37:01 GMT -5
Post by beckyminor on Jun 12, 2012 14:37:01 GMT -5
Welcome, Bethany! I'm glad you found us. You sound like another pea for the pod to me.
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Jun 12, 2012 18:39:18 GMT -5
Post by newburydave on Jun 12, 2012 18:39:18 GMT -5
Hey!! Another Anomalien who lives here in New England? I wonder if staid old Yankee-land can stand the hyper-dimensional distortion of two of us off-the-edge-of-the-map SF mind-benders. ;D We're on the coast, north of Boston, up near the NH border; it's great to have someone else in the group who isn't over 1000 miles away. Wouldn't it be great to have a New Enland SF Convention some day... Well, anyway; Welcome to the Anomaly, Try out our Anomalous Sandbox when you get the chance. (hot link in the bottom of my signature block below) We're glad to have you aboard. Write on Sis SGD dave
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Bethany J.
Full Member
Visit me at my blog (simmeringmind.com) or my Facebook page (Bethany A. Jennings)!
Posts: 176
|
Hello!
Jun 12, 2012 21:31:36 GMT -5
Post by Bethany J. on Jun 12, 2012 21:31:36 GMT -5
Thank you, Becky and Dave! Dave - How fun! We're in Southern NH, ourselves, and my husband works in MA, so we're likely to move closer to the MA/NH border eventually. A SF convention in New England would be awesome, I agree! I'd even settle for just a writers convention, but there don't seem to be a lot of those around here either... Hey, I noticed your signature link about copyrights, and I actually had a question for you - does it count as publishing a work if you just posted an excerpt (like, a page or two) on a personal blog? Mine is searchable, and I've posted small excerpts from three of my books on there. If it'll be a problem down the road I'll want to take them down!
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Jun 13, 2012 11:35:46 GMT -5
Post by newburydave on Jun 13, 2012 11:35:46 GMT -5
The ins and outs of copyright law are complicated . I'm not a legal expert on this stuff, but I have looked into it as it related to my own writing. When people sign up to Join the Sandbox they get a set of emails with helpful information. One of them has my layman's synopsis of copyritht issues along with some links to online legal resources and lawyers websites who deal in that kind of thing. (click the "Copyrights" hotlink in my signature block, it will take you to my synopsis that I posted in the Anomaly a while ago.) As to your specific question, it is common for authors to put up portions of their work on a searchable website as a teaser to get people to buy the whole thing. I really haven't looked into the copyright issues surrounding that practice, I suppose it depends on the legal stance of whatever publisher you are/or may ultimately be working with. The real issue here is "Will a publisher pay you royalties for your work if they publish it?" In general if you have posted your complete work up on the internet in a freely searchable site publishers consider that to be "Published" and they won't pay you for your "first publication rights". That being said I'm told that there is a lot of variation in acceptable practice. It kind of depends on the publisher. Join us over at the Anomalous Sandbox. It satisfies the "protected membership, non-searchable" requirement so you can freely discus and share you projects there. There's no minimum participation requirement (some of my members lurked for years before they started participating), the current membership includes some very knowledgeable people and we get into some very interesting, informative discussions when we're not actively swapping critiques. Once again, Welcome sister neighbor. SGD dave
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Jun 13, 2012 15:45:48 GMT -5
Post by Kessie on Jun 13, 2012 15:45:48 GMT -5
In case you didn't notice the link in Dave's signature, its here: The Sandbox: groups.yahoo.com/group/AnomSandbox/If you need critiques and stuff. It's a bit quiet in there right now, as we're all chewing away on our Nanowrimo stories, but come July, man, the red pens will come out. :-)
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Jun 13, 2012 17:22:21 GMT -5
Post by newburydave on Jun 13, 2012 17:22:21 GMT -5
Bethany; Another option that would obviate the whole problem would be to independently self publish (Indie-Pub) those works through an e-publishing site such as Amazon. They have a suite of self help tools and resources to make the publishing tasks easier. The Amazon e-book store gives you a 70% cut of the purchase price when you follow the pricing guidelines they recommend in their marketing strategy. Personally, I'm looking hard at the Amazon self publishing option since I doubt that any of the traditional publishers would be willing to pick me up as an author because of my age. The buzz on the street and from my friends is that publishing houses are only interested in picking up new authors when they feel that the new author is young enough to have years of productive writing ahead of them. With IndiePub one can rise or fall on the merit of your writing alone since the only ones you have to please are the readers. For someone like you who is young Indie-Pub is a way to earn your spurs and develop name recognition and cred as a selling author (while you make some money in the process). Nothing attracts publishing contracts quite so well as proven a track record of making money on your own with your writing. Of course if you can do that successfully as an independent why do you need a publisher to reduce and slow down your royalty payments? (Okay, I might be biased there. That woman in Florida did get a $2Mil advance on her contract.) Write on Sis SGD dave
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