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Am I the only writer who finds blurbs tough? Surely not. Writing something succinct yet attention-grabbing, something hooky yet not corny. Something that will make people want to read the book but doesn’t give away the plot.

I guess if you go the publishing house route then blurbs aren’t a thing you usually have to worry about, as someone on the editorial staff will take care of that. Still, long before you get to that stage you’ll have had to write query letters and synopses, and all that stuff. Ugh, query letters…

Anyway, I have a blurb up here for Miltan Epsilon, Jazz Healy Book 1, but I’ve recently been revising it. This’ll be the book description I use across all self-pub platforms. The recommendation for these is about 150 words. I’m at 160-ish. Paragraphs 2 & 3 I’m happy with but paragraph 1 – the paragraph that really has to hook – not so much.

Here’s the opening paragraph currently up:

“Estranged from her mother, the head of a galaxy-spanning criminal organization, Jazz Healy flits between bounty hunting, cargo running, treasure seeking and, well, nearly anything to pay the bills and keep her ship in the spacelanes. Twelve years ago she lost her father when pirates attacked a freighter delivering supplies to a frontier planet. For a long time Jazz refused to believe he had died but she’s finally coming to terms with the idea.”

It was recently pointed out to me that the first sentence is a bit of a chonker. I couldn’t see an easy way to shorten-slash-split it so I got to revising, and here’s where I’m at currently (though this now balloons the entire blurb to nearly 190 words):

“Life can get lonely for a solo operator in the space-lanes. Even for one who flits between bounty-hunting, cargo-running, treasure-seeking and, well, nearly anything to pay the bills and keep their ship running. But Jazz Healy tells herself it’s better this way, that attachments are to be avoided. She’s estranged – purposefully – from her mother, who runs a galaxy-spanning criminal organization. Twelve years ago she lost her father when pirates attacked a freighter delivering supplies to a frontier planet. For a long time she refused to believe he had died but she’s finally coming to terms with the idea.”

I like the new thoughts I’ve introduced re Jazz but overall this just reads bloated, to me.

Gah, what to do, what to do?

For context, here’s the rest of the blurb:

“Right now, she’s delivering pets, of all things, to a lawless space-station. Apparently even the most hardened criminals like animal companionship. One critter especially is making the cargo run worthwhile: a gene-splice kitten. Jazz will earn a cool hundred thousand Commonwealth dollars if she safely delivers the little fluff ball to its new owner.

But cargo that valuable brings out all sorts, from wannabe animal activists to tech cultists with enhancement fetishes. And maybe even Jazz’s mother. Though the cat is only one bullet point on her agenda.”

Hmm…

Only one thing to do: Keep working at it!

S.C. Mae

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Want a quick, fun (hopefully) read?

Then head on over to my Buy Me a Coffee page for Mandarin Alley, a short story originally published in Dark Stars: The Year’s Best Science Fiction Short Stories, in 2012. The story has no particular claim to being a best of anything but it was fun to write and is one of the few short stories I sold on the first try.

I hope you enjoy!

I wasn’t planning on doing any writing update-type posts for a while but I has the excitements right now and excited S.C. wants to share.

Also, this is probably technically more a publishing update than a writing update but what are ya gonna do?

So the primary reason for my excitements is that I’ve seen cover mockups for both Book 1 (Miltan Epsilon) and Book 2 (Chak’r’Das) of the Jazz Healy, Reunion series. Yes, they’re only mockups but they look awesome! I gave the artist I’m working with my vision for the covers and I think they’ve nailed it even more perfectly than I could’ve imagined. If the mockups look this good, then I reckon the finished product can’t look anything but super-amazing.

This is an artist I’ve worked with before, L.E. Badillo. L.E. did some covers and banners for Comets & Criminals, the short fiction e-zine I edited and published a few years back, and always had a knack for understanding exactly what I wanted and then creating it.

In due course I might share the mockups but not just yet. Don’t want to go jumping the gun! Seeing as I’m self-publishing perhaps jumping the gun isn’t the right term but I’m sure you know what I mean. Ducks in a row and all that stuff.

On a side note, the other day I saw someone on Twitter say, “hitting the nail on the caughin'”. I’m still not sure whether that was a genius mixing of two sayings plus a purposeful misspell of coffin to create an accent or something else.

Anyway, back to writing/publishing talk. I’ve finished the final edits on Miltan Epsilon, Book 1 of the Jazz Healy Series. Well, mostly finished. I ended by changing the opening up a bit so will let that sit for a few days before I give it my final approval. It’s kinda fun, being both the writer and the various editors. I have some hella good arguments with myself, I can tell you that right now, though I haven’t quite got to the point where I’m sending myself angry – sorry, ‘animated’ – emails rejecting all my suggestions.

Now that the Miltan Epsilon edits are finished I’m moving straight into final edits on Chak’r’Das. To clarify, neither of these edits are content/line edits. Those have been and gone. These are more copyedits plus changing any obvious stuff that doesn’t flow well that I missed previously. And fiddling with the openings. Because openings are the hardest part to get right yet imo the most important part when it comes to hooking readers.

Once Chak’r’Das is done it’ll be time to get both manuscripts formatted for publishing. Then I’ll get to the content/line edits for Book 4, Bil’Tross, after which I’ll get to final edits on Book 3, Garbadon Major, and then hopefully write the first draft of Book 1 of Next Series Set in a Completely Different Universe.

I’m still well on track for a release date of May 4th, 2021 for Books 1 & 2. Book 3 is scheduled for July 6th, while Book 4 is set to drop September 7th (apparently Tuesday is the best day of the week for media releases, or so the internet tells me!). Mark the dates, yo!

Finally (thanks for reading, by the way), next week I’m planning on posting a free-to-read short story. The one I have in mind has already been published but is not available for free anywhere else. It’ll be a quick but (hopefully) fun read.

See you then!

S.C. Mae

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