Robin Roseau
Author of Lesbian Fiction

I'm brushing away tears. I just finished the final words in the first draft.

Hello, everyone. I'm still here, but I've been a little heads down. I thought I'd share and end of the year status.

January and February are going to be big publishing months. You should expect:

• Rook: The third in the Pawn series. This is currently in the last half of the beta readers process.
• Metabrain. This is a standalone rather dark modern science fiction novel. It's probably a little cyberpunk. It's based on some principles from Larry Niven (and others). In Ringworld, one of the important characters is Louis Wu. Mr. Wu is a wirehead. That is, he has an electrical wire plugged into the pleasure centers of his brain. A cyberpunk version of a drug addict. Metabrain is a very different story but based on the same principle.
• A 4-book sequel to Encircled. In short, just before Halloween, I was looking for a guilty pleasure to read. Not finding one, I decided to write my own. By the end of November, I had written 255,000 words (about the same length as Amazon Chief). The first of the four books should be to beta readers within the next week or two, with the rest working through the system by end of February, I would expect. If you liked Encircled, you'll like this.

In addition to the above, Red Paws Inn is a sweet romance set on the shorts of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. It should be to beta readers (with luck) in January, and available in February or March. However, I still need about 5,000 words of the first draft, so I can't promise that, as I might be distracted.

I've been heavily working on Through the Portal about a woman who finds herself on an entirely different world. The first draft is perhaps halfway complete.

I think I'll also update you on the state of other series:

• The Fox: Yes, there will be more, but I need to finish the Jaguar and Omega books first.
• Jaguar: this needs to be the next of the Madison Wolves books. I have a start that takes up during the plane ride home from the end of the first book. I've barely begun, so I don't have an estimate.
• Omega Choice: This should be Bree's final book. I really don't want to write it until I've written the second Jaguar book.
• Seer: yes, there will be more to this series. I do not expect them to come out in rapid succession, but I do intend to see the story through resolution of the impending war.
• Amazon: I have a good start on Nori's story, and I intend to (someday) finish it.
• Selected: I have nothing in the works at this time. I may write more, but no immediate plans. That could change the next time I want a guilty pleasure and can't find one.
• Galatzi: I want to finish Chaladine's story. No estimate. I have no other books currently planned, but again, that could change at the drop of a hat.
• My Soul: This will definitely have another novel, but no estimate on when.
• Privateer: I intend a third book told by Rani. Currently, it's the last one planned, but who knows?
• Outside The Box: I have a sequel in the works, but it's not very advanced.
• Poor Little Witch Girl: I intend to continue the series.
• Fitting In: I intend a sequel, someday.
• Emergency Claus: I started a sequel, but it's not very advanced.

From time to time, people ask me about sequels to other stories. At this point, I have no plans for sequels to Kitty Cat or Blood Slave.

So, that's where we're at right now. I think 2019 will have a lot of new work from me, most of them sequels of old stories, but some of it brand new. For now, thank you for your continued support.

Robin

NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. The idea is that you start writing a new novel on November 1st and you finish by November 30th, with the goal of 50,000 words or more. For new authors who have never completed a novel, this is considered a challenge, but the idea is for someone to be able to say, "I wrote a book". In order to complete it, you need to just worry about writing and not agonize over finding just the right words and certainly not doing any editing.

I don't usually participate, not officially. But I thought I'd share my own results for November.

I created a new Word document on October 29 (so technically 3 days early), but on the other hand, I'm writing this post on November 23, so I'm not sure I care about the technicality. There aren't any NaNoWriMo police who are going to arrest me.

As of this morning, at 8 AM the day after Thanksgiving, my document is 209,357 words. It's actually four stories from one person, and I may publish as one long work or break it into four of varying lengths. There are distinct sections with natural breaks.

From a pure word count perspective, I've completed NaNoWriMo four times over. Of the four stories in this document, the first two are probably not 50,000 words each, and the third is really quite long. But I have four books, two being novellas.

So for those who wonder if NaNoWriMo is achievable -- absolutely yes. There's nothing special about what I'm doing except I become deely involved in the story and write every minute I can find. Put the fingers on the keyboard and let the words flow.

Something to think about.

Robin

N. K. Jemisin has won her third Hugo award for Best Novel, back-to-back-to-back no less. Congratulations! That's a significant achievement. Unless I missed it, she's the only person in the history of the Hugos to win in two years running, and she won three.

As I read this announcement, I thought about a few things. First, I thought about past attempts to twist the awards by a group of right-wing writers and publishers with their devoted followers. That is (hopefully) entirely in the past.

But I also thought about the books I read during my formative years. I'm sure it won't surprise you to know I was a devoted Tolkien fan. I clicked on a Wiki link to land here: Hugo Award for Best Novel. I started reading downt he list, a list that represents a significant amount of the work I read in my much, much younger years.

I had no idea that Poul Anderson was publishing in the late 50s. I had even less idea that Little Fuzzy was from 1962. (The award nomination from 1963 represents work published in 1962.)

Scanning the list, we see the same names represented over and over: Heinlein, Azimov, Clarke, Bradley, Harrison, Norton, Anderson, Zelazny, Niven, Silverberg, Le Guin, Pournelle, Herbert, Pohl, Cherryh. These are the authors from my formative years.

I'm moved to the edges of tears reading this list. Oh, Patricia McKillip, with The Riddlemaster of Hed. C. J. Cherryh: I absolutely loved your Kitty books. Oh, and if you want dragons, skip GoT. McCaffrey set the standard. You can't get them in Kindle, but go, go, go buy the Menolly books! You may need to get the first few Dragon books for it all to make sense.

If you want something a little less ancient, pick up just about anything by Connie Willis. Naomi Novik has her own dragon series, but I stand by what I said about McCaffrey. Novik's books are fun, though, as they're set in an alternate timeline from our own, covering the Napoleonic wars.

I've neer read a Jemisin. That's about to change. And I think I'm going to look at some of the other nominees and pick them up. I don't know who Yoon Ha Lee or Mira Grant are. And while I'm on Amazon, maybe I'll pick up some of those old books. It's time to re-read a few, and remember past times spent dreaming about what the future could bring.

Life doesn't always go as planned. Midway through her college freshman year, Astrid Ann Ahlstrom faces a dilemma. A friend offers a solution, but one with moral implications. Whatever choice Astrid makes will control the direction of her life for years to come.

Astrid makes her decision and then must live with it, doing her best to make the most of it.

But life doesn't always go as planned.

This is a novel of 100,000 words. Live on Amazon. Click the image.

I've been rather inconsistent lately. I'm sorry about that. On the other hand, I have a little something to share with you. This is the beginning of a new book that I'm rather pleased with.

Well, I made a small mistake with Omega Life. Probably more than one, but this one was brought to my attention via email. It turns out the cover image I used was already used by another book within our genre. The other author politely asked me to make a change. So Omega Life will have a new cover. I hope you like it.

Omega Life is available from Amazon. This novel continues Bree's story as she continues to settle in with the wolves. She continues to explore her sexuality while trying to understand how an Omega fits into the pack.

Hello, everyone.

Due to a variety of pressures, I've been a little burnt out. That has gotten better, as it always does. But while I haven't been writing as much as I usually prefer, I've been making some progress.

Omega Life is in the end stage of beta readers and the very final edits. It will be out this month. This is the second in Bree's series, which I think will have one more volume, currenty called Omega Choice.

And today I finished the first draft of a standalone novel called Suger Baby. This is a novel that explores questions of morality and points out that life is frequently not black and white. It's a bittersweet story. I'm not sure when it will go to beta readers, but I suspect it will be out in July.

I received a wide variety of email concerning my questions about the Selected series. Only one person who write told me she probably wouldn't read any more in the series, and one or two said they'd already stopped reading. For what it's worth, if you've read at least the first four or five stories, it's worth reading through the end of Yvette's story.

I don't know what I'll be doing, but I imagine there will be more stories in the series. When? No idea.

I'm not sure what will be next. I suspect Yalla and Nori will both receive further attention. Everyone is waiting for the third in the Pawn series, and I haven't set it aside. It will be out this year and possibly this summer. I expect at least one more volume, so I'll be renaming the current one. You'll know it's the last one when it's titled Queen.

I also have a fantasy novel rattling around in my head where the love interest is an organized crime boss. I'll let you think about that.

For now, understand that I deeply appreciate the support all of you shower upon me. Thank you so much.

Robin

Okay, I've been a little quiet. I have things I'm working on, but life has been busy, and I've been a little burned out by everything going on. I promise you: I'm still here, and I'm still writing.

For now, I want to solicit opinions regarding the Selected series. When I first started it, I had no intention of it becoming what it has become, but it's been fun to write, and from the email I get, I think people find the stories fun to read. So, I'd love to hear what you'd like to see happen. I'm going to toss out some questions. If you write me, feel free to answer any of these questions you want, or none at all and take the conversation in an entirely different direction.

I don't promise I'm going to take all the advice I receive. In fact, y'all probably know by now I'm not going to. Instead, what happens is someone will say something that sparks a completely different thought, and a week later I'll come up for air and realize I've written a novel no one -- not even me -- anticipated.

I want to point out a distinction. I'm calling it part of the Selected series if it advances the story arc. If it's more or less a one-off, then it's part of Tales From Beginnings.

So... questions, in no particular order. Answer the ones you think would be fun to answer.

• Would you like to see more in the series? I imagine you're not likely to reply if the answer is 'no', but maybe you want to encourage me to focus efforts elsewhere. That's fine, too.
• Do you want to see more Tales From Beginnings? In a way, these are basically, "more of the same", but with fresh characters.
• Are there any characters you'd like to revisit?
• How about any particular species?
• In the earlier books, I talked about interstellar war. I haven't pursued that. How much interest do you have in coming back to that?

Something to consider... I've already indicated what a relationship with the Whiteblacks would be like. If I brought them in as the principal love interests, then the story might be different from past stories, but it would be similar building blocks. Similarly, a Komodo relationship would involve a similar taking. I really like both species, and so maybe it would be okay if the stories held similar themes from the ones we've already experienced. How do you feel about that?

If I've got you thinking, I'd love to hear what you have to say. You don't have to answer my specific questions. They're really just an attempt to get you thinking a little. I'm far more interested in hearing how you feel than having specific questions answered.

Robin

Here's an interesting question for you. Imagine a species that is very furry. They wear no clothing either for modesty or protection. They don't sleep under blankets.

So my poor hero is now a guest in their village and is looking for something to keep her warm at night.

And I have no idea what she should find.

Detective Teigan St. Claire of the White Collar Crimes division has lost her game with the demon, Evaline. Her soul is forfeit.

But not all demons are created equal, and life as Evaline's pet is a far better experience than Teigan would have expected.

Things change.

This is a novel of 130,000 words and is the sequel to My Soul to Play.

Warning: The cover image is more than a hint. This is a dark novel.

To be taken to Amazon, feel free to click the cover image.

I just hit Publish on two books. I'll update when they're live, and I can provide links.

Lace is an odd little fantasy novella of 30,000 words.

Encircled is a fantasy novel of 175,000 words. Don't buy it. How often does an author tell you not to buy a book?

It's weird. At times, it's offensive. In short: I read a story that really, truly offended me. And like I've done before, I couldn't stop thinking about it, rewriting the story in my head. I couldn't stop thinking about it until I wrote my version. So I did, but I kept many of the themes from the original story, putting my own spin on them. But those elements are still there.

There's sex. Some of it is pretty kinky. One of my beta readers admitted it was a very guilty pleasure to keep reading. She also told me that I'm going to get heat for writing it.

Both books should be available for download from Amazon by morning, March 1.

In the meantime, what else is pending? Well, My Soul to Lose is with the final beta reader, so it should be out soon. Nothing else is close, but I'm working on several things, so hopefully we'll see one new book in March and one or two in April.

Robin
February 28, 2018

The fourth in the Galazi Trade series, Galatzi Life, is now available on Amazon!

Many thanks to my beta readers on this book: Charlie, Lori, Stephanie, and Johnna.

On January 31st, I created a new Word document, Encircled.docx. It was one of those stories I couldn't get out of my head, one I didn't want to write, but I couldn't work on other things as long as it was pressing at me. I didn't want to write it, as it was in response to a very, very annoying story I'd read, written by a sociopath, or at the very least, someone who enjoys writing about sociopaths.

Moments ago, I wrote the last line. 150,000 words in eight days. That's over 18,000 words a day. I don't want to even think about the quality of the writing. Sleep is overrated, right?

I don't know if I'll publish this one. I had to write it to get it out of my head, but remember the birth. It's weird. It includes bad things. It includes many of the elements of that story that I hated. But instead, it wasn't written by a sociopath, or at least I hope I'm not a sociopath. But instead of a victim that passively lets bad things happen to her, screaming like a helpless, weak victim, my main character accepts what she can't change and influences events to achieve the best possible results.

At the end of the story, the results in many ways mirror the results in the story I hated. But in many ways, very important ways, they are quite different.

But it's weird. Really weird. At least it's out of my head. I can focus on the rest of life. I can respond to email backing up. I have beta readers from two different novels who have written me, and I've ignored them. (I'm sorry.) It might take me a day or three.

I don't know if I'll edit this enough to let the betas touch it. I might just stick it on a shelf. Or maybe I'll edit it ligthtly and then make it available from my web site. If you don't have to pay for it, you can't complain if it sucks.

Oh. The story I read was about 10,000 words. I kept thinking, "In the end, the evil queen dies." I kept reading, waiting for good to prevail and the evil queen to get what she has coming. No. In the end the evil queen cackles gleefully and goes about engaging in more evil. However, to tell a mirror story, I needed 150,000 words. It's sort of like this blog post. Too long by a factor of ten.

Oh. And we're not sure if the queen is evil, or if she's cackling at the end. You'll hate it.

Robin Roseau, Feburary 7, 2018

I didn’t want to be here. I really didn’t want to be here. I’d been given little choice. Mother had crossed the wrong woman, and to save her, I’d been offered on a silver platter.

My Soul to Lose, the sequel to the story about Detective Teigan St. Claire and the demon, Evaline, went off to the first beta reader tonight.

I messed up.

I sent a copy of Lottery to a beta reader. I was a little concerned about some of it, so I asked for feedback. I received helpful comments back, and I had intended to add a "Thank you" section to before submitting it to Amazon last night.

Well, I messed up and forgot that last part. So I'm going to offer my thanks here.

DW: Thank you. Your help was deeply appreciated.

Robin

As if putting out Jaguar and Searching the High Seas this month wasn't enough, Lottery is now also live!

"I won the alien lottery, Priscilla!" Mercy told me, the excitement clear. "Ten days at Beginnings." She grinned. "For two. Be my plus one."

Adventures of a livetime have started with less announcement than that, but not very often.

Lottery is the first in a set of stories set at Beginnings, the alien resort from the Selected series. These stories can be read in any order after one has read the Selected series through Beginnings. Lottery is 90,000 words. The stories are meant to be shorter and simpler than the novels from the Selected series.

In this story, we'll spend a little time with some of the familiar species from Selected while getting to better know a few others.

The long wait is over! It's been nearly five years since we first met Rani and Sorri. Now, finally, their story continues.

After being left behind on the docks of Southgate, Rani Karden struggles to put her life back together. Glora and her family provide a loving safe haven, but Rani is unable to forget Fleetwind's captain.

But then, Minori asks the right questions, and Rani realizes she is the key to ending the wars that victimize the women and children of Norida.

And Fleetwind is the lock.

This novel of 220,000 words continues the story of Rani Karden and Sorri Westmere.

And their friends.

Michaela is frustrated and needs time away from the wolves. The wolves, of course, have a different plan.

I wrote this short several years ago. It's a portion of the "Michaela frustrated with Lara and Elisabeth" theme. The two have since moved past that, having found a sort of peace that works for them. This is from a time before they worked out that peace.

I am making this short available for free download from my site. Click the cover for a Kindle-ready version.

Robin

In final edits. Available soon.

Also coming soon: Omega Born, which is near final edits. This is a Selected novel.

I don't always say this, and it may sound like an empty platitude, but this is from my heart.

You guys are fabulous.

I am so amazingly lucky, and I recognize that. I never lose sight of how fabulous it is to have all of you supporting what I do.

I've wanted to be a writer since I was about 7 years old. I have a voice that is distinctly mine, and it's not the sort of voice that an editor is necessarily going to take a risk on. The big publishers never would have given me this opportunity.

But every time you guys read one of my stories, you decide to help me continue to write more. Each of you contributes to my being able to write more stories.

It doesn't stop at that, either. I receive frequent words of encouragement. I don't get tens or hundreds of emails a day, but I get a few a week, and it's enough to help me remain connected with all of you. When life has been sort of shitty, one of you has written an email telling me how I've helped you, or how much you love my stories, or something.

Some of you have written to thank me for giving you something to read while you were sick. One of you made me cry while I read your letter. My heart went out for you while you told me what you'd been facing, but you were writing to thank me.

I don't say something every day, but I don't forget. I don't forget how lucky I am to have all of you.

So I'll say it now, again: thank you to all of you.

Robin