I wrote a novel

[Gather_Wanderer]

Its the beginning of my book series, Gemma Gamma.

I really want to share it with some of you guys. Or all of you guys.
One or two of you is fine. Or four. Really, ten is close to ideal. Twenty may be perfect. Twenty-one is too many. Twenty-two, is out. Twenty-three is somehow quite sensible.
Either twenty or twenty-three of you.

I've been slaving working on it for about three years, though the original idea for the story came many years ago. Actually started out as a comic but evolved as content and ideas continued to pour into my brain.

Not-really-the-elevator-pitch: "A group of astronomers discover a mysterious entity in the depths of the cosmos. Its as formless as a cloud but displays exotic physics and to everyone's shock, sentience. It decides to visit Earth and affects the life of one teenage girl; in turn, she changes the world."
Gemma Guiterrez is the central character. People refer to her as 'Clint Eastwood with boobs'. (lol, she really is a jerk...)
Philip B. Jonnes is the "co-lead". Basically Gemma's love-stalker. Shy, nerdy with a bent for mechanics and weird fantasies.


Okay I can't spoil the rest. Just trying to figure out how to make it available to you before the rest of the world gets to read it in a few weeks. (They have to buy it but none of you will.)
I've carried this story around in my head for a while. Had a blast writing it, and looking forward to the next installment.



...I'm self-publishing, for those who want to know...

 

[Sinny91]

The first half of your story is actually already in print in New Age circles...
But they profess their's as fact, so you win

 

[Rook]

I have no experience with your writing thus far, but if you are giving me something for free I have no complaints and may actually compliment you( if its good).

Unrelated, I envy yer perseverance.
It would take me three years just to attempt to initiate the writing of a fantasy.


Edit: Hmmmm yes the first chapter seems interesting enough.
I guess one way to share yer book would be by PM, obviously not wishing to enable mass public access this close to publishing.

 

[Brontosaurie]

at the risk of sounding like a grumpy dick, i think you may be deterring potential readers with this

"Twenty may be perfect. Twenty-one is too many. Twenty-two, is out. Twenty-three is somehow quite sensible.
Either twenty or twenty-three of you."

it's not that funny, it just makes no sense. it's like you're mocking the potential audience and their investment by trying to keep our attention busy with casual entertainment, presumably out of insecurity about your work. if you watch some mob films you can tell what i mean. dignity and honor is important. and weapons.

i like to pick flaws on the internet.

this isn't to say your novel is bad. how would i know.

 

[Hadoblado]

The grumpiest dick.

All of the grumpy dick, and none of the not grumpy dick.

The dick that is you has jowls and and a desperate ponytail grubbed from what's left of your quickly disappearing hair.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

If you have a word/pdf file, you could encrypt it and share keys using PM with anyone who subscribes here, or even something as simple as .rar archive with a password, though not as secure.

If not you can post it on Inner Sanctum, which is only visible to registered members and can't be accessed by lurkers, to be even more safe, you could add [spoiler"] tags to prevent any kind of crawlers or website copying to spot it easily.

 

[cheese]

Bronto/Blar, I thought it was fine. I don't think it's that useful picking on 'flaws' like that because their impact is so subjective. It's just a little joke, one that's quite in vogue these days. (And if I've read it right, arrogance has nothing to do with it - the humour is in the arbitrariness of the number.) I've been amazed at the "crap" people like and dismayed at what they 'don't get'. It comes down to taste.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

Bronto/Blar, I thought it was fine. (And if I've read it right, arrogance has nothing to do with it - the humour is in the arbitrariness of the number.)

It could be a joke, I might have worded my post to make this possibility more visible. Or maybe just delete that part.

 

[Gather_Wanderer]

at the risk of sounding like a grumpy dick, i think you may be deterring potential readers with this

"Twenty may be perfect. Twenty-one is too many. Twenty-two, is out. Twenty-three is somehow quite sensible.
Either twenty or twenty-three of you."

it's not that funny, it just makes no sense. it's like you're mocking the potential audience and their investment by trying to keep our attention busy with casual entertainment, presumably out of insecurity about your work. if you watch some mob films you can tell what i mean. dignity and honor is important. and weapons.

i like to pick flaws on the internet.

this isn't to say your novel is bad. how would i know.

Umm, I haven't posted a single line from the book yet. Not on here, anyway. The above is a random outburst of silliness.

 

[Gather_Wanderer]

The first half of your story is actually already in print in New Age circles...
But they profess their's as fact, so you win

Hahaha....

Unrelated, I envy yer perseverance.
It would take me three years just to attempt to initiate the writing of a fantasy.


Edit: Hmmmm yes the first chapter seems interesting enough.
I guess one way to share yer book would be by PM, obviously not wishing to enable mass public access this close to publishing.

Yeah I think writing this novel has improved me in many ways. At the same time, I think any of us would go start to finish with something we're really passionate about. The trick for some is finding the passion I suppose.
And it took three years but the next installment won't take even a year. I took a long time because
a) I'm not a full-time writer, and
b) I really wanted to lay the proper foundation for the rest of the series.
I wanted to write something fun and interesting that is accessible enough to those who are curious enough.

By the way Rook, where did you see the first chapter?

 

[Brontosaurie]

Umm, I haven't posted a single line from the book yet. Not on here, anyway. The above is a random outburst of silliness.

yup, that was understood. i was kind of sillying too.

 

[Sabreena]

I'd love to read it! I write too, sometimes, though I've never finished something as big as a novel. Good on you for reaching that accomplishment

And seriously, your blurb is interesting. Mysterious sentient entities somewhere in space is my literal religion and variations of it intrigue me.

I agree that twenty-three is quite a nice number. It's odd and prime, and strangely satifying to look at.

 

[Gather_Wanderer]

FYI, I've P'Med a few people on here about the story. If you're interested, I can arrange for you to have a free copy. Of course, I always appreciate support as an artist too so if you really like the story... *cha ching*



I'd be happy to give INTPforum members a copy Just let me know.

 

[Pizzabeak]

I read it. It was fun, alright. The characters were all different, not similar to each other, and believable, I suppose. Didn't like the military stuff, seemed a bit cheesy or amateurish but they had to be there to make it more realistic I'm guessing. The premise was promising, maybe it'll be more fleshed out in any future installments.
On the whole I can see it being popular amongst 6th-8th grade readerships but I'm not sure what the target audience was. If it was published by Scholastic it would feel right at home with all those. The humor was fine enough, not sure about the Donkey Kong Smash Bros reference though.
Considering the female protagonist I wonder how much the audience there would relate or look up to her.
Wish I could be more helpful providing constructive criticism.

 

[Gather_Wanderer]

I read it. It was fun, alright. The characters were all different, not similar to each other, and believable, I suppose. Didn't like the military stuff, seemed a bit cheesy or amateurish but they had to be there to make it more realistic I'm guessing. The premise was promising, maybe it'll be more fleshed out in any future installments.
On the whole I can see it being popular amongst 6th-8th grade readerships but I'm not sure what the target audience was. If it was published by Scholastic it would feel right at home with all those. The humor was fine enough, not sure about the Donkey Kong Smash Bros reference though.
Considering the female protagonist I wonder how much the audience there would relate or look up to her.
Wish I could be more helpful providing constructive criticism.

I wasn't sure what the target audience was either
In fact that made some of my writing decisions incredibly difficult. In the end I decided 'hey it won't be perfect' and I attempted to lay the best foundation for the story going forward that I could.

By the way I do get that the military seemed amateurish but that is for a reason. I've thought so many times about elucidating their end goal more in the first book but I wan't sure how without giving away a lot of the suspense that will be built in later books.
They are not incompetent though and do present a huge challenge for both Gemma and Dr. Akuje later on....see there, I started spoiling it already.
Writing the first of seven books and thinking about the later seven while writing the first...ehh, lost a lot of sleep over the years.

I'm glad you had fun reading it.

Also, yeah the DK reference...thinking about taking that out in the print version. I went back on forth on it anyway considering legal issues though I don't think nintendo would mind too much. Also there are many older readers of my book and I know wouldn't get it. And also it might not actually be funny.