In Honor of International Women's Day: Strong Heroines

It's a great day to talk about strong heroines in fiction.

It's especially pertinent as I watched this great video yesterday about the Damsel in Distress trope in video games (thanks to punkerplus on the r/GirlGamers subreddit for sharing).

This video reinforced for me why it's so important that I'm doing what I'm doing. It's easy to think, "Well, I suppose there are enough strong heroines out there, I don't really need to add to the pantheon." But the truth is, there's a huge empty space waiting to be filled by a vibrant cast of multi-layered, determined, interesting and flawed female characters. The more women we add to our fictional lexicon, the more role models new generations will have to choose from. Sure, writers like me may not necessarily create someone meant to be a shining emblem of modern feminist virtue; but simply adding to the variety of options has a huge impact.

Here, in anticipation of Kiellen's upcoming induction to the small but growing crowd, are some of the invented women who have inspired me.

Terminator 2's Sarah Connor

My love of Sarah Connor is no secret (I did, after all, dress up as her for Halloween one year and create a site detailing how to follow my lead).

Working on a New Kickstarter Video

One of the most exciting things about running a Kickstarter project is getting feedback to make the project - and the final product - much more awesome than it would be otherwise.

I've gotten some feedback that my original video wasn't conveying the message of my novel well enough, so I'm working on a new version. Here's what I've got so far:

Would love to hear what people think of this version compared to the one on the Kickstarter page! Comments welcome :)

Mechalarum Excerpt: Part One of Chapter One

Thought it was high time I shared some fiction writing on my blog!

Remember! This isn't the guaranteed final incarnation, so don't be surprised to see a tweak or two in the final draft :)

Mechalarum

Part 1, Chapter 1

“They’re not going to let you graduate. You’re not going to flight-test the first Mechalarum suit.”

Kiellen, crouched on the plasticrete floor of an open platform high in the Citadel’s tallest tower, blinked at Taim as if not able to process his words. She unwound herself from her stretch and carefully rolled her shoulders in silence. Her eyebrows furrowed, and Taim cringed at the gathering storm on her face.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

Taim lowered himself to a squat and looked her straight in the eyes, willing her to believe. “It’s over. You need to get out of here. They’ll be after you soon. There’s no way they’ll let a loose cannon like you wander the Citadel knowing they’ve just trashed your dreams. And you basically have no reason to live by their rules anymore. I mean, to the extent that you did so before, I guess.”

Kiellen put her thumbs under her chin, clasped, her hands, and stared at him for a long moment. Finally, she said, “But they can’t do that. I’m the best.”

“Don’t you get it?” Taim jumped to his feet in frustration. “I’ve lost count of the times I told you to at least pretend like you can follow directions. They don’t give a damn about the height of your jumps and the tightness of your rolls if they don’t have control over your.”

“Hold on a sec,” Kiellen said as extended her left leg and leaned into the stretch. “I’m sure they know that we’re friends. If they really wanted to catch me off guard, wouldn’t they be more secretive about releasing that information to the whole Science sector?”

“They didn’t release it,” Taim dropped his gaze. “I overheard some people talking, and when they wouldn’t tell me what was up, I hacked a little in the system to find out the truth. Here’s the memo they posted.”

Taim stroked two fingers across his left wrist, and a soft light pulsed to life beneath his skin. He looked at his palm, curled his fingers to shape the resulting three-dimensional projection, then used his right hand to manipulate shapes and symbols within it. In a moment, Kiellen’s face popped up in the projection, along with the words “Top Secret” and a lengthy description, the summary of which matched Taim’s words exactly.

Taim had braced himself for Kiellen’s rage. He’d even prepared for her fear, however unlikely that emotion might be. He knew that, in her situation, he’d be terrified by the prospect of the Council hunting him down and banishing him to the will of the constant dust storm that raged just outside the protective nanofiber dome above their heads. But this taut, calculating silence of hers wasn’t something he’d expected, and he didn’t know how to proceed.

From high above them, a low keening started, and soon grew into the wail of an alarm. Taim sucked in his breath and Kiellen’s face paled in the dim glow from the light panels around them. “Are they after me already?”

Like what you're seeing? Check out my Kickstarter page to learn how you can help make this book a reality!

Want to read more about my project? Check out...

Shooting the Video for the Mechalarum Kickstarter Project

$1000 Goal Reached, New Art, Article Announced

Shooting the Video for the Mechalarum Kickstarter Project

Helping to create the video for my Mechalarum Kickstarter project was the first time I'd been involved in creating a visual experience to get people absorbed in my fictional universe, so it was quite an interesting experience! Sure, like pretty much everyone nowadays, I'd messed around with taking video with my point-and-shoot camera, and laughed at how goofy my friends or my dog could be. But that hardly qualifies me as an expert in communicating through a moving picture medium.

Luckily, I had a connection through my roommate to videographer Bryan Swormstedt, who had worked on four Kickstarter videos in the past. I wanted to do something a little different with my Kickstarter video, and he really helped me bring my vision to life.

I didn't want to have people simply acting out a scene from the book, as it might give the impression that I was creating a movie, instead of a novel. And I wanted to get viewers engaged with the visceral emotions of the struggle to join with a symbiotic mechanical/organic being.

However, it turns out that the actual act of capturing moving images on camera is only a little sliver of putting together a cohesive video!

Above, you can see one of our actresses Sylvana Tapia helping set up the lighting for the dance scene. Since the first part of Mechalarum is set in the desert, we wanted to get a warm tone (and also wanted to dim the insanely bright halogen lamps I picked up at Home Depot for the purpose). You can see how the lighting really created a completely different atmosphere, even though we shot in Bryan's living room!

$1000 Goal Reached, New Art, Article Announced

Happy dance time! So thrilled to announce the reaching of a milestone amount: $1000! Thank you so much to everyone who pledged, shared, and gave me your support :) Also, just goes to show how well goal-setting works!

AND if that's not cool enough, I have some awesome preview artwork for the jewelry reward level that I'll be offering:

AND I've got an awesome new post up on Rob D. Young's blog called 7 Writing-Based Ways to Fund Your Fiction. How much awesome stuff can happen in one day?

Hope you like :) Don't forget to check out my Kickstarter page for more info!

Want to read previous updates? Check out:

Gunning for $1000 Milestone!

Mechalarum Kickstarter Launch Party Was a Success!