News - Knockout Girl

October 3 ^

"My life has always been absolutely beautiful. Amazing. Perfect. Floating in the salty ocean, lying on endless sandy beaches, school, surfing, boys, beach parties, night dips. Everything has always been exactly as it should be. Until one day it all came crashing down.

Picture yourself—not on a boat on the river—lying on a towel, stretched out on white sands, the sound of the ocean waves calming you as a breeze filters through your salt-tangled hair. The palm trees sway back and forth, offering you occasional shade from the hot rays of light.

Then you leave forever, because the next day you’re on a plane bound for Canada in the dead of winter. And you just keep wishing that you’d wake up back in the real world. You keep wishing that you never had to leave. But you do. The stupid plane keeps heading farther and farther north.

Obviously this story is about me, and not you. But you get the idea."

Thus begins Elli's journey in my new novel called Knockout Girl. You've already read about it (if you haven't, click the link), and you've been treated to the cover reveal through my social media. So I'll keep this short and sweet.

If all goes as planned, Knockout Girl will be released as a paperback and an ebook on October 3, 2018 on Amazon. I'm going to try to give some more updates and maybe a few more excerpts before then, but for now, mark your calendars! This is a story you won't want to miss, I promise.

- Natasja

Let's hear it for the B team!

Just wanted to post a little update...

I know tons of people are always wondering "What's Natasja up to these days?" (Okay, I know that doesn't really happen, but when you're a creative fiction writer, you can imagine just about any old thing that pops into your head.)

Anyway, lately I'm been doing a lot of beta reading for other unpublished authors, which is actually a very interesting and rewarding experience. Funny enough, it gives you a pretty good idea where you sit on the quality scale. There are some authors out there that I would say have some work to do before they get to my level, but there are certainly a lot that are way better than me. It's a learning experience and the more I do, the more aware I am of how I write and how to better myself.

By the same token, I've been having a few of my novels beta read as well which is... well also interesting and rewarding, but it's hard. I know, it doesn't sound like it's hard to just have someone read what you've written but trust me, it is. When you love something as much as I love my books, it's sometimes hard to hear any negative thing about them. On the other hand, it's also twice as rewarding to hear good things about them.

So between the beta reading, the editing, and trying desperately to finish writing a book, I haven't had a lot of time for my blog. But I'm still here and it's still here and I'll update it when I have time for it I guess.

Interested in all this beta reading jazz? Hit me up!

- Natasja

Hello and Other Things

As you can see from my last blog post, two years ago I joined nanowrimo. I did actually win in 2015, then in 2016, and again this year. I've had a few questions about what I've been writing the last couple of years and the answer is:

The Onepian Chronicles

I call the genre of this series "light sci-fi," or a space soap if you will, because it centres around real human beings doing real things, except they have space ships, live on different planets, and it's set far into the future. It's a little like Star Trek, but without alien races and a little less technical. Each book focuses on the story of a new set of characters that have been previously introduced, so they read well as stand-alones but are part of a bigger overall story arch. The series is nowhere near ready to be published (or even read by people who don't love me unconditionally). I mean, one of the books isn't even finished and two or them don't have titles. (Contact me if you want to take a crack at that.)

Other than that, I've been working on perfecting another young adult novel called Knockout Girl. This book is very dear to me as it's one of my favourite books I've ever written. Elli, the first person narrator, is witty and sarcastic and at least half-full of teenage angst. But she's got a good heart and genuinely wants to see her friends succeed. Currently Knockout Girl is going through some rounds of beta reading and last touches, after which I plan on self-publishing again.

Of course, none of this is possible without the help and support of my amazing friends! Writing a manuscript is one thing. But having it edited and read over and over again and then publishing it requires a lot of work and is hard to do with a small group of people, let alone by yourself. So just know that I appreciate each and everyone one of you lovely people.

- Natasja

Write, Write, Write!

Okay, so I've been back to work for two weeks now, which - as you can imagine - has left me with very little time for myself. I was also busy preparing for my one-year-old's birthday party (I just had to mention that). However, I have been keeping up my writing and I promise that my new super short story series is coming soon! (Ish. Soon-ish.)

However, I've been writing something lately that I have no intention of letting anyone else read. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but just that I've been rediscovering the meaning of the phrase "write for yourself." Trust me on this - writing something you know no one but yourself will read is one of the most freeing exercises you can try. And it's completely motivating. Much like during nanowrimo, I barely read back, I don't edit, and sometimes I write complete nonsense. But you know what? That's not a bad thing. In fact, it's rather cathartic in a way.

So that's what I've been up to (other than helping a certain little man learn to walk on his own). Again, new stuff to read is coming very very very soon!

- Natasja

Ergonomics... and other useful things to know

There's this little thing called "ergonomics" which is basically about the relationship between the human body and your work environment. If you were ever in a high school band, you might link this to when your music teacher yelled at you to "sit up straight!" and "don't play out of the side of your mouth." Or perhaps you've never even heard of ergonomics, which is probably due to the fact that most people don't really care. It's kind of one of those things where hindsight is 20/20, because apparently you can ruin parts of your body just by typing wrong, but you won't know it until way after the fact. Allow me to illustrate this point...

Proper posture looks like this:

I think you mean, "write a sentence every 30 minutes."

Improper posture looks like this:

At least I'm drinking water today.

Apparently there are other really important things to do/not do when you're an author. Like not forgetting important words in a sentence. Example:

"You probably hate my guts now, don't you?" he asked teasingly.

"No," she laughed. "I do hate your guts."

"HA HAHAHA HAHA WAIT... what?"

Verb tenses! Don't mix up verb tenses. Not even in a query letter...

So he asks me, "Do you hate my guts now?"

"No," I said and laughed. "I do not hate your guts."

"So then, the characters will find out that they've switched bodies. And then after that, they tried to find a way to switch back. But now, they're stuck."

(I know it's subtle, but also incredibly annoying.)

So now you know - some things to keep in mind while you write.

- Natasja

White Christmas? I'll take it.

You may have noticed that I haven't posted in a while. The reason for that is because I've been away, involuntarily visiting a place I call "Why-I-Even-Doing-This." I'm pretty sure every author has been there at least once, maybe a few times, yet it still seems like one of the loneliest places on the planet.

Nevertheless, the snow this morning has brought me back to a happy places where words flow like water in Niagara Falls (or something like that). Well, that and the fact that my friend and pseudo-editor has been bugging me every day for something new to read. What more motivation could I possibly need, right? So with my week off for the holidays, I plan on setting a proverbial pen to paper and getting some stuff done. Maybe I'll even finish another book. Who knows?

Anyway, mostly I just wanted to wish everyone a very happy and safe Christmas, and that the next year of your life will be the best one yet.

- Natasja

PS. If you're a fan of bad music, head on over to Josh's blog.