ACTION, SWEET ROMANCE, AND CATS, ON A SPACE STATION by Vijaya Schartz

Please welcome, Vijaya Schartz to the Roses of Prose.

I did not create the Borealis Universe. My publisher did. Yet, I love it, and I love writing these novellas. The first I wrote for this Desert Breeze series was BLACK DRAGON, and this month, my second Borealis Novella is out, titled: AKIRA’S CHOICE.

The Borealis space station itself is a character in each novella. I would compare these stories to episodes of Deep Space Nine, or Babylon Five. Mine are full of action and adventure, kick-butt heroines, oh-so-gorgeous heroes... and cats. I couldn’t imagine life without cats, so what better pets to bring on a space station, right? In Black Dragon, the hero struts like a dandy with a white angora cat named Marshmallow (that’s part of his cover). And in Akira’s Choice, my heroine, a Samurai Bounty Hunter, hunts criminals with a cheetah retriever by the name of Freckles.

Borealis is a decrepit space station at the fringe of conquered space. Yes, conquered. It’s the 2600s AD, and man has ventured way beyond the solar system. Most known and livable alien planets are now inhabited by human settlers... and human hybrids who mixed with the original population. The TPP (Trans Planetary Protectorate) controls everything with an iron fist, and is not above genocide to maintain its military supremacy for the privileged classes of the human race.

As far as Space Stations go, Borealis is falling apart. The lower levels also include a penitentiary for the most dangerous criminals in the galaxy. The TPP struggles with a rebellion, as more oppressed planets fight for their civil rights. Most of the resources go into the fight on both sides, and there are no funds left to maintain the civilian infrastructure.

With such a backdrop and already defined universe, it’s easy for me to think up characters like Czerno Drake in Black Dragon, a rebel parading as a dandy for a secret mission. Or my Samurai bounty hunter heroine, looking for a child kidnapper in the seedy lower levels of Borealis.

Before writing each story, I voraciously read the previous installments (some of which from other Desert Breeze authors), to refresh my memory, and incorporate as many elements previously established as possible. Only a few characters are constants on the station. Each novella is a love story and introduces a new couple. These are sweet romances (only kisses). And at the end of the story, the two love birds leave together.

BOREALIS IX - AKIRA’S CHOICE
Novella by Vijaya Schartz
in all eBook formats everywhere
kindle: http://amzn.com/B00EWTQHAW

Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/vijaya-schartz

When bounty hunter Akira Karyudo accepted her assignment, something didn't add up. Why would the TPP want a kidnapped orphan dead or alive?

She will get to the truth once she finds the boy, and the no good SOB who snatched him from a psychiatric hospital. With her cheetah, Freckles, a genetically enhanced feline retriever, Akira sets out to flush them out of the bowels of the BOREALIS space station. But when she finds her fugitives, the kidnapper is not what she expects.

Markku, a decorated rebel soldier, stole his nephew from the authorities, who performed painful experiments on the boy. Stuck on Borealis, he protects the child, but how can he shield him from the horribly dangerous conditions in the lawless sublevels of the decrepit space station?

Akira faces the worst moral dilemma of her career. Law or justice, duty or love. She can't have it both ways.

Happy Reading.

You can find Vijaya here:

http://www.vijayaschartz.com

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/vijayaschartz 

B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/vijaya-schartz
FB: https://www.facebook.com/vijaya.schartz
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Vijayaschartz  

World Organization

No, I'm not trying to organize the entire Earth. I'm just trying to organize the world building going on in a futuristic series I'm writing.

This is a BIG series. The final 3 books in the series are out (Human Touch, Living Proof and Leap of Faith). Those 3 books take place 400 years after the start of the series -- which is what I'm writing now. In those 3 future books, they allude to things that happened in the past -- the past I'm writing now.

Confused? Nope, I'm not. I'm Organized. Or I'm trying to be organized. I am anticipating at least 7 books to be written for this multi-generational saga. That means I need to keep track of a lot of details. I tried computer organization -- calendar programs, address books, databases, but none of it was quite right and there was the problem of synchronization. I tend to write on many different computers in the course of one day, carrying my current files with me on a memory stick. It got too hard to remember what to update, what was updated, etc.

So I reverted to paper tracking and it's working out very nicely. I went to the local thrift store and found a bunch of old DayRunner organizers. Remember those? They were all The Thing a while ago. You could buy all kinds of nifty stuff to put in the organizers -- the kind of stuff I need to organize a world.

I have calendars (blank ones for the future that I can write in and set up my own dates), an address book (in which I keep track of characters, their names, their traits, their appearance), To Do lists, photo sleeves ... I have one MASTER planner for things like vocabulary, places, timelines, 'facts'. Then I'm keeping another planner for the current book and its details. I have a place to jot down ideas, a place

Some of this I do keep on my computer. My detailed character sketches for the main characters are on my memory stick, for example. I printed out a copy to put in the planner but whenever I update it with a new fact or event that affects that character, I jot a note on paper and then eventually I transfer it to the computer and I print a new version.

I've been doing this for a year now (this is a BIG series and it's going to be written over the course of several years, in between other projects) and I am calling it a success. I put this series aside for about 5 months and just came back to it. My notes made perfect sense to me and I can pick up right where I left off. My jotted notes make sense and I can see where they'll fit.

I think I may finally have this organizing thing figured out (at least for this world). Now if I could just get the socks all to match...