Year-End Message 2016

Hello, friends and fans!

December 2016 is the end of a very busy year for all of us I’m sure – and for me it meant recovering from the blow of losing a publisher, and going back to indie publishing… reformatting, editing and republishing my own books – RECOVERING – and becoming determined to never again put my writing freedom in the hands of someone else! As a writer it’s been an exceptionally difficult year – not just in terms of recovering to the point where I was before August 2014 when I signed on to that publisher, but to be far better!

It was also a rewarding one in terms of what I have learned and how I have grown! In the time during which my book’s fates were in the hands of others, I learned more about the publishing industry, formatting, cover design and marketing than I knew before. I also gained the irreplaceable friendship and loyal support of a few – most prominently Wendy K. Gloss – whose personal support and her efforts to market my work have proved decisive! In fact, she is probably the only reason you know about my writing, or about me.

That said, this difficult and complicated year is now, finally, at an end.

You may be wondering why I’ve been so quiet lately. Mostly it is because at the end of the year, like everyone else who has to hold down a day job, mental fatigue has caught me up and I’m taking a break! I am on holiday through December until late January, and will be distracted with relaxation, going to the beach, and also doing some D.I.Y. odd jobs around ‘Fort Engela’ and spending time with the love of my life, Kay (whose motto is currently “Ow – my everything!“). I will also be doing a little writing as well, so be patient with me – I can be reached through my Facebook group and also via email, and on my website christinaengela.com.

2017 is going to be quite a busy year for me, writing wise. I am already two-thirds finished with the new trilogy in The Quantum Series, which will need to be edited once I’ve completed the third title in the trilogy. I anticipate that all three new titles “Prodigal Sun”, “High Steaks” and “The Last Hurrah” will be completed and released by about May 2017, starting in about February with “Prodigal Sun”.

In the meantime, I am also working on a number of other projects, including translating all my work into Afrikaans! Kay and I have already completed translation of a number of my short stories, to which we’ve already received positive and encouraging feedback from a few select readers! It’s slow going however, and since I can’t afford to pay anyone to translate these stories, time will tell when these will become available. However, the goal is to increase my readership, and to expand my market to include South African Afrikaans-readers, as well as ex-pats now living abroad. To this end, “Space Sucks!” may be released in Afrikaans sometime next year.

In the long-term I am also looking into expanding my translation efforts into German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian – basically any language where anyone shows interest! All that aside, I’m also open to any offers to convert stories into screenplays! If you are willing to help out with this project, please drop me a line!

On the other side of the street, I’m also acting as Editor on two distinctly separate projects at the moment – one with LightBearer Publishing (through which I published both “Bugspray” and my father’s collection of short fiction “African Assignment”) in which I have compiled a number of poems for an anthology called “Vampyre Bytes – voices from the South African Vampyre Community”, which features Gothic poetry from participants in this fascinating subculture.

The other is through Riot Pink, called “Embracing Justice”, a benefit anthology to fight anti-LGBT discrimination. This is a benefit anthology to promote awareness of discrimination against LGBT people, tell our stories and find resources. This will be due out whenever we reach enough submissions to go to press.

Not too long ago I also posted a few tasters of my mother’s poetry. Once I’ve determined the way forward in this regard, a collection may be coming out soon.

As an aside, I’m also putting my head together with my friend and famed horror and ‘barfazo’ author Alex S. Johnson in collaborating on a sci-fi horror-comedy called – well, that’s a surprise!

As you can imagine, time is always too short. There are never enough hours in a day to get to everything – writing, editing, design, marketing, promotion, translation, collaboration, strategies – and also having to balance all that with daily life, social and other responsibilities – and realizing that even a semi-human like myself needs rest!

I’m also still patiently waiting for my copy of “The #Coinage Book: Journal Of New South African Writing” – which includes “I, Mac”, to arrive in the mail… one day…

In the meantime, I have a couple of planters to paint for the back garden, so with that, I’ll be off now!

This is likely to be my final post for 2016. In parting, THANK YOU all, for all your continued friendship and support! I sincerely hope 2017 will be better year for all of us, and that above all else, compassion, harmony, prosperity, justice and peace, will prevail.

Sincerely in writing,

All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2016.