Guess it is past time for the annual Reactuate blog post. Sheesh I used to write here multiple times a day. Now I have to check to see if I’ve written this year. In July.

On February 14, 2022, I release my first novel, The Adventures of Space Girl Red on Amazon in eBook format. It was a long time in the making.

The post I wrote when I started writing explains what I was thinking at the beginning. After a year or more of write, re-writing, editing, re-writing some more, knowing it was broken but not how to fix it, beta readers, and finally shipping the stupid thing, it went live.

Here’s the final blurb for the book.

Raised on a world populated by women, Red has finished her training. Now she’s officially a Space Girl, agent of change for the women of Home, complete with signature flying saucer and rayguns. Join her as she discovers the difference between training and the real world.

Red encounters a world of plant people plunged into darkness, and her childhood rival won’t return their light. This is the real world and the games she used to play with Space Girl Blue have consequences. When those games collide with the God King Bruno’s desires, she learns it isn’t enough to be a bad ass Space Girl. Sometimes you need help from your friends.

The Adventures of Space Girl Red immerses you in a retro sci-fi world with a modern sensibility. Flying saucers, rayguns, monkey space pilots, cookie-making elves, and dance contests are transformed into gritty – but amusing – reality.

“This is super fun, and most of all, it’s super cute. It’s like The Powerpuff Girls plus The Jetsons.” – H.C.H. Ritz, Author of Absence of Mind.

I’ve actually written two more books over the intervening years. A sequel telling the story of Space Girl Green, which is a cross between The Wizard of Oz and the modern WestWorld with Green as Dorothy. But the plot of Oz is broken – the climax happens in the center of the book – so my story is broken. I recently tried to go back to it, but side characters keep taking over.

The other book I wrote is a prequel, working title Growing Up Rainbow. It tells the origin story of all the Space Girls in Rainbow Capricorn and takes place on Home. I like it a lot more. There is a lot of emotion in it. But it too is unfinished. I might even make it into a part of Space Girl Orange or Yellow’s adventure, doing a jump backward and forward in time.

Writing it hard, but fun.

Which I should get back to and not get distracted by blogging.