Muse Food – First Impressions
One of the (many) scenes I love to write is when a local population first encounters a visitor from another planet. Their reaction says SO much about their culture and their history.
If they host off planet visitors quite often, for example, they might be super casual about it. They might not note the visitor’s arrival.
If they have never encountered anyone hostile, they might be extremely friendly, rushing to happily greet the being. Sort of like how this adorable donkey rushed to greet me.
If they HAVE encountered hostile beings, they might hide or they might attack the newcomer. Sort of like how our militaries have been blowing up the unknown objects in our skies.
The arrival scene conveys SO much. It is often very important to our stories.
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Raw Desires
His human female is attempting to kill him.
This cyborg finds that adorable.
Raw, a K model cyborg, is one of the lucky warriors who has located his genetic match. He hears his human female’s voice over the communication lines and immediately processes she is his.
Winning her affections will be a greater challenge. Battle has always been Raw’s focus. The rough-and-tough warrior has no idea how to engage anyone’s tender emotions.
Fortunately, he isn’t alone in the universe. His unmatched male friends help him craft a plan.
All Raw has to do is relay a few unsettlingly sweet words to his female and give her the thoroughly unfunctional wall decoration he has obtained. He projects she will then jump into his big, strong arms and beg him to claim her.
Taytu isn’t jumping anywhere. She has one mission—kill every cyborg in existence.
The huge, handsome male traveling to meet with her is her first target. His rough hands, firm lips, and sparkling, energy-infused eyes won’t save him from her vengeance. She has trained vigorously for this moment, and she won’t fail at her assigned task.
The cyborg will die.
Raw Desires is an enemies-to-lovers Cyborg SciFi Romance set in a dark, gritty, sometimes-violent universe.
Buy Today:
Amazon US:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BFG8W5JM
Amazon UK:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0BFG8W5JM
Amazon AUS:
https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B0BFG8W5JM
Apple Books:
https://books.apple.com/us/book/raw-desires/id6443413750
B&N:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/raw-desires-cynthia-sax/1142255510
Kobo:
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/raw-desires-2
Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1166190
Topics: Muse Food | Comments Off on Muse Food – First Impressions
Muse Food – Decorating Trees And Taking Over The Universe
Symbols and traditions and words are powerful.
The easiest way for one group to quash the power of another group’s symbol or tradition or word is to shift its meaning or steal it for its own use.
Whenever I see a decorated tree, I’m reminded of this truth.
Pagan and other older religions decorated trees. Christians never did that until they encountered these other religions. The locals didn’t want to stop decorating trees so Christians shifted the meaning of that tree decorating to fit into their worldview.
Today, many people will become upset if the tree is called a Holiday Tree and not a Christmas Tree.
THAT is how effective this strategy is.
I suspect invading forces across the universe would use this same strategy to erase the locals’ religions, customs, traditions, words.
***
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Grin And Bare Him
This cyborg will be the warrior his female requires.
Cyborgs are designed to fight. That is their primary purpose and 98.2356 percent of the manufactured warriors enjoy battle. Tremendously.
Grin, a K model, is one of the rare exceptions. When he escaped his cruel creators, he set down his sword and allocated his processors to less violent pursuits. He projects he’s left his war-waging planet rotations behind him forever.
Then he meets his beautiful, beguiling female, the one being he’s destined to protect, to claim, to love for all eternity, and his plans for peace are completely decimated.
Mohini needs a ship.
She has a dangerous mission to complete and the first step in that assignment is arranging transport to an enemy-controlled planet. The vessel she has set her sights on is guarded by the sexiest cyborg she’s ever seen.
To gain access to his ship, Mohini is prepared to kiss, caress, seduce the muscular male. The mission is her focus. The pleasure she experiences will merely be a bonus.
A female has to do what a female has to do to save the universe.
Grin And Bare Him is a Cyborg SciFi Romance set in a dark, gritty, sometimes-violent universe.
It features a humanoid female undertaking a dangerous mission, a cyborg intent on keeping her alive, and an enemy with enough firepower to blow up an entire sector.
Buy Now:
Amazon US:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09ZCWMSDV
Amazon UK:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09ZCWMSDV
Amazon AUS:
https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B09ZCWMSDV
Apple Books:
https://books.apple.com/us/book/grin-and-bare-him/id1622100495
B&N:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/grin-and-bare-him-cynthia-sax/1141413965
Kobo:
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/grin-and-bare-him
Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1145153
Topics: Muse Food | Comments Off on Muse Food – Decorating Trees And Taking Over The Universe
One Step Further
Science Fiction in novel form, movie form, TV form is often held up as predicting current events.
There’s a reason for that.
Many of us in the Science Fiction realm (and yes, Cyborg Romance, Alien Romance and other SciFi Romance is in that realm) take a current development and then ask ourselves, “What if we took this development one step further?”
That step could be in any direction.
Cyborgs, for example, already technically exist. Many of our wounded warriors have mechanical limbs or eyes or other body parts. There are devices that hook up to human brains today.
Cyborg Romance often takes that one step further. What if we produced cyborg beings? What if we then assigned them tasks we didn’t want to do (like fighting wars we didn’t want to die in)?
This COULD happen. We COULD take that additional step.
If that happens, humans years from now might believe today’s Cyborg Romances predicted the future (i.e. their present).
***
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Provoking Odium
A Beautiful Cyborg
While accompanying his leader on a mission, Odium, an E Model cyborg, hears a distress call over the communication lines. The voice on that message makes his circuits surge with energy and all his systems light up. He has to respond to the mysterious female, would risk his lifespan and the lifespans of everyone on board their ship to protect her.
A Human Female Others Call Beast
Briella gained her nickname due to her flying abilities, her fearlessness, and her scarred countenance. Her verbal-only relationship with the sexy cyborg who answers her distress call is a steamy yet short-lived fantasy. His kind is physically perfect, and she is…not. He will uncover that truth when…if they survive the attack upon her freighter.
Provoking Odium is a STANDALONE Cyborg SciFi Romance set in a dark, gritty, sometimes-violent universe.
It features a human female intent on remaining mysterious, a cyborg warrior determined to uncover her identity, and an enemy seeking to destroy them both before they have the opportunity to meet.
Buy Now:
Amazon US:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09NRXGLFW
Amazon UK:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09NRXGLFW
Amazon AUS:
https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B09NRXGLFW
Apple Books:
https://books.apple.com/us/book/provoking-odium/id1605490349
B&N:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/provoking-odium-cynthia-sax/1140894003
Kobo:
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/provoking-odium
Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1127119
Topics: Writing Tips | Comments Off on One Step Further
Writing Tips: When Should You Re-Read Your Manuscript?
Note: As always, this is my opinion. You are a different person, a different writer. If my advice doesn’t make sense to you, please don’t take it.
Reading should be fun. We should also enjoy reading our own stories.
By the time, my stories are loaded at the booksellers, I would fiercely disagree with both of these sentences. I would rather gouge my eyeballs out with a fork than re-read my story one more time.
Why?
Because I have already read it dozens of times. Sometimes I’ve read my story four times in the same day. I enjoy my stories but I don’t enjoy any story THAT much.
During Drafts
I read my stories in their entirety after each draft. That’s a given. Flow and emotion build between sentences, paragraphs, scenes are so important. These are best refined with full read throughs.
Editing
But after I send my story to my awesome editor, I only look at the suggested changes, right?
Nope.
I recommend reading the ENTIRE story after each round of edits. It is easy for sentences, paragraphs, scenes to be completely deleted during the editing process. All it takes is a cat walking across the keyboard or incompatible versions of Word or the track changes feature malfunctioning.
It also requires multiple sets of eyes to catch all typos. As writers, our names are on the cover and we’re responsible for the quality of our stories. Not our editors. Not our publishers. We are. Even with three plus rounds of edits and multiple sets of eyes, we won’t find all of the typos but we CAN try.
Formatting
The formatting stage is a dangerous time for our stories. Whether we format our stories ourselves (I don’t) or someone else (including a publisher) does this for us, errors can happen. HUGE errors.
Maybe all fonts disappear. Maybe the wrong writer’s name is on the copyright page (yikes!). Maybe paragraphs are accidentally deleted. A huge New York Publisher once deleted an entire chapter from one of my stories during the formatting process. No one, except me, noticed this.
Again, our names are on the covers so I suggest asking for a final formatted copy of the story before it is loaded at booksellers.
If there are multiple formats, I review each one, verifying that everything is okay. It is a pain in the ass and it takes time but these are our stories. They deserve that time.
Loading At Booksellers
This is another stage where I re-read my stories. I can’t do this when I work with a publisher. I have to trust they have someone completing this task for me (whispers – they usually don’t).
When I am self-pubbing a story, however, I always read the story from first page to the last page after loading it at booksellers. Again, I check links and copyright information and ensure all words are there.
Both Amazon and Smashwords give us options to look at our stories after we load them. We’re not given these options for fun. Booksellers expect us to do exactly this – verify our stories have been loaded correctly and can be read on their eReaders. We can’t test it on every eReader (that would require having every eReader) but at least we can assure ourselves the story works with one eReader, our own.
One of the many reasons I like pre-orders is I can review the stories before they go live, before readers see them. Because, yes, stories can load incorrectly.
When The Story Releases
I also always buy/pre-order copies of my own book and I’ll look at them quickly on release day. I might not have time to fully re-read them (because release days are hectic) but I will scan through the stories, ensure there’s actually a story and the bookseller didn’t send a blank file to reading buddies.
That happens. Frequently. The sooner we catch this issue and tell readers, the less one star reviews we’ll receive for this bookseller error.
At what stages do you re-read your stories? What kind of errors have you caught on re-reads?
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Seeking Vector
A cyborg with a secret… A female seeking the truth…
Vector, the C Model captain of the Freedom, is a cyborg many warriors wish to emulate. He fights fiercely, leads with honor, has earned the respect and loyalty of his crew. But no being, not even a cyborg, is perfect. Since arriving at the Homeland, Vector has been hiding a dark truth about his past. If his secret is exposed, he could lose everything – his position, his ship, and his life.
Kasia excels at uncovering secrets. Half a lifespan ago, her curiosity placed her on the Humanoid Alliance’s kill list. Now she has accessed information the cyborg council would prefer remain hidden. Their warriors are hunting her and won’t rest until she’s dead.
When Vector arrives on her battle station, all grim determination, gray skin, and bulging muscles, Kasia knows he has been sent to kill her. That doesn’t stop her from wanting the dominant cyborg. She senses the savage nature under the male’s controlled exterior, sees the mysteries in his brilliant blue eyes, craves the roughness of his touch. She will risk all she has to experience his embrace.
Kasia braved the cyborg council’s ire for a reason. If she doesn’t convince Vector to act on the information she uncovered, the enemy could destroy his home planet and render every cyborg in the universe immobile.
Can a doubting C Model warrior learn to trust and to love before it is too late?
Seeking Vector is Book 10 in the Cyborg Sizzle series and is a STAND-ALONE story.
It is also a Cyborg SciFi Romance.
Buy Now:
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/Seeking-Vector-Cyborg-Sizzle-Book-ebook/dp/B075FHBW87/
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seeking-Vector-Cyborg-Sizzle-Book-ebook/dp/B075FHBW87/
Apple/iBooks/iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/seeking-vector/id1280185990
B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/seeking-vector-cynthia-sax/1127072529
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/seeking-vector
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/746717
Topics: Writing Tips | Comments Off on Writing Tips: When Should You Re-Read Your Manuscript?
