"Cele 1001 de scorneli ale Moshului SF" is featured on...

"Cele 1001 de scorneli ale Moshului SF" is featured on Dark Wolf's Fantasy Reviews. Thank you, Mihai!

And the "Making Of" of my story is up next on Galileo Online.

"Cele 1001 de scorneli ale Moshului SF" Cover Reveal

Well, this is it! As revealed on Galileo Online, this is the cover art for "Cele 1001 de scorneli ale Moshului SF". Any thoughts?

"Cele 1001 de scorneli ale Moshului SF" Foreword

It looks like the promo campaign for "Cele 1001 de scorneli ale Moshului SF" is ready to begin.

The editor's foreword is posted on Stefan Ghidoveanu's blog and the Making Of for each story will be published on Galileo Online starting with tomorrow so stay tuned.

The image at the left is just one of the cover arts proposed by Moshul SF, and it's my favorite so... :)

Evolution Vol. 2 on sale at Amazon

Big promotion including several Evolved Publishing books!

Starting with today and until Friday, Evolution Vol. 2 is available at the discounted price of $0.99 at Amazon. Don't miss this bargain!

Evolution Vol. 2 is available on Amazon, Smashwords, BookieJar.

If you read it, please take the time to review it on Amazon and rate it on Goodreads. Thanks!

About: Human Instincts

I was writing the Making Of for my story included in "Cele 1001 de scorneli ale Moshului SF" a few days ago and I realized I never wrote one for Human Instincts. I said a few words at the end of the book, but I didn't get into too many details. It's time to rectify that.

As I said before, the text was meant for an apocalyptic anthology planned by Nemira publishing house. The project never came to life and I can't say I regret it much since I ended up with a story twice as long as it should have been so it probably wouldn't have been included in the book anyway.

I started writing it in December 2009 and finished it in January 2010, with a break in the middle because of the winter holiday. It was the first time I was implementing my 1,000 words daily quota except for weekends system, which I've been using ever since. It works well for me.

Now the thing is I don't care much for apocalyptic stories, I find them to be way too depressing. So to write this I had to find a different angle to make the process more enjoyable for me. I decided not to focus on the entire apocalyptic setting or the causes and effects, although those were of course explained as well. My goal was to focus on the characters and their internal drama.

How can you fix the world after you broke it? Is it even possible to fix it? How far would you go to achieve that? Where do you draw the line? How long can you live fueled only by hope and not give up? These are all questions Deanna is facing every day and somehow she still finds the strength to go on.

On the opposite side, we find Tom who is literally fighting for his life every single day inside that maximum security prison. His options are limited, but very clear: he can continue to run the mad house, or he can escape and try his luck in the outside world, or he can turn tables and join Deanna in her quest to save the world. What will he decide?

And let’s not forget General Mackenzie who is the evil mastermind behind this whole plot and cannot be ignored.

What will these people trapped in these impossible circumstances do and how will they react to the other's decisions? It was an interesting character study. Add to this the secret each of them carry, a secret heavy enough to alter the entire course of events. Tricky enough for you?

One last thing I feel is worth mentioning is that while I wrote Human Instincts I was listening to all of the Muse albums on repeat (yes, I discovered them late, I must have been living under a rock all this time) until they gave me a headache. I think it reflects in the writing and the created atmosphere. There are dark parts, desperate parts, gritty parts, down right scary parts, but there is also hope, a sense of achievement and, why not, wonder. At least I hope you can find all these in there.

Human Instincts is available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iTunes, Sony, Smashwords. 

If you read it, please take the time to review it on Amazon and rate it on Goodreads. Thanks!

Update: Almost a year later, Millennium Books is publishing the Romanian edition of Human Instincts at the end of May, yay!

Human Instincts featured on Butterfly-o-Meter Books

Today, Human Instincts is featured on Livia's Butterfly-o-Meter Books blog.

For those interested, I'm still working on a "Making of" post. It will probably be ready tomorrow or the day after.

Human Instincts is available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iTunes, Sony, Smashwords. 

If you read it, please take the time to review it on Amazon and rate it on Goodreads. Thanks! 

Human Instincts Review (9)

From lovely Alina who took the time to review Evolution Vol. 2, too:

"Second thing, the novella is very to the point and, at the same time, the characters are very well shaped. Such a rare combination!"

Read the full review here. 

Human Instincts is available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iTunes, Sony, Smashwords. 

If you read it, please take the time to review it on Amazon and rate it on Goodreads. Thanks!

Beneath the Skin Review / Evolution Vol. 2 Review (4)

This new Evolution Vol. 2 review is done by a Romanian reader and it's written in Romanian. It explains how the book was evaluates, what the expectations were for short stories, and each story is briefly commented and rated. "Beneath the Skin" got 5 stars, yey!

I'm glad that this way Evolution Vol. 2 got exposure to the Romanian public too, so thank you for that.

Read the review here.

Evolution Vol. 2 is available on Amazon, Smashwords, BookieJar.

If you read it, please take the time to review it on Amazon and rate it on Goodreads. Thanks!

A bit of recap

Summer has come and gone, and so did my vacation. It's time to get back to work. Wait, what? Haven't I just finished working? Now it's time to play!

OK, let me explain...

It was around Easter, when I was in the process of translating Human Instincts, that all my plans had to change. I was all set on going the self-publishing way, with the entire rest of the year mapped out with what I would write and when. And then a bunch of projects fell into my lap out of nowhere. As a result, I spent the entire summer writing. I'm not saying it wasn't fun, it's just that it would have been much easier without the pressure of deadlines. At this point, here's where I'm standing:

Project no. 1 - manuscript submitted, waiting for feedback
Project no. 2 - text for "Cele 1001 de scorneli are Moshului SF" story collection that will be published by Millennium Books this fall. See announcement here.
Project no. 3 - texts submitted, not sure of the status of the project, though.
Project no. 4 - text submitted, waiting for decision
Project no. 5 - text submitted, waiting for decision

Not bad, I guess, only that the entire summer I wrote in Romanian, while promoting Human Instincts and Evolution Vol. 2. Now I'll switch things around, write in English while promoting Romanian works, so none of my readers feel neglected.

What's on the agenda next?

October - finish "The Blue Moon Cafe Series: Where Shifters Meet for Drinks". Five of the stories are in the editing stage already, with only two left to finish writing. Depending on how the editing goes and if I find a cover in time, I might have it out by the end of the month.

November - I think I'll pull a NaNoWriMo, well, my version of it since I'm not crazy enough to try to write a novel in 30 days. But 30 days feel just right for a 30k novella. After plotting it all summer, miffed that I couldn't work on it, writing "The Impaler's Revenge" will be piece of cake. The editing process will take a little longer for this one because of Christmas, so I'm not expecting it to be out before the beginning of next year. And then Vlad Tepes will be revenged.

December - month reserved for a text commissioned for another Romanian anthology. There's plenty of time to plot it until then.

In between, there's a tentatively labeled project no. 6 I would like to take on. It shouldn't take much time if the inspiration hits, but it hasn't so far. I would also like to correlate the Romanian version of Human Instincts with the English one and see if I can do something with it. Serialize it in a magazine maybe? Hmm. We'll see.

This means I won't have time to return to book 2 of the Stolen Wings trilogy until 2013. Bummer. My characters would have a year long pause to rest after their last fight, when I get back to them. Maybe this will bring them some fresh ideas, who knows?

The problem is I'm already plotting a space opera saga and I'm tempted to write that one first. But I won't. Ah, a writer's mind never stops...

Update: Project no. 4 is a go. Project no. 5 is not. Shrug. Yay for no. 4!

Beneath the Skin Review / Evolution Vol. 2 Review (3)

Evolution Vol. 2 reviews seem to pour in at the moment:

"Ioana Visan gives sci-fi an elegant twist with her story "Beneath the Skin," which in addition to its adeptly developed tension asks us to consider what it means to be human."

Read the rest of the review here.

Evolution Vol. 2 is available on Amazon, Smashwords, BookieJar.

If you read it, please take the time to review it on Amazon and rate it on Goodreads. Thanks!