Lisa Jade 

Here in the UK, we've just passed two months of total lockdown. It's understandably stressful - many people are out of work, and those of us that aren't have started to work from home.

I've been fortunate enough to be able to work my day job remotely, as well as using my old travelling time to work on more exciting stories for all of you.

Times are tough. The more sociable folk I know are struggling with lockdown - and the knowledge that as hard as it is, it's infinitely better than being exposed to this awful virus. In times like this, when we can't see our loved ones, books have become a wonderful source of comfort. Nothing compares to being able to stick my nose in a book and whisk away for a few hours to a world that's unlike our own.

Every day, I hope that my readers and followers are safe, and as happy and sane as you can be during these trying times. Rest assured that I'm still working hard on a number of writing projects, and plan to provide you with a little more escapism in the coming months and years.

Today, I had the pleasure to attend a local Meet the Author event in my hometown of Telford in Shropshire.

The town library, Southwater, opened its doors to 17 local authors whose works range from thrillers, historical non-fiction, fantasy, romance, and more.

I had a great day meeting other authors and aspiring writers. Copies of all three of my books have also been donated to Southwater Library, meaning that if you find yourself there, you may soon be able to borrow the books and have a read!

There's another event happening next week at Wellington Library in Telford, which will be the largest event this year with 25 authors attending!

Today, I had the pleasure of joining a number of local authors at Wellington Library in Telford, for a local 'Meet the Author' event.

I was able to chat with new readers as well as interact with some talented local authors, including but not limited to Tora Williams, Barbara Kay, Simon Whaley, Julie Philips and Petra Thorn.

The event was an absolute blast, and the first time I've done anything along these lines. I'll definitely be looking to attend the annual event when it comes around next year!

Imagine a world segregated by genetics - and a universe still being discovered. There, a young woman stows away on a luxury space cruise, only to find that the lives of the 'superior' are far from perfect.

My third novel, Rain on Neptune, officially released on Kindle and Paperback today! I hope you love reading it as much as I loved writing it.

I'm pleased to announce that Clover is now available in both Kindle & Paperback formats!

I absolutely adored writing this book. It took nearly two years in total from first draft to finished product, and took a lot of blood, sweat & tears to get there!

The book has gone out to a number of reviewers who received pre-release copies, and while a couple of positive reviews are already in, there are more thoughts and opinions to come. I'm thrilled and absolutely excited to see what people think of the book - this is a story I've poured a lot into over the past couple of years and it feels fantastic to finally put it out there.

Curious? Here's the link to view the book on Amazon. Why not download a Sample and see what you think?

I've not updated in a little while, have I? My apologies - I'm nearing the end of the first draft of this novel, and eager to get it done so I can begin the rigorous editing process!

Anyway, we've had in the results from NYC Midnight's 2016 Flash Fiction Challenge - Round 1 is split into two challenges, with the top five overall in each heat going through the Round 2.

I'm happy to say that my short sci-fi story, Prodigy, was awarded second place in Challenge #2, granting me second place in that challenge and second overall for Round 1.

Challenge #3 has been and gone, with the results due early December, but in the meantime, please feel free to click below and read Prodigy!

This morning, I woke to find the results to the first challenge of round one in NYC Midnight's Flash Fiction Challenge!

The points system for this challenge is a little more complicated than the Short Story Challenge, which was a simple 'top five go through to round two'. Round one is made up of two challenges. The top fifteen entries receive points to carry forward. First place receives fifteen points, second place wins fourteen points, and so on. Those points then get carried over to the second challenge, and at the end the points are totalled and the top five go through to round 2. Scary, huh?

I thought so. That's why I've been bouncing all day after finding out that my entry, Fortune 5000, was rated fifth in my heat! I've been allocated eleven points to carry forward into the second round, which conveniently starts at five am tomorrow morning! Then, I'll receive the genre, location and object for the second time, and again I'll have just 48 hours to have a story written, edited and submitted! Even scarier the second time round!

Anyway, in the meantime, please feel free to have a click below and read Fortune 5000. Enjoy!

If you follow my Facebook page (and if you don't, have a look! It's the most often updated media), then you'll remember mid-June when I posted about having submitted a piece of flash fiction to an online literary magazine.

Turns out, they rather liked it! The website, 365tomorrows.com, is a clever little enterprise that has been delivering one science fiction story online every day for over ten years. So when I'd finished my latest story, called Stitched Up, I knew where I wanted to send it first.

I was pretty shocked but also overjoyed when I received the email confirming that they had accepted the story. For the record, in my whole adult life nothing's been accepted for publication quite in that way before, so this was pretty new! To my surprise I not only woke up to the confirmation email but also to the story having already been published on their site!

This post is really just to share good news as well as express my excitement. I've been focusing a lot on contest entries lately while also working towards my next novel, and while I can't exactly tell what it's about yet, I can confirm it's a futuristic, dystopian novel with potential for a follow-up. All will become clear in time - but until then, please pop and have a read of Stitched Up over on 365tomorrows.com!

As you may know if you follow my Facebook page, we received the results of Round 1 of the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge the other day - and I'm very happy to say that my R1 entry, Greyzoned, won second place in my heat!

That means that I'm through to Round 2, which started yesterday. Round 2 is considerably more difficult - again, I've been given the genre, theme and character to incorporate in:

Genre - Drama

Theme - Decadence

Character - Delivery Driver

This time there's a smaller maximum word limit and the time available has been reduced from eight days to just three. I've had a lot of trouble with this round - Drama is not a genre I'm interested in, so I have less experience with it. But I'm working on it, and all I can do is my best.

However, I am absolutely at a disadvantage here so won't expect to get through to the final round. That's fine by me, though - I received some very helpful feedback on the Round 1 entry and am very proud of having won second the first time round. Wish me luck with the chaotic next two days!

If you're interested in reading Greyzoned, you can click the button below to view it in PDF.

This Friday, I'll be taking part in NYC Midnight's Short Story Challenge! 

It's a contest unlike anything I've seen - set up tournament style, the 1500 or so entrants are given a genre, character and one further detail and offered a number of days to write a short story that fits the guidelines.

The top five from each heat go forward to the next round - of course I'm not expecting to be able to go through as there are only three rounds and the judging needs to be harsh, but I am very excited for this!

I entered the SSC to challenge myself - this Friday, I may be asked to write Political Satire or Crime Thriller, two things I have little experience with. I plan to post regular updates on here once the first round kicks off - wish me luck!

Three days late - of course. The last few weeks have been stressful and busy for everyone, but I must offer my apologies for not posting a new year's message until now.

2015 was an eventful year - most markedly because I released The Lumis War, which is to date my longest and in my opinion best project. I have plans for 2016, increased volume of output and ever-increasing quality of work, so watch this space!

May I take this time to wish everyone a wonderful new year, and I sincerely hope you all manage your goals and dreams in 2016. Remember that dreams don't work unless you do, and strive to make things happen for you this year!

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for all the support I have received throughout 2015 and beforehand, too. It means the world to me.

I'm happy to announce that I have now released my newest novel, The Lumis War!

This book is the result of months of hard work, time, dedication... and a surprising amount of money.

Far be it from me to sound cocky, but I'm very proud of this book. This is the very best that I can put forward. In this book is every lesson I've ever learned, every helpful article, every casual and professional review I've ever received.

Frankly, I'm terrified. I've done my best, and now I am at the mercy of you, dear reader.

I just hope you enjoy it.

I've been fairly quiet recently. I haven't blogged much, or even posted on social media all that often. You'd be forgiven for thinking that I'm not working on anything right now - but you'd be wrong.

For the past several months, I've been writing and editing another book. I decided not to market this one until it was completely finished, and even now I'm not revealing much about it. All you need to know is that I have worked harder on this book than anything I've ever done before.

It's taken endless hours of typing, planning, and editing to get to this point. It's a whole new direction for me and I've poured not just time and effort, but a small fortune into it. I'm currently in the process of having the wonderful Amygdala Designs make a cover for the book, while giving it one last review before publishing it. I have a pre-reader lined up and a plan to market this one and get it out there.

So keep an eye out - once it's ready to go, I'll post on here and social media with details and a preview of the cover. I hope everyone's as excited about this as I am!

Some of you might have been following my blog and facebook page, and remember back in November when I took part in National Novel Writing Month. It's a challenge that takes place every November, and it involves writing a full 50,000 word novel in the space of 30 days. While I've won for the last four years, I've never been satisfied enough with the projects to publish them. Instead, I use it as practice.

But recently, I've taken notice of another challenge. It's also run by the Office of Letters and Light (the lovely people who make NaNoWriMo possible) but it takes place in the summer and is totally flexible. I can challenge myself to write a hundred words, or a million, and the challenge stats change to suit me.

For this July, I've offered myself up a smaller task; 25,000 words, enough to fill out the project I've been working on, but not so much that I end up risking quality. I'm taking part with a friend from work, whom I managed to convince to join me last November for the full go. I'm excited to face this task, starting at midnight tonight and lasting for the whole month. Wish me luck!

You can follow my progress here!

I've been preparing for National Novel Writing Month lately, and have been completing multiple novel covers for other participants of the challenge. But after making over a dozen covers, I started to feel that itch that can only be scratched by sitting down & getting a good story written out.

And I've been working on an idea for a while - not a full length novel, but certainly a short novella I can post on here for free. A post-apocalyptic piece about a survivor of a world-wide epedemic. 

So I present to you the cover & synopsis of my pre-Nano mini project, The Bout:

It's been four years since a deadly strain of Influenza has destroyed most of Earth's population.

Harri is a 23-year-old woman who's been surviving off the remains of humanity. Though she used to travel with friends and family, slowly they all fell victim to the disease. Only she has somehow survived it.

She heard rumours, long ago, of a walled community where other people like her - the Immune - can call home.

She never believed it before, but now she's alone, maybe it's time to go looking for it...

One of the scariest things you can do is put yourself out there. Whether it's standing up on stage and singing or finally signing up for that course you've always wanted to take, it can be terrifying to have to take that leap.

Believe me, I know. I took that leap three days ago. I submitted a short story, With a Whisper, to the Writer's Forum monthly competition. I printed out the four pages, packed an envelope with slips and addresses and stamps, and sent it off.

Now, let me start off by saying that I don't think for even a second that I'm going to win. The monthly contest is regularly entered by writers far more experienced and talented than me, something that's obvious every time I read it. The winners are always amazing - absolutely outstanding.

So I bet you're wondering why I'm biting the bullet if I might not even stand a chance? Well, that's because I ticked a very important box on my entry slip. I requested a critique from the judges; and it's this that has me both thrilled and nervous.

The words I read on that paper have the potential to fill me with confidence - or to make me too scared to share my work. I am so nervous to hear what they think of my work.

But maybe I'm putting too much focus on it. People are always telling each other that they shouldn't seek the validation of others - and to a point, they're right. You should always be steadfast in your choices, and never put yourself out there if you're so nervous that negative feedback could knock your confidence.

Of course, this is the first real piece of feedback I'm ever going to have - don't get me wrong, I adore hearing what my friends, family and fiance think of my stories, but I'm well aware that their opinions are heavily biased. They're not going to straight up tell me it's awful, even if they think it is.

But that's the whole reason I'm doing it. If you're passionate about something, it can be so easy to talk about it all the time and share it with your loved ones. They'll lift you up and support you, and it'll feel great. But you know what feels better?

Taking the risk!

Despite the fear I'm feeling, and the nerves at the idea of receiving negative feedback, I am so excited to hear what the judges have to say. Even if it's just a basic list of good v bad, it's going to be infinitely more useful than any feedback I've received to date! I'll take it to heart and work to be even better... and that can only be a good thing.