Now Available on Kindle

Another Shot is now available in Kindle format. You can buy a copy if you click on the book icon to the right on this page. And even better, if you buy the paperback, you can get the Kindle version for only 99 cents! What a deal!
(When you're on the amazon page, click on the Kindle version to see this deal.)

Here is what our yard looked like last weekend:


Ice in McCallum yard December 2013
 

It was beautiful, but it did some damage so I wasn't too sorry when it melted.

I wish everyone all the best in 2014!

Winter Hits...

...with a baseball bat! My city got covered in ice over this weekend. In fact, the reason I didn't post yesterday was that I was afraid to turn on our computer while the trees were groaning with ice and branches were snapping all around. We lost our power for over an hour, but we were lucky to get it back so soon. Many are still without power, so let's keep them in our thoughts and send good wishes to the utility workers out there in the cold trying to restore the rest of the power.

The only good thing about the ice and deep freeze is that I am motivated to stay inside. Once we got our power back, I jumped right on the computer and I'm now busy trying to format Another Shot for Kindle. I'd forgotten how time-consuming that is! No wonder it took me over a month last time. I sincerely hope it won't take that long this time ... and I think the holidays will help that because I'll have time off work to keep plugging away.

I've already sold two copies of Another Shot on amazon.com so that's pretty great! Remember to tell all of your friends, co-workers and acquaintances about the Penumbra series and how they need to buy copies for all of their friends, co-workers and acquaintances! (Both novels would make a great last-minute Christmas gift!)

I wish everyone peace this holiday season.

Breaking News!

I have great news: Another Shot is now available on Amazon.com!

Here's the link: http://www.amazon.com/Another-Shot-Penumbra-Diane-McCallum/dp/149366414X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387324797&sr=1-3&keywords=diane+mccallum

(I'll try to make a link on the side like the one for Outsider once I have time to figure out how I did that before.)

There were times when it probably seemed like the sequel to Outsider would NEVER come out, but I finally got it done over the past weekend. I had to make the changes from my last round of proofreading and then submit the whole file (interior and cover) to CreateSpace again. Once they approved it, I merely had to approve it myself and then wait for one nail-biting day before it popped up on Amazon.com. (My reaction was about the same as when Outsider first appeared there: yips of delight, accompanied by some clapping of hands and spontaneous hopping.)

I want to thank Kristi Kranker for the cover art, which came out great.

I also want to thank everyone for their support, which made this possible. It was the remarkable interest in Outsider that encouraged me to publish Another Shot, so pat yourself on the back!

It's now officially a series!

Closet Spaceship Part 3

I know it's been a while since I posted some fiction, so here you go.

(Okay, I'll admit it: I'm too busy to have much news right now. It's amazing how busy December can be, isn't it? I don't do all that much for Christmas but I still seem to be swamped. How did that happen? There is good news, though: I'm nearing the end of double-checking the proof copy of Another Shot. I have a few more corrections to make and then I'll resubmit it to CreateSpace. Then we'll see what happens!)

As promised, here’s my account of what happened when I was first spotted aboard Outsider.

Mac dropped me off right in the main corridor. I’d seen it before, of course, so I knew where I was: somewhere between the conference room and the dining room. I didn’t have my watch (it doesn’t work well when I’m traveling) so I had no idea what time it was there.

I didn’t see anyone at first, so I thought I’d check the clock in the dining room. As I turned to walk that way, though, a man appeared in the corridor. He’d just come from the dock area. I recognized him as Reggie Hawkins, the ship’s mechanic.

I resisted my impulse to say, “Hi, Reg!” I’m sure that would have really freaked him out. As it was, a stunned expression crossed his face when he saw me. Then his instincts kicked in: he drew his pistol and pointed it at me while yelling, “Hey, we’ve got an intruder here!”

Before I knew it, there were at least five guns pointed in my direction. It certainly wasn’t the reception I’d hoped to get. I raised my hands while I identified the gun wielders, who’d sprung from the dining room: Martinez, O’Connor, Blaine and Thompson, as well as Hawkins.

“Um, hi,” I said. Yeah, I’m a writer and I’m supposed to command the English language, but it kind of got away from me for a while there.

Hawkins pulled a radio from his belt and spoke calmly. “Intruder aboard. What do you want us to do?”

I heard a male voice say, “Wait a moment.”

Oh, boy, I thought. I get to meet the captain!

Sure enough, a minute or so later, I heard that same voice behind me say, “Who are you and how did you get aboard my ship?”

He had one of those voices that doesn’t need to be raised to make an impression. It sounded calm, confident and controlled. Forgive me the alliteration, but that’s how it sounded.

I turned around slowly and wasn’t surprised to see that he wasn’t holding any weapons. Of course he’d trust his crew to take care of that, and besides, he probably wanted to be courteous until he learned my motives.

Captain Lamont was tall, a little taller than me, with a nice face and blue eyes. He was in his late thirties, but he had silver-white hair. His expression was neutral, although I’m sure he must have been baffled about how I’d been able to get aboard.

 

Then I realized I had a problem: I wasn’t at all sure how to explain that.

Little-Known Facts about Outsider Part 2

Various parts of the United States can really tell it's winter, can't they? I hope you're staying warm and safe this weekend and throughout the month.

Here are a few more bits of trivia about Outsider:
The original working title was "Whatever," because I really didn't know if it would go anywhere when I started it.
Sean's last name used to be Collins (for "colony"), but I had too many C names then.
Mark's last name was originally Cooper, but I had too many C names then.
Jack's last name used to be Shaw, but that didn't work when he interacted with Sean.
Ben's first name comes from a character in a United Airlines commercial.
Bartucci comes from Brat (I stole that from Bart Simpson). You'll get to know Nick better in Another Shot.
Hawkins comes from hawk-eyed because he can read people so well. (You already know where the name Reggie came from.)
Dr. Graham's name comes from a character in the movie Field of Dreams (also a doctor).
The bad guys' colony is Beta-Ten ... B-Ten. Get it? (Sad, I know.)

That's all I can think of right now. I had a small setback in proofreading when I had to work all day yesterday (my job involves ... you guessed it, proofing). I'm giving my eyes a short break, but I promise to keep up with it this week. (CreateSpace keeps sending me e-mail reminders that I need to approve my novel. I guess they can keep sending them a little longer. Sorry, CS.)

Please keep spreading the word about Outsider! Now you can fascinate people with stupid facts about it that they don't want or need to know!  Ha, ha.

Have a great week.

Little-Known Facts about Outsider Part 1

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I had a great time with my family in Nebraska, but it's a little puzzling to me how one day I'm coming home from Thanksgiving and the next day I'm out on a teetering ladder to put up Christmas lights. (The lights are up and I'm still in one piece, so that's an accomplishment!)

Unfortunately, the Thanksgiving holiday put me behind in proofreading Another Shot. Somehow it was easier to chat and watch college football than it was to proofread, so I'll try to get back into that right away.

Meanwhile, I can regale you with little-known facts about Outsider. I'm sure these will show up in a trivia quiz someday, so you'll be prepared for that!

I started Outsider in May of 1990, about a month after my husband and I bought our first computer, a Macintosh SE. I was so impressed with the little machine that I decided I'd better use it for something, so I started throwing words at it ... and some of them stuck. That first version of the novel was very different than the one that's now published (parts of it were downright awful), but I worked and worked at it until I thought I had something.

Several character names changed throughout the process but the one that never changed is Reggie Hawkins. He's the only character to come from a real person. The original is a man named Kevin. I met him when I worked in the data entry department for a mail-order company in Nebraska. When orders slowed down, I sometimes filled in for the clerk in the maintenance department, where there were two or three men named Mike and one Kevin. Kevin was a lot like Reg: a mechanic, big but not fat, quiet and reserved but always polite to me. One day he offered to let me ride in one of the cherry-picker type of machines that were used to let employees pick items from the colossal shelves in the warehouse. This was many years ago, but I still remember the exhilarating ride that followed: the machine shot forward and the platform rose quickly into the air before descending. I thought it was a lot of fun and told him so. As I recall, he smiled. (I feel that I passed some kind of test by not screaming.) I tried to come up with another name starting with K, but I never found it so I went with the vowels instead: if you look closely, you'll see the similar vowels in Kevin and Reggie. Thanks, Kevin.

More trivia next time!