Great Review for Happy Holidays

I love unexpected Christmas presents, and this one was delightful. A lovely review for Happy Holidays by Susan Laine at Goodreads. Susan rated the anthology as a whole with 5 stars and had this to say about Happy Holidays:

John Hogarth and Kit Lewis have been domestic partners as long as they’ve been working partners, running a small but growing design agency in New York. After fifteen years together, Kit wonders if they’re getting stale and takes a typically creative approach to inject a little romance and excitement back into their love life.

I swear, if I hear “Do you know what day this is?” one more time… Kit and John have been together for fifteen years, and then Kit comes up with something to keep things lively in the bedroom. Creative. While Kit is bursting with good ideas, John is at first confused, then happy to be lead around by his dick to wherever Kit wishes. This story had lots of humor and a wonderful established relationship, excellent writing and a good pace.

Yay!  Merry Christmas all!

The Gilded Scarab - Free download of Vignette Two

Gilded Scarab Vignette One - free to download

Over at my website, a short (very short!) vignette from Gilded Scarab is free to download

Click on the link below to download the Vignette

Vignette One

Enjoy!

Inching along...

Over at the website  I chronicle a little progress in the complete rewrite of Gilded Scarab...

On lightbulbs and epiphanies

Over at the website, I had my lightbulb moment this morning on why I am so dissatisfied with the current WiP, and why I'm finding it such hard going. I hope that I've found a solution, though what it mean is junking about 25,000 words... sigh. It'll hurt, but it's the right thing to do.

Writing as an organic process - or dammit, I *liked* those bits

Over at my website I ponder how all the best laid plans - or writing outlines, in this case - gang all agley when you actually start the organic process of writing.

Or, as I conclude the sorry tale : DAMN

First revision of Heart Scarab is done. Now for chocolate!

Over at my website, I mention that this has happened:

Grins at you all.

On lasers and Sabbath- breaking.

Coming out of semi-hibernation to point you to my website where I say nothing of any real consequence on but do it with Thomas de Quincy quotes. How cool is that?

Great Review for FlashWired

I've had a great lift to the spirits thanks to a wonderful review by Serena Yates over at Rainbow Books Review. See my  website for details. 

On Flittermice and tempus fugit.

A post about a bat walk, why biologists shouldn't ever be allowed to name anything ever, the satisfaction of using older names for things and hell! isnt' tempus fugiting like mad right now. At my blog.

Penny Plain and Tuppence Coloured

 Some thoughts on world building at my website. Come along and comment.

!!!!!COMPETITION!!!!

COMPETITION
Win a copy of FlashWired and a signed copy of the latest Dreamspinner Anthology, Cuddling, by helping me break the title deadlock for the steampunk coffee-house Aegyptan romance that I'll be writing the instant I finish revising the second Shield book. It may be silly, but I need the title in my head while I write. Help!!! I'm stuck!!

Details at my website here

Suave Molecules

I've started work outlining and prepping for my November project, the big steampunk coffee shop romance. Just writing those four words in that order makes me grin. Steam powered coffee machines! Rayguns powered by luminiferous aether! Mummies and Pharoah's tombs! And, of course, two lovely men in love. Sighs happily. Visit my blog to find out more

Lovely helpful crit groups

 Visit my blog for a rumination on the value of being told, kindly and constructively, where your writing might just suck a trifle...

Happy Holidays Published today!

Come over to my blog to find out more about Happy Holidays, published today.

m/m romance vs well, being gay is just a part of who they are

Over at my blog, I'm angsting over how to classify my writing because, folks, m/m romance it ain't!  I'd love to hear your views.

FREEBIE Download Candlelight for free

 Go HERE to download Candlelight,

It's a (very!) short story written for the UK GLBTQ Fiction meet. At only 1,700 words, it's a moment's diversion, but you're very welcome to download it as a pdf and transfer it to the ereader of your choice. 


Join Jack Lincoln as he's entranced by how lover Adam Hollister looks by candlelight…  Sweet and so pure your granny could read it.

Cover for Contact Sport

I've just had the cover for Contact Sport sent to me by Dreamspinner Press.  This will be the cover for the 2013 Daily Dose "Make a Play" which publishes in the summer, and will then be used for each individual story when that is released.

Wouldn't be my choice, but I don't get to choose.  Shrugs. This was the first thing I ever tried to get published and it was accepted.  I can live with a less-than-stellar cover.  

Anyhow, here's the cover.  I'll post details of the launch etc as soon as I have them.

Pretty enough bloke, but not a thing to do with Ice Hockey!

Progress

Today has been a day of boring but necessary admin work.  I have created accounts with Amazon, Smashwords, Draft2Digital, All Romance and Kobo. I would have added Barnes and Noble too, but they'll only take US citizens, apparently. Tsk.

 I have diligently filled out form W-8BEN regarding article 12 of some tax treaty between the UK and the US. One's been sent electronically, one other company just asked me to fill out an online statement and three are being sent by snail mail. So when I do get a pittance via sales - and believe me, I do expect it to be a pittance - the US tax authorities will not claim their 30% levy on it. Even if they did, 30% of very little remains not a lot. The US will not be able to squeeze much blood from this stone.

 I am in the middle of registering with the UK tax people as self employed, but with the rider that I expect to be exempt from the requirement to pay national insurance, since I don't expect to make enough to reach to threshold for that - see former remarks about a pittance. I need to wait for D to get back from walking the dog. He's a tax consultant, and why not make use of the expert in the house?

 And in the middle of this, I'm trying to find the time for one last read through of FlashWired. I haven't looked at it for several days, so I hope that's been enough time to give me a fresher perspective on it. I'll reread it all tonight. Tomorrow, D.V., I'll press that button.

 I'm a little bit scared. And a little bit delighted. And altogether excited!

The cover for FlashWired

... is the outcome of a little more tinkering following your feedback, but here it is in all its glory: Thank you, all. I really appreciate the time you took to come and look and comment.

Whheeee! Writers Workshop

It's up!!

The writing workshop that Sarah Madison, Jennifer Roberson and I are doing at Galacticon is up on the website!!

Delegates will *know* about it now.  They'll have the option of signing up for some yet to be specified time (grins) of minimal pontificating from us and lots and lots of fun filled activity where we flatly refuse to do all the work and will be galvanising the participants with cattle prods into learning something about how wonderful it is to write, write, write.  Or, you know, they'll have the option of deciding that they'd rather go and have a McDonalds instead.  Whatever floats their boat, but while we won't have fries with a side order of plotting and characterisation, we will have origami with post it notes!! How can they resist?

Go here to read about the SOOPER_DOOPER ASTONISHING WORKSHOP WHERE WE IS ALL WRITERS NOW and if you're coming to Galacticon, sign up and come and have FUN!

Another good reason to go to Galacticon, 23-26 May, Houston

They'll be there.

Was Deus, Now WTF?!

The novella formerly known as Deus Ex Machina is in the last stages of preparation. It's had one last read through for typos and errors and I have a first version of the cover to play with (we may go for more gold. I like a bit of glitz). Then came the crushing realisation that the title you'd though was a bit clever and ironic was considered to be a bit clever and ironic by about 16,000 other writers. Type Deus Ex Machina into Amazon and get seriously swamped by the number of books out there with clever and ironic authors.

Now, I'm all for my novella being easy to find, but not if people have to wade through a high tide of its namesakes to do it.

So. Deus  Ex Machina is no more. The search is on for a new  title, and currently I'm wavering between FlashWire and Impedance.

FlashWire (or FlashWired? Mmmn) or maybe Impedance involves Jeeze Madrid and Cal Paxton, the two top scouts on the Pathfinder-class ship, the Carson.  Their job is to find and identify planets ripe for Earth to colonise, while the scientists on the Carson carry out the final testing and analysis and any light terraforming that might be needed. They're also in a relationship that Cal wants to deepen, but Jeeze prefers the way it is. Jeeze is shot down over an inhabited planet with an energy beam of a type that none of the Earth scientists have ever seen before.  What will Cal find when, weeks later, they can finally mount a rescue operation to Menath GTal?

Well, anyway, it had cool machines and cool storage batteries. Deus Ex Machina was the perfect title since Jeeze's full name is Jesús Felipe Madrid Velázquez.  See?  Clever and ironic.  And now I have to think up something that won't be as clever or won't be as ironic, but which should fetch up on Amazon on page one, not page twenty one.

I'm inclining towards FlashWired - or Flashwired or flash wired or flash-wired

Anyway, here's the first go at the cover

and with a title... or two:

Which to choose.  Oh, which to choose?

Two reasons to love the old BSG

This. This is why I'm going to Galacticon in May.

Contact Sport Edited

Had the text back from the Dreamspinner editorial team. All very minor and really rather amusing - where I'd gone through and assiduously removed commas (I always think I over use them) they've gone and put them back. Plus a couple of places where British English differs from American, one of which I'm kicking myself about because I know where we would say 'leapt' or 'leant' or 'spelt' or 'dreamt', the US has regularised those verbs. I should have picked up that one for myself. As an aside, the verbs that the US has apparently made (kept?) as irregular and we have as regular, are the ones I'd have to force myself to use. I'm sorry, US-ians, but to say that 'Joe dove into the water'or 'Joe drug the heavy box across the room' puts my teeth on edge. And let's not get into the usage of 'shined'. I'm puzzled by a couple of places where they've added a formatting change to highlight the text, but I'll ask them about that when I send it back.

No Taxation Without Representation. Yes, indeed.

What a day. I created accounts with all the places I want to self-publish Deus Ex Machina, and found myself staring at the Amazon page in horror when it demanded my US tax number before I could go any further. Not all my telling it that "Hey! British here! And haven't we already a history about taxation, O former colony?" had any effect. The taxation tables have been well and truly turned. A few hours of WTF later, and I am now registered with the IRS as a non-resident alien and I have a tax number. Sadly that confers no rights and benefits, and merely imposes responsibilities on me to cough up a proportion of any money I make in US sales. I'm not anticipating that will be a great deal of money for the Federal coffers - a percentage of a pittance is still a pittance. It would be nice if a green card came with it and I could retire to live in Maine, but we can't have everything.

Deus Ex Machina

Well, it's done.  Novella length, about 20,750 words.  No HAE ending. This is the one I'll test self publishing with. 

Now to persuade Shelley to do the cover for me... something sexy and with fractals.  How hard can that be?

Galacticon 3

Yaaayy! The Galacticon 3 organisers have posted information about the Fanfiction panel that I'm doing with Sarah Madison and Jennifer Roberson in Houston in May! We're also doing a writers workshop that will involve lots of Post it notes and running around being energetic and engaged... I hope. It's all very exciting and it's only two months off!
I need to have finished and published Deus Ex Machina by then. Good lord help me.

Milestone

It's almost 2am here, and five minutes ago I typed the final line of the first Shield novel.  I still have to do a proper edit tomorrow to look for major plot holes, check the pacing etc.  And on a more mundane level, start weeding out the redundancies, the distancing words that push the reader out of close PoV, and sort out those darn semicolons and em-rules, both of which I overuse like crazy.

But I. Am. There.

Big moment this.  And I'm too sleepy to appreciate it!

Busy, Busy, Busy

Work's going on apace with Shield.  I'm about two thirds through the first edit, getting it into a state ready to go to an external editor. It's working well, and I'm cautiously pleased with it.  The two main characters are a great deal of fun, but I'm wondering if I'm lacking real tension here, since there's no real threat to them other than the inchoate menace of the Maess. Well, we shall have to see.

On other projects, I'm going to try for at least one more of Dreamspinner's anthologies, as I have something that might (with a lot of revision!) work for their next one.  And they have a call out for a steampunk story too.  I have about 3000 words of a steampunk story that I abandoned.  I should look at that.

And finally, I've worked out the premis for Deus Ex Machina, which would be a novella of about 18,000 -20,000 words.  I may try self publishing that one, to test the waters. The issue with it is that at the moment, I don't see an actual sex scene in it.  It's more about love that, while not unrequited, has never been consummated.  I'll have to think about whether that will run.

I thought I'd left the paperwork behind...

Phew. I've filled out Dreamspinner's forms for the editorial team, to create the blurb and letting them know I'm going to be around while they probably pull Contact Sport to pieces and hope I can put it back again. With the copies of everything I've made, from the initial yes please email to the contract, editing process info etc, I now have a paper file about ten times longer than the poor little story itself.

Just as well that I'm an ex civil servant and I know bureaucracy. And that this is more fun than ministerial speeches ever were.

One More Step On The Way

That sounds as though it ought to be a song, or something.  I've signed the contract and am one more baby step along the way to being a published writer. Dreamspinner are very efficient and good - the one-off fee for Contact Sport is now in my Paypal account. I'm impressed!  I can probably buy a couple of coffees in Houston in May, now, and still have enough left over for a muffin.

On other things, I'm up to Ch 7 in revising Shield. The whole of the first story should be ready soon, and then I must think about publishing or self publishing. It's the first of five books, and I'm not sure I want to get locked into a contract for that. I may well be better on my own. Sarah Madison quite rightly has suggested self-publishing something smaller first to test the water.  That is such a brilliant idea, and I have just the thing...

Whoooo Hoooo!

Dreamspinner Press has said "YES" and my short story, Contact Sport, will appear in Make a Play, the 2013 Dreamspinner Press Daily Dose - in June, I think. After release, Contact Sport will also be for sale individually as a short story. I am still trying to get the hyperventilating under control here.  

Wow.  I am chuffed with a capital CHUFF!!  I'm published!  Well, okay, only a 6k short story, but I AM PUBLISHED!!!!

A fellow member of the Facebook m/m romance community has made her latest book free for 24 hours on Amazon. My Bittersweet by Nat Wood is here at Amazon.com and here at Amazon.co.uk Enjoy!

Cover Art

All right, I know I should be writing or doing housework or walking the dog, but I just spent a happy hour on Pulp-o-mizer (yes, seriously, that is the name of this site), creating wonderful Dan Dare-ish retro covers for pulp magazine versions of all five of the planned Shield novels. I haven't had this much fun in AGES.

Anyhow, here we go:

Taking Shield






Taking Shield II : Heart Scarab






Taking Shield III : Sabrien





Taking Shield IV : The Chains of Their Sins





Taking Shield V : Day of Wrath

Aren't they fun? I'm so tempted to go with something like this, if only I could get Bennet and Flynn onto the covers together.

Learning my craft

From a blog discussion about self-published books and the fact so many of them show poor technical writing skills – poor grammar and spelling, or just poor technique generally – and whether this matters or all that counts is telling the story:

“Craft is the cut, the polish and the setting that makes the jewel.”

I love that. It's a perfect description of why I keep trying and trying to improve as a writer.

Deadline today...

Well, today's the deadline for Dreamspinner's anthology.  From tomorrow, I suppose I start watching the emails for a reaction from them.  Nerve-wracking, sending out your first child like this to make his own way in the world...

Thank you!

Huge shout out to Sarah Madison  and Myrica Blue for their help and encouragement. Without Sarah, I wouldn't ever have dared think about submitting something to a real live publisher at all, and Myrica's been such a support as a beta for years now and helped immensely with 'Americanising' the story - or should that be Americanizing?

All of which translates, I think, into it's all their fault!

And... they're off!

 Contact Sport has just been sent out to Dreamspinner, for consideration for an anthology they're publishing.  I can barely believe I've done it. Whether it gets rejected or not, I've made my first step as a professional writer.

Am slightly overwhelmed, here. Fingers crossed for a good outcome!

On the starting line

Well, I've done it.  I've finished the first short story I've ever considered trying to publish (for an anthology to be printed later this year) and if I haven't quite sent it out into the world to make its fortune, I've at least sent it out to be schooled and refined and shaped. If my betas think it's worth continuing, then Contact Sport will be thrown out of the house and told to make its own way at the end of this month.

This is the first real step in getting published.  Yes, I'm working on Shield, but that's still some months off being ready to be similarly thrown to the wolves.  In a way, I'm testing the water here, although a small 6,500 word story doesn't compare with the half million or so that Shield will be, when it's split into its five or so novels.  Still, baby steps.  Baby steps.