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?