De-blog

It's the holiday season! Fun first...  And a thought... I'm not going to get ranty, but however you celebrate, if you are one of the fortunate, take that little spark of festive magic and do something wonderful with it. It could be life-changing for someone else, and it will make you feel nice. Now the hard sell! :) Me? Hard sell? As if! I had a job doing door-to-door canvassing for a kitchen company once. I lasted a day. But! I am selling something, so here goes... I wanted to officially launch Checking Him Out For the Holidays , which is available to buy for around $2 / £1.25 via Beaten Track , Amazon (Kindle) , Smashwords , All Romance eBooks , and a few other places by now, I would imagine. If you went torrent hunting you might even find it there, but I'd rather you bought it. I took it as a sign that I was finally getting somewhere when my recent novel, Crying in the Rain , made it to the file-sharing sites within three days of release. There...

Next Monday (December 15th) marks the release of my second Christmas story of the year, Red Hot Christmas , so we'll start as we mean to go on, by officially revealing the FABULOUS cover, created by Natasha Snow . Natasha's a brilliant cover artist / designer, and such a great person to work with. For both Red Hot Christmas and Crying in the Rain , I gave her a brief outline of the story and her first ideas were what we eventually went with, even though I fuss and fret and go all around the world before I reach the conclusion that she had it right all along. I think it's what comes of writing a series, whereby Crying in the Rain and Red Hot Christmas are chronologically #5 and #11 (full list at end of post), although I wrote Red Hot Christmas last Christmas, and wrote Crying in the Rain during the summer. By this point, the characters are so familiar to me that I have a clear picture in my head of what they are like - it's more of a psychological profile...

There is a school of thought which argues authors shouldn't read reviews of their work, because reviews are written for other would-be readers. Furthermore, those who argue for free expression in reviews contend that once the work is out there, it is a product, just like any other, and authors should not take it personally if a reviewer hates their 'product'. I can agree with this sentiment - up to a point - and it is precisely why we SHOULD read our reviews. In every industry, customer feedback is used to improve products and services. Likewise, if we authors don't read our reviews, we can not improve our product. That said, a piece of creative writing is not the same as an engine part, or a sofa, or a coffee maker, for whilst the inventor of a new and innovative product might well pour their heart and soul into it, the end product that we buy off the production line is tried, tested and far removed from that initial creative endeavour. A bad review for a vacuum cl...

So, yes, well. I have NEVER been so tired in my life. Or not since my dear daughters were yay big [imagine me holding up a finger and thumb with an inchy inchworm sized gap between]. But today my youngest daughter is leaving home. She's the blondie at the start of the Boughs of Evergreen trailer. My eldest says she's never leaving home... can't say I blame her. Home is nice. Home is also my place of work, and part of the reason I'm so blooming tired, but we're...so...close... Boughs of Evergreen - the holiday anthology from Beaten Track - is out on 21st November and today is the 5th [kudos, Mr. Fawkes, not quite the folk hero people think, but anyway] and I am still editing. Goodness! But fear not, intrepid readers! We shall be victorious! How victorious? Well, there's a giveaway to enter, if you're quick! You can find it on the Beaten Track website here: http://www.beatentrackpublishing.com/?n1=boughs_of_evergreen And here, for your viewi...

I've been tagged by Hunter Frost to take part in the Meet the Character blog hop. Hunter Frost is a very talented author of M/M erotic romance, and has been writing since high school. Her publications to date include the wonderful A Thoreau Affair  - a free short story about a former English professor and the student he can't forget - and the rather raunchy short, What Brown Can Do For You - where attraction blossoms between an IT geek and the UPS guy. You can read more about Hunter Frost here: hunterfrost.net/about . Hunter is one of 23 authors contributing to the Boughs of Evergreen holiday anthology , which is being published by Beaten Track Publishing on November 21st, and she came up with the rather wonderful idea of us taking a hop around the characters from our anthology stories. Last week, Hunter introduced us to the delectable Mitch Sterling - the main character of An Angel in Eyeliner . Meet Mitch Sterling: http://www.hunterfrost.net/meet-the-cha...

So this lil blog hop keeps on a-hopping. It's not quite a month since I did the " Fabulous Five Blog Hop ", which was actually my last post, because I'm far too busy to write blog posts. So, when Hans Hirschi asked me if I would like to be the next hop from his own post , and the questions were exactly the same, I said, "I'll give it a go." That might seem a bit of a contradiction - no time to post, but offering to do so anyway. But the thing is, you make time. Like now. It's almost two in the morning, and I'm writing this. The other part of it is the challenge. "What's the point if you've just done it?" Hans asked. So I told him. Four weeks ago I was working on something different, and that's not the only thing that's changed. My thoughts on my responses to the other three questions have also changed. I'm a thinker. I'm also a doer (hence time has moved on and so have I), but when it comes to quickfir...

I've been invited to answer these questions by C.M. Walker, author of M/M Romance. Her current titles include Pledge Number Seven and Gravitational Force . Both can be downloaded from her website cm-walker.com . What am I working on? I'm currently writing Crying in the Rain - a standalone story (novella, probably, but it's still growing), but with characters that will be familiar to readers of the Hiding Behind The Couch series. Crying in the Rain explores the romance blossoming between Kris and Ade, who meet for the first time whilst both working on the same radio play. It's told mostly from Ade's perspective, and "romance" is very much not on his agenda. He's recently come out of a traumatic long-term relationship, and is barely getting through from one day to the next, yet finds he can't ignore his attraction to Kris, and the feeling is mutual. But starting a relationship isn't going to be easy for either of them. It's going t...

This week, our final Pride roundtable discussion is led by Rick Bettencourt and Lane Hayes. You can read what they had to say by following the links below: Rick Bettencourt's Post: http://rickbettencourt.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/lgbt-roundtable-discussion/ Lane Hayes' Post: http://lanehayes.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/lgbt-pride-month-roundtable-discussion-what-does-gay-pride-mean-to-you/ Our panelists are a diverse group of readers, writers, and supporters of gay fiction, including Larry Benjamin , Rick Bettencourt , Brandilyn Carpenter , Rob Colton , Andrew Q Gordon , Lane Hayes , and  Debbie McGowan . Each week, two people will answer two questions related LGBT pride, rights, and related topics. We will also be giving away free copies of our eBooks and an Amazon gift card. (Enter on the RC on any of the blog posts.) There are special entries for each week of June, so don’t miss out on those. Please join in the discussion in the comments. You can g...

This week, our roundtable discussion is led by Brandilyn Carpenter and Rob Colton. You can read what they had to say by following the links below: Brandilyn Carpenter's Post: http://www.prismbookalliance.com/2014/06/lgbt-pride-roundtable-discussion-with-giveaway/ Rob Colton's Post: http://robcolton.com/post/88924899130/lgbt-pride-a-roundtable-discussion-week-3 Our panelists are a diverse group of readers, writers, and supporters of gay fiction, including Larry Benjamin , Rick Bettencourt , Brandilyn Carpenter , Rob Colton , Andrew Q Gordon , Lane Hayes , and  Debbie McGowan . Each week, two people will answer two questions related LGBT pride, rights, and related topics. We will also be giving away free copies of our eBooks and an Amazon gift card. (Enter on the RC on any of the blog posts.) There are special entries for each week of June, so don’t miss out on those. Please join in the discussion in the comments. You can gain entries into the giv...

I've been tagged in the Lucky Seven Game by the wonderful Hunter Frost. How does it work? Go to page 7 or 77 in your current WIP. Go to line 7 Post on your blog the next 7 sentences or 7 lines—as they are! Tag 7 people to do the same.  It caused me a bit of a dilemma, as my current work in progress is Two By Two - Season Six of the Hiding Behind The Couch series - I'm well into writing the final episode of this instalment, and everything is a spoiler! Thusly, I'm going with page 77 of the full season, and here are the seven lines:     “You know when you go collecting tadpoles?” he said.     Krissi frowned. “Yeah?”     “And you get the ones with two tails, or the ones that just kind of wiggle and get nowhere?”     “Hmm?”     Ade nodded. “That’s what my sperm are like.”     Krissi giggled. A lot. Then blushed. “I’m sorry,” she spluttered. “Th...

This week, our roundtable discussion is led by authors Brandon Shire and Larry Benjamin. You can read what they had to say by following the links below: Brandon Shire's Post: http://brandonshire.com/challenges-for-the-future-of-lgbt-rights/  Larry Benjamin's Post: http://authorlarrybenjamin.blogspot.com/2014/06/gay-pride-month-virtual-roundtable.html Our panelists are a diverse group of readers, writers, and supporters of gay fiction, including Larry Benjamin , Rick Bettencourt , Brandilyn Carpenter , Rob Colton , Andrew Q Gordon , Lane Hayes , and  Debbie McGowan . Each week, two people will answer two questions related LGBT pride, rights, and related topics. We will also be giving away free copies of our eBooks and an Amazon gift card. (Enter on the RC on any of the blog posts.) There are special entries for each week of June, so don’t miss out on those. Please join in the discussion in the comments. You can gain entries into the giveaway, but...

This week on my blog, we're trying something a little different. In honor of LGBT Pride month, I am among a great group of panelists who will be hosting a month long discussion about Pride, LGBT Youth, Allies, and more. Our panelists are a diverse group of readers, writers, and supporters of gay fiction, including Larry Benjamin , Rick Bettencourt , Brandilyn Carpenter , Rob Colton , Andrew Q Gordon , Lane Hayes , Debbie McGowan , and Brandon Shire . Each week, two people will answer two questions related LGBT pride, rights, and related topics. We will also be giveaway free copies of eBooks by our participating authors and a Amazon gift card. You can enter on the RC below. There are special entries for each week of June, so don't miss out on those. Please join in the discussion in the comments. You can gain entries into the giveaway, but more importantly, you can be part of a important and fun discussion. Though only 2 panelists will be posting each week, we will all be j...