De-blog

I haven’t done WIPpet Wednesday for over a month! :o It’s a really busy time of year for me… WIPpet numbers for 31st May, 2017: 31x5+17=172 words from To Be Sure   (potentially a working title, but it might yet end up the final title) WIPpet Context: A first snippet from To Be Sure . This is the very first scene from my story for SAGA: an anthology of stories featuring older LGBT+ characters (out later this year, from Beaten Track Publishing). The main character is Saorla (seer-la) Tierney, a seventy-year-old woman from Derry in the North of Ireland. For readers of the Hiding Behind The Couch series, she’s Sean’s mum (as you’ll see in this snippet). * * * * * “Twin or double?” Sean asked. Keeping her phone to her ear, Soarla Tierney picked up the dishcloth and wiped invisible crumbs from the kitchen worktop. The question was innocent enough, she supposed. “Whichever’s cheapest, darlin’.” “They both cost the same.” “Oh, right…” Usually, when she went over...

Photo: https://pixabay.com/en/users/AKuptsova-1176597/ I rejected capitalism. I'm not sure exactly when - it could be as much as ten years ago. Not that I've ever embraced it. Being a working-class northern-English person, embracing capitalism is like lying in front of a steamroller and watching hopelessly as it advances and then flattens you. Unless you own capital - and I'm talking about more than being a homeowner, having a good income that allows for the purchase of further capital, and/or a decent inheritance of capital coming your way - if you 'embrace' capitalism, you're supporting the system that ensures you will never achieve equality. Karl Marx - and others - call this 'false consciousness'. It's a way of thinking that stops us from seeing what our social/economic position really is. Here's an example, which is a bit long-winded, but I'll get to the point eventually. In England after WWII, the welfare state was created wit...

I’m not supposed to be writing this, but some characters are very chatty! In fact, I wasn’t supposed to be writing (or working) at all today, but, erm, I already made a cover. :D So, here it is: snippet #1 from No Filter - another Checking Him Out / Hiding Behind The Couch crossover (the first being Hiding Out ), featuring Matty (CHO) and Libby (HBTC). Brief background: Libby and Matty first met in  Hiding Out , when Libby was fifteen and Matty was an undergrad dance student. No Filter   is a year later, and it’s a friendship story, not a romance. Now I’ve got to figure out where in the timeline of both series this falls… This snippet is from Matty’s point of view. I couldn’t believe I’d left it so long to get in touch, but we all do it—say stuff like ‘don’t be a stranger’ and make all these promises to write or call. But time flies by, and before you know it, it’s been too long, and you think ‘I must email whoever later’ and then forget about it again. O...

Brief explanation: The Making Of Us  is available to preorder! It’s currently with my editor. :) Preorder Links: Beaten Track [Paperback] • Beaten Track [eBook] • Amazon [Kindle Edition] • Smashwords [eBook] • Barnes and Noble [eBook] • Kobo [eBook] You can read previous snippets others here . The Making Of Us  is the fourth book in the Checking Him Out series , but it’s a stand-alone story about friendship, love and romance—LGBTQIA, with the emphasis on the B, Q and I. The main characters are Jesse and Leigh, who first appeared in Taking Him On (Book Two), which is Noah and Matty’s story. The Making Of Us  is first-person, told from Jesse’s perspective. Here’s the snippet: I wasn’t in the least surprised—if they hadn’t moved first, I would have—when Leigh cupped the back of my neck and pulled me down into a long, deep kiss that rapidly reached fever heat. The soft stretchy fabric of their top bunched beneath my palms as I smoothed their...

Four days: that's how long I've spent trying to write this blog post. I had it half written and my computer didn't save it (thanks, Outlook, and well done me for my impressive use of technology—thought I'd get clever with speech-to-text on my phone). Anyway, the long and short of it is this: The Making Of Us is available for preorder! Beaten Track [Paperback] • Beaten Track [eBook] • Amazon [Kindle Edition] • Smashwords [eBook] • Barnes and Noble [eBook] • Kobo [eBook] I finished writing it over the weekend, and it occurred to me, somewhere around the 95k mark (it's 97k words in all), three of the last four books I've written feature non-binary main characters (the other two being Of The Bauble and The WAG and The Scoundrel ). This wasn't intentional, in the sense that all my characters, by default, are non-binary (because I am), so you can assume that's true unless I tell you otherwise. First, for those unsure of what non-binary ...

Recently, I saw an online conversation that began with an author asking the question 'Why do you write?' As expected, there was a whole variety of responses , but one in particular caught my attention. It came from an author who claimed they wrote to make money, and if they weren't making money, they'd stop writing. I believe them, and I have nothing against people writing for that reason. However, in the comments that followed, there was a strong insinuation that any author who claimed they did not write for money was lying. I do not write for money. Not that I'm saying I wouldn't like to make some money along the way, but it doesn't even feature in the list of my motivations as a writer. My first novel - Champagne - I wrote because I could. I had no dreams of publishing deals, nor of being a best seller, nor of seeing my name up in lights. I wrote it because the ideas were in my head, and I wanted to explore them. My second novel - Hiding Behind T...

Brief explanation: Another snippet from The Making Of Us . You can read the others here . The Making Of Us is the fourth book in the Checking Him Out series , but it’s a stand-alone story about friendship, love and romance—LGBTQIA, with the emphasis on the B, Q and I. The main characters are Jesse and Leigh, who first appeared in Taking Him On (Book Two), which is Noah and Matty’s story. The Making Of Us is first-person, told from Jesse’s perspective. I haven’t posted for a few weeks—been busy writing! :) I’m a couple of chapters and an epilogue from finished! Woot! But I’m a bit sad about that, too. I’m going to miss Jesse and Leigh when I’m done. Here’s the snippet: I stopped outside Leigh’s bedroom door and felt my stomach flutter at the sight. They hadn’t seen me, busy loosening off the laces in their Doc Martens. “Hey,” I said. Leigh paused and acknowledged me with a smile. “Hey.” Kicking off their boots, they beckoned for me to come in. “How are you tod...

Title: Nightsong (Notes from Boston #2) Author: A.M. Leibowitz Publisher: Supposed Crimes Published: 1st May, 2017 ISBN: eBook: 978-1-944591-24-3/print: 978-1-944591-25-0 Link: https://supposedcrimes.com/products/nightsong-notes-from-boston-2 Goodreads : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33974194-nightsong Blurb: Nate Kingsley is a master at messing up. Out of jealousy, he outed his best friend in a public and embarrassing way. Now he’s doing his best to make up for his crimes, but it’s left him empty and frustrated, unfulfilled even by his career as an opera singer and creative director. He enters an unsatisfying relationship he keeps hidden from his closest friends. When that ends on a disappointing note, he seeks solace in his crush on one of the drag queens performing at his favorite club. Izzy Kaplan is an EMT by day, a drag queen named TaTa Latke by night. He hasn’t been in a relationship since his divorce from his wife, despite the best efforts of his mothers and...