A Thousand Apologies...

To anyone following this blog. I know the silence has been long. I am very sorry.

To say that Real Life has bitten me in the butt would be like saying that the Great White delicately nibbles its prey to death; frankly, from job troubles to family illness to being swamped with line edits from both of my writing careers, it's hard to imagine anything that could have gone wrong that didn't, these past two months.

I will try to do better. Promise. For now, have this:




Which expresses my mood perfectly at the moment. And if you do/did like this blog and are reading this, please comment and let me know. I'm more likely to post more if I know someone's listening. Reading. Whatever.

Drumroll....and the Winner Is...

Thank you to all who voted in the What Should Alexi Write Next Poll. As you can see, the winner is...May to December!

The tentative title for this book is actually A New Forever. A little more detail about it: This story is about a conservative, older gay man (I'm thinking late forties) who was with the same partner for twenty-odd years before his partner was killed in an accident. He thought that they were going to be together forever, and his entire personality and sense of self was rooted in being part of this couple. For a man who has always thought of himself as strong and independent, realising that he doesn't feel whole alone is nearly as much of a shock as losing his beloved husband.

After a period of mourning so intense that at times he's doubted his sanity, he starts to get a grip on life again - and his friends and family begin to encourage him to get out and about, get back into the dating game, have a few reckless flings. They drag him to clubs and bars, where he meets a much, much younger man (I'm thinking just into his twenties) who is the classic twink: skinny, slightly effeminate, cute and promiscuous. This young man pursues the older man doggedly and eventually they begin an affair. At first the older man's friends are all for this, encouraging him to get his rocks off and move on. But the older character and the younger one find that they have a lot more in common than meets the eye, and their affair soon becomes about a lot more than sex. Now the older man's friends and family are horrified because they don't see any future for such an odd couple, and they dismiss the younger man as a shallow slut. fine for fucking, not for a relationship. The couple have to battle through their own and everyone else's preconceptions to try and make (that's right, you saw it coming ) a new forever.

I wanted to write this story because I come across a lot of stories where a person has been bereaved and is mourning, but as the book goes on you begin to see that the deceased partner was really not right for the character at all. They were inconsiderate, unfaithful, just incompatible. So when they meet their new partner, everything is pretty much smooth sailing apart from the baggage caused by that previous, unhappy relationship. Examples of books where this is done well are 'Catching a Second Wind' by Sean Michael and 'Blue Fire' by Z A Maxfield. There's nothing wrong with this device, but I wanted to have a look at a person who is mourning a partner who was really right for them, who made them happy and would have done for the rest of their lives. How do you rebuild your life after losing half of it?

I also wanted to have another look at a relationship with a big age gap and how this affects not only the couple but their network of friends and family. Finally, in this book I'd like to challenge some ideas about what a twink is, and examine how the balance of power in a relationship can shift. But don't worry! There's a definite role for humour in the book as well.

I will be working on this story as soon as I can clear some space from working on my fantasy novel. Comments, questions...? Feel free.

Hurray for And Is Never Shaken!

Well, And is Never Shaken has been available for one day, and it is already showing up on the little 'Bestsellers' carousel on the left of the Dreamspinner Press website. Obviously 'Bestseller' here just means that it's sold a few copies quite quickly, but it's the first time I've ever seen bestseller linked to any of my work in any way, so I'm happy.

In other news, I'm giving away a few copies of this novella on Reviews by Jessewave. You need to post a romantic playlist in the comment trail to get your name in the hat. There have been some awesome entries, which are likely to swell my musical collection before long. There's only a few hours left in this giveaway, so if you haven't been there yet, please visit.

Finally, thanks to everyone for their votes in the What Should I Write next poll. Again, there are only a few hours left to vote, so if anyone else has an opinion, please let me know!

And Is Never Shaken Playlist

With And Is Never Shaken coming out from Dreamspinner on Wednesday, I thought I'd post my playlist for it. The novella was heavily influenced by music - I had a dream about being reincarnated, during which I heard the classical piece Gnossienne no. 1. and that was the original inspiration for writing Cassian and Andy's story. Not only that, but music is very important to the characters and in the development of the plot.

This playlist is made up of both the songs I was listening to while writing it and the music that features in the story.

1) Cry by Rihanna
2) My Hands by Leona Lewis
3) Meditation from 'Thais' Performed by Joshua Bell
4) Midnight on the Water Performed by Waterson: Carthy
5) The Lark Ascending by Vaughn Williams
6) Gnossienne No. 1 Performed by Johannes Cernota
7) Let's Get It On by Marvin Gaye
8) The Heart Asks Pleasure First/The Promise by Michael Nyman
9) Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini Performed by Daniel Petrov and the Russian State Orchestra
10) Awake by Secondhand Serenade
11) This Moment by Melissa Etheridge
12) Run by Snow Patrol
13) Lost by Anouk

I put this list of songs on repeat and shuffle and listened to them constantly, even while out of the house on my iPod. Listening to them might give readers a special insight into the story - or not. I guess it'll depend on how people feel about random mish-mashes of classical, pop, Indie, Motown and R&B!

What should I Write Next? You Decide!

I've taken the last few weeks off from m/m writing in order to concentrate on starting my new YA novel, which was a wrench, but needed to be done. But now that I've hit the 10,000 word mark on the novel, and I'm feeling quite comfy and bedded into the story (how long that'll last, who knows?) I think I'd like to pick up work on an m/m story again.

The problem is that I have several stories plotted out and two started and I'm not sure which one I should go for. So, just in case there's anyone out there in the blogosphere who a) reads this blog and b) cares, I'm going to set up a poll. Yay! Poll!

You can find the poll at the top right hand corner of the blog, and vote for what you would like me to do next. If anyone wants more information about any of the projects mentioned, you can email me and I'll be happy to post about it.

Thanks in advance for anyone who participates.

And is Never Shaken Taster

Hi guys. It looks like the release date for And is Never Shaken is pretty solid, so it will be out next Wednesday from Dreamspinner Press. There's an excerpt on the website, but in celebration I'm going to post a different, work-safe snippet under the cut. Enjoy!

Possible Release Date for And Is Never Shaken

And Is Never Shaken has turned up on the Forthcoming page at Dreamspinner Press with a publication date of the 5th of May. You can see it and even pre-order it here.

I say 'possible date' just because they haven't emailed me to let me know this date yet, and I've noticed that they play about with the Forthcoming page quite a lot. Things jump on and off there all the time. So it might have disappeared by tomorrow, and come back with with a different release date the day after.

I suspect it's just one of the ways that the sneaky folks there at DSP keep us on our toes.

UPDATE: The book is also on Goodreads now, and people have already started adding it to their 'To Be Read' and 'Potential Buy' shelves! Woohoo!

Rejection and Bitch-Slapping

Short post because I am, in a word, knackered.

Having allowed Wave to lure me into turning my five-minute rant on pen-names into an editorial post for her blog, I then got bitch-slapped by...oh, let's see...everyone. Pretty much. I've been replying to comments non stop and post of them are not of the 'Right On, Sista' variety. That'll teach me to have opinions. Or, at least, not to think about them a bit more carefully before sharing them.

I just heard back from TQ Press that 'Precious Possession' is not right for them either. This would be more depressing if it was a form rejection, like the one from DSP, but the lovely Michelle gave me feedback which let me pinpoint what was wrong. Basically I tried to tell the story in the style of a fairytale, with a sarcastic narrator voice. Michelle said that it basically felt like the first eight pages were info-dumping. So that didn't work, then. She also invited me to re-write and submit, which I fully intend to do once I get a spare five minutes. I know they're still looking for Halloween sips and I think PP could work really well for that.

The lesson I have learned this week: People (and by people I mean me) make mistakes. It's okay. The only unforgivable sin is not to learn from them. No more ranting on Wave's blog (I can rant here all I like, since no one reads it) and no more sarcastic narrator voice for me.

Now, back to my new YA novel. I need to hit 5000 words before I shut down tonight.

Reviews by Jessewave

A really exciting new challenge has presented itself to me this weekend. I've been asked by Wave of Reviews by Jessewave if I'd like to try writing reviews for her blog.

This is my absolute favourite review blog and I check it at least once a day; it informs a lot of my buying decisions. Being asked is a huge honour, and not just that but a great opportunity because it means that my name will become familiar to m/m readers before my books ever hit the market. Of course I said yes. Actually, I said 'HELL yes!'.

Nevertheless, it's a little daunting. First of all, as Wave herself points out, this is a serious responsibility. Not only am I going to be having an impact on the quality of this famous blog, but I'm going to hopefully be influencing other people's book buying, just like Wave, Tam, Lily, Jenre, Aunt Leslie and the rest have influenced mine. I have to be fair minded, thorough and objective, while also striving to be entertaining.

There are potential pitfalls. Although I've taken a solemn oath not to be snarky for snarks sake, there are going to be times when my reviews contain unfavourable remarks. Some readers aren't going to like that. I may review authors who are published by the same publishers as me, and that could be awkward if I have negative comments. Will they be angry at me, or think I'm being disloyal? It might not seem fair, but I know that people often aren't fair when their baby, their work, is under discussion.

Despite my niggles, I'm really enthusiastic because I love the m/m community. I've been an m/m reader for nearly three years but I've only dipped my toe into the m/m readers and writers community since January this year and I've found it to be a wonderful place, peopled with strong, intelligent, well-read men and women. People of high ideals, high standards and great integrity. I want to be one of them and that's why I'm taking the leap and doing this.

On with the show!

Cover Squee! And Ipad Competition...

Look! Look! I got the final version of the cover for And is Never Shaken! And it's beee-ooo-tiful!

I loved the black and white version and kind of worried about how it would look 'painted' but this is such high quality work, I'm completely on Team Colour now. I'm just really crossing my fingers that my book can live up to this!

In other news (while I try to stop squeeing) DSP are running a competition which makes me drool, so I thought I'd share. If you, like me, are a techie-geek and adore gadgets and gismos, you might have been looking wistfully at your Sony E-Reader, Kindle or BeBook and thinking, 'Yeah, but it's not an iPad'. So a chance to get your hands on one for free should make both us happy. Here's the press release thingy (because I haven't finished my first cup of coffee yet and I'm not feeling creative enough to re-write it):

To celebrate the release of Dreamspinner’s eBooks being added to the iBookstore this summer, Dreamspinner Press is giving away an iPad in a random drawing. Every $10 you spend at Dreamspinner’s web site between April 15 and May 15 automatically enters your name in the drawing. The more you spend, the more times you’ll be entered. A winner will be drawn at random and announced on May 24.
 
Good stuff, right? Definitely worth a try.

Hmmph.

Just got the third - yes, that's third - lot of revisions back for the novel I finished last year. I have never had to revise more than twice before, not even on my very novel first novel ever, and even then the second lot was very minor.

This is a non m/m novel under my other name, and I know it's the best thing I've ever written. Frankly at this point (after two extensive rounds of re-writing and cutting nearly 10,000 words) I don't feel like I can improve it anymore. My editor says that the book is wonderful, phenomenal, brilliant - and yet she doesn't seem to actually get the story at all.

This is my first time working with this new editor, and it may just be down to us adjusting to each other but...Jeez. I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall. Or at least a person who doesn't understand subtext, conflicted/complex characters or any society other than the modern western world.

Sigh. Well, things might be a little quiet around this blog for a while, because I'm going into Revision Mode. Maybe when I come back I might have some actual readers/followers...

Pen-Names: Discretion or Cowardice?

Quick post today, as I'm wanting to write a certain amount of words before Monday, and blog posts don't count, unfortunately.

So, I've just been participating in a discussion on an m/m writer's forum about pen-names. I'd say, at a rough guess, that about 75% of the people posting there write their m/m fiction under a pen-name of some kind. Including me. Various reasons were given.

For example, I'm already a fairly well-known novelist of books for young adults and children. I write under a pen-name to separate my m/m work from my YA work, otherwise there would be nothing to stop my YA readers (many of whom are ten or under) from assuming that the stories published by DSP or Torquere (easily found in a Google search) were written for them. The implications there are sticky in more ways than one. I'd rather not read an email from a puzzled ten year old asking me to explain gay sex. I'd rather not read one from an homophobic parent of a ten year old (and it's stunning how many parents reveal heretofore unnoticed homophobic tendencies when it comes to their kids) asking me to drop dead. I'd definitely rather not get one from a large group of librarians who've decided to ban my YA work based on my lack of moral fibre, an all too real possibility in the US.

Other writers were teachers who knew that, despite discrimination laws, their jobs would be under threat if it was discovered that they wrote about sex at all, let alone gay sex. Still others had family members who feared for their jobs or businesses, and swore them to secrecy. One lady has a church group that she and her family love, and whom they rely on for many different kinds of support, but which they knew would eject them if they found out about her m/m writing.

It was when I got to the last example that I felt my mental gears grind to a halt. Because, although the author in question described her church group as being genuinely nice people, and used language like 'conservative' to describe them, it's clear that what that group must actually be is bigoted. Very bigoted. Anti-gay. Homophobic.

So this lady is someone who presumably believes in gay rights and abhors prejudice and bigotry, and yet she's happy for her family to associate and take comfort from a group of people who are teaching them that hating gay people and displaying hatred and rejection to those who believe in equal rights for gay people, is just A-Okay.

Huh?

The problem is that once you question this last example, you find yourself going back through all the other reasons - like the ones from people who fear that their jobs would be under threat, and my own excuse about not wanting kids to accidentally read work not meant for them...and suddenly it all seems a bit feeble. You start to wonder how the Hell society is ever going to evolve if people don't stand up and take that risk one day? Why anyone bothered to write discrimination laws if none of us trust them? If kids go ahead and read stories that depict gay sex despite all the warnings posted on them then it's not like the world will end, is it?

You find yourself thinking: we've got a Hell of a nerve writing m/m fiction with an attitude like that. Gay people who want to live anything approaching a real life don't get to come up with a pen-name and a bunch of excuses. They either come out and face all the hatred or they live a life of lies and repression. And I should know, because I'm bisexual, and I'm out in real life. So just what the Hell am I thinking with this pen-name stuff?

And the answer is...I don't know. But maybe I - and all the m/m authors out there - should think about this a little more.

A Blurbing Birthday Continued

Okay, so readers who tuned into this bat-channel yesterday will have been witness to my epic snit-fit over the blurb that the good professionals of DSP came up with for my novella And Is Never Shaken. 

Not because the blurb wasn't well-written, correct and factual, but because despite this, it also had many of the problems that readers of Reviews by Jessewave had raved about here. If you'd like to read the blurb, you can go back to yesterday's post here and see for yourself what I mean.
 
We ended yesterday's thrilling installment with my decision to risk not only my own sanity, but also annoying the people of DSP, by attempting to completely re-write the blurb and asking them to use my version instead.

The first thing I did was to throw out both the short synopsis which I had submitted to DSP originally and the blurb that DSP had sent me. I tend to think that the first mistake most people make when writing blurbs for readers is to confuse what a prospective buyer needs to make their decision, with what an editor needs to make theirs. The editor needs to know the shape of the story and the factual details of how it starts and ends. They need to know you're not going to have aliens appear in chapter two and turn everyone to jelly. Once they're assured of that they open the file and begin to read, which requires a commitment of time, but no money. If they have questions about tone or language, they answer them by reading the story. It's right there.

But your potential buyers are looking at a professional entry on a publisher's website. They know this book has been accepted for publication and edited, so they already know that aliens don't appear and turn everyone to jelly (unless the story actually calls for that). What they want to know is what they can expect to experience as a reader if they invest their hard earned cash in your story. Why buy your story and not the three others that came out from the publisher at the same time, or the twenty others that came out from different publishers that day? They need to know the world they're about to step into if they buy your book.

Bearing all this - and the comments from the erudite readers of Jessewave's blog - in mind, this is my blurb-writing check-list.

1) Characters. This is romance we're writing here - the characters are everything. Introduce both the main characters with a couple of key facts that allow readers to visualize them. I don't mean their appearance, unless the way they look is what defines them in some way (if one of them has a disability, or is astonishingly good-looking for example) . In the case of And Is Never Shaken, both protagonists have jobs that they love and which define them, so those go in the blurb. 

2) Relationship. Again, this is romance. The relationship is what we're reading for. We need to know the 'hook' of the relationship - love at first sight, hate at first sight, the odd couple, gay for you, May to December, whatever. My characters have little in common and have a large age gap, yet they keep bumping into each other, and this makes one of them think the other is a stalker. Not a great start for them, but a great 'hook' for the book.

3) What Happens Next? One or two sentences about how their beginning eases into a middle. Do they fight like cats and dogs, get separated but struggle to keep their love alive, find themselves swept away in a fairytale passion? This is the meat of the story. This is where you tell readers if they have humour or angst or outdoor sex or naked swimming in a vat of custard to look forward to.Try to express the tone of the story. It's pointless to write a funny blurb if the story isn't comedic, pointless to write an angsty one if the story is light and sweet. If there are squink factors in the story which you haven't already mentioned, put them here. If you added a threesome to spice things up (I hope you didn't, by the way) you should be hinting at the characters journey of sexual discovery so that it doesn't come as a complete shock to the reader.

4) The Big No-No. Or - what goes wrong. Not too much detail, because that's the point of reading the book, but at the same time don't be coy. Blog readers said they hate, hate, hated it when authors tried to convince them that there would be a sad ending because, let's face it, this is m/m romance and that doesn't happen very often. So unless you actually wrote a down-ending (which was brave of you) it's better to focus on the conflict here. What goes wrong? Put a question in the reader's mind so that they picture the pain or difficulty the characters might face to get their HEA or HFN. However, another huge Red Button was the use of rhetorical questions, so don't try to put a question into the reader's mind by saying 'Will Tim and Fred fight through their parent's expectations to be together?' Because the reader knows the answer must be yes, and this just annoys them and makes them think snarky thoughts.

Putting all this into practise: 

(One paragraph) Cassian Ford is a successful writer in his forties, established at the local university (hello, character number one!). Andy Havers is a book restorer in his early twenties who just moved to town (Hello character number two and May to December relationship!) They have nothing in common, and yet somehow everywhere they go they seem to run into each other. Despite a bumpy beginning - an exasperated Cassian accuses Andy of being a stalker - (there's the hook, and a hint of humour) the gap in age and their many other differences, a passionate romance develops between them. But just when Andy is convinced he's found true love (these last two lines are the What Happens Next - they tell us that things are passionate and loving) secrets from Cassian's past erupt into the present (word choice hopefully suggests angst and drama) and Andy realizes it might not be him Cassian wants at all...(Yowch, that sounds kind of painful for Andy, I wonder how he gets over that?)

Without the commentary:
 
Cassian Ford is a successful writer in his forties, established at the local university. Andy Havers is a book restorer in his early twenties who just moved to town. They have nothing in common, and yet somehow everywhere they go they seem to run into each other. Despite a bumpy beginning - an exasperated Cassian accuses Andy of being a stalker - the gap in age and their many other differences, a passionate romance develops between them. But just when Andy is convinced he's found true love, secrets from Cassian's past erupt into the present and Andy realizes it might not be him Cassian wants at all... 

Mission accomplished. Now I had to submit this to DSP and hope they liked it.

Now, let's get something straight here before we go any further: I'm a seasoned publishing professional. I've been dealing with editors, marketing directors and Big Cheeses (otherwise known as Commissioning Editors) for...Jeez, seven years now. But no matter how many times you've had playful banter with an editor, no matter how confident you are as a professional, no matter how sure you are that you're right, EVERYTIME that you have to disagree with an editor, you will be reduced to quivering jelly. What if they get really upset and don't want to work with you anymore?

Luckily, despite that big build-up, DSP did like my version of the blurb, and said they'll use it. And they didn't even cuss me out for being an awkward b*tch either. (Sigh of contentment).

A Blurbing Birthday

The fateful day has dawned, and I am a year older and definitely wiser. My first birthday present? A blurb from DSP for my novella And Is Never Shaken.

Very recently there was a blog post about blurbs on Reviews by Jessewave. You can find this revealing article (and what's even more revealing, the comment trail following it) here.

What this made clear to me is that for a lot of people the blurb is all they read - it makes the decision on whether they buy or not. People ignore covers because often they're terrible or cliched; even if they're pretty they usually say very little about the story itself. And it seems most people don't have time to read the excepts either - there are just too many books to get through, and they don't think the excerpt really tells them much.

The blurb is the number one selling tool that an author can have, other than a well-respected name.

Unfortunately, a lot of readers feel that the blurbs they're offered are letting them down. And readers place the blame for this squarely on the shoulders of the author. Yes, they acknowledge that editors and other publishing professionals are partly responsible for this too, but most readers seemed to feel that since the author is the one who knows the story inside out they should be the one who makes sure the blurb reflects what their work is really about.

All of which resulted in this reaction when I saw the blurb which DSP had written for And Is Never Shaken: AAAAAARRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, it's safe to say that I was a tad upset. The blurb I read - though technically correct and not terrible in any way - held basically ALL the elements that the readers of the Jessewave blog had isolated as problems for them. Let me illustrate:

The first time Andreas Havers meets Cassian Ford, Cassian stops him in the street and then walks away. The second time is when Andy signs up for a creative writing course—a course Cassian is teaching. The third time, they bump into each other in the hallway of Andy’s new apartment building and realize they’re neighbors. After being accused of being a stalker, Andy finally loses his temper and tells Cassian where to get off.

Strangely, instead of letting the acquaintance die there, Cassian pursues Andy and apologizes. Explaining away his odd behavior, Cassian asks Andy out on a date, a date that will turn into a passionate affair threatened by secrets from the past.

First of all, this is two paragraphs long. Now, I personally have no problem with two paragraph blurbs. In fact, I like a lot of details. But the vast majority of e-book buyers do not appear to agree with me. They want one paragraph only - they were very emphatic about this.

They also felt that many blurbs missed out pertinent details of the story which might either make them want to buy it, or warn them to steer clear. In this case, the romance is a May to December relationship, with eighteen years between the protagonists. This is a selling point for me (which is why I wrote the story) and might be for a lot of others too, but for those who are squinked out by May to December, there's no warning here.

Finally, they felt that blurbs didn't give them any idea of the tone of the story, and in some cases that blurbs were actively misleading. Well, this blurb has no tone, really. It's just business-like and straightforward, which would be fine if the novella were business-like and straightforward. But it isn't. And Is Never Shaken has a lot of poetic language and also some humour. I don't think there's any way that anyone could label this blurb misleading, but it doesn't give much of a flavour of the story either.

So, after much gnashing of teeth, stressing and hair-pulling, I decided to completely re-write this blurb and ask my DSP editor to consider a new version.

Since this post is getting rather long, tune in tomorrow to see how I incorporated the blog reader's comments into a new version of the blurb, and hear about DSP's reaction to an uppity author re-writing their blurbs wholesale.

Status Check # 2...And Other Stuff

So it's the beginning of April (and my birthday is nearly here) and it seems like time for another status check. Because I'm self-absorbed like that.

My status is pretty much the same as it was the last time I looked, at least when it comes to m/m work under the name Alexi Silversmith. All that's changed really is that I've edited, proof-read and approved the 'galley proofs' (this makes me laugh a little, because galley proofs for a print book are such a big deal - this huge packet of pages arrives recorded post and you have to mark up the whole thing and send it back ASAP, but the ebook version was just a PDF file in which I made three corrections, easy-peasy) for And Is Never Shaken. Still no word on the pub date for that.

Side Note: DSP's proofers changed the capitalization of the title so it reads 'And Is Never Shaken' instead of 'And is Never Shaken'. Is this an American thing? Hmm...

Anyway, I haven't finished any other new m/m stories. I haven't started work on the two stories I've sold to Torquere Press yet, nor have I heard back about the short story I submitted to them. So, it's pretty quiet on the m/m front. Just like any writer, I'm sitting around waiting for publishers to get back to me.

In other news, I promised Wave (from Reviews by Jessewave) that I'd try to read the notorious m/m novel Bareback by Chris Owen this week. And now I'm scared, because although I really like Chris Owen's work, I do NOT like cheating in my books. This book is famous because one of the leads is unfaithful to the other, and the book shows the aftermath of this, and how they struggle to repair their relationship. I have avoided this novel for a long time for that very reason.

This might seem ridiculously wimpy. In a way, it is. Afterall, it's just a book, right? It's not real, and I can chose to stop reading at any point. My problem is that I suffer from clinical depression, and although I have various coping strategies in place which ensure that my mood is even a lot of the time, there are always periods when I can feel myself teetering on the edge of another episode. When I get that unbalanced feeling, I know it won't take much to tip me over the edge. And I'm teetering now.

Which means that if this book is as good as Wave said it is, and you end it feeling uplifted and convinced of the romantic relationship between the characters, then I'll probably be fine. But if I react to it in a different way, if I'm not convinced by the relationship, then I'll probably end up dealing with a seriously black mood which could last for up to a month. Do I really want to take the risk? Well, I'm off on a long train journey today, so I'll take the book and see how I feel. I'll just have to hope that if I can't face it, Wave won't beat me up...

The Pressure is On

All right. I did my meeting with the Folks in London (my publishers for my work under my different name) and they're really keen to get a new book out the year after the book that I've just finished. That's because there's been sort of a long gap between the one I just finished (not published yet) and the one they published before that.

This was actually the publisher's fault, and they've acknowledged it, but it doesn't change the fact that it damages my career - and the publisher's prospects of selling lots of books - to have such a long gap. Readers forget quickly. Which means when I come back on the scene I need to make a really strong impression. Two books in two years does that. Therefore, I need to get to work on the new novel and I need to make it good.

What does any of this have to do with Alexi Silversmith, newbie writer of m/m fiction? Well, it means that m/m writing is going to have to go on the back burner. For a while. I don't know how long. Basically when I start any new project it takes me a while to really firmly get a grasp on it and I need to spend that time completely absorbed in the new characters, world etc. I can't do that if I'm working on something utterly different at the same time. Once I've embedded my brain in this new novel, I might be able to look at m/m stuff again as a hobby and do it for fun, but not until I'm totally confident in the other story.

So, right now...feeling a little depressed. Excited about my new novel, fired up, committed....but still, a part of me is depressed about Captain Space Bunny and all the other m/m characters teaming in my head.

But there's always the hope that the release of the m/m stories I've written will be staggered in such a way that my potential m/m readers won't even notice this hiatus. I don't have a pub date for And Is Never Shaken yet, and I haven't even started the editing process on the stories that were sold to Torquere Press. Which means that by the time the last of them comes out, I might have started work as Alexi Silversmith again. That's a comforting thought.

Slaving in the Coalmines...

I'm feeling crotchety and grumpy today. Real life has collided with writing life and there has been an audible smashing sound. Not sure exactly what broke yet, or how I should go about picking up the pieces, but this is one of those horrible times when people in my life want me to do something, and either cannot or will not accept that I can't.

I'm writing.

No, I'm not slaving in the coalmines. But writing is work, and it's hard, and it takes effort and most of all, time. It's just as mentally exhausting as being in an office, on the phone, writing reports or entering data - in fact it's a lot harder because everything that appears on the page has to come from within you, not from a handy programme on your computer or a bunch of stats that your PA gave you.

Yes, at times it's also far more enjoyable than putting together marketing reports, but at the end of the day writing is a craft as well as an art, and it doesn't happen by sprinkling faery-dust over the pages. It happens because you sit down for several hours a day and DO IT.

For many people in a writer's life - often our nearest and dearest - it's impossible to understand this. Your friends and family think it's amazing that you're a writer, but they still cling to that belief that writing works by a strange process of 'inspiration', whereby scribbling for an hour now and again will produce a novel in a few months time. People who would never dream of calling you up in your office and expecting you to skip out on a meeting will expect you to drop your writing, and will get hurt, offended and annoyed when you can't.

And yes, that's can't, not won't. If you are your own boss, you need to be twice as strict with yourself as another person would be or else you will never finish anything. And no, there's no 'probably' in that sentence, because it's fact. You will never finish anything - nothing at all - if you don't make yourself do it. If you don't force yourself to keep on producing words through illness, boredom, lack of inspiration, depression and most of all, times when there are all kinds of other calls on your attention which you must ignore.

When I meet people for the first time and they ask what I do, and I tell them 'I'm a writer' there's a comment that I hear time and time again. A comment that I'm so used to now that it doesn't even infuriate me anymore, it just makes me feel tired out.

'Oh, I've always meant to write a book - but I don't have the time'.

What I always want to say (and never do) is, 'Wow, it's a good job I bought all those extra hours at the Time shop then, isn't it?'

Where do these people think the time to write comes from? Do they imagine that we all have trust funds, or that the moment a publishing contract appears we're suddenly millionaires? Do they honestly believe that writers have no lives, no families, no commitments? That we don't have to earn a living, make heart-breaking choices, go without sleep, give up other things that we love, in order to carve out the time to do this?

I get emails from people all the time asking me how to get published, and I usually write back with sound advice about polishing your work, doing research, being persistent. But the real truth is that the way you become a writer is to be willing to make sacrifices for writing's sake.

I've been doing this a few years now, but I'm still not used to it. And on days like this, I wonder if it's worth it at all.

Captain Space Bunny

So I'm writing a new story - one of those stories that presents itself to you in a flash of brilliance and makes you jump up and go running for a pen. Actually in this case it was a character who presented himself to me. A character the likes of which I have never written before.

I was looking at the Open Calls page on Dreamspinner's website and found a request for stories for a new anthology called 'Making Contact'. As you might expect with that title, the anthology is space themed:

Give us galaxy soldiers, space pirates, traveling aliens, intrepid explorers, and more.

Somehow, reading this, my back-brain did a little left turn and I found myself imagining, not macho space pirates or a muscle-bound galaxy soldier, but someone a little more vulnerable. Someone whose past is a little darker.

We're always reading stories and seeing films about genetically modified super soldiers, but in a future where cloning and genetic manipulation become common-place, worse things are bound to happen. Someone's going to start using the technology to create people - pets - to order. I could see a picture in my head of one of these tragic people, created to be hurt and used by others, brought up to belong to the last people in the universe who should ever be responsible for another person.

And thus Captain Space Bunny was born.

That's not his name, by the way. It's just the way I think of him. Captain Space Bunny is a human who was created, was genetically modified, to be someone's idea of a perfect sex slave. He's tiny and fragile looking, with ivory skin and pink hair and massive pink eyes. He also has bunny ears and a tail. He was made to be extremely strong and have accelerated healing so that if his owner got a bit carried away, he wouldn't be permanently broken (wouldn't want to throw that much money away, after all). Captain Space Bunny spent his 'childhood' moving between a lab where he was treated like a science project and a brothel where his owner did unspeakable things to him.

And then one day he managed to escape. He got out, got away from his owner and creators and found freedom. He taught himself how to act like a normal person and get on in the world, found a job on a ship, worked his way up. He taught himself to fight and use his strength. He cultivated a tough, cocky, Johnny Depp persona. Eventually he got his own ship. But at the end of the day, no matter how strong and capable he is, he's still pink and white and cute, with bunny ears and tail. He still has to deal with the way that people react to that, and the fact that anyone who looks at him can probably guess why he was created and what his past involves.

How could a person like that ever manage to fall in love? How would they ever learn to trust someone - even if someone was able to see past their sex-bunny exterior to the damaged soul inside? That was the story I wanted to write.

The problem with flashes of brilliance like this is that they often fall apart when you start work on the hard graft. Forcing your own, purely intuitive understanding of a character onto the page, making that character jump through hoops in your story, can rob them of their magic. That's what I'm struggling with at the moment. But I'm desperate to give my little space bunny his chance at love. Lord knows he deserves it.

The other problem is that I don't think I'm going to manage to bring the story in under the word limit for the anthology. So I'll just have to hope that someone will want to publish it as a novella. But in any case, I can't stop now. Captain Space Bunny has things to do.

Editing...Fun?

Well, my nerve-wracking wait has come to an end. I received the edited file for my novella And Is Never Shaken from DSP, all marked up and ready for me to revise.

I had been biting my nails about this for a while because I've never worked with an editor before who I haven't met face to face, and I've never worked with an American editor without their comments being filtered though a British one (and British editors like to make their authors quiver with tales of how incredibly harsh American editors are). I was also a little nervous because this is my first m/m story, and what if the editor, being very experienced at working in m/m, finds loads of amateur mistakes? What if they want more sex scenes? What if they want to change loads of things and I don't agree? Argh!

I actually really enjoy revising - and yes, I know this makes me an unnatural freak, shunned by other writers. But I do. There are times when I've been in tears because an editor completely misunderstood a character or kept asking for explanations of stuff I thought was perfectly self-explanatory, but usually once I calm down the value of the comments sinks in and then it's all fun. I'm effectively trying to beat myself at my own game, and I do love a challenge like that.

But it's also exhausting, because once I start revising that's all I want to do. Eat? Nah. Sleep? No way. Talk to other human beings? Not a chance. I go into Revision Mode and it's like Terminator Mode only more terrifying. My last book was 120,000 words long. By the time finished everyone I knew thought I'd died and been eaten by Alsatians.

Bearing this in mind, it seems silly that I was so stressed out by the idea of working on a fairly short story, especially since m/m writing is supposed to be a lovely hobby. But I'm a naturally pessimistic and anal retentive type. I always expect the worst.

What a pleasant surprise then, to find that instead of wanting to rip the novella apart and rewrite it with dinosaurs fighting vampires, my Dreamspinner Press editor basically just wanted to fix all my stupid English Grammar mistakes (I thought I'd done quite well with my American Grammar, but...well, that was a beautiful dream), point out a couple of typos and spelling errors, tell me that I'd got a fact about Andrea Botcelli incorrect, and clarify whose hand was sliding up whose arm and whose leg went where.

There was no misinterpreting of the characters, wild requests for changes in the plot, mocking laughter or nit-picking. Frankly, if my print editor did this kind of job, I'd marry her. I managed to turn the ms around in about an hour, and it was pure pleasure. Phew.

I can only hope and pray that revising my other m/m stories will go as smoothly. Even though I actually got my first m/m contract with Torquere (for novelette Love Bites) a week before And Is Never Shaken was accepted by DSP, I haven't heard anything from TQ about editing yet. I assume this is because TQ puts out two or three times as many titles as DSP, so their queue is longer. Patience, Alexi, patience...

And Is Never Shaken Cover!

OMG!

(Yes, I know I'm too old for OMG, but sometimes you just gotta).

Props to the geniuses of the Dreamspinner Press art department, for coming up with something that made me squee like a Twihard meeting a Robert Pattinson lookalike in the local grocery store. I really love this; it captures the mood of the story and characters perfectly. I've had a half dozen print covers designed for my work now, but not one of them felt *right* like this one does. They even put the coffee cups on there!

Made my day. Made my weekend.

I'm still waiting to get to the top of the editing pile at DSP, and begin work on revisions of this story. I'm a tiny bit nervous because I don't know how 'hard' the editing will be. I've worked with American editors before, but usually in collaboration with my British one - and British editors tend to make jokes about how harsh American editors are, and how American authors quiver in fear of them.

But at the same time I'm really psyched about getting this story out there, and can't wait to begin. Fingers crossed it'll be soon, before the anxiety gets to me and I start chewing my own hair or barking like a dog.

The Bitter Sting of Rejection

Woe! Woe! Darkness has come upon me!

Well, it's not quite as bad as all that. My short story, Precious Possession, which I wrote for the Dreamspinner Press Midsummer's Nightmare anthology, has been rejected. It's my first rejection as an m/m author.

I'm a little sad, because I actually really love the story and think it's unusual and deserves to be published. But that's the reason why anthologies are prestigious and gain so much attention, of course - there are big, well known names in there which draw in a lot of readers, and that means that the editors can be super discriminating. There's no feedback, so I don't know if the problem was length, or my interpretation of the theme or just the fact that the hero gets possessed by a female ghost during sex (I have a sneaking feeling it might be that last one - there's a certain squink factor to it).

So my run of acceptances has now come to an end. Despite the fact that I knew it had to happen eventually, and despite being very used to rejection, it still always knocks your confidence a little. You find yourself looking at your WIP and wondering 'Will this one get rejected too?'. It makes you a little more cautious, perhaps, and that's not always a good thing where writing is concerned. But maybe it makes you a little bit more of a perfectionist too, which is always good for your work.

This rejection means my progress now stands at: One novella placed with Dreamspinner Press, awaiting editing. One novelette and one novella with Torquere Press, both awaiting editing. One completed short story needing a home.

There was a notice on the Torquere author's noticeboard the other day that they're up to date on their sip submissions and are looking for new stuff, so I think I might reformat the file (one of the hardest things about submitting for epublishers is how they all have their own quirky requirements on format - DSP like double spaced with line indents, TQ like single spaced with carriage breaks after paragraphs) and send it to them. Can't hurt.

In the meantime, though I'm going to London next week to talk to my print publisher about my new book for them, I'm still avoiding working on it. Instead I'm playing with a new m/m novella with a futuristic theme. What can I say? A character presented himself to me, and I could not resist. He's...unique.

More about that one later.

Checking In

Well, it's been a little while since I blogged - mostly because I've been wrestling intensely with that story which wanted to be a novel. In refusing to allow that, and trying to keep it to novella length, I'm very much afraid that I've actually killed it. I've stuck midway, and looking at it now I find that all my enthusiasm is gone.

After a couple of weeks of struggling I suddenly remembered that I'm not contracted on this story, that there's no advance paid and no deadline, and that since I'm writing m/m stories mostly for the sheer fun of it, I really don't have to do what I would normally do and force myself onwards despite hating every second of it. I can stop if I want and just let it go. Cue huge relief and a weight falling off my shoulders. I've put the story away. I may get it out and give it another try one day in the future, or I may not. The relief comes from knowing that it doesn't much matter either way.

So I'm now probably going to start looking at my next print novel under my other name (which is contracted and has had an advance paid) which might mean a little gap in m/m stories. But since I've decided to view m/m writing as a lovely, fun hobby, I might well carry on scribbling on the side, just a lot more slowly and with less pressure. I have an idea for a story I'm pretty sure might end up as novel length, which will require a little planning, and that's the next m/m story I'll probably work on, if I find that I have time around working on the print novel.

In other news, I've had an email from Torquere Press saying that they want Ruby Slippers (which is the last novella length story I wrote) as a High Ball. I've emailed back accepting. This means that I've just got one short story at Dreamspinner now that I've not heard back on, but that was for an anthology and the deadline isn't until today anyway, so hopefully I might hear soon. Good stuff.

The Sound of Silence...

So...it's quiet around here. One might even say, too quiet...

I'm waiting to be assigned an editor and start work on both the stories I've contracted. No response yet other than acknowledgment on the other two that I submitted. This new story is going slooooowly. And it's quiet out there in cyberspace too, because no one reads this blog or goes on my new website (yet).

Kinda feeling a little lonely, to be honest. I need an email from an editor or something to cheer me up. Or - pizza. Okay, pepperoni, here I come.

Online, Baby!

As of today, I not only have this very bitchy blog, I also have a sexyfine website, built by yours truly. I nearly have myself a brain explosion last night trying to get it online, but it's now finished and I can sit back and bask in the snugness for ten minutes before going back to work on the current novella.

There's not a whole lot on the website yet, because I don't have cover images, publication dates or any edited excerpts to post. So instead I stuffed it full of pictures of gorgeous, half-naked men, which I hope will do in the meantime.

Yay! Half naked hotties!

That's good enough for me.

Stubborn Stories

And by stubborn I don't mean bad, or even necessarily ones that get stuck in the middle. I just mean...ones that have a mind of their own.

Writers sometimes talk about characters that have a mind of their own. This can be great fun, as when, for example, one of my characters put her foot down about the fiery climactic ending of her story and insisted on a quiet, clever ending of perfect poetic justice instead. And I'm serious, that ending wasn't even on my radar. I wanted fire! Death! Blood! But none of that would have been as good as what happened just by following the character's path. And I'm intensely proud of that ending now.

Sometimes characters having a life of their own can be bad: witness one particular story which is not and might never be finished because one of the lead characters just didn't seem right no matter what I did. She was fighting me, but not in the good way. I went back and rewrote her a million times, determined to make her what I needed her to be, but no matter how I changed her entrance or her origin story, she always ended up being a stubborn, pain in the butt b*tch. She made it so hard to write that my frustration with her drew in the other characters and the plot, and ended in a giant tangle which I still haven't figured out how to fix.

But what I'm really talking about here is stories that have their own lives. The story I'm working on now was supposed to be about ghosts. And possibly fate. And then suddenly it wasn't. Suddenly it was about modern day witchcraft, lovers that are something more than human, and following dreams. Where did it come from? I had characters and events planned, which are still more or less unchanged, but the crux, the spirit, the feeling of the story just grew up around those on its own, completely unexpectedly.

And it's not just the themes of the story that have switched around on me. I can feel this one growing too. Imagine having hold of a small, thin little grass snake that's coiled calmly around your hand. Then suddenly it starts to struggle and whip around fiercely while simultaneously growing to the size of a boa constrictor. That's how hanging onto this story feels. It doesn't want to be a short story. It wants to be a novel.

The problem is: is can't be. I'm writing m/m fiction in the little gap before I really, really need to get to work on my next novel (which I'm writing under my other name, and no, still not telling). I intend to carry on writing m/m stories, and I might even try for a novel at some point, but I'm going to need to concentrate on the new novel exclusively for a little while when I start, and that means I need to get this m/m story finished. And preferably in another week or two. I don't have time to write an m/m novel now. I don't even want to - part of the joy of m/m fiction and publishing online is that you can feel free to write stories that are short and perfect and polished. For me, writing short stories is like writing almost for pure fun. It takes away 90% of my stress and angst to know that I won't still be labouring away on the same story in a year's time (and it does normally take between a year and eighteen months for me to finish a novel).

So I need to be really strict, put my foot down, and stay to this stubborn story, Hey, it's great to meet you, and I love what you did with the selkie thing there, but no, you don't get to be a novel length story. You have to be around 20,000 words long. Maybe 25,000. That's it. Sorry. No more. Look, stop crying now, it's embarrassing. Eat a cookie. There, there.

And then I have to hope that the story will work with me, and not end up in a Gordian Knot, because, really, deep inside, the stubborn ones are the ones I'm the fondest of, and I'd hate not to get to finish this.

Status Check

Okay. I'm a newbie m/m author - so new that I'd never tried to write an m/m story (not even slash fic) until January this year. So it's nearly the end of February now and I'm just going to do a little status check

M/m novelette Love Bites (about a man who has long suppressed his bisexuality and what happens when he 'comes out' to his best friend) was completed and submitted to Torquere Press 26/1/2010.

M/m novella And is Never Shaken (concerning immortal love, classical music and reincarnation) was completed and submitted to Dreamspinner Press 08/02/2010.

Love Bites was accepted by Torquere Press as a Single Shot on 15/02/2010. Contact now signed.

And is Never Shaken was accepted by Dreamspinner Press 19/02/2010. Contract now signed.

So far, so good.

Stuff I'm waiting to hear about:

M/m novella Ruby Slippers (featuring Ethan and Jamie from Love Bites as secondary characters and telling the story of a police officer and a drag queen) completed and submitted to Dreamspinner Press 21/02/2010.

Stuff I haven't submitted yet:

Short m/m story Precious Possession (about a relationship that goes wrong and how some ghostly intervention saves it) which I intend to send for Dreamspinner's 'A Midsummer Night's Nightmare' anthology, but haven't yet because I don't want to flood them.

Stuff I'm still working on:

Another m/m story (which may turn out to be a novelette, but feels more like a novella) called Red Sky at Night which is actually set in the UK (my first!) and concerns...I dunno, maybe ghosts or something, possibly fate. Lots of sea imagery. Not sure yet.

Huh. Looking pretty good there. Slightly concerned that I need to perhaps look at other publishers through, or else Torquere and Dreamspinner are going to be getting sick of me, at the rate I'm putting stuff out. I'll make a decision on that when I finish Red Sky.

The Bane of my Existence

Godammit. What is with my emails?

For some reason my Outlook account is refusing to let me send any emails to one of the publishers that I've contracted a story to. They can email me, but all my emails to them (and I've tried various email addresses) get returned by a the mail administrator as rejected by a remote server (whatever the crap that means).

I've got a different email account with GMX, which is the email I use for this blog as it happens, and I've managed to return the contract to the publisher using that. But when I attempted to send a submission to them through that second account (Ruby Slippers, the one I've just finished) it apparently didn't download correctly for them.

WHY ME/NOW? Argh.

I know I'm just rambling to myself here, but if the Cyber Gods would hear me and answer my prayer by fixing this, I would be forever grateful.

And is Never Shaken...

Well, I got up this morning to find an email from Dreamspinner Press with a contract attached to it! These e-publishers really do work incredibly fast. So this means that my second m/m story, And is Never Shaken, now has a publisher too. Exciting!

Here's my own little synopsis of the story, which is novella length (22,000 words) although of course that might go up or down if we do any editorial work.

And is Never Shaken is the story of Cassian Ford, a successful writer and English Professor in his forties, who lost the boy he believed to be the love of his life as a teenager. When he sees that boy - apparently reborn - walking past him one day on the street, he attempts to pursue him.

But Andy, the twenty-two year old man in question, doesn't believe in reincarnation. He feels a deep connection to Cassian, but he wants to be loved for himself, not resemblance to a dead man, and Cassian has to prove that it's Andy he really wants before they can have a hope of a relationship.

I need to print the contract, sign it and get it back to them, which is where living in a different country is kind of annoying, but hopefully airmail will get it there fairly quickly.

Now I just need to finish my third m/m story and decide who to submit it to...

The Big No-No

Just a quick post this morning before I head to the office.

I'm about halfway through my third m/m short story now. I'm getting to the point where everything's so good between the two heroes that something awful now has to happen. I call this the Big No-No. So far everything I've written in this genre has a moment like this - a place where misunderstandings or bad choices separate the characters, forcing them to face up to their shit. It's written to be sad, heart-rending, perhaps a little infuriating and most of all, inevitable.

But has anyone else noticed that many m/m stories don't HAVE these moments? Some m/m stories just seem to involve two hot guys meeting, dating, having sex three or four times and then deciding to stay together? I guess these would technically be 'slice of life' stories, that instead of following a dramatic structure just aim to give a snapshot of someone's existence...except that slice of life stories wouldn't generally be tied up in a neat little bow at the end like most of these stories are.

Some stories - like for example Vic Winter's 'Cinnamon Buns' which I just read - really make this work by making it about the slice of life, showing us the hero changing, learning a new job and finally falling in love. There doesn't need to be a dramatic No-No because that's not what the story is about. It's about a journey, not about the relationship itself.

But sometimes when you read an m/m story which refuses to depict any conflict, any tough choices, any real emotional depth...doesn't it all feel a little pointless? Like you're reading a piece of fanfiction specifically written to display two character's hotness without actually revealing anything new about them because we all already know everything there is to know about Harry/Draco, Aragorn/Legolas etc. already? Except this isn't fanfiction.

Stories like these have everything go right for the hero and hero, no matter what. Often the characters are presented with what should be tough situations, but they breeze through without a blink, without any internal questioning, purely to show how wonderful and perfect they are. If someone opposes them, that person will be a one dimensional bigot. If someone gets in their way that person will be crazy or evil. Black and white. And any other characters in the story (who aren't the one dimensional bigots) will always agree to just how wonderful they are as well.

I know why these stories get published. It's the same reason I've managed to get interest from an e-publisher so quickly. Demand for m/m stories is huge and still growing. If you write reasonably well (grammatically, engagingly) you can probably get published, because editors need more stories than they're actually getting. But doesn't this high demand mean that promising authors who should be developing their craft, learning their trade, getting strong editorial feedback, even getting rejected and trying hard to improve their work so it doesn't happen again - instead think that their Mary-Sue stories are just fine and carry on churning that same old stuff again and again?


Is the m/m market ruining promising new authors instead of nurturing them?

Just how Slutty is Slutty?

Okay, so my first m/m story (which was recently accepted by Torquere Press) features long time friends falling into bed with each other about half an hour after they figure out they're both gay. My second story, which is with another publisher at the moment, features a couple that bump into each other two or three times, then go out on a date and have sex that night. And the story I'm working on now features a couple who meet each other in the park and are having sex within a couple of hours.

Now - let's be honest here - if these were m/f couples, we'd be thinking 'Huh, that's kinda slutty'. I mean, no one cares, in an erotic story, but still...we'd be thinking it, right? And there's no way it would happen in any kind of a traditional romance. Half your traditional romance stories still have virgins for heroines, and a good chunk of the remainder have heroines who've never had an orgasm until the hero's magic penis waves in their direction.

This has always bothered me, even in my teens when I still was a virgin. It's such an unfair, archaic double standard. We're all supposed to be fighting against it, and yet publishers keep putting that stuff out there, which means a lot of women must be buying into it wholesale.

And I think it's part of the reason that I - and so many, many women - like m/m stories so much. Sex. Lots of sex. Muscular, sweaty, man on man sex and best of all: NO GUILT. So long as those guys suit up (I hate stories where gay guys go bareback unless they're damn sure they've been monogamous and tested multiple times first. And even so...come on, people, you've heard of window periods, right? Just use a fricking condom) it's fine with us if they get each other off minutes after they walk into the same toilet in a club, without even exchanging names. I love to read about sluts in m/m fiction, so long as they fall in love and reform before the end. A story that starts with a hero having meaningless, hot sex with someone in the back room of a club and walking away whistling hooks me every time. I want to be that guy. I want to be able to walk into a club and get a guaranteed orgasm in an hour or less (women who tried sex that way in clubs will know that orgasms are rarer for girls in the straight club scene than virgins in the gay club scene).

And yet...aren't we falling into a kind of prejudice of our own by buying into this? Are we all in so much of a rush to get our rocks off that we're rushing our characters too? I have a couple of gay friends (well, out gay friends) and they're quiet, sweet, genuine guys who are in long term relationships. And they're young - twenties and thirties. According to most gay fiction these guys should be having a lot of meaningless sex right about now, but I'm pretty sure my best gay friend would be about as keen to get down on his knees for a stranger in a club bathroom as I am (right now, anyway).

So...maybe in my next story I'll try to give the characters a bit of a longer courtship. Draw things out a little. Wait for the sex.

Or maybe I'll carry on writing about sluts. I do love 'em. Sigh.

Virgin Blogger

That's right. I'm a virgin. Be gentle with me.

My very first m/m novelette has just been accepted by the Mighty Torquere Press as a single shot. Hence this new blog, just in case anyone wants to know more about me when the shot comes out because Lord knows I'm on Google the minute I want to find out more about an author (and how frustrated I get when there's nothing to find).

I'll be providing links and more details as I get used to this whole blogging thing, and as the shot actually comes out. Some details now, in case anyone is interested:

Love Bites


'Love Bites' begins with James McKinley sitting down in an expensive French restaurant on Valentine's night with his long-time girlfriend. He has a ring in his pocket and a plan to make his dream of settling down and raising a family come true. Instead he ends up breaking up with Beth and being brought face to face with a part of himself that he has done his best to suppress since college: the part that wants to be held down and fucked hard, by another man.
 
James doesn't know if he can ever share the truth with his conservative family or his straight-as-a-dye best friend and business partner Ethan. So in an attempt to figure out if his fantasies are the real thing or just a phase, he heads out to Love Bites, a local gay club, hoping to get some action. Instead he gets the shock of his life - namely Ethan, who practically dry-humps him on the dance floor before realizing who he is.
 
Carried away by their long ignored sexual chemistry the pair share a blistering night of sex. But in the morning when they're nearly discovered by James' mother, James rejects Ethan and breaks the other man's heart. It's not long before James' realizes that he's made an awful mistake, but now he has to figure out how to come out to everyone his knows - and get the man he loves to forgive him so they they can work on the dream together.

I've been an avid m/m reader for about two years. First came an obsession with anime and manga, then, while reading Ouran High School Host Club, it struck me how intensely hot it was when Tamaki and Kyoya flirted with each other. It also struck me as a little strange that something like that should be in an ostensibly shojo manga, so I did a little research and discovered a whole new genre: shonen-ai, or yaoi. And I was HOOKED.

Very shortly I ran out of yaoi manga to read, and then a LiveJournal Pal suggested I try reading m/m fiction. I bought and downloaded Evangeline Anderson's 'The Assignment' and once again I was hooked. While many things about the genre made me cringe before I even realised there were terms for such cliches (Gay for You, non-con) there were many other things that I loved.


For two years I was content simply to read an enjoy the m/m genre, despite being a published author in another field (no, not telling). Then one day I had An Idea. 


It was one of those ones that hammers at the back of your skull with a pick-axe until you pay attention so - just for fun - I sat down and wrote it. I'd never written any kind of a short story before (I'm normally a novelist) and found it a revelation how much happiness it brought me to craft a novelette in under 20,000 words. The just for fun story turned out to be Love Bites.


Reading it through, I felt a tingle of excitement. It might have started out as just for fun, looking at it now it suddenly seemed more. It was no Josh Lanyon short story (bows down) but...well, it seemed pretty good to me. So, shaking with excitement, I submitted it to Torquere Press.


Frankly, being used to the way that print publishers operate, I didn't expect to hear anything for months, if ever, despite the friendly assurance on the website that you'd get a reply in 6-8 weeks. Imagine my shock when barely two weeks later I got a positive reply! They wanted it! They LIKED my little story! They wanted to PUBLISH IT! Hurray!



And that brings us up to this morning. Me thinks it's time to get to work on another m/m story now.