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.