Category: Personal life

Catching up!

Whoo! It has been a bit of a whirlwind hereabouts. (More literally than I would have preferred, in one case.)

Book things first: my f/f paranormal romance novelette Spark & Change is out! And people seem to like it, which is awesome. (I love my Goodreads reviews. Thank you, you lovely Goodreads people.) It was a lot of fun to write and I’m so loving that other folks are enjoying it too!

And I’ve mentioned that I have a publisher for the m/m novella–and now that we’ve signed the contract, I can tell you that it’s Painted Hearts Publishing and, barring complications, I expect the book to come out early in 2019! I’m super excited about officially being a Hybrid Author, and I can’t wait for y’all to meet Declan and Tupper.

As for Fun Life Stuff, we recently had an excellent though too short visit from friends who taught a weaving class at my library, ate lots of good food with us (how had we not been to Legend Brewery before? yum) and got the short version of the Peak Richmond Tour (VMFA, TPot Bridge, and breakfast at McLean’s.) And last night we saw the always-fabulous Bootleg Shakespeare from Quill Theatre (the actors have their parts and scripts for a month but don’t rehearse together until the day of the performance.) The ragged rough punkiness of it always lends some humor to even the tragedies when performed that way, but it never detracts from their impact–adds to it, I’d say. Last night was Lear and it was amazing–Foster Solomon in the lead and John Mincks as Edmund were particularly jawdropping.  (And I think it was the third version of that play I’ve seen and I’ve *just* now realized how to remember which is Edmund and which is Edgar–EdGar is Good. EdMund is Malevolent. Duh.)

As for the overly literal whirlwind, as the edges of Hurricane Florence blew through Richmond they spawned a *lot* of tornadoes, so I ended up spending an hour hunkered in a windowless back room of the library with bunches of patrons while everyone’s phones alerted them to tornadoes touching down closer and closer. That was…not fun, but I am grateful they never touched down ON us. Phew.

I’m trying to sort out some issues with MailChimp, and I hope I can get a newsletter actually going soon. Meanwhile I’ve gotten off to a good start on a m/m story–can’t tell yet if it’s going to be a novella or a novel–inspired by those fabulous “Jason Momoa sneaking up on Henry Cavill” pictures. And I have a het romance burbling away on the back burner. Wheeee!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Have Too Many Thoughts

 

This picture, y’all.

Every time this has ever popped up on social media I’ve thought, “Well, THERE’S a goofball rock star/uptight businessman romance novel waiting to happen.”

And for some reason this last time this thought WOULD NOT go away and actual scenes started hollering at me, and dang if this isn’t demanding to be written.

Which means I need to finish up the f/f novelette rough draft and start editing, and I need to FINISH the edits on the previous m/m novella. (I am currently shifting it to past tense–quite a lot of people hate present tense, apparently? Anyway trying to do find-and-replace for frequent verbs had the unintended side effect of a character being briefly named “Chrwastine,” hah.)  I want to actually get at least one thing finished and published before I get neck deep in another book! WHY YOU GOTTA BE SO FIZZY, BRAIN.

This is in addition to regular day-job commitments and oh yeah, MOVING IN A COUPLE WEEKS. Eeeeeeeeek.

 

Staycation time

Have had a lovely semi-lazy week, but with some cheering accomplishments scattered through it. Chief among accomplishments–we found a rental house! We were getting tired of apartment life, and very, very tired of our extraordinarily incompetent new landlords.

We move in June 1, and at that point, dear readers–at that point I will have a WRITING STUDY. Well, one corner will be a writing study, while the rest of the room will have a guest bed and, uh, yarn. So much yarn. But still! A semi-dedicated writing space that is not the corner of the couch!  WOOT.

And speaking of writing, yes I did make some progress on the sweet f/f paranormal short this week as well. Here’s a rough-draft snippet:

Sometimes I go by her work and say hi. I’ve kind of lost track of the calendar but I          guess she doesn’t have that luxury. So when I go by one day she tells me she’s gonna          be incommunicado for three nights; she ducks her head a little and says, “That time.”

“Yeah, okay,” I say. I’m scheduled to work until after sunset so we won’t get to hang out, and I’m still at that stage where it’s wrenching to go three nights without seeing someone, but what the hell, I can catch up on homework a little. I’m working on a paper on reader’s advisory for #ownvoices paranormal fiction.

 

 

 

Blurrrgh

I have a nasty cold, y’all. Actually staying home from Day Job to lie on the couch with the dog and occasionally moan piteously.

Hoping my head clears enough later to write a bit, although right now there’s no room in there for ideas, what with all the phlegm.

One nice thing about the morning thus far: I finally started reading KJ Charles’ writing blog, which is both useful and delightful: kjcharleswriter.com . The writerly tips (and publisher…y? tricks) are funny and helpful, and her lists of recommended books make every single one look like a MUST.  (I can never refer to anything as a “must” without hearing Michael Stipe saying it on “Voice of Harold.” Which is him singing the liner notes of a gospel album he found in the studio over the music of R.E.M.’s “7 Chinese Brothers.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb6jjEApfmg You’re welcome. )

She doesn’t update it all *that* frequently, looks like, but what’s there is cherce.

The blog also reminds me that somehow I have only read ONE of her books, a situation that requires immediate remedy. But first I will totter around the block in an abbreviated dogwalk, and then probably take a nap to recover from this herculean effort. BLURGH.