Category: Writing

News and Whatnot!

I can’t believe I haven’t posted this already, but remember how Carina liked my pitch on Twitter and then requested a look at the partial manuscript and query? Well they took a look at it and THEY WANT TO SEE THE WHOLE MANUSCRIPT.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

So I have been pounding away on that book, tentatively named Business and the Beat, with much excitement.  And in the meantime have been enjoying the launch of In Another Country with Painted Hearts Publishing–it’s gotten some lovely reviews! Pink Heart Society said this:

There were moments of vulnerability that really clawed at my heart. Jeffries nailed            the ebb and flow of tension in new relationships. I must also mention the great use of        consent and safe sex practices as well. High five for that! I will be recommending this        book the next time I’m asked for something unique and full of the feels.

Plus they put the book on their finalist list for Best Romantic Suspense! Thanks, y’all.

And AND I made my first book, the f/f paranormal romance novelette Spark & Change into a paperback! Did it mostly for the learning experience but I was surprised at how much it meant to me to hold a physical edition of one of my books. Very cool.

I have ideas for the next two standalone full novels, plus two probably-shorter pieces (maybe it would be good to work on the shorter pieces for self-publishing while working on the Carina request?) And I keep thinking that I ought to write a series since everyone says that is what readers are really looking for, but standalones are what keep jumping into my brain and I hate to make those ideas wait. (Probably if I sat down with a piece of paper and a pen and brainstormed series idea, though, Things would Happen.)

And oh lord I have *so* much still to learn about the business end of things, and about advertising and other marketing, and aieeee. I’m listening to lots of podcasts on those subjects, and just bought a book about doing newsletters.

This is a full-time job, y’all! Unfortunately I already have one of those? (This is not a complaint. I’m having fun learning despite the overwhelm!)

Oh, and here’s some news for any Headstones fans out there–their old records are on Spotify now!

Affectionate forehead bumps,

 

Kellum

OH. (My revelation about writer podcasts)

So lately I’ve been listening to a ton of writing/writing business podcasts–largely Mur Lafferty’s “I Should Be Writing,” Mur & Matt Wallace’s “Ditchdiggers” and Joanna Penn’s “The Creative Penn.”

And they’re chock-full of useful information. (And sometimes sexy, sexy accents. David Gaughran, guest on alllll the podcasts, please.)

But it finally occurred to me the other day that, for me at least, information isn’t the main benefit of these podcasts–immersion is.

Because when I bracket my day job with twenty-five minutes morning and evening of many different people talking about writing, it seems very natural to come home and spend a large chunk of my evening writing rather than all the zillion other things I could be focusing on. Because that’s what *everybody* does, right?!?

Anyone else out there with nothing but writing podcasts in their ears right now? Does it work that way for you?

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!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Big Happenings in These Here Parts!!!

So while I was working this past Saturday (Saturday shifts are an occasional hazard of the librarian life) two things happened:

  1. My cover artist sent me the final version of the art for my self-published f/f paranormal romance novelette. Which means, barring unexpected problems, I should be releasing it on WEDNESDAY. WHOOOOOO!!!!!

Isn’t it beautiful?

Spark & Change final cover

 

I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

2) I checked my email and…A PUBLISHER WANTS THE M/M NOVELLA. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

Holding back on further details until I have a signed contract in my hands, but WOW.

I love my day job, but man. I had to wait SEVERAL HOURS before I could come home and run around shrieking with glee for an extended period.

And then go out and have ramen and a bee’s knees cocktail and ice cream.

See you Wednesday!!!

My Cover Artist is Amaaaaazing

She just sent me a preliminary sketch for the cover of my f/f paranormal novelette, Spark and Change, and I cannot stop looking at it. I should have the final cover soon and I can’t wait to share it with y’all!

In the meantime, I thought I’d show you some of her other work so you can see her awesome sweet funny style. Please note that my cover will have fewer aliens, no underpants, and zero flaming spaceships. But more tails.

 

 

You can see more of her amazing stuff at mimre.tumblr.com

I should actually be able to get the book out on Kindle within the next couple of weeks and I am so excited!

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.

 

 

 

A bit of Rough Draft in Progress

Here’s a bit of my current project, which I’m hoping to finish and self-publish within the next few weeks. It’ll be a short, sweet f/f paranormal romance between a werewolf and a low-powered fae. Here’s a scene from a first date that’s going really well:

 

She pulls back and looks at me and then looks up and laughs delightedly. It’s only then that I realize that not all the good warm tingly feelings rushing through me are just because of her—some of them are from my powers going off without me even noticing. Multicolored lights are sparkling and shifting and flitting above my head.

“Yeah,” I say, “behold my extensive fairy powers.”

“Don’t put yourself down, it’s beautiful,” she says. “I feel like I’m standing in a magic firefly grove in an anime or something.”

That’s when the lights double and spread to surround her too, which has never happened before. She gasps a little and holds her hands out into them, fingers flared, and some rush together and then pour through her fingers like water. “They feel,” she says, “pepperminty, somehow.”

“They’ve never done this before. I guess they, uh, like you. Or…I do.”

She smiles, broader than I’ve seen, kisses me again, and murmurs in my ear, “Let’s you and me and the peppermint fireflies go to bed.”