Month: June 2017

Cover Reveal for Lover, Destroyer!

I’m so happy to share with you the book cover for Lover, Destroyer! Here’s a little preview of it. I’ll probably show you the entire thing once it’s published. Next_hub on Fiverr created this cover. I’m thrilled with it because it looks so much better than the idea I pitched to her. I love artists that can do that–take what a client says and do something better with it.

Kite looks dark and foreboding, and little tawny Elarhe practically glows. This is very much what the book is about–a bright, shiny guy comes into an melancholic, brooding guy’s life and changes it in profound ways. It’s a little like The Sound of Music without yucky kids and Nazis.

Lover, Destroyer will be available on Amazon soon!

You can reach next_hub here.

LD book sample

Story Euphoria

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No, I have not dropped off the face of the Earth. Whenever I get to the end of a project, I start getting hyperfocused and can’t stop until I’m done. So, the past week, I’ve hardly slept, probably lost weight, and have barely slept. Housework? Bwahaha. No, I’ve just been writing. But today, I finished the rough draft of my m/m romance, Lover, Destroyer.

It’s basically an old fashioned gothic romance with dudes and kink. I’m changing the cover, but I’ll reveal it soon. For now, I’m just basking in something I think of as story euphoria. If you’ve ever seen the musical My Fair Lady (I love old musicals), you probably remember the scene where Audrey Hepburn’s character can’t sleep after going to a dance and keeps spinning around the room singing. This feeling is sort of like that.

That world is still in my head, but it’s a blur of images now. The characters have gone silent and are standing, holding hands, listening to the applause ringing in my blood. I’m utterly, completely happy–euphoric. I’ll slowly return to all of the drudgery of everyday life (including hygiene), knowing that in a week or so I’ll start the painful process of editing and revising. For now, however, I’m spinning around the room, singing.

 

 

Work Update

This is just a quick update for anyone interested in what I’m working on now. I’m about 50 thousand words into the third Astralsphere book. I’m estimating it at about 100-130 thousand words. We’ll see. It is sort of on the back burner at the moment. I realized I could finish an m/m (gay) romance that I had started more quickly, so I’m devoting all of my current energy to it.

No, it’s not the sequel to Because Faery Godmonster, my first m/m romance. That one was a zany romantic comedy. This new one has some humor, but it’s more serious. It’s set in the dystopian world of my het fantasy romance, The Inquisitor’s Gift. (Cinder actually has a supporting role in it because I love him and can’t resist writing him into everything. His world clashes with that of The Astrasphere Spiral, otherwise he and Lycian would be buddies. Lycian could really use a friend like Cinder. sigh)

I’ll probably write the sequel to Because Faery Godmonster after I finish the next Astralasphere book. So, that romcom sequel will probably be out sometime around the first of next year, but I’ll try for sooner. I think the Velvet and Chainmail series is going to be really fun to write. The sequel is currently in a rough outline form.

I don’t know that the genres of my books make much sense from a marketing point of view–I have coming of age tales mixed with erotic romances, but they all have a fantasy element. They make sense in my head.

Loving a Novel and Abandoning It

People have asked me which of my novels is my favorite. The answer is whatever I’m working on at that moment. The novel of now is always my favorite.

Maybe this is because I’m an INFP. NFs look to the future. When I’m writing a novel, I’m living for the future–for that moment when it’s born and real and ready to be read by people who aren’t me.

I usually know the end of a story around the same time I find its beginning. I write toward the ending, adjusting it if necessary. I also usually have more than one going at a time. If one takes off, it gets my undivided attention until it’s finished.

Once it’s done, I usually hate it for a while. I move onto the next project in line, my new love. I used to feel guilty about this, but I think it’s my way of letting the work go, letting it be complete without me. Ultimately, my books are for readers; I merely produce them.

Unintended Messages

Sometimes writing is hard. For me, it’s often a fun, out of body experience that rivals almost everything else I know. But sometimes it kinda sucks.

I’m releasing a short story set in the same world as my epic fantasy series, The Astralasphere Spiral, on Amazon later today. I’m going to provide a link here for my website visitors to get a free copy. I do all of this with trepidation. I said earlier in the week that I would release the short story by the end of the week, so that’s exactly what I’m doing.

However, after a comment from a beta-reader, I’m concerned there might be a message here that I absolutely did not intend. Anyone who knows me would know that. Alas, nobody out there knows me. Nobody in the wide world knows my political and moral stances (unless you follow me on Twitter, in which case you know I hate Trump and love cats.) The problem with a story is that it has to stand on its own two feet and wander out into the greater world without me there to look over its shoulder and explain it.

Sometimes you can write something and fill it with your themes, but little worms find their way into the mix. I’m a control freak, so this is aggravating to no end. I hope the story doesn’t say things I don’t intend, but I can’t change certain aspects of it because I’ve set those plot points up in other, published stories.

If you’re interested in reading the short story anyway, you can get a free copy here.

The Mushrooming Prologue

While working on the latest installment in  The Astralasphere Spiral, I realized that the prologue had gotten a bit out of hand. I wonder if this happens to other writers. It happens frequently to me. This particular little mushroom is a glance back in time at the events surrounding Lycian’s birth and gives us a glimpse of Benth as a young boy. (Benth plays a key role in the next book, so I wanted to show how their lives intertwined even before Lycian was born.

Since the prologue really ran away with itself, I’m publishing it as a short story on Amazon. It should be available within the next few days.

mushroom book

Free Dystopian Fantasy Romance!

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The Inquisitor’s Gift is free today! In a pre-industrial world, Petal is forced to become an Inquisitor, a member of an elite police force serving the Overfather. Her job is to interrogate prisoners, to break them. Her latest prisoner is a man she knows, the teacher she pined for as a student at the mages’ academy. She has allowed herself to believe she worked for justice and that the prisoners are all evil, now she must question her beliefs.

Fun fact: The spell system is based on chakras!

You can get your copy here!

Another Review from Jennie Reads!

I was pleasantly surprised yesterday to receive another four-star review from the blog, Jennie Reads. You can read the review in it’s entirety here.

This review is for Another World’s Song, Book 1 of the Astralasphere Spiral. I thought this tip was interesting:

This is the first book in the Astralasphere Spiral. I read them in reverse which is the order I would suggest – because the second book is an incredible story with plenty of action and intrigue where the first one does a wonderful job of setting up the characters and the plots that will arise in the second book.

I think this is probably true. I realized when I released Under the Shadow that it was the stronger book of the two. Hopefully, Book 3 will be even better! I learned a lot about world building in Another World’s Song–as well as how to finish a book. (You write ‘the end’ and walk away from it. I’m almost not kidding. It’s possible to spend years fussing over a work without being able to give it up.)

Get a free copy of Another World’s Song, Book 1 of the Astralasphere here.

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Just for visiting this website, get a free copy of the second book, Under the Shadow, here.

UTS_little_cover

Pride and Pox and Gossamer

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June is Pride Month! Pox and Gossamer, the heroes of my zany fantasy romcom want to celebrate it with you. You can get a free copy of Because Faery Godmonster here.

Because Faery Godmonster is about a warrior-priest named Goss–short for Gossamer and a necromancer named Pox. It garnered 4.25 stars on Joyfully Jay. Check out the review here. And here’s a highlight:

The world building is light and simple, drawing on familiar tropes to anyone whose ready a fantasy story or played any MMO — be it table-top or online — which helps color in the background world and story. The characters are true to themselves without falling into cliched tropes, only skirting lightly around them.

This was a fun book to read, with just enough humor and romance to flesh out the plot. I’m glad there are sequels planned because I truly enjoyed watching Goss and Pox make a muddle of things. I can’t wait to see what’s next in store for them.

The light, geekily goofy flavor of this sexy little story is very different from my other books, which are darker and heavier. Look for a sequel later this year!