As for the Bluewater Bay novel, I wrote synopsis and blurb last weekend, and finished the cover art request, so that one’s out of my hands until the dev edits come back.

That leaves me free to work on Black Box. I started writing that one around Christmas, but fizzled out after only a few hundred words. The plot outline I had was just not working. The beginning bored me to tears. And if it bores me, it’s going to bore you, which is not acceptable. I’d been more or less idly kicking that one around in my head for the past few weeks, the muse feeding me stingy little bits and one-liners that ever so slightly shifted the characterization of both protags. Today I sat down to redo the outline. I threw index cards around like confetti, rearranged them in elaborate mosaics, scribbled here, scratched out there–in short, I made an inspiring creative mess of things, and I’m much happier with what I have now. I should be able to do at least the first few chapters, before I run into a couple of looser points that need to be tied down still. We’ll see.

So far, dev edits are going smoothly (I haven’t gotten to the hairier parts yet). I’m almost through chapter 7, just have to enlarge one scene for a tad more connective tissue. If this sounds like surgery, the analogy is not that far off.

There’s, of course, the possibility that I’m living in a fool’s paradise, and that I’m so happily gambolling along simply because I haven’t heard back from my editor yet. I choose to ignore that possibility. Onward ho!

The muse hates edits, too, btw. Possibly even more than me. She went on vacation somewhere and told me to call her when I’m ready to continue writing BWB. Screw her. I can at least take the weekend off. It started as a bit of procrastination, but actually, turning the brain off and playing with wood and drills and the circular saw (No, I’m not dismembering my editor, just building a deck planter.) gives me just enough creative juice back to think up solutions for some knotty problems.  There are the clear demands of the letter of edits (more of this, less of that). But there are also murkier thoughts and the uneasy weighing of the demands of the story against the demands of the market. It can feel a bit like Indy trying to make it through the Temple of Doom. I’m sure there’s another, longer blog post in that, but that one needs a bit more detachment and percolation.

So, for now, the printout sits on my desk along a pile of edit notes awaiting Monday, a long sigh, a self-motivating kick in the posterior, and buckets of coffee.

Remember the surprise project I mentioned back in April? The contemporary in a shared universe? I’ve been wriggling to tell you all about that.

So, when, some ten days ago, Riptide Publishing raised the curtain and officially announced the Bluewater Bay series, I erupted all over twitter and tumblr. But I just didn’t get to blog about it. The muse and real life conspired to keep me busy with other things.

Which, that muse. Seriously. She’s been bugging me about the third Bengt & Alex book (which is going to be the fourth–and so far last–Santuario book) as if there was no tomorrow. That one is not in any way scheduled yet, Muse. It doesn’t even have a plot, only a very general idea of needing to resolve a last issue from the first book and maybe bringing the series to a full circle if I can pull it off.

Anyway, Bluewater Bay. The contemp I’m currently writing is part of that series and will probably come out late next year. I’m very excited about being part of this shared universe. It’s a first for me, and I’m having a blast writing it. Remember the names Xavier and Doran. I’m occasionally posting snippets on twitter.

In other news, Santuario 2 is currently in dev edits at Riptide, and I’m expecting it back any day now, hoping any changes won’t be too substantial (Don’t we always?). For that one I’m expecting a release date late this or early next year. We’ll see.

In between those two projects I’m collecting plot points for Santuario 3. I have the MCs and the corners of a plot, but still need to connect all the dots.

You see, things are moving from and in every conceivable direction at, for me, breakneck speed, and I’m surprisingly unstressed so far. Right, we’ll see how well I’ll hold up when those edits come back.

There, you should be all caught up now about what’s going on in the Gordonverse at the moment. Feel free to poke me with any comments or questions, here, or on any of my other regular haunts. Of the latter, twitter will get you the fastest response. I’m always lagging a bit on FB and GR, and I do apologize for that. My excuse is that there’s only so much time I can take away from writing.

So, yeah, I’m writing something completely different right now. A contemporary romance in a shared universe. More about that later.

In other news, I got all my beta edits back last week, and will be starting the last pre-sub edit pass today, submit the thing in May, and probably work on the requisite structural, line, and copy edits over some part of the summer.

Plus, write the contemp. Which has a submission deadline (My first fiction deadline ever! I’ll be hyperventilating over here in the corner.) for the end of the year. That’s an easy ride for some authors I know. For me, that’s warp speed. The muse, insensitive little witch, is, of course, dancing the Snoopy dance of delight.

1. LGBTQ+ main characters
2. In romantic relationships
3. That have a happy ending. (No Brokeback Mountain here, folks!)

When something like a Queer Romance Blog Hop pops up in my Twitter feed, there’s no way I’ll say no. In fact, I distinctly recall the muse elbowing me in the ribs rather forcefully, going, “That’s us, Dude.” Let’s see if she’s as enthusiastic when it actually comes down to answering the questions that Heidi Belleau thought up for us.

1. Let’s start off with the getting-to-know-you stuff: How do you identify, and what does that mean to you? Whatever level of detail you’re comfortable with, of course!

I identify as bigender. If I could make my body go back and forth, I’d be most happy, but I’ve learned to live with its innate disability. And the internet with its opportunity to live out different personas suits me quite well. (The muse would like me to point out that she’s okay with that, too.)

As for the rest, I’ve known that I was interested in more than one gender pretty much since my age hit the double digits. At the time I wasn’t aware of more than two, and I identified as bisexual for quite a number of years. That awareness has been widened by the amazing people I’ve had the privilege to know and love, so I guess that, of all the labels out there, the one that says ‘pansexual’ comes closest.

It means that, as long as I keep my mouth shut, it’s easy for me to ‘pass’. But it also means that I ‘pass’ as someone I’m really not. The pressure to come out to new acquaintances is relatively lower, which means coming out to anyone always carries with it the whiff of having an agenda. Double-edged sword and all that.

2. What’s your preferred “flavour” of queer romance (e.g. trans*, f/f, m/m, menage with queer characters, etc.) Why?

My preferred flavour is well-written, hard, fast, and ‘real’ (which by no means excludes sf/f – au contraire) with lots of chemistry and soul. I honestly don’t care about the plumbing. For the time being, the sheer numbers out there favour M/M, but I’ll read anything that gives me my fix.

3. Do you write/read/review? Do you think being queer affects your participation or platform in romancelandia?

I write and read. Being queer definitely affects both the what and the where. I don’t think it changes the human condition.

The book I’m currently working on is M/M, the next one will have a transgender protag, and the muse keeps bugging me about an F/F story that sounds really good. To say it with Cole Porter: “Anything goes.”

4. What drew you to queer romance?

I’m always hooked by the books that break molds, the ones that go beyond the narrow matrix established in and by hetero romance publishing, and that take the genre back to a more encompassing definition of romantic love.

5. What do you love about queer romance in general, and/or your specific subgenre?

I love the optimism, the sensuality, the attitude. I love all the fucks not given about restrictive societal norms. And I’m a sucker for poetic justice.

6. What’s your pet peeve?

Hate- and fear-mongering. Always and in any group.

7. What growth would you like to see in the genre, going forward? Any ideas on how to accomplish that?

I’d love to see more LBT in LGBT romance, and more PoC. I’m working on it. I’m convinced the audience is there. Queer publishers specifically asking for it help find the writers.

8. Do you seek out other queer authors when you read?

The story comes first for me. How the author identifies is secondary. But the fact that my social circle tends to be colourful certainly influences the titles popping up on my radar, even if I don’t specifiaclly seek them out.

9. How do you feel, in general, about straight peoples’ participation in reading, writing, and reviewing queer romance?

At some point all of us will read or write about experiences we’ve not personally made. I don’t see that invalidating participation. Wheaton’s Law applies.

10. Rec us 3 titles in your chosen subgenre and tell us why you love them.

I don’t really have a chosen subgenre. (And I’m trying very hard right now to be good and not intentionally misread the ‘chosen sub’ part. We should make the next blog hop about kink.)

• Unhinge the Universe by Aleksandr Voinov and L.A.Witt for the sheer balls with which it defies expectations
• Shattered Glass by Dani Alexander for the brilliant voice
• Portside by Elyan Smith for the haunting, stark poetry (no HEA, but not Brokeback Mountain either)

Thanks for reading and for following the tour! Be sure to use the links below to check out more great posts from our participants!

Meanwhile I’ve returned to Bengt and Alex who are being put through the emotional wringer at the moment. It ain’t pretty, and some of it is a real pain to write, but the muse, she stands by with an unflagging supply of derision whenever I flinch. So it goes.

Lambda Literary: Dick Smart’s Romance in Theory and Practice (last review on page)

Holy hell. And did I mention “Holy Hell”? My first reaction was an amazingly uncool squee.

Then I saw the muse, stunned and slack-jawed, pointing at the words ‘Book Two’ before huddling in her favourite blanket in her favourite corner rocking back and forth, succumbing to the pressure of expectation. It’s way too easy to see her point. ‘Santuario’ was about ten years in the making. How can we come up with an adequate sequel in just one or two?

I try to remind her that a lot of the work, the world-building, the characters, the main plot-line are already done.

“It’s a very different book,” she wails.

“Because the guys are at a different point in their lives and relationship.”

“They’re gonna hate it! We’re gonna disappoint everyone!” She tends to speak in dramatic exclamation points when she’s deeply moved.

“People don’t always want the same thing.”

“They do too!” It’s really hard to argue with exclamation points. She stops rocking and reaches for the brown paper bag to hyperventilate. She’s starting to make me very nervous.

At the same time little bubbles of squee keep exploding inside me. I’ll have to coax the muse with their sparkle and keep the jitters confined to a dark corner.

Meanwhile, here’s to wonderful betas and brilliant editors who’ll take no excuses and no prisoners when it comes to telling me to cut the shit.

The muse is being her assholey self and throwing plot bunnies at me left and right. Some of them I’m filing (hutching?) away for later use, some of them are so out of the blue that I can only give her a wtf look. Like, a Christmas story? I don’t really do Christmas stories. I got murders to plot and characters to torture. Which part of that gave you the idea I’ll write a Christmas story? Now, be a good little muse and focus on friggin’ chapter 5. (I’ll so pay for that line. )

The Spark
I bet most of us have at one point or another in our lives dreamed about a better world, a perfect world without murder or war or … I’d run out of space long before completing that list. The specific dream that inspired Santuario was related to an incident of gay bashing that made me long (not for the first time) for a world where people can just be who they are without fear. It doesn’t take much to set the gears in my writer brain spinning and the muse scrambling. “What if?” questions are a surefire way to do it. What if there was a world without homophobia? What parameters would I need to change to end up with a society (still human) like that? What existing or historical cultures (if any) accept homosexuality as just another way of life, and how do they differ from those that don’t? What underlying causes–

At this point the muse kicked me forcefully in the shins. “Are you seriously contemplating to write about a perfect world?” she asked.
I was all fired up and ready to go. Of course I did.
“Moron,” she said.
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“It’s going to tank,” she said, and proceeded to tick the whys off her delectable fingers: “No drama, no tension, no development. Why would anyone want to read that?”
“Because it’s beautiful.”
“It’ll bore people to tears after the first paragraph. I’m not interested.”
“Fine, I’ll do it without you then.”
She smirked. She knows full well I can’t get anything worthwhile done without her.
I caved. “Any ideas?”
“Kaboom,” she said.
“Huh?” I said. I can be very eloquent that way.
“You can have your perfect culture. If I can throw in a scary and cruel one.”
“And?”
“And kaboom!”
“But I want a world without kaboom.”
“You want a story. Kaboom!”

I swear, that’s how it happened. That was the spark that ignited Santuario. We took it from there and ran with it. Of course it was by no means the last clash between the muse and me. She’s opinionated, and a drama queen. Me, I’m perfectly reasonable, of course.

Background
So, the muse and I agreed (sort of) on a perfect society pitched against a cruel, scary one. Now we’d just have to figure out the setting. Right? Needless to say the muse was not that easily satisfied.
“Get real,” she said. “Perfect society. I thought you wanted it to be a human society.”
“Yeees?” I’m slow to catch on sometimes.
“Well, if it’s human, it’s not going to be perfect. It might be better and more egalitarian and maybe even fairer than what we have now (like that’s so hard), but it’s still going to have greed and envy and fear and all those other things humans carry around with them them wherever they go.”

She had a point. And I admit that only grudgingly. So an almost perfect society, then. But where? I confess to being intrigued by the idea of frontiers, a handful of people carrying only the bare necessities, being dumped in the middle of nowhere. There are so many different ways this can play out. I decided it was the perfect scenario for my benevolent society.

“What frontier?” the muse, always helpful, wanted to know.
“Some planet. They leave earth in a generation ship and settle on a world far, far away.”
“Which supports human life,” she scoffed.
“It got terraformed before they landed.”
“That’s some technology.”
“It’s the future. Work with me, here.”
“Hmmm, what about my scary society? Are they on the same ship?”
“Naawww, they come later. My good guys need a chance to develop peacefully first.”
“So, how come they end up on the same planet?”
“Some glitch? It’s not really important for our story.”
“Could be for another one.”
“Yeah, maybe, I’ll work on it. But can we concentrate on this one first?”

Here, she probably rolled her eyes at me. She does that a lot. But at least she agreed with me on background. Two cultures, rooted in a distant earth past that developed separately on the same planet, and–

“Separately?” chirped the muse. “How come?”
“The ones who were there first were afraid and told the new guys they had to settle somewhere else?”
“Wait, the new guys are the bad ones, right?”
“Right?”
“So your good guys kicked them out? Told you they weren’t perfect.”

Did I mention how much I hate it when she’s right? To make matters worse I was starting to get really interested in this idea of how “good” a culture can actually be. Without needs, wants, competition, things to fear, what drives us? Is there a tipping point? Or more than one? Into total control? Or total petrifaction? And if there is, how and where do we keep the balance?

“How giant an info dump were you planning on again?” asked the muse.
“Oh, shush. This is still background.”
“Yeah, but for at least three books, not one.”

I didn’t say anything. I’m absolutely positive that I didn’t. But she must have read something in my eyes, because she started smiling that beatific smile that tells me she’s happy. We just stared and grinned at each other for a bit, and then we started world building.

World building
We were trying to create a (almost) perfect society (mine) and a scary, cruel society (hers). I wanted my guys to start their settlement in a place where they’d have to huddle and rely heavily on each other. So the planet they were trying to settle had its main landmass in one big continent around the north pole, much of it too cold for permanent settlements, but with a more temperate zone along its coastlines (think Finland, Canada, that sort of thing). I was also reasoning that whoever prepared the planet and selected the people for the trip would know that and round up volunteers from the northern countries, like Scandinavia and Iceland, mutual language roots being considered a plus and over time coalescing into the Skanian I use in the book.

The muse started to tap her fingers. An incessant nail on wood noise, designed to break my concentration and drive me bonkers.
“What?” I snarled.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” She smiled sweetly at me. “Where do my people end up?”
“I don’t care, some rock in the equatorial zone that’s too hot for my Vikings.”
“A rock?” She has a pretty pout, but I mainly wanted to get on with my settlers.
“Fine, an island. Don’t push it.”
“How big?” she immediately shot back.
“Would have to be a decent size, allow for some agriculture and general development. Something the size of Britain.”
“I want palm trees. And beaches.”
“Whatever.” I still had Vikings to get back to. “It’s not going to be Paradise, though. Remember, these are the bad guys. Let’s see, by the time they leave Earth, things have taken a turn for the worse, the terraforming technology has been lost or sabotaged, so they need to be sent to an already prepped planet.”
She nodded. “And since everyone wants to get off Earth, it’s a jumbled mess of nations on the ship.”
“Predominant languages Chinese and English?”
She gave me her best don’t-be-stupid look. “Been done. Gimme your Firefly card back. We’ll take Russian and Spanish, with maybe English as a lingua franca.”
I forgave her. I was starting to get caught up in her fantasy. “They’re used to ‘everyone for themselves’ kind of thinking.”
“So when they land, the strongest hog the valuable resources (the ship) and set everyone else to work.”
“Over time establishing a ruling class.”
She smiled. A pretty scary smile, now that I come to think of it. “Who controls the rabble with access to firearms.”
“A personal army. Like the Savaks.”
“The Securitate.”
“The Tonton Macoute.”
“The Gestapo.”
“Okay, enough. I still have some Vikings to get settled here. Your guys are not coming for hundreds of years.”
She admired her nails. “They’ll be in the book. So anything before they arrive is background.”
“It’s world building. It shapes the people that’ll be in the book.”
“What people?”

Character building
Want to meet the guys? So did I. In that respect Santuario was an out of the ordinary book for me, because it started with an idea. More often than not my stories start with a character, a voice in my head that won’t shut up until they’ve told me everything I never wanted to know about them, and then some. This one was different. I had background (one near perfect, one scary society), I had setting (the planet they both settled on), but I didn’t hear any voices. Now, for most people this might be a good thing. For me it’s a disaster.

In a rare show of agreement the muse and I decided on one character from each of the two cultures (because she wanted kaboom), and that they would both be cops (because I like me a good mystery). After that? Crickets. I put the story idea aside and wrote a whole other book, completely different genre, then tried again. Nothing happened. The truth is, I can build worlds, I can build plots, but I can’t, for the life of me, ‘build’ characters. I tried different character sheets, and filled them all in with eye color, and favorite foods, and all that sugar. And when I poked what I’d made, it wasn’t moving. I’d made a puppet. Dead, Jim.

Characters form somewhere in my subconscious, so deep down that I can’t see anything. They need amorphous influences to form, mood, style, atmosphere. So I got busy thinking about plot and what the muse’s darn island looked like. It was somewhere hot, and she’d wanted palm trees and beaches. I wanted hills and dusty roads, and hovels in villages, and cities like ancient Granada. Just as we’d discovered skeletons in the closet of my perfect society, I now discovered beauty in her cruel one. When I started collecting songs for my playlist (I always write with music) I realized I was picking mostly Son Cubano. And I noticed someone dancing to it. Just a shadow at first, long legs, a wide brimmed hat, definitely male, definitely a man with rhythm in every bone of his body.

I had to clear my throat.
“Shhhhh,” said the muse. “Don’t scare him away.”

He briefly looked over at that, his face completely deadpan; then he looked away again. Over the next few days I noticed more details about him, but he wasn’t talking to me. I got emotions, very suppressed for the most part, except for a strong sense of longing, but no voice. Still, I knew who he was. I knew what made him tick. And I started writing. That was Alex.

Bengt was a lot harder. He talked all the time. I knew everything about his family, his boss, his house. I knew he was this huge, blond guy with a taste for good food and quality clothes. But all the while his talking kept me at arm’s length. I realized he had a secret, and that I wouldn’t know the real Bengt, until I figured out what it was. But *that* wasn’t what he wanted to talk about. That was ‘ancient history’ and ‘none of my business’. He needed a bit more … persuasion. And, let me tell you, Bengt is not an easy guy to wrestle into compliance. But the muse? She kicks ass, even Skanian ones. So we finally got there.

I’d written two full chapters of Alex before I typed one word of Bengt. But once that started, it just kept going. They don’t ever shut up. They’re in my head 24/7. Santuario? Is just the beginning.