Titles

Posted on 2014/01/21 by Gordon

I’m going back to the drawing board with the title for Santuario II. Since I chose it, another book has come out with that title, and two M/M novels with the same title at the same publisher just doesn’t strike me as a good idea.

The muse and I were busy checking themes and taglines today, and we’ve come up with a few alternatives. I have a fave, and so does she.  Someone needs to tell her that hers sounds like a Fabio cover. I expect, we’ll be duelling it out at dawn in a snow-hushed vale somewhere. I hope it’ll be a word duel, because she kicks ass, and I don’t want my bleached bones to defrost in the spring.

So yeah, for the time being, I’ve reset all category tags to Santuario II for reference. I’ll keep y’all posted.

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It’s a brand-new, still-wet-behind-the-ears year

Posted on 2014/01/01 by Gordon

2013 was amazing. To meet so many of you, readers and fellow authors, online and IRL blew me away. It’s been inspiring and humbling, and all kinds of squeeworthy.

Thank you to all of you who bought and loved Santuario, who gave it away as gifts and told others, and especially those of you who took the time to write a review. I appreciate every single one of them.

2013 has also seen the muse and me hard at work to continue the story of Bengt and Alex, which brings me straight to our resolution for 2014: Get that second book out into the world and into your hands. It’s looking good so far. The first draft is done, the rewrite is almost on track (I just have a dying motherboard to replace, and we’ll be back in the saddle, so to speak).

Apart from that, my head is full with stories and characters banging against the inside of my skull, so we shouldn’t run out of books to write any time soon. I want to try a few strategies to work on my writing speed, but only as far as they don’t compromise quality. We’ll see where that goes.

Love you guys. Thank you for making 2013 fantastic. Hope you’ll stay around for the next 365.

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My favourite reads of 2013

Posted on 2013/12/28 by Gordon

It’s the end of the year, and I don’t have any new releases on my immediate radar until January. That seems like a perfect time to post my top 3 (or 4, as it is) of 2013.

Tied at 3rd place are the two hottest reads of the year. I’m talking solar eruptions, here:

Shock & Awe by Abi Roux

I’d been waiting for this one with bated breath since the short had been posted. And, man, was it ever worth it. I already know this is going to be one of those books that fall open on their own at certain spots, because I read the hell out of them. Pure feel-good, hot-as-hell joy.

Market Garden Capture & Surrender by Aleks Voinov and L.A. Witt

All the Market Garden books are hot, and I have a very soft (to say nothing of weak-kneed) spot for all of them. But this one takes it a step further, by adding an emotional depth to the heat that took me by surprise. I already read it twice, and it keeps getting better. The heat coming off the pages is incinerating, but it’s more than that. It’s a deeply emotional roller-coaster ride, well written, with characters that feel as alive as if they lived next door. Definitely the best Market Garden yet.

My personal number two:

Glitterland by Alexis Hall

A lot of hype surrounded the release of this novel, and, honestly, I picked it up expecting to be disappointed. Well, I wasn’t. Au contraire. As Darian would say: “That was proper special”.

Ash is class, and sophistication, and a self-absorbed dick, so damaged by privilege and a mental illness which de-constructs every assumption he ever had about himself that, ultimately, he is only able to retain his dignity by sacrificing someone else’s. But not so damaged that he doesn’t realise the omnishambles he’s made of his one-in-a-lifetime chance at happiness, and surprisingly pertinacious given the right incentive.

Darian is under-educated, straightforward joy with a shallow love for accoutrements of all kinds and a deep love for Ash.
Hopelessly out-everythinged by Ash, he nevertheless proves to be the better man by managing to keep his maltreated dignity intact just by being himself. In the end, it’s up to Darian’s handsome heart to save Ash’s sophisticated ass. And that was a privilege to watch.

This is a sly novel, in a good way.
It seduces with its lush, witty voice, and the sheer erudition of a narrator who casually references Plato’s cave parable while being fucked through spilled ink on his desk.
It pulls you into the peach blossom foam of its poetry, and you sink back with a superior little smile, so titillated by the champagne prickle of sparkling sarcasm, that you don’t notice its lethal edge until you pull your hands out and stare incredulously at the blood welling up from all those little nicks the blade of sarcasm leaves on human flesh.

A bold, bright, exceedingly well-told story with an underlying warmth that defies its often scathing tone.

At the top of my list:

Unhinge the Universe by Aleks Voinov and L.A. Witt

That was a bloody brilliant read. It dares you, balls out, to fall for an SS officer towards the end of WWII, and succeeds. A beautifully paced enemies-to-lovers story that is painstakingly researched and expertly crafted. I want to read it again and again.

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Rewriting

Posted on 2013/11/28 by Gordon

Printed the MS yesterday and am going through it with a red pen, making copious notes for the rewrite. It’s about as disheartening a construction site as I’d figured. What’s weird is that the parts I remembered as needing little revision actually need a lot, whereas the parts I wrote thinking “Well, I can always fix those later” aren’t half bad. Go figure.

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Calling ‘done’ on the first draft

Posted on 2013/11/18 by Gordon

Now I’m not going to touch it, look at it, or even open the file for a week. Then the big rewrite starts.

I still need to write a final wrap-up scene which is mostly mapped out, but filing out the details will be much more effective after I did the rewrite. You don’t put the ribbon on a package you plan to reopen to fiddle with what’s inside. So to speak.

So, yeah, anyway, deep breath, possibly some celebration this coming weekend.

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We’re hopping queer

Posted on 2013/11/12 by Gordon

Welcome to the Queer Romance Blog Hop, where queer writers and readers of queer romance share their thoughts on the genre, as well as a few recommendations for books to read! Everyone participating in this blog hop identifies as queer and also reads and/or writes (or edits, or reviews!) queer romance. For our purposes, queer romance refers to books with:

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.)

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

 

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I’ve been quiet here recently

Posted on 2013/10/29 by Gordon

Truth is, this book is kicking my ass. Or the muse is. Whichever way one wants to look at it.

First I got kicked out of my comfortable linear writing groove by having scenes pop up left and right and all over the place in no particular order. Then the underlying theme and character motivations changed four! times. Four times I rewrote the complete outline, sure now that this was it. And I still duck out from under things falling into place. At least all the changes are moving in the same general direction, tightening holes, tying shit together. So there’s that.

But man, am I behind the schedule I’d envisioned at the beginning of the year, which basically had me start the rewrite in September, edit in November, and sending the manuscript out to betas before Christmas. Yeah, well, that not only didn’t happen, but all those changes during writing are going to make the rewrite an epic headache in itself.

While there’s no way anything is going out to anyone before the new year, I need to allow myself to suck and just get this shit down. So I booked the inner editor in a friendly little supermax cell in Millhaven, and I plan on using his absence for an amended nanowrimo. The plan is to write 1000 words a day (which is below nano limits, but above my usual) until I’ve finished the last three chapters. I expect that to be something like 15,000 words; so in theory, and since I’ve kept my schedule as free of encroaching crap as possible, it should be entirely doable. Famous last words, I know. We’ll see. I’ll need you guys to kick my butt (especially off twitter) and stay on my case. Seriously. Bug me. Ask me how much I wrote at the end of the day. (The muse is stocking up on blankets and hot cocoa at this point, but I’m beyond caring. I think we both need a little pain here to Get. This. Done.)

 

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Free-for-all

Posted on 2013/07/09 by Gordon

In the Right Light is now available for free download as PDF, MOBI, and ePub.

“Danny Holt is all about light – in life as well as in his work. He appreciates works of art, and when he meets gorgeous landscaper James Carver on a jobsite, he can’t stop staring.

James is trapped in a family business that doesn’t leave his dreams any room to unfold. Meeting Danny is like a ray of sunshine in a prison cell, though Danny isn’t the one-night stand James usually goes for. Too honest, too vulnerable, he can’t possibly know the rules of engagement, and James isn’t the man to drag someone like that down into his darkness, no matter how much he craves that bright smile. Neither is he the only one who thinks he and Danny are simply too different to make this work.

But Danny is neither as fragile nor as naive as everyone seems to think he is. He knows what he wants, and he wants James. Now he just has to figure out if James wants him.”

This story was written as a part of the M/M Romance Group’s “Love Has No Boundaries” event. Group members were asked to write a story prompt inspired by a photo of their choice. Authors of the group selected a photo and prompt that spoke to them and wrote a short story.

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Love Has No Boundaries: In the Right Light

Posted on 2013/06/26 by Gordon

In the Right Light is now up for free for members of the M/M Romance group. http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1…
Download for the general public will be available soon. Watch this space.

“Danny Holt is all about light – in life as well as in his work. He appreciates works of art, and when he meets gorgeous landscaper James Carver on a jobsite, he can’t stop staring.

James is trapped in a family business that doesn’t leave his dreams any room to unfold. Meeting Danny is like a ray of sunshine in a prison cell, though Danny isn’t the one-night stand James usually goes for. Too honest, too vulnerable, he can’t possibly know the rules of engagement, and James isn’t the man to drag someone like that down into his darkness, no matter how much he craves that bright smile. Neither is he the only one who thinks he and Danny are simply too different to make this work.

But Danny is neither as fragile nor as naive as everyone seems to think he is. He knows what he wants, and he wants James. Now he just has to figure out if James wants him.”

This story was written as a part of the M/M Romance Group’s “Love Has No Boundaries” event. Group members were asked to write a story prompt inspired by a photo of their choice. Authors of the group selected a photo and prompt that spoke to them and wrote a short story.

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Things are progressing

Posted on 2013/05/23 by Gordon

The LHNB Event story has been submitted. I’m working on a blurb and will let you guys know as soon as I do, when it will be up on Goodreads.

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.

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