EXCITING! And I'm also ridiculously nervous. :/ Fingers crossed it does all right! Go and buy it! Let me know what you think!


In other news, Loose Id offered me a contract for "Resistance" -- my 45k M/M erotic romance. YAY! More details of that to come after I've signed and sent.


And finally, I had a meeting today with the owner of my region's scene magazine (entertainment and culture), during which he asked me to be the new copy editor, features writer, and entertainment reviewer! Three jobs rolled into one! It'll be a nice little bonus in my income each month, and it's something I enjoy, so happy days!

I think I've finally got the Internet issues under control. This past week has been a nightmare--one minute I'd have a connection, and I'd get involved in something, then I'd click on a link and, bam, no more connection. I don't know if it was a glitch in my computer or in my ISP, but it seems to be sorted now. I do, for now, have a full connection. We'll see how it goes.


Aside from that, I've had a busy week. My freelancing career kicked off all of a sudden, and now I'm spending a large portion of my time writing articles and the like. On top of this, my other half sent me a text today simply stating, "Got you the job of editing the county's monthly magazine." o.0 I won't know the details of that until he gets home, but I'm cautiously optimistic. He has the most random connections...


I've also been busy with the non-erotica side of my fiction writing life. My beta-reader is coming to stay next week and I promised her I'd have the first draft ready for her by then, so she may take home a hard copy and have fun/tear out her hair with the task of editing old-school, a la red pen.


In terms of erotic romance, I'm on the query train again. Two editors have my full, and a few more have sample chapters. It's only been a week so far, so we'll see. Fingers crossed! I've been spending some time thinking about my next project. "Love in a Cubicle" doesn't want to co-operate--it's determined to be an angst-fest, and I'm not in the mood for that right now. I want to write something light-hearted, dammit!


So, yes. Busy, busy. I've even set up a new "office area" in a different room, because writing in the front room wasn't working out. Too many distractions and people not knowing how to be quiet... Here's to a new wave of productivity!

I'm having epic computer/Internet problems at the moment. I'll have a proper update for you once I get things sorted. I think a change in ISP is in order...

I spent the majority of my spare time this weekend querying -- which is, as you all know, a nerve-wracking thing at the best of times. I've been ill over the weekend, headaches and lady aches and whatnot, which amplified my oh-my-god-what-if-they-hate-it feeling every time I hit send. But it had to be done. There's no use letting the manuscript gather dust on my computer. It's finished, edited, and as ready as it'll ever be without the opinion of an editor. I only queried a handful of publishers for the first round -- five, I think -- just to test the waters, and I got a full request this afternoon, so here's hoping!

There's a good thing about receiving a full (aside from the obvious), even if the story is ultimately rejected. It means the editor read a few thousand words of your writing, plus the synopsis detailing the whole story, and wanted to see more -- so if nothing else, the editor likes the concept and your writing, even if the story as a whole didn't click with him/her. It's a positive thing, because you then know you've created something workable -- whatever's wrong with the story can be fixed. It's not your writing or your idea the editor doesn't like -- it's something to do with the content or the execution. That's something we can deal with. Um. I had a point somewhere in here, but I lost it...

In other news, I'm 10k into the latest WIP with another idea whining for attention. This second idea excites me more than the first, but it'll have to wait. In the words of every gameshow host ever: "I've started so I'll finish..."

I've been plagued by toothache/headache the past couple of days, which makes concentrating difficult. I soldiered on, though -- re-wrote a couple of scenes, sent out a query or two, read a chapter a friend sent to me for beta-thoughts. I didn't write anything new, but it's still work, so I'm not too annoyed with myself.

Tonight I'll either be a) editing my three-page synopsis down to two pages, as per a particular publisher's submission guidelines; b) finishing the editing for Deeper Than Bone; c) adding some more words to the first draft of Love in a Cubicle; or d) starting the outline for the new idea I had while trying to sleep last night. Either way, I have a busy evening ahead of me once Little Man's asleep. It's always a challenge finding time to work at the weekends with my son off school, but I have to scrape a spare hour together from somewhere or I get too lazy!

Not long until release day now... *bites nails*

Today I've been editing. Actually, I've mostly been undertaking the tedious task of re-writing my past-tense novella into present-tense. It's boring work, but necessary for this story. You know when you get the feeling something's not quite right with the story, no matter how many different angles you look at it from? Yeah. This is definitely a present-tense story -- which mostly means spending hours changing "had" to "has" and "was" to "is" (although, as we all know, the word "was" should hardly be in there at all -- hello, passive voice). I got about halfway through before a couple of scenes jumped out at me, demanding the total re-write treatment, and now my 20k novella is sitting at 30k. Bah.


It's a far more serious story than my previous "romantic comedy", and I'm not too sure if I've pulled it off. I won't know until the editing's complete and I can look at the bigger picture -- and even then, it'll only be my personal opinion. *bites nails*


I recently finished another long novella/short novel (45k), and again, it has a serious tone as opposed to the light-hearted banter I usually favour. It's very graphic, too. I don't shy away from graphic sex scenes -- I've been writing them for years -- but it's definitely not one I can show the family! (Not that my family knows I write erotica anyway -- Jehovah's Witnesses, you know.) I hadn't realised quite how graphic my sex scenes were until I read some other recent M/M erotic romance on the market. Hm. Although the novella coming out at the end of this month is slightly tamer than my most recent works.


Speaking of, my lovely editor sent me the final version of the manuscript last week, complete with dedications and author bio. It's so pretty, all laid out in such a professional manner. Makes me all a-glowy!


And lastly, I've started working on another story. I'm back to romantic comedy, after the time I just spent on the serious/angsty novellas, and it feels good. It has a working title: Love in a Cubicle. Yep, you guessed it... office romance! With a twist. I can't wait to get into the meat of this story. It's a fun tale to write!


And... that's all I've got tonight. G'night!

Hello, and welcome to my new blog!

I'll use this first post to tell you what you can expect from this blog:

-- A post every day. I've made the decision, and I'm sticking to it! I'm hoping it will form a habit, because currently I'm useless at keeping any kind of blogging schedule.

-- Sneak peeks at whatever I'm working on.

-- News and info about new titles before I make any announcements elsewhere.

-- Insight into my methods, process, habits, etc.

-- Random thoughts about writing in general.

-- Talk of GLBT issues.

-- Embarrassing amounts of praise for other authors writing in the GLBT erotica genre.

If nothing else, I hope I can give you an interesting read. Only time will tell!

And while I'm here, I just want to say congratulations again to Lori and Scarlett, two erotic romance authors who've sold books recently!

Stay tuned!