Tuesday 31 December 2013

2013 First Read Recap

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Stuck in Your Head # 78

I’m going to give you the line from the books I’ve read that make my mind crave the rest like chocolate & Coke.
 
This one is because I can’t honestly think of any other book with New Years in its pages
 
 
Brent grinned. “You had a long trip, huh? Tired? […] Better get over it. After leaving him alone for a week, I don’t think Darien’s planning on letting you sleep.”
  A positively demonic grin turned Chris’s primly proper face into a wicked mask. “I assure you, I don’t plan on sleeping.”
page 96, paperback
 
Genesis by Jet Mykles
(Heaven Sent #5)
First Published 1st January 2008 by Loose id
Bind-up paperback 18th May 2010 by Loose id
Contemporary Romance
 
The week before Heaven Sent's New Year's performance, Brent fractures his hand, which puts him out of commission for the show. Fortunately, it's not permanent, but it leaves he and Hell dealing with the "what if," not to mention Brent's jealousy of the guitarist taking his place. As the band members and their partners struggle to adjust, the stress brings their personal issues to light:
 
* Tyler wants to be a parent but he's not sure Johnnie will agree. Johnnie feels the strain in their relationship, but doesn't know how to make it right.
 
* Luc has gotten a big break in a new movie, but his new co-star wants more than his onscreen love. Reese trusts Luc, but he can't help loathing his leading lady.
 
* Chris takes a job that will keep him away from Darien over the New Year's. If that weren't bad enough, Chris's new client is his ex, and Darien knows the ex wants Chris back.
 
Heaven Sent needs more than a miracle to find their happily ever after. It needs ... a new beginning.
 
[Publisher's Note: This book contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable: male/male sexual practices.]
 
Series includes
 
Heaven, Purgatory, Hell, Faith, Revelations

Monday 30 December 2013

Inspiration & Other Such Writing Tools

I know it probably doesn’t matter, being as I’m new into this world, and you probably don’t care what a newbie says in terms of writing, but I created this blog for one thing, my writing, and recently I’ve decided that I’m going to go with all the things that come to mind along the way of being a newbie.
 
Inspiration is a weird tool.
It can come in terms of pictures of people (I used a set of pic’s off Tumblr that inspired My Kevin). I also used other people’s stories that I read, that triggered a thought; a wont to know what would happen if I wrote it. How I would make it different? If I’d still be left with that flow I saw in the work I was reading.
 
But the thing is, I have this insecurities, that makes it hard for me to read certain authors and write that same day. My biggest one is Josh Lanyon, that man…well, I can’t write shit after reading anything he wrote, so I generally won’t read he’s books if I need to be creative later.
 
But there are other books out there that make me want to write. They inspire that creative part of me, and it’s not because there bad writers, or bad stories, it’s because they have the same type of flow, and it’s a generic story that’s written over and over without feeling old.
I love the writers that I have this with, I like the series that help me get up and start writing, and generally, reading something of theirs helps me write more in one day than I have in a week.
 
It doesn’t always work. Or sometimes I have to get to the end of the series before this need kicks in, and there are a lot of books in them. But they are authors that I can read, and not have to worry when I decide to do it.
 
They are the ones that I can read between writing a chapter. Like if I’m in a lull, I can pick up a story from a series and it will let my mind rest, while kick-start that need to write myself.
 
  The series are:
·         The Lost Shifter series by Stephani Hecht
·         Wolves of Stone Ridge series by Charlie Richards and all the series connected to it
·         Moon Pack series, Dragon Men series, The Wizards Touch… yeah, okay, I’m an Amber Kell fan and generally all her stories spark in me a need to write
·         Holland Brother & Atherton Pack series by Toni Griffin (these don’t always work)
 
There are others:
·         RJ Scott, Kim Dare, Sean Michaels,
And I’m sure there are a few others, but off the top of my head, these are the authors or the books I go to when I’m in a slump (presently) and want something to spark it up and allow my imagination to flow in the right direction.
 
I use to watch telly, back when I wasn’t use to the silence, and I also had babies that I couldn’t put music on (well, I actually couldn’t because I blew up my CD player)
 
I couldn’t watch Criminal Minds or NCIS because I’d get to interested in the show, even if I’d watched over and over again, and knew everything that was bout to happen (yeah, I get that obsessive) but I found, Pushing Daisies which was fun and I loved it, and when it was on, I would write until my forearms cramped.
 
Now, if I need something visual to watch, or I start watching it while eating breakfast (I hate daytime telly with a passion), I can put on Supernatural and it will let me write, while it’s on. but the down side to it is, that if it’s actually interesting I can find myself on the other side of the day without getting off my lounge for more than food and pee breaks.
 
Anyway, I think maybe there was a point to all this. but it’s heading into the New Year, and well, it’s something I thought about lately, as I read something and suddenly I couldn’t get to the computer fast enough.
 
I think, mostly, you need to have something that helps. Especially when you’re new. If it’s that you write for two hours after the kids have gone to sleep, because that’s the only time you have, and so you put on some slow relaxing music and let it hum in the background while you type away.
It doesn’t really matter, as long as there’s something that snaps at you, and makes you want to forget everything there is and just write.
 
I listen to alternative: Tegan and Sara, the Killer, Kings of Leon, Lime Cordial, Jezebels, Washington, and a few others I’d have to look up to remember. I get them from my sister, feel in love with them, and are now the third wheel whenever there’s a concert for anything.
 
Anyway, it’s an insight to the wonderful mine of Me.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever told you all this before, but I like to know what helps authors around me, and I thought maybe it’s something you’d be interested in.
 
Also, it’s the week between Chrissy and New Year, I ain’t thinking of anything but what I’m gonna do (what I’m gonna drink) and start my stressing over My Kevin, because New Year’s Day I’m going to my sister, getting the cover art designed and working out how to publish the fucking thing on Smashwords.
I’m not sure if it’s gonna work, because I want it to be free, so I may snag somewhere along the line, and I know I should get it all settled before hand, but the cover can’t be made until that day so we all have to wait. and really, worse case, it will be a few days late, and I don’t see why that will happen, even if I have to put more money into the bloody thing.
 
Well thanks for the time.

Saturday 28 December 2013

Last Month and the Year to Come

Here’s the thing. This month I have only done two things:
·         Wrote Something Said; which is a YA book I’m hoping to get into the Harmony Ink Anthology. I’m not sure if I will, since I’m not sure if it’s what they’re looking for, but if not, I’ll submit it to them, or another company for publishing.
·         I also finished editing My Kevin; which has the elements of the cover, I just need to buy a copy of the pic, but I’ve told them what I wanted and it’s gonna get done, Christmas is just a shitty time.
 
Onto 2014
 
I have decided, since I came into this seriously when Stephani Hecht was having her nervous breakdowns, and Josh Lanyon had a year off ‘cause of his own problems, and so thinking of the year that I’m finally going into publishing, I’ve decided to take a slow pace with my work rather than, well, work myself to death.
 
So, that leaves these must finishes:
 
·         Books 6 to 12 on my Moonlit Wolves series: I am half way through #6: Rub of my Werewolf; it’s not a complex book, more an information one along with love. Then I’ll move onto the rest.
·         The good thing about this series, or the books I’m up to, is that I have plotted the whole thing, so it’s really just about writing them. And there short. But I love reading them and I’ve decided that this is how I’m going to do any series books, it’s honestly helped with remembering which direction it’s heading, and who needs mentioning and why
 
The rest of my year is up for grabs, I guess. I’ve got it in my head that I’d like the first set to be done by June, but in the end book 12 doesn’t have to be submitted until November at the latest so that it sits in schedule.
 
What I’d like to finish/get done:
 
·         Book A; I’m nearly at the end of this book, but so much is messing with me concerning it, so I may flush it out more, make it longer and maybe try my hand at light mystery along with deeper into PDS. I’m thinking of maybe submitting this to Carina Press or Ellora’s Cave (I haven’t decided, I guess it will depend on how the book turns out)
·         But first I really need to name this bitch
·          
·         Loving Without Knowing It; this is a contemporary romance I would like to write for Movember. It’s about prostate cancer, and I’d like this to be an ongoing thing for me, highlighting a point with Male health. I will either self-pub this or go with a publisher that’s happy to publish this book in a particular time. it will depend on which way I go, on how much money (all or profits) threw the month of November
·          
·         I’d also like to write a lesbian story for October for breast cancer, since it’s also a good cause and I’m in a good position to write this book as my mum has recently been diagnose with it, and will have to go through chemo. This one will be like the one above.
·          
·         No Boggy, It’s Just a Kiss; is a short story for a blog post on my birthday, it’s nothing special, just 1 or 2k worth of words to celebrate the day I creep ever closer to the big 30! (that’s how it’s meant to be right? I’m not sure, age really doesn’t bother me all that much. But I do love-ve my birthday!)
 
The books that are waiting… and waiting:
 
·         Assassins Union; I have recently posted a ‘adults corner’ of a part out of the short story attached to this series, and I’d love to actually write them and get them reading for submitting at Total-e-bound (it’s where it’ll go first) I have the first one plotted out and the rough idea of 8 others in this series. It’s gonna be different then the Moonlit Wolves series, more blood and guts, kinda thing, and, well, I guess, messed up heroes. Which is probably why I’m struggling to write it, I keep badmouthing my attempts.
·          
·         Falling in Love with This Forever; which is a contemporary about a boy and the results of him having an affair with his teacher. I feel passionate about this one, but I have done the research that’s needed, next I just have to really plot it, and hope it works. This was is set to be my longest novel (yeah, a novel size) book I will get published at least this year. I want it to be 5 years of his life.
 
·         There’s also a contemporary series that I haven’t named yet. It’s just a quick little series about men in love. I have the idea of five books.
 
Anyway that’s the plan and yeah, there’s a bit, but the first time I did this list I actually wanted to write all those things in one year. This time, well, I’ll letting myself off the hook, if I don’t do anything other than the Moonlit Wolves series, than I’m okay with that.
 
I’d also like to add
·         My blog stories: this year I’d like to write more on That’s Different… but I’ll see how I go when I re-read this one, and what I plan to do with it. plus, I want to publish that
·         Being That For You; needs to be re-read, fixed up, and I’d like to add a few more cute, quant and difficult times in there relationship over the years there’ve been together. Including the first ‘at home’ throwaway as well as their first baby in the house.
·         And I’d like to start a new blog series The Last Year of my Life; I’d like to post once a month, but my goal is having it done once a fortnight. I want this one done as a kinda diary type entries, though it won’t be that actually. I’m hoping having this little project will help when I’m writing my series to keep me focused, as I’ll have something to procrastinate with.
·          
·         I’d also like to write a Christmas Short story, so if an anthology comes along I can submit for that (I honestly love the idea of anthologies) and/or a little something, I’m not sure what, for the Christmas month.
 
And that’s it. Few *whips forehead* that got long. Now let’s sit back and watch how I do nothing but the bear min all year

Thursday 26 December 2013

Hadn’t the Pleasure # 84

The books that have been collecting dust for so long they have become stained from it
 
 
Alexander Norton loathes the festive season. The revelry of the ton is a reminder of Christmas four years ago, when his first love, Thomas Bennett, broke his heart and fled to New York without a word. So when he encounters Thomas at a holiday ball, Alexander is determined not to let on how much he still hurts.
Thomas has returned for one reason only: Alexander. Having finally come to terms with his forbidden desires, he will do whatever he must to convince Alexander to give their love another chance. But instead of the happy, carefree man Thomas once knew, Alexander is now hard and cynical. Saddened to know he's to blame for the man's bitterness, Thomas resolves to reignite the passion he knows lies hidden behind the wall of disdain...
 
Also part of the Men Under the Mistletoe Anthology
 
My True Love Gave to Me by Ava March
(Brook Street #0.5)
 First published Dec 2011 by Carina Press
iBook, 80 pages
Contemporary Historical ‘Holiday’ Romance
 
The last note of the violins faded into the idle chatter of what surely hundreds of guests, signalling the end of the last dance before the midnight supper. Alexander Norton quickened his step and weaved through the crowd. […]

Wednesday 25 December 2013

Being That For You #4

First up: have you read this miniseries before, if not catch the first 3 here

NOTES ON THIS STORY
So, this is the end for Jake and Mike. I’m feeling a little nostalgic about it all, like they’ve been a part of my life for more than this year. But then, in my mind, they have.
I hope you enjoy the end of this miniseries, I’m hoping to flush them out, fix them up, edit them, and have it available as a free ebook in the coming year—but we’ll have to see how things go (though it will be happening, I’m just not sure how fast)
This is a sad story, short and to point. Its me grieving slightly for my mother sickness, for my grandfather’s passing, and my grandmothers illness.
But mostly, it’s allowing me to get rid of the images and the thoughts of a man that lay in the bed opposite me in hospital. A man dying of, what we think was cancer.
His gasping breaths of those two days we shared a room, still linger in my mind.

But truly I am sorry for this story has to come, they need peace in the end, and I have nothing else to give you for Christmas but this.


Being that for You

A snap in the night was the only things that Jake could think about. Mike’s fingers culled around his flesh as he tried to breath.
     “No,” Jake spoke, his voice raspy from sleep. His own fingers rolled along Mikes, letting him know he wasn’t alone. That it was going to be fine.
     This hadn’t been the first time Mike had woken this way, but it was defiantly going to be the last. Jake understood that with a pain in his chest that wasn’t every going to go away.
     He gript around for his phone, a button pressed as he waiting for them to come and get his husband.
     The phone call wasn’t all that important, just something to occupy Jake’s mind as he gript his lovers hand and prayed what he was seeing wasn’t actually happening.
     He wasn’t ready for this. He wasn’t ready to be left alone in this life. But he knew. They had all known, Mike’s battle was a losing one before it had begun, all they had left was to live the life they were given.
     “Please, babe,” Jake wanted to cry out, he wanted it to stop. He wanted everything to go away so that he could wake up tomorrow with the love of his life still whole and complete and ready to start the day with him like they always had.
     Jake wanted them to be young again. He wanted those moment of heart ache when he’d been nothing but another hole for Mike to put his confused dick. He wanted that moment when the man he loved because his lover for life.
     He wanted those days and weeks and months and years to never have happened so he could live them all again and again.
     Though, mostly, he just didn’t want to be the one living at the end of this. He didn’t want to be left alone in this world while he’s lover was off living in another.
     But most, and more currently, he didn’t want Mike to leave him. He didn’t want this reality to be, well, reality. He wanted to blink his eyes. To have this be nothing but a dream and the settle back next to his lover and fall back to sleep.
     Life, however, had other plans for them, and number one was taking the man he loved away from him.
     Mike’s gasp had Jake looking down. Mike’s face didn’t look anything like it had originally. It had weathered badly threw the steps of grief that lay before him. They had gone through them together, and strangely, Jake hadn’t managed to take one-step. He’s denial of what was about to come locked around his heart so strongly it took his breath some days.
     Jake just couldn’t think about it. He couldn’t, not and be happy for those moments he had with Mike. Not and be able to stand strong and shoulder all Mike needed strength in his times of pain and misery.
     Maybe, if the cancer had been slower. If they caught it early, they’d have had more days, and more time for Jake to come to terms with his loss. But as it was, all Jake could manage was to be what Mike needed him to be through those times.
     Mike’s once brilliant eyes filled with tears, both from the lack of air flowing into his lungs, and that he knew he couldn’t hold on any long. And Jake’s, eyes filling of their own, did the hardest thing he’d ever have to do in his life.
     “It’s okay, love, let go.”
     A chocked sob came from Mike, it sounded painful, which broke Jake’s heart more. He didn’t want his husband to suffer.
     “We’re okay, everything is fine. I’ll be fine,” he spoke for Mike, for himself. He wanted—needed to believe every word he said. Not only so Mike could stop suffering on his behalf, but because if he didn’t, he’d be following Mike on the death train moments after he succumbed himself.
     And Jake’s life wasn’t over yet. He needed to live. He had people counting on him. He had grandchildren who didn’t need the last memory of their grandparents to be a Romeo and Juliet moment.
     But more so, he needed to fulfil his promise to his husband. A death bed wish all on it’s own, dancing around all the other promises and wished of a future Mike wanted Jake to live without him.
     Luckily, for Jake he was an old man, so the need to find love after his lover wasn’t something they’d ever spoken of. There was no love after Mike, not the heart and candles type. Only the love to see grandchildren become adults and have children of their own.
     The promises hadn’t gone that far into things. They had considered on Jake outliving Mike by years, decades. That wasn’t realistic, Jake suffered from as many aliments as Mike had, and the fact of him living for more than five years was going to be a stretch in his own mind.
     He’d not been optimistic since Mike’s condition and later his prognoses from a doctor who could barely grow his own beard. He’d been kind, understanding, and realistic. With everything else that had been starting to go wrong with Mike’s mind, there wasn’t any point in radiation, not if the result was another three months. Three months of pain and punishment, that Mike’s mind probably wouldn’t have been able to cope with.
     Plus, as Mike and he had seen, there wasn’t much point in them working that hard on an old bugger like him. He’d lived his life, and he didn’t think someone young shouldn’t have his spot, his drugs, when they could use it more than he needed it.
     It had been a hard fight, which Mike had won. They’d agreed, it had been important for Mike to win, as well as make Jake see the points he was saying. He’d been diagnosed with onset dementia six month prior to his cancer. The specialist had said that they weren’t sure if he’s outlying problems were separate or related to the cancer, but it didn’t matter. None of it fucking matter where Jake was concerned. At the end of it all, Mike had made his mind up before they had left the office. To him, all that was needed was for Jake to be talked into his madness.
     And he had been, because, like always, Mike was everything to him. And his happiness was something that didn’t give Jake pause. He wanted Mike around forever, but as Mike had put it, he was going to die anyway, he may as well do it now, then in a years’ time as he wasted away in some nursing home bleeding dry the money that was going to go to Jake’s House. Which had expanded and now held one in each major city.
     A gag sounded, it was hard to handle, Jake wanted it to stop. He wanted Mike to stop fighting and to just let go. But for all Jake could see it was harder than that. Something about the fight or flight in a human body that just kept on trying to live when clearly there wasn’t anything left working inside of them.
     Jake bent down, brushing his lips against the cold blue lips of his lover. Clinging to that moment of life before it disappeared forever.
     Jake wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to say goodbye to the man he love more than anything else in his life. But he was able to let him go. And though he’s never considered himself a religious believer, he had a moment of hope that he’d meet the man again in the afterlife.
     Taking in a deep breath, as he wiped the tears and snot off his face, Jake uncapped Mike’s cold hand from his own. Kissing the clammy skin, and lay it down on the body of his lover.
     A chest that would not rise again. A smile Jake would never see in person. Arms that would never hold him again, lay there, a shell of skin and bones, as Jake got off the bed. He pulled a shirt over his head, and looked down at his lover.
     Jake wasn’t sure how long he’d stood there, watching. He’d not noticed anything but Mike until the doctor came into the room, but he gathered it had been nearly twenty minute if what the doctor had promised them when they’d arranged for Mike to dye at home.
     “Grandpa,” a small voice nearly screamed as he was wrapped up in thin arms and lanky body of one of his granddaughters.
     Of course not by blood, but birth to Craig’s eldest boy. He’d been considered all the children he’d saved as grandparents, especially from the boys and girls who’d been banished from their own parents. Jack and Mike had loved that from them, more than any of them could ever understand. Especially after, they’d declined to have a child of their own.
     He breath in his granddaughters hair conditioner as he let his tears overwhelm him yet again. And took another step into the grief he felt from the bottom of his soul. A pain that he would have to learn to live with, because there wasn’t any way he’d be able to forget.

The End
Happy Holidays Everyone J

Tuesday 24 December 2013

Stuck in Your Head # 77

I’m going to give you the line from the books I’ve read that make my mind crave the rest like chocolate & Coke.
 
 
“The first time I saw a photo of you,” Robert said, “I thought, anyone who looks that innocent has to be wicked as hell. Then I thought, how can I get him to look at me like that?”
Noel huffed a laugh and opened his eyes. “The first time I saw you, I thought, I could love that guy.”
page 52, iBook
 
Icecapade by Josh Lanyon
(His for the Holidays anthology)
First Published 6th December 2010 by Carina Press
Contemporary ‘Holiday’ Romance
 
On the eve of the new millennium, diamond thief Noel Snow seduced FBI special agent Robert Cuffe, then fled into the dawn. Now a successful novelist, Noel uses his capers as fodder for his books, and has modeled his hero's nemesis (and potential love interest) on Cuffe. Though he leaves Robert a drunken phone message every New Year's Eve, Noel hasn't seen or heard from him in a decade.
 
So he's thrilled when his former lover shows up at his upstate farm one Christmas Eve. Elation quickly turns to alarm when Robert accuses Noel of being responsible for a recent rash of diamond heists. Robert is all business and as cold as ice: it seems his only interest in Noel is to put him behind bars.
 
Innocent of the crimes, and still as attracted as ever to the oh-so-serious lawman, Noel plans a second seduction—providing he can stay out of jail long enough