Friday, September 16, 2011

Blogger App Test :3

Allen pulled his gun and aimed it at the asshole who was officially T minus fifty-nine seconds from being dead. He generally preferred to keep his daily body count to three, but he was willing to add a fourth under the circumstances.



"He's not worth killing," Jack said.



He didn't take his eyes off his new target, but he could still see his totaled Bentley Continental from the corner of his eye. "Yes, he is. Do you know what I had to do to get that fucking car?"



"Kill somebody?" Jack said dryly.



Allen shot him a disgusted look, then shot his attention back to the asshole who had wrecked his baby. "You will hold still or I will make certain the bullet I put in you cause a very slow and painful death. Do you understand me?"



The guy nodded hastily, and lifted his hands in a show of surrender that was so fucking stupid Allen almost rolled his eyes. He'd worked his ass off for that car, taken the shittiest job on the planet for it and all he'd wanted was to enjoy the rest of his day but no—the easy job had turned difficult, it was snowing like hell when the forecast had said clear, Christmas was the day after tomorrow and he still didn't know what to buy Jack, and now his favorite car was totaled.



His mood had officially gone from bad to worse, and somebody was going to get a bullet in the head. He kept the gun steady and jerked his chin in the direction of the ruin that had been his car. "You have ten seconds to tell me how you're going to make me feel better, or I'll do it myself by applying this entire clip to your torso region."



Jack sighed. Allen ignored him. All he'd wanted was for one thing to go right. It should have been an easy day. Wake up. Go to breakfast with Jack. Go kill Mr. Waterstone. Go home. Wait 'til Jack feel asleep, then sneak out to try and do some Christmas shopping. The only blemish on his day should have been a phone call from his mouth.



But no—the snow had knocked the power out so they'd woken up late, the roads were too much of a mess for breakfast to be worth the hassle, one simple assignment to kill a pedophilic business tycoon had turned into a three-body job, his mother hadn't bothered to call all damn day, and Jack had been in a bad mood throughout.



He should never have taken the Bentley, but goddammit, he had wanted something good in his day. Now his prize possession was junkyard material because some asshole couldn't properly operate his Dodge pick-up. Allen really wanted to shoot somebody.



"If you shoot him," Jack said with patience that he obviously did not feel, "then we'll have to hide the body and then we'll be even later getting home. Just take his fucking keys and let's get the hell out of here."



"T-t-tak'em, m-man," the guy said, eyes nearly popping out of his head at Jack's casual observation about hiding his body. He held out the keys still held in his right hand, dangling from an obnoxious John Deere key ring.



Allen sighed long and loud, but took the keys with his free hand. Pocketing them, he put his gun away—then grabbed the guy, sank a fist into his gut, then clipped the back of his head, knocking him out. Catching the idiot over his shoulder, Allen carted him across the street to a house that looked like it had plenty of activity. He left the guy on the covered porch, right against the front door, then strode back to where Jack had already climbed into the bed of the truck.



He took one last look at his poor car, and went through it to clear out the extra guns stashed in it, removed the license plates, then finally joined Jack. Starting up the largely unscathed pick up, he slowly pulled back and out, wincing as a piece fell off his car. "I really wish you had let me shoot him," he groused.



The words actually drew a smile—a real smile—from Jack. Allen occasionally hated dating—well, did they call it dating? What did they call it? He wasn't certain delivering dubious packages and the odd hit were dating but they weren't really the go to the movies kind of guys—



Anyway, whatever they were doing, it would be a hell of a lot easier if Jack was easier to read. Just when Allen thought he had Jack down, he was left guessing again. Allen was pretty certain he'd never met a better poker face. The world would never know how lucky they were that Jack had ratted out his family instead of taking over the family business. "If you'd shot him, we'd still be in the snow and probably dealing with cops. Remind me to chew out Avery later; that house was supposed to be clear and that's the second time he's given us poor information. If I wanted you to take shitty jobs, I'd get you shitty jobs. If you really want to kill someone else today, you can shoot him."



"You spoil me," Allen replied, and Jack laughed.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

So much writing, so little time

As ever, I am behind on everything. I love being a publisher, but it makes it hella difficult to just write sometimes.

My immediate to do list is:

Meant to Be
The Mermaid
The Christmas Package


and come October, I have to finish whatever of that list I have not done, start a new serial (Love You Like A Romance Novel, which I posted a snippet of here previously), finish up a fairytale for the LT3 Fairytales serial, and finally wrap up Kiss the Rain which only lacks the ending (it hates me, that ending).

Also in October, LT3 is attending Yaoicon x_x I will also be turning 30! ^_^ I feel this requires something special, but I have not decided what yet :3

But! I will get it all done, damn it. I just may not be sleeping much :3

I am mad excited about The Christmas Package. If anyone remembers my Hot Summer Days story, Delivery with a Smile, Christmas Package is the return of Allen and Jack ^__^

Teensy snippet:

Allen pulled his gun and aimed it at the asshole who was officially T minus fifty-nine seconds from being dead. He generally preferred to keep his daily body count to three, but he was willing to add a fourth under the circumstances.

"He's not worth killing," Jack said.

He didn't take his eyes off his new target, but he could still see his totaled Bentley Continental from the corner of his eye. "Yes, he is. Do you know what I had to do to get that fucking car?"

"Kill somebody?" Jack said dryly.

Allen shot him a disgusted look, then shot his attention back to the asshole who had wrecked his baby. "You will hold still or I will make certain the bullet I put in you cause a very slow and painful death. Do you understand me?"

The guy nodded hastily, and lifted his hands in a show of surrender that was so fucking stupid Allen almost rolled his eyes. He'd worked his ass off for that car, taken the shittiest job on the planet for it and all he'd wanted was to enjoy the rest of his day but no—the easy job had turned difficult, it was snowing like hell when the forecast had said clear, Christmas was the day after tomorrow and he still didn't know what to buy Jack, and now his favorite car was totaled.

His mood had officially gone from bad to worse, and somebody was going to get a bullet in the head. He kept the gun steady and jerked his chin in the direction of the ruin that had been his car. "You have ten seconds to tell me how you're going to make me feel better, or I'll improve it myself by applying this entire clip to your torso region."

Jack sighed. Allen ignored him.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Happy Happy (and other shinies)

I'm a finalist!!! ^_____^

All Romance is having a short story contest:



The theme is paranormal, stories have to be 2500-3000k in length. They had to be turned in by September 1st, and today they emailed me to say that I am one of the 32 finalists who will move on to judging by readers starting October 1st!!!!!!!!!!

I am beside myself with glee :D I seriously do not care if I lose in the first round, I am beyond ecstatic that I made it this far! ^_____^


Other Shinies

Various and sundry authors are hosting giveaways, and while it's impossible to keep up with them all I am listing here are the two I saw today on twitter:

Little Magic Kickoff Contest by Piper Vaughn and M.J. O'Shea. It's for their new series, check it out! ^__^

I, Omega by Kari Gregg. If I reach my writing goal this week, I get to buy this one!


And keep an eye out on It's Raining Men because tomorrow my darling friend T.T. Kove is doing a giveaway for her first published release Forest of Fenris, coming next week to Less Than Three Press!

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Writing, writing


I have a lot of writing on my plate this month, as the problems with my teeth completely jacked up my schedule and now I am severely behind.

I am still trying to finish my own contribution to LT3's Vixen anthology, but I may just have to give up and put my femslash story aside to do something else with another time. We shall see. I have a snippet of it up here on my livejournal. I was (and still am) very excited about it, because I love mermaids and this was a great chance to play with them. Ah, well. Hopefully I can still finish it, but if not, so it goes :3

Next is a fairytale I need to finish up for LT3's Fairytales serial. It's our longest running and one of our most popular. Sasha and I write most of them, but we love to get other contributions, so if you ever have one, do feel free! ^__^ I actually have started and stalled on a handful of fairytales, just because I split myself in too many directions. This is something I am actively fixing, but it's taking time and I'm making myself stick to the schedule I set. So for now, the next fairytale going up by me is The Prince of the Moon and there is a snippet of it here on my LJ.

My main project this month is Meant to Be, the sequel to Kidnapped. I started the sequel years ago, and almost finished it, but then shit happened (as it always does) and I walked away from the entire world for a long time. But Kidnapped is done and submitted to my editors, and now I am finally cracking Meant to Be open, rewriting it, and this time finishing it.

The official excerpt was added to LT3 this weekend, and I have another snippet here for peeps who are interested.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

New Serial - Love You Like A Romance Novel

Once upon a time I wrote a story called Missing Butterfly. It was meant to be a silly, cute little bandom story for my roommate. I've never been much into bandom, or even into music, but my roommate steadily and sneakily brought me around to both.

MB actually wound up being less band-centric than I'd first intended, and I fully intend to go back to that particular set of characters someday and play with them as an actual band.

So I wrote it, thought it was something people would enjoy, but did not expect people to LOVE it the way so many do. I honestly thought it was too silly and cute and...idealistic? I guess, for people to fangirl hard. My contemporary seldom tends to take itself seriously, I'm just too much a fantasy junkie and contemporary for me is a break, a way to relax.

But, MB proved to be crazy popular and, even more surprising, it spawned more characters. Some of those chars will probably stay confined to the short little ficbits I write from time to time, but there were two who appeared and I knew they would be getting a novel someday.

Well, it would appear someday has finally arrived, though it'll be months before it reaches the public :3 Love You Like A Romance Novel is the story of Jet & Jason, and their story will be exactly as ridiculous and over the top and awesome as that title implies, because Jet would have nothing less :3

And now that you've endured my rambling, a sneak peak of their story. It will be serialized by Less Than Three Press next year.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Lightning Giveaway!

In honor of my new blog (because the other twenty I have obviously were not enough), I am giving away one free copy of my new book, due out Wednesday:



Tales of knights bound by duty, honor, and each other...

Always There—When the princess they are sworn to protect is kidnapped, two knights are separated in their efforts to save her, and in being part realize what they always had together...

Tournament—a young man attends accepts an offer to attend Tournament in the hopes that by winning it, he will finally gain the affections of the man he has loved his entire life.

Vow Unto Me—two men, divided by tragedy and grief, are ordered to a remote monastery to unravel a mystery, and finally overcome the problems keeping them apart.

I did release this book once before, way back when I was self-publishing on lulu. If you already have that version, you do not need this one. It has been edited and polished up, and I changed the title of one story (because I always hated the other title).

It's always been high on my list of personal favorites. I love knights, medieval settings, all of that. I am not an historical writer, this trilogy is definitely fantasy, but I did try hard to get the look and feel right. I am most proud of the first story, which is a rare instance of being plot driven more than character driven, which is unusual for me.

These stories are also amusing in that I used a very specific style of language (formal, no contractions, pseudo-old speak), and I wrote them for so long that I started to speak that way. I always wonder if other authors get so immersed in their stories they pick up the speech habits of their characters ^^;;; If not, I'll feel even more silly :3

I also advise one never writes a story that does not permit contractions AT ALL. It's a pain in the ass, let me tell you what :3

Anyway, to enter the drawing:

1. Leave a comment saying you want in
2. One entry per person
3. Drawing will happen 22:00 EST 8/30*
4. Winner will be randomly selected



Thanks to all for participating ^___^





*LT3 updates Tuesday night, even if our formal update day is Wednesday)

To Lauren Hough and Other Whiny Pissbabies: How Not to Behave as an Author

I should know how to behave and not behave. Anybody in MM Romance will be happy to tell you I have a long and sordid history of pissing peop...