luninosity

It’s funny, I’d actually been putting off making this post, even though of course I’m thrilled at the book release and seeing Sam and Leo get their happy ending! But it comes with a lot of feelings.

But, first – yes, In Focus is out now! Book two of two, of the Character Study duology – in which supporting actor Leo and photographer Sam meet each other’s families (including Benvolio the cat!), and navigate press tours and coming out, and help their friends when a crisis happens, and find their happy ending!

(Amazon link here!) (JMS Books link here!)

It’s got a lot of emotions because it’s really the last story in the whole Character Bleed universe (as far as I know, anyway) – the original Colby/Jason trilogy, all the bonus stories, and this spin-off because Leo demanded his own book…I’ve had these characters living in my head and being excitedly loud in my writer-brain for so many years. They’re friends. I’ve written little crossovers with some of my favorite other characters – with Colby and Jason meeting Ben and Simon, who were the main characters from my first-even published M/M story, years ago! (That was “Leather & Tea,” if you’re wondering, and the crossover stories are “Coffee & Tea” and “Coffee & Tea: Epilogue,” which is, er, quite spicy!) That felt like such a full-circle moment – it was lovely.

And it’s so odd thinking that this is really it. (Okay, technically my story for the JMS Books holiday advent calendar this year is in the Character Bleed universe! But it’s a one-shot with all new characters – they might go on a date to see a Colby Kent film, but there’s no real crossover!) And I know it is the end – we’ve left everyone in a wonderful happy place, and the characters aren’t metaphorically tugging on my sleeve and popping up with a new idea about home renovation or baking contests, not anymore. I suspect that’s how my head knows it’s probably time for the next thing. (Yep, I’ve got some Ideas. Probably more in the fantasy realm…there’s the Apprentice’s Luck sequel, and story about Lorre’s daughter, and the next Aric/Em short story, and the third Regency Magicians book with K.S. Murphy, among others…)

But this is still the biggest story I’ve ever written, counting all those books and bonus stories, and it’s been so much a part of me – it’s the story I’ve done the most outlining for (ever!), had random ideas for whilst driving home from campus, got the Good Sex Award runner-up nod for, looked up historical ship parts for, thought up terrible bread puns for…I’m so very very proud of it. I loaf it.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for sharing Colby and Jason and Leo and Sam with me. Thank you for the conversations in comments, and for the fan art and fan fic and fan trailer for Steadfast-the-movie – it’s a delight and a joy and an honor to see people making awesome things, creative things, because you love these characters too.

(Y’know, it’s also funny – I realized how many tropes I wrote into this book that I don’t normally write! It’s a coming out story, there’re kids around in the form of Sam’s sisters – well, teens, but still – there’s [sort of] a third-act breakup, or at least a needing some space, for good reasons, mind you, and it doesn’t really last that long…but all of that is just really what this story wanted to be! Of course Leo would have to be dramatic and unusual. Of course.)

So I hope you enjoy In Focus! It’s also got rather more fish and seahorse references than I expected. But everyone needs a rainbow crystal fish comfort object once in a while…

Oh, and this book also has one of my favorite playlists! I do usually have a plan for those, some more than others, and this one just…every song fits so well. I’ll probably make a separate post commenting on some of those choices, sometime, but I did start this playlist off with one of my very favorite songs (at least top five, maybe top two), which I’d been saving for the right story, and it felt right here for Sam and Leo, celebratory and tentative and determined and hopeful and full of explorations, all at once – that’s “Aside” by The Weakerthans:

…and I’m leaning on this broken fence
Between past and present tense
And I’m losing all those stupid games
That I swore I’d never play
But it almost feels okay

Circumnavigate this body
Of wonder and uncertainty
Armed with every precious failure
And amateur cartography…

Current Mood: contemplative

Out today from Amphibian Press: We Came to Dance, a charity anthology benefiting Club Q!

Such a great cause - and you get a brand-new, never-before-seen story by, er, me, K.L. Noone, as well as stories by fabulous author-friends like Olivia Wylie & Kaye O'Malley & more! with gorgeous art for each story, by Olivia, as well!

You can get both the digital and the paperback versions here, and all proceeds go to Club Q!

Current Mood: productive

The recordings from the Rainbow Space Magic virtual convention are up over on the RSM YouTube page!

The playlist has my reading session, and also the panel I was on/moderating about writing fantasy and medieval history, and also K.S. Murphy's panel on research & experience!

Here's the link - enjoy!

Current Mood: cheerful

For no reason at all except that I’m currently working on this, would you like a teaser from the draft of my story for the JMS Books holiday advent calendar for this year? I think it’s fun…

#

“No,” Jason said. He had a strand of twinkly soft gold lights looped around one arm, because those were meant to go along with the pine branches over the windows. Candles glimmered in cinnamon and golden topaz and spiced marshmallow light. The entire place shimmered with, tasted of, sang with Christmas cheer: he and Colby and the house had all decided it was time to start decorating, especially given a few weeks off. They’d have to be back in London in January, for Colby to start rehearsals for a young and updated stage show Macbeth and for both of them to work on voice roles for the animated princes-falling-in-love-while-in-disguise adventure. They’d baked gingerbread that morning.

California wasn’t even that cold—no snow, no rain—but the afternoon was overcast, a gauzy mystical pearl of a day. Jason, who knew how much Colby loved thunderstorms, hoped this was at least good enough: enchanted and iridescent.

And, apparently, haunting him with his own action-movie sins. In full color.

He tried again, over the relentlessly jolly music now emanating from their television, “Absolutely not. Please. No.” He knew that music. And the opening shot that went with it. Santa’s sleigh. Accidentally in the middle of a mobster-and-hitman gunfight. On Christmas Eve. “Colby, please.”

“But it’s a holiday classic.” His husband, sitting up amid a tumble of creamy envelopes and crimson ink and flowing addresses in elegant calligraphy, set down the remote. And did not look at all guilty. “And I honestly adore it.”

“You don’t.”

“I do so.”

“Babe, no one adores Saint Nick Steel.”

“Then why do they show it on television every year at the holidays?”

“Colby,” Jason begged. “It’s got me wearing a magic Santa hat. Infused with the spirit of Christmas. And also vengeance. Or something. Please.”

“But you’re also protecting children! It’s a fairytale! You learn about kindness and rescuing children from the evil assassins, and then you get to become the next—”

On the television screen, in the terrible B-or-worse-movie action fantasy that Jason’s husband somehow genuinely enjoyed, Jason’s mob hitman caught a falling Santa cap as Santa’s sleigh fell out of the sky. The cap sparkled in his hands. He muttered, “Merry fucking Christmas,” and looked up at the stars, and then seemed to feel uneasy, suddenly: a pang of conscience, perhaps.

Jason, fifteen years later, grumbled, “You realize this movie made basically everyone’s top ten worst list, that year. And the next. And, like, every year.”

“It’s a cult classic!”

“I’d hate to be part of that cult…” He eyed Colby and the plaintive kitten expression aimed his way. He sighed. The lights on his arm twinkled merrily. “You actually do like it.”

Colby’s eyes got even bigger, mock-wounded. “Jason. Love. I told you I did.” But he was trying not to grin.

“What did I do,” Jason asked the lights, “to deserve this?” But he ended up grinning too. He meant the question: what had he done, how had he deserved, to be this happy? To have this life, this incredible fairytale life, with his genius husband and their library of steampunk romance fantasy novels and their shared film career?

Colby told him he’d been kind. And a talented actor, exactly right in their first-ever screen test. Jason believed that, these days. He knew he was decently good at his job, and he knew he was pretty good at loving Colby, which after all was exactly what he’d always wanted to do, ever since that first meeting. What he was made for. Big hands, strength, support, and a magic Santa hat.

He looked at Colby. Colby said, pen in one hand, holiday-card envelopes addressed in luscious flowing calligraphy, “I’m almost done here, one more, do you want the leftover chicken Florentine for lunch, or do you want to just make sandwiches, or we could do something with the gingerbread?”

“What would we make with gingerbread for lunch? No,” he added hastily, “don’t answer that.” Colby would certainly come up with something. It’d probably even be good, because Colby was a fantastic cook. But Jason’s brain and stomach weren’t quite prepared for gingerbread and chicken and tomato sauce in combination. “I’m fine with leftover chicken. Finish that last one first, and I’ll put these up.”

“Love you,” Colby said, and picked up the last envelope. Jason forgot about the string of lights, and just watched him.

Graceful hands. Swooping classical script. The line of that forearm, lavender shirtsleeve shoved up. The tumble of Colby’s hair, chocolate-dark and wavy and long enough to curl over his ears, into one eyebrow, against his cheek. Intent focus, making sure he’d got the address right for one of Jason’s aunts.

Jason put down the lights. Found the small brass-and-iron-gears dragon that lived on their fireplace mantel, a Renaissance Faire purchase which now wore a Santa hat. Nodded at it, got permission, and took the Santa hat. Put it on.

And then he came over to Colby’s spot on the rug. Standing over his husband.

Colby put down the pen and the final finished envelope. Looked up. Began to smile, glorious, delighted.

“Hey,” Jason said. “Have you been naughty, or nice, this year?”

Current Mood: busy

I was looking for something else, and stumbled across this, which was obviously meant to be the opening of a...short story? something longer? I think I have a vague idea of where it might've been going, or at least the relationship in question, if not the plot! I actually rather like it. I wonder what I could do with it...

#

The envoys from all six neighboring countries had begun arriving for the Winter Banquet. Therefore, of course, the youngest prince of Tenebrae was dead again.

Cinnabar Flint glared at the royal messenger, grumbled, “I’m only a journeyman, let me call Master Horatio—” and tried to shut the door to the College of Necromancers in the young woman’s face. The messenger, being experienced at this, stuck her foot in the crack before he could.

“Cinn,” Master Horatio observed, appearing in the corridor behind him, “you know you’re only a journeyman because you keep avoiding your final masterwork, now go and help the nice young person.” In casual black—trousers, robe with rolled-up sleeves, silver master’s pin crooked as usual at his throat—he had a pencil and a small bag in one hand, and lifted both eyebrows Cinn’s direction, only lightly grey over cheerful brown amusement.

“You go,” Cinn said. “I’m busy. Testing the first-years on Caelian funeral runes this afternoon.” Most of the first- and second-year apprentices remained in awe of the masters and their supposed power. Cinn, who’d grown up on the grounds and who’d deliberately remained a journeyman for three years and more, had once seen Master Horatio consume an entire Renewing Day fruitcake sculpture in one sitting, and had acquired a rather different form of awe in that direction.

“No you’re not,” his Master said. “I’m taking your class, and you’re waking up our recalcitrant prince.”

“Soon would be nice,” said the messenger, to Cinn. “The banquet’s in two hours.” Her expression suggested fast-eroding patience regarding collegiate bickering, balanced with the awareness that the College felt similar emotions regarding Prince Hyacinthe’s penchant for escape from uncomfortable social obligations.

“You just don’t want to deal with him,” Cinn said to his Master, accurately.

“True, which is why I’m sending my favorite and most skilled journeyman,” Horatio agreed serenely. “Young person, would you like a roasted pumpkin seed? They’re delicious.”

The messenger’s expression now contained quite a lot of doubt about the casual consumption of pumpkin seeds in a hallway that almost certainly led to dead bodies. Cinn felt this was rather unfair; the College had excellent kitchens and brilliant cooks.

He inquired, “What happened this time? Riding accident, doing a terrible job at fighting an ogre, impressive ability to drown in his own new shower-bath twice?”

“Boar hunting, I think.” The messenger ran a hand through her blonde curls, above royal livery. Rain dripped, desultory, over cobblestones outside. “Something about tripping over his own spear. Er…you are good at this, aren’t you?”

“The best,” put in Master Horatio, beaming. “Naturally gifted. Quite rare, really, that level of innate talent.”

Cinn sighed. Heavily.

He knew perfectly well that he did not precisely fit traditional assumptions about necromancers. He’d never been tall or imposing, and he looked even younger and distressingly thin in formal black robes, so he mostly didn’t bother with them. His hair, fortunately, tended to look good in messy pale strawberry-gilt waves, but it was the sort of good that attracted men and playful hands, rather than intimidating them in rooms of power. Cinn did not mind the former, but occasionally, especially when faced with ingredients on tall shelves, he wondered what having actual height and breadth and shoulders would feel like.

At least announcing his profession generally helped as far as being taken seriously. Assuming the person looking at him actually believed him, of course. If they did, they looked at him differently; he wasn’t sure yet whether he enjoyed that.

That morning, given the cool rainy promise in the air, he’d thrown on battered but comfortable grey trousers and a deep indigo-dyed shirt and a knitted crimson jumper he’d picked up in the market, decent enough for teaching. He had chipped rose-pink nail varnish on because he hadn’t got around to either properly removing or touching up the color, because he’d been busy with fellow journeyman Melody’s birthday celebrations and the pubs, plural; and then he’d been sticking his hands into various bodies and recuperative ingredients and magic and student ritual-language quizzes all week…

He knew how the current argument would go. He sighed again. “You owe me.”

“They’ll likely invite you to stay. All those visiting nobles, Court fashions, the wine and the food…it’ll be quite splendid.”

“You could do this one.”

“Oh, dear, no,” Master Horatio said hastily. The specters of polite aristocratic small talk, of dealing with banquet etiquette—and also talking to the youngest reckless embodiment of royal privilege—rose behind the words. “I’ve been to the palace so many times, you know. It’s getting quite dull for me, you see. All yours. Go on. Stay for the banquet. Enjoy the valuable opportunity. You might even meet the King and Queen.”

“I don’t want to stay for the banquet. I want to come home and mark exams and read that latest romantic novel by Verena Rose. I want hot cocoa. It’s raining.”

“I’m certain you can find a lovely young courtier to romance, if you’d like the non-literary version.”

“Just for that,” Cinn announced, “I will, and it’s your fault if I cause a diplomatic incident. Necromancer and visiting duke caught in stairwell. Forming intimate alliances. Naked. I’m taking these with me.” He plucked the sack of roasted pumpkin seeds out of his Master’s startled grip, grabbed a spare weatherproof cloak from behind the door, and found one of the usual travel kits on the shelves: herbs, thread, coins, cypress rods, all neatly packed.

He wouldn’t need most of it. Horatio hadn’t been wrong about him.

Naturally gifted. Innately talented. Able to hear, to touch, to speak to the dead more clearly than anyone else he’d ever met. Not always, not every time, but most times.

He’d stood in old guildhalls and centuries-worn pubs, and he’d felt the whisper of ghosts at his shoulders: too light for even fellow apprentices to hear, but present. All around. Murmuring to him. Never silent, unless he drowned them out. He had good mental walls, though sometimes the scratching grew interminable, relentless, flickering on the edge of pain.

At least the prince, being newly dead—again—would be loud and bright. Unmistakable. Easy to find. After all, this was very nearly routine: Prince Hyacinthe, golden and feckless, avoiding responsibilities and failing at heroic quests by, quite literally, dropping dead. Causing anxiety; causing more work; in general being a decidedly royal pain.

Still, the College would send someone. They did every time. They did not dislike the King and Queen, who after all had been good rulers for Tenebrae; they did not dislike the Crown Prince, or the sprawling prolific and goodnatured royal family in general.

Prince Hyacinthe in particular, though…

Cinn tossed a pumpkin seed up and caught it in his mouth just to watch his Master’s mournful expression, and picked up the travel bag. The messenger got visibly relieved.

“Have fun,” Horatio said. “I’ll go and find your first-years. Which classroom was it, again? There are so many.”

“Thank you for this valuable opportunity,” Cinn told him, utterly deadpan, and went out in the direction of the palace, over puddled streets, in the rain.

Current Mood: lazy

So...two of my books (well, one book and one novella) are nominated for the 2020 Paranormal Romance Guild Reviewer's Choice Awards!

Seaworthy (yay for Jason & Colby and Character Bleed!) in general LGBT Romance (about halfway down as you scroll), and "Sundown, Holiday, Beacon" in LGBT Novellas & Shorts (last category, near the bottom!)!

Voting goes live Feb 6! *excited flails* (I don't actually know how the voting works; I assume one has to be a member...but I don’t in fact know for sure! So…if you would like to vote for these things I write…or just share and support!…I will love and adore you! and possibly write some form of tiny bonus story? I wouldn’t be here without all of you! <3)

Yay!!!

Current Mood: jubilant

So, a bit of news!

The expanded version of Frost & Raine will be published by JMS Books February 13! *excited flailing*

This is my Valentine’s Day, or rather sort of anti-Valentine’s Day (but not really) contemporary paranormal m/m attempt at a romantic comedy! It’s essentially:

~a Cupid who works as a divorce lawyer

~a Frost spirit who runs a coffee shop

~The Grumpy One Is Soft For The Sunshine One

~showing love via help with spreadsheets and the purchase of a cactus

~eventually, awesome sex

~an approving kitchen herb garden

~a happy ending, of course!

If you’ve read the version on AO3, the *published* version is around 9k longer, just over 40k instead of around 32k - mostly some elements having to do with Raine’s family / Raine’s sex life / more world-building! So really it’s grown by...about a quarter again as long as it was! So you will absolutely get new content!

So, what does all that mean?

First, like with Character Bleed, there’s already some fan art / lovely comments / interactions / links to fandom that I don’t want to lose, so I’ll probably at least do the ‘registered users only’ lock on the AO3 version once we get closer to the publication date, so it’s not “publicly available” anymore! (Also the sequel won’t ever go up on AO3 - I’m still writing it, and it’s promised to JMS, so I’ll just send it in when it’s finished...)

Second, the 40k length is a really interesting one, contractually! Anything 60k or over will (eventually - all printing is delayed right now) get a print edition; anything 40-60k might get a print edition depending on how well the ebook sells during the first six months. (Under 40k, highly unlikely, unless it’s part of a collection or anthology, like the Top Ten or Snowed In or One Night in London books.) So if you might like a print edition of this story to happen...or if you’ve enjoyed it on AO3 and you want to support a Cupid and a Frost spirit and, er, me writing things...perhaps come order a digital copy? (And look at that adorable cover!)

The pre-order link is up here at JMS Books now - on sale for 20% off, for pre-orders, so it’s only $3.19!

I’ll add the Amazon etc links when I have those!

Frost and Raine

Current Mood: busy

My general sense, before I start actually finding fics etc, is that I wrote about the same or more overall in 2020...possibly more fanfic than in 2019, but more original, too...possibly less Stucky (again) and more Evanstan? And, surprisingly, probably slightly more Cherik - and I finished off TWO series I've had unfinished for *years*, so I feel accomplished! (Not 'rain on tin,' though. Dammit.) And I wrote for one fandom (Leverage) I'd never written for before! And of course there's the whole glorious massive epic that's Character Bleed, published in 2020, though I've been working on that for a while!

Academic (just to get this out of the way first)
~ the Terry Pratchett book came out this year, but no new writing for that - some reviewing of edits etc, though!
~two academic book reviews, one around 2k, one around 1,200 words
~a submitted (still in editorial review) article on medievalism and the show Blunt Talk and The Once and Future King, around 4k
~the in-progress Neil Gaiman and Batman book chapter - currently around 3k, needs to be around 6k including references, due this month
~not listing all the conference/unpublished papers, but a few of those too!

Fanfic

Stucky

Whumptober 2020 - Stucky Edition, M overall (individual chapters vary), 11,473 words. The collection of individual (some linked) shorts from the Whumptober challenge! This was fun, if tiring - I wrote more fanfic than I had in ages! Lots of hurt/comfort, near-death experiences, etc....

Evanstan

Evanstan Round Robin 2020, E,12,497 words overall, but my chapter's 1,313 words. The annual holiday collaborative masterpiece! So soft and fluffy this year - such a delight sharing this love and creation and fandom with everyone!

would anybody recognize, M (mostly for implied dynamics/Sebastian's fantasies), 3,329 words. The meet-cute at an obscure art-house movie AU!

my best, to keep you satisfied, E, 8,058 words. Co-authored with thebestpersonherelovesbucky! Delightful collaborative established-relationship porn-with-emotions fun, in which Sebastian's earned Chris's undivided attention.

Sea(son) the Moment, E, 4,606 words. Co-authored with musette22 & paperstorm! Quarantine coping mechanisms, otherwise known as: that fic in which Sebastian watches Chris's internet cooking videos, and falls in love.

Color In The Picture, E, 6,033 words. Unrepentant fluffy loving kink, with soft helpless Seb role-play kink.

Lift You Up Over Everything, E, 11,410 words. The semi-sequel to the above - can stand alone, but it's what happens next - and my 300th work (currently) on AO3! Also probably among the kinkiest fics I've written, what with the sounding and watersports and all.

Extra Sugar - My Evanstan epic fic-baby! I added chapter 32 - the final chapter! in 2020, which brings the total to 112,579 words - which means, doing some math, that's + 5,046 words! One of my 2020 goals was to finish off this series, completely, entirely - and I have, and we're done. I'm still so amazed by this whole universe that I somehow made, and by the fandom response to it. *hugs you all*

A Place Not Far Away, E, 38,160 words. My Evanstan autumn fluff (and porn!) fic! I'm so thrilled people love this one; it was one of those stories that just wanted to be written, and kept flowing, scene after scene.

Whumptober 2020 - Evanstan Edition, E overall (individual chapters vary), 16,050 words. The collection of individual (some linked) shorts from the Whumptober challenge! This was fun, if tiring - I wrote more fanfic than I had in ages! Lots of hurt/comfort, near-death experiences, etc....

Cherik

Whumptober 2020 - Cherik Edition, M, 1,415 words. Just a little sick!Charles hurt/comfort fic - ah, the memories, so much like one of my very first-ever fanfics!

And Heaven Only Knows, E, 6.653 words. Finishing off the compromise series, which has been in progress since 2013! I'm so proud of just...well...finishing it. And I like it - it's an XMFC fix-it, of course, because the series is, with Dom/sub dynamics and fun with powers, and maybe my writing style's shifted a little over the years, but that's okay - it's a good ending, full of hope.

Leverage

Whumptober 2020 - Leverage Edition, T, 2,163 words. I'd never written Leverage fic before, but I do love the show and this trio, and a friend asked, so I tried! I really like how it came out - I love the dynamic here.

Original Fic (at least mostly written and published in 2020)

(Character Bleed, E, 254,099 words. **Pretty much all of this was written in 2019, so I'm not really counting it as 'new words' - but all the editing - and the publication!!!! - happened in 2020!** THIS STORY, YOU GUYS. I love it and these characters so much. It's the most ambitious thing I've ever tried to write, that whole story-within-a-story, being about actors filming a Regency-era gay love story, and falling in love themselves. I'm just looking at it all...and I'm in awe...and the response to this, oh wow. I've been so amazed and so grateful and so thrilled - the art, the trailer, the comments, the people thinking about these characters and loving them along with me - I'm so lucky to have all of you. *hugs everyone* And now you can buy it! As three volumes - Seaworthy, Stalwart, and Steadfast! Available via JMS Books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and everywhere!)

Character Bleed Bonus Scenes, E, 84,125 words, which means 58,428 new words! Also there're at least three special bonus scenes that *aren't* on AO3, only included with the published books! (Conversely, there're at least two bonus scenes that will only ever be on AO3, for all of you reading there!) So that's probably an extra, oh, let's say around 5k words.

Cinnamon and Strawberries (A Character Bleed Story), E, 12,169 words. My Jason & Colby holiday novella! Full of celebrations, love, moving in together, and interesting uses for holiday ribbon...

Cadence and the Pearl, E, 60,097 words, About 30k of it written in 2019/2018 (Was this really also published this year? I had FOUR novels out this year? Gosh.) I really love this one, honestly - historical, paranormal, pensive, ocean magic, a fairy tale.

The Arch-Mage's Firebird, E, 11,220 words. A spin-off story in the Kitten & Witch universe! (I really ought to write the third part of the main story...) A runaway firebird, and an Arch-Mage in hiding, and a beachside town.

One Night in London: Robert & Anthony, E, 29,247 words. My part of the fabulous collaborative three-part novel, with Shelly "turtletotem" Greene and K.S. "thebestpersonherelovesbucky" Murphy! You can buy the collected version here - they're more fun to read together, since our characters interact, but they can technically stand alone. Regency m/m romance, ballrooms, scandals... (I also wrote the prologue for the collected edition, so, + about 5k words!) Eventually there'll be a print version of the collected edition! We had so much fun - perhaps we'll do it again sometime...

A Demon for Forever, E, 13,752 words - surprise! I thought I was done with the Demon for Midwinter universe - but JMS did a submissions call for stories celebrating LGBTQ marriage, and, well - I'd written the proposal story for Kris and Justin, so...we should get to see the wedding, right? With Justin in a wedding dress. A sparkly one. This story is also available as part of the JMS Books 2020 Top Ten Anthology!

The Demon's Choice, E, 19,365 words - extra surprise! I'd had to cut this whole subplot from an earlier Demon story, but I couldn't stop thinking about it, so...I finally wrote it as a bonus story! Hurt/comfort, Justin confronting his heritage, and of course a happy ending.

Refuge at Clifftop, E, 17,262 words. Third in the Extraordinary superhero polyamory series! Lots of hurt/comfort in this one, near-death self-sacrifice, tons of heroic love!

Leather and Tea in London, E, 20,909 words - the third of the Leather and Tea stories! Written for the JMS Books BDSM collection call. Simon's brother needs a favor. So Ben and Simon head to London, bringing Ben's retired-spy skill set and also some fun toys for enjoying themselves.
This story is also available as part of the JMS Books Hurts So Good BDSM Trio Collection!

A Penny for Your Thoughts, E (but mostly implied / discussed - those darn truth-telling coins!), 3,981 words. A original-fic rewrite of an Evanstan drabble, expanded somewhat - and I really love these characters! A magician, his hero, mutual pining, and love confessions.

Of Starlit Balls and Starship Captains, T, 6,596 words. M/F, with bi/pan protagonists - my attempt at mixing space opera and Regency romance! Technically I'd written an earlier version of this a couple years ago for a contest, for which it was not chosen, so this isn't all new writing, but substantially so.

Statuesque, E, 3,491 words - some lesbian erotica! Short and kinky - established Dom/sub relationship - and loving.

Honey Witch, E, 4,032 words. More short lesbian erotica! A witch and her princess, finding each other.

Original Fic (written/heavily revised in 2020, publication contracts signed but not yet published)

A Sonnet for a Thunderstorm, M, 3,202 words. An expanded original-character version of a several-years-old Cherik drabble - 18th century historical, thunderstorms, a poet and his pirate. Probably out in April/May 2021.

(Frost & Raine, expanded version - the version that's still on AO3, which I'll have to take down, is about 31k - the published version, coming in February 2021, is currently 40,020 words. So...8,141 new words!)

Original Fic (written in 2020, not yet under contract or published other than on AO3)

In Focus, which is the Character Bleed spin-off, Leo's story - still in progress! it's up to 68,458 words, so that means...52,947 new words in 2020! Not bad.

Whumptober 2020 - Original Fic Edition, E (overall; individual chapters vary), 13,271 words. All the Whumptober fics for my original fic - fanfic for myself! A couple of the Character Bleed-related ones might make it into publication, as well as the Jamie/Brendan story, eventually, I hope.

Ember and Serenity, E, 23,170 words currently - I added chapter 5 in 2020, so that's 2,418 new words! I do have plans for this one. Oh yes. My librarian-magician and his book-thief...yes. And if you're wondering who hired Serenity, well, there already has been a clue... :D

Spells and Sensibility (working title), aka the mystery project I'm working on with K.S. Murphy, which involves Regency-era magicians, which is currently 35,546 words!

~~
Okay, I THINK that's everything! Which is...a lot of words. Good heavens.

It's definitely tilted even more toward original fic this year, and I didn't finish 'rain on tin,' which means it's been over TWO years since I've touched that one. Drat.

But I did get to go back and write a couple things for my old Cherik loves, and I finished off TWO big series - Like Sugar (finally, for good) and the compromise series, both of which I'd been writing for years. It's also been a very collaborative year, both published fic and fanfic, which I love! And then there's so much original fic - some of which is among my favorite stories I've ever written. (The Character Bleed characters still live vividly in my head - well, of course they do, we're still working on Leo's story!)

Thanks for reading! I hope your year is starting off splendidly. <3

Current Mood: accomplished

The pre-order link is up, so we can announce this - the 2020 Top Ten Gay Romance collection will be released from JMS Books December 30, and it has my story "A Demon for Forever" in it! (The "Demon for Midwinter" wedding story, with Justin in a wedding dress!) And the other authors (including the lovely K.S. Murphy, aka thebestpersonherelovesbucky on tumblr!) are marvelous - such good company to be in!

Here's the publisher description: 2020 Top Ten Gay Romance brings together the best-selling short stories published by JMS Books this year. From first love to true love, from submission to sensual, from heat to sweet and everything in between, the couples in these stories are sure to keep you turning the pages as you fall in love with them.

Pre-order yours here now! And look at that adorable cover!

2020 Top Ten Gay Romance

Current Mood: excited

Today is the book release day for Cadence and the Pearl! If you’ve seen me mention this one, you’ll know how much I love it – it’s my next proper full-length novel (just over 60k), and it’s full of ocean magic, and opera plots, and the Northern Isles, and merpeople, and a schoolteacher with a secret, and homecomings, and second chances, and, oh, a whole lot of enchanted things…

cadenceandthepearl

I also really love my language and writing in this one – is that odd to say, as the author? I do, though! I was aiming for a tone that’s very…almost nineteenth-century (but modern in word choice and sentence structure!), very fairytale, Lord Dunsany, Neil Gaiman’s Stardust, Susanna Clarke, and full of magic. And I hope you love it as much as I do!

Buy Cadence at JMS Books (on sale for 20% off – only $3.99!) here! Or at Amazon here (for $4.99)! Or Barnes & Noble here! Or anywhere else you might like to buy books!

(It's also almost my birthday - about a week - so if you would like, well...I would be delighted if you wanted to buy a copy! *laughs*)

In other upcoming story news, I have two short stories in the works at JMS – one a return to m/f (with bisexual protagonists) romance, and one a super-short fluffy m/m fantasy confection!

The m/f story is called “Of Starlit Balls and Starship Captains,” and it’s scheduled for May 9 – it’s essentially Jane Austen meets space opera, with a coming-of-age ball, a Galactic Emperor in need of a bride, and a very grumpy starship captain who’d rather wear her uniform than a gown…

The m/m short (part of the JMS Hot Flash line, priced at 99 cents and under 5k) is called “A Penny for Your Thoughts,” and it’s scheduled for May 30 – it’s high fantasy, with a magical artifact hunter (with a big soft heart) who finds cursed items and brings them to the local magician (who he’s secretly in love with) to help cleanse of dark magic…and, of course, the latest artifact happens to be a coin with a truth-telling confession spell on it…and it just might turn out the feelings are mutual…

I’ll update with book covers for those two stories once I’ve got them!

Finally, a book rec – the utterly wonderful Rock and Roll Chose Me by K.S. Murphy (who you might know as kellyscams and who I love deeply as a friend and sometimes co-author), which is contemporary m/m romance with main characters who feel so fantastically real, and who we care about so deeply, even when they make mistakes – they grow and learn and try, and they deserve their happy ending. And the side characters are delightful too! Here’s the Amazon link, though you can also pick it up from JMS Books, BN, etc.

Current Mood: excited

Just popping in quickly with two announcements and cover reveals!

The first – The Arch-Mage’s Firebird is now available for pre-order over at JMS Books, and it’s only $1.59!

thearchmagesfirebird
This one’s set in the universe of the Kitten & Witch stories (the stories with Colin & David, my cat shapeshifter and the white witch who rescues him) – but essentially stand-alone, with new characters! (Though you might notice some references to Colin and David…and we might run into Tom & Nicholas from this one in the next proper Colin & David story!)

Roughly 11,300 words, m/m, with some mutual refuge, a bit of heat, and an oceanside ice-cream parlor!

Contains scoops of:
-an ice-cream shop owner with a secret
-one missing Arch-Mage
-one wizard’s apprentice, presently being chased by bounty hunters
-protective feelings & protective magic
-a firebird who likes the ocean
-human/magical shapeshifter politics (also discussed in bed)
-marshmallow-fluff sundaes

Second – well, if you’re following me on Twitter, you know I’ve been teasing something exciting for the JMS Books Love Wins themed releases in February…
…and here’s the cover! AND and and – yes, we’re back in the Demon for Midwinter universe! I hadn’t really planned on it, but the theme was too perfect and I couldn’t resist – I do love these guys – and after all, we saw the proposal (in “Sunlight and Gold”), so we should get to see the wedding, right?

ademonforforever

A Demon for Forever will be out mid-February, and contains:

-Justin, a Demon, in a wedding dress

-some Important Discussion about carrot cake

-rock-star reminiscing

-a not even subtle Sex Pistols reference

-a Midwinter wedding + wedding-night sex

-a whole lotta love, to borrow a phrase

Current Mood: excited

It's been an interesting year! Once again, I suspect I wrote more overall than last year - but much more heavily original, and even less fanfic, again. But a couple of those have been stories people really love, or seem to, from the AO3 comments etc. I didn't finish one thing I'd really meant to finish, but I did write a 254k novel, which, what even. So...let's see what all those things are!

Academic (just to get this out of the way first)
~A book chapter on Disney's Robin Hood for an edited collection on Disney & pop culture (my chapter's around 5,000 words)
~The intro/my chapter/overall editorial work/bibliography for the Terry Pratchett book, coming 2020 (collectively, probably around 15k words of my own writing, plus comments on contributor essays)
~The book proposal for the Star Trek book (~3,000 words)
~The in-progress Neil Gaiman and Batman book chapter - currently around 2k, needs to be around 6k including references
~Plus one more successful grant application! Not listing all the conference/unpublished papers, but those too.

Fanfic

Stucky

straight from your heart, E, 10,516 words - ah, yes, my contribution to the Bottom Bucky Fest! It was such a marvelous prompt, about Steve guiltily having a kinky fantasy about essentially rescuing and caring for the Winter Soldier (which also includes teaching him all about pleasure), and Bucky finding out about this, and them then negotiating ways to make this fantasy come true. I hadn't been writing as much Stucky, but this one flowed really well and felt really good, and people seem to like it!

Evanstan (hmm - way less Evanstan this year! still some, at least...)

Evanstan Round Robin 2019, T, 12,497 words overall, but my chapters total 2,528 words. The annual holiday collaborative masterpiece! So soft and fluffy this year - such a delight sharing this love and creation and fandom with everyone!

Extra Sugar - My Evanstan epic fic-baby! I added chapters 30 & 31 in 2019, which brings the total to 107,533 words - which means, doing some math, that's + 4,000 words exactly, apparently! There'll be one more chapter. I know what it is, I just haven't had the time to write it. 2020 goal: finish off this series, completely, entirely, at the end. I'm still so amazed by this whole universe that I somehow made, and by the fandom response to it. *hugs you all*

Cherik

When It's Time, T, 2852 words - this one's not up on AO3 yet, though I think I can do that now, if it's okay with the 'zine people! This was my story for the Bookends Cherik 'zine, and it's an AU with magicians in a sort of present-day fantasy setting version of the ending of Dark Phoenix, and it was fun to get back to one of my first real fandom loves, and I'm glad I wrote it.

we are electric hearts, T, 2,732 words - fluffy little fun universe-crossover in which Erik and Charles meet Kris and Justin, my original Demon for Midwinter characters, written for

kernezelda <3

Original Fic (written and published in 2019)

Gingerbread Dreams, M, 23,662 words - holiday m/m gingerbread competition baking fluff! A cranky judge! A cheerful ugly-sweater-wearing baker! The Grumpy One Is Soft For The Adorable One! The story I looked up medieval gingerbread recipes for, for a contestant challenge! Also contains a couple of familiar characters from "October Spice" in supporting roles...
This story is also available as part of the Most Wonderful Time of the Year Trio Collection from JMS Books - three novellas bundled together, at a discount!

October Spice, E, 3,130 words - the story that briefly made it to #1 Best Seller on Amazon in the LGBTQ Short Reads category! My super-short flash fiction romance for JMS Books, priced at only 99 cents! (Or even less, when on sale!) A first meeting, instant attraction (and some orgasms!), a Halloween-loving baker, and an adorable firefighter. (Evan and Matt (well, Matt in baked-goods artistic tribute) get a supporting role in Gingerbread Dreams, as mentioned above, if you want to know what they're up to...) (Also, Evan's last name is 100% an Ace of Cakes reference.)

Bisclavret, T, 11,756 words - technically I had about 5k of this written YEARS ago, back when I first read Marie de France's 12th-century lai in grad school and immediately had to write an adaptation of it. But this version has extensive revisions, and ended up over twice as long. If you like stories about a medieval bisexual werewolf and the demisexual king he falls in love with, and a love of books and cuddling...well, that's basically what this one is!

A Leather and Tea Morning, E,6,993 words - the first of the Leather and Tea sequels! (There'll be at least one more, about which more below.) Ben and Simon, a lazy morning, and some emotional comfort sex in the wake of Simon having been in a car accident. He's all recovered and everything - but there're some emotions that need to be dealt with, about Ben and protectiveness and tenderness and care and getting back to a very cautious-but-satisfying kinky scene.

Sound the Fairy-Call, E, 5,545 words - the heavily rewritten (like, nearly twice as long, new original characters, world-building, all of that) original-fic version of my old Evanstan fic Glow, and it's basically the medieval fantasy healing-sex-in-a-forest story, with a fairy and a tired mercenary and Eastern European folklore references! Plus I've managed to quote Robert Graves in the epigraph! (To be fair, I wrote the first draft of this at the very very end of 2018 - I had literally just signed the contract before last year's writing round-up post. But then there was editing, revisions, etc, in 2019. So it counts!)
This story is also available as part of the JMS Books 2019 Top Ten Gay Romance collection! Come pick up a copy and discover all the bestselling gay romance authors!

The Ninepenny Element, M, 12,274 words - my first published lesbian romance! With a lawyer, a witch, some hexed earrings, a psychic younger brother, and a ghost puppy! This is essentially the sequel to Elemental (m/m, E, 12,776 words), since Verity's the older sister of Sterling from that story, but you don't necessarily have to've read that one first. There'll likely be one more - I have a vague idea about weather magic, and there's more to explore in this universe.

The Pooka's Share, E, 20,205 words - a weary magical cop, an unruly faerie horse shapeshifter, and some creative punishments for apple-theft! More fun with folklore and sex and two people finding each other and turning out to be exactly what they both need, full of magic and compassion.
This story is also available as part of the Legendary Loves Trio collection from JMS Books - three novellas bundled together, at a discount!

Original Fic (written in 2019, publication contracts signed but not yet published)

A Demon for Forever, E, 13,752 words - surprise! I thought I was done with the Demon for Midwinter universe - but JMS did a submissions call for stories celebrating LGBTQ marriage, and, well - I'd written the proposal story for Kris and Justin, so...we should get to see the wedding, right? This one'll be out in February. Justin may or may not wear a wedding dress. A sparkly one. :D

Leather and Tea in London, E, 20,909 words - the third of the Leather and Tea stories! Written for the JMS Books BDSM collection call. Simon's brother needs a favor. So Ben and Simon head to London, bringing Ben's retired-spy skill set and also some fun toys for enjoying themselves...

Original Fic (written in 2019, not yet under contract or published other than on AO3)

Character Bleed, E, 254,099 words. Which means...since last year I had 40,371 words done...that's +213,728 words. In a year. Not even counting the Bonus Scenes (see below) or the sequel-in-progress. THIS STORY, YOU GUYS. I love it and these characters so much. It's the most ambitious thing I've ever tried to write, that whole story-within-a-story, being about actors filming a Regency-era gay love story, and falling in love themselves. I'm just looking at it all...and I'm in awe...and the response to this, oh wow. I've been so amazed and so grateful and so thrilled - the art, the trailer, the comments, the people thinking about these characters and loving them along with me - I'm so lucky to have all of you. *hugs everyone* And now I have to figure out what to do with it, and how and where one even publishes this behemoth, and how to cut it into manageable book-length divisions...!

Character Bleed Bonus Scenes, E, 25,697 words currently - there'll be one more chapter, of which I have about a sentence written. I know exactly what that is, too - Colby getting to top, albeit still with Jason giving some directions. :D

The untitled Character Bleed sequel, which is Leo's story - not up on AO3 yet, though I might start that with at least the prologue, later today or tomorrow. But it's already up to 15,511 words, plus my outline...

Ember and Serenity, E, 20,752 words currently - I added chapter 4 in 2019, so about +5k words in 2019, I think? I do have plans for this one. Oh yes. My librarian-magician and his book-thief...yes. And if you're wondering who hired Serenity, well, there already has been a clue... :D

~~
Okay, I THINK that's everything! Which is...a lot of words. Character Bleed alone...wow. Just...wow.

It's definitely tilted even more toward original fic this year, and I didn't finish 'rain on tin,' which means it's been over a year since I've touched that one, so I'll have to get back to it! But I did get to go back and write a couple things for my old Cherik loves, plus at least some Stucky & Evanstan, so that felt good, and I'm super-excited about lots of those original fic accomplishments - Amazon sales rank, sheer length, fun with medievalism, Top Ten achievements, my first lesbian romance, and of course everything about Character Bleed, which is, I think, my favorite thing I've written - it's so real in my head, and it was so weirdly easy to write, despite the length!

Thanks for reading! I hope your year is starting off splendidly. <3

Current Mood: accomplished

My new original holiday novella is out now!! It's called Gingerbread Dreams, and it's ~24,000 words of m/m romance fluff - featuring such elements as:
~ a holiday gingerbread baking competition
~1 grumpy judge
~1 adorable contestant
~ugly holiday sweaters
~medieval gingerbread recipes!
~The Grumpy One Is Soft For The Adorable Enthusiastic One!
~snuggling in a shared bed!
~some bonus cameos by Evan and Matt (well, Matt by representation in gingerbread art) from October Spice, if you want to know what they're up to! (this story's a stand-alone though so don't worry if you've not read it!)

You can get it at JMS Books here - 20% off until December 27, so only $3.19! - or at Amazon here, or at BN here, or other places like Kobo, etc! Also, at JMS, it's available as part of the Most Wonderful Time of the Year bundle - which gets you three holiday-themed m/m romance stories (mine, plus stories by the wonderful Nell Iris and R.W. Clinger) at an overall discount! Here's the JMS link for that collection, and here's the Amazon link for it too!

As part of the book release fun, I have done an Author Interview!

With the lovely J. Scott Coatsworth, who also is part of the awesomeness behind the Queeromance Ink and Queer SF community groups!

So if you want to read me rambling about Terry Pratchett, medieval gingerbread recipes, and my writing process, come check it out!

Plus, you can see a picture of my face! Which is actually from a couple of years ago, before I started doing the blue/green tips in my hair, but it’s still a good picture of me.

And here's the book cover, which is the Most Adorable Ever!

Yay!!

Current Mood: excited

Guess what’s available now?

The pre-order link for the actual properly published version of Sundown, Holiday, Beacon, that’s what!

Would you all like some happy established-relationship M/M/M superheroes in love? Specifically, one supersoldier (who’s already lost a former partner), one former sidekick (who’s cranky about the sidekick part), and one redeemed supervillain (who’s been undercover, so the world still thinks he’s a villain)…

Also contains roughly 15,500 words of lasagna, bookshelves, superhero theatrics, terrible puns, a thunderstorm, and *very* enjoyable uses of superpowers for mildly kinky comfort sex!

***

I am super (heh) excited about this one - you all know how much I love these boys. And this story has been through a few iterations. In fact, let me explain…

There’s the version on AO3, which was my original draft (and which I’ll likely be taking down in early September, pre-publication, just FYI, if you want to save that one).

Then there’s the version in the Less Than Three Press anthology Happiness in Numbers, which had a significant number of changes: some that absolutely were for the better, establishing some world-building earlier, clarifying ages and timelines, etc - but also some that I was a bit sad about (the whole delicious m/m/m superpowered sex scene had to be cut to fit the anthology’s overall rating, for one). And then LT3 went out of business. (Hence the lack of link to this version.)

But!

My other publisher, JMS Books, will now be publishing Sundown (and the sequel)! And THIS version is what you can think of as the Author’s Preferred Version - I put my sex scene back (yay!) and did some more polishing around it, but I also kept some of the changes we’d made in the LT3 version, especially in the early establishing bits and scene breaks.

So this one’s the version I’m absolutely most happy with - if you buy one, buy this one! Neither of the others is exactly the same as this one, after all! And this one’s the Final Proper Preferred Version! Plus you get lovely cover art! *throws confetti*

Current Mood: grateful

ALSO!

A Thing I am doing:

Nominations for this year’s James Tiptree Award are open now! Eligible works should be published in 2019 or late 2018, and here’s the official explanation:

“…an annual literary prize for science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores our understanding of gender. Pat created the award in collaboration with author Karen Joy Fowler. The aim of the award is not to look for work that falls into some narrow definition of political correctness, but rather to seek out work that is thought-provoking, imaginative, and perhaps even infuriating. The Tiptree Award is intended to reward those writers and other creative artists who are bold enough to contemplate shifts and changes in gender roles, a fundamental aspect of any society.”

Basically, SF/fantasy/speculative fiction that involves explorations of gender, any subgenre (romance, graphic novel, YA, etc).

So you can self-nominate, and I’m going to submit a couple of mine, but you can nominate things I’ve written too! And put in comments! And I would be excited if you did!

(Also, if you’ve written and had published - self-published counts, but fanfic doesn’t, as far as I can tell - something that you want to submit, do it! There’re only around 30 entrants as of today, May 2.)

Here’s the link to the nomination form - it’s really easy; it just needs the book or story info (author, title, date, publisher, link to where it can be purchased), and any additional comments!

So if you would also like to nominate stories of mine - things that’re SF/fantasy, published in 2019 or late 2018, which honestly is basically everything, including Demon and Prophecy and Elemental and the upcoming lesbian witch-and-lawyer sequel to Elemental - please do!

I’ve linked directly to the three of my own stories I’ve mentioned above, since those’re the ones I’m thinking of submitting, but here’s the link to my website for the more complete list, if there’s something else of mine you want to nominate!

Nominations close December 1, 2019. So you can keep adding nominations until then, for me or yourself or something else awesome you think should be on the honors list! (They’ll do an Honors List, along with the actual winner.)

Yay for us!

Current Mood: excited

Cross-posting from the pro-fic blog on Wordpress!

April has been a very busy month so far – academic conferences, teaching, and my birthday! So this update is coming at the very end of the month… But now, the book news!

First, a new release!

“Sound the Fairy Call” is out now from JMS Books!

Sound the Fairy Call

JMS Books

Amazon

After three years of fighting in the service of his mercenary company, Eoan’s ready to lay down his sword and return home. He’s seen enough war and destruction and ruined villages; he only wants to find someplace peaceful and warm where he can figure out a new life.

But he’s a long way from home, in the pouring rain. And rumor says the forest around him contains inhuman magical creatures such as dragons, garwolves, fairies, and sprites. He should be safe if he doesn’t leave the path … but fairies have ways of tempting weary travelers.

Julian hadn’t actually meant to entice the tired soldier from the path. He’d only been playing music for himself, and it’s been so long since he’s introduced himself to anyone, he barely recalls his own name.

But now he has a human in his forest, and Eoan clearly needs care and comfort and healing. And Julian’s been very lonely for a very long time. But maybe he doesn’t have to be.

A cover reveal!

ALSO! Have a cover reveal! For the “Leather and Tea” sequel, which is out May 11! If you like Ben and Simon and domestic loving BDSM fluff, with a retired spy and his romance-writer husband - and if you liked the first story - (which, by the way, was...

“A Leather and Tea Morning” – which is, yes, the follow-up story for Ben & Simon, from “Leather and Tea”! (which, by the way, was part of the JMS Books Top 10 bestselling gay romance short stories of 2018! I’m kind of hoping maybe we can get this one there too, for 2019?)

A retired spy, his romance-novelist husband, lots of loving kink, and a lazy morning at home – what more could you need? Release date May 11!

Here’s the pre-order link from JMS, where it is currently 20% off – only $1.59!

A book rec!

This month’s book rec: Dessa Lux’s Omega Required, which is actually a little outside my usual reading zone – I don’t read a lot of ABO – but this is really surprisingly sweet and heartfelt and poignant, and both characters grow so naturally together, and it’s lovely. So if you like m/m romance and werewolf shapeshifters and tenderness, you will likely enjoy this!

I mentioned this on tumblr and twitter, but I'll do it here too:

St Patrick’s Day flash sale over at JMS Books! 45% off ebooks - including mine!

Want to come pick something up and make me and my Irish heritage happy? Here’s the link! There’s everything from a single-mom sorceress and her bisexual hero in “Sorceress” to frustrated writer Dan and his adorable witch-neighbor Sterling in “Elemental” to the demons and rock stars of A Demon for Midwinter! Please enjoy!

Current Mood: cheerful

So I was trying to get myself back into writing fic, especially Stucky fic - I have to finish off that last chapter of the sound of rain on tin! - and consequently signed up for the

hellyeahbottombucky 2019 Bottom Bucky Fest! And I am very proud of myself, because not only did I finish a story, it grew to be over 10k by the time I was done!

So I would be very happy if you would like to read the thing!

Title: straight from your heart
Rating: E
Warnings: uh....consensual role-play of sort-of dubious consent, as in, Steve and Bucky playing out the fantasy of Steve taking care of the Winter Soldier, and "care" includes orgasms and showing him how good his body can feel, when he doesn't quite remember how to do those things for himself, so Steve has to show him
Word Count: 10,516
Read at AO3 here!

Summary: Steve doesn’t mean to have the orgasm. Not exactly. Not the first time, anyway.

It’s the leather and the buckles and the capable stance. It’s the determination: familiar, and not. Steve doesn’t even know which mission this had been. Where this snapshot of the Winter Soldier had been captured, a splinter out of time. Too many to choose from. But that doesn’t matter.

His skin prickles, his heart races in supersoldier extra-double-time, with want.

Notes: For the anonymous prompt #63 at the Bottom Bucky Fest 2019: Bucky is back, safe and sound, recovered and with his memories. There's no way that Steve will ever tell him how frequently Winter Soldier appears in Steve's fantasies. The last thing that Steve would ever do is to ask Bucky to roleplay something that could drag up painful memories and hurt him. So better to keep his fantasies just for himself....note: Steve's fantasies are along light D/s and dub con; he fantasies about their meetings in CA:WS ending more sexily, him restraining Winter Soldier (holding down etc), and getting him to break through programming. So along the line of taking care/comforting/saving/rescuing WS, which turns to sexy times. Steve has a Being-Hero!kink & hurt/comfort!kink, basically.

Current Mood: creative

So it’s February 1, and cold and rainy here, but I like that – I’ve got coffee and a TARDIS blanket, and the world’s not so bad, at least not this little sofa-spot of it.

First, the news: JMS Books officially wants my other story from my old Ellora’s Cave publishing days – the one that was my first-ever pro romance sale! We’ve got the contract all signed and everything! That should be coming out in late March or April. I’m really excited about this for a LOT of reasons – of course I’m thrilled to see these characters and this world out there for you guys to read again! Also, I don’t write a lot of m/f romance, but this one is, so I hope you like it!

It’s still pretty heavily queer – bisexual hero (explicitly so), and the heroine’s ex is…basically pansexual and arguably genderfluid (he/him pronouns, but he can and does look however he wants at any given moment because magic, and his criteria for partners is, can they keep up/challenge him? the sequel, which we’ve discussed, will be his story, and it’ll most likely be m/m). And I LOVED having the opportunity to revisit and revise this first story – it’s now 3,000 words longer, for one thing, and I did a lot of polishing and smoothing-out of style. (And put back all my Oxford commas, which the EC copy-editor seemed to have a vendetta against! I’m so glad JMS and I agree on this one…)

We’re batting around new title ideas – it was first published as “Lily’s Enchantment,” which was the EC editor’s idea (I’m terrible with titles), and I always thought…it was…fine…but not exciting? But then I was a Brand New Child in this world and did not wish to argue. At the moment it’s being referred to as “Sorceress,” which may stick, though I’m rather fond of my far too long option of “The Sorceress, the Bastard, and the Dragon’s Heart”.

So I really hope you all like this one – it’s sort of a glimpse of early-writer me, as revised by now-writer me, and it’s got medieval-ish fantasy and a dragon and, obviously, a sorceress, and tea, and queer m/f romance, and probably more to come in this world.

Next, new releases! I have two original fic things out this month – within this week, in fact!

~First up – tomorrow! – is my story for the JMS Books Snowed In themed collection! For this one, I got to go back to the world of A Demon for Midwinter – it’s a historical prequel, so look for some familiar powers and family names, with all-new characters! It’ll stand alone, though, so no worries if you’ve not read Demon. (The covers are all the same for the collection, if you’re wondering why it’s not Regency-themed.)

Expect Regency-era wintertime, an ice elemental, a cheerful freckled young viscount and a cranky magical detective, and ALL the fabulous tropes involving bad weather and being snowed in and hurt/comfort and cuddling for warmth and grumpy falling in love…

Buy links:

Amazon

JMS Books

~Second, my story “Sundown, Holiday, Beacon” for the Happiness in Numbers anthology, edited by Nicole Field, is available February 6! (Or very late on the 5th, I think, if you’ve already ordered?) Here’s the pre-order link, available from Less Than Three Press now!

This one contains a m/m/m triad of superheroes (well, one superhero, one former sidekick, and one reformed supervillain) in love! Plus lasagna, uses of superpowers for home renovation (and in bed), domestic fluff, and coming home to each other. The whole anthology’s centered around the themes of found families, polyamory and queerness, happy endings, and domesticity – and honestly this is still one of my favorite stories of mine, enough so that I ended up, purely for fun, writing a sequel…

Finally, a book rec! I’m going to start trying to do this more, maybe one a month - I may or may not mirror them all over here, but they'll definitely be on the Wordpress blog! They won’t all necessarily be new releases, but this month it’s going to have to be KJ Charles’ wonderful Any Old Diamonds, which just came out, and which I devoured and immediately wanted to reread, to bask in. Victorian jewel thieves! Plots within plots! Truly despicable family members and melodrama! Lush and delicious m/m romance with gorgeously written submission kink – AND emotions! One of the best love-confession moments EVER. (Jerry! Oh, my heart.) Here’s the Amazon link, but of course it’s available at all the usual book-selling places, too.

Yay for all the things!

Current Mood: accomplished

I basically ran out of time to do this before the end of the year, but that's okay - we'll do it now!

My initial impression is that I wrote more overall in 2018 - for one thing, two actual romance novels! - than in 2017, but less fanfic and more original published fic. It's been a weird year - how has it only been a year?! - so let's see if I'm right!

It's also been a year in which I became a fandom, or rather the Demon universe acquired a fandom tag on AO3, which - that's like the COOLEST THING EVER. It is the BEST thing. I feel like this is some sort of pinnacle of fandom and life achievement. I love you guys.

(I haven't listed the actual academic scholarly work - a book chapter! on romance and outlaws and food and community! and a book review! - because they're not out yet and the curse of academic publishing is slowness, but I did also write those, as far as word count. So add around 15,000 words of academic writing to all this. Plus two successful grant applications to study romance and pop culture!)

Fanfic

Stucky

we got two of that, baby, E, 3,386 words - hmm, I...guess I didn't write that much Steve/Bucky this year? I feel like I read a decent amount, but...oh well. To be fair, there's a bit more - short pieces - in the Collected Ficlets, below. This one was both fun and frustrating - it'd been a while since I'd written them, and it's pure AU kinky fluffy love-with-sex-on-a-desk, and I enjoyed writing it - but it also got a couple of weird less-than-nice anon comments, and mostly I'm pretty good at ignoring obnoxious people, but the whole thing just sort of...made me want to deal with fandom less, y'know? I still do love this fic and a sassy confident-in-his-sexuality Bucky, though.

Stucky/Evanstan crossover

the sound of rain on tin, still a WIP, currently T but that may change, 17,145 words - probably the weirdest thing I've tried to write! I mean, universe-swapping, crossover characters, Lovecraft fusion...this one was odd because the first two chapters were easy, the third one was...hard but I managed, and then, just, nope. Brain offline. I wanted to have it done by the end of the year, but it'll have to be an early 2019 goal instead.

Collected Ficlets updates - I'm not sure about the word count exactly, but I know I added chapters 133-136 in 2018, and the total word count is up to 103,995. So...some amount of words, probably a couple thousand - these chapters cover both Evanstan and Stucky, with the Seb-as-literal-bookwyrm fic (133), the medieval werewolf!Bucky & king!Steve (134), the magician!Seb & hero!Chris & enchanted-object-truth-spell-love-confessions short (135), and the Bucky-collecting-blankets soft fluff (136). I'll probably end this collection (and start a new one?) once it hits 140 chapters, if it ever does - it's getting unwieldy, but then I'm also updating it less, so we'll see.

Evanstan

The Love Song You've Earned, E, 15,987 words - let's get the big one out of the way! This story ended, more or less, the whole Like Sugar arc, and it was huge and kind of scary and I went through a lot of self-doubt ("is it good enough? is it going to be a satisfying ending?") but I'm really proud of the series overall, and sort of amazed, looking back on it. There's one more bonus scene to go in the Extra Sugar tidbits, so it's not 100% done, but the core story is. Wow. Look what I made. I mean...how? How did I do this? Wow.

Extra Sugar - speaking of, I know I added chapters 28 & 29 in 2018, but not sure about the word count (Extra Sugar is up to 103,533 words total, but that's over several years!). So...some amount of words, at least a couple thousand!

night flowers colored like your eyes, T, 3,450 words - ah, the Sebastian showing up for the Lobby Hero performance fic! Love-confession fluff.

Evanstan Round Robin 2018, um, Not Rated, I guess?, and co-authored with many writers! 15,074 words total but my chapter was ~1800 words if I'm remembering right. The usual yearly festivities, full of lovely fandom people!

McFassy

Catch That Blazing Star (That Rainbow), T, 3,013 words - I WENT BACK TO MY OLD MCFASSY LOVES AND FINISHED THIS SERIES ARE YOU AMAZED BECAUSE I AM :D :D ...honestly, though, one of my goals for 2018 was to try to finish the two series (not stories, those have been individually finished, but series) that I'd left unfinished when I sort of...95% slid out of McFassy/X-Men fandom. The X-Men Erik/Charles series is the compromise series, which I did *not* get to, but I *did* finish this McFassy Regency series, so - half-yay! :p And, y'know, it wasn't that hard to write - I mean, I think my writing style has shifted a little, but the story itself, once I sat down to do it (I'd had notes and an early couple of paragraphs, not the very opening but shortly after, done for literal YEARS), flowed pretty easily, which felt nice. If this is my last McFassy fic - I'm not saying never, because, well, who knows, but it is true that I don't have anything else in my head/any burning desire to write more for them - anyway, if it is, I'm glad it felt good to write, and it ends with a happy promise of a happy future.

Original Fic (all or mostly written in 2018, published or accepted for publication as of the end of 2018)

Sundown, Holiday, Beacon, E, 14,652 words - the AO3 version, that is. I'm including this here because the revised version is being published as part of Less Than Three Press' polyamory anthology, and it's available now for pre-order, and out in February! Contains a m/m/m triad of superheroes (well, one superhero, one former sidekick, and one reformed supervillain) in love! Also contains lasagna, jokes about gardening, interesting uses for superpowers, and coming home to each other. I know the revised version has a slightly different word count and less explicit sex (they said basically that implied sex was okay but keep it sort of fade-to-black, so we did some editing), but yay! I also wrote the sequel just because these characters wouldn't leave my brain, so more on that in the not-yet-published category.

Sound the Fairy-Call, E, 5,545 words - no purchase link yet, because I literally signed the contract with my JMS Books editor for this on the 27th! It'll be out in March. It's basically the heavily rewritten (like, nearly twice as long, new original characters, world-building, all of that) original-fic version of my old Evanstan fic Glow, the medieval fantasy healing-sex fic with a fairy and a tired mercenary, if you've read that one. Plus I've managed to quote Robert Graves in the new version. It's fun.

Snowed In: Kit & Harry, E, 30,047 words - the Demon for Midwinter (more about this later) Regency-era prequel! Available for pre-order now! Part of the JMS Books Snowed In themed collection - basically, we're all just working with that theme - the stories aren't related and will be purchasable separately, which is why I got to play with the Demon universe again! You don't have to've read Demon for this to make sense, since it's all-new characters, historical time period, etc - just in the same universe. There will be Regency fashion! A magical detective! An Earl's younger brother! A mystery on a country estate! Characters getting snowed in together! Hurt/comfort! All the tropes and fun and falling in love you could want!

**Leather and Tea, E, 7,789 words - this has the ** because technically it's a revised & republished version of one of my first-ever published stories, with Ellora's Cave, before they closed. But I do mean revised - I did a lot of rephrasing and rewording to make it sound closer to my current style, and put back all the Oxford commas that the EC editor kept deleting - and the republished version came out this year - and is now part of the JMS Books Top Ten Gay Romance of 2018 Collection! Come pick up the collection and be excited with us!!

Fire and Ink, E, 16,000 words - the Port in a Storm sequel, second of the Kitten & Witch stories, out now from LT3! Contains an actual house on fire, pastrami, hurt/comfort, magic art, and love confessions. There will be a third one, which almost certainly has a marriage proposal in it, and also a murder mystery. It is tentatively titled "The Warlock Affair" and it scares me because I've never written a murder mystery before but that's also what makes it exciting, so we'll see how that goes in 2019!

Revelry, E, 6,697 words - holiday porn-with-emotions fluff, published with JMS Books! Contains one lonely academic, one adorable bartender, and obscure classical Roman holidays being celebrated in style. These boys are adorable and deserve each other and also someone wears a Dolphin Princess tiara.

Peaches and the Shadow, E, 7,023 words - my October ghost-themed story for JMS! With Poe references all over the place, and a young Knight trying to prove himself, and the ghost of a bisexual turn-of-the-century brothel-owner (he's a good one, mind you - he took care of his people), and sex magic.

Elemental, E, 12,776 words - my Dark & Stormy Night themed story for JMS! Basically we all got to play with that as an idea/theme/line. This one was sheer fun - I love Sterling, and Dan, with his writer's block, is occasionally all of us, I suspect. This one felt good to write - flowing, quick, full of first-meeting delight and magic and ghosts and hurt/comfort and comfort sex and two people turning out to be exactly what the other person needs.

A Demon for Midwinter, E, 85,788 words - MY ACTUAL FIRST-EVER PUBLISHED FULL-LENGTH NOVEL, YOU GUYS. YOU CAN BUY IT IN PRINT AND HOLD IT IN YOUR HANDS. (Okay, *technically* Prophecy was *completed* first, but Demon came out first, because publishing. Also technically I wrote most of this in 2017, but it came out in March of 2018, so...) Kris and Justin! Demons and rock stars and magic and comfort and love! Romance and music and sex and Justin's gorgeous purple suit! This wouldn't've happened without everyone's support and comments and letting me ramble about characters with you guys and fandom and friends, so thank you. I love you. (Also, there's going to be that Regency-era prequel in this universe, as per above...)

~Lightning in a Bottle, T, 5,349 words - still available for free! The first Demon bonus story, with a young band getting to meet Kris and Justin backstage, and a lot of pining, and Justin gently nudging Adam and Lee into love confessions and a first kiss. Also demisexual representation, with Lee, and an epilogue told in headlines. :-)

~Love Songs for Every Day, T or M, sort of, 10,366 words - I'm saying Teen or Mature, the JMS rating says 2 heat levels, I mean, they do briefly hint at their fantastic sex life and some D/s undercurrents and toys, but it's teasing and quick, so...I don't know, whatever you think, as far as rating! This one's the second Demon bonus story - I have a weird amount of affection for this one. I don't know, I just really love outside POV fic, and this one's the interview story, and Kris and Justin are so happy with where they are, and it makes me smile. Also sometime I will write the fanfic version of the bit I cut out, about the accident at the concert in London and Justin rescuing people but overexerting his powers, and Kris's emotions as Justin collapses, and all the hurt/comfort.

~Sunlight and Gold, E, 8,149 words - the final Demon bonus story! Contains baked goods, afternoon sunshine, happy sex on an equally happy sofa, and marriage proposals. So much fluff, so much love, so much happy ending. Wow. Seriously, though, this one just makes me smile, because it's a culmination, an ending and a beginning, this whole first series and these characters - I'm just thrilled that this all exists and I can write things and other people read them and fall in love too and everything's fantastic, you guys, thank you.

A Prophecy for Two, M, 60,000 words (more or less) - MY OTHER PUBLISHED NOVEL! Technically I wrote most of this one in 2017 and even early 2016, but it came out in 2018, so it counts! This one was MY FIRST NOVEL, at least the first to be finished, and I love it so - it started life as an Evanstan fic, as some of you probably know, but then the plot and the world wouldn't leave me alone, and I ended up rewriting it into something nearly three times as long, with original characters and much more development and even a bonus story. It's full of love in the way that first novels are, I think - Oliver and Tir are in love, and I love them, too. Lots of fantasy, sort of a late-medieval or early-modern setting (they've got a newfangled printing press), fairies, a prophecy, (fake) character death, happy endings, wedding planning.

Original Fic (written in 2018, not yet published)

Frost & Raine, E, 31,879 words - the lawyer!Cupid and coffee-shop-owning!Frost love story! Cacti and fluff! Slow falling in love over coffee and prickliness! I AM HAVING SO MUCH FUN WITH THIS WHOLE WORLD AND THESE CHARACTERS and I am so happy. I have 1,931 words of the follow-up story written already, and I just...you know how sometimes you know it's good? For me that tends to happen if I want to know more, or I do know more, about these characters and what comes next - I have so much head-canon and extra thoughts and EVERYTHING. I LOVE THEM. But seriously, I'm trying to figure out what to do with it - right now it's an odd length for publishing, but it also feels fairly *complete* - like, I could tweak some wording, but I don't know what I could add. But *if* I could get it to be 40,000 words, both LT3 and/or JMS will do a print run, rather than just ebook - not that ebooks aren't books, but physical copies of my writing, mmm, yes please. (The JMS terms are a little less favorable - at 40k, they'll do ebook first, then print if sales over the first six months warrant it - whereas LT3 will just do a print run at 40k. But my JMS editor already knows about and expressed interest in this story/the idea, because it was originally supposed to be a Valentine's short for them, which obviously...did not happen. So I'd feel sort of bad turning around and trying to send it to my other publisher...so I don't know. But then again it's all moot if I don't have a good way to make it longer/the story doesn't want to be longer. We'll see.)

Home(s), M, 15,170 words - the sequel to the aforementioned superhero polyamory story! I need to see if LT3 wants it, after the anthology comes out - obviously it doesn't really make sense if you've not read the first one, because it's basically a sequence of three meet-the-parents vignettes, but I love it. I honestly feel like some of my best writing is in here, including my single favorite best worst joke I've ever written in a story.

kellyscams knows which line I mean. :D

Character Bleed, M, 40,371 words currently (but more in my Word doc, that's just on AO3), still a WIP - THIS STORY, MAN. I love it and them so much. It's the most ambitious thing I've ever tried to write, because it's basically a story-within-a-story, being about actors filming a Regency-era gay love story, and falling in love themselves. I've had to make THREE separate timelines: the overall plot of MY story, the plot of the film, and the filming/shooting order of the scenes they're filming, which of course is non-linear. It's awful and wonderful and I'm so excited. I don't know what I'll do with it when it's done, but I hope one of my current publishers wants it!

Bulletproof Heart, co-authored with Boop - E, 22,925 words currently but WIP (we actually have more written, in bits and pieces, but that's what's up on AO3). This is an interesting one because we worked on it so smoothly for a couple of glorious months, and then Real Life Busy Times just hit us both over the head and we lost momentum. We do have an outline though - I would like one of our 2019 goals to be finishing this, though with two people it's trickier as far as scheduling and coordinating, of course.

~~
Okay, I THINK that's everything! And I think I'm definitely right in saying I've both written and published more, and moved more toward original versus fanfic. But I did finish off two BIG fanfic series that I've had going for literally years - the Evanstan Like Sugar and the McFassy Regency stories - so I feel accomplished in terms of fanfic, and also, looking at all the original writing: I think I've done well this year.

Thanks for being here and doing this with me. <3

Current Mood: accomplished

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Entries tagged with writing

out now – In Focus!

out now - We Came to Dance charity anthology!

rainbow space magic recordings

a teaser

a beginning of...something?

paranormal romance guild awards nomination!

news! a Cupid! a love story!

year-end writing round-up post - 2020!

jms top ten gay romance stories of 2020!

book release day!! some upcoming story news! and a book rec!

upcoming books! and lovely covers!

2019 writing wrap-up post!

book release! and an author interview!

book update! superheroes! polyamory!

one more thing: award nomination time!

new releases! and a book rec!

and an original fic sale announcement!

look, I wrote fanfic again! and it's steve/bucky!

news, upcoming original fic releases, and a book rec!

slightly belated 2018 writing round-up post