“I want to live a long time with you. I want to be old with you. I want to sit on a porch and rock with you. … And when we die, I want us to die together. I want us to get real old and then say ‘one, two, three…die’.”
-Steven Keaton, Family Ties
I can now share my new short story’s title. It’s called “Swept Away.” I guest blogged at Michael Mandrake’s blog today about writing from a picture prompt and shared another short excerpt: http://ow.ly/5raI8
I have to say, I had fun writing in first person POV again. I’ll let you know when the story is available to read.
If you haven’t read MORE or BREATHE you can also comment at the link above for a chance to win a free ebook copy of your choice.
Hope you have a fabulous week!
Sloan
Starting a new topic on the blog this week. Thought it might be a fun way to share a bit about writing, my inspiration, my life, and the world around me. It’s called Friday Photo and will include only pictures I’ve taken or ones from my own life. It won’t be every Friday, but when I do share a photo I’ll try to do so with as little verbiage as possible to let the photo stand on its own.
But I’m a writer, you know I won’t be able to resist saying something, at least part of the time.
My nephew, 23 years ago (yes, that’s me holding him):
And now (with his new wife):
Congratulations, kiddo!
I’m thrilled to share that MORE was selected as a finalist in the First Book category of the More Than Magic RWA (Romance Writers of America) contest.
As I posted before, MORE and BREATHE were finalists in the Passionate Plume Contest and BREATHE won third place in the New England Reader’s Choice awards. (Final results for the More Than Magic and the Passionate Plume contests will be announced in July.)
I cannot tell you how blown away and thrilled I am with those results in this year’s RWA contests for my highly erotic m/m/m and angst-filled high-drama m/m love stories. Well done Luke, Richard, Matthew, Lincoln, and Jay!
A special thank-you to the New England, Passionate Ink, and Romance Writers Ink chapters, their contest coordinators for putting together the awards, and the judges. I was very impressed by the organization and professional communication from all. Also a huge kudos to these chapters for hosting contests that recognize digital-only books in electronic formats.
Check out the new book I just got: The Baby Name Wizard: A Magical Method for Finding the Perfect Name for Your Baby
No, I’m not having a baby. I just get wickedly excited when I find a writing resource that’s a gem (at least for me).
Lately when it comes time to give my secondary characters their names, I’ve been drawing a blank, selecting the same ones over and over or not finding something that fits the character. For my current works in progress I had two secondary characters whom I affectionately called “Editor Friend” and “Prof Guy” for far too long. For a while I was afraid I’d get so dang used to “Editor Friend” and “Prof Guy” that I’d send it off to my editor like that. It was nice to finally pull out my baby name resources and search for actual names for these guys.
Lists that are organized or searchable in specific ways (by first letter, sounds like, meaning, popularity per year, etc.) are the most helpful. So far The Baby Name Wizard is the best naming book I’ve used, along with these websites:
And for last names I almost always end up using a printed phone book.
For any writers who are interested, these links have also been added to my website on the Resources for Writers page.
I’m off to work on revisions for my next installment of More Than Just a Good Book. Hope you all have a great week!
From the 2011 Tony Awards. “Now I know why you’re all six-packy.” Adorable!
“The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.”-Maulana Jalalu’ddin Rumii
Hi all. Hope everyone had a great week.
I’ll explain the title of this blog post in a moment, but first a brief writing update:
As I mentioned on Wednesday I finished a new short story and sent it off to my critique partner. Now that it’s done (or close to it) I realize I feel like I’ve spent months with those two guys, writing a novel, not a short story. Hopefully that means something good. I don’t know.
Since then I’ve been focused on TAKE ME HOME. Now that I have all the revisions in place I’m working on another read-through to polish the dialogue and descriptions. Today I read the first 5 chapters, and I think they are ready to go. I still need to do my final checklist of common mistakes and get my critique partner’s input, but other than that, I finally feel like this book is close to submission-ready.
Now on to review the next 20+ chapters again.
Before I get back to it, I wanted to share a link. This week I blogged at Loose Ends, the Loose Id author blog, where I talked about the importance of having someone else proofread a story. The blog is titled: “Arrr! Lick Me Nipples” Or the Importance of Another Set of Eyes. I’m curious how much errors bother readers. I’d love to hear what you think. Feel free to leave a comment here or at Loose Ends.
Hope you all have a great weekend. My little baby nephew is getting married tomorrow. I guess that means he’s not a baby anymore. When did that happen?
Finished revising and editing my latest short story (based on the picture above), and it’s off to my critique partner. There will probably be a few corrections/changes, but for the most part it’s done!
I have to say, I’m really happy with how quickly I wrote this one, as well as how the story turned out. I won’t share the title yet as the group at Goodreads is doing some fun stuff with guessing titles and character names.
In celebration of finishing it, I thought I’d give you guys a little preview.
Here’s a snippet:
I expected him to bend me over a piece of the matching wicker deck furniture, the table or maybe one of the oversize lounge chairs, but he didn’t. He smiled again. I hadn’t seen him smile this much in months. He looked like a dope with the silly grin and his dick rock hard. I didn’t care. It was a stunning combination.
“Race you,” he said, then jumped off the deck and ran onto the beach stark naked, heading for the water’s edge.
“Asshole,” I called out as I kicked off my shorts and shoes. I chased after him, laughing all the way to the water. He’d already made it in waist-high by the time I got there. He splashed me as I ran in. I lunged at him, and he let out a huge-ass giggle as I wrapped my arms around his chest from behind. A fucking giggle.
Wait. That hadn’t come from him. It was from me. His laugh still sounded like a guy his size normally would. It sounded great. I sounded like a kid running to get to the dodgeball first at recess. Maybe it was the sound of pure joy.
- From a new short story coming soon to the M/M Romance group at Goodreads and my website
Edited post on 7/1/11: revised the above except to incorporate final revisions.
I only have a minute to post today, and I know I’ve posted on this topic before, but I wanted to give a shout of thanks out to everyone who has taken the time to write and let a romance author know when you’ve enjoyed one of their stories. Please know, authors really do appreciate the effort.
I’ve received some amazing emails lately, and no matter how often it happens, there is nothing sweeter and more rewarding than knowing when one of my stories was an enjoyable experience for someone. And even better is knowing that story touched the reader in a meaningful way. Your words of appreciation and encouragement mean more than I can say.
Thank you!
Sloan
