Sloan Parker Blog

I’ve mentioned my these three-word scenarios before. It’s a fun exercise for me, a great way to keep my brain actively coming up with new ideas while I’m revising a novel. I’ve decided to keep all my scenarios under 200 words.

My sweetie picked the three words this time:

The scenario I came up with is more the start of something, or perhaps the ending of an m/m romance between friends, a sweet moment in time that could lead to more.

Christmas Eve. Out first together in a real home.

Outside it was raining, the ground covered in mud—not the snow I’d always imagined—and Tommy was late getting home from work. I shouldn’t have been this happy. I shouldn’t have been sitting on the floor of the living room staring up at the Christmas tree with its blue twinkling lights and candy canes, smiling like peace on earth really was just a wish away.

I carefully secured the end of the wrapping paper around the 1970’s alien action figure set. A garage-sale find that had taken me four Saturdays of walking through one suburban housing development after another, scouring through boxes of old toys in search of the little plastic green aliens. Tommy’d had the same set as a kid. Since we’d both run away from less-than-stellar homes as teens, neither of us had any childhood mementos to remind us of the few good days we had in our youths.

The smile grew as I imagined his face when he opened the box.

My first gift for him. The first time I’d had money to spend on something this frivolous. Only, to Tommy it wouldn’t be that at all.

Word Count: 200 (just made it!)

Dang, now I have a new story I want to write.

Leave a comment if you have an idea for a 3-word scenario I can use in the future. I’d love to hear your ideas.

This scenario was cross-posted at Loose End this week.

What could be better than 150 m/m stories? 150 free m/m stories.

The M/M Goodreads group is posting another round of member stories. The event is called Love is Always Write, and it’s a great way to try out new-to-you authors and read a free story from one of your favorites too. The first story has been posted in celebration of the group’s membership passing the 6,000 members mark!

The rest of the stories will be coming in a week, two per day for the next 2.5 months. If you’re not already a member of the group, you can join here (Due to the adult content in this group, you must be at least 18 to join).

More information about the Love is Always Write Event
To read the stories

Enjoy!

5/4/12 10:00 AM EST: Updated to add a couple more prizes to the list
5/4/12 4:20 PM EST: Added another new book. We now have 21 prizes!!

This Saturday, May 5th, the lovely SJ Frost and I are hosting another m/m Romance Reader Appreciation Day at the Sweet Spot Yahoo Group. This is a day for authors to say thank-you to the wonderful readers of m/m romance. This month we have a fantastic list of prizes! Be sure to check them out below. Some of the authors included in the giveaway will also be sharing excerpts of their work.

Here’s how to enter the giveaway:

1. If you haven’t already, join the Yahoo Group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheSweetSpotMM/
2. Watch the group page (or your email if you choose to receive emails from the group) on Saturday, May 5th for a message with instructions on how to enter.
3. Reply to that message between 8am and 8pm EST indicating you’d like to enter the giveaway.

That’s it. You’ll be added to the drawing for your chance at a random prize. Winners will be announced via the group after the giveaway closes. Authors will be sent the winning email addresses at that time and will contact their winners directly.

So far, the following authors have generously donated these or other prizes. Thank you, authors!

• Erica Pike – ebook copy of College Fun and Gays series – winner’s choice
• Lori Toland – ebook copy of The Long Con
• Michael Mandrake – ebook copy of Vertigo
• Belinda McBride – ebook copy of Blacque/Bleu
• JM Cartwright – ebook copy of A Change Of Pace
• Kendall McKenna – $15 gift card to Silver Publishing
• Kendall McKenna – ebook copy of Brothers In Arms
• Kaje Harper – winner’s choice of ebook from her backlist
• Jambrea Jo Jones – winner’s choice of ebook from her backlist
• Sue Holston – PDF copy of In the Name of the Law
• H.L. Holston – ebook copy of Coffee,Tea and the Mile High Club
• Lex Valentine – ebook copy of Afterburner
• Lex Valentine – ebook copy of Kissing Joan Collins
• Allison Cassatta – ebook copies of Dear Diary and Pride (combo)
• PD Singer – ebook copy of The Rare Event
• Ellis Carrington – ebook copy of Immortal Valentine
• TN Tarrant – pdf copy of The Absentminded Astrophysicist
• Sloan Parker – ebook copy of Take Me Home
• Sloan Parker – $15 in eBooks Bucks from All Romance eBooks
• S.J. Frost – $15 in eBook Bucks from All Romance eBooks
• S.J. Frost – winner’s choice of ebook from her backlist

Hope you can join us at The Sweet Spot Reader Appreciation Day, hosted by Sloan Parker and S.J. Frost.

Uh-oh…It looks like several of the links to my free short stories were not working for the past few weeks. I think some of the ebook files were inadvertently deleted from the web server (the PDFs worked fine but some of the others were gone). Sorry for the inconvenience to anyone who wanted the mobi, epub, or html formats. All of the links are working again.

I also took the time to redo the files. They are the same three stories. I just recreated the various ebook formats to correct a few formatting issues and to include the updated cover for Swept Away.

I also added new web pages to my site with the full story for each, so now you can read the short stories right on the site, instead of downloading one of the ebook formats.

Here are the direct links to read online:

Swept Away
A Lesson in Truth
The Break In

You can also check out my serial story “More Than Just a Good Book” here. I’ll be starting on part 5 shortly. Not sure when that’ll be out yet, but I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, I’m still plugging away on revising Walter and Kevin’s story.

The fabulous Ethan Day has interviewed me about my Rainbow Award-winning book Breathe and the moment in my own life that led me to the story.

I adore Ethan and his writing, so to hear he enjoyed Breathe was quite a thrill. Thanks for the thoughtful questions and such kind remarks about this book, Ethan!

Read the interview at Ethan’s blog

Hello everyone! I only have time for a quick post today, but I definitely wanted to share a link to a guest blog I wrote about music and my current manuscript (Walter and Kevin’s story).

My friend and lovely critique partner, Constance Phillips, who has her first release coming out with Crescent Moon Press later this year (Congrats, Constance!! So proud of you!!), was kind enough to give me a spot on her Character Playlist feature.

Stop by my post, Music of a Manuscript, to get a mini preview of Walter and Kevin’s story via some of the songs on the book’s playlist.

Also, keep an eye on my website for more about this story. I’ll be adding these and other videos for the rest of the playlist to my Behind the Story page, as well as more news and other behind-the-scenes details.

Have a good one!
Sloan

I’m thrilled to share that Breathe was selected as a Joyfully Reviewed Best Romance in 2011.

Huge thanks to the reviewer Nannette for taking the time to read and review the book last year and to Joyfully Reviewed for posting their reviewers’ top picks. I was incredibly honored to see it on the Best of 2011 page alongside so many amazing authors. Also very cool to see the number of m/m books on their list.

I’d like to also thank everyone who has picked up a copy of Breathe and gave it a try. It is now my bestselling book. I am touched and grateful for each and every email and comment I get from readers about this story.

Thank you all!!

Tomorrow, April 7th, is the first m/m Romance Reader Appreciation Day at the Sweet Spot Yahoo Group. It’s all about saying thank-you to the wonderful readers of m/m romance. Over the past few years, we’ve heard from many authors who are amazed and delighted by how supportive, kind, and generous they’ve found the people in the m/m reader community. We couldn’t agree more. You guys are the best. So we’d like to say THANK YOU for your part in supporting the various genres of m/m romance.

Here’s how to enter the giveaway:

1. If you haven’t already, join the Yahoo Group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheSweetSpotMM/
2. Watch the group (or your email if you choose to receive emails from the group) on Saturday, April 7th for a message with instructions on how to enter.
3. Reply to that message between 8am and 8pm EST indicating you’d like to enter the giveaway.

That’s it. You’ll be added to the drawing for your chance at a random prize. Winners will be announced via the group after the giveaway closes. Authors will be sent the winning email addresses at that time and will contact their winners directly.

So far, the following authors have generously donated these books or other prizes. Thank you, authors!

All books are in ebook format unless otherwise indicated.

• Scrap Metal by Harper Fox
• Winner’s choice of ebook by ZA Maxfield
• A Change Of Pace by JM Cartwright
• Southern Winterland by Taylor V Donovan
• Six Degrees of Lust by Taylor V Donovan
• Winner’s choice of ebook by K-lee Klein
• Hot Hands by Erika Pike
• Diversion by Eden Winters
• Under the Gun by Michael Mandrake
• Take Me Home or winner’s choice of ebook by Sloan Parker
• Winner’s choice of ebook by S.J. Frost (2 winners selected)
• $15 in eBooks Bucks from All Romance eBooks donated by Talia Carmichael
• $15 in eBooks Bucks from All Romance eBooks donated by Sloan Parker

Hope you can join us at The Sweet Spot Reader Appreciation Day, hosted by Sloan Parker and S.J. Frost.

Check it out…my critique partner’s daughter made me this awesome trailer for Take Me Home. Thank you so much, Katelynn! It’s perfect for this story.

(If you can’t see the video, you can watch at YouTube)

I’m pleased to announce the release of part 4 of Mark and Scott’s story, More Than Just a Good Book, which you can read free on my website.

Writing this story has been such an interesting process for me. This is the first time I’ve ever written and polished anything one section at a time before finishing the rest of the story. I have the entire book outlined, so I know the major plot points, but I often explore new ideas as I write and then go back and rework the beginning later. Overall though, I’ve been really surprised at how well this new process is working out for me. I hope you guys are enjoying it as well.

No Multiple Formats until Complete: I’m no longer posting each installation in multiple formats as that takes quite a bit of time to put together, and I figured I’ll save that work for when the full version is complete. This should help me prep new parts more quickly. I hope this isn’t an inconvenience for anyone. You can read the individual installments on my site or parts 1-4 in PDF format.

Just a note for those of you waiting to read the entire story all at once: I will be making it available as a full download in various formats when the story is complete. My best guess is that’ll be sometime next year. I have 10 parts planned, but again, that’s just a guess as things might change the more I write. I might end up cutting some chapters or adding more.

When I’m finished I may decide to publish the full story and make it available for purchase, but there’ll be some time where you can download it first, so be sure to keep an eye out here on the blog or via my newsletter for more on when the full story will be ready.

Thanks for checking out Mark and Scott’s journey together.

Here’s an excerpt from part 4:

Scott shook his head. “Nothing’s wrong.” Since that first kiss in the elevator, he’d been able to let go, to be in the moment with Mark. He wanted that feeling again. He breathed deep and let himself fall into it. “Absolutely nothing.”

“Good. Because I’ve been dreaming of doing something to you.” He ran his hands down the front of Scott’s bare chest and abs straight to the small dragon tattoo on his hip. He gripped both hips and dropped to his knees. Then his tongue was exploring the dragon. “God, I love this tat.” He stroked the hard length of Scott’s cock with one hand. “Been dying to suck you.”

“Oh God.” This was not happening. Scott’s entire body shook as Mark’s warm breath hit the top of his dick. “What are you doing?”

“Want to feel your cock on my tongue, in my mouth.” He held the base of Scott’s dick and angled the head toward his mouth. “You are free to move as you’d like. Touch me, touch yourself, fuck my mouth, whatever you need.” He leaned forward and licked the tip of Scott’s dick.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Nothing had ever felt like that. Scott hissed as Mark did it again, tonguing all over the head and the sensitive skin below. The wet heat of Mark’s saliva covered the end of his cock. Then Mark opened wide and took him deep, sucking his way to the tip again.

“Oh. My. God.” How could this feel so differently than a handjob? He jerked his hips forward and immediately pulled back. Too much. “Wait.”

Mark sat back on his heels. “You don’t want me to?”

“I… I do. No one’s ever…”

“Never?”

Scott couldn’t bring himself to say it.

Mark released him and stood. “What the hell kind of men have you been with?”

“Not many.” He shrugged. “I usually blow them, or they fuck me then leave.”

“Not this time. This time, I’m sucking you until you come. Unless you don’t want—”

“I do!”

And before Scott could dwell on how the squeal of those words must have sounded, Mark dropped to his knees again and had his cock surrounded by that wet heat. Scott’s ass hit the wall. He reached out and gripped the top of the desk in one hand and the dresser in the other. He watched Mark’s head bob faster and faster, and the intensity built with each plunge of his mouth. So different. Real. Powerful. And that was the problem.

Staring down at Mark felt…wrong. He gripped Mark’s shoulders. “Please.” Mark sucked harder, faster. “Please. Can I…”

Read More of More Than Just a Good Book