Six Sentence Sunday 7/31/11

Today's six (my very first) comes from my Etopia Press release Sparks Fly, due out this Friday. In the story, all the women have died and some of the remaining men turn to their fellows for the sexual contact they so desperately crave. Eduardo, who's one of my heroes, is one of those men. At first, anyway.

"The lips wrapped around him didn’t loosen, but followed him down, suckling him until every drop had been drawn from his twitching dick and he had to forcefully pull himself out. When Eduardo opened eyes he didn’t in all truth remember closing, what’s-his-name was staring at him, a very self-satisfied look on his face as he licked his lips, presumably to lap up any remnants of Eduardo’s seed.
For one delirium-fueled second, he thought he saw a flash of silver in the twink’s eyes, but a second later he was sure he’d imagined it. After all, people’s eyes didn’t just change color and change back, right?
Eduardo struggled to his feet, disgust washing over him as it always did after one of these sessions. He tucked himself back into his pants and readjusted his suit jacket."

For more fabulous sentences, you can check out the Six Sentence Sunday site here.

Sparks Fly Cover Art

So, it's a little later than what I expected, but bask in the awesomeness that is the cover of Sparks Fly! Or, at least it's awesome, to me. Sparks Fly is releasing from Etopia Press next Friday, August 5.

I Want To Play A Game

So we're less than two weeks away from the release of Sparks Fly! Excited sooooo can't even describe what I'm feeling right now, and I already know it's gonna be even worse come release day. That being said...

A couple weeks ago, I hit 99 followers on Twitter. So I said that if someone could help me hit 100, I'd give away a copy of Sparks Fly once it releases. Thanks to good friends Dee Carney and Shoshanna Evers, I'm now at 126. Thank you, once again, lovely ladies. So I've been agonizing over how I was going to do this giveaway without just randomly selecting someone because hey, if I do that, what if the person who randomly wins it randomly doesn't want it? That would suck, to say the least. So I've devised a little game...

At the moment, I have four stops left on my Sparks Fly Blog Tour. At three of those four stops, I'll be posting a random sentence from the story. There will be a sentence from each chapter and, whoever can put these sentences in the correct order, or closest to it, will win a free copy on release day. Just make your way back here and, in a comment on a post that I'll put up on release day, post the sentences in the order you think they go in. Sounds like fun, right?

The first sentence is "Once again, Eduardo tried to stop the moan that rose in him like they would rise when he’d been with Jade, strong, powerful…unstoppable."

The second will be revealed when I guest on Tristram La Roche's Site later this week. The third will appear when I stop by Amara Devonte's Blog on August 1. The fourth I will tweet on August 4. The fifth and final sentence will be unleashed upon the world on release day when I blognap Cat Grant's Blog for a day of insanity and laughing uncontrollably.

I hope you'll play my game with me. And congrats in advance to the winner!

And duh! Sparks Fly releases on Friday, August 5 from Etopia Press!

Announcing the Sparks Fly Blog Tour!

So I finally got a release date for Sparks Fly, my debut urban fantasy/m/m/post apocalyptic horror novella from Etopia Press. Friday, August 5, 2011! In celebration, I'll be embarking on a promotional blog tour.

So far, I'll be visiting Angela Kay Austin's Romancing The Pen on July 17, I'll be over on Cat Grant's Blog on release day, and on Shoshanna Evers' The Writer's Challenge on August 8. I'll also be guesting on Tristram La Roche's Site, we just haven't firmed up a date yet, so more details on that one to come. Anyone else want to host me, feel free to contact me.

I've seen the mockup of the cover and I absolutely love it. Just a couple of little things that have to be tweaked, and then I'll do the mass unveiling on Friday. I'll just say for now that Etopia has some talented artists working for them.

Also, I'll be doing some giveaways, both on this blog and the others. So stay tuned for more details.

Failure, and Not Being in the Mood

So, a couple weeks ago I did a blog about writing a book in a month. I have sorely failed at that task, as the book I was planning to write still sits languishing on my computer, only 2k or so done. Ultimately, it falls into the same category of why my last two manuscripts were rejected by editor X of publisher Y. They just may not be right for the audience. So last week, I started something else. It reads like quite a few of the books I've read from publisher Y, but it still has my own flair to it. Hopefully this one takes.

The only thing is that it's not quite done yet. I've only got one scene left to write and it's that dreaded/euphoric final sex scene. Normally I can hammer out a sex scene (no pun intended) in no time at all. But I'm just not in the mood for it right now. To the point where I feel like if I even tried my brain would explode. Hopefully I'll be able to finish tonight and get the story off to betas by Thursday. Maybe I just need a break from it. Maybe I need to visit my Little Monster. I dunno.

Does this happen often to erotica writers? How do you keep yourself from losing interest by the time you get to the end of the book?

Can't Make You Love Me **Update**

Ok, so, when I posted my blog a couple days ago, I was totally dejected. All the time and energy I'd funneled into that book only for so many people to say they disliked my hero. It wasn't a good time for me.

It was with only the barest glimmer of hope that I decided I would submit the manuscript one final time. By the time I had it formatted and blasted it off to my editor at Etopia Press, all that hope was gone. It was just another rejection waiting to happen. She emailed me a few hours later with the standard acknowledgement of receipt and I began waiting again.

The next afternoon she emailed me telling me that she'd read the synopsis and her interest was peaked and she was going to be getting to the full manuscript right away. I still had a few more days, at least, I figured. But a few hours later she emailed me again telling me that she loved it and wanted to buy it.

I may have woken up half my house, the scream was so loud.

She praised the writing and didn't have any major issues at all with the story. I'm super excited because I love this story so much and now the world will finally be able to see it. Well, after a healthy round of edits, anyway.

I'm prepared for the backlash because Dylan isn't your typical hero. He's an ass, and I know it. But he has his reasons. I hope you'll stick around to find out what they are.

I think it makes the end result a little more satisfying.

Curses! Rejected Again...

I've written a book that I perhaps love too much. Different people know it under different titles. To my beta readers, it was Dance in the Dark. To my ex, it was Sooner Than Later. To one editor, it was 4 Real. And now, it's latest incarnation is (ironically) Can't Make You Love Me.

I wrote the realest and rawest possible account of a young man's struggle to discover and try to accept his burgeoning attraction to his best friend, who happens to be another male. The story itself only took me two months to write, and I was elated when I finished. To this day, it's still my favorite completed manuscript, with it's not quite sequel coming in at a close second. I tweaked it and tweaked it and then tweaked it a bit more to make it sparkle. My betas loved it. So it was time to submit it, right? Wrong. Reject reject reject. Not an ounce of feedback and I was getting a tad demotivated. So I shelved it.

Coming back to it a few months later, I fell in love with the story all over again. I sent it out to another beta, a lovely author I met on Twitter a while back, and when she sent me feedback, I almost died. She had a few questions about the story in general, but her biggest issue was that she didn't like my hero. Well, one of them anyway... So I tweaked him a bit and sent him and his lover (and I use that term as loosely as he does) off to an editor. A few weeks later, she served me with another rejection. Her comments differed from my latest beta's, but her largest issue remained the same. She didn't like my hero. Near devastated, I shelved it once again, wrote the not quite sequel, and then tweaked the manuscript even more. I changed the title for the third time and subbed it once again. The results were much more positive. At first.

The editor from this latest publisher got back to me within a week requesting the full of the manuscript. She said that she loved that it was a different spin on the coming out story and wanted to see how it played out. So I sent in the full and I waited. A little over a week ago, she contacted me saying that she was passing it on for a second read. Stomach in knots, I waited. I vacillated between hope and despair, not exactly sure what the second read meant. I was finally at hope again when I got the latest rejection letter this morning.

There was only one listed issue this time. They didn't like my hero. At this point, I'm not sure how else I can tweak it without altering my hero as I envision him. I set out to tell a different type of story, one where the reader goes on the borderline terrifying journey of discovery right along with the character. That's not to say one hasn't already been written, I just haven't read one quite like it. And it would appear I've succeeded just as much as I've failed. It's different, but I'm starting to think it may be different to the point of being unpublishable in its current form.

I'm gonna try to sub it one more time as is, and if the answer is the same, I'll dive back into revisions. Hell, I may rewrite the entire manuscript. I don't know yet. All I know is that my hero is just as he needs to be for his story.

The only problem is, who's going to want to hear his story if they don't like him?