Update on writing.

My very talented editor with Freya’s Bower resigned due to health concerns. Please join me in keeping her in your thoughts/prayers/etc. She’s still going to be writing, but editing is terribly difficult and time consuming work. For the sake of her privacy, I will not mention her name.

My titles with FB were put back into the editing pool. Personal Demon has swum to the side of the pool and his being edited by Marci Baun. I’ve not worked with Marci before, but so far things seem to be going very well.

Personal Demon was going to be included in an anthology title, but that was going to be edited by the editor that resigned. Freya’s Bower is doing something interesting with the titles that were going to be in the anthology. They’re doing a series of micro-books. So Personal Demon will be titled Inherently Sexual: Personal Demon. All the titles will have similar covers with the text changed. How neat is that? Oh and did I mention at all of the stories in this story will be homoerotic stories?

Since these will be short, they’ll be cheap and they won’t have ISBNs. That probably means you’ll only be able to get it on the Freya’s Bower’s website. I’ll verify that bit of information as we get closer to release. Since all of these stories aren’t on the shoulders of one editor, we’ll, hopefully, have a quicker release date.

Tainted Past and Full Circle (re-release) are still in the editing pool. About to Sin remains in self-editing phase. Full Circle: Changling is in the conception stage.

Oh, and I have a non-fiction book rec to share. Napoleon’s Privates. 2,500 Years of History Unzipped is an absolute riot and utterly fascinating. If you like quirky non-fiction, you’ll love this book.

Call of Submissions: Coming Together: with Pride

I wanted to spread the world on this anthology.

http://www.eroticanthology.com/withpride.htm

Net profits will be donated to HIV/AIDS research. Coming Together has produced several charity anthologies: breast cancer research, a charity in the UK that deals with premature babies, and hurricane relief efforts to just name a few.

Alessia Brio is the editor for the Coming Together series. I've not had much interaction with her, but what I've seen she seems competent and pleasant. Phaze is publishing this edition of the series and they're reputable.

Alessia is seeking shorts up to 12,000 words and any genre is welcome. I assume the normal taboos apply (no pedophilia, no necrophilia and no bestiality.) The story does not have to deal with HIV/AIDS.

An anthology is a good place to get exposure. One such as this isn’t a paying market, but it is writing credit and the book will be both print and ebook. Besides, knowing that you did something for charity just feels good. I’m not sure who else will be submitting to them, but there’s usually good talent with this series. Even if you don’t want to submit anything to the anthology, please, check out the work and help these good causes.

Movie Rec: “Conspiracy of Silence.”

IMBD link

“Conspiracy of Silence” (2003) is a drama about the repercussions of celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church as viewed through the lives of an active priest and his partner, an inactive priest; a straight seminarian; and, a journalist who tries to fight the hierarchy.

Although not as powerful and as hard hitting as the movie “Priest”, “Conspiracy of Silence” does an equally wonderful job of posing priests as both the protagonists and antagonists. This movie could have gone deeper…much deeper, but for what it does, it does well. Personally, I feel as if there was another seminarian and a noble priest who seemed to be forgotten by the writer and the director. It almost feels as if they had much larger roles, but were cut short for some reason.

As far as GLBT interests, this movie makes a lot of promises, but lacks follow through. The beginning of the film sets the stage for what could have been quite interesting. In some ways, I feel as if they told the wrong story or, at the very least, half the story. Even considering that, I’m recommending this movie. Don’t watch this film expecting a “gay movie”.

The cinema photography isn’t my preferred style, but that didn’t distract from the quality writing (what was included was written well) and wonderful acting. This is an Irish movie and some people have complained that the accent makes the dialog difficult to follow. I didn’t have this problem.

Now, for more shallow interests.

Eye candy: There’s not really much. Once again, the beginning is charged with a homoerotic element that seems to be forgotten by the middle of the film. The lead seminarian carried special interest for me because he almost has Father Daniel’s lips and the character is named Daniel. I suspect the meaning and origin of that name leads a lot of writers to name priests “Daniel.” There were a few priests in the background who deserved close-ups that they never received. There is a nicely done heterosexual sex scene, but who cares about that? *wink*

Actors: The bishop in this movie is played by the same actor who plays the bishop in “Father Ted.” There were others I thought I recognized, but I couldn’t place them. However, I suck at that.

Advice site.

KM Frontain has a wonderful writing advice site up. I try to read as much of these types of articles as possible. Not every piece of advice written on the net is worth heeding, but knowing what I disagree with and why I disagree with it is rather important and useful.

I need to work on POV transitions and I’m doing my best to learn what I can, but this has to be some of the best advice I’ve ever read about POV.

Here are some quotes from her POV article.

1A. Always lead away from one character POV to another using action, speech, or a "timing or placement" phrase.

What's a timing or placement phrase? Things like "Over on George's side of the table" or "When his friend looked into the kitchen". It's that simple. Actually, the timing and placement comes in if you use action to move away from a certain character's POV.


Personally, I love doing this. In Tainted Past the first POV transition is when the main POV character feels the effects of the morphine. Other times I have the character leave the scene or a new character enter as a transition marker. I see now that my transitions in Tainted Past are smoother than those in Full Circle.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m proud of Full Circle. I think it’s good work, but it is a first novel. It’s the official starting point of my growth as a writer. I can only imagine how in 5 years I’d finesse the work I’m doing now.

Tainted Past is told mainly from Tyler’s POV. Most of the emotion and the power in the scenes will be from Tyler’s perspective. However, there is information critical to the story that is only known by the other characters and that’s why this story needs third person and not first person.

Here’s another quote from the article.

You had better not intrude one perspective or thought pattern belonging to one character into the thoughts of another, unless they're telepathically connected.

I’m glad KM included this. There are always exceptions to rules and telepathically connected characters are the exception. Well, it’s not really an exception is it? If they’re telepathically connected then the character B’s POV becomes character A’s POV. There’s a section in Full Circle, during a sex scene, where this briefly happens.

This is another gem from the article.

3. Be careful of your pronouns; do not leave your reader wondering who is speaking, acting or thinking.

What do I mean? Because multiple characters are acting or speaking, you can't just use "him" or "he" if all your characters are male.

When people read their first m/m it takes a while to become accustomed to the “name heavy” aspect of it. When het readers from a writing group I sometimes attend read one of my excerpts, I can count on them marking paragraphs as name heavy.

When I get that back, I’ll check it over and tweak it. I’ll also make a note about it and ask my editor to check it for being name heavy. My editor has never considered the paragraph name heavy. By het standards they would be name heavy, but by m/m standards they aren’t. It’s the nature of the beast. If there can be any doubt about the object of the preposition, use the name.

Thanks to KM for writing such informative articles!

Looking for a rec.

All I’ve got to say is that googling: priest porn –child ; or googling priest erotica gay does NOT lead to any good stuff. >.<

Sometimes a gal needs a fix that doesn’t come from her own mind. Anyone know where some good priest erotica can be found? Or just religious erotica for that matter? And I don’t mean that without a care jumping into bed crap. I mean good, solid, priest erotica. Someone who is a good priest and faltering. I want to ache for this guy. I don’t want to read about a priest who just casually opens his robes and screws without conscience. That’s just porn in a priest robe.

Shit. I think I’ll just have to write some more. There’s a serious deficit of good religious erotica in this world and someone needs to fill it.

Updates: Writing and Reading

On the writing front, I just finished getting beta feedback on “About to Sin III” That’s going very well! Still no ETA on “Full Circle”, that’s in the hands of the art department. I’m amazed at how much interest there is in this book and I’m utterly honored that you guys want it so badly. If I could release it right this second I would. “Tainted Past” and “Selling Foxx” are still in the editing phase.

On the reading front, I just picked up The_Legacy by Kay Derwydd. That title now has the honor as being the first e-book I have ever purchase. It was a really simple process, I used my paypal account (first purchase via paypal too).

I practically worship Kay’s writing and I’m certain I’ll love this book, but once I’m done reading it, I’ll let you know how it is.

Unusual reference book rec.

In an earlier blog, I spoke about using quirks such as OCD to help bring character’s depth.

There’s something we can use to help lend some depth to stories. Superstitions.

I’m going to rec a book to everyone. “The Encyclopedia of Superstitions.” By: Christina Cole. If I’m reading the cover right, the edition I have was published by Barnes and Noble with the cooperation of Helicon Publishing Limited.

I hope you can find a copy.

This book goes into some very old superstitions as well as some newer ones. I used the information provided in this book in Full Circle and if you write period pieces you may want to check out some of the popular beliefs for whatever time frame you’re using.

I used superstition, that I didn’t assume the reader would know and used a character to introduce the idea, as a teeny hint for something with Full Circle. It’s a little thing that I expect most readers to miss it. When it comes to fruition (most likely in sequel) there should be an “Oh!” moment with the reader.

As a writing tool, I love it. As a book, I enjoy it.

Even if you don’t have a particularly superstitious character (putting in some might add character depth), it is chock full of plotbunnies waiting to be born.

Creative Characters

Character creation is a difficult and complex process. I've spoken to several writers and not two of us seem to do it the same way. Some start with the "job" or "goals" of the piece and devise a character to achieve those goals. Some start with a personality type skeleton and flesh out as the piece develops.

I don't think any way is right or wrong. Whatever works for you and your writing is what you should do.

One thing I particularly like is playing with the speech patterns of characters. I've been told that if you have crafted your characters properly, then you shouldn't need dialog tags. I'm not sure that's true, but I do like it when characters are, indeed, that distinct.

In Full Circle (to be released in a couple of weeks), I created a character with a very distinct dialect. I see you rolling your eyes now. I'm not talking about the kind of writing that only Mark Twain can pull off. I'm talking about the use of idioms and speech rooted in a different time era than the other characters.

In Full Circle all of the characters are children of whatever era they were born in or created in. Some have been able to acclimate themselves to the cultural changes of the centuries and some of them have not. Kendrick is a character who is comfortable and "in place" inside the room, but uncomfortable and "out of place" in time. Byron is a very modern character and I can easily see him walking down the street of today or yesteryear. Phineas, however, is special. His life's circumstances have prevented him from fully comprehending that he isn't where he use to be. Phineas is stuck in the Old West.

This made his dialog very difficult. It became so problematic that by the end of the novel, I told my editor, Tami Parrington, that I was killing him off as soon as I could. She told me it wasn't fair to kill off characters because they are hard.

She might be right, but I'm still gunning for bumping him off.

I like reading characters like this, but they are a major pain to write. Luckily, I live in the Information Age and I have access to the internet. Finding a print resource for speech patterns, idioms and etc of the Old West proved taxing and I found this little gem…

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~poindexterfamily/OldWestSlang.html

Most of the characters in the story (and the reader too) won't know what Phineas is talking about when he refers to "Company Q" or what he really means when he says, "You done woke up the wrong passenger." Fortunately, Kendrick and Bob are there to translate what he says. I think his presence adds color and depth to the story and I recommend giving it a try. Just don't blame me if you want to kill off the character who is providing that color and depth.

Idiotic Idioms

The English language is a funny beast. We have sayings that we all know and use, but don't really understand.

Heavens to Betsy is one that springs to mind. Who is Betsy and why does she deserve all the heavens? AND how did that get turned into a default exclamation? Charles Earl Funk in his book "2107 Curious Word Origins, Sayings & Expressions" is stumped by Betsy too. He thinks this phrase is at least a hundred years old and it breaks geographic boundaries. This one has been relegated to "source unknown" and its roots have been gobbled by history. Some speculate that it has something to do with Betsy Ross, but the usage seems to indicate otherwise.

Ah, Betsy, a woman who knows the power of mystery.

The Power of Two is out! (also contains a Word of the Post)

The Power of Two by Mychael Black & Shayne Carmichael As a vampire Master, Dominic has been eyeing his old friend, Griffith for quite a well. But being a Master in his own right, Grif resisted the notion of Dominic controlling him in any way. With startling skill, Dominic sets out to change that refusal. He has his own deep interest in him, born of watching Grif's submission at the hand of another Master. Even though Dominic can't help but toy with his old friend, in truth, he wants him only an an equal. But how to convince Grif without letting his guard down is Dominic's biggest issue.

Aware of some of that interest but not the reason for it, Grif has his own secret. His trust had been violated by his own vampire Master, and since that night, he's refused to let another dominate him. And he'd swore to himself that no one ever would.

Get your copy of The Power of Two at Phaze today!




Today's "Word of the Post" comes from

The Phrontistery: Obscure Words and Vocabulary Resources.

http://phrontistery.info/index.html (main page)

This resource is especially useful for scrabble players, because there is a three-letter word listing. This site lists the words by topic. Even if you don't like cruising dictionaries, you may be able to glean some goodies.

http://phrontistery.info/aster.html (page with this word)

Medicaster -- quack; charlatan

(sounds like a great classification for a fantasy healer mage, doesn't it? Nonetheless, I'll try to use the word correctly.)

Mark and James, you're up!

~~~

Mark folded his hands over his coffee cup. "Surgery?" He knew he didn't just hear that out of James's mouth.

"Yeah, that's what the doctor said. He said the pain was due to a fracture of some bone I can't pronounce." He picked up the diagnosis sheet from the doctor's office and pointed at the recommended treatment section. "And he wants me to schedule surgery, because the bone has partially healed."

"They're going to rebreak your toe?" This made no sense. He grabbed the yellow diagnosis sheet and shook his head. "You're getting a second opinion. This doesn't make any sense."

James shrugged. "Maybe surgery isn't really the right word, but I'm going to be doped up and stuff. To me that's surgery. I don't want to be alert when they break my toe."

This was the craziest thing Mark had ever heard. "What kind of medicaster did you go to? You obviously have in ingrown toenail and the guy wants to break your toe?" He stood up from the table and jerked his hands in the air, "No! That guy isn't touching you. I'm calling you a real doctor. One who didn't get through med school on a C-minus."