In which J. Scott Coatsworth asks me about notebooks. Poor soul.

In the dark days of March, J. Scott Coatsworth was nice enough to give me an author spotlight interview on his blog. These questions were the most fun I'd been asked to answer, the perfect remedie for the not quite spring yet/still of that month.
 The interview is up here:Author Spotlight , on his blog. Which you should totally check out. I used to think that Ian McShane was the hardest working man in show business, but I've changed my mind. J. Scott has a lot of things going on. Not the least of which is his new novel, Skythane, which is a great sci fi read (seriously).

Double Danger: a review

When Alyssa Mallory crashes into Nick Trammel’s car, she is plunged into a roller coaster adventure. Her home is ransacked. Two men shoot at her and Nick, and Alyssa’s friend is shot. Nick forces her to go with him into the wilderness of northern Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, running from the two men who Nick says will kill both of them to get information they believe he has. But he doesn’t know what it is they want. Chased by men with guns, Alyssa ad Nick find themselves in a desperate race against time to figure out why they are targets. Complicating matters is the emotional threat of falling for a man Alyssa knows is dangerous. Alyssa is faced with a terrible choice, one that could save her life, but might cost her the man she loves. and Nick find themselves in a desperate race against time to figure out why they are targets. Complicating matters is the emotional threat of falling for a man Alyssa knows is dangerous. Alyssa is faced with a terrible choice, one that could save her life, but might cost her the man she loves.

Alyssa Mallory is a nice woman. She’s a school teacher who lives alone, has a cat and works part time in her deceased aunt’s antique shop. It’s a nice, empty, life. All that changes the second she crosses paths with Nick Trammel. She finds him irritating, if not handsome and smart.

Within hours of that chance meeting nearly everything in her life changes. She is forced to walk away, with nothing but her van and her cat. Nick Trammel is nothing that he seems, and he drags Alyssa into his world without warning. This book is a slow burn, a twisty mystery that ratchets up the tension between the characters as they race to unravel it.   Written in multiple points of view, we feel both the characters resist this relationship, and face their fears; Nick’s of failing to protect anything he loves, and Alyssa’s that she will lose him to the flash of a gunshot. They work together to deal with the bad guys and solve the mystery.

Double Danger is filled to the brim with memorable characters, vivid action and romance. It is placed mostly in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and is filled with the wild beauty of that place. From beginning to end, it never fails to satisfy. If you’re a reader of Karen Rose, or Catherine Coulter, this book is for you. 

Here' the pre-orer link for Amazon:Double Danger, out April 30th!

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for a fair review.

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Day 12, One More

And, we're back to the novel. Remember last week when Adella was talking to the vampire? Sure you do. Here's the last part of that scene. Almost the last part, anyway. I think this chapter will be really fun when it makes sense as all, but for now, I'm just sticking everything together so I can move on. I am trying to learn to move forward, as much as I can, which is hard for me. But I can't wait to see what happens next in this bit. And I can't wait until I can come back and make it all pretty-like and you know, readable....

“We both know that’s not true.” Adella insisted. “I’ve only just arrived in Tenbrous, and your auction is the worst kept secret below ground. I’m in need of live specimans, and those poor creatures on the block out there won’t do. I have the cred, I just need to know when. Why are you so coy?”

“Well Missus, one can’t be-“

“Doctor.” She correctly him firmly once again.

“Doctor, if you must.” He acknowledged. Then he leaned forward, hands flat out on the counter. He inhaled, sampling the air between them. It brought the image of a snake to Adella’s mind, and she took a step back involuntarily. She was halfway to pulling her pistol free, when his eyes narrowed. “Ah,” He spoke again. “But I know you, do I not?”

“I…” The realization that he’d just processed her scent struck her speechless a moment. “I can’t think how.”

But she had been here. How could she have failed to remember a vampire had been running this place? Had she simply not recognized the creature back then? She straightened her spine and gave him a smile. “I was here, years ago. I fear it was before your time.”

The return smile displayed his stark white fangs. Adella’s heart hammered. Leslie would be angry if she allowed herself to be killed because of a faulty memory.

“You were as much an oddity then as I am. A woman with that pack of thug medical students. You didn’t notice me, because there iron bars between us.” He move from behind the counter in a flash, to stand inches from her. He reached out to trail a blacken fingernail down the side of her face, scraping it over the crow’s feet at the corner of her eye. “You’re older now, of course. Same brassy girl in there somewhere, though, I expect.”

A shudder wracked through her before she could stop it. She pulled away from him. “This can’t be an effective way to do business.”

She insinuated the pistol between them, pressing it to his chest.  “I require information. If you don’t have it, I’ll speak to your master

Day Three. Don't Look!!

Here's how much I trust you guys. This is page two. Yep. This , his where I reveal myself as a true.... What do the kids call it now? Pantser. It should be evident that I:  A, have no idea what's going to happen as I'm writing this thing, and B  Have absolutely no qualms about breaking the precarious PLOT that I do have floating around in there. I promise that when I figure out how this all works out, it'll make so much more sense..... Oh. when Les thinks about the beast, it's his werewolf. There, you go......    

Leslie felt the crack of his nose breaking on contact. Pain flashed across his vision and he returned the blow on instinct. Cabbot staggered back, but didn’t go down. He shook his head and spit a mouthful of blood out on the floor. Then he charged Les, catching him low. The force sent the both crashing through the thin wall of the shack.

They exploded in a heap, Les on the bottom. He tasted copper at the back of his throat, but the beast made the pain fleeting. He was already healing. He flung Cabbot off and got to his feet. Then he hauled the other man up too. There was a thin crowd gathering, and Les knew he had to end this before they decided to join in.  “I’d prefer to come to a civil solution. However, if you insist on continuing this violence, I will oblige you. But you should consider that you’ve already got all the licks in you’re going to.”

His next blow was lower, and he caught Cabbot as he doubled over.

Now that his face was on the mend, Leslie remembered to hold back. It still wasn’t close to a fair fight, but Les didn’t want to kill Cabbot.

In fact, he realized as he turned loose of the man, he’d make a fair ally against Vic. And as thought came to him, Cabbot clocked him again, hard.  “Wait,” He put his hands up, open. “This is no way to negotiate.”

“That’s not what this is, son,” Cabbot laughed. “This is me beating you down.”

Les felt the eyes of the crowd on him, and he knew he couldn’t be seen backing down on his first day. “You’re mistaken.” He said, pulling his pistol clear of the holster. “This is me, getting what I came for. One way or another. Now. Don’t be a fool.”

Day Two of the Page a Day Challenge. 300 wordsish makes up a page.

I promised to stick three pages up a week. Oh, I'll write seven, but c'mon. Even I don't want to read some of that. I don't know what all the pages will be, since I'm working on a couple of different things, but here's one from the Neo-Victorian novel that I'm middling my way through. It's near the end of the middle, and it's the prelude to a fist fight. It is almost entirely as it is from my notebook. So, um.... Well, here it is.......

Les was not pleased at the number of names on his list. Twelve shopkeeps this week would need convincing. Twelve.

He hoped that his size would be all the convincing they would need to pay up.

He wondered what Adella was doing. It was just as well she wasn’t here to see him set off to begin his duties. She wanted to believe he was better than Vicktor—so did Les, but the truth was they had been the same once, and the bad man still lived in Leslie, no matter how deeply buried. He wanted to leave it buried, but he knew if he wanted to kill Vicktor, he couldn’t.

So he set out to find his the first name on his list.

“Afternoon, Mr….” Les paused to consult is list. “Cabbot, is it?”

The man rose from is chair and stood eye to eye with Les. “It is.” He answered. “Who’s askin’”

“You can call me Mr Fordham. I’m here on behalf of our mutual friend, Mr. Ketchem.”

“No friend o’ mine.” The other man’s eyes narrowed to slit.  “And neither are you, if you’re his man. I’ve no interest in what he’s sellin’.”

Les smiled sharp and said, “You’ve already bought it. Now Mr Ketchem needs his cred.”

Cabbot looked Leslie up and down and laughed. “Or what?”

Leslie stepped closer to Cabbot. He widened his smile to show teeth. He did not what to be this man again, yet he was slipping into the role quick. “Or I go to work. And then you pay.”

“I don’t need protection from the likes of you or him.” Cabbot told him. As he spoke, he caught hold of Leslie’s right forearm, gripping hard enough to prevent him from side-stepping the punch.

What is goin' on?

One the the weird/cool things that has happened since the book came out is that people have asked me a whole bunch of questions that I don't usually get. Okay, I'll be honest, nobody's ever asked me anything about what  write before. I did, over the last month, a series of interviews about  Black Light, and about writing in general.  I thought I'd put the links in below.

Shels Walter asked me about nail polish, and music. Coreena McBurnie wanted to know, pants or plot. I bet you know which one I chose, right?  Fiona McVie let me talk about religious experiences. And Terrie Leigh asked me about the nature of writing. 

Also I was interviewed by the Flushing View, which is my home town newspaper. This, out of anything else I've done in my life would have made my mother proud. 

Oh, hey, and my writing group, Flint Area Writers, has a swank new website, created by the amazing Melodie Bolt. You should totally go look at it and find out what the rest o FAW is up to.

So that was my June. July started with the signing, which I may have mentioned, at my B&N, and it's going to end with a trip to Gilchrist with my oldest best friend, Loren Rhoads, for writing and wine an lots and lots of quiet. I can't wait for that. 

My First Signing!

This has been weird. I have been to signings before, sat next to my friends while they signed their books for people. I've even signed my name to an anthology or two that I've had short stories published in. Today was different. Today I got to sit at the table at the Barnes and Noble put Black Light into other people's hands, all day. It was great. But weird. But great!

With me are Kacey Vanderkarr, Brian Thomas, and AJ Tupps. What great company to be in.  I saw a couple of old friends, which was amazing, and make a whole bunch of new ones, and even recruit a few for Flint Area Writers! And!! You guys! I even got to sell the book to people who were complete strangers! How much fun is that!

So, in celebration of my first signing, I'm doing a Goodreads Giveaway, starting at midnight tonight. ( July 9th). You can enter to win one of three paperback copies of Black Light from now until July 31.

Y'know what? This is another first for me!!. Wow......

Anyway, just click on the link over to the right of this blog, okay? And go enter!

Building My Own House

It took me years to sort out my own sexuality.  I could tell you that was because I didn’t have Google when I was a kid, but I feel like that’s too flip an explanation. I’m glad that there is so much to see and hear these days. There are so many more safe places to go in the real world and online now. Don't get me wrong, I know it's not a perfect world. Way too many of us still can't marry who we love, and  I used to think that the closet had just gotten bigger.  Now I think that’s not the case. I work with twenty and thirty-somethings now, and I am amazed at the combinations and relationships that I see.  A woman my age at work, even told me that her child had told her “in an email” that they were pan sexual. That “no Mom, that doesn’t mean I’m attracted to pots and pans….” This woman didn’t tell me this because she was angry or ashamed. She was proud of her child, and working actively to get the pronoun of choice down.

Wow.                                                                                                                             

But, what was I talking about? Yes. This. I spent my twenties and thirties, desperately trying to fit somewhere. I wasn’t comfortable with most men, and I did love women, but I felt out of place as a lesbian, like it wasn’t quite the right skin.  I didn’t want to be alone, needed intimacy, and sex was something that seemed necessary to get that.  But I wasn’t ever really much for it, you know? In my head I’ve always heard a well-meaning ex of mine saying to me, in what I’m sure she didn’t intend to be a condescending tone, “It’s okay if you’re asexual.” When it was very clear it was not okay.

I couldn’t have been asexual, I thought because clearly it’s not okay.

That was thirty years ago, and I’ve made a lot of mistakes over that time. It’s taken decades to come to the place I am now. It took a long time for me to be comfortable straddling the line, instead of trying to fit myself into one box. 
I completely understand that there are always reasons you make the choices you make. That sexual preference is just that, and it's fluid.  Now? Now I know that I'm bi-asexual. Did I just make that up? Maybe. and I'm okay with that.

First lines in the dying days of January

So my friend Loren Rhoads tagged me. She recently wrote a blog that included the first lines of everything she is working on now. Whoa, she is way amore ambitious than me!  Go take a look. But anyway, she tagged the rest of us to do that same. So, here goes my stuff:

The book I'm revising about a rock and roll band in 1983 and a psychic vampire is called The Black Light: Trace stands in the wings backstage at the Refugee Club, a narrow shadow.

So, then there's the short story about same psychic vampire's youth, called Knives: I light a fresh cigarette off the butt of the dying one before crushing it into the tray set in the door of the car.

And of course there's The Night Was Not, which is the NeoVictorian third gender romance that I'm stuck in the middle of: Kerry Hazard slid into the pilot's seat of the Starshine as he toggled the print switch on the com console. 

Yep. There you have it. Or at least there you have some of it. I'm not a very fast writer, and some of these things I've  been working on for quite a while. I'm trying to write more every day, and faster too. I'll never be one of those writers who can write ten thousand words a day. But  I think I'm ready to get to the ends of at least these things. Wish me luck.

So, I'll ask the question of the other writers I know: What are your first lines? 

The things I (would have) left behind

My best friend and I have always written. We've known each other and have shared our stories for over thirty years. We have lived on opposite sides of the country for almost two thirds of that time, and of course become different people than we were as kids. We've had different lives, but writing has always been the constant.

She asked me, a while ago if she could use a character of mine in a new story she was writing. She would change his name, and the setting, of course, but she wanted to know if it was alright with me if he made an appearance.

I didn't know what to say. I was more than happy to let her have him. I wasn't doing anything with him, that was for sure.  When she began to talk about what role he would play in this new story of hers, I was hit with a wave of uncertainty, as though I was falling back into who I was all those years ago. I was jealous of her new idea, of the writer she was. I felt awful. She had improved her writing so much since then, why was I still struggling with every word?

I wanted to protect what was mine, but I also wanted to let him go. I wanted to see what she did with him. Of the two of us, I had more faith in her than I did in me, to complete the story.

So I gave up my seventeen year old self who felt inferior, and angry about being inferior. That was the first thing, and it wasn't easy. Then I decided to try to be as much help as I could. Not only because she is my best friend, but because I knew I would learn things along the way.

She did finish the book, and my character, who is a relatively minor one, is also one of the heroes. He comes across as a guy who is just doing the best he can while trying to stay as deceit as he can. He's perfect, but he's also not mine anymore. He's one facet of my character, as seen through her eyes, so reading him was so much more fun than I ever expected.

There was another unexpected bonus. She got me thinking about those stories we wrote back then. I decided it might be time for me to start telling my version. I could write that character from the present, with all the things I've learned since we were kids added in. I haven't stayed in the same place, I've moved forward, I've just moved differently. I wanted a story that reflected that, even if only to myself.

The result is the novel I'm working on now, called “The Night Was Not.” It's a neo-Victorian story. This incarnation of the character is called Kerry Hazard. He flies an airship, and is called back to the city of his childhood by an ominous message from a friend. It's a very different story from my friend's novel, which is a space opera (yay!), but the character came from the same place. He was born in the back of a notebook, scribbled in while lying on either of our bedroom floors in the middle of the night. It's where he would have stayed if she hadn't picked him up again. 

The Dangerous Type, by Loren Rhoads is out today!!!

Set in the wake of a galaxy-wide war and the destruction of a human empire, The Dangerous Type follows the awakening of one of the galaxy's most dangerous assassins and her quest for vengeance. Entombed for twenty years, Raena has been found and released.

Thallian has been on the lam for the last fifteen years.  He's a wanted war criminal whose entire family has been hunted down and murdered for their role in the galaxy-wide genocide of the Templars. His name is the first on Raena's list, as he's the one that enslaved her, made her his assassin, and ultimately put her in a tomb. But Thallian is willing to risk everything--including his army of cloned sons--to capture her. Now it's a race to see who kills whom first.

Alternatively, Gavin has spent the last twenty years trying to forget about Raena, whom he once saved and then lost to Thallian. Raena's adopted sister, Ariel, has been running from the truth -- the one about Raena, about herself and Gavin -- and doesn't know if she'll be able to face either of them.

The Dangerous Type is a mix of military science fiction and an adventurous space opera that grabs you from the first pages and doesn't let go. Along with a supporting cast of smugglers, black market doctors, and other ne'er-do-wells sprawled across a galaxy brimming with alien life, The Dangerous Type is a fantastic beginning to Loren Rhoads's epic trilogy.

I've told you about this book before, remember? It came out today, and the copies I had in my bookstore flew off the shelves, but don't worry, I'll be getting more of them. Also it's available from bn.com and amazon, for both nook and kindle.

The Dangerous Type is everything the blurb says and more. I loved this book, and you will too. AND the best part is that there are more to come! I can't wait for number two!

Tired of Waiting

Do you sometimes feel like you've spent your whole life waiting? I do. I feel, in the situation I've been in with the care of my father that I've been waiting. Today I waited for the Doctor to read Dad's ex-rays to tell me if his hip or pelvis was broken. Last night, in lieu of sleeping, I waited for my alarm to go off so I could get up and go over to help get Dad ready for his appointment. Today I'm waiting to see if this latest bout of re-arranging my work schedule will be the thing that pushes them over the edge to knock me down to part time. I wait for quiet time to write.....Wait....wait.

 Before I continue this rant, there were no broken bones, luckily. But back to my point. Oh, yeah. I'm not going to wait anymore.

I haven't updated this blog in a while because, while it's been a really productive year for my friends, (Reflection Pond, by Kacey Vanderkarr, available from amazon and bn.com, As Above, So Below, Loren Rhoads and Brian Thomas, Black Bed Sheets Books, available from amazon and bn.com), for me, not so much.

I have decided that's going to change. So here's my plan, and it's secret, so don't spread it around. I'm going to finish "The Night Was Not," before Christmas. (novel). I'm going to put out "The Black Light" this fall (novel), and I'm going to finish two short stories, and finalize the story I wrote for "Out of the Green," the fairy anthology from Urban Fey Press, and then help it to print.

That's it. I'm not waiting anymore.  

So, about that book......

Later, in a few days, I'm going to tell you about all the success my friends are having. This year is going to be exciting. Everybody I  know has a book coming out. And you should read them all. I've read most of them, and I'm telling you that you don't want miss them. 
But that's the next post. This post is going to be about what's happening in my world. So, fair warning, you might want to turn back now. 
Here's what happened with Nano. My dad broke his arm. Well, we didn't know it was broken then, because the Doctor missed it on the ex-rays. Anyway, Nano, nope. 
I gave up. I admit it. But I didn't give up on the book.  I couldn't.  I didn't bang out 50,000 words in those thirty days, but I kept trying to move forward. I have always felt like I write so slowly I could do it with my own blood and not injure myself. That's gotten more and more frustrating, but as I look at the manuscript, I have made progress. 
So, here's what I'm saying. This is the year all my friends have books. Next year's mine. So I'm going to keep you updated on my progress, as well as everybody else's, because, well, I want to.
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