Happy Autumn! Five Things to Love

It's been a while since I've done one of these posts, but I like them because, although they're simple, they give everyone reading the blog an opportunity to join in. I enjoy when a blog post turns into a conversation.

So anyway, here are five things I love about autumn. And if you'd care to share five things YOU love in the comment section below, I'll randomly choose someone to receive a print copy of the Japanese translation of Fair Play.

Now perhaps you don't speak Japanese.

That's okay. I don't speak Japanese either. You will still enjoy this book because ILLUSTRATIONS, PEOPLE.

So.

Five Things to Love About Autumn.

1 - Idyllic temperatures. Fall in Southern California means cool, breezy nights and mild sunny days. The light is gorgeous. Luminous. The mornings smell of fresh-brewed coffee and a hint of something like damp earth and warm stone. It smells like the start of a new year, even though it's technically the wind-down of the old year. We use the fire pit in the backyard mostly in autumn. And those final, just-on-the-verge-of-too-chilly swims of the season are some of the very best.

2 - Sweaters. I love super-soft, warm and roomy sweaters. My cashmere coat sweater. The gray, green and purple pullover I bought on Orkney. The gray lambswool cardigan I wore the first night I went to dinner with the SO.

3 - The spooky vibe. I guess I partly mean Halloween, although I'm not really that much of a fan of Halloween. What I do like about it are the costumes and masks and spooky movies and spooky stories and spooky walks late at night when every skitter of leaves on pavement has you looking over your shoulder. There's something dark and mysterious about autumn, and that's what I love more than the candy...although I hasten to add there is nothing wrong with the candy.

4 - Baking. Serious baking starts in the fall. Pumpkin breads and pecan pies and bread right out of the oven, slathered in butter. All sorts of cookies and pastries and delicious flaky goodness. Yum.

5 - Going to bed early and sleeping late--and the snuggling that takes place in between. I sleep better in the autumn. I sleep better when I'm cold (not too cold of course--not so cold I wake up and start searching for socks). I read more in the autumn too, because there are few things cozier than climbing into a giant nest of pillows and blankets with a good book. Or even a bad book, if it's so bad it's funny.

Okay, what about you? What five things do you love about Autumn?

Fair Play Launch

Fair Play goes live on Monday, so this blog is a tiny bit premature, but oh well! The launch parties are at Goodreads and my Facebook Fan Page, and once again there is a glittering array of presents and giveaways to celebrate the new story. I cannot get over the generosity of my readers.


Plus a little something special. I'm taking part in Amber Kell's annual birthday party, and my contribution this year was a little "birthday" snippet with Elliot and Tucker. You can read that here -- just scroll down the page a bit.


Meanwhile, you can order Fair Play at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, iTunes and of course directly from Carina Press.


Fifty years ago, Roland Mills belonged to a violent activist group. Now, someone is willing to kill to prevent him from publishing his memoirs.


When ex-FBI agent Elliot Mills is called out to examine the charred ruins of his childhood home, he quickly identifies the fire for what it is—arson. A knee injury may have forced Elliot out of the Bureau, but it’s not going to stop him from bringing the man who wants his father dead to justice.


Agent Tucker Lance is still working to find the serial killer who’s obsessed with Elliot and can’t bear the thought of his lover putting himself in additional danger. Straightlaced Tucker has never agreed with radical Roland on much—“opposing political viewpoints” is an understatement—but they’re united on this: Elliot needs to leave the case alone. Now.


Tucker would do nearly anything for the man he loves, but he won’t be used to gain Elliot access to the FBI’s resources. When the past comes back to play and everything both men had known to be true is questioned, their fragile relationship is left hanging in the balance.

Book Trailer for FAIR PLAY

I've been sharing this on social media, but it would be remiss of me not to share here as well. So for your viewing enjoyment: FAIR PLAY the movie.

Okay, the movie-like book trailer. ;-)

Setting up house with his new lover was tricky before arson landed his former radical father in the guest bedroom. Now ex-FBI agent Elliot Mills has to figure out who is willing to kill to keep Roland's memoirs from being published.

Or, as they used to say in the day, Bring it home, Daddy-O.

Life is Good

Tonight, Thursday night, is my Friday. I’m out of town all this weekend. But this evening I’m sitting here watching Transformers…IX? X? XI?  Anyway, I’m having trouble following the plot, though there are some good lines and I like Mark Wahlberg as the befuddled dad and wacky inventor turned hero.

 

I’m on my own all this week (for the first time in years) and I got ambitious and made myself dinner. Mashed potatoes, roast cod with garlic butter, and a glass of white wine. This afternoon I had a swim in arctic water and I’m writing a couple of blogs. By the way, if you’re not following Queer Romance Month, you’re missing out. There are some really excellent posts so far.

 

I’m feeling really good. The Boy with the Painful Tattoo is doing well -- I’m sure it helps that I’ve left it at the preorder price this week -- and mostly readers seem to be enjoying it. Which of course makes me happy. I did not do blog tours or review copies or basically anything to promote this one. There just wasn’t time. September was a marathon of obligations and commitments beyond writing. So I’m deeply grateful to the gang at Goodreads and Facebook for the launch parties -- and to the readers who took it upon themselves to spread the word.

 

I’m basically done for the year. Fair Play was finished over a month ago, so all that’s left now is “Baby, it’s Cold,” a Christmas novella in the Comfort and Joy anthology. I don’t think I’ve talked much about this one yet, but I’m joining pals LB Gregg, Harper Fox, and Joanna Chambers for a holiday project. I'm really thrilled about this one.

 

COMFORT AND JOY

 

Housebound for the holidays. Four contemporary holiday novellas about finding love in your own backyard. Even when you don’t have a backyard.

 

Rest and be Thankful by Joanna Chambers

Two stormy hearts find peace when feuding neighbors in the Scottish Highlands are trapped by a blizzard.

 

Out by Harper Fox

Can a stranger unlock the courage and passion in a young man’s captive heart?

 

Waiting for Winter by L.B. Gregg

Some mistakes are worth repeating.

 

Baby, it’s Cold by Josh Lanyon

Or maybe it’s the flu. Breaking up is hard to do -- especially around the holidays.

 

It’s out December 7^th, and I’ll set it up for preorders before the end of the month. You’ll be able to buy the stories as a collection or if you just want one particular story, you’ll have that option too.

 

But first, of course, is Fair Play. I feel good about it and I think it’s going to go over well. Especially since for that one I’ve got Carina Press to help me out. (This is why I still like to work with publishers. Sometimes you just don’t want to have to do everything yourself.)

 

I’ve pretty much figured out the schedule for next year, but I’ll wait to share that. There will be at least one surprise in the mix and at least one title readers having been campaigning for.

 

It’s autumn now. Despite my refusal to give up my afternoon swims. What do you have planned? What will make this autumn different from the autumns that came before?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those Mid-way Mid-draft Blues

Writing is such a weird business. You go days, weeks, months (sometimes years) thinking of nothing but the story you are working. Everything you read, watch, think is basically related to these characters and their world – even when it isn’t.

 

You crawl through the muck of that first draft. Dragging every godawful little word out one by one. Then finally you’ve got something coherent enough to be called “a first draft,” and off it goes to your editor. Who swallows bravely and tries to make sense of it before she bounces it back.

 

There is incredible jubilation after that first draft. Partly because nothing is more difficult than carving that “think” out of the concrete block your brain turns into. But then comes the second draft. That is when you feel the power and the glory (such as it is) of what it is to know your craft. The second draft is the fun draft. It is really, in my opinion, the only joyful part of the writing process. When you take that raw material, look at it with fresh eyes, and you suddenly understand what you were struggling to say.

 

The more time between drafts, the better, in my opinion, but modern publishing doesn’t really allow for this. If you steal yourself an extra week somewhere you are doing great (and giving production teams nightmares).

 

The first draft is just about…getting there. Arriving muddied and bloodied on the doorstep. The second draft is about writing. It’s about how you will shower, dress, and seduce the reader into losing her or himself in the story. It is about clarifying theme and refining characterization, it is about nitpicking every adjective (Dear God, how many times have I said dryly this time? – PLEASE tell me no one “swallowed hard,” etc.) It is the one stage in a long process where you feel like you maybe know what the hell you’re doing.

 

But then you hand that second draft off, and there is a real sense of letdown. Almost depression. Because no matter how hard you tried, the infinite possibilities for this story are gone. The story is what it is. It is now limited in what it can be and what it can achieve. And from this point on the changes are minor ones – you did not explain how Character A knew Character B was stealing eggs from the Farm at C. You repeated a phrase too many times. That kind of thing. The fate of the story is now determined. It is the kind of story it is, and you can already hear both the praise and the criticism.  

 

There is definitely relief – great relief. The book is done. If you were to die at this point, the book could still go forward. It no longer really even needs you. Anyone can do these edits.

 

And so there is a kind of letdown. We start every story with a sense of excitement and endless possibility. Whether you outline or not, every story begins with endless possibility. But by the end of the second draft, this story has narrowed to a particular set of events with a determined outcome. You know how it ends.

 

And that’s where I am this morning. I sent Fair Play off yesterday afternoon and today I feel…meh. I loved writing it. I loved researching Washington and the Puget Sound and the anti-war movement of the 1960s. I learned about Black Bull whisky and Montreal and organic farming. But now it is done and there is a definite letdown.

 

We talk about reader addiction, but I think there is writer addiction too. And that is never more clear than when the rewrite is handed off and that particular high is finished. Done. No amount of accepting commas and removing echoes can bring it back.

 

But there is always the next story…

 

And in the meantime, I thought you might enjoy seeing the cover reveal for Fair Play!

 

Sneak Preview - FAIR PLAY

No cover art yet, but I'm currently working on the edits for Fair Play, and I thought maybe you'd enjoy a snippet for today's blog.

Elliot’s phone rang as he was climbing into his car.

For maybe the first time in his life, he was disappointed to see Tucker’s name flash up.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself. Where are you?” Tucker asked.

“Bellevue.” Elliot stared out the windshield at the distant blue of Lake Washington. A very nice neighborhood with its lofty views and safe distance from downtown Bellevue. “Where are you?”

“I’m here. Home. I’m on Goose Island.”

“You’re early.”

“And you’re…where? You’re not here. Your dad’s not here. What’s going on?”

“It’s kind of a long story.” But Elliot condensed it into a couple of sentences that left Tucker sounding winded on the other end of the line.

“You think your dad went underground. And you’re…what? You’re trying to find him by talking to his former revolutionary pals?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“What the hell, Elliot.”

“What does that mean? What the hell?”

Tucker made a sound of disbelief. Not quite a laugh. And certainly without humor. “You know better than anyone how a civilian getting involved in an investigation can hinder --”

“I’m not just a civilian.”

“Yes, you are. Worse, you’re an emotionally involved civilian.”

It wasn’t easy, but he managed not to lose his temper. Or at least not let his anger show in his voice. “How do you think this should work? Someone tries to take out my dad and I sit around grading papers and painting miniatures?”

“How I think it should work is you take a step back. A big step. Like it or not, you are a civilian now. You’ve been out of the field nearly two years. You need to leave this to Seattle PD.”

“I’m not getting involved in the investigation. I just want to know where he is.”

“Bullshit. He told you to stay out of it. And the fact that you can’t stay out of it -- your inability to respect parameters -- is the reason he left.”

Elliot sat up so straight he almost hit the ceiling of the Nissan. “My inability to respect parameters? What are we actually talking about here?”

“We’re talking about the fact that your father is a grown man capable of making his own decisions. He wants you to stay out of this. You need to respect that.”

“My father is nearly seventy. Someone is trying to kill him. I get that you don’t always understand family relationships, Tucker, but even you ought to be able to follow that I can’t stand aside and not make any attempt to find him.” That time Elliot didn’t bother to hide his anger.

Tucker didn’t usually raise his voice. When he got mad, his voice went deeper, lower. The chassis was scraping the pavement as he growled, “You know, you can really be a condescending prick sometimes.”

“You know what, so can you. And you don’t even have the justification of caring about anybody.”

“I care about you, you asshole. Which is why I don’t want you getting any further involved. Your father made his choices. You live by the sword, you die by the sword.”

“Die by the s-s-sword?” Elliot was stuttering in his rage. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Not literally, obviously! I just mean --”

“I can’t wait to hear it. Actually, I can wait. I’ve got people to see. I’ll talk to you tonight. Unless you decide to stay at your own place again.”

“No way,” Tucker said. “I’ll be here. And you’re damn right we’re going to talk.”

They disconnected simultaneously and forcefully, in fact, had they been pressing something other than cell phone buttons, there probably would have been a detonation.

Dis, Dat, and Da Other

Once again, this is not the post I had intended to write for this week, but there have been a slew of little updates, and I'm deep into Fair Play right now, so maybe we'll just do it this way.


Speaking of Fair Play, here's a little bitty snippet...






“Have you read the book?”
“No.” Elliot grimaced. “I forgot about it, to be honest. After he got that agent, he never really talked about it again. I figured nothing had ever come of it -- until he suddenly had a book deal and the damn thing was going to be published.”
“So you have no idea what’s in it?”
“Zero idea.”
“Any guesses?”
“He’s always talked about stirring people up, rattling a few cages. Christ knows what that means. He might mean cages in general or he might have a few specific cages in mind.”
“How much of a badass could he have been? I know he got a certain amount of notoriety from a string of arrests, but he never did any major jail time and he never made the Most Wanted list.”
“I know. I can’t imagine anyone reading the thing, let alone feeling threatened enough to kill him over it.”
“You could ask to read it.”
 “True.”
“The cops will ask to read it.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it. The prevailing theory is that this is just another right wing nut outraged at the idea of a high profile leftist memoir.”
“It’s not a bad theory.”
“No, it’s the obvious theory, but I can tell that’s not what Dad thinks.”
“But he’s not telling you what he does think.”
“No.”
Tucker slid between sheets and groaned with relief.
Elliot tossed the report aside and leaned over him. “Welcome home, sailor.”
They kissed.
“What a long ass voyage,” Tucker muttered.






Fair Play is now available for preorder at Amazon. Hopefully soon at other places as well.


Also now available for order is the print edition of Fair Game. Remember, this print edition is an experiment for Carina Press, and therefore the clock is ticking as to how long it will remain available.


In other news, Stranger Things Have Happened, the Adrien English CYOA novel is now -- AT LONG LAST -- available for Kindle. Yes, it does have those gorgeous (black and white) illustrations by Catherine Dair.


And finally, a bit of good news for audio book lovers, This Rough Magic narrated by Jordan Murphy is now up for sale at Audible. (It should soon be available at iTunes and Amazon.) Regular viewers may recall that Jordan was the narrator who came in second place with voters during the Armed and Dangerous vocal death match.


Oh! I almost forgot. Next week is the release of the Male Male Contemporary Box Set from Carina Press which includes stories by LB Gregg, Libby Drew, KC Burns and me. (My story is Icecapade.) This is a great way to sample some excellent M/M stories from writers I'm pretty sure you'll really enjoy.


And I think that's it. I will be very hard to find on line for the next couple of weeks while I plow through the rough draft of Fair Play, so if I am slow in responding, the good news is I'm writing one of your most requested stories.