uuuuugh

I've been sick for about a month now. First it was a really bad cold. Then it went in my lungs. Then it went into my sinuses.

Antibiotics cleaned up most of it, but apparently sinus infections are notoriously difficult to get rid of and so this massive pain and pressure remains in my head. Which sucks because my head is where I do the majority of my thinking.

I'm still working on my next book, but it's going very, very slowly. So to make up for my slowness, here is a baby penguin with a candle on his head.

a moment of glee

This is the cover of my first solo novel from Amber Quill Press. It's coming out in December and I am just ridiculously thrilled with how gorgeous it is!

It's a historical romance, taking place during the reign of Ramses II. The story is about a Hittite named Hantilis who gets taken as a hostage by an Egyptian prince, Itamun. There's a lot of antagonism and mutual desire and a healthy dose of kink along the way. I just really hope people who read it end up loving my boys as much as I do. They were a lot of fun to write.

The story I was going to write next, TFD, is on hold for the moment. I think it'll be great once I get into it again, but I had a much louder plot bunny screaming for attention instead.

No ideas what I'll be calling it yet, but it's about werewolves.

so. much. fun.

I work for Salt of the Earth Press, which owns Cheap Peeks. I actually helped come up with some of the content for the generator. Be that as it may, I am not lying or self-promoting when I say the romance novel plot generator is my new favorite webtoy.


It does straight romance in a standard setting as well as paranormal or a mystery/crime option. There are also some LGBT options which you could theoretically mix-and-match with the other possibilities.


The paranormal ones are the most entertaining, in my opinion:

The girl's name is Alexis and she is eccentric and outspoken. She enjoys sewing. Her occupation is veterinarian and overall she is suffering an ethical dilemma. She is also a voodoo practitioner.

Her hair is strawberry blonde and very long and curly. She is 5'8" and has an athletic body with firm breasts. She wears off-the wall, unique clothes that make her stand out in a crow.

She meets Andrew at a cabin. He is an artist, energetic and private, and he enjoys dancing . He appears to be optimistic. He is also immortal. 

His hair is honey blonde and shaggy. He is 6'3" and is built like a runner or a skier. He wears sexy shirts and expensive trousers, like a playboy.

The paranormal situation these two face is a genie. knows secrets about one of the protagonists.

Answer these questions:

• Why do they meet there?
• Why is she there?
• Why is he there?

The obstacle to their romance that they must overcome is that if people found out about the paranormal situation and their involvement, there would be serious social consequences. When someone has come up missing by supernatural forces it brings them to the realization that they can overcome the obstacle.

an old leather jacket

I am not my possessions, but it can be really difficult to live without them.

The night my house burned down I rushed outside into a cool and rainy night in nothing but a pair of pajama pants and a camisole. Barefoot and bare-shouldered and terrified, it took a while before I could focus on things like comfort.

Once I did, I was lucky enough to find that I had left one of my jackets with a pair of gloves shoved into a pocket sitting in the backseat of the car. It was a few years old, black and leather. I had several like this because it was a style I liked. This one was beaten up in comparison to the other ones, which was likely why it had been abandoned in the car. I pulled it on  along with the gloves and that little bit of normalcy in the midst of watching everything I owned be destroyed was a small comfort.

Between the smoke in the air and on my body, there was no saving the jacket after that. The smell of burning house is very different from wood smoke. Plastic, furniture, clothing and a couple of unlucky cats all went into that smoke. It was death smoke and every time I caught a whiff of it I nearly gagged. Once I had enough donated clothes to keep warm, I tossed the jacket into a dumpster to get rid of the smell and the reminder.

Today for the first time since I threw away that jacket I pulled on another leather jacket. Like the one I'd thrown away. Like the others that burned up in the fire. It's donated and dark brown where the others had been black. It's been broken in and has that soft, battered look to it that only old leather can have. It's perfect.

Even though I am not my possessions, I pulled that jacket on and suddenly I felt like me again.

DONE

I finished EC, finally. Now I can worry about starting new projects and no longer feeling guilty.

...of course it seems like a lot of those projects currently floating around in my head might be sequels to EC. Currently, I'm toying with the idea of a trilogy. I think I'll see how EC is received before I start on something set in that same universe, though.

The very next project I'd like to do is currently codenamed TFD. It's first person and the main character is a young woman, so it's a bit of a departure for me. I like the concept, though.

a new goal in life

Me: Baby, random question: can we breed pigs for super intelligence?
 
BF: I don't see why not? They're fairly smart to begin with.
 
Me: Yay! I shall devise elaborate intelligent tests for them and breed them based on their wit and charm.
 
BF: I wonder if they taste worse as they get smarter?
 
Me: :-( YOU CAN'T EAT THE SMART ONES. You can eat the dumb ones who fail.

BF: FIIIIIIIIINE

Me: <3 

BF: <3

ugh

I've written myself into a corner. There is nothing quite so acutely obnoxious as discovering that there is no real way to go forward without going back to the beginning. I mean, unless I want the book to end with one of the guys going into exile or dying or starting an ahistorical war. Which I could do, I guess, but then it's not really a "happily ever after" romance novel any longer.

I think I've figured out how to solve the problem, but that means going straight back to the beginning and changing a bunch of stuff, which isn't something I should be doing while I'm in the writing stage, yet it's necessary. So obnoxiously necessary.

On the upside, hopefully once I'm done with this I can start moving forward again.

dream home

It's important to have dreams, because dreams are what keeps us going even when we're in the midst of the darkest places in our lives. Having lost everything I own (save a pair of pajamas and my cat), I've been in one of those dark places for a while now. Luckily, I have a dream. This:

It's silly, but a little farm with a bunch of freakish animals really is exactly what I want. And knowing that I have someone who shares that same dream and will be right there with me (he'll have to take care of all pig duties as I refuse to have anything to do with them) makes even the darkest places just a little brighter.

my hero

Gawker said it best:

Among the great disappointments of modern life is the fact that something as fun as a giant inflatable slide springing from the side of a massive flying machine exists—but may only be used in near-death situations, when one is least inclined to enjoy it.

Today, by sliding down that slide in a decidedly non-emergency situation,  flight attendant Steven Slater became the most awesome man in the service industry. Ever.

A passenger hit him in the head with luggage, refused to apologize, and called him a motherfucker. But did Slater suck it up and deal with it and continue on accepting the abuse like hopeless wage monkeys have been forced to do before him?

Fuck no!

He got on the PA system and told everybody--but most especially the man who'd called him a motherfucker--to fuck off. And then he grabbed two beers from the galley, popped out the inflatable slide, and slid into history.

From there, he grabbed his luggage, got in his car, drove home and hopped into bed with his boyfriend. I'm sure after hearing about what had transpired, his boyfriend was a bit intimidated by Slater's giant titanium balls, but somehow he got over his fear.

Sadly, the story ends with Slater being arrested for criminal mischief and trespassing. This man doesn't deserve to be arrested, America: he deserves a medal for being so awesome.

Steven Slater, I salute you.

the brain wall

Of all the things Allie has posted on Hyperbole and a Half, this post most accurately reflects what my life is like.

On Tuesday, I wrote over 7000 words. On Wednesday, I wrote 4000. On Thursday, 2000. On Friday, 2000. And then on Saturday...well, honestly, I've just been sitting around in my pajamas playing games on Facebook.

I feel like I've been running a marathon, trying to finish this book. It's gone from a labor of love to one of spite. Goddamnit Book, I say to it when no one is around to think I'm insane, you're the only work in progress to survive the fire and I will finish you.

Allegedly, the brain uses 1.5 calories a minute while hard at work. So if I sit here and write nonstop for seven hours like I did on Tuesday, my brain is only using 630 calories all day long. That doesn't seem like it should exhaust a person, right? But calories are only part of the deal. See, I think willpower is kind of like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets, but that's in the long run. If you exercise it too much or don't give it time to recover, it's going to be weak from overexertion and then it might tear or get injured or something.

This has absolutely no factual basis behind it whatsoever and is just some crap I made up, but I'm going with it. My willpower is cramping up and in need of a massage and possibly a day of rest and maybe just maybe a pizza.

And on the Seventh Day C.D. said, "Let there be rest." And it was good.

(yes, this is all just an elaborate justification for being lazy. SHUT UP I DON'T WANT TO BE SELF-AWARE)

my masterpiece

I started working on a novel before the fire. I'd actually had a BUNCH of novels that were either finished or nearly there. Unfortunately, I am a secretive person and don't like sharing my stuff until I absolutely have to and my oh-so-carefully kept backups were all in the house.

But! All was not lost. I'd happened to email the first two chapters of a novel to my boyfriend because I wanted his opinion on whether or not it was too weird. And so I had at least the start of something left over from before the fire.

Well, usually I write a hell of a lot faster than this but, you know, homeless, trauma, etc. It was hard to get into the right mood.

Finally, I'm writing again. I remember why I sent this to my boyfriend and worried about it being too strange, though. I mean, interracial is hot, right? People like that. Except my two races are Hittite and Egyptian. And I think the Hittite might have PTSD. And this all takes place during the reign of Ramesses II against a backdrop of decapitations and prisoners of war.

Oh yeah. And it looks like the relationship might be a BDSM one.

...yeah.

Sometimes I catch a brief glimpse of exactly why I'm so poor. Luckily the lucidity doesn't last very long.

birth of a hobo

I was not always a hobo. In fact, I used to live in a great big beautiful Queen Anne house. It had bay windows and a secret room and a chandeliere.

And then it burned down.

That was the night of April 29th and I'm still waiting for my insurance money. Which means I'm doing things like sleeping on a floor with my cat and washing my underwear in the sink. But being a writer, I had to go and buy a laptop or else I was just shooting myself in the foot. And that's how I came to be homeless and clothesless and sitting in coffee shops on the Internet.

I'm not as homeless as I had been (okay, technically I'm not homeless at all these days) which is good. Today marks several awesome new things:

1. I received a royalty check. I'm not gonna brag, but this thing is nearly big enough to pay for dinner at Subway.

2. I got a secondhand, twin-sized bed with a huge pee stain. YES.

3. The genuinely awesome thing: U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional on both Equal Protection and Due Process grounds. This is a huge, huge win. I'm sure it'll be appealed, but I'm that much closer to being able to marry my boyfriend.

God, I wish I was back in California with him so we could fag out and make out in front of city hall. <3