Saturday, July 27, 2013

Heading out on a new adventure

For the past eight months, my husband and I have been planning a trip to Peru, and now it's finally here. We leave on Thursday for ten days, including four days hiking the Inca Trail. I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. We'll fly into Cusco and have two days there before we leave. Then it's off to hike the mountains! These aren't my pictures yet, obviously, but this should give you an idea of what we'll be seeing and why I'm SO excited. I promise to share my own photos when I get back.

Day 1

Ollantaytambo



Huillca Raccay

Llactapata




Day 2


Pacaymayu

Runkuraqay pass

Day 3

Phuyupatamarca

Intipata

Wiñay Wayna


Day 4

Machu Picchu


Tuesday, May 28, 2013

My RT Rundown (or how Janelle Taylor will always be my hero)

I go to cons for a variety of reasons: to promote my books, to promote Dreamspinner, to meet fans, to network with other authors. Before RT this year, I'd never gone to a con where I had the to meet authors whose work had touched me in my earliest years.

If you read my last post, you already here the story of how I bought my first romance novel at twelve and then met Janelle Taylor the first day at RT. If you missed it, go read it!

The story got even better as the weekend went on. On Saturday I got to sit next to her at the Giant Book Fair. Tachna, Taylor, that's not too much of a stretch. She recognized me from Wednesday, and we spent three lovely hours discussing writing, publishing, our families, and anything else that came to mind, and at one point, she asked me which book of hers I first read all those years ago. (I did mention that I read it until it fell apart, yes?) I told her and she said she had one copy left at home with the original cover and she made a note of it so she could sign it and send it to me. (Squee!)

That would have been wonderful enough if it had stopped right there, but as we talked to fans who came to our table, she mentioned several times that she planned to read Inherit the Sky on her way home from RT, and was otherwise the most generous, gracious lady I could ever hope to meet. 

Saturday, May 25, 2013

A peek at my WIP - Conquer the Flames

I've been in the writing cave for the past two weeks, so I thought I'd share a peek at what I've been working on.

It felt strange to see civilization again after a month of sleeping rough and living in the outback. Thorne followed the gravel road down into the valley, the first place he’d seen in a month that didn’t show the ravages of the hot, dry summer. It wasn’t as lush as he imagined it would be after a wet spring, but it wasn’t the same sere brown or charred black as the parts of the outback he’d been living in. In the center of the valley, a collection of houses and outbuildings nestled together, looking for all the world like the center of its own little universe.

Thorne ignored the pinch in his heart at the sight. This wasn’t just a group of buildings. This was a home. Thorne hadn’t had a home since his had burned down when he was eighteen, taking the lives of his parents and younger brother, but he could still recognize one when he saw it. More than that, he’d spent twenty years in the Commandos defending home. Not his, never his, not since it had burned to the ground while he spent the night with a friend, but the homes of everyone who would have been the victim of the terrorists they stopped, the insurgents they put down, the guerillas they contained. The station below might not be his home, but it was a home, and Thorne would die before he let the grassfires take it from the men and women who could claim it as their own.

He coasted to a stop and put the truck in park. Climbing out, he took a moment to survey the valley, mentally calculating angles and wind direction and defensibility. The upcoming fight wouldn’t involve bullets and other ammunition, but it would be a fight nonetheless and the better they defended the valley, the easier it would be to win the fight. The valley walls were steeper at the far end than they were where the road entered. It would make choosing the location of the firebreak simpler and possibly easier to defend since the drop-off would make it harder for the sparks to catch on fresh tender. Closer to the road and the entrance to the valley, the slope was gentler, but even then, Thorne saw what he considered a clear line of valley versus tablelands. They would set their defenses there and concentrate the manpower along the gentler slopes where jumping the firebreak would be more of a concern.

Plans in place, he climbed back in the truck and drove the rest of the way onto the station. As he neared the populated area, two men stepped out to greet him, both wearing battered Akubras  and well-worn boots. The resemblance ended there, though. Beneath the hats, one was blond, the other brunet, one as craggy as the hills that surrounded them, the other fresh-faced and clean-shaven. He pulled to a stop in front of them and rolled down the window.

“Can we help you?” the brunet asked, surprising Thorne with his American accent.

“I hope so, mate. I’m looking for the grazier. There’s a grassfire headed this way and I’m here to help get things ready.”

“We own Lang Downs,” the Yank replied. “Caine Neiheisel, and this is my partner, Macklin Armstrong. And you are?”

“Thorne Lachlan,” Thorne said. “I’m with the Firies  who are at the front north of here. The captain sent me to warn you and to start setting up defenses around the population center of the station.”
“How long do we have?” Armstrong asked. Thorne relaxed a little. Armstrong was an Aussie, and one who had the look of a stockman.

“If conditions stay like they are now, maybe forty-eight hours,” Thorne replied. “If the wind dies down, we may get a break and stop it where it is, but we can’t count on that. By the time we know for sure, it will be too late to build new firebreaks here.”

“We already have our jackaroos bringing the mob down into the valley,” Neiheisel said. “As soon as they return, we have fifty men and all the station’s equipment we can put at your disposal. Uncle Michael built this place from the ground up. I’m not losing it now.”

Thorne let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. His chances of successfully protecting the station increased with every pair of willing hands and every bit of cooperation from the station owner. He would have fought tooth and nail to stop the fire even if he’d had to do it alone, but this was far better.

“Good. Where can I pitch my tent? I’ll get my gear out of the way and we can start marking off the areas for the fire break.”

“You don’t need to pitch a tent,” Neiheisel said. “There’s a perfectly good bed in the guest room in the station house. You can sleep there.”

“That won’t be enough when the rest of the Firies get here,” Thorne warned.
Neiheisel shrugged. “So we’ll find couches or double bunk the kids. Nobody will be sleeping on the ground if I can help it.”

The thought of kids exposed to the fire froze Thorne’s blood in his veins. “Perhaps you should speak to the families with children about evacuating until the fire is under control again. Property damage can be repaired. Children can’t be replaced.”

“We already gave their parents that option,” Armstrong said. “If it comes to it, Carley and Molly will take the kids and head to town, but for now, everyone prefers to stay and help.”
It wasn’t Thorne’s place to argue, but as he parked his truck where Armstrong indicated and grabbed the gear he’d need to begin setting up the valley’s protection, his determination to see them through the upcoming inferno increased even more.

By the time he returned to the station owners, another man had joined them, his horse dancing restlessly beneath him.

“Neil, this is Thorne Lachlan from the RFS .” As Caine spoke, Neil swung off his horse and tossed the reins to a passing jackaroo. “He’s been fighting the fires north of here and has come to help us get ready. Thorne, this is Neil Emery, our foreman.”

“Cheers, mate” Neil said, offering his hand. Thorne shook it, appreciating the firm grip and the calluses that came from hard work. “You can see the smoke on the horizon already. I’ve been waiting for someone to come warn us.”

“You didn’t need the warning,” Thorne said, looking around as sheep spilled over the edge of the tablelands and down into the valley. “Your bosses were already getting ready, but I have some tricks up my sleeve to help keep you safe.”

Neil nodded and turned to Caine. “Tell Molly she has to leave now. Please?”

“She’s your wife,” Caine retorted. “If she won’t listen to you, what makes you think she’ll listen to me?”

“You’re her boss. I’m just her husband.”

Thorne shared an amused look with Armstrong. It had been years since Thorne had been around women much, but he still remembered his father trying fruitlessly to convince his mother of something she didn’t want to do. The thought brought the familiar pang, the grief no less now than it had been twenty years ago, no matter how people said time healed all wounds.

“If it gets that dangerous, we’ll all be leaving,” Caine said with a sharp look at Macklin. “Buildings can be rebuilt, livestock can be replaced. That’s what we have insurance for, if it comes to that.”

“It won’t come to that,” Thorne swore. “I won’t let it.”

Thursday, May 2, 2013

My Romance Journey

Thirty years ago, more or less, I decided to rebel. I'd been reading romances intended for teens for a number of years (well before I was a teenager) and I was bored with them. I wanted something else, something more exciting. Of course I knew my mother would hardly approve of my plans so I took advantage of my babysitting money, walked to the Walgreen's at the corner to buy pens for school, and while I was there, I snuck over to the romance book section. I was almost afraid to pick them up, for fear my mother would appear at my shoulder and see what I was doing, but I finally worked up the nerve to read the back cover of a few, and picked one. I hid it in my purse and then hid it between my mattresses, and I devoured it. I absolutely devoured it. I read that book so many times it fell apart, and of course it was only the first.

I haven't thought about that book in years, although I still remember it incredibly vividly. I did mention how many times I read it, right? Well, imagine my surprise and fangirlish glee to walk into the RT club yesterday and see Janelle Taylor, yes, the same Janelle Taylor who wrote the first adult romance I ever read, sitting at a table by herself, looking honestly a little lonely. I couldn't resist. I had to go up, introduce myself, and tell her my story. She was incredibly gracious, offering a hug and a smile and asking about my own writing since my name tag proclaimed me a published author as well.

I told her, completely upfront about the m/m aspect of my writing. And you know what her answer was? She asked if I had one of my books with me. I didn't, but Nessa did, so I gave her a copy of Inherit the Sky, which she insisted I sign for her (I was asked to sign a book for one of the authors who introduced me to romance as a genre! Can I squee for a bit?), we gave her a YA book for her granddaughter, and we spent a good twenty minutes with this bastion of traditional romance discussing how important it was to show that love is love, no matter who was involved, whether that was two people from opposite sides of the Civil War, whether it was a white woman and an Indian man, or whether it was two men.

It was interesting to hear her say that when she first started out, all the publishers told her no one would want to read a romance with Indians in it, and yet I remember that my favorite part of Destiny's Temptress was Shannon's brother (half-brother if you want to get technical, but Shannon never did) Hawke, a half-breed Indian. Finally Kensington took a chance on her, even with the Indians, and her career was born.

I did a little poking around on the Internet last night. Janelle Taylor is a year older than my mother, two years younger than my father. My mother knows what I write. She hasn't read any of it, but that has more to do with the explicit content than with the fact that it's m/m. My father doesn't know at all because I know what his reaction would be. I've been calling him on homophobic comments far longer than I've been writing. Talking with Janelle yesterday reminded me that one's generation does not define one's thoughts, that people of every generation can be open-minded, and that what we do and the ground we're breaking now in the m/m genre was set up by people like Janelle Taylor years ago and that they really are just as happy to see us breaking new ground now as people were to see them breaking ground then.

We get tied up in our insular world of m/m romance, and I've made some of my closest friends in that insular little world, so I will never stop being thankful for it, but I'm starting to wonder if some of that isolation isn't our doing as much as it is theirs.

So I've shared my fangirl moment. If you could pick that seminal author to meet, the one who introduced you to a world you'd never entered before (romance, fantasy, sci-fi m/m romance, or any other genre), who would it be?




Friday, April 19, 2013

Day of Silence

A friend of mine came out to me a month ago. Someone I have known for seventeen years, who has read (and sometimes helped edit) my novels for the past nine years, finally trusted me enough to say the words "I am gay" aloud and in my presence for the first time. Was I surprised? Not particularly. Was I touched beyond words at the trust this man had just placed in me? Absolutely. Because I know where he works. We were colleagues for nine years, and as sorry as it makes me to say it in this day and age, he would probably lose his job if he came out at work. I don't work there anymore (and haven't for eight years), and I'm about as safe a person to come out to as he's likely to find given what I now do for a living, but I've known him for seventeen years and he's known what I now do for a living for the past nine years. So today is for him, and for everyone like him who stands behind a veil of silence for fear of losing a job, who listens to colleagues talk about spouses, family, boyfriends or girlfriends without sharing any part of himself because if he opens his mouth, someone might ask about him, if he has a family, if he is married, if he has kids. The world is changing, albeit more slowly than I would like, but I long for the day when silence will no longer be the only viable choice for some people. I long for the day when our sexuality is as relevant as the color of our hair or the shape of our smiles. I believe that day is coming, but it can't come soon enough for people like my friend.

Dreamspinner Press Author Workshop

I'm in Chicago this weekend for the Dreasmpinner Press author workshop, talking with Murray Izenwasser about social media and improving visibility online. Quite a few interesting options, so I'm starting to think about what to do to add new and different content her on my web site. Anybody interested in hearing some readings of some different sections of books? Other things you'd like to see here?

Monday, January 7, 2013

January's word count

Jamie Samms and I are challenging each other to a NaNoWriMo style challenge this month because we both have serious deadlines to meet over the next two months. To help keep track, here's my word count tracker.

16596 / 50000