Category Archives: Fiction

Thoughts on The Thief of Time by John Boyles

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I have missed sitting down with a physical book and reading. My recent decision to take a sabbatical and just allow myself to be creative and deadline-free, had me standing in front of my fiction bookshelf, seeking something new. Something enjoyable. As most of you know by now, I have become quite finicky about my fiction reading. I read so much of my own work in pumping out work in the last ten years, that I have had little time to read for pleasure, and when I do, it’s inevitably just before I go to sleep, and by then, my … Continue reading →

Whole Brain Literary Food

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Recently, I posted a inquiry to my readers, about a publishing aspect of my work. All the responses were encouraging and thought-provoking, but one in particular touched upon some deeper themes. Here it is. TO MY READERS–A QUESTION: As authors, we want to please everyone, but that’s just not possible. For instance, on my newest novella, Saturation Point, I have 4 and 5 star reviews and personal messages and emails that tell me how much they enjoyed the introspective nature of this book, and the characters, but on one review, the reviewer was bored because there wasn’t dialogue on every … Continue reading →

Syzygy gets GLOWING review!

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WHILE BLINKING AWAY HAPPY TEARS::: If I never get another review in my life, this will suffice. I have never been so overjoyed by not only how well this reviewer understood what i was trying to accomplish–on EVERY LEVEL–with Also Known as Syzygy, but that the review was glowing like Christmas lights, while also being profoundly intelligent and insightful. All the hard work is now worth it. I could not be more pleased by what this reviewer had to say about one of my books (all of them, really). This book was, at times, very difficult to write, but I … Continue reading →

Hybrid Methodology

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(and 3 New Books for the Holidays) I have just completed three books, and am going to make my deadline to get them out for holiday sales. One is a standalone novel in the Crime/Vigilante vein: Another Justice. One is the 5th in the AKA Investigations Series, titled, Also Known as Sleepy Cat Peak, and the other is an anthology of Bold Erotic Stories called The Speed of Dark. The Vigilante one was difficult, in many ways, the erotic anthology, I had been writing in between other projects for some time now; and I was surprised and thrilled that the … Continue reading →

Going Mainstream

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CAUTION: FRUSTRATED RANT HOVERING NEARBY. When you find yourself, as a writer, lamenting about why you’re even writing at all, and entertaining the idea of not writing any more, something has to change. I’m growing more and more frustrated with, and weary of, the lack of support from Lesbian Readers for what I want to offer them. I am sick to death of their constant praise of bad writing in the LesFic market, and their unwillingness to demand better, and try anything out of their narrow reading interests. It’s painfully clear that most LesFic Readers have literary blinders, and will … Continue reading →

Scott Crowder Interview of me on House of Fists (reblog)

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reblog Kelli Jae Baeli   My favorite of her book covers. Grumpy Cat cracks me the hell up. Kelli Jae Baeli is different from most of the writers I interview here at The House of Fists in that it was her non-fiction that first drew me to her work, as opposed to the horror or dark fiction practiced by the other interviewees. I’m trying to learn more about writing, though, and not just about writing horror, so I immediately asked her to do me the honor of being interviewed here. She writes very clearly and persuasively, her tone neatly balanced … Continue reading →

Scribe’s Melancholia, Literary Mind-Expansion & 50 Shades of Grape

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  I’m in a bit of a funk, a tizzy, a doldrum (take your pick) about writing at the moment. Call it Scribe’s Melancholia. I’m having to seriously consider ignoring my book-marketing, because it’s so time-consuming and takes me away from what I’m really supposed to be doing–writing (Hello). Back to old-school, where writers were sequestered in a dark room with a candle and their muses, and never had to actually market themselves as a product, nor deal with their creations after they were delivered to the publisher. Further, it’s impossible to predict what people will buy anymore. And as far … Continue reading →

Thoughts from a Literary Contrarian

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Let’s face it: the fairy tale never happens like that in real life. So if it’s not naïveté, then it’s compliant escapism; and what a sad commentary on a life, that one would need such callow, fanciful stories to avoid being present in it. I enjoy the commonality and compatibility in my current relationship. (Wait. Current relationship makes it sound temporary. It’s not. Let me give that another go: I enjoy the commonality and compatibility with my love, my life, my lovely wife. (Better). Anyway, we have this ritual of reading every night before sleep, if not also in blocks … Continue reading →

Demanding Better of Lesfic

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I am reposting this here, because I was so relieved to see that someone else out there sees this issue clearly. I am hoping we can overhaul the lesbian literature environment, eventually. From the Lynn Pierce blog….       Piercing Fiction: Straight Arrow Reviews Literature, movies and whatever else occurs to me. Sunday, April 7, 2013 It’s time to be more discriminating in the books This is a post I made on a the group I moderate on Yahoo called Lesfic_Unbound. I’m sharing it here as a thought to put out to the community.I had contact with an author … Continue reading →

Lesbian Readers & Writers

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If those readers who are now huffing and puffing and busting a vein on their foreheads would give it a bit of thought, they’d see that they should be glad that I care that much about the quality of my own work. Another writer friend of mine recently posted a blog about the inordinate amount of winking that goes on in lesbian fiction. I had to think about that….I know what she means. There are always some little irritants with those books…I just haven’t read a bad one in so long…because I…sort of…avoid bad books whenever possible. As for the … Continue reading →

Irony-Fest on Giving it Away

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Welcome to the Irony-Fest, please sign in and wear your name tags. This topic has become a comedy of ironies. Herein lies the oft-repeated back-handed compliments and erroneous and mixed opinions we authors often deal with, in relation to our work. It seems that some readers just don’t understand nor appreciate what authors are offering, and why. And they don’t seem to understand the function of short works in this regard. Would that we could be treated with the same respect that other professions enjoy, without  suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. In one blog, Distracting Fiction: Brand … Continue reading →

Giving it Away: Spoilers as Both Noun & Accusation

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Directly out of the chute, let me say this is coming from myself as both a writer and a reader. One compelling reason (among others) that I became an author, was due to my disappointment in the offerings of a certain genre. I wanted to write books *I* would want to read. I launched myself into this vocation with little knowledge of what that decision would bring. I had no way of knowing the degree of vulnerability that publishing my writing would entail. Publishing a book is very much like being naked in public. So it’s difficult not to take … Continue reading →

Somewhere Else (excerpts)

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 I am having so much fun writing Somewhere Else. Here’s the blurb (so far…will probably be revised at some point…) so, a Working Blurb. Everyone needs a working blurb, after all… A non-physical walk-in soul makes an agreement with another incarnated soul to take over her body. The Walk-in, perhaps too fearless, and too hungry for the pleasures of the flesh, discovers she has inherited the life of Daelah Murdock, a Mormon goody-two-shoes with a pathological attachment to the color pink. The surrogate soul’s life as a lesbian cop did not prepare her for this. Or did it? As a … Continue reading →

Curse of Cache La Poudre (novella)

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My new novella. Danica and Rikki have missed their plane, which couldn’t be worse news because now they might just miss their own wedding. When a pilot of a small plane offers to fly them there himself, they jump at the chance; after all, the man swears he has one short stop to deliver supplies to a ranger station in Cache la Poudre, then it’s clear skies all the way. The only trouble is, the stop along the way turns into a destination all of its own, when the pilot, telling the women they’re his cargo, delivers them into the … Continue reading →

Lunacy Factor: Make My Day (Excerpt)

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excerpt from Also Known As Rising & Falling ( AKA Investigations Series, Book 4) Ginger had stepped outside to make sure that Payne Hollister left the premises. She wished she could have arrested him, but the crime had been so long ago, and there was no case to prosecute. Date rape, sadly, was a commonplace occurrence, and more often than not, left unreported. Checking on Phoebe again before she had to leave for her late-shift, Ginger went down to the apartment to change, Izzy joining her. Officer Appreciation Day was not what it sounded like. No parades, no award ceremonies. … Continue reading →