Do the thing! Bite-sized pieces edition

Posted on May 19, 2014 by Racheline Maltese

Do the thingAs has been mentioned, I’ve been traveling a lot lately. Thankfully, I’ll be home Tuesday morning.

Traveling is one of those things I am both very good at — I do it a lot and I haven’t gotten stranded or detained by authorities yet — and something I am very bad at. To be frank, despite the cool opportunities and experiences, it stresses me the hell out.

One of the problems with travel for me is that there are so many steps. For example, I recently had to get from Pretoria to Las Vegas. Which was really getting from Pretoria to the Johannesburg airport and going through immigration; then flying to Heathrow, retrieving my luggage, and going through immigration; before hopping a bus to Gatwick, rechecking my bags and going through immigration; before arriving  in Las Vegas and going through immigration again before retrieving my bags.

This was all further complicated by my not having a hotel in Las Vegas when I left Pretoria, never having done the bus from Heathrow to Gatwick, and bonus, not having a working mobile phone until I hit the U.S! I also knew I was landing in Vegas without a plane ticket back to New York and had decided to try to juggle a dinner in L.A. into that picture.

In short — too much stuff! A lot of people got a lot of really freaked out emails from me along that route. Thank god for the free wi-fi in Heathrow. Everyone wrote back telling me just to do the next thing on the list and not worry about the whole chain. Except my partner, Patty; she also told me I was good and acknowledged my pain.

Pursuing an ambition — or writing a book — is a lot like all of this. You have 1,000 things to do, and they are all interconnected. You know where you’re supposed to end up, but aren’t 100% sure of how you’ll get there and you don’t always have the level of control you want. Also, you’re totally freaked out.

But all you have to do is the next tiny thing on the list. And then the next, and then the next.

Along the way, it helps to have sensible people you can freak out to. And sympathetic people who can validate your emotional state. Sometimes, you have to reorder or delay stuff (like that dinner in L.A. — that was not in the available flight cards ultimately; or like a scene that Erin and I first thought was in Starling, later cut from Doves and now is the perfectly positioned near opener of the third book in the Love in Los Angeles series).

So today’s Do the thing! is all about breaking stuff into little pieces (in some ways it always is). What can we help you chop up or give you a place to freak out about? Because to do the thing, you’ve got to do the things.

Posted in Do the thing!, Doves, Love in Los Angeles, Starling, Travel | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Sneak Peek: (BDSM) Conference

Posted on May 18, 2014 by erincmcrae

With the manuscript of novel #3 out with first readers, Racheline in South Africa for two weeks (and currently in Las Vegas, also for her day job), and me moving from one side of DC to another, we decided to have some fun and write something unrelated to any of our current and ongoing projects.

What we ended up with was what we have working-titled “Conference,” a short story set at a leather conference in San Francisco — because it was that or “BDSM” and I for one didn’t need that among my open browser tabs at my day job.

Because it’s us, “Conference” is about negotiating shifts in relationship structures, and building systems to accommodate all the vagaries of the human heart. In the midst of the chaos of the last two weeks, and the hard (emotional and writing) work the novel demanded, a story about structure and order was the perfect break.

The events of the story are less soothing to our characters, at least at first. Cameron’s only at the conference because Noah, his boyfriend and sub, thinks it’s an awesome opportunity for them to get closer to each other and get more involved in the BDSM community. The conference hasn’t even started yet, though, when Cam runs into an old familiar face, and the week turns into something much more complicated than a vacation.

Cameron’s trying to maneuver through the conference level of the hotel as efficiently as possible so that he can get back to Noah.  Now that he’s picked up their registrations, he feels more than a little bad leaving him with all the unpacking. Sure, it’s his job, and one he’s eager for because of what it means in his head, but it’s a damn boring task, and they both know it.

The hallway, however, is filled with too many people having reunions and showing off their leathers before the event has — other than a few workshops — really even started. Cameron’s still in jeans and a t-shirt from traveling and frankly has no plans to change any time soon.  He just wants people to stop being in his way.

“Cameron Evan Beck, get your perfect ass in here!”

Cameron turns to follow the voice, so familiar and fond coming from one of the workshop rooms, before he even thinks about it. It’s only as Lou, totally dressed in leathers and holding a bullwhip in his hand, pulls him into a hug in front of what’s clearly a single tail and whip workshop, that he starts to realize just how fucked he is.

“This,” Lou says, introducing him to the room before Cameron can even manage to make a sound, “is Dr. Cameron Beck, professor of queer studies at [University].”  There’s only the slightest of dramatic pauses before he adds, “Cameron used to be my boy.”

With that, Lou gives him a wet, smacking kiss on the cheek.

As always, check out what other authors are working on this week at Sneak Peek Sunday! (participating authors write in all genres and at all heat levels))

Posted in BDSM, Conference, Sneak Peek Sunday, Writing | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Hop Against Homophobia & Transphobia — Show your favorite LGBTQ organizations some love

Posted on May 18, 2014 by Racheline Maltese

hopSo Erin & I are participating in the Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia (click on the image at left!), in honor of the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. Say that three times fast.

The blog hop is specifically for those who write, publish, review or are otherwise involved in the world of LGBTQ fiction. When it comes to the romance space, I think there’s a lot of discussion to be had (and that is being had) about the perception that LGBTQ romance is really m/m romance and that it’s really being written for straight women. The thing is, just like human sexuality, it’s almost always more complicated than that. So while those are important/awesome/difficult discussions, we’re not going to do that here today.

Instead we just want to remind people that hey these things still exist, and that they are global issues, that even from within the community are not always addressed as comprehensively as they should.

To that end, we’d like people reading this who support specific organizations that aim to advocate for or help LGBTQ people in any sort of need, to comment here, with the names of and links to those organizations.

On May 25, the day after the hop ends. Erin and I will dump all the commentors into a random number generator, and choose a winner.

We’ll then make two donations on behalf of the winner (or a person the winner names or anonymously, etc. as appropriate). One will be $25 to Lambda Legal. The other will be $25 to the LGBTQ organization of their choice.

So tell us about organizations you support and what they do — no matter how big, no matter how small, no matter where they are located. Hopefully that can help drum up support above and beyond the small donation this blog will make.

Meanwhile, be sure to click on the icon for this hop to visit the other over 100 blogs participating.

Posted in lgbtq | Tagged | 10 Comments

Meeting the heroine when you’ve got two heroes

Posted on May 15, 2014 by Racheline Maltese

RWA’s NYC chapter is featuring interviews with members’ novel’s heroines on the blog this month. Next month, they’ll be interviewing the heroes.

This, as you might imagine, causes a strange dilemma when you’re writing same-sex romance. Not that the chapter isn’t welcoming (they’re pretty spectacular, frankly). But the fact remains that LGBT romance, while a fast growing segment, is still a small part of the market.

So the heroine questions exist, and they compliment the hero questions, and Erin and I have two heroes. Now, we could have waited until June and had both of Starling‘s heroes, Paul and Alex, interviewed separately, but that wouldn’t have quite done the exercise justice. Besides, Alex stumbles into his life of fame by yelling at someone for calling him a twink. His appropriate outrage at misgendering in this RWA exercise and his general distaste for the media, made it seem worthwhile to us to have him answer the heroine questions as is.

So that’s what’s going on there: Alex reacting to the world’s unreasonable and inappropriate expectation that in a same-sex relationship someone is always the “girl” and someone else is always the “boy.”

Do check out the other heroine interviews. They’ll give you a sense of the amazing diversity in the field. (Check out Falguni Kothari’s Booty and the Beast as just one example).

We also do want to note that while the primary romance in Starling is m/m, that the book has several fantastic female characters, including Alex’s best friend, Gemma, and Liam’s girlfriend, Carly. They are both, absolutely, the heroes of their own stories, and when they aren’t respected accordingly, speak up strongly. Additionally, hang on for Darcy, who you won’t meet until Doves. She’s responsible for some of the funniest lines I’ve ever been involved in writing.

But meanwhile, back to Alex and those heroine questions: That picture? Totally not Alex. Who is ginger, freckled, and arguably delicate (arguably, because he was on the high school wrestling team; he may not look like it at first glance, but he can do a lot of damage).

Posted in books, Starling, Writing | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Class announcement: Collaborative Writing

Posted on May 14, 2014 by Racheline Maltese

As we’ve mentioned before, Erin and I get a lot of questions about how this co-writing thing works. If you’re interested in the logistical and creative process of doing the co-author thing in the romance novel space, we’ll be teaching an online workshop October 13 – 20, 2014. We’ll cover everything from evaluating your own readiness to collaborate to finding other writers who are a good fit for your interests and goals. We’ll also look at creative process strategies, protecting your business interests, and the unique logistical and marketing challenges that can come with co-authored works.

The workshop costs $10 if you’re a member of RWA’s Contemporary Romance chapter and $20 for non-members. You can register for the workshop (and other cool learning opportunities) at the chapter’s website.

We hope you’ll join us!

Posted in Classes, Cowriting, RWA, Writing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Writing without Shame: WRWDC

Posted on May 14, 2014 by erincmcrae

WRWDCHeader-CapitolAs mentioned in the Do the Thing! post on Monday, while I do organization, because Racheline can’t, she does a lot of our marketing, because it’s still weird for me and talking to people is scary. Of course, that lovely division of labor isn’t always practical or possible; such was this past Saturday, when I went to my first meeting of the Washington, DC chapter of Romance Writers of America (You can read Racheline’s post about her experience at the NYC Chapter’s April meeting here.)

Because I am twelve, I had a horrifically stupid problem the morning of the meeting: I had a hickey on my neck. Appearing in public with a bruise on one’s neck isn’t generally a thing one does in any sort of mixed company, but May in DC means disgustingly hot and humid and I so did not want to wear a scarf. But then, I thought to myself (and in email conversation with Racheline, who thought my predicament was absolutely hilarious) that if there is a group of people in the world comfortable with the various workings of sex, it is going to be a room full of romance writers.

So I did my best to put the weirdness of doing a public event and little bit of embarrassment aside, skipped the scarf, and went,

The writers of the WRWDC group are completely welcoming and lovely, and the key speaker for the day, Mindy Klasky, gave two excellent talks on various parts of the businesses. And, occupied with thoughts of series-building, and marketing plans, and the intricacies of self-publishing, I completely forgot to think about the damn hickey.

Women are taught to be full of shame about all sorts of things — including our desires, whether that’s sexual or career-related or anything else. We’re shamed by others for the books we write and read, romance novels included. But the WRWDC room was full of people, all of them women, who are serious about their craft, proud of their business, and capable advocates of their work without any sort of shame or apology.

It can be a little agonizing to say to a friend on a street, “I write romance novels,” and I’ve been met with eyerolls and assumptions that my writing is somehow less worthy or lesser quality than a sci-fi book or something involving dragons. This is of course bullshit, but there are some days when I feel like I’m shouting I AM HERE AND I AM GOOD into a void that keeps telling me I’m anything but.

Having a network of other writers focused on doing the work, not justifying it to themselves or anyone else, is more than encouraging — it’s empowering. When the topic of the day isn’t “no really, romance has value! (and it does, and is a massive enough market that it doesn’t need mine or anyone else’s justification) but “What tools keep you on track when you are juggling writing, and editing, and marketing on multiple projects simultaneously?” it does a massive service to everyone in the room, skipping over all the useless shame and leaving the way clear (or at least clearer) to doing all the things.

So skip the scarf. And do the thing.

Posted in books, genre talk, RWA, Writing, WRWDC | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

TRS Staying Home Party — Win Stuff!

Posted on May 13, 2014 by Racheline Maltese

So there’s this cool romance novel focused website called The Romance Studio, and while many of our peers are off at the Romantic Times conference in New Orleans, they are hosting a Staying Home Party on their website.

Basically, it’s a chance for authors to keep busy, meet and greet with fans, new potential readers, and other authors, and make a lot of blog posts, over on the TRS website. We’ll be sharing some content over there you’ve already largely seen on Avian30, but we do encourage you to visit the TRS party website for three reasons.

(Excuse me while I pull a Liam.  He’s one of our supporting characters in Starling and a complete darling, but conversing with other people generally requires him to make a list).

1. Discover other authors! The TRS Staying Home party features authors of all romance genres and types: Opposite sex, same sex, poly, menage, supernatural, contemporary, historical, you name it!

2. Chat!  Right now we’re asking you about wedding disasters over there.  Surely, you want to share.

3. Win things! Every author participating in the Staying Home Party has contributed a prize and TRS is offering a fantastic prize as well.  You can fill out this form to win a free digital copy of “Lake Effect” when it is released on June 18th and fill out this form to win a $100 gift card to Amazon. We’ll never put you on our mailing list without permission, and that permission will always be opt-in, not opt-out (although once you opt-in, you can always opt-out).  Additionally, giving us permission is not a requirement of entering the contest.  All other fine print at the TRS website.

The Staying Home Party and the contest run through May 18, 2014.

Cool?  Cool.

(And yes, we totally wish we had an overtly LGBT banner for the party, but we don’t. We do have lots of bisexual characters though, so we do think of it as a perfectly acceptable fit).

Posted in books, Doves, Lake Effect, Love in Los Angeles, Starling, They Do, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Romance @ Random

Posted on May 13, 2014 by Racheline Maltese

We’re have a lot of content coming at you this week here at Avian30, but I did just want to make a quick note that I am now also doing some pop-culture blogging for Random House’s pop-culture and romance site, Romance @ Random.

My first piece, a recap of the premiere of Showtime’s Penny Dreadful is up now, and I’ll have more recaps and content coming at you on a regular basis.  Please check it out (and the site as a whole — there’s lots of fun there, including fellow RWA-NYC member Logan Belle‘s recaps of Salem).

Posted in tv, Writing | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Do the (Hard for You) Thing!

Posted on May 12, 2014 by erincmcrae

Do the thingAt the WRWDC meeting in Bethesda this past Saturday, Mindy Klasky spoke at length about her current project — self-publishing 9 books in 8 months (I’ll be giving a full writeup of this meeting on Wednesday, it’s a full blog week here at Avian30!) — and the intense scheduling and time management systems she uses to keep herself on track.

Doing the Thing! often involves figuring out ways to do the part of the Thing that you’re shit at. In our cowriting team we have an advantage, because a) there are two of us to divvy up tasks between and b) we’re each good at different things. Racheline is in charge of our marketing and promotion, because she is very experienced and very good at it and because talking to people scares the hell out of me. I’m in charge of keeping track of our projects, schedules and deadlines because Racheline can’t calendar, and organizing spreadsheets is super soothing to me.

Of course, this magic division of labor isn’t always logistically possible, and there are plenty of things both of us struggle with (Don’t ask us to figure out the Bolt Bus website). So while we’re calendaring and marketing ourselves, we want to know the parts of the Thing that Are Hard for you, and that you could use some words of advice or encouragement on! Maybe we can help, maybe somebody else can, and as always, we’re all here to cheerlead.

 

Posted in Do the thing!, RWA, Writing | Tagged , , , | 14 Comments

Sneak Peek Sunday: Lake Effect

Posted on May 11, 2014 by erincmcrae

They DoWelcome to week three of our participation in Sneak Peek Sunday, a romance writer blog hop. Follow the link back to see what other authors are working on this week (please note that participating authors write in all genres and at all heat levels).

This week you’re getting a preview from a short story of ours that’s going to appear in the wedding-themed anthology They Do, out from Torquere Press on June 18. Torquere would also like us to remind you that we’re still in the editorial process, so this is not final copy; errors are our own.

“Lake Effect” is set in Rochester, NY. I grew up there, Racheline has spent a lot of time there, and it’s where our two protagonists, Kyle and Daniel, have returned (at their mothers’ insistence!) to get married.

The weekend is full of disasters. After a rehearsal dinner where Kyle gets into an argument with his mother about his career plans; a bachelor party where their officiant (who is also Kyle’s brother and Daniel’s best friend) nearly gets into a fist-fight with one of Kyle’s high school bullies; and a morning where absolutely no one is where they are supposed to be when they are supposed to be there, the would-be happy couple struggle to get ready minutes before they’re scheduled to walk down the aisle (Kyle may be younger and smaller but he is so not being given away by anyone).

“This is fucked up,” Daniel says, after he’s finally stopped tripping over his trousers and actually manages to pull them on properly.

“What?” Kyle asks, futzing with the buttons of his left cuff which aren’t but seem too large for the button holes.  He feels like a lab animal that’s been given a particularly cruel puzzle to solve.

“We’re getting married. I have a pounding headache and feel like I’m about to throw up, and not because of nerves.  I’m not excited.  I don’t think you’re excited.  Our parents are definitely not excited. Your brother is kind of an asshole –”

“He’s your best friend”

“And I just want to know when we can take a nap?” Daniel finishes plaintively. It’s classic Daniel to go from 60 to zero, the sane adult until he can’t cope at all.

Kyle frowns and hops up on the counter in front of the mirror. He says nothing for a moment, just to see if it’s going to collapse first.  It’s been that kind of weekend.  “Do you not want to do this?”  He wonders if it’s normal to consider calling the whole thing off this many times in the 48 hours before the big event.

Posted in books, Lake Effect, Sneak Peek Sunday, They Do, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments