Behind the scene: Fair Deal

Getting things done is written on the back, seriously.

 

Idea

This one is kinda nifty actually.

I am an avid read of postsecret.com, which you can get to by clicking on that secret to the left. Or just typing in postsecret.com, unless you’re lazy. Or lack the ability to type.

Postsecret is a brilliant website where people from all over the world send this guy, Frank Warren, their secrets on postcards, some are sad, some are funny, some are a bit creepy. But all of them make you think about the billions of other humans on this planet.

I discovered postsecret when I was in college and every once in a while I would come across a secret that made me think, “whoa, that would be a phenomenal story.”

So I took a bunch of those secrets and turned them into stories.

Revision

This is the only one that is worthwhile. One of the secrets is in Gloria’s confession that when she drives under the overpass she thinks all she has to do is not turn with the road and she will find some peace. There are others hidden in their between this man and woman. I’ve lost and cut out quite a few over the years, but that’s the one that haunts me.

One of the reasons why the other stories didn’t make it was that these secrets are so personal. I don’t want to take advantages of someone else’s suffering and turn it into what to me is a fine art, but to them is just something filthy. Something worthy of a post secret.

Of the actual story:

“A Fair Deal” or as it was originally titled “The Whore of Tuckerton” was a sort of post secret to myself for a while.

I don’t like writing from a woman’s point of view. I’m not sure why.  I feel uncomfortable and I don’t think I do it well, though no one has ever complained.

 So for years I worked on this story, amused by it, saddened by it.  I think it’s one of my best, but I was afraid to show it to any of my workshop groups. The only reason I eventually did was because one of my friends caught me doodling a picture of a woman on a tractor and I couldn’t explain her away. That doodle is the cover by the way.

Read it here.

Behind the Scenes: Evasive Love Part 2

Evasive Love is my first erotic sci-fi novel to be published. It will be released on Oct. 2nd by Ellora’s Cave, (with the help of a fantastic editor named Brianna St. James).

In 2004, I got my first professional job as a writing tutor for the college I was attending. Since then (to this day I am a freelance editor, ghost writer, and tutor), I’ve made money with words. I never dreamed how difficult it would be to edit a novel.

First Draft Hunted

I always meant to return to American Dreams and make Elliot into a serious character, a real criminal. I thought it would be fun to explore the moral dilemmas of falling in love with someone you are sending to prison.

Apparently, so did the people at Ellora’s Cave. One day back in 2012, I’m thinking sometime in October, I was scanning contests and content calls when I saw Ellora’s Cave asking for a story of any heat level, any pairing, about bounty hunters. I was intrigued because I remembered the campy old thing I had written in high school. With no serious thoughts of being published, I started to write it.

With in two weeks I had a first draft. I edited, pared down, read and reread until the deadline for submissions came. I spent the week before the submission deadline, checking and double-checking the guidelines, my query letter, my blurb. I submitted it and moved on. I’ve been submitting and moving on for a while now. I wasn’t expecting much.

Then in January, I found out I wasn’t rejected.

Revision

Once I got over the dancing and shouting at Skype (my partner was across the ocean when I received the joyful news), I puzzled over the draft I had sent. The one complaint I was given was that the language and sex scenes were too mild.

I was floored by this. I’ve been publishing pornography since I was in college and I always thought the difference between a romance novel and pornography was the language. I had no trouble fixing that; now it’s got reviews about how hot it is.

For the next eight months, my editor and I struggled through the monster that became Evasive Love. I was stunned by the sheer amount of errors that I hadn’t caught, little things I never thought about, and how incredibly inflexible the human body actually is during sex (oh yeah I guess that does kinda sound like he’s wrapping his spine around Kavan… hum, better fix that).

I can tell you I’m so sick of reading that novel I might never look at it again. But you should. It’s excellent. Bree told me so.

Coming Out as Gay Erotica Writer

By far the hardest thing that came out of this novel (besides your dicks, you sick freaks why are you reading this smut?) is explaining to my friends and family what all my work has been for.  The inevitable question that comes after the statement, ‘I have a book coming out’ is ‘congratulations. What’s it about?”

I don’t think any other writer faces the potential embarrassment and judgment from that answer. Every writer faces criticism whether constructive of not, but few of us are actually risking revulsion with the answer. More than once I’ve muttered, “It’s a romantic sci-fi about a bounty hunter who falls in love with his mark” and quickly changed the subject to the writing process or anything else. I’ve never been so closeted. Yet, I can’t stand having something I’ve worked so hard for met with a sneer and a “Why would you want to write that?”

I have a lot more to write on the topic of shame and sex in America, the inequality given to romance and speculative fiction, and closets in general, but for now I’ll leave off with a very enthusiastic:

It’s a very explicit erotic science fiction romance about a bounty hunter who falls in love with the male criminal he’s after!  Look it!  Look it!  Two dudes on the cover! And I didn’t make this cover!

Someone else made this cover, bitches!