Greetings, friends!

I’ve been scrambling to make deadlines for two things this week and deal with an unexpected round of edits on Sex, Lies & Wedding Bells, while working fulltime, but I wanted to take a minute out to say

Happy New Year

to all my friends here, both old and new.  I’ll be doing a year-end wrap up as soon as I get some breathing room with a proper thanks to all the wonderful folks who have made this year so fantastic.

Thanks so much.

Word Counts - Today: 0 | December: 0 | 2008: 384,186

I want to wish a very Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas and a Sexy New Year
to all of my friends, readers and fellow authors !

Thank you all for making LJ so enjoyable.

Word Counts - Today: 0 | December: 0 | 2008: 384,186

‘Tis the Season Taste Test
from Torquere Press
Short Story/Contemporary M/M romantic erotica

by Mary Blyton, Kris Klein, EM Lynley
35 pages / 15000 words
ISBN-13: 978-1-60370-560-8
$2.49

Buy Now!

My story “The Sweetest Christmas” is one of three to appear in this holiday-themed mini-anthology.

Take one hot, naked blindfolded guy, add a deviously creative boyfriend and mix in a bowful of truffles and an empty house on Christmas Eve, and you’ll get the sweetest Christmas you’ve ever seen (or tasted!). Will Jared’s family figure out what he and Erik got up to when everyone else gets back from Midnight Mass? Read excerpts!

Tis the Season for a little holiday cheer, and this Taste Test brings on the fun, and the romance! In Quinn, by Mary Blyton, Quinn is a tough Irish immigrant, working to support his family back home. When he’s ordered to train a quiet Filipino man named Dakila, a surprising relationship develops.

In Deck the Balls, by Kris Klein, it’s Christmas in retail hell for Sam Harmon, a college student who’s only recently joined a department store Santa team. Still, between Dylan Carter in menswear, and a chance to get closer to his dad, Christmas might not be all bad. Finally, in The Sweetest Christmas, by EM Lynley Jared and Erik are having a blast with blindfolds and truffles while everyone is at Christmas Eve Mass, but will Jared’s family spoil the fun?

Word Counts - Today: 0 | December: 0 | 2008: 384,186

My short story "The Sweetest Christmas" will be published on Wednesday in Torquere Press’s ‘Tis the Season Taste Test, so I’ll be the host at the LJ on Tuesday.

I’ll be posting excerpts from the story, hopefully do a kinky poll and have a contest to give away a copy of my story.

Come on over and keep me company!

Word Counts - Today: 0 | December: 0 | 2008: 384,186

I took a couple of writing classes this past term at a local college with the hope that some formal instruction would help me improve my writing. I have to say that it absolutely did! I’m really happy that I took the classes, though I’ve learned that taking two writing classes in the same term is a big mistake. Especially when I tried to do NaNoWriMo in the middle. I ended up with very little time to do any of my own projects and the NaNo kept me from putting as much time into assignments as I would have liked.

I got the grade for one class today: the short story class. I took this class specifically because almost everything I start ends up LOOOONG and I really wanted to learn to focus my story and keep the plot down to something manageable for a short story. The instructor loved my final story and told me it would be fantastic as a novel and I should expand it. Talk about irony. I’m supposed to be meeting up with her for coffee during the break to chat about writing and publishing. She really offered me a lot of advice and encouragement with my writing and with submitting pieces, so I definitely got a lot out of that class.

The other class was a general creative writing class where we did some poetry and memoir in addiition to short fiction. I initially balked at the idea of writing poetry, but I ended up with a few decent poems. I’m still waiting for my final grade on the story I turned in. It’s about a guy who brings his boyfriend home to meet his family and how he feels about sharing his past with the man who he hopes is going to be his future. I liked it a lot, and I’ll probably post it as a free read sometime soon. So stay tuned.

And my short story is going to be published on Wednesday… as soon as I get cover art and/or the sell link, I’ll be posting about that here!

Word Counts - Today: 0 | December: 0 | 2008: 384,186

I put up a couple of excerpts from Sex, Lies & Wedding Bells over on my new website. Check them out, then let me know what you think. I’m working on the site still, and there’s no place to comment there at the moment. But I’d love you to death if you come back here and give me some feedback.

I’m never sure how long to make excerpts. Anyone out there got some advice for me on that?

As soon as I get a pub date, or cover art, I’ll be sure to post about it here.

I’m working on a new story to sub, probably to Torquere, but that depends on whether I get it finished it time. More on that later this week!

Word Counts - Today: 0 | December: 0 | 2008: 384,186

I put up a couple of excerpts from Sex, Lies & Wedding Bells over on my new website. Check them out, then let me know what you think. I’m working on the site still, and there’s no place to comment there at the moment. But I’d love you to death if you come back here and give me some feedback.

I’m never sure how long to make excerpts. Anyone out there got some advice for me on that?

As soon as I get a pub date, or cover art, I’ll be sure to post about it here.

I’m working on a new story to sub, probably to Torquere, but that depends on whether I get it finished it time. More on that later this week!

Word Counts - Today: 0 | December: 0 | 2008: 384,186

Ravenous Romance is the brand new publisher that will be publishing my first novel Sex, Lies & Wedding Bells (in January). Their website just went live on Monday. Warning: their main page is NSFW!

There had been a lot of negative talk about this publisher on some of the writers’ boards and that has put a damper on my excitement about getting a contract offer for the first novel I dared to submit anywhere. But now I’m eagerly anticipating seeing my book featured even if it’s only for a day.

But I think the site looks very nice and they have a decent number of books and stories to start out. It seems each book gets featured for a day, and as I mentioned before, each novel is also available as an audiobook.

So far, they’ve only got one novel and one story for their Panamour category, which is what they are calling their LGBT offerings. I guess it’s less competition for me, but it also means that they won’t be a magnet for the readers that particularly like that category. I have to work a lot harder to get people over there, I guess!

Here’s a nice inteview with Holly Schmidt, one of the founders (and my editor). All About Ravenous.

I admit, I haven’t purchased anything over there yet, but if any of you do, please let me know what you think of the story or novel. And make sure to save $4.99 for my book when it’s available next month, okay?

Word Counts - Today: 0 | December: 0 | 2008: 384,186

Ravenous Romance is the brand new publisher that will be publishing my first novel Sex, Lies & Wedding Bells (in January). Their website just went live on Monday. Warning: their main page is NSFW!

There had been a lot of negative talk about this publisher on some of the writers’ boards and that has put a damper on my excitement about getting a contract offer for the first novel I dared to submit anywhere. But now I’m eagerly anticipating seeing my book featured even if it’s only for a day.

But I think the site looks very nice and they have a decent number of books and stories to start out. It seems each book gets featured for a day, and as I mentioned before, each novel is also available as an audiobook.

So far, they’ve only got one novel and one story for their Panamour category, which is what they are calling their LGBT offerings. I guess it’s less competition for me, but it also means that they won’t be a magnet for the readers that particularly like that category. I have to work a lot harder to get people over there, I guess!

Here’s a nice inteview with Holly Schmidt, one of the founders (and my editor). All About Ravenous.

I admit, I haven’t purchased anything over there yet, but if any of you do, please let me know what you think of the story or novel. And make sure to save $4.99 for my book when it’s available next month, okay?

Word Counts - Today: 0 | December: 0 | 2008: 384,186