All right, holiday novella news! You can pre-order it in two different ways. You can pre-order it through the publisher, Dreamspinner Press, and they have a variety of formats available. Or you can know pre-order it through Amazon! The novella will be released on December 10th, just in time for the holidays :)
Here is the synopsis full of delicious Christmas puns:
Ty prepares for the holiday season by kicking out his cheating boyfriend and consoling himself with chocolate and cold Chinese food. Unfortunately, rent and bills force him to grab a pair of red-and-white tights and pretend to be in the holiday spirit as a mall elf. Thankfully, there’s a janitor who’s too handsome for the part of a mop pusher to help distract him.
Nikolas the Janitor sweeps Ty off his feet with his smile and generous spirit. Ty wishes he could fall in love as easily as a romantic comedy, but his ex still holds a piece of his heart. Ty wants to accept Nikolas as his new secret Santa, but he might be doomed to pine after his ex all Christmas long.
***
And here are the links for pre-ordering:
Dreamspinner
Amazon
Fun fact: Clicking on my name on Amazon will take you to all of my other books, both ebook and physical, or you can see them on our Etsy shop for signed copies of physical books There is a book on our site that is out of stock, but I can always get more of “Double Hue” if anyone wants it personalized/signed and all that jazz :)
As always, thanks everyone for all the support in what I do ^__^
Ty prepares for the holiday season by kicking out his cheating boyfriend and consoling himself with chocolate and cold Chinese food. Unfortunately, rent and bills force him to grab a pair of red-and-white tights and pretend to be in the holiday spirit as a mall elf. Thankfully, there’s a janitor who’s too handsome for the part of a mop pusher to help distract him.
Nikolas the Janitor sweeps Ty off his feet with his smile and generous spirit. Ty wishes he could fall in love as easily as a romantic comedy, but his ex still holds a piece of his heart. Ty wants to accept Nikolas as his new secret Santa, but he might be doomed to pine after his ex all Christmas long.
Excited to announce that my holiday story is ready for pre-order! It’s being published by Dreamspinner Press and will be released December 10th, but you can order it now :) All you have to do is click here!
HUZZAH! Woke up to see that the short story I submitted for Dreamspinner Press’ “Juicy Bits” anthology was accepted! Yay for more published works :)
First submission news of the year, and it’s good news! HUZZAH!
All done with my commission for the promo art for Press START to Play! I’m SO THRILLED with how this came out!
An art commission for my gay romance short story, “Press START to Play.” These are the two main characters. I am so incredibly happy with how this turned out. I’m going to be making postcards for conventions and posting it wherever I can. Seriously, this is more than I could ever ask for :) You know you have a good artist when they read the story and give you a game screen in the background without you even saying anything ^^
Guuuuuuuuuuuuuh my brain is in a happy melty place of pretty things.
*incoherent noises* How sexy are these guys? I commissioned the lovely ladies of Grave Impressions to do art of Lukis and Aaron, the men of my short story, “Press START to Play.” I wanted to have art that really related to the story so I could have post cards for it at conventions and stuff. I’m planning on doing the same thing for my book, the details are getting worked out right now.
I got a sketch preview today and it’s coming together nicely! Have you read the story yet? You can find it on Dreamspinner Press, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other online outlets. I can’t wait to see the finished product!Here are links to the story:
*explodes into happiness*
Hey everyone, check it out! My short story has received its first 5 star review! Have you read the story yet? If you’re into M/M romance and video games, you definitely should!
By the way, I’m close to 100 followers. Once the writing blog hits 100 followers, I’ll have an awesome giveaway :) How about an eBook copy of my book, “Treat Me Kindly,” is that a good prize or what? Let’s get the blog to 100!
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW YIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS!!!
Short Story: Press START to Play
Good morning, everyone! Today is the big day! I’m going to post the short story first since that’s all ready to go :) My book should be ready for purchase later, there seems to be some kinks with the publisher’s website at the moment for the new releases.
So the gay romance story for Dreamspinner Press is “Press START to Play,” also known as, “That one story I forgot to let my mom read.” It’s eBook only, but it looks like there are several different electronic formats for it. Keep in mind that this story is NOT WORKSAFE BY ANY MEANS as it involves geekery, gaming, and sexy times between men.
There are two ways to read the story:
1. Buy the individual story itself for $3. That’s right, only $3 to get all of the wonderful video game references and romance that you want.
2. Buy the entire anthology to read over 1500 pages from other talented authors. It is the “Make a Play” sports anthology (yes I wrote about video games for a sports anthology guys)
Since this is release day I thought I would give you something more than that. How about a snippet from the story? And remember, don’t just buy the story, read it, enjoy it, tell me what you think, and tell others about it. Blog about it, review it, spread it around so that it’s EVERYWHERE!
Take care, everyone, and I’ll post in a couple of hours about the book :)
***
Lukis takes the controller, watching as the game loads and the animated sequence begins. The graphics are impressive—he guesses. The art style is interesting and themusic is catchy. He’s surprised when he realizes he recognizes some of the characters—various superheroes from the huge movie releases over the summer. There’s Spider-Man, who seems to have recovered from losing his uncle and fighting the giant lizard. Then there’s the Avengers, a team of attractive superheroes run by an angry black guy in an eye patch. “They in a fightin’ game?”
“Yep. It’s a combination of heroes and video-game characters. Figured you’d at least know who some of these guys are. Everyone does.”
Lukis frowns. “Where’s Batman?”
“Batman’s not in this. He’s DC, this is Marvel.”
“But Batman is cool. You said heroes, he should be here.”
Aaron laughs. “I ain’t sayin’ he ain’t cool, I’m just lettin’ ya know that he ain’t in this game. Marvel and DC are two different comic book companies. You know, it’d be like if our home football team and the rival team were in a game.”
“They are. It’s called Madden.”
***
It’s easy to tell how much fun I had with this, huh?And just a message in advance, thank you everyone for your support. I hope you enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. And as I said, don’t just buy it, read it, enjoy it, chat with me about it, tell your friends, talk about it with your friends, I want this story to get big. Review it, blog about it, tell me places to go where I should have people review it, draw fanart for it, just anything you can think of. As fun as it was to write it, I do actually have an important message in it that means a lot to me: stop assuming that geeks are just a waste of space. Just because we like video games, or anime, or whatever it is that we’re into doesn’t mean that we’re these losers with no lives. Also, and this is a big one, BLACK GEEKS EXIST! Stop being surprised about it. I made my characters black on purpose. I made the geeky gamer black because for some reason, I swear, people are still surprised when we play something other than like football or basketball or warshooter warfare shooter shooting.
So yeah, enjoy this piece by me :) $3 worth of entertainment, I promise you ^^
All right guys. Today is the day, as Aqualad says in Young Justice. This is the short story, the book will be posted later once the link starts working :) Until then, enjoy this thing I wrote about a gaming skeptic falling for a gaming geek. And remember: Batman is cool, he’s just not Marvel. And please, please tell other people about this, encourage them to read it too, and most definitely encourage them to talk to me about it (and you guys, talk to me about the story too! Tell me what you think ^^) $3 gets you an entertaining story where I snuck all sorts of geeky nods into a wide publication, from the snippet, to Street Fighter, even Persona 4 Arena makes it in. I went all out and I had a blast, so I want you all to enjoy it, too :)
Update
Wow, haven’t updated this in a while. Anime Central was definitely an experience. A very good experience at that. Our table did fairly well, I think, and I got a lot of compliments on my cosplay :)
I also made some great connections in regards to our books. Our table neighbors are doing an awesome, water color commission of two of our favorite characters from, “Hunters: Seeking the Storyteller.” I will definitely post pictures when it’s done. Also, an artist I really, really love and respect wants to do the cover art for our book and has offered to do promotional art for “Hunters” and for my book “Treat Me Kindly.”
By the way, I’m going to throw this out there while I’m still on an emotional high from people wanted to do art for my books, but I think it would be great to have such art at my table at conventions. Having the book is one thing, and talking about it is great too, but if I have amazing images to back it up I think that would take it to a whole new level. Postcards, bookmarks, or just art to sort of put on display would be great. So if you’re an artist and are interested in something like that, let me know. I’m still learning how the whole thing works, but I know for sure that I would definitely credit your work (and if you have business cards I’d definitely have them for people to take at cons)
Oh! And here is a break down for the release of “Treat Me Kindly.”
June 1st: Released on publisher’s site as ebook (Damnation Books)
Just 2nd: Released on Amazon as ebook
2 - 3 weeks later: Released as physical copy at select retailers (I’ll post the list when I know which ones)
Also, my short story “Press Start to Play” will be in Dreamspinner’s “Make a Play” anthology on June 1st as well. You can either download the entire anthology, or the individual story itself. Again, I’ll post links when it becomes available.
I’m going to go back to posting snippets of my books. My temp job is over for about a month and a half, so that gives me time to work on commissions and advertise my books.
That’s all for now. Have to get ready to head back to Minnesota. Take care!
Hey followers, the writing blog is back in action as I talk about ACEN, book releases, and promotional art. The book will be out in a few short weeks. Who’s excited?
So I’ve been trying to get something in a Dreamspinner Anthology for a while. Last year, nothing made it, but this year I saw that they were doing a sports anthology. I thought, “I’m gonna write about video games,” because… I’m a geek.
And holy shit it worked.
So I’m reposting this because it comes out in a month and my video game short story will be in it! It’s a tale of gay romance, video game stereotypes and the people who happily turn them upside down. It’s got all sorts of fun video game references, because video gaming is a sport, right? You can either get the entire anthology, or buy the stories individually in June. Mine is called “Press START to Play.”
Below is a story description and a small snippet where I make mention of
my obsessiona game series I like ^^Description: Lukis Singleton’s once-popular sports column is fading fast, thanks to the terrible track record of the local football team. In an attempt to save the column, Lukis’s editor, John, decides that he needs to go in a different direction. Video games are all the rage these days, so John insists that sending Lukis to a huge video-game tournament in Los Angeles will shake up his current readers and bring in new ones. Lukis isn’t thrilled about reporting of games with impossible powers or gamers who still live in Mon’s basement, but then he meets a tempting flaw in the game stereotypes of unwashed man-children. Aaron Sanders is a gorgeous breath of fresh air at the tournament who takes Lukis’s less-than-stellar view of gamers and turns it on its head, leaving Lukis to wonder if if might be worth being Aaron’s player two.
Snippet:
Lukis wonders, as he watches the intro video, why high school students are even allowed to fight with swords and strange monsters that they can summon. Don’t they have parents? And since when can bears talk, fight, and smoke cigars? Was that a robot just now? With an axe?
“Told ya it was completely different,” Aaron says, picking some kid who uses a gun and has some sort of fly as a monster friend.
It’s still exciting to watch, he thinks. Aaron’s character is fighting against some tall, buff guy who uses a folding chair as a weapon, it makes no sense at all; who brings a chair to a gunfight?
***
Yes I made a kannao reference in something I’m getting published. I realize I have a problem. No I do not wish to seek help thanks though.
In which my OTP makes an appearance in my original writing. Yeah.
