Saturday Snark!

I'm participating in Marie Sexton's Saturday Snark blog hop again! This time, I'm giving you a little bite from Revelations, which will be coming out in February from  Muse it Up Publishing. Revelations is something a bit different. It's my contemporary Biblical story about Judas and Jesus. This is from the prologue, and the speaker is God. Hope  you enjoy! As I have no cover yet, I'll use something else for now.  :) Don't forget to check out the rest of the hop!

I glance at him. He’s dressed to within an inch of his life, and wears the most ridiculous sunglasses I’ve ever seen. I decide not to comment on his fashion sense. “I think he might, this time. I think he’s ready for change.”

            Lucifer snorts. “It’s been two thousand years, and neither one has exactly caught on yet. Why should this time be any different?”

            “Care to put your money where your mouth is?”

            He eyes me carefully. “I would, but you see you have this whole mystic omnipotent God thing going on. Personally, I don’t care for those odds.”

            I arch an eyebrow. “I may be omnipotent, but Jesus does have free will and he does possess the ability to make his own decisions. You think I’d stack the deck in my son’s favor? Just to win a bet with you?”

            “Let’s say I’m taking no chances.” He smiles. “Tell you what, though—give me free rein.  Let me do what I want, and you not say anything or do anything to interfere with me? As far as they’re concerned, that is.”

            I open my mouth to object, he hastily interjects. “No killing, I swear to it.”

            That’s better. I still have some measure of control over the serpent.

---

Until next time, take care!

♥ Julie

Saturday Snark

Happy Saturday! Time for more snarp from my WIP - When Will I See You Again. I hope you enjoy it, and don't forget to check out the other snarky authors who are participating here, at Marie Sexton's blog!

This is my vision of Raoul

“You’re the amazing one, Raoul.” Jamie’s voice was muffled against his slick chest.  He began to idly play with some of the dark curly hairs that sprouted there. Raoul made no move to stop him.

“I bet you’re just dying to curl those too,” he teased.

Jamie smirked broadly. “How’d you know?”

“Because I can read your mind.”

“Oh? Werewolf and mentalist? You should take that act on the road.”

“Maybe I will.” A contented chuckle welled up in Raoul’s chest as he gently stroked Jamie’s back. It died away as reality began to fall back into place. “We can’t stay here forever, you know.”

“Who’s gonna look for us?” Jamie propped his elbows on Raoul’s chest, fixing his eyes on him.

“People,” he replied vaguely, waving his hand in the general direction of the house, and the party they’d left.

“Did you want to go back there?”

“Not really,” Raoul replied frankly. “I prefer to be here with you.” Jamie’s grin only grew broader at the 

admission. “Don’t get a swelled head, or think you’re hot shit or anything.”

“Not me.” Jamie laughed. “Hey, you haven’t forgotten what you promised, have you?”

“Me, promise anything? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Raoul cast an innocent glance skyward.

“Don’t mess with me; you know exactly what I’m talking about.” Jamie punched him lightly in the chest; Raoul feigned a groan.!

Snarky Saturday - a blog hop!

This marks my first participation in the newly revived Snarky Saturday Blog Hop! Hope you enjoy it! This bit is from a WIP - When Will I See You Again!  To see the other participants, go here!


I love these guys, hope  you do too!

They’d arrived at last. Raoul reluctantly released him and Jamie lowered his legs, stretching them out. He occupied his hands with stripping his boyfriend of what little remained of his costume. Raoul was equally busy with de-vampifying Jamie. Jamie had a wicked sense of humor—he’d deliberately chosen the vampire costume to play upon the supernatural rivalry between vampires and lycanthropes. He loved to get his werewolf lover’s goat every chance he got.  But in a loving way.

Jamie raked his fingers through Raoul’s long locks. “Let me curl your hair,” he begged, lovingly kissing the strands. “That would be so hot…”

Raoul growled. “Fuck no. Do you want me to look like a sissy?”

“Like you ever could.” Jamie laughed, brushing his lips along Raoul’s jaw line. “Mmm, someone needs a shave.”

“Hush, it’s not that bad.” They dropped to their knees, facing one another, fully naked, except for the matching rings on their fingers. The rings they’d exchanged when they’d promised to stay together forever. 




Let me know if you like this, and I'll do it more often!


Until next time, take care! Tomorrow I'll announce the winner of my Blissemas in July contest!


♥ Julie

Drum roll, please!

The winner of an e-book from Marie Sexton's backlist is Pender Mackie!  Congratulations, Pender!  Marie will be in touch with you regarding your selection!

Welcome guest blogger Marie Sexton!

Marie is taking over my blog today, welcome her if you will - she's the author of the Coda series, among other things, and her latest story, Putting Out Fires, will be released on Valentine's Day,  fittingly.  Today she's going to talk about writing, and getting through the third trimester. Comment for a chance to win a selection from Marie's backlist!

Does writing ever get easier?

It’s a question I find myself pondering as I struggle to finish my latest novel. For some reason, I keep thinking that it will. I want to believe that at some point, I’ll be able to finish a story as easily as I started it. But so far, it has yet to happen. So far, with the exception of The Letter Z, the one story that burst from my literary loins with barely a hint of pain, every single thing I’ve written has been harder than the one before.

To date, I have three novels and one novella published with Dreamspinner Press, all part of my Coda series. I also have a short story with Silver Publishing called One More Soldier. On Valentine’s Day, my short story Putting Out Fires will be released, and in April, my novella Paris A to Z (both are part of the Coda series). I have another novel called Between Sinners and Saints that’s in the process of finding its publishing home. And now, I have this latest book.

The working title is Oestend, although I doubt that will be what it’s called in the end. This book is a departure from my comfort zones in many ways, not least of all because it’s not contemporary. Not even close. It’s a quasi-fantasy, not-quite steampunk, old-west haunted house mild bondage tale. After much debate as to how to classify it, I have settled on the rather broad and ambiguous term, “speculative fiction.” If you had asked me about this book two weeks ago, I would have gushed about how excited I was. “It’s going to be amazing!” I would have said. But now?

Meh.

Don’t get me wrong. It’ll be fine. Although right at this moment I’ll tell anyone who asks that this book is going to kill me, the truth is, this is all part of the process (for me, at any rate). This is a stage, and it’s a stage I’ve gone through with each and every thing I’ve ever written (except TLZ). It’s the stage where I I’m so close to the end, I can practically taste it. The finish line is there, in sight. It teases me in the morning and taunts me every night. I write and I write and I write, but I can’t seem to get any closer to the end.

I was whining about this yesterday to my friend Jane Kindred, and she said, “Yeah, it’s the end of the third trimester. It will pass.” And the analogy is so beautifully accurate, I felt suddenly enlightened. It is the end of the third trimester!

When I was pregnant with my daugher, I breezed through those early months. I think I had one day of morning sickness. I worked at an OB/Gyn office and the ultrasound techs would call me every time they had an open slot. I must have had twenty ultrasounds, and I never had reason to worry. “Everything’s perfect!” my doctor told me at each check-up. “You’re the ideal OB patient.”

I was happy. I was glowing. I was absolutely radiant with my fabulous maternity wardrobe and my cute little basketball belly. Until…

THE 38TH WEEK.

In a matter of days, I swear I grew from the size of a normal pregnant woman to something roughly the size of a killer whale. My face, my hands, my feet - everything became bloated and huge. Two weeks away from delivery, and not a single maternity item in my closet could cover my massive girth. My hips suddenly hurt, my back hurt, my feet hurt….

Well, you know. Many of you have been there.

I asked my doctor what to do to speed things on their way, and he said, “Walk, or have sex. But not at the same time.” (Ever practical, was Dr. Ludwin).

So I walked. I walked and I walked and I walked. Around the block, over and over with my mother at my side. Never mind that my legs and back were screaming with fatigue. Never mind that my feet, which were too fat to fit in anything but flip-flips, were so sore I thought I would cry (and sometimes I did). I walked. And yes, I tried the sex thing too, god help me. But mostly, I walked.

That’s where I am right now with Oestend.

Now, please don’t get me wrong. I love my job, and in time, I’ll love this book again too. Once the first draft is done, things will fall into place. Then it’s revisions and edits, and I could do those all damn day! I’ll revise and edit ‘til the Oestend cows come home, and I may even whistle while I do it.

But first, I have to finish this #$%*$#$%# first draft.

*sigh*

So I will walk. With my flip-flips and my tired hips and my poor-me attitude. Eventually, I’ll look up, and I’ll be at the end. But until then, I’ll keep walking. And I dare say I’ll keep whining. Feel free to ignore me. Pat me on the head, shake your head and say, “Tsk, tsk.”

It will all be all right in the end.

*****

Marie Sexton is the author of the Coda series, and One More Soldier. Her books can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/4l73zns

One person will receive an e-book title of their choice from Marie’s backlist. Leave a comment to enter.

Our Gay Heroes - they come in all sorts of shapes and we love them all

Although many current m/m romance novels were inspired by both by fanfiction and yaoi manga, many of the novelists who write them have taken the often basic idea of the uke and seme and run with it, with the result that there are a large variety of gay heroes for our delectation and edification and great enjoyment, although the stereotypes still exist, of course.

Many young women adore the idea of the uke and seme.  If you are unfamiliar with these terms, simply put the uke bottoms and the seme tops.  In most mangas, at least the ones I've seen and I've seen quite a few, these truisms are more or less written in stone - while the characters of the uke/seme change, their positions seldom do.  Once a uke, always a uke, and also with the seme.  Also in many of these stylized pairings, the uke is a rather waif faced youthful-looking almost feminine boy, even though he and the seme may be the same age, or not very much difference between them.  Almost like taking a girl and removing her breasts, and calling her a boy.  Some are worse than others.  Even though the mangakas take great pains to let you know everyone involved is of legal age (except when they're not, but I'm not going to get into shota, at least not here and now), they look like children, and sometimes what they do has the appearance, if not the reality, of pedophilia.  A problem which, of course, does not appear in m/m romance novels, as you aren't bombarded with images of the legal-age feminine looking child-toy.

There are m/m romance novels that do feed the stereotype, and if that's what you like, that's fine, but if you like your men more manly, there is no dearth of that either.  And they come in all shapes, sizes, and supernatural abilities.  There is a growing trend toward gay men who are vampires, werewolves, and shifters, and there must be a huge audience for it.  Vampires were first, I think followed by werewolves, and then shifters who could change themselves into anything from a cat to a tiger, and a lot of stuff in between.  I remember reading an excerpt from a novel involving tree-shifters.  I kid you not!  And from what I read recently, the shifter trend is changing too, and dragons are becoming the new shifters.  That should be interesting to watch.

If you like your gay men with powers, there are a lot of series out there.  One that comes to mind is Mimi Riser's Sylver and Steele.  From the little I've read of them, they are most excellent reads, filled with humor and heat.  I have a friend who is writing a gargoyle series - don't count them out, cause I'm telling you, they can be pretty hot.  Whodathunkit?  Vampires have been erotic ever since Bram Stoker took pen in hand and gave us Dracula, but today's writers have given the genre a decided homoerotic slant.  And if  you like your men with a little fur, Andrew Grey has a satyr series you might like to check out.

On the other hand, if you like your men a little more down to earth, there are a lot of those out there to choose from, and they run the gamut from unbelievably hunky to incredibly twinky and everything in between. One series that comes to mind is Marie Sexton's Coda series - her men are men, not stereotypes.  Even her fabulously gay Cole Fenton, who is way out there and truly shines in Strawberries for Dessert, has depth to his character which removes him from the realm of cookie-cutter gay men.  Matt, whom we meet in her first book, Promises, isn't gay, he just happens to fall in love with someone, Jared, who just happens to be a guy, a gay for you situation which is being seen more and more.  Her men are good-looking gay men, without a doubt, but they are also guys we could really meet and know.

A recent novel I read which certainly tore apart the mythos of the typical gay male, was Bernard: Diary of a 46 Year Old Bellhop, by S.L.Danielson.  The hero here is 46, very overweight, and very much unhappy with his life and himself, not your usual choice for a hero of a romance novel.  But Bernard is undoubtedly the hero,  as we watch him grow and develop through the course of the novel, taking his shot at finding true love with a handsome doctor.

If you like your men living in the past, there are writers who are glad to provide them.  Some ignore the mores of the times their men live in, and perhaps present slightly unrealistic views of their lives, especially in relation to the society they live in.  On the other hand, in Counterpoint, by Ruth Sims, there is no doubt that her young hero Dylan is aware that such behavior is frowned upon by not only society but his family, and that does not prevent his falling in love with Laurence, in a very well-written moving novel of a time when two men were far from free to be together.  Other historical authors that come to mind include Erases, Christie Gordon and Alex Beecroft.

Our gay men definitely come in all shapes and sizes and personalities - with or without powers, contemporary or historical.  They all have one thing in common - they are gay and we love them.  Do you have a favorite type of gay man?  If so, tell me what it is, and what book you think best typifies him?