Racheline Maltese's Blog, page 37
October 20, 2014
Starling and its unlikely, accidental alpha hero
The character we were most worried about the reception of in Starling is currently the one people most often mention as their favorite.
Victor is enigmatic, cantankerous, and often unpleasant. He’s also asexual, a fact which is the subject of significant discussion in Doves. Which almost makes me a little confused about why he’s such a favorite.
Except, of course, I get it. I’ve always loved the impresario too. And there is really no other word for Victor. He’s a businessman, a creative mastermind, and the guy who keeps all the animals in the circus dancing. It’s not a nice job, but it’s an essential one, and he’s good at getting his people to seek his approval despite their own wild natures and common sense.
Loving the impresario in our real lives is hard. It’s dangerous. It can get in the way of our own creative impulses and it can make us say yes when we should say no. It can make us small, over-eager and always hungry. It is, in short, just hard.
Because Starling is a book that lacks not only an alpha hero, but arguably any hero at all in its central romance between Alex and Paul, Victor in many ways steps into that narrative roles. He tells the main character he’s beautiful, he picks him up out of unideal circumstances, and he changes his life. And he does it again and again and again and again. He does it Alex. But he once did it to Liam. And to Paul. And to Natalie. And to dozens of other characters you haven’t met yet, and in some cases may never meet.
As such, Victor is also the voice that whispers in the reader’s ear. He’s the bad boy you’re supposed to crave in romances, just in a very different form than they usually appear.
Erin and I joke often how much I am like Victor. Sometimes I sit like him. Sometimes, I’ll drawl something in the same vicious tone we use for him in Starling. Sometimes, when Erin will check in on something she’s drafted with me, I’ll say completely adequate, by which we both know I mean “Thank god you did that, now put it to bed so we can move on to something fun.”
Victor is everything in myself I am amazed other people are ever willing to suffer. He is also, so a certain extent, a figure I’ve had to force myself to become. Starling wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t.
This picture of Baz Luhrmann and Nicole Kidman by Annie Leibovitz is one of my favorite photos. It reflects to me the necessary blankness that comes with performance, the compliment that a corrective touch always was in my upbringing as a dancer, and the degree to which so many performers are in this game to hear, “good girl” or “good boy,” no matter how much we know better than to talk about it.
Victor isn’t really based on Baz at all. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Baz a couple of times and attending a masterclass with him, and trust me, their affects could not be more different. But the type of power people like Baz can have over rooms? That’s a thing for me. I like it, I’m interested in it, and I want it — whether focused on me or in my hands. I’ve learned to say this aloud because it helps me somewhat to defuse the power of it.
When Erin & I created Victor, my experiences with people like that — directors, producers, entrepreneurs, politicians, music instructors, martial arts masters — all went into the DNA of him. Along at my shame at how such people often make me want to be a marionette. But also along with how often such people inspire me to be a master of myself and pull the strings in my world to make it as I would wish. No one can be counted on to do it for me but me.
Victor and the marionette issue is central to Doves. If you love him now, you may not when you get to the end of that book (which will be out on January 21, 2015). But you also may love him more. And I suspect and hope that either way, you’ll still hear him whispering in your ear.
He whispers in mine. And some days that’s the only way I get anything done.
If you haven’t met Victor yet, you can buy Starling through any of the links below and at many other ebook and paperback retailers. Through October 31, 2014 you can use code BOO at Torquere to get 20% off.
Ebook: All Romance | Amazon| B&N | Torquere
Print: Amazon| B&N |


Do the thing: Some days are awesome
Some days, for no good reason, absolutely suck. But some days, also for no good reason, are absolutely awesome.
Today is one of the latter. Maybe it’s the crisp fall weather (well, as crisp as it ever gets in D.C.) Maybe it’s Mercury Retrograde starting to come to an end. For whatever reason, Racheline and I are on fire today — we’ve had a couple guest posts go up, we’re dealing with administrativia and brainstorming and putting words on paper with a fierceness we haven’t in weeks, in part because we’ve been busy and in part because the energy just wasn’t there.
But it’s there now, and we’re grateful for it, even as we keep emailing back and forth going “Hey, today feels good.”
Because some days just feel good. When you’ve got them, use them. And when it’s one of those craptastic days, and everything is going wrong or you just can’t brain and it seems like nothing will ever go right again, remember that it will — even if for no good reason that you can ever tell or anticipate.
So, what do you feel good about? What do you feel shitty about? Put it in the comments, and we’ll offer cheers and encouragement.


Avian 30 Newsletter
We have a newsletter!
Once a month, on the first of the month, we will send out a newsletter with info about new releases, new contracts, and what we’ve been up to, along with special giveaways and exclusive bonus content, like deleted scenes and sneak peeks.
If you want to sign up, just plug your email into the box towards the bottom of the right-hand sidebar. (We will of course never share or sell your email to anyone or use it for spamming purposes, etc, and you can unsubcribe at any time.)
And as an added bonus, when we reach 25 subscribers, we’ll release a snippet from Doves featuring everyone’s favorite enigmatic showrunner, Victor.


October 17, 2014
New Sale: Midsummer to Dreamspinner Press
Remember our Sneak Peek Sunday about the summer stock production of A Midsummer Night‘s Dream? We’re thrilled to announce it’s now contracted with Dreamspinner Press with an anticipated release date of May or June 2015.
It’s a ~30,000 word “gay for you” novella focusing on a May/December summer romance in the Virginia woods. Because we’re us, it also includes a skull, some magical realism, discussions of death, and a really great pair of shoes.
We can’t wait to be able to share this story with you, and talk a little bit about how we got this story, which isn’t the sort of trope we ever anticipated writing (and which we’ve turned a bit on its ear, of course).


October 13, 2014
Do the Thing: The work will still be there
Tonight, Racheline is speaking at All of Them Witches. I’ve just arrived home after being on holiday in the woods (and without internet) for the last 10 days. Between being off the grid, family obligations, dayjob obligations, and some genuinely awesome events (see: what Racheline’s doing tonight) we haven’t actually gotten much work done.
Which can be maddening. The list of stories we want to write is endless and growing; with a novel out in the world now the number of balls we have in the air keeps growing, not shrinking. When the number of hours in a day does get shorter, even temporarily, because of everything else that just must be done, it can feel a little like despair. After all, how can we ever do the Thing when there are so many things not the Thing that need to be done?
But no matter how endless the not-Thing tasklist is, it’s not actually infinite. Eventually, things calm down and go back to normal (for whatever given value of “normal” we’re working with). And when it does, the work will be there.
One thing I’ve learned, slowly and sometimes painfully, over the last 14 months that we’ve been working together, is that it’s not worth the energy to stress over everything I can’t do on a given day. Eventually, I will get to it. And until then, my resources are better spent actually doing things so I can get to do the Thing that much sooner.
So let yourself do what needs to be done — whether it’s dealing with the plumber or finishing up that project at your dayjob or even going on holiday. The work isn’t going away.
So let us know the things you have to deal with before you can get back to the Thing. We’re happy to help reassure that the work will be there when you get back — our certainly always is.


October 9, 2014
10 things we learned about Starling now that it has readers
Today is the 1 month birthday of Starling. Erin is off in the woods on holiday and almost entirely out of touch, and I’ve been deep in the weeds with my non-writing life, although we have some more exciting announcements coming up soon.
For now though, I want to talk a little bit about the 10 things we didn’t know about Starling until it was in readers’ hands. That’s sort of the coolest thing about writing, you keep learning things about the story you wrote. Considering we love these characters so much, and have committed to such a long arc with them, that’s a damn good thing.
So without further ado:
1. Starling is interstitial. If we tell non-romance readers it’s not a romance, we often get, “It’s totally a romance!” If we tell romance readers it is a romance, we often get some side-eye from those quarters too, despite the happy endings for multiple couples.
2. Starling is divisive. Okay, to be fair, we sort of knew this one. Starling is an angry book. It’s angry about fame. It’s angry about fans. It’s angry about what people do to the nail that sticks up. It’s angry about how marginalized people are expected to behave “reasonably” in unreasonable circumstances. It’s also filled with people who really don’t have the skills to deal with the circumstances of their lives. And when people read romances about fame, they often want to see glamor and riches, not 15 hour days and poor relationship choices. In short, for some people, it’s just not a story that works. Luckily, though lots of other people people really, really love Starling.
3. Starling also doesn’t exactly have a hero. Paul and Alex both need rescue. They also rescue each other. Liam seems like a mess, but that’s largely his coping strategy (more on that in future books). Craig, meanwhile, is just some poor guy caught up in the middle of all their shit. I used to think Starling just didn’t have an alpha hero, but these days, I don’t think it has a hero at all.
4. Unless Victor is Starling‘s hero. Sure, Victor’s the asexual dude in the b-plot, but he’s also the closest thing the book has to an alpha who whispers in your ear and tells you how everything is going to be and how much you’re going to like it. That he’s enigmatic, sometimes despicable, and finds most forms of sexual contact physically unpleasant is besides the point. There’s a lot more of all of that in Doves.
5. Some readers adore that Alex is an introvert, and we love that people feel that way. We love that Alex is an introvert too! But we had no idea this would be so meaningful to some of our readers. We’ve been really surprised and touched by this.
6. Some people view Starling as a love triangle between Paul, Alex, and Liam. Alex, of course, has profoundly intense connections with both of them, and one of the threads in Doves is very focused on all three of them — and especially Paul — learning to navigate that friendship between Alex and Liam. But I don’t think Erin and I ever thought of the book as a love triangle story, so that’s been illuminating.
7. Polyamory has proved to be unfamiliar and uncomfortable to some readers. This, I think, took us by surprise. We wrote about this a little bit at Mychael Black’s blog. Polyamory remains a key part of the series because it’s so important to Liam and Carly. But more than that, the Love in Los Angeles books are about lots of different types of love and lots of ways to build your own family, some of which can be pretty hard to classify.
8. Everyone is sure X character is Y celebrity. Except, and this is awesome, every character for whom this has come up has been the subject of multiple guesses. So let them be whoever you need them to be for you. We love hearing your castings! For us, though, they’re all their own, even if they have narrative DNA from lots of sources which very much also include our own lives.
9. People love Starling‘s women! Erin and I worried about this a lot. We heard, over and over again, that some people react negatively to the presence of women in M/M books. But we never really thought of Starling as an M/M book, and always wanted a strong female presence in the series. In Doves we’ll have more female sexuality — both on and off screen — than has been present in the series so far, so we certainly hope that enthusiasm continues.
10. Starling is really, really fun to read out loud. At the reading event I organized at The Stonewall Inn I was a little worried about it because it’s so dialogue heavy. But never, ever, have I enjoyed so much saying the words The Internet goes insane, mainly because the crowd that night laughed with it in just the right way.
Basically, this is a big thank you. For buying the book, talking about the book, reviewing the book, taking pictures of you and the book, and spreading the word about this very peculiar and ongoing labor of love. It means the absolute world to us.


October 6, 2014
Doing the thing your way
The spaces I write in these days are somewhat known for having a formula.
Romance novels, after all, have their happy endings, and some people even feel that heroes and conflicts should be introduced as specific page and chapter points. Screenplays are also often considered to have very particular structure rules (at least, if you look at any How to Write a Screenplay book ever).
While following the formula can be really important, so can breaking it. And while you have to know the rules to be able to do that effectively and in a compelling way, that’s not what this post is about.
This post is about understanding that if you do break those rules there are consequences. You might need to market a little harder. Your project might take a little longer to find its audience. People might give you advice on how to do the thing you didn’t want to do. Or assume that you have disdain for the convention of your genre instead of just an impulse or strategy to push their boundaries.
And some days, the consequences of doing your own thing might make you really frustrated. Or sad. And that’s when Do the Thing! kicks in. Because you either got to stand by and keep making your choices or you need to go back to the formula, but either way, you’ve got to keep moving.
So break the rules. But don’t stop there. Because if you’re about shaking up the formula doing the thing involves not defending your choices, but highlighting them, explaining them, and showcasing how they aren’t a bug but a feature.
Sound hard? Sure. But going after your creative and career dreams was already hard. Once you know the rules enough to break them, doing it the way you want to do it may be challenging, but it’s definitely easier than not following your own vision.


Guest Post: Katherine Halle on her writing process
Today we have Katherine Halle, a fellow Torquere author, blogging about her upcoming release, Cast the First Stone which will be available October 8th.
Katherine says:
My process is fairly simple. To be honest, most of my stories start with one scene. A scene gets in my head and I can’t get it out and I end up crafting a story around that one scene. Of course, inevitably that one scene is toward the END of the story so it feels like forever before I get to write it. And then when I do, sometimes I look back and think ‘Was that like it was in my head? Could it have been better? More emotional? More something?’
There are many times I’m tempted to just go ahead and write that scene but I usually write linearly so I don’t often write the action out of order. However, there have been a few times that I’ve skipped ahead to get the scene down on paper so to speak and then go back to fill in the blanks.
I was lucky with Cast the First Stone, the scene I had in my head was the opening. Julian, the hunter, is out on a hunt. And I had this image of him in my head, squatting down in the grass, feeling the dirt, smelling the dirt, and scowling when he realized he would have to call for permission to enter another Alpha’s territory. And that got the ball rolling. Why was he a hunter? Why did he have to ask permission? Why was he hunting? Who was he hunting? And what would happen if he found himself attracted to his prey…
And thus, a story was born.
I want to thank Erin and Racheline for hosting me today. This is the first stop on my Blog Tour and I am just so appreciative for the opportunity to talk about my process and my release with all of you!
~
On the trail of a rogue werewolf, hunter Julian Hart takes on more than he can handle when he meets up with Alpha Stone. His hunt uncovers secrets within lies and a plot for vengeance no one saw coming. When the smoke clears, what Julian finds at the end of the trail will forever change his life and the lives of everyone he holds dear.
Excerpt:
“I took the liberty of moving your stuff from the motel. I had it put into one of my guestrooms. You’ll stay here tonight.”
“Now wait just a damn minute.” I could feel the anger whirling inside me. How dare he move my things without my permission? I didn’t want to stay here in his house. The sole human amidst a pack of wolves. Literally.
In a flash, he had me pinned to the wall, his arm across my throat. Just as fast, I had my knife out and pressed against his side. He laughed, the rich sound washing over me, sending my blood places I didn’t want it to go. “Touché.” The pressure on my throat loosened minutely. “Seems we are at an impasse. I want you here. I can’t keep you safe at the motel. There are some in my territory that don’t take too kindly to hunters.”
“You mean like Eve?”
“Yes, like Eve. I can’t control every single werewolf activity that happens. There will always be someone that makes a bad choice, despite my orders that you are offlimits.
I would hate to have to punish someone after the fact. I’d rather just prevent it from happening in the first place.”
“Who says I would be safe under your roof?” I met his blue eyes defiantly, pressing the knife into his side enough to slice through the fabric of his shirt. He hissed as the blade laced with wolfsbane bit into his skin. I felt a momentary pang of regret, but it vanished when he pushed closer, nosing at the pulse in my neck.
“I can smell your excitement,” he breathed out, his lips moving over my skin.
I pushed against him. “Can you smell my anger?” I snarled.
Another dark chuckle washed over my skin. “Yes, and it smells delicious. Now, are we done? You’re not going back to that fleabag motel.”
Bio:
Katherine Halle is known as the “Queen of Happy Endings.” She firmly believes that no matter what the obstacles, what the struggles, or how much angst is involved in the journey, that the ending should always be a happy one.
Katherine’s love of the written word started at a very early age with repeated demands of “read to me” to any who would listen. It was only natural that writing would follow. As a child, she could often be found daydreaming, thinking up fanciful stories and writing them down. Now she does it on a laptop. Much faster.
Katherine’s favorite animal is her dog. She likes books, movies, and quirky television shows, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Hart of Dixie. She loves cooking and watching cooking shows. She has lived in both Europe and the United States and loved both. When she’s not writing or plotting, Katherine enjoys spending her time listening to music, reading books written by other people, and being with her family.
You can connect with Katherine at:
Twitter | WordPress | Dreamwidth | Goodreads | email
Cast the First Stone will be available at Torquere and other major book retailers on October 8.


October 2, 2014
Guest Post – Laurie Boris: “I Can’t Write What?”
Today we have a guest post from Laurie Boris, an indie author who has just published Playing Charlie Cool, book 3 in the Trager Family Secrets series.
Laurie tackles a pretty controversial subject who can, and should, write what when it comes to marginalized identities. It’s something Erin and I don’t have a manifesto on, in part because our feelings about it change a lot, and in part because we both often encounter assumptions about who we are (and what that entitles us to write) that just aren’t accurate to our lived identities.
What matters, in the end, of course, is doing your research, telling a story, honoring your characters and realizing, especially when you write identities that aren’t your own, that your words can and do have real life impacts on people.
This is Laurie’s approach:
I Can’t Write What?
I really love when readers contact me. Aside from the actual writing (and claiming books as a tax deduction), that’s one of my favorite parts of being an author. A reader once emailed me after she finished The Picture of Cool. She asked—in a very nice and curious way, not accusatory at all—what qualifies me to write in the point of view of a gay man.
Gulp.
I knew I’d face this at some point, judging from the curious looks and awkward silences I received from loved ones when I told them what I was working on.
And it’s also a question I’ve asked myself at many points while writing this novella and Playing Charlie Cool, its sequel, just released. I even asked Charlie, my protagonist. “Me? Seriously. Look at me. You really trust me with your story?”
He downed his virtual scotch and said, “Hell, yeah.”
But I wasn’t writing “a gay man.” I was writing Charlie. To me, that’s a huge difference. I’ve had writing teachers who shook fingers at me and said it was inauthentic, wrong, and in one case, actually a criminal abomination for a writer to get into the head of anyone outside of his or her own “identity.” I agreed to disagree. She didn’t. Bless her heart, I adore her, but we haven’t spoken much since. And I’m good with that.
As a writer, especially as the kind of writer who likes to drop deep into a character and tell an organic story, no matter who comes knocking on my door, I don’t like to hear that I’m only qualified to write in the point of view of a left-handed, childless Unitarian woman of Eastern European extraction up to and including the age of fifty-three.
It makes me feel limited. Hamstrung. Like the world thinks I’m lacking in imagination. If we all believed in this tired canard, would there be science fiction? Harry Potter? Twinkly vampires? Hobbits? Narnia? Had A.A. Milne ever been a stuffed bear with a honey fetish? I don’t think so.
I didn’t write these books to prove a point. I didn’t write Charlie’s story because of an agenda. (Although I do believe in marriage equality, and I’ve seen friends who not only bore the pain of keeping their identities secret, but also those who suffered the devastation of coming out to family members who then disavowed them.) I wrote it because Charlie asked me to listen. And for me, that’s a higher calling.
This is how I replied to the reader:
“I’ve written in the POV of many people I am not, but I was extra-sensitive about this story, as a female writer. I do a lot of deep character work when I write and really try to get out of my own way and let the characters be authentic. But I also pulled in some personal experience. I was raised in a very liberal household and met a lot of different kinds of people as a child. I’ve shared apartments with gay men, grown up with a few, worked alongside them, been involved in the community and had and still have some great friendships. Still, I know full well I am only slipping into these characters’ shoes as a writer. I try to do that respectfully, without stereotypes, and let them be people, first and foremost. Like we all want to be, right? I also depend on beta feedback, as I do with all of my stories, especially when I’m writing from a male point of view, gay or straight.”
She liked the response, and I didn’t mind explaining myself, not at all. But I wonder if J.K. Rowling ever gets these questions.
~
Laurie Boris is a freelance writer, editor, proofreader, and former graphic designer. She has been writing fiction for over twenty-five years and is the award-winning author of five novels: The Joke’s on Me, Drawing Breath, Don’t Tell Anyone, Sliding Past Vertical, and Playing Charlie Cool. When not hanging out with the universe of imaginary people in her head, she enjoys baseball, cooking, reading, and helping aspiring novelists as a contributing writer and editor for IndiesUnlimited.com. She lives in New York’s lovely Hudson Valley.
You can connect with Laurie at:


October 1, 2014
Starling now available in paperback!
Amazon US $14.96
Barnes & Noble $15.25
These are both discounts from the list price of $15.95. There may be future discounts, which we almost never know about in advance and can’t predict.
This has just gone up at both sites. So the book cover (which you know) and the full description isn’t in yet. Our own copies are due to come today from the publisher. We assume these distributors will also be receiving and placing into their warehouses copies today. As it says, in a day or two, delivery will be sped up!
The book is also now listed on international Amazon’s as out of stock. The book is on its way to the international distributors. You can order now, and they should have them to ship to you soon.
Similarly, it will be available through non-Amazon, non-B&N distributors soon.
If you would like to order a copy through a physical store or for a library, the paperback ISBN-10 is 1610408055 and the ISBN-13 is 978-1610408059.
If you’ve got any questions, let us know, and I’ll see what we can do. We’re pretty ecstatic that a) this is here and that b) Doves comes out in ebook right before the SAG awards and in paperback right before Valentine’s Day.

