Amy Lane's Blog: Writer's Lane, page 156

A Chi-who-what?

So I was talking with my crazy friend Wendy the other night, and I said, "Guess what?"

And she said "What?"

And I said, "We got a dog?"

"A WHAT?"

"A dog."

"What kind?"

"A chi-who-what."

"What?"

"A chihuahua cross."

"Oh, you do not know what a little slice of hell you are in for.  You have to walk them and they're nervous and they lick and they're so high maintenance and why would you get a dog like that!  You'll never be able to take care of it!"

0.0

After womanfully refraining from mentioning that I have raised four children, two with special education needs, and have yet to let any of them starve or get kicked out of school or wallow in their own filth, I delicately pointed out that our last dog lasted fifteen years, the last three of which (the vet has reminded us time and again) have been against all expectations of breed and size.  I may have mentioned that I'm home alone most of the day, and that I only ever leave in two hour increments, and that Big T was here very often during those, and he loved the dog.  I also may have said something about poring over websites and puppyfinder.com and pawnation.com for nearly six months in order to find a rescue pocket dog that fit our criteria and was not five-hundred miles away.

I did, perhaps forget to remind her that I've been planning a small dog for my lap from the moment I realized Zoomboy and Squish were not going to fit there forever, and that the need intensified after we put Dennis Quaid down, and that now, with our older dog's decline, that need has become urgent, pressing, necessary, because I do not want to be in the house without a dog when Chicken goes back to school after the holidays.

I don't think she knew about my friend Rhys, who has been showing me cute pictures of rescue dogs for ten months, every night on Twitter, hoping something will click.

In fact, she was so busy telling me why this dog was a bad idea, I don't think I got to tell her the most important parts:


*  He's twelve weeks old.
*  He's the most mellow chi-who-what that I've ever met.
*  As long as we take him walking at regular intervals, he's mostly house trained.
*  I named him after several characters in stage, screen, and outer space including--
---Baby's lover in Dirty Dancing
---The owner of the fictional gay-for-pay porn place I set in Sacramento for one of my book series
--Whomever Brandon Flowers was singing to in Jenny Was a Friend of Mine when he said:
 "Hey Johnnie!!!"


And, the most important thing I need to say--

He loves us and we love him.

Hey Johnnie!!!

12-12-12

Well, mostly it's T's birthday.  He's twenty, and that's pretty awesome.  He's turned into a very nice young man, and if I'm worried about one aspect or another of his life, well, then, that's motherhood.  I've quoted Sylvia Plath's "Riddle in Nine Syllables" before, when she said that pregnancy was "getting on the train there's no getting off"--I have to tell you, it was a pretty huge realization for me.  Big T is proof-- I will never stop worrying.

But he's still an excellent young man-- he's kind and funny.  His latest obsession is It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which is one of those horrible shows where you dislike all of the characters but you can't help but watch (well, I listen) because the writing is so clever.  Today's quote--that cracked us both up-- happened after one character suggested he and his brother do something inane and pointless--for the fifth time.  "We won't do that.  You can!"  We've been laughing about that all morning.  We're having some dessert tonight, but mostly he wanted to wait until Sunday, because his sister will be home, and we can all go to a movie together and then out to dinner, just like during his high school years.  The thought makes me really happy and a little sad-- it's like a cheat out of time, but I'll take what I can get.

Anyways, it's not just 12-12-12, it's also 13 days before Christmas, (and, if anyone's counting, 8 days before the Alpacalypse, and if you think I'm kidding about that last word, I've gotten the meme about six-thousand times on Facebook--it's fun!  It's like a furry Ragnarokian in-joke with the whole world!)  So, to celebrate, on Sunday we went and got a Christmas tree.  It took about five minutes.  It seems that the day before (when we were going to the Killers concert) had been some sort of perfect storm at the Christmas tree farm, and they had, maybe, thirty trees left.  Fortunately, they were all awesome, because about three minutes after I licked my Christmas tree (figuratively) Zoomboy fell down and skinned his palm.  Now some of you may be thinking, "Aw, well, kids do that all the time."

You're wrong.  It was the end of the world.  He was showing us his wound for the rest of the day and telling us he was so glad he didn't have to write with his right hand and then we had to speculate on the origin of the word "right"meaning side of the body, as opposed to "write" and it's other homophone, "right" meaning correct and/or morally sound.  Yeah.  That kid's not gonna end up on a football field or a track unless he's carrying a flute, mark my words.

And in other, random news, we managed to talk the outside cat to come inside.  Now, not only will Shulamonster NEVER LEAVE, she will also NEVER LEAVE US ALONE.  And poor Steve.  Steve is missing her quality mom time, and blaming mom for the fact that her once-favorite slum-kitty is now sitting in Steve's bed and sucking up to mom during the morning trip to the bathroom.  She may never forgive me, and I feel bad.  Plus, Shula likes to nibble.

So, here comes my big story.  The big one.  The funny one.  I hope.

So, Mate and I went on our first trip Christmas shopping.  In an epic twist of fate, Mate (get this--it's huge, it never happens) ACTUALLY BOUGHT STUFF on the first day.  Craziness, I tell you-- CRAZINESS.  Anyway-- you can see that we stopped at Barnes & Nobles first, and truth be told, we both feel better about buying books for Christmas.  The big table of bound classics tickled us both-- there was Jane Austin right next to Douglas Adams and William Shakespeare cheek by jowl with Isaac Asimov.  Seriously glorious bound volumes, and since we have two young adults on our list who love literature and may move into the world eventually, we thought it was a good place to stop.

But it wasn't the only place we stopped, and by the time we were done, we had some bags.  Some bags that needed to be hidden.

We were pulling into our driveway when our usual problem asserted itself.

"Where are we putting this shit?"  I asked.

"The hall closet," Mate said without blinking.

"The one we can't open because it doesn't have a doorknob?"

"Yeah!"

"But isn't it full of--"

At this point, Mate walked into the house, jimmied open the door, and, in two minutes, managed to pull out NINE YEARS of accumulated crap in one go.  The following conversations took place.
***
"Wait, are those pants we bought for Squish and never gave her?"

"No, they're pants Chicken wore into the ground and we were giving to Goodwill."

"Crap, they're small."

"Oh yeah."




***

"So this stroller...?"

"Yeah?"

"The last time we used it?"

"Disneyland, 2006."

"Yeah, I thought so-- we can throw the sunblock away."

***

"So, uhm, this stickiness on the ground?"

"Halloween candy."

"Which year?"

"You think I know???"

***

"So, uhm, this paper?"

"Yeah."

"There's a lot of it."

"I know it."

"Any reason for that?"

"All the binder paper?  Yeah.  There's reasons for it."

"I'd love to hear it."

"That right there is a direct result of the kids, saying, 'Mom!  We need binder paper!' and me saying, 'Look in the hall closet!' and them saying, 'I did!  There's nothing there!' and me saying, 'Okay, I'll buy some!' and then opening the hall closet and saying, 'Son of a bitch!'"

***

"Look, here's one of Chicken's old coats.  Can it fit Squish?"

"Yes!  And so can this one, this one, and this one!"

"Good--we've got at least three coats for Zoomboy as he grows too."

***

And the clincher!

"Wow, this is a nice coat."

"Yeah, Mate, it is.  How come you never wear it?"

"Well, it's a ski coat, but I must have worn it.  See?  It's got a tag from a ski lift on it.  It's, uhm, dated, 2004."

"That's great!  Got your money's worth out of that didn't ya!"

***

And remember, we were doing this all before I had to go get the kids.

But we did it.  We cleaned it out, we jammed some presents in, and we covered them with coats.  It was awesome.

Of course, the kids can never know, and that sucks, because it's the kind of thing that Mate and I usually do the gloat-gloat dance, because it proves that YES, we ARE grownups, and we CAN clean like regular suburb dwellers when the circumstance calls for it.  Like, when our parents are coming over, or we need to hide stuff from our kids.

Still Life And Rock Stars

We took T to a rock concert last night to help celebrate his birthday on Wednesday-- he'll be twenty, and I can't hardly wrap my mind around that, since he's still my ginormous baby!

Anyway-- I'll get to that that, but we've also had plenty of busy-ness to keep us occupied, and some prime moments of family weirdness that I shall try to entertain you with.

Let's start with Mate, shall we?

So, Mate and I were cleaning house yesterday, and had the following conversation:

Me: You know, you don't always have to try to fix something when I talk to you.  There's two kinds of conversations women have with men--the kind where we actually want you to fix something and the kind where we just want you to listen.

Mate:  Yeah?  Well there's two kinds of conversations men have with women-- the kind where you need us to fix something that we can actually fix and the kind that NEVER SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED!

I forget why I was talking to him in the first place because I was laughing too hard by the time he said this.

And another Mate thing-- this one's long, and it's sorta gross, so don't read it if you've got a weak stomach or just don't find icky shit funny!

So, one of my cooking mainstays these days is stir fry.  Some teriyaki sauce, some pre-cut veggies, frozen chicken strips, a little rice--BAM!  Something that's not horrible for us, and that I can make REALLY quickly.  Anyway, I don't know about you guys, but I remember eating when I was a kid.  It was like wild kingdom.  We had to sort the rice through a sifter to make sure there were no crawlies, and we had to wash the veggies in a colander to make sure all the tomato worms and what have you were gone, and I hadn't realized how much that sort of thing left a scar until the other night.

Mate got a piece of snap-pea fiber stuck in his throat.

We didn't know that at first, because first there was the retching and then there was the running to the bathroom and more awful sounds followed, and I'd run after him to make sure I was okay, and if the poison was slow acting enough for an antidote or if I was keeling over next (let's face it, it would be good to know!) and some more gagging and then...

He turned around with three inches of snap pea hanging off his finger, and he wiggled his finger.

And I SCREAMED and jumped back about five feet (well, three, we were standing in the hallway by the bathroom) and he said, seriously, "It's snap pea fiber!  Isn't that huge?"

And I pushed my heart back into my chest and said, "It's not a worm?  OH THANK GOD, IT'S NOT A WORM!"

And then he looked at his finger and started laughing, because he realized that without meaning to, he'd scared the holy piss out of me.

Anyway, we couldn't linger over his near death by snap pea, because we had to take the kids to go make ornaments at a school function-- which was really cute by the way.  But in the cafeteria, as they were both busy, I asked him if he was okay, and he said, "Yeah, but my stomach still hurts from trying to get that thing out.  I could still breathe, but I guess you're just not supposed to have anything in your throat like that.  It's not natural."

0.o Okay.  Uhm.  You guys have read my books, right?

So I almost said something about, well, things in the throat, and how most men seemed to think that was pretty natural.  But we were in the school cafeteria.  So I didn't.

But I texted it like mad to Mary, who responded with, "Yeah, I had a friend in college who gave ten blow jobs a night.  He could have fished that out of his throat no problem."

I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe.  I showed the text to Mate, and he smirked, and I think the general consensus was that as long as it wasn't snap pea fiber and food, that sometimes it WAS natural to have something in your throat--as long as it wasn't scratchy and you weren't trying to actually eat it, there were exceptions to the rule.

And about that school function--

What the kids had to do was make Christmas ornaments.  It was really cute-- there were different stations and each station had a different ornament and the place was just overflowing with tempura paint, hot glue, and glitter.

And one thing became clear.

Zoomboy is very clever.  He knows about primates, Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Star Wars.  He can make puns, tell jokes, put together puzzles and get cosmic connections.

He cannot, however, make art.

Squish, on the other hand, can.

We set them loose in the same room with the same materials and told them to go to town, and Squish came back with balanced, aesthetically pleasing, pretty ornaments.  Zoomboy came back with glitter and glue.  It's important to remember, because Squish is NOT as clever as Zoomboy, but she wakes up every morning, stretches in the sunshine under her blankets, smiles, gives me a hug and says "Good morning mommy!"  Zoomboy huddles under the covers and pretends the world WILL go away until he's ready to crawl out of his hole and demand Spongebob.  They are very different children.

Squish will go outside and search for the outside cat, Shulamonster (who has decided she wants to be an inside cat, and that Steve is now her minion.  That is not going over well.  No.  No it is not.) While Zoomboy will bring people into his room to introduce them to his fish, Greg.  (The babysitter was very impressed.  Of course, the babysitter is Stevi, and she seems to like us just as an extension of Chicken's family.)

Zoomboy will go to ridiculous lengths to entertain you.  Squish will snuggle on your lap and allow herself to be entertained.

Interesting children (to me) and, like I said, very, very different.

And that includes Big T.

Now see, we went to the Not So Silent Night festival in Oakland--and it was AMAZING.  Teegan and Sara were good, Passion Pit was awesome, M83 was an EXTRAORDINARY club band but...

But The Killers.

Oh. My. GOD.  The Killers.

There we were, after the techno-industrial-pagan-club-gasm that was M83, sitting in the lighted stadium, thinking, "Well, there's people up on the stage, and they look almost ready, but the stadium lights are still on."

And then the guys picked up their axes and BLAM!

Comin' outta my cage and I'm feeling just fine...

Mr. Brightside, just THERE!  They would turn off the lights after the first number, and they'd do the special effects and the lighting and the exploding confetti and the fireworks... but that first number?  All rock, all driven, all JUST THEM.

And I was... I mean, they're one of my favorite bands anyway-- Lady Cory listened to them in Rampant, and I've just enjoyed the hell out of them, but...

Wow.  Just wow.

And Mate and I danced--stood up and bounced and waived our arms and clapped and just flew through the entire set.  (Okay-- all this aqua aerobics?  Hasn't made me any faster on land, hasn't made me a supermodel, hasn't even made me slim down.  But dammit, I can hold my hands over my head for almost an hour during a rock concert, and that's GOTTA be a good thing!)

And we looked next to us, for our son, whom we had been so excited to bring, and there he was.  Sitting.  Watching the concert but not dancing, not flying.

At first we were concerned--sensory overload, it's not just for old people!  But we asked him and he was happy-- he just wanted to watch.  I said, yes, there ARE a lot of things going on up on the stage, aren't there?  And it was okay.

But it did remind me once again-- there are a LOT of different kinds of kids.  I have four very very different kinds.

And yes-- Chicken is coming home next week, why do you ask?  And speaking of...

She posted her final in image manipulation on her tumblr account.  I'm going to share it with you because, well, you may recognize one of my former blogs as her storyboard, and this tickles me to no end.  The Author's Daughter  --and you can see some of her other college adventures there, as well.  (She's going home with a scanner that she was SUPPOSED to take with her in the first place.  You may see this get updated a little more often after Christmas.)

Oh-- and the yarn?

Recycled Sari Silk.  I'm gonna make a cowl.  Isn't that wild?

The Next Big Thing

Wow-- I didn't realize until just now how my blog has been all work and no play!  Well on Friday, I promise a warm, gooey family post, because even though it's been all about the work, the fact is, I still have a warm gooey family at home and they deserve some blog love.  Alas, today I am committed to a work post, and that's not all bad because I've got some purty cover art to shows you.

See?  Is it not beautemous?  This is the cover for Under the Rushes, which is out sometime this month!  (I know-- stuff just got scheduled weird and it's sort of all out at the same time.  I'm going to have a BIG BLANK SPACE during January, February and March, during which the only thing that will be published is City Mouse and that's only if Aleks and I can get our schedules together and finish it.  (We've been working on it--that is looking likely.)  But this is my steampunk cover, and part of the reason for the delay in the cover art was that it had to be REALLY FRICKIN' DARK.  It's hard to convey that feeling of, "This character is at the end of his rope in a dark techno-Victorian world and he's pretending to be a guy like Christopher Nolan's Batman except with twistier sexual issues" with enough verve. Anne Cain knocked it out of the park in the end, and I love this--the more I look at the cover model, the more grim he looks, the more tired... and the more handsome he looks, just with too much grimness for it to be the first thing you appreciate about him--and that's Dorjan, and that's one of the reasons I love this so!  I'll post more info when it gets announced--but hopefully there will be more gooey family stuff between now and then, cause I wanna write gooey family knitting joy for once!

Anyway-- onwards...

Today's post is called "The Next Big Thing" and it's sort of a writer's game of tag.  One of us will post, and then link back a week ago to the person who asked us to post.  In my case, the delightful Miss Belinda McBride tagged me, and these are the questions we all must answer.

Now, as it turns out, the book I'm working on now is Forever Promised, which is the fourth in the Promises series, and which, I think, has plenty of love going out for it right now.  So I'm going to talk about Bolt Hole which I just finished.




ColbyWhat is the working title of your book?  Bolt Hole

Where did the idea come from for the book?  Four years of working at T.G.I.Fridays as I was going through college.

What genre does your book fall under?  Contemporary, mystery cozy

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie?  Okay-- I was going to spend all morning on this, and then I realized that Mary found me a model instead, and that was going to work for me!  The only difference between her guy and mine is that Colby has darker hair.  And Terrell, well, I've always sort of liked Nick Cannon, even when he was on Disney.  He's got better teeth than my guy, but he's also got nice eyes, with the laugh lines in the corners, and, even after all these years of being in the media, sort of a shy, self-deprecating smile.   Mary had me a hotter guy, but Nick was, well, just better for the job. Besides--he looks older than the guy playing Colby, and he should.  Terrell is thirty, and Colby is twenty-four.  
What is a one sentence synopsis of your book?  Waiters in love try to figure out world politics and who killed their manager while they explore the personal dynamics that make it so easy to make love and so hard to make things work.
Will your book be self published or represented by an agency?  Dreamspinner has already offered me a contract.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?A very public 25 days-- this was my Nanowrimo project.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre.  Who Killed His Editor by Josh Lanyon, I guess.  For my own stuff, it's the closest thing I've written to Clear Water.  

Who or What inspired you to write this book?  Well, working in a socially diverse place for fifteen years didn't hurt, and neither did the sad statistics that tell us how hard it is to be black and gay.  And, of course, those four years at T.G.I. Fridays.  My husband's best friend as we were going through school was black--he and his wife both worked restaurant jobs with us.  One night, Michael wanted to take us to his and Cristina's favorite Mexican restaurant, but he couldn't quite remember where it was--you know how people drive when they're lost?  Yeah-- we were doing that down Folsom Blvd., when suddenly, I notice a cop car in front of us.  And one behind us.  And one on either side.  They were just waiting for Michael to do something wrong, so they could search him and see what one black man was doing in the car with three white people.  Finally he made a hinky--not an illegal, mind you, but a hinky--U-turn, and we spent the next forty-five minutes pulled over, while they interviewed him in the cop car and kept shining the mag-lights in our faces and asking us all if we were all right.  I wasn't all right by the time we were done, I was pissed, and it was my first real understanding of racism in America.  Terrell sees it first hand.  I hope I did it justice.

What else about your book might interest the reader?  I was surprised that, for all of the exploration of race, sexuality, politics, and what a dark place the world in general was in regarding all of these things, that in spite of all of that, this book had some really funny moments.  Terrell is grumpy, but he's also sort of idealistic.  He thinks Colby can do no wrong, but Colby is young and impulsive and has a temper, and so does Terrell.  That and the natural material of working in a restaurant with Door-ho's and window-dicks-- it had some nice moments of humor to balance out all of the darkness.  
And so that's it-- that's my blog-hop!  Gooey family stuff tomorrow, I hope, and in the meantime, I'll leave you with this.  This is Squish's newest outfit, and seriously-- it's a blog post all on it's own.

*bows*

*Note* Once again, the RSS feed is screwing with my blog-- I don't know WHY it won't update, but it's not. What you see here has been cut and pasted, and the pix don't transfer etc. etc. etc. So, anyway, please see the actual blog at www.writerslane.blogspot.com so that you can see all the pretty pictures and the links:-)

Amy



I JUST-- like today-- saw a quote that said, "Say nothing if you win. Say less if you lose."

Mostly, I agree with this-- but when the awards in question are judged by a panel of hard working volunteers who actually READ your shit, and LIKED it, and liked it enough to DO something about it...

Well, you are sort of honor bound to give a humble thanks.

Elisa Rolle held her sixth annual Rainbow Awards this Saturday--and I was surprised on a lot of levels. (For one? I didn't realize they were going to be on the 1st--for some reason I thought they were on the 8th! For another, I didn't realize that Aleks had entered Country Mouse under Bi/Trans, and that was the first award announced. We took second. Surprise!)

I think the biggest thing that surprised me was that here, on this forum, people thought Sidecar was as special as I did, and it placed first in the William Neale award for Gay Romance, and second in the overall category for gay themed book of any kind--novel, non-fiction, romance, everything. I was incredibly honored, because I was in some very amazing company. Seeing my name up there with the other writers who had poured honest blood, sweat, tears and all around life experience into their books--it was a real privilege.





Chase in Shadow placed 6th for an Honorable Mention in both those categories, and I was SO thrilled. You all know that one ripped my heart out to write, and the fact that someone out there--several someones, saw that the sort of pain it embodied was necessary and cathartic and real? That meant so much to me.






Gambling Men tied for 4th for an Honorable Mention in Gay Erotic Romance--and I'm pretty proud of that. Gambling Men was, for me, a very pure sort of romance. Two guys, working shit out. Part of that shit was the physical shit--and hence the "erotic" romance. There was a romantic arc to their sex, a build, a communication, that was expressed not just in the sex itself, but also in the poker references. These guys didn't speak hearts and flowers, they spoke sex and poker, and that felt really authentic as I wrote it, and I'm so grateful it felt the same way to the judges.






And what can I say about Country Mouse? It took second in Bisexual/Transgendered romance, and sixth in overall Bisexual/Transgendered books, and that meant people loved it--and since it was such a blast to write? And Aleks and I are having so much fun with the second? It's like... it's like getting an award for eating cake! And jeez, shouldn't we all get an award for eating cake! Seriously--seeing this in the running made me very proud, and I wish Aleks and I even lived on the same continent so we would jump up and down and hug:-)


Clear Water took "One Perfect Score"-- which meant that it wasn't in the top ten, but that somebody adored it. I know a lot of you have told me you adored it, so it means a lot to me that it got some love from the jury. (The cut off date for these awards is the previous August--so that's how Clear Water qualified, for those of you wondering, "Wait? Wasn't that out last year?")







And what can I say about Talker? I hadn't entered any of the novellas because there is a word limit, and the Talker books didn't make it. But since they were released in an anthology, I decided to take a chance. Talker tied for 5th and an Honorable Mention, and I think that is a fitting note to stories that helped mark my beginning in this business, and which made me very, very proud.


Now, for those of you wondering, "Wow! That's tremendous! What's next? Walking on the moon?"

What's next is that I actually participate next year and be a juror. I know I make a lot out of my time crunch and my deadline crunch--and I feel it, keenly, every day. But I didn't expect this sort of bounty of riches at my feet--and a lot of man hours went into judging them, and I need to give back to this community that's given me so much. I'm looking forward to it--and it doesn't mean that I won't be entering my own stories--but I am so excited about volunteering next year and reading other people's!!!

So thank you, everyone who participated in the judging, and thank you Elisa--I'm really honored. And yes--normally, I'd be tempted to take all this good news and huddle under my blankets and giggle into my pillow like a mental patient, these awards are a lot of hard work, and all I have to give you for it is a very humble, very grateful, "Thank you. Thank you so much."

*Bows*

I JUST-- like today-- saw a quote that said, "Say nothing if you win.  Say less if you lose."

Mostly, I agree with this-- but when the awards in question are judged by a panel of hard working volunteers who actually READ your shit, and LIKED it, and liked it enough to DO something about it...

Well, you are sort of honor bound to give a humble thanks.  
Elisa Rolle held her sixth annual Rainbow Awards this Saturday--and I was surprised on a lot of levels.  (For one?  I didn't realize they were going to be on the 1st--for some reason I thought they were on the 8th!  For another, I didn't realize that Aleks had entered Country Mouse under Bi/Trans, and that was the first award announced.  We took second.  Surprise!)  
I think the biggest thing that surprised me was that here, on this forum, people thought Sidecar was as special as I did, and it placed first in the William Neale award for Gay Romance, and second in the overall category for gay themed book of any kind--novel, non-fiction, romance, everything.  I was incredibly honored, because I was in some very amazing company.  Seeing my name up there with the other writers who had poured honest blood, sweat, tears and all around life experience into their books--it was a real privilege. 



Chase in Shadow placed 6th for an Honorable Mention in both those categories, and I was SO thrilled. You all know that one ripped my heart out to write, and the fact that someone out there--several someones, saw that the sort of pain it embodied was necessary and cathartic and real?  That meant so much to me.  




 Gambling Men tied for 4th for an Honorable Mention in Gay Erotic Romance--and I'm pretty proud of that.  Gambling Men was, for me, a very pure sort of romance.  Two guys, working shit out.  Part of that shit was the physical shit--and hence the "erotic" romance.  There was a romantic arc to their sex, a build, a communication, that was expressed not just in the sex itself, but also in the poker references.  These guys didn't speak hearts and flowers, they spoke sex and poker, and that felt really authentic as I wrote it, and I'm so grateful it felt the same way to the judges.





 And what can I say about Country Mouse ?  It took second in Bisexual/Transgendered romance, and sixth in overall Bisexual/Transgendered books, and that meant people loved it--and since it was such a blast to write?  And Aleks and I are having so much fun with the second?  It's like... it's like getting an award for eating cake!  And jeez, shouldn't we all get an award for eating cake!  Seriously--seeing this in the running made me very proud, and I wish Aleks and I even lived on the same continent so we would jump up and down and hug:-)
   Clear Water took "One Perfect Score"-- which meant that it wasn't in the top ten, but that somebody adored it.  I know a lot of you have told me you adored it, so it means a lot to me that it got some love from the jury. (The cut off date for these awards is the previous August--so that's how Clear Water qualified, for those of you wondering, "Wait?  Wasn't that out last year?")







And what can I say about Talker?  I hadn't entered any of the novellas because there is a word limit, and the Talker books didn't make it.  But since they were released in an anthology, I decided to take a chance.  Talker tied for 5th and an Honorable Mention, and I think that is a fitting note to stories that helped mark my beginning in this business, and which made me very, very proud.


Now, for those of you wondering, "Wow!  That's tremendous!  What's next?  Walking on the moon?"

What's next is that I actually participate next year and be a juror.  I know I make a lot out of my time crunch and my deadline crunch--and I feel it, keenly, every day.  But I didn't expect this sort of bounty of riches at my feet--and a lot of man hours went into judging them, and I need to give back to this community that's given me so much.  I'm looking forward to it--and it doesn't mean that I won't be entering my own stories--but I am so excited about volunteering next year and reading other people's!!!

So thank you, everyone who participated in the judging, and thank you Elisa--I'm really honored.  And yes--normally, I'd be tempted to take all this good news and huddle under my blankets and giggle into my pillow like a mental patient, these awards are a lot of hard work, and all I have to give you for it is a very humble, very grateful, "Thank you.  Thank you so much."

Once again, the RSS Feed is Shite!

Okay-- for the record, I've posted twice since the Stanley Hat posting, and for some reason, the RSS feed isn't updating. (It's not updating over at amazon.com, either. I don't know why. It's magic. Bad, bad magic.) Anyway-- please check my actual blog, www.writerslane.blogspot.com for the two updates. One of them includes a new release from Dreamspinner Press-- it's part of the Advent Calendar, and it's called Turkey in the Snow, and if you go to my blog, you'll see that the cover is LUMINOUS. You'll also see that I'm having a chat on the Dreamspinner Page at Facebook on Saturday, Dec. 1st, 1 p.m EST-- I hope to see you there!

Turkey in the Snow

The stories are out, and I have the link!
  Dreamspinner released all of their Advent Calendar stories for individual sale for December 1st, and finally, I get to talk a little about Turkey in the Snow.  I know that a lot of you are parents, and I think you'll like the premise of this story.  It's about a man who has taken in his niece, and is at the end of his rope.  He's the kind of guy who needs to do everything by the book--you know the kind?  Childhood was rough around the edges, and he likes to know when he's waking up and counts out exact change, because the more he can control the world, the less frightening a place that is.  And, like most of us with children, that other human being who depends on us?  That person throws our lives into chaos, and it's a rocky transition at first.  At the beginning, all we want, all we need, all we crave, is a little bit of help.  Even if it's from the person we didn't want anything from at the beginning.  So let me introduce you to Hank and Justin, and it's up to you to decide who's our Turkey in the Snow. (I'll be at the Dreamspinner Press Facebook Page to chat tomorrow, 1 P.M. PST, if you want to stop by and say hullo!  I'll be giving away a free copy of Turkey then, if you want to wait until then to buy:-)

All the Drama“But you said we can go make cookies!” Josie was trying to be patient, Henry Calder knew, but it had been a long day for him too. He swung his four-year old niece up into his arms, threw his gym bag over his other shoulder, and shut the door to his brand new hybrid  with his knee.“I know, Bunny,” Hank said, trying hard to keep his voice from ratcheting toward irritation as he wove around the cars in the parking lot. “But if your Uncle Hank doesn’t get his workout in, he gets cranky!” He made his voice low and growly, and since she was in his arms anyway, he blew a bubble through her puffy pink jacket, just to make her laugh. It worked, and he held her close and kissed her blonde head. He’d done his best at a braid today, and he thought he was getting better.“I promise, Bunny. If you can let Uncle Hank get in a little bitty workout, we’ll go home, and make some cookies and we can eat some mac ’n’ cheese while they’re baking. How’s that?”Josie nodded adamantly. “Good. ’Cause Mommy’s not going to come back unless we make Christmas perfect.”Hank smiled and nodded, and tried not to clutch his stomach and bury his face in her shoulder and cry. The odds of his sister coming home for Christmas—or any day, for that matter—weren’t great.“We’re doing okay, aren’t we?” he asked, as he wrestled the gym bag and Josie and the door, coming in from the Sacramento cold into Cal-Fit, his happy place. “We managed Halloween and Thanksgiving okay, right?”Josie wrinkled her nose. “That princess dress was too big!” she told him, and he nodded. It was true, the costume would fit her again next year. Well, sue him. His sister had left her daughter with him the week before Halloween. He’d managed a princess dress, candy for the door, and a friend to give the candy out while Hank took his niece trick-or-treating throughout his neighborhood. The fact that the only dress he could find at the Halloween store had been two sizes too big was extraneous. He’d come through.“I know it was,” he said, taking it on the chin. “Next year we’ll do better.”“Next year Mommy will take me.”Hank held out his pass for the nice lady at Cal-Fit, who scanned his card and smiled warmly at Josie. Cindy had curly blonde-gray hair pulled back in a pony-tail and faded blue eyes. Hank felt bad—she was the closest thing to a woman in Josie’s life at the moment, and Josie lit up whenever she saw her.“Hey Josie,” Cindy said, her voice sweet and grandmotherly. “You gonna go visit Justin today?”“I like Justin,” Josie proclaimed, and Hank nodded. Of course she did. The guy drove Hank banana shit, but no, Josie liked Justin.“That’s good, Bunny,” he said, and took the nametags from Cindy before giving her an absent smile and turning down the hallway to the daycare area.“Do you like Justin?” she asked, and he smiled. For her, he’d love Justin, marry him, take the guy into his house and give him foot rubs.“Yeah, of course I do!”He hated that guy.Of all the flame-outs Hank had ever seen, in college and after, Justin was by far the most dramatic, over-the-top boy-princess in the entire northern half of the state. Oh God. Even as they got near the playroom enclosure, Hank could hear him squeal. And of course, the kids loved him.“Oh my God! Do you guys think… did I hear… is Santa going to be coming to Cal-Fit? Did you know that? Santa is coming to Cal-Fit! Are you all going to be here?”“Yes!” The cheer was deafening, and Hank actually looked at the door before he opened it and saw that there was going to be an event on Saturday. Oh wonderful. Santa.“Santa?” Josie said, her voice all excited, and Hank started doing his mental schedule all over again.“Of course,” he said. “Santa.” Oh God. Please God. Just let him get to the treadmill. Twenty minutes on the treadmill so he could clear his head. Twenty minutes on the free weights, and a five-minute shower, and he could do this. Just please please please please please let him have his happy time before he figured out how to fit Santa into redoing Josie’s room and dealing with the child welfare services who were going to visit on Monday and who insisted that he show that she would have her own space and—“Justin!” Josie squealed as he opened the door, and Hank looked up to see the cherry on his headache smiling so wide, Hank was surprised the top of his head didn’t fall off.Justin was young—in his second, maybe third year of college, with widely spaced blue eyes, surrounded by a fringe of dark lashes. He had one of those Irish fair complexions, the kind that showed color easily, straight black hair, a heart shaped face, and a nose that tip-tilted on the end. The first time Hank had ever seen him, Hank had thought he was one of the prettiest young men on the planet Earth, ever. And then Justin had opened his mouth.“Josie!” Justin trilled, opening his arms and doing a little dance. Josie squealed, trying to get to Justin as he held court at the end of the coloring table. He’d apparently been inspiring all of the young artists to put glue and green sparkles on their Christmas tree masterpieces.“Justin!” Josie squealed, throwing herself at him after wiggling out of Hank’s arms and almost getting her tiny bunny butt dumped onto the floor of the gym’s daycare room.“Omigah, Bunny,you will never guess what I just told everybody!”“Santa!” Josie squeaked. “You said it was going to be Santa! Uncle Hank said we could come, isn’t that right Uncle Hank?”Oh God. Commitment time. Hank wondered desperately who he could call to be at his house while the movers delivered Josie’s little white twin bed, so she wouldn’t be lost in the big queen sized that took over what used to be his guest bedroom. But Justin was pouting at him like he was being a big meanie and Josie was glaring at him like he was depriving her of this one and only childhood experience because he was determined to suck at this whole parenting gig, and, oh, hells, even Hank remembered that Santa was important.“I’ll try, Bunny,” he said quietly. “Is that good enough?”“Mommy would make sure I got to see Santa,” she said spitefully, and Hank nodded. Yup, that was the truth. Amanda would have taken Josie to see Santa for the photo op. Amanda would have shown a picture of Josie sitting on Santa’s lap while wearing a red velveteen dress she hadn’t been able to afford, and then shown all of her friends just to listen to them coo, and then she would have told Josie to go away, couldn’t Josie see that mommy was talking to her friends? And then she would have dropped Josie at a friend’s house while she, Amanda, went out to party because why was a girl her age at home with a child anyway? Didn’t she deserve to party? Hadn’t she earned that right? She’d had the kid’s picture taken with Santa, after all.“Yeah, Bunny,” Hank said, needing the freedom of the treadmill like he needed nothing else in the world. “Your mommy would have made sure you got to see Santa.”He wasn’t sure what was in his voice when he said it, but Justin flinched back, and Josie stuck her tongue out at Hank, and Hank signed his name on the roster. “I’m going to have my earbuds in,” he muttered, because this was something they had to know. “If you need me, you need to come get me.”And with that he fled the daycare, leaving Justin who was probably going to cry about what a big meanie Hank was and tell Josie that he was a big loser and that any uncle who couldn’t sprinkle glitter on Christmas trees was obviously not going to be a good bet as a parent.Yeah, well, until the better mommies and uncles lined up to take her, Hank was all she got .
He changed quickly and queued some Linkin Park up on his iPod, putting it in the handy little case that wrapped around his bicep. He’d always been an active kid, and when you worked your body a lot, it tended to protest when that sort of activity stopped. He’d also always liked this gym—it was designed specifically for families—and he liked it even more now that he had a family to bring here.But at the moment, with Linkin Park queued up, he wasn’t thinking about the daycare, or the nice supportive vibe or the kindness of the staff. He was thinking about nothing more than warming up and pushing his body to the point where all the stiffness got worked out, and then cooling down responsibly—and getting it all done before daycare closed. He didn’t want to impose.Oh, gods! It felt so good! There was no worrying about keeping custody of Josie, no worrying if Amanda was going to come back and completely disrupt Josie’s life, no worrying if his job was too many hours or if he was doing enough as a parent, no stressing about Christmas and getting all the little details down. There was no disappointment in his sister or irritation at their mother or loneliness at doing all of this alone or—The hand tapping his shoulder startled him so much he missed a step, which sucked because he was going fast enough for the treadmill to throw him hard against the console, slamming his shoulder with enough force to bruise. The rebound threw him backward and he was just seizing hold of the handrails so he could stabilize and press the stop button, when a long-fingered hand darted in front of him, and pushed the stop button for him. Hank grabbed hold of the handrails and steadied himself, panting and furious, and turned around ready to unload his temper and his pain and found himself face to face with the one person he hadn’t been running from.“Justin?” he asked, his temper skating the fine edge, and Justin grimaced.“I’m sorry, Mr. Calder—I really am. But Josie has to go potty, and company policy says that her guardian has to take her. We’re not allowed to.”Oh. “Oh.” God, he felt dumb. “Of course.”Suddenly Justin—who had shown some clear-headedness turning off the treadmill—started shaking his hands and trilling, and Henry was not in the mood.“Ohmigah omigah omigah! Mr. Calder—you’re bleeding!”Hank looked down at his aching arm and saw that Justin was right. “Fuck,” he said succinctly. “Fuck. Just… hell. Okay. Let me get Josie to the bathroom. I’ll get some Band Aids or—”“Don’t worry about it,” Justin assured him, flapping his wrist airily. Hank had picked the treadmill closest to the wall, and Justin grabbed a disinfectant bottle, paper towel, and poly gloves from the little alcove made just for that purpose. As he spoke, he put on the gloves and wiped the console that had taken a chunk of Hank’s skin. “I’ve got the supplies, you just get your little princess to the potty before we have lots of things to clean up, okay?”Hank grunted, sort of impressed by his competence and the triceps flexing as he worked, and Justin turned to him, furrowing his brow. “Okay?”Deep breath. The kid was doing his job. It wasn’t his fault Hank hadn’t been laid in a year and a half. “Okay,” Hank said mildly. “Proceed.”Justin smiled, like he’d won something, and Hank followed him down past the weight machines to the daycare room again. There was a tiny little bathroom adjoining the playroom, and Hank walked Josie over to it as fast as he could.“Wait outside!” Josie ordered, and Hank nodded.“Right.”He stood outside and listened to her tinkle, and Justin approached him. His hands were already encased in the poly gloves, and he had a first aid kit open on the tiny kid-sized table.“This really isn’t nece—”“Oh, of course it is,” Justin said, a playful inflection in his voice. “Besides! We’re trained to do this and everything. I’ve been dying for someone to bleed on my watch, just so I could doctor them up and prove I can! How else am I going to get my merit badge?”Hank allowed a brief laugh to escape. “I have no idea,” he said, and then, calling behind him into the bathroom, “Josie, angel, how you doing in there?”“I have to go number two!” she called back, and Hank looked at the clock and sighed. So much for his workout or his cool down or working out any of the anxiety that had built up in his muscles over the—“Ouch!” he cried, pulled out of that death spiral of frustration by the sudden sting at his arm.“Sorry!” Justin apologized brightly. He was dabbing at the cut on Hank’s arm with a cotton ball and some hydrogen peroxide, a look of concentration on his face.Hank grunted. He didn’t want to be a baby.“So,” Justin said, setting the cotton ball down on the absurdly small table next to them, next to the rest of the first aid kit, “why don’t you want to take her to see Santa?” He picked up another cotton ball then and smeared some antibiotic ointment on it, and his attention on those things were what let Hank answer.“I’m dying for her to see Santa,” he said, more sincerely than he thought possible. “But the social worker is coming on Monday to give me full custody, and her bed is coming on Saturday. I want it to look like her room, so it’s perfect.” Justin smeared the ointment delicately on his arm, and Hank sighed. “She needs permanent. And that’s—”“Ohmigah! That’s way more important than Santa!” Justin said, and Hank turned to him, surprised.“I know but—”“I can totally see why you’d want to do that more! Why can’t you just tell her that? She’s a smart girl, I’m sure she’d understand.”“Uncle Hank!” Josie called imperiously. “Are you still there?”“Right here, Bunny!”“Mommy likes to sing when I’m in the potty so I don’t get scared.”Hank met grim eyes with Justin, who grimaced, and then launched into something Hank and Amanda’s mother had played almost constantly when they’d been kids.“I’m on top of the world looking down on creation—” And then Josie’s voice interrupted imperiously.“Christmas music, Uncle Hank!”Hank closed his eyes. “Deck the halls with boughs of holly—”“Tra la la la la,” Justin chimed in, smiling encouragingly, and Hank smiled back, grateful for the moral support, and they continued.“La la la la.”Justin bandaged his arm and they kept singing. They made it through the entire song by the time she was ready to go—after needing some help with the cleanup, of course. Hank figured that there was nothing more guaranteed to let you know where you stood in the order of the world than a four year old, bending over the potty, waiting for you to wipe her behind.

WOOT WOOT!

I'm probably going to cross-post this one, because it's chock full of news!

First of all-- woo woo!  I finished my Nano Project.  Not just reached the word limit, but finished the project--and that's exciting.  The book is called Bolt Hole, and I tackled an African American protagonist in this one, and I love him dearly, but God, I hope readers see that love.  Race is such a fragile truce in this country--and I wanted us to see that truce in action.  Anyway, the story is written, it is submitted, and the worry is all in the accepting.  *please please please*  But I got the little badge, just to brag:-)

Second of all-- woo woo!  On Saturday, all of the Evergreen Christmas Advent Calendar will be available for individual sale, (although you may want to check it out now, because it is available at a very good price!) and that includes my Christmas story, Turkey in the Snow.  For Turkey, I started with that moment that I know well.  It's the moment when I'm exhausted and the kids need me and I'm tired from my job and my responsibilities, and oh. God, they all need a piece of me and I'm not sure if there's anything left to give.

And suddenly?  There's help.

Now, for me, my help is Mate, but there were times when he was, by necessity, not there.  That has made me appreciate all of his help, whether it's the kind I had anticipated or not.  That is the dynamic that starts between Hank and Justin, and (like Bolt Hole, actually) it's one of my more personal, smaller stories.  I wanted authentic, and I wanted real, and I wanted to show that authentic and real can also end happy.

Here is the blurb for Turkey in the Snow:

Turkey in the Snow   $3.99
By Amy Lane
Since Hank Calder’s four-year-old niece, Josie, came to live with him, his life has been plenty dramatic, thank you, and the last thing he needs is a swishy, flaming twinkie to complicate things. But when Justin, the daycare worker at his gym, offers to do something incredibly nice for Hank—and for Josie—Hank is forced to reconsider. Justin may be flamboyant in his speech and gestures, but his heart and kindness are as rock steady and dependable as anyone, even Hank, could ask for. Can Hank trust in his dramatic “turkey in the snow” to offer his heart the joy he and Josie have never known?

So I hope you enjoy this-- How to Raise an Honest Rabbit and Knitter in His Natural Habitat were both serendipitous in timing.  I wrote them when I wrote them, they were set in the holidays, and, holy cow, that's when they were released!  It was awesome.  But Turkey in the Snow was written especially for Christmas, and it's tight and small and I hope you love it.

And speaking of How to Raise an Honest Rabbit, (and how mad people were about what happened to a certain someone at the end of Knitter in his Natural Habitat) I have a special treat for Jeremy's fans.  On I've posted a free Jeremy fic called Blackbird Singing in the Dead of Night for those of you who finished Knitter in his Natural Habitat and wanted to see some more Jeremy.   (Warning-- there are SPOILERS IN THIS!  It happens AFTER Stanley's story and that plot thing we shall not mention!!!)

Oh yes-- and one more thing.

I will be at the Dreamspinner Press page on Facebook on Saturday, December 1st, if you want to log on and (GENTLY) yell at me for what I did there.  I'll be on from 1p.m. PST, and I look forward to seeing you there!

Stanley's Hat!

Okay, so I'm starting to realize that I knit like I cook.

I have a few staples, a few things I do really well, and although I'm capable of reading a recipe, atm, my time and circumstance just does not lend itself to that much fanciness, which is a shame, because I've done some bitchin' color work in my time, and cables as well.  But that's okay.  Staples keep you fed and they keep your head warm too.  So a lot of the things I've been sharing, both on the blog and when I'm putting patterns to go with the knitting stories, have been very very basic.

And people (that's actually plural!  I'm sort of mind-blown!) have been asking for the basic pattern of the Stanley Hat.

Now not everyone has read Knitter in His Natural Habitat but I know a few of you were around for the  Family of hats, but the Stanley hat is really, just a basic stocking hat.  In the book, it's his second project, and he makes it to give to Johnny, and Johnny's head is a little big so it curls around Johnny's ears.  (Which means try not to underestimate how long you should knit it--Stanley was knitting from my own experience there.)

It's got two variations-- ribbing on the bottom, or rolled bottom, and seriously, if I were going to teach someone how to make a hat, I'd start with this one.  Nothing could be easier.  (The hat you see in the pictures here is Big T's, which is why it's so huge, and it's striped.  The stripes are a different matter-- pretend it's all one color.  The pattern is the same, swear!)

The key to making the Stanley Hat (as I'm going to call it-- mostly it's been the basic hat) is multiples of 8.  If you are knitting approximately 4 stitches per inch, with worsted weight yarn-- I personally use a size six or seven circular needle, because I tend to make my gauge really big!--you will knit a hat with a 20 inch circumference.  Most adults run between 20-22 inches, and it stretches, so I cast on 80 stitches for any adult but me or my ginormous son.  We get 88 stitches and a lot of length.  My younger son, and even Squishy, who both have a sizable noggins for spawn so short, get 72 stitches, and if I were casting on for a toddler, I'd go for 66.

So that's the first part.

Worsted weight, 4 st. per inch, circular needles and DPN's for when the decrease gets too small, and you're ready to go.

CO 80 stitches.

Big T's ribbed bottom hat.  Ignore the stripes. They're
 another blog post.The second part is the brim.  If you want it rolled, uhm, just start knitting on the circs.  Around and around and around and around and around.  Stop when you want to shoot someone, measure it against the head in question (put it on--seriously.  Put. It. On.  The sudden decrease caused by the 16 inch circular span is offset by the extra length you put into the kind of decrease you use.  It works!)  Anyway, start decreasing when it reaches the earlobes.  Stanley's hat for Johnny rolled up because Johnny had a big, Italian head (and I know about those!) so although he probably knitted it until it went down to his earlobes, it lost that length when it was going around Johnny's head.  Remember that-- if you're knitting for someone with a watermelon that blocks out the moon, GO LONG!  If you're knitting for Mate, who has an itty bitty pin-head, or the spawn who bear his mark-- Chicken mostly--take that earlobe thing very seriously or it will fall in your victim's, er, recipient's eyes.

If you want ribbed, you cast on the right number of stitches.  A 2x2 rib works very evenly around that hat.  Work that for about two inches--more if you want more--and then switch to stockinette.

Use the same gauge for when to stop-- the bottom of the earlobe thing.  (In the case of the ribbed brim, it's better to stop early and let it ride up, because there is no easy way to get that thing out of your eyes.)

Now you're ready to decrease.  Remember, when the hat gets too small near the crown, use DPNs or two circs or whichever decreasing method works for you.  (Sometimes, when I get impatient, I manage to keep all the stitches on the same needle, but it's frustrating and makes me want to kill small animals.  Better to just have the other needles on hand.)

I use what I call the "Octopus Decrease" because that's what it looks like when you're done, and because you may have noticed my aversion to math.

Note-- if you're using 88 stitches, start out by knitting 9 stitches and knitting the 10th and 11th stitch together, and follow directions as they're written below.
If you're using 72 stitches, start out by knitting 7 stitches and then knit the 8th and 9th stitches together, then follow directions in the pattern indicated below.

For 80 stitches:
The first round of decreasing, knit 8, knit the 9th and 10th stitch together, repeat around the hat.
Knit one round plain.
The second round of decreasing, knit 7, and knit the 8th and 9th stitch together: repeat around the hat
Knit one round plain
The third round of decreasing, knit 6, and knit the 7th and 8th stitch together: repeat around the hat
Knit one round plain
And I bet you can see where this is going, right?  Continue to decrease in this way until there are 3 (THREE) stitches between decreases, so 4 stitches per section, and you've knit your one plain round.
Knit two together around
Knit two together around again.
The Octopus Decrease
You should have 8 stitches left!  If you have 9 or 10 or 7 or 11, screw it and finish off anyway.  Seriously-- unless you're totally anal retentive, (and I'm not, and I'm pretty sure Stanley isn't!) no one who doesn't knit will be able to tell.  If it's someone who knits, odds are, you will have made six mistakes by now anyway, and they'll still appreciate the effort.

Break off the yarn with an 8 inch tail and thread the tail through all the live stitches, pulling them off of the needles, and pull the stitches shut like an adorable little sphincter.  (I write m/m romance-- I'm sorry--it's an inescapable comparison.  Ask me about the little man straddling the needles and why we don't want his nuts in a knot sometime... seriously.  Ask me.)

Finish off both the ends, block and wear on the noggin.  Now, my friend Roxie (whom I love!) has one of those mannequin heads, and her hats always look amazing as they are blocking.  I block MY hats on the couch, like Stanley, where my cats can make sweet lurve to them when I am asleep, and so nobody ever accidentally gets virgin wool, because, well, off of my needles, that's just sad.

 And that's how you make a hat!