Jane Davitt's Blog, page 13

Vote for Life Under New Management!

Life Under New Management has made it through to the next round in The Romance Reviews Readers Choice Awards.

So excited!

If you liked it and wouldn't mind voting for it, you can do so here:

http://tinyurl.com/qan85oh

It needs fifty nominations to go through to the final round.

The Final Round accepted

Loose Id have accepted 'The Final Round' the fourth in the Square Peg series by Alexa and me.

So excited! Obviously no release date yet, since we're entering the editing stage now, but hopefully before the end of the year.

This one focuses solely on Ben and Shane, with the sudden death of Shane's mum taking them over to England to deal with her funeral and Shane's hostile dad.

So good to write these two again. They're our rebellious kinksters, heh, doing it their way with no real frame of reference but what works for them plus a bit of online research (that would be Ben, not Shane.) It's almost a relief to have them not be part of the scene, members of a club, all formal and such. They're just in their bedroom doing their thing. There have to be a lot of people like that, I'd think.

Cherry on the cake

Got back from a family vacation last week. Much fun was had and best of all, we were an hour away from Alexa and her family at one point, so of course we met up and spent a delightful but all too short time with them.

Despite knowing each other for ten years or more, Alexa and I have only met in person once before when they came up to visit us and that was years ago.

We must not leave it so long again. I do so wish she lived closer :-(

We discussed the latest book we're working on next, but mostly we just nattered away ten to the dozen while our kids and husbands did the same.

So lovely to see her again!

Work can be fun

I take the summer off from writing more or less. But I'm still here.

This is a snippet of Suits fic I did a while back to make us appreciate the weekend when we don't have to work.

***

The office should smell of money. Silk ties falling serenely down shirtfronts, expense accounts with multiple zeroes (all before the decimal point).

Or paper. Heavy boxes (weapons) brimful of densely printed sheets leave the air rustle-dry.

Or maybe... No.

The office reeks of sex.

Mike hears Louis talk of ponies, branding, claiming. Hears Harvey's whispered "Good boy" and craves the brush of his hand in all the right (wrong) places.

Walks around hard, his skinny (cheap) tie dangling.

Wants to be worth something and knows he'd blow Harvey for a smile.

Feels cheap. Feels dirty. Feels good.

Loves Mondays.

Random bit from one of my Spike/Angel fics

You learned fast how to kiss and not cut yourself on the viciously perfect edges of fangs. Learned how to curl tongue against tongue and not taste blood. Learned how to fold lips over teeth so flesh could meet flesh safely, sweetly.

But where was the fun in that?

And for all that Angelus' lips would soon be sliding over his and leaving them scarlet, dripping, ragged, and torn, he craved those kisses, cruel and careful as they were.

***

I miss writing fic...there's a freedom to it somehow.

It's gone!

Alexa and I sent 'The Final Round' off to Serena, our editor at Loose Id today. 94,000 words give or take and 255 pages.

Comment with a number between 1-255 and I'll post a non-spoilery sentence from the relevant page :-)

The Final Round

Me to Alexa as we debate book ending: maybe Shane waits at home, all fucked out and sleepy.

That puts such nice pictures in my head...

And, yes, we will finish it today then start editing. Whee...

Spectrum Award Nominee

Thrilled to learn that Lucky Strike my m/m/m SF romance from Riptide has been nominated for this year's Gaylactic Spectrum Award for best novel.

http://www.spectrumawards.org/2014201...

Looking at the other books on the list, many of which I've read and loved, I'm prepping my 'it was an honor to be nominated' speech, heh, but even so, very chuffed.

And...we have a title.

We painted ourselves into a corner because the titles all match:

The Square Peg
The Broken Triangle
The Empty Box

All start with 'the' and have three words.

The - -

Have to have a shape of sorts in there. I suggested The Penultimate Pentagon but I was kidding.

Eventually we came up with ::drum roll::

The Final Round

Because it's the last book and it's the way you order the final round of drinks in a pub, so it seemed to work.

50,000 words done so all going well.

Does the book going well dance

It's kind of a shimmy-wiggle :-)

Alexa and I are over halfway through the fourth and possibly last book in the Square Peg series. It's really flowing well. There's writing when every word seems chipped out of stone and there's tagging with each of you eager for the tag email to appear in your inbox because you're dying to know what happens next (which is one of the benefits of co-writing; you're a reader at the same time as you're a writer).

It might seem odd to follow up book three in the series immediately with book four but we were missing Shane and Benedict and The Empty Box reminded us of how much we loved them. Life's been going smoothly for them since The Square Peg so we've thrown them a curveball (is that right? I'm only vaguely certain what sport that refers to; baseball? I think it is.)

Not giving the whole plot away, but Shane's mum dies and he and Benedict have to fly back to England to deal with the funeral and Shane's awful dad. Alfie is kind of a scene-stealer, bless him.

There's kink, angst, and self-discovery, along with fish and chips, football (soccer!) and ferries. Across the Mersey, naturally.