Austin Worley's Blog: Writing, Reading, and Living with Austin Worley, page 8

Update: May 2023

School’s out, summer is almost here, and it’s time for another monthly update.

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This little flash fic continues to defy my expectations. In fact, it’s grown on me so much it’s not even flash fiction anymore; it’s a full-blown superhero erotica short story now. Based on my current progress and what’s left to write, it looks like final word count will fall somewhere between 2000 and 2500. Well outside even the soft upper limit for Erato II. My new target market is Nobilis Erotica, which gave me a very encouraging personal rejection on “Enough” a couple years back. This story is much faster paced and dialogue heavy, so I think it’s more compatible with their nature as an audio market.

Fortunately, all that remains is the climax and resolution. Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel is encouraging, but there’s still a long way to go. Balancing sensation with emotion and physical description is always tough, and my perfectionism really reared its head on this project. Nevertheless, I’m hopeful I’ll be able to finish the story in the next couple weeks.

After this is all wrapped up, I intend to spend the summer worldbuilding and outlining in support of the long-form projects I mentioned last month: The Captain and the Crown, Law, Love, and the Whippoorwill, and the untitled fantasy romance featuring Arlise.

Speaking of Arlise, I’ve got some good news from the publishing side of this business. “Rekindling” is out in the couples erotica anthology It Takes Two, while fantasy flash fic “Decisions”–my very first published story starring Arlise Dun–is slated for a reprint in the July Issue of The Lorelei Signal. How cool is that?

Since my contributor’s copies of both It Takes Two and Fantastic Detectives arrived, I decided to dive into them this month. So far, I’ve only really made progress on It Takes Two, which is a real scorcher. Only a couple more stories left to read in that one. When it comes to Fantastic Detectives, I’m unsure whether to be a little vain and read my own contribution–“The Skull in the Tree” enjoys the honor of being the very first story in the anthology–or skip ahead to stuff I’ve never seen before.

When it comes to life outside writing, May proved much more tranquil than April. It was still a very cloudy month, so I didn’t enjoy much time under the stars, but I did buy a new telescope: a splendid 8″ Dobsonian telescope, the Apertura AD8. A little higher than my original budget, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to grab such a highly recommended scope.

I’ve only taken it out three times, but it’s been quite impressive so far. Once I’ve finished editing them, I’ll be sharing some astrophotographs taken with it over on DeviantArt. One shot of the Moon might be my best astrophoto yet!

Hopefully I’ll be able to share more good news about writing and astronomy in June!

“Decisions” to be reprinted in The Lorelei Signal

Now that my contract is signed, I can officially announce that my fantasy flash fic “Decisions” is going to be reprinted in the July 2023 issue of The Lorelei Signal!

The Lorelei Signal is a long-running fantasy magazine dedicated to showcasing three-dimensional female characters, so I’m incredibly honored they feel one of my stories–especially one of my earliest ones–fits their vision. For anybody who never read Fifty Flashes, here’s a little teaser for “Decisions”:

“After joining the Order of Watchers, Arlise Dun believes she has found redemption in shielding folk from magic and monsters…until a familiar dilemma rears its ugly head during an encounter with a werewolf cub. Will she make the right decision this time?”

Bringing this story to a fresh set of readers is super exciting, especially since there were some issues with typography in Fifty Flashes. Bits of inner monologue weren’t italicized the way they should’ve been, which made the shift to and from those passages really jarring. This reprint of “Decisions” will showcase the story as it was meant to be.

Keep an eye on this blog for more updates as we approach July!

It Takes Two Release Day!

It Takes Two is officially published!

It takes two to do more than just tango in Bussel’s sizzling new collection of short stories . . .

In It Takes Two, couples take their passion in new directions, giving free reign to their filthiest sexual fantasies. Sometimes, they pretend to be someone else, engaging in erotic role-playing that allows them to embody their most sensual side and say and do things they wouldn’t in their everyday life. From BDSM encounters at Kink Camp to trying out new sex toys to outrageously filthy fetishes, glorious exhibitionism and voyeurism and sex in space, these couples find inventive ways to go wild with the one they love. No matter how well you think you know your partner, there’s always something new to discover about what turns them on, as these characters find out. The erotic stories in It Takes Two are all about rekindling that intimacy and seeking out total ecstasy.

Edited by the award-winning Rachel Kramer Bussel, with contributions by popular authors including Rae Shawn, Christina Berry, and Katrina Jackson, It Takes Two is the perfect read alongside a special someone (or someones).

My fantasy erotic romance “Rekindling” explores a softer side of Knight-Mother Arlise Dun through the eyes of her lover, selkie hunter Earc Mac Toghda. Earc first appeared way back in “The Gale at Quiet Cove”, but this is my first published work written from his perspective.

Not once over the year they spent apart did selkie hunter Earc Mac Toghda feel far from Knight-Mother Arlise Dun. So why has an unspoken rift grown between them over the weeks since she returned to Quiet Cove with their infant daughter Maira? Are the demands of parenthood at fault? Or do their issues run deeper?

Earc doesn’t know the answer to any of those questions. All he knows is they’ll need a white-hot spark to rekindle their love. Fortunately, he has the perfect plan to light one…

If “Rekindling” or any of the other stories in It Takes Two have piqued your interest, the anthology is available as an ebook or hardcover from both Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

AmazonBarnes & Noble

I can’t wait to hear what everybody thinks of “Rekindling”!

And if you’re a book blogger, Instagrammer, or TikTokker interested in reviewing It Takes Two, let me know so I can put you in touch with Cleis Press while there are still hardcover review copies available.

Update on the Hardcover Edition of Fantastic Detectives

If you’ve been wondering where the hardcover of Fantastic Detectives is, wonder no more!

The lead editor got in touch with us last week to let us know he’d been dealing with some health issues, which delayed both the launch of the hardcover and some promotional initiatives. As things stand, it looks like the hardcover will be out sometime later in May. My contributor’s copy should be arriving sometime soon, as well as promo images for “The Skull in the Tree.”

Speaking of promotion, the editors are looking for reviewers. So if you’ve got a book blog and are interested in “The Skull in the Tree” or any of the other tales in this fantasy mystery anthology, let me know and I’ll put you in touch Dave and Donna.

Update: April 2023

April proved to be an eventful month, though not for the reasons you’d hope.

When it comes to writing, I focused almost exclusively on the superhero erotica flash fic. Flash fiction usually doesn’t take me so long to write, but intensely emotional pieces are always tricky to express in words. Some of the choreography related to…creative applications of telekinesis also gave me some trouble because the scene is so unique.

Fortunately, I’ve already finished that part of the story and forged into the actual sex. There’s still a little bit of description needed for the sensations and movements, but most of what remains is emotional inner monologue and dirty talk. I’m hoping I’ll be able to finish this week. Originally, I’d be up against a super tight deadline to hit my target market–an erotic flash anthology from Cleis Press–but the story looks like it’ll be a little too long anyway, so my eye is now on a different anthology with a looser word limit and a much more distant deadline. Finishing by August definitely won’t be a problem.

I haven’t fleshed out the heroes and villains of this setting much beyond Whippoorwill and her immediate orbit, so this piece presented an opportunity to add some new faces: Eidolon, Kinesis, and Fortuna. Eidolon/Eli Woods is a (mostly) reformed thief with invisibility powers and a submissive streak. Kinesis/Linh Vo is a relentlessly good telekinetic superheroine who’s a member of the Three Guardsmen, a state-sanctioned superhero team active in Oklahoma. Fortuna doesn’t appear in the story, but she’s a supervillainess who can manipulate probability and sells her abilities to rig everything from casino slot machines to sports to elections.

Obviously erotic flash fiction doesn’t leave much room for worldbuilding or superheroics, but I’m very happy with the blend in this tale, and the chemistry between Linh and Eli is so delicious I might have to write full-on novel starring them at some point.

Once I finish this story, I plan to return to revising my setting notes on Tales of the Watchers while also working on comprehensive outlines for the “The Captain and the Crown” and the novelizations of both “The Gale of Quiet Cove” and “Law, Love, and the Whippoorwill”. Whichever one I like best is the one I intend to work on the rest of the year in the hopes of finishing a full draft.

I spent most of April reading Cold Hearted, a top-tier romantic suspense novel by Toni Anderson. Much grimmer than you might expect in a romance, but the relationship between the leads does a good job of balancing out the darkness. Also, I really enjoyed the references to characters from A Cold Dark Place.

After such a dark book, I decided to go with something lighter in On the Run with a Supervillain. I really enjoyed Burke’s sweet superhero romance Blind Date with a Supervillain, and this book is shaping up to be a worthy sequel.

Most of that eventfulness I mentioned at the beginning of this post came outside of writing. My little brother dislocated his kneecap the Friday before last, which required a trip to the emergency room and kept him off his feet for a few days. I doubled as nursemaid, which really isn’t my forte. Nevertheless, he’s up and walking now. Hopefully everything heals properly!

After some fantastic looks at the Pink Moon earlier this month, astronomy hit a bit of a dry spell. The past two weeks have been nothing but clouds and rain, and mosquitoes are coming out in force. When we finally get clear skies again, I’ll definitely need some repellant.

There is one bright spot, though: the IRS finally finished processing my amended return from last year, which leaves me with a bit of spending money. I plan on taking this opportunity to invest in a new, significantly bigger telescope. Right now, I’m trying to decide between a six-inch and an eight-inch Dobsonian. An excellent, affordable eight-inch is out of stock at the moment and probably won’t be back for a while, so I’ve got some tough decisions to make.

When the time comes to post my next update, maybe I’ll be able to share some new astrophotos!

It Takes Two Preorder Discount

Good news for anyone interested in preordering It Takes Two: Barnes & Noble is offering 25% off preorders until 2:59 a.m. on April 29th with the code PREORDER25!

This couples erotica anthology is available in hardcover and ebook formats from both Barnes & Noble and Amazon, with release day currently slated for May 9th. Any second printing will be in paperback, and an audiobook is in the works.

It Takes Two features nineteen scorching tales, including my fantasy erotic romance “Rekindling”:

Not once over the year they spent apart did selkie hunter Earc Mac Toghda feel far from Knight-Mother Arlise Dun. So why has an unspoken rift grown between them over the weeks since she returned to Quiet Cove with their infant daughter Maira? Are the demands of parenthood at fault? Or do their issues run deeper?

Earc doesn’t know the answer to any of those questions. All he knows is they’ll need a white-hot spark to rekindle their love. Fortunately, he has the perfect plan to light one…

“A Helping Hand” Release Date

Things aren’t set in stone, but I do have some good news about “A Helping Hand”: the story is currently set to release on June 1st as part of the Brief Encounters anthology series from Adekon Publishing!

“A Helping Hand” takes place early in the career of my vigilante superhero Whippoorwill. She’s young, inexperienced, and a little in over her head when it comes to fighting the more powerful gangs in and around Oklahoma City. Most of all, she’s alone. But not for long. An encounter with an orphaned street kid is about to turn her life upside down.

Hopefully we hit the release date without any further days. I can’t wait to share this story with you!

Happy Easter!

I hope everybody who celebrates has a wonderful Easter Sunday. Consider this haiga made using one of my favorite haikus and some lovely art licensed through Canva Pro a gift from me to you. Enjoy!

Update: March 2023

March managed to be simultaneously unproductive and hectic, so I ended up procrastinating this update out of the month. But, hey, at least spring has sprung!

“In Praise of the Knight-Sister”

First up, my best news in March: “The Skull in the Tree” is finally published in Fantastic Detectives! It’s been a long road, from writing this novelette in December 2021 to waiting on pins and needles until the acceptance last summer to edits and delays, but I finally get to share this story with the world. Personally, I feel like this piece is one of my best. It’s certainly my favorite story starring Arlise. I really enjoyed revisiting her and her world after so long.

Otherwise, March was a rough month. My story for Summer of Speculation stalled out early on, so about the only good thing to say there is that at least I didn’t come close to finishing, cram, and miss the deadline anyway. After giving up on that project, I toyed with an idea for the next issue of Whetstone. Unfortunately, stringing together words on anything became a struggle this month, and my pace is an excruciatingly slow crawl.

There is one bright spot, though. Since I follow Cleis Press over on Instagram, I saw they posted a new call for submissions seeking erotic flash fiction. The wordcount is tight, but an interesting premise for superhero erotica blindsided me. This is the first idea to really capture my imagination since “What Good Fathers Do”, so I immediately dedicated all my attention to working on the story. I’d almost completely broken through my writer’s block until a massive interruption last week.

A past Upwork client tried requesting a refund on work completed six months ago. Work he’d given rave reviews just a couple weeks earlier, telling me I’d gone above and beyond in my duties as an editor and asking me to edit another project for him. When asked for information about what kind of issue prompted such a stark change in attitude, he refused to speak with me or customer support further. Since this seemed like evidence the request wasn’t made in good faith, I rejected any refund and customer support closed the case on Upwork. Everything appeared to be resolved…except now he’s trying to contact me outside Upwork. I’m currently in contact with the company, hoping to head this off before it devolves into cyberstalking.

Losing out on future business opportunities is never fun, but I’m not going to tolerate that kind of unprofessional behavior.

My current plans for April involve finishing the superhero erotica story–which takes place in the same universe as my stories about Whippoorwill, though this one doesn’t involve her–and working on outlines for my novelizations of “The Gale at Quiet Cove” and “Law, Love, and the Whippoorwill”. Once those are finished, I’m going to evaluate each of my novel and novella projects to decide which one I want to spend the rest of the year working on.

My March reads were all fantasy romance: His Secret Illuminations and The Midwinter Mail-Order Bride. The former is one of my new favorites, in part because it’s the only M/F romance I’ve ever read told exclusively from the male point of view. The sheer novelty is intriguing, the story is interesting, and once you get through the slow-burn phase of the romance, it’s a scorcher.

The latter is a fairly short novella, and the romance isn’t earth-shattering, but I adored the worldbuilding. Such a deep magic system for fantasy romance! Also, it was cool to see such heavy influence from Robert E. Howard’s stories about Conan in a romance. I’ve always thought a Conan/Sword & Sorcery-inspired romance would be interesting.

The HyadesTycho CraterThe Pleiades

Outside of writing, I’ve continued stargazing on clear nights. Now that I have a tripod to hold my binoculars steady, I’m taking a few shots through them as well. They’re perfect for capturing wide star clusters like the Alpha Persei Cluster or the Hyades, which you can see on the left. I’ve still been taking photos with my telescope, too. The Moon is one of my new favorite targets simply because of the detail the phone camera can capture if you reduce the ISO. Here you can see Tycho, one of the most famous craters on the Moon.

I’m hoping I’ll be able to buy a larger telescope sometime this year. My eye is currently on a reflector from Orion with double the aperture of my Meade DS-2080.

We’ll see what’s in store for April. Hopefully I hear more news on “A Helping Hand”, or maybe some of my submissions from last year and the past few months. If nothing else, I’ll be posting another update in a couple weeks!

Fantastic Detectives Release Day!

Fantastic Detectives is officially published!

From worlds like our own, except for a touch of magic or the supernatural, to completely unique fantasy realms, there will always be those who use their powers for murder and mayhem.

Come meet the stubborn detectives who simply won’t let those crimes go unsolved…

•    A Duelist-at-Law intervenes in the matter of a deadly affair of honor.
•    A private detective who takes on ghosts for clients…provided their estate can pay him.
•    A poet attempts to avert a man’s unjust execution…using strategically applied haiku.
•    A rabbi wizard has a Hell of a hard time tracking down an undead murderer.
•    An albino nun investigates a murder that could only have been committed by an angel.
•    A knight-mage atones for her past sins by tracking down the source of an evil blood curse.
•    After wizards battle…someone has to clean up the mess.

Plus even more stories from some of the finest crime and fantasy writers in the field!

My fantasy mystery novelette “The Skull in the Tree” enjoys the honor of being the very first story in the anthology. Arlise Dun hasn’t appeared in any of my published fiction since 2020, so it’s really exciting to revisit her and her world!

A skull glares at the cottage from its perch in an old oak tree. A skull whose terrible carvings promise ruin for an innocent family.

Knight-Mother Arlise Dun knows the power of curses bound in blood. Even better, she knows how to break them. But how can she hunt down the hexer responsible for so much misery without endangering her own infant daughter?

If “The Skull in the Tree” or any of the other stories in Fantastic Detectives have you intrigued, you can find the anthology here:

KindlePaperback

Let me know what you think. And if you’re a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, you can currently read Fantastic Detectives for free!