Cheyenne Blue's Blog, page 5

Roadtrip!

I love, love, love roadtrips. I love the road unfurling beneath the tyres, and looking around the towns and villages I pass through. I particularly love those long stretches of landscape that you can get on Australian roadtrips with few signs of civilization.

[image error]Most of our roadtrips are done in a very basic way: a four wheel drive with a platform bed in the back, a fridge, a camp stove, and a couple of chairs and a table. The small and unobtrusive nature of the four wheel drive allows us to take very small tracks, and camp in very out of the way places, just pulling over quietly beside a track. In thirty years of doing this, we’ve only been moved on a couple of times, but our footprint is small: no tents, no paraphernalia strewn over a wide area and no campfire.  I don’t think it would work to travel that way if we weren’t unobtrusive.

The other sort of roadtrip I love are campervan ones. We don’t own a campervan, but we often do campervan relocations. The companies that hire these mobile homes often need them moved from city to city. In Oz, typically at this time of year, they need them moved south as people want to drive north for the winter.  For as little as $1 a day, we rent a van and have a few days to drive it to where it needs to be. We drove from Brisbane to Adelaide (about 2,200 kilometres) in a week, passing through the outback communities and the mining town of Broken Hill (Priscilla, Queen of the Desert anyone?). We’ve gone from Airlie Beach to Brisbane, and several times we’ve done the Brisbane to Sydney run.

I’m just back from such a trip. We had four days to drive the 1,000 kilometres to Sydney, which is a nice cruisy pace. The van was super-comfy, and easy to drive, and we took a winding route, part inland, part coastal, to reach the metropolis.

I can usually write on the road too. With one of those laptables, and a small laptop, I can usually average a thousand words on a stretch of smooth highway. It’s not as easy as at home–there’s always bumps and resultant typos, drama when something gets accidentally highlighted and deleted, and of course the distractions out of the window.  I averaged 1,500 words a day on the most recent trip.

[image error]The main character in my novel Not-So-Straight Sue buys a campervan and takes a winding trip around the Queensland outback before reaching the small town that will be her new home. Certainly, my campervan trips were the basis for writing Sue’s experiences on the road. Sue’s trip, though, is part of her story of coming to terms with her identity and accepting herself. Each kilometre of dusty road settles the landscape deeper into her psyche, each long night of solitude and stars reaffirms her decision to return to Australia.

You can read about Sue’s campervan trips in Not-So-Straight Sue which is available from Ylva Publishing and the usual suspects. You can also hear me read an excerpt from the book on Bookchats, part of The Lesbian Talkshow podcast.

My own campervan stories pop up from time to time. I’m only back home for two days, but I’m already planning the next one.

“Not-So-Straight Sue” is available from Ylva Publishing and from:

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com.au

Amazon.ca

Smashwords

Book Clips: Not-So-Straight Sue

[image error]Listening to books. It seemed strange to me at first. After all, the voice of a narrator can’t compare to the voice in your head as you curl up in silence with a good book. I’m still not on board with audiobooks (although they’re tempting me more and more), however I do love book clips read by the author.

It’s great (and sometimes unexpected) to hear what an author sounds like. The voice that produced the stories I love. Different accents, different intonations, faster, slower, the smile in an author’s voice or the sombre cadence as they read something more weighty.  I very much enjoy these, and have often gone on to buy the book after hearing the clip.

If you know lesfic, you doubtless know The Lesbian Review.  I often check out their reviews and top ten lists when I’m pondering what to read next.  And their podcast, the Lesbian Review Talk Show, has the book clips segment that I love to listen to.

Now, if you’re so inclined, you can once again hear my strange mix of accents reading from my novel, Not-So-Straight Sue.   The romance, set in outback Australia, has an American character, but don’t worry, I don’t attempt a Texan accent! You’ll have to listen to my blend of Aussie, with a bit of Brit,  reading a very Australian story about an Australian lawyer and a Texan doctor.

Please do check it out at The Lesbian Talk Show. I hope you enjoy it.

Want to know more about Not-So-Straight Sue?  Check out the review over at The Lesbian Review.

You can purchase Not-So-Straight Sue from the following places:

Ylva Publishing

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com.au

Amazon.ca

Smashwords

 

What I’m giving up… And what I’m not

So many writers whinge they don’t have time to write. Yeah, I’m absolutely one of them.

I have writing goals. They’re not set in stone but they’re always there, sliding in and out of my head like melted ice cream. I want to write two novels each year. Ideally, I also want to have two novels published each year, but as I work with a publisher, that one is largely out of my hands. I can’t control publishing schedules.

I’m a fairly fast writer. When I’m in the groove, I can manage 1800 words an hour. When I’m not in the groove, I’m lucky to manage 500 words. Staring into space is so time-consuming.  Even so, I should be able to knock over an 80K novel in, oh, 60 or so hours? Even at 6 hours a week, that’s only ten weeks. And that schedule allows six months per novel. Six months!  That is so much time.

Wrong.

I have a full-time-and-then-some day job with a round trip of 1.5 hours of driving. I have a partner who loves me and would like to talk to me and be answered by something more than a grunt. If I don’t get seven hours of sleep a night, I’m snarly and snappy. I have friends. There are other things I like to do, such as sitting on the deck at sunrise with a coffee, or at sunset with a glass of wine. Cooking. Eating. Growing veggies. Camping and road trips. Staring at the tennis on the TV for hours at a time. Reading. Then there are things I hate but have to do, such as the taxes.

And of course there are other writing and publishing related tasks that take time. I edit for other people.  Social media. My publisher wants stuff; right now, I should be completing the cover questionnaire and dredging my brain for a tagline for the last novel, the one that is finished, and with them, but is oh-so-not finished when it actually comes down to it. Next month the edits will come back and that will be the start of a lot more work.

Right now, I’m one month in on my current WIP. My six months is neatly packaged from 1 January to 30 June.  I’ve written 8K so far. No worries, I’m thinking, as I procrastinate some more. Oceans of time. I’ll just watch this Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries re-run I’ve seen three times before. But a novel to edit has just arrived. We’re buying a house. There is a shit-load of work in getting that sorted (and that’s before we have it and there will be a triple shit-load of work in setting it right). I predict that those things will be sorted exactly as the edits arrive for the last book.

Tennis Season!

[image error]I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve used this photo in a post. A lot. Because I love it.  I love it for many reasons: tennis is my sporting passion and Amelie Mauresmo (now retired) represented the pinnacle of women’s tennis for me. Huge skill, power, supreme athleticism, grace, fire, and persistence.  An all-court, attacking game with a huge variety of strokes. She won two grandslam titles: the Aussie Open and Wimbledon. She was gracious and calm in the face of criticism about her personal life, her physique, and her temperament.  When she was 19, she outed herself at the Australian Open after winning the final, when she jumped into the arms of her lover.  She basically shrugged at the backlash, called the detractors “a little stupid” and carried on.  Amelie Mauresmo is forever and always my Number 1 tennis crush.

Hello, 2017

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Farewell, 2016. Seldom has a year been so up and down. Let’s start with the ups, because I’m a glass-three-quarters full kind of person. And I’m a writer, so this post is mainly about writing.

2016 was the second year I focused on writing longer fiction. Novels. It still feels like a big scary jump for this little black duck who spent the first fifteen years of her writing career writing short stories.

But, short stories don’t sell too well anymore, which is a shame. I hear it in a lot of places–not just erotica and romance markets.  So, move with the times, Cheyenne. Certainly, there seem to be fewer anthology calls, and my three mini-anthology collections of my erotic short lesbian fiction languish down the bottom of the Amazon pile, selling a few copies every so often. (Curious? Do check them out, if tempted. Blue Woman Stories Volumes 1, 2 and 3 contain some of the stories I’m most proud of. All erotic, but all romantic too).

[image error]In 2016, I wrote two novels (Fenced-In-Felix and a second one which I only sent to my publisher, Ylva Publishing, yesterday). I also had two full length novels published: Not-So-Straight Sue and Felix. I had a short story, Bunya Bunya, included in Andi Marquette and R.G. Emanuelle’s anthology Order Up: A Menu of Lesbian Romance and Erotica which is an awesome anthology and well worth checking out.

And I love writing longer. I do. 2016 was the year I learned the joy of sitting with the same characters for months, not hours, and immersing myself in their lives. As the three books of my “Girl Meets Girl” series contain overlapping characters, and main characters from one book play a supporting role in the next, I’ve lived with Nora, Sue, and Felix (and of course Ger, Moni, and Josie) for a couple of years now. I’ll miss them. But it’s time to focus on Freya and Lily (in the novel sent off only the other day) and the two as yet unnamed women for the story in my head.

That’s it. Not much for a whole year of writing, is it?

[image error]I think it is. Those two novels plus the short story total approximately 150K of finished words (plus approximately 10K culled from first drafts and jottings that went nowhere). That’s a spit in the ocean for some writers, but it’s a lot for me.

I have a day job, one that I enjoy, and right now, giving it up is not an option. And I don’t want to just yet. But those 38 hours (plus) each week at work, plus a 50 minute each way commute from my rural home to the coastal strip, well… that’s a lot of time.

Writing wise, what I take away from 2016 is this:

I can write two novels in a year, plus the revisions and editing changes (and  blurbs, decisions and minutiae of the pre-publication process) reasonably comfortably. Included in that year are also a few editing projects, most notably for my friend, Harper Bliss. More than two major writing projects a year ain’t gonna happen, not while I have a day job, not if I want to spend time with my partner, travel, cook, exercise, make cheese, camp, read, and just enjoy sitting on the deck with a glass of wine watching the sunset. That’s the sunset from my deck above, and it’s the second best time of day. The best would be watching the dawn from the same deck with a coffee.

[image error]I also think I’m very lucky to work with the publishers I do: Ylva Publishing (who publish my novels) and Ladylit Publishing (who publish my anthologies and single-author collections) are both wonderful to deal with. The women who run them are dedicated, knowledgeable, hardworking, funny, just so downright nice, and all genuinely want to make a book as good as it can possibly be. I value them greatly.

I also take from 2016 that I should not measure myself against others when it comes to writing. What one person loves, another will hate. I’ve read books by other lesfic authors that I’ve adored–but why aren’t they selling well? I’ve read books that I thought were utter crap–but they’re flying onto Kindles everywhere (and the other way around too). These extremes are not a yardstick I have to adopt. I take that I write what I write, and that I keep on writing. Keep on writing, that’s what I mainly take from 2016.

[image error]2016 has also consolidated that I need to outline my novels (but not short stories), write a first draft as quick as I can so that I don’t go off the boil, and then allow twice as much time as I think I will need to polish that hideous first draft. FWIW, I enjoy the polishing process a lot.

2016 was also the year that I finally, finally, made it on to Facebook. I’m not sure what I think of that, as yet. I’m still poking around trying to get the hang of it, and the etiquette of it all.

2016 also reinforced that I really am not comfortable with self-promotion. Even this blogpost feels self-indulgent.  The thought of an author reading fills me with terror. I’m the sort of person who receives a compliment and who looks behind to see whom it’s really aimed at.

Stepping away from writing, 2016 has been so good in many ways. I continue to live in a rural area of Queensland, that I love. I’m happy in my day job, happy with the quiet times and recharge moments of rural living, and the good friends I have. I’ve perfected my Nepalese Goat Curry recipe, and going wheat free has given major health benefits. I love that we grow a lot of what we eat, and I love too that we can source a lot more from the small producers and farm doors in our local community.

2016 has been a heartbreaking year for politics in two of my citizenship countries. I still can’t talk about the US without getting a sick, dark feeling inside, and while Australia isn’t nearly as bad, there’s a groundswell of similar feeling that disturbs me terribly.

And I will forever miss the genius of Leonard Cohen and David Bowie.

But here’s to 2017.

I plan to write two more novels in 2017. It would be good to have two more published in 2017 as well, but there are pesky things such as acceptance and publishing schedules to consider.

Gray Christmas by Lisabet Sarai

[image error] Happy holidays!

Today, I’m telling you about a new release from acclaimed erotica author, Lisabet Sarai.  Lisabet is one of those golden authors who has been around in the erotica world for a long time. She consistently produces wonderful (and hot!) stories, writing across a variety of genres.

I was thrilled to include her story “The First Stone” in my 2015 anthology Forbidden Fruit: stories of unwise lesbian desire.

Over the years, I’ve read many, many of her stories–even the ones that push my comfort zones. She’s that good.

Lisabet has a new 8,000 word story out for the holidays. You can read about it below.

Widowed author Emma Granger has reconciled herself to spending Christmas Eve in snowy Boston, with a nice bottle of Pinot Grigio and her cat Vronsky. Her daughters have their own lives on the West Coast. Emma knows she can’t expect them to visit every holiday.

 

A loud crash from the apartment above her overturns her plans for a quiet evening at home. When she investigates, she meets Nick North, an energetic iconoclast with a gray ponytail, a silver earring and bright blue eyes that kindle feelings she’d thought were gone forever. Nick is her own age, maybe older, but his lean body and impish grin affect her as if she were a horny teenager.

 

Although Emma makes her living writing spicy romance, sex with a stranger seems ludicrous when you’re an arthritic grandmother in your sixties. Still, the attraction she feels for her charismatic upstairs neighbor appears to be reciprocated. A Christmas fling might be just what Emma needs to brighten her holiday.

 

Buy Links

 

Amazon  US – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N6JJIQD/

 

Amazon UK –   https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01N6JJIQD/

 

Smashwords –  https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/691291

 

Coming to other vendors soon! (I hope…)

 

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33550862-gray-christmas

 

Free book! One day only!

[image error]If you’re not hootenannied out from the love and free books over at Women and Words over the last twelve days, there’s one more free lesfic romance on offer at Ylva Publishing.

Today only, 24 December, you can download a free copy of the first book in my Girl Meets Girl series. Never-Tied Nora. This is the last book in Ylva’s Advent giveaway.

So if there’s still room on your ebook reader, and you fancy some happy romantic reading, check out Never-Tied Nora. 

“Never- tied -Nora left me feeling elated and joyful in a way no book has done for a long time. ” Goodreads Reviewer

Nora Kelly loves her carefree London life where there’s always a new woman to seduce. Her big Irish family tease her about her footloose ways, but she knows she’s in no danger of losing her heart.

Her family has only one rule when it comes to dating: Nora can date any woman she wants—as long as she’s not a Flannery. The Kellys and the Flannerys have been feuding ever since both families arrived in London from Ireland sixty years ago, and time has not lessened the hatred.

But never-tied Nora has just met the woman of her dreams, and suddenly commitment isn’t a dirty word. Trouble is, Geraldine is a Flannery.

Can Nora convince Ger that, despite their families, they are meant to be together?

Hurray though! It’s today only. After that, it’s back to the normal price of $4.99.

OMG, so many free books for the holidays!

I haven’t done much reading this month. December is a hugely busy time in the day job (sigh), and I’ve also got a deadline to turn my latest manuscript into my publisher, Ylva, by the end of the year. I’m editing away and will make this deadline (I will squeak in with minutes to spare, but I’ll make it), but that means reading time is down to a few minutes before I fall asleep. Which is Queensland is about 9pm. Hey, I get up at 4am!

I’m not very far in to Slow River by Nicola Griffith, which I’m really enjoying, although finding I have to concentrate. If I drift off, the book’s changed to a different part of the protagonist’s life and then I’m all WTF?!

I’m nearly at the end of Jen Silver’s Christmas At Winterbourne which I love, although I can’t read that when I’m tired either as there are many characters to keep track of. Love the setting of the lesbian retreat in a mansion in the snowy countryside, which sounds quite delightful right now, as it’s a humid 33 degrees here and I’m sitting as close to the fan as I can get.

If you read Lesfic, December is a very good time to get your paws on some excellent free reading.

The ever-awesome Ylva Publishing (and I don’t say that just because they publish my stuff) is giving away a FREE book each Sunday in December, plus one on Christmas eve, which is a Saturday this year, if like me you never know what day it is. Today (quick! quick! get over there) is Fletcher Delaney’s  novel Without a Front: The Producer’s Challenge, which is book 2 in her “Chronicles of Alsea” series.  You can get that over at Ylva.

Then on Christmas Eve, you’ll be able to download my novella Never-Tied Nora, which is book 1 in my “Girl Meets Girl” series.  Keep an eye on the Ylva site on 24 December for that one.

December of course is also the biggest giveaway of them all.  HOOTENANNY over at Women and Words. Is this the biggest lesfic giveaway EVER? I’m not sure, but it sure seems like it. Dozens of books each day for twelve days. We’re at day 6 now, so get your little legs shifting in their direction. I’ve won a book already: Capture the Moon by JL Merrow and I’m looking forward to reading that one. Hootenanny is a great way of maybe getting a book from your favourite author or, even better, discovering a new author to follow. I’m proud to be giving away a couple of my books in this year’s Hootenanny.

Felix comes galloping in

Felix comes galloping in today, on general release just in time for the hot Australian summer. After all, when it’s stinking hot outside,  what’s better than reading about the dust and burning sun and wide, red landscapes of the interior of Australia. Or if you’ve just had first snowfall, or you’re sitting and looking at the rain sheeting down, a little bit of sunshine could be just the thing, like a cold beer on a shady veranda.

There’s cold beer and verandas in Felix. There’s also campfires, wild gallops along dry creek beds, a glorious chestnut mare, old friends revisited, and two main characters who are very different personalities but share a love of horses and the outback life.

 

Fenced-In Felix is available now from Ylva Publishing and from other retailers including:

Amazon.com:

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com.au

Amazon.ca

Smashwords

I hope you’ll check her out.

Fenced-In Felix Giveaways

I love giving away stuff.  Bags of clothes and books to the op shop. Produce from my garden to workmates. Home made jams and chutneys.

And books.

Starting this week, there are two giveaways of my new Aussie lesfic novel, Fenced-In Felix. You can win one of three paperback copies (and hey, they will be sent to many countries) by entering the Goodreads Giveaway.  You have until 25 December for that one.

Or you can comment on my guest blog post over at Lisabet Sarai’s blog. One commenter wins an ebook copy.