Josh Lanyon's Blog, page 90

Ice, Ice, Baby

Just a quick note. Some of you have mentioned you had problems downloading Icecapade and/or the His for the Holiday anthology.

Those problems have now been resolved -- thank you, Carina Press! -- so you shouldn't have an difficulty downloading.

Sorry again for the inconvenience!

Hope you enjoy the stories. I've got a book to finish, so I'll be scarce for a bit.

Happy reading!

Do They Know It's Reading?

I just posted on Facebook about the big push this year toward ereaders. I'm thinking of you as I write this,  batboy126  . Well, no. Not really. Because you're a dyed in the wool reader. It's the technology you deplore, not the written word. (What does that mean, by the way? Dyed in the wool?)

What I'm wondering, though, is since ereaders seem to be the hip, hot, trendy gift of the season...do all these people realize that ereaders are about books and reading? Because I was standing by the Nook counter at B&N the other day -- JUST LOOKING -- and some of the questions I heard made me wonder whether all these people ordering ereaders for other people quite understand that this is a reading thing.

Books are involved.

Heavily.


I'm not dissing cats, by the way. I like cats. Especially cats that read and write me nice reviews.

But as I was listening in (as I am wont to shamelessly do on occasion), I did get the uneasy feeling that maybe not everyone totally understands the, er, purpose of this neato gizmo.

Anyway, just a thought. I'm about to to cross post the message I sent to my mailing list. Sorry for the duplication for you on the mailing list. If you don't belong to it, you probably should. Even though it's likely I'm going to shift it from yahoo to another more formal mailing thingie. In the near future (and we all know how fast I move on this stuff so the threat is minimal).
 
I don't know if any of the links will work or not. Let's hope!

 

 

Season's Greetings!

Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving holiday -- we hosted dinner for twelve, and I think we only finished clearing up the dishes yesterday (I wish I was entirely kidding, but our dishwasher is broken).

I'll probably have one update before the end of the year, but there are a few things I want to share now as they're time sensitive.

If you haven't read my holiday novella, The Dickens with Love, it's currently a free download on Amazon Kindle and B&N Nook. It will remain a free download until December 15th, which isn't so very far off. The Dickens with Love is not a mystery, it's a contemporary romance, but if you like your holiday fiction quirky and a bit on the sweet side, I think you'll enjoy this one.

Thank you to all of you who purchased Fair Game and kept it on the bestseller lists for so long. I truly appreciate it. If you enjoy audio books, Fair Game is now available through audible.com  (which means you can also purchase it through Amazon). I happen to love audio books, so this was a real kick for me. It's very weird hearing your words read aloud, but overall I think audible.com made a creditable job of it.

Next time-sensitive bit of information. As I figure most of you know, this year's holiday release is a novella by the title of Icecapade. This is another contemporary romance -- not a mystery --  and you buy the story singly or as part of a four-author  anthology through Carina Press. It goes on sale officially Monday, but you can preorder  now. I know there are often concerns with multi-author anthos (see, I do listen even if I don't always act on it) but this time around I think you'll be especially pleased with the author combo. Maybe it feels a bit special because I'm pals with LB Gregg, Harper Fox, and ZA Maxfield, but I do think they're three of the best writers in this genre.

Anyway, here's the time-sensitive bit. To celebrate the release of the His for the Holiday anthology, LB, Harper, ZAM and I put together a little mini blog tour. Basically it means each of us wrote a post about writing and the holidays and our stories and then we offered some goodies -- and that's going on right now. The blog tour starts at my place  and then moves onto ZAM's  and then Harper's  and LB's.  The goodies are still available so far (for example, no one has so far correctly guessed the holiday song iMix lineup).

Then on the 9th the four of us are appearing at the Carina Press Blog  for more chatter and prizes.

So that's pretty much it for now. You all keep asking about the next Holmes & Moriarity book. All She Wrote, the sequel to Somebody Killed His Editor, is out from Samhain on the 28th of this month, but I'll send a reminder of that as I should have a nice little holiday surprise for you around about then. In the meantime, I do have a book trailer for All She Wrote and you get the sneak preview .

Stay warm! My holiday advice to you: Don't put off till tomorrow what you can do today. That's MY job.

All the best, Josh http://www.joshlanyon.com/ http://jgraeme2007.livejournal.com/http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JoshLanyonTwitter: @JoshLanyon

The Home for the Holidays Mini Blog Tour

 

Twenty three days to Christmas, but only four days to the release of His for the Holidays, an anthology of festive novellas by Harper Fox, L.B. Gregg, Z.A. Maxfield, and Josh the Red-Nosed Writedeer. (I know, I know. I sound like I’m decking the halls about two weeks ahead of schedule.) Anyway, to celebrate the December 6th release, my writing cohorts and I are getting together to do a bit of promoting in the form of a mini blog tour. 

 

In a Dark Wood Cover Contest - THE WINNER

 A very, very sincere thank you to everyone who submitted. I wish I'd needed more than one cover. There were so many wonderful options -- so much inventiveness and creativity offered up. It made it almost impossible to choose. In fact, my ultimate decision was largely based on something I hadn't even considered until I was trying to decide between my "finalists" -- and that was how the photos worked in thumbnail size. So often thumbnail is the size used to display and promote and some of the loveliest covers simply looked like a blur once they were reduced to thumbnails.

Anyway, since I can only choose one cover, I'd like to give everyone who submitted a cover a copy of In a Dark Wood when its re-released -- just a small thank you for your effort.

 
So without further adieu, the winner is #2 (Cover composite 2) by LC Chase! I think it's got the right mood, the right genre feel, and it reduced to thumbnail without losing composition or clarity, which was an added plus. Thank you very much LC. Please drop me a line back channel.

Harper, Flist. Flist, Harper.

This has been such a harried year that I can't recall if I formally introduced my writing pal Harper Fox over here on LJ or not. I officially met Harper about a year and a half ago. I admired the beauty and lyricism of her writing, but more than anything I was struck by the emotional intensity of her work, the passion of it. Passion is a word that gets thrown around a lot -- too much probably -- but something in Harper's stories resonates with me so powerfully, and I can't think of a better word for it than that.

Anyway, today was the launch of her third book, A Midwinter Prince. AMP released from Loose Id and you can purchase it here. The book tells the story of wealthy young Londoner Laurie who falls in love with a mysterious gypsy boy by the name of Sasha.  

So three books into her less than a year old writing career, I thought it might be interesting to check in with Harper and see where she's at -- and get a little of the background on A Midwinter Prince.

 

 But the thing about London is that you can go from heaven to hell without ever leaving Zone One of the Tube map. You can do it on foot without walking more than a mile. I worked for a while at the Natural History Museum (I was selling plastic dinosaurs – don't ask. Though David Attenborough once happened along and complimented me on my stegosaurus), and that meant a daily commute between the splendours of South Kensington and the demi-monde that laps like a restless sea around Charing Cross railway station. Naïve, middle-class little graduate that I was, I felt as detached from that South Ken world – Laurie's world, the world of Mayfair, chauffeur-driven Daimlers and trails of jewel-like perfume in the air – as I did from the homeless kids and gentlemen and ladies of the road who congregated in cardboard boxes underneath the bridge. And my writer's brain, which partly operates to reconcile and give me some sense of being joined with experiences I've never had, was almost overloaded.

 So A Midwinter Prince started there, I think. I wanted to give Mayfair a face and a voice, and do the same for Cardboard City, and so Laurie and Sasha began to take form. More, I wanted to examine just how the hell people get to where they are, because I was struggling for a living then and it seemed to me incredibly easy to make a slip or two, miss a rent payment, and hit that slope which leads to alienation from a faceless, fast-moving society which will mow you down the second you lose your place in its crazy stream. And I was equally fascinated by the pure coincidence of “birth”, of aristocracy, the roll of Fate's die that lands you as the scion of a wealthy family. And looking at some of the high, lonely attic floors of those Mayfair houses, I began to wonder about a rich, good-natured but heedless young man who falls over – almost literally – a representative of that other world, the night-side of his own city, and who ends up throwing off all his family's conventions and expectations because he has fallen in love.

 The music for A Midwinter Prince is the Pet Shop Boys' The Theatre. If I ever had the know-how to make a vid, that would be the background music, definitely. A lot of Sasha's form and poignancy came to me from that song. It brought me nose-to-nose with my own reactions to the homeless people who line the bridge that leads to the National Film Theatre and the Royal Festival Hall, people who knock the frivolous air out of your lungs when you're waltzing back up the Strand after a night of pure enjoyment. When I first moved to London, I was shocked and I stopped often. I wasn't getting paid much but by comparison with these outcasts I was wealthy. My more experienced London friends assured me that I didn't need to worry – that half the people out there were homeless by choice or had made outcasts of themselves with drink or drugs. Anyway, if I gave to one, where would I stop giving? The song says “In the end you pretend / Because it's so much easier”, and that's the far extreme you can swing to; persuade yourself you don't even see your freezing starving fellow human beings. You get good at stepping over them.

 I never found a compromise. And A Midwinter Prince doesn't hold answers – just asks the question, and gives a spectrum of reactions through its characters. Hmmm, a festive read indeed, you'll be thinking, and I have made it sound a bit dark! I hope that those of you who've had a chance to look at it will agree that it's not – that, in its essence, it's a romance, just the story of a couple of kids from widely separated worlds who scramble frantically across society's barricades to get to one another. I hope that those of you who haven't read it will enjoy it if you do. Laurie and Sasha are two of my very favourite creations. It wasn't easy – it felt like a delicate operation – to write about such young men, to catch at their passion and their naivety, but it was tremendous fun, a labour of love.

 Josh has asked me what it feels like to be three published stories into my writing career. Amazing and scary, Mr Lanyon, is how it feels. Amazing because I never thought I'd get one published story into it, and scary because Life After Joe and Driftwood met with such nice, appreciative audiences, and now predictably I'm terrified of letting all those readers down. If I'm honest with myself I don't think I will; I put my whole heart into A Midwinter Prince and I think most readers have an unerring sense for that. I'm glad Josh taught me “how to sell what comes from your heart” (my favourite JL quote ever) without ever detaching me from my wellsprings, if you know what I mean. He has a unique gift for directing the river without messing about with the source. I'm endlessly indebted to him, and I'd like to say a big thank you to him for letting me guest on his blog!


 

In a Dark Wood Cover Contest

This month I'll be getting the rights back to "In a Dark Wood," one of my first short stories. The story was in the Arresting Developments anthology through Aspen Mountain Press, and it's a creepy little bit about a young travel writer who has to confront his deepest, darkest fears during one of the world's most hellish first dates.

You can read the reviews and a bit of the story right here.  

Anyway, I plan to release the story as a little standalone through Amazon's Kindle and a couple of other sites, but it needs a new cover. I'm not expecting to make a bundle, obviously, since the story has been out forever, but I thought I'd hold a little contest and the winner will be credited for the cover and get $50. (US).

So here are the rules.

I'm thinking a month is probably more than long enough to come up with something, right? The deadline will be December 1st.

I don't have any particular preference as to the artwork -- photo, original art, whatever is fine -- but it does have to be your own (meaning not copyrighted material you're borrowing). Personally, I think it should be something sort of dark and moody and eerie, but I'm not the artist. I leave it to you, and I'll just know when I see it if it seems right to me or not.

My thought is that as you complete the work, you enter it into the contest by leaving word -- and a link to your work -- in the comment section of this post. That way you get to show your work to everyone -- and perhaps get some nice feedback, whether yours is the selected cover or not.

The title In a Dark Wood and my name need to appear somewhere on the cover. Here's the technical stuff:

TIFF (.tif/.tiff) or JPEG (.jpeg/.jpg) format.
Image pixel dimensions of at least 1280 pixels on the longest side, 2560 or larger preferred.
sRGB or CMYK color mode. (I have NO idea what that means -- hopefully the artists among you will)

I think that's pretty much it. I'll be doing the judging all by my lonesome, but it will be based as much as on what I think will help sell the story as what I personally like, just so we all know. My decision won't be based on artistic merit or some critical judgment beyond the fact that I think I'll know the right cover when I see it.

Feel free to pass the word along -- and if you're an artist, feel free to jump in and give it a shot. 

If I missed anything -- and I probably did -- just ask the question here in the comment section -- your question may be the same as someone else's.  

 

If it's lunchtime it must be Belgium

Sitting here having my noonday repast of fruit, cheese & crackers, olives and nuts, and it occurs to me it's time for an update of sorts. I joined Twitter recently (I KNOW. Don't say it.) and now I can't remember what I've communicated and what I haven't.
 

Big disappointment to the two people in the world who look forward to my next fantasy effort, I realize. Here's how that went down. I was outlining away and doing all the research and the more I researched and outlined, the more I realized a - this was a fairly complicated endeavor -- first book in a four book series, after all, and b - I REALLY liked the story and characters and it was a shame to rush it -- and rush it I'd have had to in order to get it out in time. So in the spirit of realism that has gripped me for the last couple of months, I contacted my editor and publisher and requested that we push the entire thing back a year. It will be a better book and a better series for doing so, believe you me.

I've continued to work on it, still researching and outlining, and maybe I'll share a snippet a bit later on, but meantime...next big release will be Friday's Petit Morts from JCP Books. There are five stories this time around, two from me, two from Jordan, and one from Sean Kennedy. I've read them all and every one of them is a lot of fun. I think they're perfect for Halloween, assuming your idea of a Halloween well spent involves reading and not throwing eggs at houses.

Speaking of which, what have you been reading? I've been reading A Taste of Ashes by Howard Browne. It's a hardboiled classic -- actually the fourth book in a series, which I didn't realize when I started it, but it doesn't matter. "Series" back in the day didn't mean quite what it does now. Anyway, Browne was a contemporary of Chandler and Hammett. He lacks the diamond-brilliance of Chandler (doesn't everybody?) but I think he's a better writer than Hammett ( though maybe not so inventive). It's a shame that he's sort of lost in the shuffle because he's really good. Anyone in the mood for classic hardboiled PI fiction, give Browne a spin. I especially recommend him for anyone aspiring to write hardboiled detective fiction because ATOA is like a step-by-step How To. It's that clean and precise.

As for my TV viewing...I've been watching TV voraciously for the hour I can manage to stay awake when the day's slog is done. Think I've reached the breaking point with the Wallender series on PBS. It's so beautifully filmed and acted -- but maybe that's part of the problem. The thing is so stylized...and if Wallender breaks down crying one more time! Crikey. It's in stark contrast to the Irene Huss series, which I've also been watching -- Swedish production about a Swedish cop.  It's a bit gory at times, but everyone behaves like cops and law enforcement which the Kenneth Brannagh effort -- though probably twice the budget -- does not. (Irene does get knocked out too much, I have to say, but hey.)

What I did enormously enjoy, though, was the PBS offering SHERLOCK. Now that was fun, I thought. Anyone catch that?

Let's see...oh. I'm always surprised at the stuff I've failed to communicate, but here's a brief business announcement for anyone interested. I do have an official mailing list (such as it is) and it's heyah. Well, theyah, actually. Just follow the link.

I have a discussion list on Good Reads.

I'm on Face Book.

And now, yes, Twitter. (Don't. Say. It.)

So...projects left for this year. The Petit Morts stories on Friday. Icecapade from Carina Press on December 1st. All She Wrote from Samhain on December 28th. That's pretty much it for the year. Everything else has been cancelled or kicked back to next year. 

That's my overdue update. What about you? What are you up to these days? What are you reading, watching, working on? 

The Boys are Back in Town

Whew! The kick is up and it's good! Blood Heat launched last night from Loose Id.

978-1-60737-869-3
Genre: LGBT Action/Adventure
Length: Novella
Series: Dangerous Ground; Previous Book: Old Poison
Price: $4.99 

BLURB:
Special Agents for the Department of Diplomatic Security, Taylor MacAllister and Will Brandt have been partners forever and lovers for three months, but their new relationship is threatened when Will is offered a plum two-year assignment in Paris.  

Will believes the posting only means postponing what they both want. Taylor fears that kind of separation will mean the end of their new and still-fragile relationship. It’s a bad time to find themselves in the middle of the New Mexico wilderness responsible for the health and welfare of a suspected terrorist. Especially when everyone else they run into seems determined to see their prisoner -- and them -- dead. 

Buy from Loose Id 

 

According to Taylor’s watch, it was after six in the morning by the time they started down the far side of the mountain and found the black SUV mired in mud up to its custom rims.

By then the rain had stopped and the water had receded considerably. The canyon road was a knee-high swamp of debris and water, but the danger was past.

“It could be anyone’s vehicle,” Will called as Taylor splashed through the water to peer through the tinted side windows.

“Sure,” Taylor said. “Who doesn’t go on vacation without taking their leg irons?”

Will joined him in the water-filled ruts at the side of the road, making a frame for his face and trying to see inside. “Are you sure?” He could just make out a baseball bat, what looked like a military utility bag, and, yes, metallic links that appeared to be leg shackles. “Hmm. You just might be right.”

“I guess someone could have kinky tastes.”

“You ought to know.”

Taylor grimaced.

“Which is one of the things I like best about you,” Will added.

“Just a born diplomat, aren’t you? No wonder you’re climbing through the ranks.”

Will had no reply to that. They sloshed through the water and clambered back to the relatively dry area of the hillside.

A flash of blue caught Will’s eye. A blue jay landed on the branch of a pine tree and greeted the morning with its harsh song. The sun was rising, and it was already growing warm. The receding floodwater had a dank, unhealthy smell to it.

Taylor wiped his forehead. “Which way do you think they went?”

“Assuming they aren’t lost or didn’t get swept away, they’ll be heading the same direction we are. They need food, water, and shelter, the same as us.”
 

Hedwig couldn’t climb these mountains. Could she?”

Will shrugged. “I guess if she had to, she would. I’ve seen pregnant weight lifters. In magazines.”

“She didn’t look like the athletic type to me.”

“Maybe Nemov carried her. He looked like he could.”

“He looked like he could carry his SUV. I don’t know why he didn’t.” Taylor had his BlackBerry out and was clicking away and frowning at the results. Or lack of same.

“You’re not going to get any reception down here.”

Taylor muttered something uncomplimentary, though whether to the national forest or Will was unclear.

They began to walk, continuing at a brisk pace until the sun appeared over the trees. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Pine needles glistened and sparkled in the pure sunlight..

You have to admit this is beautiful country,” Will said, shading his eyes and gazing up at the distant snowcapped mountains.

Taylor opened his mouth -- though it was unlikely he was going to admit anything of the kind -- when something big, mottled brown and gray burst out of the brush and took wing, gobbling in fright.

He jumped a foot and gazed openmouthed at Will. “Jesus. What was that?”

Will dropped against a tree trunk and tried not to laugh. He didn’t really have the breath to spare, but Taylor’s half-alarmed, half-offended expression struck him as hysterically funny.

“Wild turkey. A hen, I think. You should see the size of the toms.”

“No thanks. I prefer my turkeys on a Thanksgiving platter.”

Again, Will had to struggle not to laugh.

They resumed their hike, having found what looked like an old track. Possibly a former stagecoach route. It paralleled the highway for a time and then led up into the hills. It was Will who spotted the two sets of footprints in the mud. One large, one smaller.

“That answers one question. They both made it out of the flash flood.”

Taylor nodded. He looked as relieved as Will felt. “They’ll have holed up somewhere ahead of us on the trail. No way did he drag a pregnant woman up and down a mountainside in the middle of a rainstorm at night -- even if he wanted to. She’d never have made it.”

“Maybe he doesn’t need her to make it.”

Taylor stared at him, thinking it over. He shook his head. “In that case, I think he’d have taken advantage of the flood to arrange a fatal accident. Plenty of opportunity. Especially if he left her handcuffed. Get her halfway up the slope and then give her a little push. Oops.”

“You worry me sometimes.”

“Good.” Taylor grinned a brief and dangerous grin.

 Buy from Loose Id

 

 

Glimpses of Lynn Flewelling

It’s been a while since we've done anything writing related, so my treat today is to bring you a short interview with fantasy/spec fiction author Lynn Flewelling. Lynn has an LJ presence (otterdance ) for those of you who don’t know, and I suspect that if you have any burning questions you’d like to ask in the comment section, she’d be happy to reply. Likewise if you have any questions for me or just want to discuss writing fantasy and spec fiction in general. The discussions the comments generate are always one of the best parts of LiveJournal. 

So…let’s get to it. 

 

A Special Treat

I've been finishing the research and roughing out the outline to Jack of Swords, the first book in the new Sword and Pentacle series from Loose Id, and as fantasy and fantasy writing is very much on my mind I thought it might be fun to hear from one of the best loved writers within the genre. I'm guessing Lynn Flewelling is probably known to most of you -- certainly I've enjoyed her books for many years. In fact, I believe the Nightrunner series was one of the first, if not the first, m/m fantasy I ever read. 

I became acquainted with Lynn when I was asked by Reece Notley at Three Crow Press to blurb Glimpses , which is a collection of "lost" vignettes and shorts from the Nightrunner series. It's a lovely collection and a true treat for fans. 

Anyway, this Wednesday I'll have an interview with Lynn whereon she discusses writing, reading, fantasy and life in general. Meanwhile, I'm watching The Good, The Bad, and The Weird in the name of research. 

See you then!