Josh Lanyon's Blog, page 91

Oh, THIS Halloween!

I've been remiss about the updates, I know, I know. Not that I wouldn't like to spend the days chatting and reading, but...it's been a tough year, no doubt about it. I think I'm now down to the more relatively sane schedule of a novel due each month till the end of the year. Believe me, that's one heck of a lot more reasonable than the 100K in six weeks I just did.
 
 

The big news? It's finally too cold to swim and I think we need to take the wading pool down. What a drag! I think that thing may have saved my life this summer. Many a close call with spontaneous combustion was halted by simply throwing myself into sixty degree water. So it's back to gardening and walking. Both of which I enjoy, but it's not the same as floating weightless in water and sunlight.

I've been watching a lot of horror movies lately. A lot of oldies that I previously skipped (and having a lot of nightmares as a result -- so don't tell me this stuff doesn't have an effect because I can see the direct correlation). Night of the Living Dead, etc. This was all in preparation for writing Mummy Dearest and the latest batch of Petit Morts--

Oh. My apologies, but Mummy Dearest fell though. (Holy moly! No pun intended.) It's now targeted for Halloween next year, which is probably just as well given how much stuff I've got coming out in the next couple of months. And speaking of Halloween releases, The Mysterious is apparently finally out from MLR Press. I'm not sure it's even on my website anymore, but this was a collection of spooky stories from Alex Beecroft, Laura Baumbach, and me. My story is "The Dark Farewell," which I'm guessing you've all pretty much read by now, but if you were holding out for the print edition, you can buy from Amazon here.
 
Also out in print is To All a (Very Sexy) Goodnight. (That title was not me, so don't start.) That's a Christmas pairing with KA Mitchell. My story is "The Dickens With Love," and KA has a charming historical called "An Improper Holiday." That's also available through Amazon.

Coming this month we have Dangerous Ground 3: Blood Heat. Will and Taylor are under fire and running for their lives once  more as they try and transport a fugitive from New Mexico to Los Angeles. (I need to find someone to write my blurbs for me -- that sounded pretty flat, didn't it?). Late October/Early November we've got the next batch of Petit Morts coming from JCP Press. My stories ran longer this time so we've got "Sort of Stranger Than Fiction" coming in at around 18K and "Critic's Choice" around 15K. I haven't done the blurbs for either of those yet. God, I hate hate HATE writing blurbs.

Bless Carina Press for taking the mainstream path and doing them themselves, which is how I have the blurb for December 1st's quirky Christmas novelette Icecapade all ready to go:

On the eve of the new millennium, diamond thief Noel Snow seduced FBI special agent Robert Cuffe, then fled into the dawn. Now a successful novelist, Noel uses his capers as fodder for his books, and has modeled his hero’s nemesis (and potential love interest) on Cuffe. Though he leaves Robert a drunken phone message every New Year’s Eve, Noel hasn’t seen or heard from him in a decade.

So he’s thrilled when his former lover shows up at his upstate farm one Christmas Eve. Elation quickly turns to alarm when Robert accuses Noel of being responsible for a recent rash of diamond heists. Robert is all business and as cold as ice:  it seems his only interest in Noel is to put him behind bars.

Innocent of the crimes, and still as attracted as ever to the oh-so-serious lawman, Noel plans a second seduction—providing he can stay out of jail long enough!

Then we've got the sequel to Somebody Killed His Editor. I'm really happy with the way All She Wrote turned out. It's a good sign when I actually want to go back and read something I wrote. That's mid-December, I think. 

And that, is plenty for now. What are you reading? What are you watching? What are you listening to? What are planning to be for Halloween?

This, That, and the Other

 

Today and for the rest of the week I'm working on my next Petit Morts stories for JCP Books. More on those later!

I wanted to share the winner of the blog giveaway I did here for the 1RomanceEbooks anniversary blog tour. The name Brandy Blake (or the name of Brandy's choice) will be appearing in About the Author, the third Holmes & Moriarity mystery (due out in 2011).

AND the four random winners of the iTunes Fair Games (Carina Press) playlist giveaway are:

AdreinFan
Beth C
Anna Marie
Alie

Breathe

There's still about a day and a half to sign up for the Fair Games iTunes playlist raffle. I'm giving away four downloads (or a free book from my backlist if you're a non-US resident). Just leave a comment here.

Um, not here...here on the Carina Press "Let the Games Begin" post.

I'm happy (relieved as hell as a matter of fact) that Fair Games is #2 on the Carina Press Bestseller list. And, as Antonia kindly pointed out, the #1 book is a free read, so this is really pretty gratifying. Not just f...

A Day In the Life

So I'm posting over at the Carina blog for the next couple of days and it is very lonely and quiet over there. Today's topic - A Day in the Life -- a typical writing day for a typical writer.

If any of you have time to drop by and leave a comment I'd really appreciate it.

The post is right heeyah.

And if you enjoyed Fair Game, it would be all right to mention that too. ;-D

All's Fair

So we survived the fires. A pretty stressful forty-eight hours, but like the Bard says, all's well that ends...with your house not burning down.  Everything's pretty much back to normal although I'm using this as an opportunity to sort through things. There's nothing like having half an hour to decide what of your worldly possessions you're going to save to help you realize you've got one heck of a lot of STUFF. Too much stuff.

Anyway, on the writing news front, I finally finished the rough d...

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO 1ROMANCEEBOOKS.COM

A while back I agreed to participate in the 1RomanceEbook anniversary celebration by taking part in their blog tour, so here we go. Thanks for visiting my stop -- stop #18 -- on the blog tour. Your last stop should have been Honoria Ravena #17 . 

To be entered to win prizes on this tour, you need to start by registering at 1RomanceEbooks.com http://1romanceebooks.com/. In addition to the grand prize -- a Sony eBook reader -- there are great prizes at each stop along the way, so be sure to...

Stranger Than Fiction

Come to think of it, that's the title of one of the Petit Morts that I'm working on (or will shortly be working on) for this new batch straight from the ovens of JCP Books.

Basically, it's a story about a writing group instructor who suspects one of his students is a psycho.

I suppose you think that couldn't happen?

But in fact, that's not why I'm posting -- which, yes, I know I've been remiss about. Well, we had the family and the deadline and never the twain shall meet. So all went well. I ...

Extree, extree! Read all about it!

As a dear friend so eloquently put it...I'm losing my ming!

So the house is filling with houseguests and  I have a book due and am splitting for four days to a hotel. Because I am nothing if not a social animal. NOT. 

But before I retreat, snarling, to higher ground (and I am not snarling, by the way, it's more me looking harassed and tending to hyperventilate), a couple of bits and bobs.

My article on publishing -- part of Jessewave's ongoing series about writing and publishing m/m fiction -...

A Vintage Affair is now available

As of last night, A Vintage Affair -- a contempory romance (NOT a mystery or suspense -- certainly not by the guidelines established by Mystery Writers of America, for sure!) is now available through Loose Id.


It's also available through their various and sundry third party sellers -- which is nice for those of you prefer one stop shopping. Oh, but get this. Loose Id is now offering their titles in the .epub format, so basically they've simplified everyone's life.

Thanks, as always, for all you...

Shake, Rattle, and Roll

 

 
We're having internet connection problems. No, not exactly. Thanks to a massive, rolling update by the swell folks at ATT, we're having network problems. The words Network Problems should be in shaky letters like you'd find in an episode of Scooby Doo.  So to make a long story short, our home network is fried. We've fallen and we can't get up.

And the first person who giggles and says can't get it up, I'm going to reach through this computer monitor and smack. It ain't...