Elinor Gray's Blog, page 7

Men of Steel contest: last chance!

Quick! It's 11:20pm here on the East Coast, and I'm going to close my contest post to new comments at midnight.

Leave a comment here to be entered into a drawing to win a paperback copy of Men of Steel from Dreamspinner Press.

There might be a second prize drawing for an ebook copy, just saying.

\o/ Superheroes! I'm still reading the anthology through, but it's a lot of fun. :D

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Superheroes are go!

The Men of Steel is finally out at Dreamspinner Press! Hooray! And it's on sale for one more day, so instead of $6.99 it's a mere $5.59 at the moment. I've eschewed the print book today for the .epub version so I can read the other stories in here on my nook and not draw attention to myself. :D

The contest to win a print copy is still on, too. This is the first time I've felt like a true proper author with my own book in my hands. *____* These stars, they are in my eyes.

Also, the Hunger Games soundtrack is totally awesome.

SUPERHEROES! Get 'em! Who doesn't like men in capes and tights?!

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Men of Steel - coming Monday!

I picked up my mail today at the mail room and had a surprise package waiting! It was my paperback copies of the Men of Steel anthology from Dreamspinner Press that comes out Monday, April 9th! They're so gorgeous and shiny, I can't stand it.

( derpy picture below the cut )

I've already let two of my roommates see them, shyly excited, and so far the reviews are good. I can't wait to read the other stories in here myself! :D Although when my non-romance-reading-but-very-supportive roomie gets to the very graphic erotic content, I don't know if I will be able to stand the tension. So many dicks.

Anyway, since I've got two copies, I think keeping them both would be excessive. I'm going to give one of them away. And, uh, I guess I could sign it?

Simon McFarlane is Sparks, the heat-impervious and super-fast sidekick to the local superhero Aero. Together they fight crime and save lives, but their main focus is a rival they call Blackout, who shrouds the scenes of his crimes in impenetrable darkness.

Simon's been enamored of Aero since he was a teenager, so keeping his crush in check while they work together is extra difficult now that he knows the man behind the mask. Simon's attempt to get Aero to see him as an equal backfires when he's kidnapped and wakes up in Blackout's lair. Like so many other sidekicks, Sparks is being used as the bait to get Aero where Blackout wants him. Will Aero finally be able to see what's right in front of him?

Leave me a comment before midnight on April 12th, and on the 13th I'll randomly pick a winner. Paperback copy! Pretty awesome! So many great stories!

As an added bonus, if you can't possibly wait, anthologies are on sale for 20% off until the 10th at DSP! So it'll be cheaper right away!

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Experimental Repeatability is out!

And Happy Pi Day!

My new (very) short story, Experimental Repeatability, has finally come out at Dreamspinner Press! I'm supa excited to finally see it on the New Releases page. It's my first stand-alone! I have three stories in anthologies right now (one published, one coming soon, and one still in production), but it's heartening to see my imaginary nonsense on its own for the first time.

This is where I start wanting to get little iconic tattoos for every story of mine that gets published. :P

Luke is in love with his best friend, Eric, and always has been. When he and Eric get drunk on the last night of exam week and Eric suggests he sleep over rather than walk home, Luke takes him up on it even though he's convinced Eric doesn't return his feelings. But when their tipsy pillow-talk turns steamy, Eric is horny and Luke just can't resist. The next morning Luke is mortified, certain he's ruined their friendship, but Eric isn't about to let him get away without facing the consequences.

You can find Experimental Repeatability at DSP for purchase, and then you should hit me up on Goodreads and let me know what you think.

There may be a giveaway coming soon, if I get my hands on a copy of my own. :D

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Men of Steel cover!

Things are moving along so quickly! I think Men of Steel and Experimental Repeatability are going to come out almost simultaneously, which is exciting.

I just edited the blurb for Experimental Repeatability, and I think my editor, Anne, accepted it.

Luke is in love with his best friend, Eric, and always has been. When he and Eric are drunk on the last night of exam week and Eric suggests he sleep over rather than walk home, Luke takes him up on it even though he's convinced Eric doesn't return his feelings. But when their tipsy pillow-talk turns steamy, Eric is horny and Luke just can't resist. The next morning Luke is mortified, certain he's ruined their friendship, but Eric isn't about to let him get away without facing the consequences.

That's coming out in March. Whee!

As for the Men of Steel anthology, Julianne just sent the authors the cover art, and it's AWESOME.


Design by Anne Caine, art by Keith Dolney

It's not on the "Coming Soon" section yet so I can't link it, but I'm just biding my time. :DDDDD

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Surprise contract!

This week has been so good already for my esteem as a writer!

I got an email the other night about a short story that I submitted to Circlet Press back in May or June or so, and I'd practically forgotten about it! And they want to include it! It's for an anthology about what happens backstage during Epic Fantasy Quests, and is called What Happens in the Tavern Stays in the Tavern. I got super excited about it because a) I love writing fantasy and b) I wanted to write a story that was based in a Dungeons and Dragons kind of world.

So I wrote a story called "Encounter at the Lonely Dragon," about an apothecary in a failing economy who has to go back into Adventuring to pay the bills. He comes into town to look for a Quest opportunity, and has an accidental run-in with an ex-lover in the loft over the barn where they're both spending the night. Then there is sex, and a misunderstanding, and a gloriously cheesy reunion! I love it. It makes me so happy to read it again. (Although I left a typo in the TITLE in the HEADER that shows up on EVERY PAGE, which is super embarrassing my god who runs my life.)

Then, today I got an email that the Superhero story I submitted to a Dreamspinner Press anthology, "Right Hand Man," was accepted, and there was much rejoicing. \o/ Superhero/sidekick foreverrrrrr.

So it's been a good weekend/week-start for me and my special snowflake short stories. This is more than I had hoped for already. :D

Now I have to write more to submit more! The cycle begins again!

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Right Hand Man - thiiiiis close to submission

Okay, well, that wasn't quite once a week posting like I had in mind. Oh well.

Today, I'm back at school for my final semester and am currently waiting for the bus to take me to the other campus and my cozy thesis carrel. I'm going to spend some time taping up holiday cards and fun pictures, and then get down to finishing my edits and polishing my synopsis for Right Hand Man, the Superhero short story I'm submitting today. The last two days have been very busy with final preparations for this move back to school, so although I would have liked to get everything together before the last day, here I am.

But, I have a fire at my back right now, and a couple of hours of quiet ("have to go do a bit of work," I told my roommates), and I expect to get it all done. Also, the synopsis won't suck!

After that, it's back to the apartment to watch Sherlock with a couple of girls, and cry. I haven't seen "The Richenbach Fall" yet, although I know the story, so I'm prepared for all the tears. It'll be good to have my three best girlfriends there.

Have a great holiday! Do something nice for someone today.

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January WIP and website!

I'm going to make more of an effort to post closer to once a week this year, now that I've got another short story coming out and a bunch of original writing goals on the table. I should consider it another of my 22 resolutions this year!

My WIP for January is a reworking of the Superhero story I started for NaNo11. I didn't win NaNo this year, which was a disappointment, but I'm feeling pretty good about the opportunity to turn some of that work around for a shorter piece. I'm 4.5k words into what I'm hoping to be between 10 and 12k words, and I've been writing a little erratically, jumping back and forth between the three main plot points of the story, but I think I've got it under control.

( read a first draft excerpt )

The other thing that's new recently is a shiny website that I've been working on, carving out a little corner of the web for me and mine. http://elinorgray.weebly.com/ It's a free site, but I think it actually looks quite nice: simple and elegant and a little bit old-timey. I like that kind of thing. :P Someday I'd like to have a nice domain of my own. Life goal.

All right, well, my new writing buddy is dumping things off the bookshelf onto the floor, so I'd better deal with that. He's a charmer. XD

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busy season

Things are nuts in my world, thanks to school and life (mostly school) being crazy busy and demanding. My thesis et al. right now is so needy that it's bleeding into my social life, and I don't talk about much else. Though, it's on polyamory and family structure, so I keep feeling like I snuck something I really enjoy doing/talking/thinking about into school work and got away with it. I'm also taking a short fiction class that is super fantastic with the one and only Karen Russell of Swamplandia! fame. She is amazing, and I love her, and that is that.

So my NaNoWriMo novel suffered deeply this year and only got about 14k words to its name, poor thing. I'm really attached to this story line, though, so I want to persist with it and not let it fall into the obscure corners of my WIP folder. I'll put it on a back burner for maybe winter break (December-January) or pick it up again in my Long Fiction class next semester. Fingers crossed. Really enjoyed writing it, when I could make enough time.

But! I'm finishing my last two challenge fics for this year, and have vowed so far not to sign up for more for a while (caveat added at the last second just in case). I'm not doing spn_j2_bigbang in 2012, for instance, because I need to write my thesis without dying.

There will be room, therefore, for some more original stuff. Silver Publishing has two calls for submissions for next year that fit two stories I've got, one I've already written and one that I'm writing right now. They're perfect, and I'm thrilled to be able to turn some more of my fan-based writing into original fiction. It's the ideal jumping-off place. Can't wait to give those two some love of the editing-for-pub variety.

Three weeks until my proper Winter break! \o/

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'Experimental Repeatability' and DSP

I got an email Friday night from Dreamspinner Press, and I'm very excited to announce that they are interested in publishing another one of my short stories! I wrote a tiny fic for my mmom table in May about mutual masturbation and regrets in the morning, and I turned it into an original piece to submit it to DSP's Higher Learning anthology. They didn't want it for that, didn't quite fit the theme, but the editor of the anthology said, please submit this as a standalone, it's too good to let go.

So I did! And they want it for real!

I read it over again yesterday and did a lot of embarrassed face-palming. There are a handful of typos in the manuscript (I'm missing a "he" in there somewhere), and the prose feels stilted, but I'm looking forward to editing it into something nice that people will actually want to pay small amounts of money to read. \o/

I called my sister to tell her all about it, too, and we squeed together. She's my best fiction wingman. She's the reason I started submitting in the first place. :D

Now I'm all riled up about writing original fiction and submitting things, but Supernatural just started to get good again and I'm inspired to write canon fic for the first time in a long time, and I have a number of other obligations I need to get to before NaNoWriMo starts in November. This year it's superheroes. I pitched that one to Riptide Publishing for kicks a few weeks ago and one of the editors was actually intrigued, but I realized I was in a bind since I hadn't written a word of it yet. I haven't even finished naming my main characters. Maybe I'll write a blurb or a synopsis for them mid-November to see if they're still interested, and admit that it's in progress.

Also I need to remember that I'm a full time student writing my undergraduate thesis, and expecting to have time for hundreds of hours of writing and editing is a little overly optimistic. Still, baby steps. ;)

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