Kaje Harper's Blog, page 33

"The Family We're Born With" released

My free holiday short story, The Family We're Born With, is now available from Smashwords. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get it up on ARe, and for the usual initial .99 price to charity at Amazon.

ETA: Now up both places :) Links ARe, Amazon.

Enny Kraft helped me get the cover pretty:



I hope you enjoy meeting Devin and Jesse, Jesse's half-brother, Sam, his mom, and the rest of the family he was born with. I hadn't planned to do a holiday story this year, but these guys insisted.

Any formatting errors are my own. I'm expecting real life to get hectic for a bit, and wanted to release this now. So despite my Nook suddenly not taking any downloads, I'm going to just hope the Smashwords epub is as good as the pdf. If anyone finds a significant problem, please let me know. One of the good things about freebies is the ability to edit them, if need be.

A big thank you to everyone who lent a hand (Jess, Kiracee and Enny) or cooked dinner (thanks, honey) to let me get this out today. Happy Holidays to you all.

Two Good Things

Despite the week of cold here (minus numbers Fahrenheit are cold) and Friday the Thirteenth trying to outdo itself, two good things happened today.

One is that I found out I made the short list of five authors nominated for Favorite M/M Author of 2013 on Jessewave. The voting just started today, and I already got a few votes and a couple of nice comments. :) *warm fuzzies abound*. The list includes Amy Lane, Harper Fox, SE Jakes, and Kindle Alexander, and I expect it will be a tough choice for readers. I'm delighted to be in that group.

The other is that I finished the text for my holiday short story The Family We're Born With . My cover artist says she will hopefully be able to rescue me from bad-font-land (which is what happens when I try to do my own covers.) Maybe as early as tomorrow. I'll post when it goes up.

These are my guys, Devin and Jesse:



I bought this picture a while back for a blog post, and knew I would write their story someday. And since it's a self-pub freebie, I'm hopeful I'll get it together before family real life puts me on another plane Sunday night. Fingers crossed.

The story is about 20,000 words.

Jesse Calhoun met Devin Palmer five years ago, in front of a Christmas tree at a friend's party. It was Jesse's first holiday alone, away from home. Devin didn't have much of a home to go back to. They found a way to make the season brighter, together.

Four years ago, Jesse brought Devin to his parents' house and came out to them. It wasn't all roses, but his family came around, and Devin's spent each holiday with the Calhouns since then. Jesse really loves sharing Christmas with family, and sharing his family with Devin.

So he isn't prepared to hear his mom say, “I don't want Devin to come to the house for Christmas Eve this year.” Suddenly it's not smooth sailing, keeping peace with the family he was born with.

I hope everyone has a good weekend, as the holidays approach.

Fun at the M/M Group

I wanted to move from the previous scam-with-my-stories post to something more positive. There are a couple of fun things happening in the M/M Romance group right now.

One is a new playground for writers called "Flash Fiction and more... In this folder, twice a week there are writing prompts put up. On Saturdays and Wednesdays, Sue posts a picture to inspire "Drabbles" - these are little stories of exactly 100 words, no more, no less. And on Sundays and Tuesdays, Marc gives us a title or text to write anything from a haiku to a 3,000 word short story.

I've been playing with these. The drabbles are a good exercise in word choice and imagery, and I admit I've been mostly committing poetry in the text ones (although I did a little vampire snippet story too.) And yes, a limerick. Or two. There are a bunch of people who have posted, pros and amateurs alike, with some really good little pieces of writing (and a couple very funny ones.) Check it out (and join in if you like.)

The other thing, which you may have seen other authors comment on, is the voting for M/M Member Choice awards, for the best M/M stories and authors. I have a bunch of nominations - I didn't count them, but flatteringly lots. Plenty to make me feel all warm and gooey about the reception for Learning Curve, Sole Support, Nor Iron Bars a Cage, Unsettled Interlude and a couple of all-time best nominations. If you're a group member, think about voting. I was able to give the love back to some of my favorite reads from this past year (through Dec 2012) including The Magpie Lord, King Mai, Under the Rushes, Brothers of the Wild North Sea and more. I defy you to make decisions on those long nominee lists in less than half an hour though, so give yourself time. It's one more way to be reminded of how much good writing is published in this genre every year. And a nice pick-me-up for me, to see my books alongside so many other great stories.

Don't Pay for my Freebies!

Just a warning to my readers, since I found a site selling my free stories. The following titles should all be free:

Into Deep Waters
And To All a Good Night
Like the Taste of Summer
Nor Iron Bars a Cage
Lies and Consequences
Show Me Yours
Compensations
Getting It Right
Unwanted Appeal
Unsettled Interlude
Within Reach
Can't Hurt to Believe

also the upcoming release The Family We're Born With

Don't pay anyone for these (unless a new one is .99 during the first week of release on Amazon only - they don't allow free releases.)

Also, please verify that a site with cheap books is legit - the same site is selling my pro books for very cheap prices, of which I won't see anything. My "Books" page on my website has purchase and/or download links for all my stories. Be aware that some of these cheap sites (for anything) are scams phishing for your credit information. A deal that looks too good to be true may be worse than that. Buy from sites you trust.

Thanks for helping me continue to write and publish.

-Kaje Harper

Love for "Nor Iron Bars" and updates

I wanted to share my pleasure at having my free novel, Nor Iron Bars a Cage, tie for second place in the Best Gay Fantasy category of the 2013 Rainbow Awards. The book also tied for tenth for Best Gay Novel. This is so cool, especially when you check out the competition. You can follow the link to the Awards to find all the winners. Congratulations to everyone!

I also thought I'd update you on where my writing is at the moment. I'm currently trying to finish a holiday short story, (yes, really - under 20,000 words. Probably.) It's a stand-alone, tentatively titled The Family We're Born With. I'd like this to be a free release before Christmas, if I can get there. Wish me luck.

I finished another "short" story at 62K, for a project someone else is doing. It was a lot of fun. It's out of my hands now, but I'll let you know when that releases, also free.

I'm working on The Rebuilding Year, book 2, and I'm about a third of the way through it. The rough drafts of Hidden Wolves, books 3 and 4 are both done, but waiting for some revisions. They need to sit and age, or ferment, or whatever they do in the back of my mind, before being submitted.

So I've been fairly busy, even if the evidence is thin on the shelves right now. Hopefully I'll get one more release this year with the short. Oh, and thanks to everyone who has put my name into the Jessewave "Favourite M/M Author of 2013" nominations, and for all the nominations on the M/M group's Member Choice Awards. Whether I win anything or not. all those nominations make me feel all warm and happy in this cold season. Thank you!

Caroling for Turkey

This was going to be a standard Happy Thanksgiving post (and still is, kinda.) But as I sat down to write it, my little dog, who is my writing companion and muse and an annoying little brat, asked to go for a walk.

Looks sweet and harmless, even thoughtful, doesn't he? Ha, I wish! Sometimes he talks to me, and today it was one of those typical conversations:

Dog-muse : So, today is Thanksgiving. More food for me, right?

Me : Dogs get dry kibble for Thanksgiving... (And gravy, and a bit of stuffing, and no doubt seven other little treats from my husband, but Dog-muse'd be insufferable if I tell him that.)

Dog-muse : I bet the neighbors would feed me. They think I look starved.

Me : Slim is healthy.

Dog-muse : *In a dreamy tone.* I bet they would give me real turkey, not that tofurkey stuff you eat. Maybe real gravy from actual meat. Maybe bacon!

Me : You'd have better luck tomorrow or Saturday, when they'll be getting sick of leftovers.

Dog-muse : Oh yeah. I could go caroling for leftover turkey. Great idea.

Me : Take singing lessons first.

Dog-muse : I'll show up on their doorstep, all starving. I'll look cute - that gets me through everything. *winning look with big brown, if somewhat-misaligned, eyes* Doesn't it, Mom?

Me : What did you do now?

Dog-muse : You know that book you're writing, about the two guys?

Me : Every book I write is about two guys. Spit it out.

Dog-muse : I'm putting a big turkey feast in that new one. John and Ryan like turkey.

Me : It takes place in the spring, you dork. No one does turkey feasts in spring.

Dog-muse : Why not? It could be Easter. Or hey, lamb... picnic ham... Oh wow, this'll be good.

Me : I'm not writing about your wet-dreams of food. And that's final.

Dog-muse : Maybe a squirrel? Or an elk? There could be elk in the book. A little dog takes down a looming elk...

Me : Hurry up and pee already; it's freezing out here.

Dog-muse : I'll stop in front of this neighbor. They like me. I'll shiver with cold and hunger. They'll give me lots of turkey when I go caroling tomorrow.

Me : We are not going caroling tomorrow. That was your joke.

Dog-muse : Oh yeah, you take control. Like you do with your stories. Works so well, doesn't it? *an extra-pathetic shiver and tremble, before he trots back to our place with his tail wagging, pulling me in his wake.* Turkey in the book. Definitely.

This is more what he looks like: You'll know who to blame if extra food shows up in Rebuilding Year #2.

Today I'm thankful for having a muse, even if he does pull me in odd directions, and I never know where the story is going. (John and Ryan are Not having turkey in April in this book... I think.) I'm thankful that writing can fill difficult times and empty spaces, and can make me feel like I am doing something worthwhile. And I'm grateful for other people's muses, that produce all the wonderful books I read. Because even on the holidays, fiction can smooth the edges of real life.

Holidays can be tough, as well as wonderful. Thanksgiving is a time for counting blessings, but it's hard, when you do that, not to miss the blessings that aren't there. We're grateful for family, but wish we could make them all happy and healthy, and accepting. We're grateful for home and food and warmth in our lives, and yet hurt to know how many other people don't have enough. We're happy to have pets, but wish... never mind, pets are great. *Dog-muse made me say that.*

For some people in the LGBT community, family is hard to come by. Or going home for that family holiday means squeezing yourself back into a constricting closet that doesn't fit, for the sake of being with people whom you love. People who love you back, at least for now, but who don't really know who you are. Sometimes we have to make our own family - of chosen friends and not ties of blood. Mixed blessings.

So I want to wish a happy Thanksgiving to everyone who celebrates it (and the same thoughts go to those who don't.) May the joys carry the day, may the food be good and the company better, whether it's family you're born with, family you create, or even fictional family in the books that touch your mind and heart.

And as I sit down to the vegetarian tofurkey later, I will give thanks. Thanks for everyone I've met here on my blog and in my writing life, and my reading, who make my days brighter, my outlook more hopeful and who show in so many ways the warmth, love and caring that can exist in human hearts.

Win a copy of Hidden Wolves Books 1 and 2

The Novel Approach review site and blog is running a feature they call "Backlist Book Bump." They've invited authors to talk about a favorite book from their backlist, and offer a chance at a free copy.

When Lisa invited me to participate, I wasn’t sure which book to choose. But I've recently finished the third Hidden Wolves book, in first draft anyway, and that pulled me back into the world of the Pack and its place in the modern human world. So I had to choose Unacceptable Risk.

Visit The Novel Approach to find out why that book called out to be written, and comment before midnight Pacific time on Tuesday the 26th for a chance to win ebook copies of both Unacceptable Risk and Unexpected Demands.

Then cruise around and read about other great backlist books from favorite and new authors. It's a really interesting feature. Thanks, Lisa, for letting me share in it!

Rainbow Briefs released

My Young Adult short story collection, Rainbow Briefs, under my YA pen name, Kira Harp, is now available for download on Goodreads - click the "download ebook" button and All Romance ebooks and Smashwords . You can also get it for .99 (with royalties going to benefit The Trevor Project) on Amazon. There will soon be a print version from CreateSpace/Amazon, that will sell at cost. (About $5.77) And once Smashwords decides to like my file, it will be downloadable there and distributed through them to Barnes & Noble. I love a lot of things about Smashwords and what they offer for self-pub, except their formatter. (They don't call it the meatgrinder for nothing.) I'm hoping to get that done soon - to get it on more free sites so teen readers can download without paying (so no problem if no credit card :) Access to LGBT ebooks for teens can be limited if they have to ask Mom or Dad to pay for them.

ETA: Now available in paperback and on Smashwords.

I hope people enjoy the collection. My lovely and tireless editor Sara Winters has even lined up a few reviews for the stories. It's entirely her doing that this went from, "Maybe I should bundle up a few of the stories in a freebie book" to the organized collection with links and cover and all the details. It's been such a nice feeling to have Sara, and all my beta readers, letting me know they enjoyed these enough to be worth the time and effort.

I do love this kind of writing - seeing a picture that stirs the imagination, and then having the freedom to write a piece of short fiction that runs with the idea, just for fun. (And I apologize in advance for "Change of Plans" which does read more like a first chapter of a novel. Oops. Maybe one day, I'll write that one.) I continue to write stories for the Goodreads Young Adult LGBT Books group monthly. (In fact, for October we had two prompts, so I wrote two :) I post them under Kaje Harper, but for release I want people to be able to know what kind of writing they're going to get, hence the second pen name.

My Kira Harp stories contain some strong language, where it feels appropriate to the teen characters. There is potentially sex in the plot, although not on the page. These stories are more happy than angsty, since our group loves to vote for pictures of kissing and hugging, and because I like happy endings. I do try to give the characters a real voice, and something interesting to say. There are links and contact numbers in the back of the collection for helplines and resources for LGBT teens, both in the US and some international. These were taken from our group's Helplines thread (and if you know of other good ones, I'd love to add them to our group.) If just one person finds that information and uses it when they need to, then the publication has been worthwhile. And if this collection entertains, amuses, or enlightens some readers, then that's all I can ask as a writer. It's been a fun project. Thanks, Sara!

Rainbow Briefs coming Saturday

On Saturday, November 2nd, I will release Rainbow Briefs , under my Young Adult fiction pen name, Kira Harp.

Many of you know I write some YA stories, in addition to the M/M romance, although very little is published so far. On the Goodreads YA LGBT Books group that I help moderate, we choose a picture prompt each month and write stories for it. And after almost two years, I have a bunch of YA short stories posted on the group.

Sara Winters really urged me to put out a collection of some of those stories, so people outside the group could find and read them. I thought it was a great idea... sometime. Then Sara collected a set of them and sent me the file, and made it too easy to resist. She's great that way. She edited and formatted this for me, and really made the project go forward.

Since my intention was to make the collection represent the range of the YA LGBT group, I added a few new stories too. There are fifteen total, and although M/M stories are over-represented (because that's what the group mainly chooses for prompts, and what I write most easily) there are four F/F, two trans, one bi, one M/M/M. The length ranges from a page to about 10,000 words. I tried to cover a range of experiences too, but most are pretty romantic. (Our group does love those pictures of two boys or two girls, kissing.)

This collection will be free on Smashwords and ARe, and low cost (with royalties going to The Trevor Project) where it can't be free. Sara really encouraged me to put out a paperback version, so that will also be available. And Enny Kraft did a great cover for this one too. Isn't this pretty?



Sara also managed to persuade a couple of people to agree to review the upcoming collection, despite it being free and short stories and YA. (She's hard to resist.) So I hope it will get a little notice. I'm planning to donate a few copies of the paperback, here and there.

I hope this collection strikes a chord with some teen readers. I hope the list of helpline and resource links in the book is useful to someone. But mostly, I hope the people who read it enjoy meeting the young characters who compete for space in my head with all the guys in love. So many stories to write, so little time. I love that the group gives me the impetus to put some of these on paper. I'll post the links when this comes out Saturday November 2nd.

GRL 2013 and being a Real Author

Wow. Deep breath.

I'm home in Minnesota after five days at GayRomLit in Atlanta. It's lightly snowing here, and all of that event seems a bit like a dream. Although I did sign "Kaje Harper" on the credit card reader at the grocery store this morning, and had to redo it.

GRL was a ton of exhausting fun, with some of the greatest people. I'm going to steal a few pictures from those great people (with credits of course) as I go here, because I took no pictures. None. My old flip phone has about three pixels of resolution, and no memory to store them. But I have a thousand pictures in my head.

I arrived on Tuesday, with a suitcase of books that weighted 50.24 pounds (It started at 51, and I took out one book at the airline desk, and the nice lady let me get away with the extra fraction.) Edmond Manning arrived at almost the same time, so we shared a cab to the hotel, and later wandered out together in search of a mouse for his computer. It was a seven block walk to the Office Depot, and I'm glad we did it, because that was the most I saw of Atlanta, beyond the hotel. Oops. Must go back some day and do the city justice. The skyline was very pretty from my 19th floor room.

(From GRL's Melia Hotel publicity.)

I have to give the host hotel, the Melia, a lot of credit for great, friendly hospitality. (Although I'll take away a bit, for Internet that was so slow that sometimes I couldn't connect at all. Very frustrating, especially for someone with a dumb phone and thus no email.) My bed was comfortable, the room was quiet, and the breakfast buffet was awesome. I didn't need lunches after those breakfasts.

Wednesday was the first Writers' Workshop. It was worth doing - I picked up some good information and tips, particularly about the business side of writing. And it gave the authors time to connect before we had a full audience. I met several new authors, and others I knew only by name. I hope they all had a great time at GRL.

I got my volunteering stint out of the way that evening in the Swag Room set-up. That was my cunning plan so I wouldn't have to remember to show up somewhere later :)

Now, I had dithered over swag forever. What I ended up with was magnets, and a suitcase full of plot bunnies. . I'd hoped to do squishy wolves, in honor of my shifters, but they were all out of my budget. The rabbits were on sale, and I figured I could do something with them. Who doesn't want to grab a resilient plotbunny? .

There were a lot of great and creative swag items. It was soooo tempting to use my volunteer position, the night before opening, to grab a shotglass with liqueur chocolate, or a calculator, a squishy dragon, a beaded Rowan-tree necklace, bandaids, playing cards, candles, and... oooh, yeah, more chocolate :) But I was good.

Thursday morning began with the newbie get-together and the opening of the swag room. I wasn't the only one eyeing the great stuff, as Damon Suede stood there counting down to the opening moment for grabby hands. When he said "Go" I justified all my grabbing as being for Sammy, my friend who couldn't make it. But secretly, a couple of the chocolates were for me. She wants to lose weight - a friend wouldn't send chocolate, right?

My bunnies went in the first half hour, which was very cool :)

The Supporting Author signing happened at the same time. Those were the authors with only a couple of releases so far, (in some cases, a couple of excellent books.) I was pleased to see a lot of readers stopping by there. The organizers had also put together a little book with excerpts from many of those authors. It was a great idea and gave everyone something to sign.

The sessions began that afternoon, and it was far enough from my Saturday duties for me to relax and enjoy them. Thursday evening was the MLR Press opening reception, with a fancy ice sculpture logo and hors d’oeuvres. For a moment, as I went into the dim room half full of people, and had to look for a place to sit, I felt a moment of that being-in-big-groups panic. But then I saw a familiar face, and another... It was definitely easier the second time around.

I admit to skipping the Juke Joint party but over the first two days I met some great people, fellow authors and readers both. I had some conversations about books and writing, and young adult LGBT and even why so many straight women are into the genre. I encountered wonderful folk who were willing to sit with me in quiet(er) places and just chat. Lovely.

My favorite event of the first two days was probably the Cockwalk Invitational Art Show. It was a charity fundraiser for an Atlanta LGBT youth organization, and was set up by Anne Tenino, Josephine Myles, Clare London, and narrated by Edmond Manning. Members of the audience got up and told hysterically funny tales of their own encounters with cocks, and then a variety of cock objets d'art were raffled off. Many of the items were knit or crocheted, including my favorite, the plastic-bag dispenser. Imagine pulling white bags out of the tip of this:

(Picture swiped from Heather K's blog Heather's GayRomLit Experience, part two. )

That evening's "Dine with an Author" event was the only one that went a little off-course. The room became noisy, and it was hard to chat with everyone at the table. By the way, if you were at my table and got one of my ducks be sure to email me with the duck number from the bottom of the duck for your ebook. I'm not sure everyone heard that, over the enthusiastic din. I did enjoy conversations with a couple of interesting people sitting close enough to talk comfortably.

And then Saturday morning... and my Question and Answer session. I was so nervous, it was good we were allowed to sit down - my knees were shaking. But it went well! I was allowed to go first and get it over with, and there were good questions about my books. Questions I could answer! A special thanks to Susan, for filling in any moment of ...doesn't anyone else have a question for Kaje? with another great query. It was over before I realized it. I could actually do that again, at least after I recover from the first time.

Then the book signing. I only misspelled my name once. (Four letters. Right there to be copied on the title page, if I happened to forget who I was. Oops.) I misspelled Minnesota on two tries... to the same reader. (Sorry Ami! But it will be authentic, not machine-signed, clearly me when you get it :) I was so honored to have people who had actually brought copies of my books all the way to Atlanta, just to have me write in them. (Especially Heather, who tracked me down before the signing, since she had to leave, and got Unacceptable Risk into my hands to sign it.) It was fun and weird and such a high, to be signing my name to the books I'd written, for people who clearly enjoyed them.

And the costume party that evening was the culmination of four wonderful days. I don't have pictures, but they will be appearing elsewhere, including Susan's on her "Boys in Our Books" post. Some folks went all out, and there were amazing costumes with lights, or hoop skirts, or rabbit ears, or bare chests (and a bare ass or two.) There were bunny slippers in honor of Shattered Glass and quite a few witches strolling arm in arm with a nun, or a flapper girl. Even folks like me, in jeans and a T-shirt, felt at home. (And thanks to the wonderful ladies who sat off in a quiet corner with me on two different nights, for a lovely chat :) I actually stayed almost to the end of a party, which was a first for me.

By Sunday's farewell brunch, I was sad to leave, and yet ready to wind down. After a couple of chance encounters in the Atlanta airport - "Hi, didn't we just say goodbye?" - I was finally off. Home is nice and quiet. (And my Internet feels blazingly fast.) But looking back, what I remember is how wonderful all the people were, how much fun it was to sit at the bar and have the gay couple next to me say, "Hey, we've read your book!" and the sense of community that came from being with 400 of my fellow M/M enthusiasts. Give me a year, and I'll be ready to do it again.

See you in Chicago in 2014. I can even drive. (And Sammy, damn it, you get healthy and we'll close down a party next year, right?) A big thank-you to everyone I met this year. It was a blast.