Kaje Harper's Blog, page 35

Work and play

It's been a busy couple of weeks on the real life front, not always in a good way, but I still got some writing done.

Today I have a short blog piece in the All Romance ebooks Café newsletter. A bunch of M/M authors have written pieces there through the month of June for Pride, so you might check it out.

I'm putting together a collection of my Young Adult free short stories from my Goodreads YA LGBT group (with three new ones added to broaden the LGBTQ range of them.) The total at the moment is about 68,000 words for 13 stories, although the collection isn't set in stone. My lovely beta readers are checking it out right now, and Sara Winters is kindly doing editing and formatting. It will be a free collection, and I settled on Rainbow Briefs for the title. I'll let you know when I have a cover and release date.

Learning Curve - Life Lessons #4 got a second edit and new chapter, and hopefully is heading for line editing. No release date yet, but every stage completed is good. I'm looking forward to seeing that cover too. Mac-guy has an... interesting... series of stock-site photos. Back when the first book came out, we didn't know we'd need at least four different poses from him. With normal expressions and no hair gel...

On the new writing side, now that the Young Adult stories are done and in editing, I'm getting back to my Wolves. (And trying to resist the lure of another freebie prompt. Must resist the freebies. Must resist...) BTW, there is a new open prompt for the M/M group's story writing event, Love Has No Boundaries. If you thought about writing for this, check it out... http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1... - ETA - it has now found an author. I hope she has fun with it.

The end of the month is Pride here in Minneapolis and St. Paul. I'll probably go (although likely not to the parade, given my un-fondness for big crowds.) Maybe I'll see some of you there.

Interview and giveaway

Hey there. I'm up on Hearts on Fire Reviews with an interview and a chance to win a free copy of Sole Support. Come check out my long answers to short questions (big surprise, right?) I'm grateful for the opportunity to be a featured author for them.

I also just put Into Deep Waters up on Amazon; I had enough requests to do so, even though I have to charge .99 for it there. We'll see if it finds a wider audience, and Lambda Legal will benefit from the royalties. I'm also in the process of getting some of my free stories up on All Romance ebooks. The only ones there are the M/M group books, and I thought I'd try to get the series short stories listed too. My big thanks to Enny and Jess for formatting help with those.

I'm still putting together a free collection of the YA short stories I've been writing on the Goodreads YA LGBT group, with three new additions. These include M/M, F/F, trans, bi, and M/M/M. I'm working on a title for the collection. Feel free to weigh in with your opinion. From the choices proposed I've narrowed it down to:

Bites of the Rainbow
Bits of the Rainbow
A Taste of the Rainbow
Prism Glimpses
Rainbow Briefs
Rainbow Shorts
Brief Snapshots
Assorted Rainbow Shorts
Quilt Squares
Prismatic Shorts
Moonbow Briefs
Rainbow Skies
Through the Prism

This will release under the Kira Harp pen name, and I want it to suggest LGBT and short stories. I'm interested in which one would make you maybe click on it, expecting that kind of story in a good way.

And just FYI, the second round of edits on Learning Curve - Life Lessons book 4 are almost done. Line edits next...

Sole Support released

I'm delighted to say that my contemporary novel, Sole Support, is now available. (Samhain has it discounted as a new release on their website and it will be up on other retail booksellers' sites shortly.)

Blurb: He can find a use for his lover’s hands…except when he needs help the most.

Kellen is short on cash—at least until his first novel starts to sell—but he has plenty of friends. None of them, unfortunately, share his love of books. For that he turns to IM chats with Mike from his online book group.

Though he manages to coax the shy, socially inept pathologist into a real-time meeting, Kellen has no intention of letting his new friend become more than a casual lover. Shaky finances and ailing mother aside, self-sufficiency is Kellen’s prime directive.

Mike considers himself a nerd of the highest order—short, bespectacled, prone to blurting out the wrong thing at the worst possible time. Meeting Kellen face to face is the biggest risk of his life, and he wonders if they’ll get more body parts together than just their faces.

First meeting leads to first date—first everything for Mike—and soon Kellen’s faced with breaking his just-friends-with-benefits rule. Yet as his elderly mother wanders deeper into senility, Kellen wonders if it’s better to lean on Mike rather than fall.

~~~

Writing this book gave me the chance to be positive and creative about a difficult situation - the pain of watching an elderly parent gradually lose her independence. One of the best things about writing romance is that it lets me take hard emotions and transmute them into shared love in the end.

And here's an excerpt, from near the beginning - I'll drop it down a bit, for those who don't like excerpts:

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.

.

Mike's computer sat open on his desk. When he signed back in, the little flag in
the corner of the screen showed that he had a message. He took a long sip of
coffee and clicked on the icon.

Hi. You up tonight? The IM time was listed as half an hour ago. Kellen might
have given up.

He typed: Sure. You know me. Hit Enter.

It was only a few seconds before the answer came up on his screen: I was
beginning to wonder. So, have you read the new Plakcy mystery yet?

Not yet. He paused. They’d talked about gay mysteries before, but only in
very distant terms. But if Mike was going to quit being pathetic, here was a
chance to start. He made himself add: I do love Kimo, though. What a great character.

He waited, finger hovering over the keyboard. Because that was more blatant
than he’d ever been, putting his admiration for an out-and-gay character down
in words. But finally he sent the comment. He knew Kellen was gay. Kellen
would be okay with this, even if Mike was sort of coming out to him.

It was surely his imagination that made it look like there was hesitation, as
the little note said kellen is typing and then stopped, and then kellen is typing and
then stopped.

It finally popped up: Yeah, me too. Although I like Mike even more. Wouldn’t
mind seeing more about the two of them mixed in with the mysteries.

Mike blew out a long slow breath. Okay. Okay! Before he could lose his
nerve he wrote: That’s even gayer than what I said.

:)

A freaking smiley. He put it on the line and got a freaking smiley back.
Although in a way, he was glad Kellen wasn’t making a big thing out of it. He
hesitated and then wrote: I kind of like it that the focus is on the mystery. Like Kimo is
just another guy, you know?

Yeah. Except Kimo+Mike=hot.

Oh God. He put his head down on his hands and breathed shallowly for a
bit. Kellen knew now, for sure, and was telling Mike he knew. In a friendly way,
not a get-away-from-me-you-stalker way. When Mike looked up, there was a
string of messages from Kellen.

Don’t u think?

Like the scene where they’re in the bathroom.

Mike?

TMI??

He quickly typed: No. Not TMI. I agree, very hot scene.

So any other good reads lately?

A few. Time to get things back into the comfort zone. Found this author Clinton
McKinzie, wrote a series of thriller mysteries with mountain climbing in them and then
stopped. Nothing for 5+ years. A pity.

Gay MC?

No, straight. Cool guy tho.

There was a pause and then kellen is typing, followed by such a long pause
Mike wondered if Kellen had wandered off into some other realm of the Internet.
They were both comfortable enough by now to do that, heading off to look at
reviews or news, and then picking things back up when a new message pinged
them. He was about to do the same himself when the next one appeared.

Any interest in getting together to discuss it in person?

Mike’s heart leaped into his throat, and he could feel sweat break out under
his arms. It was fatal and stupid and suicidal to risk this friendship on a face-to-
face meeting. He knew so little about Kellen. And Kellen knew even less about
him. They were both close to forty, both loved books with a big nod to mysteries,
and enjoyed classic black-and-white films, and were obviously both gay. He had
no clue what Kellen did for a living or what he looked like. The same went
double for Mike. Kellen might be picturing Mike to be tall and self-assured with
craggy good looks and a confident smile. Not that he’d ever claimed that, but he
also hadn’t admitted to being five foot six and looking like Woody Allen on the
actor’s worst day.

Apparently he’d hesitated too long, because another IM appeared. Never
mind. Just a thought.

No, that’s okay. I was off the page, he lied. Sure. I guess, maybe. What were you
thinking of? He stared at his own words, treacherously dumped onto the Net before he’d
had time to think about it. His own index finger was apparently channeling
his sister Corinne.

Coffee and a donut? And books. Do you know The Pastry Shack?

On Lake Street off Lyndale?

That’s the one. Friday evening?

It was happening too fast, but he couldn’t seem to slow it down. Wasn’t sure
he wanted to. What time? I don’t care.

A quick correction. I mean, I’m flexible.

Or not. Damn it. I mean, pick a time. He hid his face in his hands. He was so
bad at this. Kellen must be laughing at him.

Seven thirty?

It seemed as though he hadn’t scared Kellen off. Sure. Seven thirty Friday. He
had a sudden thought. How will I know you? The classic rose in your lapel? God, that
was corny. He was so stupid.

How about a copy of Mahu on the table. Look for the guy who reminds you of
Edward R. Murrow, but with less eyebrows and no cigarette. I’ll try to send you an
actual picture later.

Murrow is cool. He’s a good guy. Mike flipped screens rapidly, Googling the
famous broadcaster. There were a lot of images. He wasn’t bad looking, in a
world-weary, receding-hairline way.

You’re checking him out, aren’t you?

Maybe.

That’s okay. So how will I know you?

Mike panicked. It was the only explanation for the fact that he typed: I’ll wear
the rose. And then logged out in a total collapse of sanity.

What had he done? What the fucking hell had he just done?

(From Sole Support Copyright Kaje Harper 2013)

Nor Iron Bars a Cage released

I'm delighted that Jen over on the Goodreads M/M group has decided to put my fantasy novel Nor Iron Bars a Cage up today on the Love Has No Boundaries free story event, as the group's June first release.

You can find the read-online version on the group if you are a member on this thread - Nor Iron Bars a Cage. A downloadable version is now available, at the M/M group's new story hosting site. The link for that is at the end of the first post, which has the picture prompt and letter for you to see. Right now you can download my story, as well as the first five stories already released from that location. The others from the group event will follow on the group threads, and some as downloads, through the next two months or more - lots of good reading ahead.

STORY INFO:
Genre: fantasy
Tags: mage/sorcerer, first time, hurt/comfort, friends to lovers, magic users, PTSD
Content Warnings: history of past abuse, self-harm
Word Count: 103,780

So yeah, it's long - feel free to go for the download. Right now you'll have to get the link from the group thread, so it's members only. I will be posting it on Smashwords later, and giving you the direct link, but since it was written for the M/M group, I want it to remain in their hands exclusively for a while. I hope you enjoy it - I had fun writing it.

A week until Sole Support; win a copy

My next novel, Sole Support, comes out from Samhain in a week, on June 4th. I'm both excited and nervous about the release. (What else is new, right?)

This book was one I wrote as both something fun and creative, and a therapy of sorts, working through the emotions of an elderly parent's downhill slide. It was my chance to pull out a happy ending for those who love her, if not for the parent herself. There are bits and pieces of me in this story, from things about the guys to details of the supporting characters. There's a lot of my mother in the mom here. It's dedicated to my mother's caregivers, who are invaluable and worth more than I could ever describe, or begin to pay.

So a personal book... but it still has to stand on its own merits. Readers have to believe the plot, cheer for the guys, and enjoy the story. I hope you will.

Chris at Stumbling Over Chaos is running a contest for a free copy of Sole Support (or perhaps more than one - I'll donate another if we hit 100 entries.) The contest starts at 2 AM CDT on May 28th and runs for one week.

I'll put up an excerpt in a couple of days, to give you a look at Mike and Kellen. Hopefully you'll enjoy meeting my guys.

Love Has No Boundaries - coming soon

I'm a member of the Goodreads M/M Romance group, and we're gearing up for the annual free story event - this year called Love Has No Boundaries. There are about 180 stories planned, and three have already been released early. The main event gets started June 1st, with a couple of stories appearing daily through June and July, and possibly into August. Some of my best stories (Into Deep Waters, Like the Taste of Summer, Show Me Yours) were written for previous years' events.

Soooo... are you curious about my story? I thought I'd give you an advance look at the cover:



This story is a fantasy novel - 103,000 words. The cover is another great one by Ren Brennan. I don't know exactly when in June or July it's going to come out, but that's part of the fun. I'll post a link here when it does. Here's the letter I wrote my story for:

"Dear Author --

For so long, years that seemed to go on forever, I couldn't bear to be touched. I put up not just walls but whole concrete bunkers to keep people out -- not just emotionally, but physically as well. Sure, I was alone. But I felt safe. Only, after a while, I wasn't sure any longer whether a totally "safe" life was really worth living. But I was still too afraid to reach out. I started to think about a way out -- a way out of living, that is.

Then someone came along. Someone...completely unexpected. How do I explain him? I can't. But he wouldn't give up on me, and he never believed in walls."

This was a blast to write; I hope readers will enjoy my first full-length fantasy.

Eventually almost all of the stories will be available for download, either in collections or stand alone. But at first, they'll be available only from Goodreads. The best access will be through the M/M group - which is a big, sprawling, active, sometimes contentious, occasionally argumentative, sometimes raunchy and often interesting collection of over 10,000 fans of M/M books. New members are welcome, at the link above. If you try to join the group, and don't hear back on your request be aware that there is a glitch in the group-request function right now. If you are over 18 and have an appropriate birthdate in your profile, the moderators are not rejecting people. Requests just are getting lost. So message a moderator (or me) if you click the "join group" button and get no response after a couple of days.

I will eventually post my book on Smashwords too, so if you choose to wait, it will show up as a freebie there down the road. I'm looking forward to all the stories, and to seeing what readers think of this one.

International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia

Today is the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia. There's a blog hop going on among authors and publishers for this event - and I'm not actually part of it. (Life got a bit complex and I just missed the chance to sign up officially. I put a link for you at the bottom of the post.) But I still wanted to write something today. And if you read down, there is a prize drawing for one of my books as well.

This day is a mix of the good and the bad. The good - that we've come far enough with acceptance of the LGBTQ community that discrimination is seen, is noted and not universally ignored or condoned, and that we have an international event for acceptance. The bad - that this day is necessary because those phobias, the fear and hate directed toward anyone "other" than mainstream heterosexual, is still so strong we need every resource to fight it.

We're making progress, mind by mind, and place by place. Just this week, Minnesota Democratic Governor Mark Dayton signed same-sex marriage into law. Couples can begin marrying in Minnesota August 1. The bill was passed by the state senate and house, just six months after voters rejected a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

Minnesota become the twelfth state in the United States to extend marriage to same-sex couples. As a Minnesotan, I'm proud of that (and may need to do a Mac & Tony short story after the fact... or maybe Simon and Paul should get married.) But the fight continues. And all of us can do our part, by writing, speaking, standing up.

The other day, I was at the grocery store parking lot and a nicely-dressed man came up to me. He pointed at my bumper stickers (things like "Celebrate Diversity" in rainbow colors, and "Vote No to Bigotry") He told me he wanted to give me God's word, and help me see how sinful being queer is and turn me to Jesus. In the past, I would usually say something inadequate like "Go away." Because talking to people is not my thing. Writing, definitely. Talking, not so much.

But this time I managed to say, "I know a lesbian couple, both veterinarians, together twenty years and raising two special needs teens. I think God approves."

He spouted something else about Jesus. I told him, "I think Jesus would rather see you helping animals and children than talking about hate in His name."

He got very affronted about me telling him what Jesus would want. And I managed to just laugh and walk away. Did I change his mind? No. But maybe the cart boy, who paused to listen, heard being gay accepted and defended. Maybe that will make a bit of difference, if we repeat it over and over, publicly and widely. The tide is turning here. We can all help it move forward.

I sometimes get the boost of seeing that happen with my writing. I got a review of Lies and Consequences recently that said, "I read the summary and saw that the two main characters are gay. Since LGBT rights are an issue right now I thought it'd be a good idea to read the book, it's an issue I don't no a lot about...The characters are so in depth, after finishing I started to think about my opinion on LGBT rights because I didn't have one before. This book caused me to look at an important issue in the world. I've decided that they should have the same rights as anyone else, I wouldn't have an opinion at all if It wasn't for the fact that I stumbled upon this book." So a free story that I put out helped move someone's opinion toward equal rights. That is so cool, and such an affirmation of the power of fiction to shape opinions. It's not why I write - I write for love of the stories and to share them with other people. But it's one hell of a great side effect.

So I'm going to link to the official Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia 2013 . (Although they may be having link problems - if so, you can do a search and find a lot of the blogs that way - there are many free books and prizes being awarded.)

And for those who made it down to here, I'm going to do a drawing from comments here and on my Wordpress website, for one advance copy of Sole Support . Post a comment now through midnight Friday May 24th, and I'll draw a winner on Saturday May 25th, ten days before the official release on June 4th.

So comment and then go out, look around and read the posts, and see what everyone else is doing today. Celebrate community and combat ignorance and prejudice. Shine a light on love of all kinds.

ETA - the winner of the advance copy of Sole Support is Debra (message 5)

current projects

So, a progress report...

I've turned in my free story for the Goodreads M/M Romance group event, Love Has No Boundaries. My "short story" ended up as a 103,600 word fantasy novel. (Oops.) It's pretty much classic fantasy, with a hurt-comfort friends-to-lovers type of M/M romance at its heart. There's no fixed release date at present - sometime between now and August is as close as I know - and the cover's not quite ready, but I'll keep you updated.

It's my first full-length fantasy (at least published as opposed to moldering on the hard drive.) I've done the short stories (Gift of the Goddess in the Carved in Flesh anthology, and the Fae Story Within Reach on my website) but that's a bit different from sustaining world-building through a novel, so it will be interesting to see what readers think. This will be a freebie, downloadable from Goodreads when it comes out. The M/M team are putting in some overtime on this event - 189 free stories, two of which are out now.

I'm working on a modest collection of the short stories I've written for the YA LGBT group, to release as a freebie on Smashwords, and maybe OmniLit. I'll put them out under the Kira Harp pen name. I'm trying to make it a somewhat balanced collection to represent the YA group as well as my writing, so it will have my two F/F, the one M/M/M, and a trans story I'm writing now. I have to pick 4 or so of the 15 M/M I've done, and decide if I should also write a bi story... I don't want it to be a big deal, mostly just for fun and because there's not as much YA LGBT that's free as there is on the adult side. Kids often don't have credit cards, so I thought it would be nice to add a few of mine. I'm not sure of the title - in my head it's called "Assorted Shorts" but given the picture of mixed underwear that creates, I may have to do better. Or maybe mixed underwear is a good image...

Then I'm writing the third Hidden Wolves book, and editing the fourth Life Lessons, which I've decided to title "Learning Curve". I liked my alternate title of "Bullet Points" a lot, but it's a bit too dramatic for this story, I think. I'm totally saving it for something else though - maybe a Mac and Tony short story later on.

Anyway, that's it.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. Now I'm going to go eat the cake my daughter made for me (banana chocolate chip, with chocolate icing, of course.)

Unwanted Appeal - Hidden Wolves 2.5 available

I've uploaded the files to Goodreads for this free short story (or is 33,000 words a novella?) Either way, Unwanted Appeal - Hidden Wolves 2.5 takes place shortly after the end of Unexpected Demands - Book 2. It has spoilers for the novel, so they're really best read in order.

It's available now in .pdf and .epub, and I hope you enjoy it. .

Goodreads isn't letting me upload .mobi files at the moment, but I'll get this onto Smashwords soon (I hope) which will make the other formats available there.

The next Hidden Wolves short story

On Thursday April 25th, I plan to release the next installment in the Hidden Wolves series.



Unwanted Appeal - Hidden Wolves 2.5

This story follows after, and contains spoilers for, Unexpected Demands - Hidden Wolves Book 2.

Blurb: Werewolf packs traditionally stay aloof from one another, but gossip still spreads like wildfire. Whispers and rumors about Simon and his mate-bonded male lover, and the pack's experiences with human were-hunters, are still making the rounds. Aaron, the Alpha of Minneapolis West, would love to see his pack's fame fade into the past. But the arrival of two strange wolves makes it clear that for some outsiders, his pack is still considered a pariah, or a threat. For others, it has unwanted appeal.

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This story will be available for download on Goodreads and on Smashwords. I'll post the link when it goes live. This one is about 31,500 words. Hopefully readers will enjoy another look at Aaron, Zach and the Minneapolis West pack.