S.M. Johnson's Blog, page 4

SM Johnson ~ Love Letters ~ Freeeeedom

yeah, totally stole this, sorryWow, New Year's Eve - what can I say? Except no school for another THREE WEEKS - yay! I always knew I hated school. Dunno what sort of dummy I was to think it was such a great idea to go back, heh.

Note to self: Self, you hate school.

There. I've just successfully talked myself out of getting a doctorate degree.

So what is SM Johnson the AUTHOR doing these days?

Well... nothing all that exciting. With just a tiny window of school-less-ness, I decided to go with something super easy, like for instance, rewrite DeVante's Coven, with some crazy aspiration to publish it by the end of January. We shall see how that goes. I've figured out the new structure, and now I'm to the part where I actually need to re-write some stuff. Which might be fun. Or it might be really complicated, I'm not altogether sure yet, but I do know I was never terribly happy with the climactic scene the first time around.

I'm going to play with that a bit, and it's kind of weird and cool, knowing what I know about the future of all these characters, to get the opportunity to tighten things up in the "past."

Plus now that I've had some additional education, I understand Tony a little bit more (oooh, readers of DeVante's Children Revamped haven't even MET Tony yet - man, now there's a delicious thought!) Hahahahaha. Tony is... an interesting character who pretty much gets his own book later....

Okay. Enough on that.

Freedom.

And the end of 2015.

Man, this year. I can't even tell you. If I gave 2015 a word, that word would be Unexpected.

I can hardly wrap my head around all the crazy, terrible, wonderful, awful, beautiful, amazing things that happened this year. It's been like a roller-coaster, and to tell you the honest truth, I'm really fucking ready to get off this crazy ride.

But there's no way.

Purchased stock photoIf the next five months aren't a roller coaster ride, they'll be one of those crazy mountain roads with all the twists and curves and hairpin turns, and the warning signs won't say "downshift, steep grade ahead" they'll say, "Prepare to be wrong, all the fucking time."

I have some intense time as a student ahead, and I'll be learning from the toughest crowd there is. Wish me luck, boys and girls. I'm jumping into the new year with both feet.

Be safe out there Darklings, it's a war zone.

~SM

SM Johnson ~ UnCommon Bodies ~ Buy it NOW!

Oh Happy Day!

UnCommon Bodies Anthology is available for purchase NOW!

Oh, yes, it is, Boys and Girls! You it's freakishly delicious and strangely odd and weirdly wonderful. You know you want it, lol!

Go! get it now - AMAZON KINDLE or AMAZON PAPERBACK.

This UnCommon Collection can be all yours.


Now why, oh why, should you want this? Well, it already has a slew of fantastic reviews. There's reason #1. And short, sharp little bites of stories, there's reason #2. And.... wait for it.... the very best reason of all, of course, is that MY STORY, Reserved, is hidden inside.


Don't you think that might be the very best reason of all?



It's been five years since the accident that killed Pete Spencer's younger lover and left him grieving, bitter, and broken. He's tired of his lonely world, but the kind of young men he's attracted to dismiss him the moment their eyes land on his cane. Pete's learned to hide behind the safety of his reserve, but he's never met anyone like Rory.



Excerpt time!
***
The music seemed to be winding down, and Rory leapt upright. "Duty calls," he sang, and blew Pete a kiss as he ran toward the stage and bounded up the steps on those crazy high heels.Pete watched him go, and for some reason thought of hummingbirds, quick and busy, and hesitant to land anywhere for more than a moment.Rory, the apple-cheeked glitter boy just in from the cold, looking at him, seeing him, and Pete reminded himself that it meant nothing, men like Pete didn't get to have glitter boys like Rory–the world didn't work like that, no matter what Rory wanted to pretend for tonight to save face in front of his friends. The minute Pete started to believe otherwise was the first step toward the fall. And if he fell that hard again, he might never get up.He should leave the club right this minute, because having these thoughts at all was a sign of trouble. He was only safe if he expected nothing, wanted nothing, longed for nothing, yearned for nothing. He was only safe if he could be satisfied by the touch of his own hand.He didn't even care about the burlesque show anymore. He didn't watch it. He only watched Rory, was fascinated by him. Captured. Already obsessed. He watched Rory's hands flutter, his lips move, his eyelashes bat. Watched the exaggerated emotions play across his face, his sighs, his laughter, his pout as he wiped away a tear. The cadence of his voice as he told a story, all diva, no falsetto. Breathless. Excited. Cute.And then Rory was back at the table, standing between Pete's thighs, signaling to the waiter, and the waiter lined up two shot glasses in front of them, and looked expectantly at Pete, who felt obliged to remove his wallet and settle up. "A tab?" the waiter, the same charmer from earlier, suggested. Pete dutifully provided a card instead of cash.Rory tilted his head up and his lips grazed Pete's ear. "Such a nice Daddy," he purred.This time the shock of his words was electric.Pete made sure his voice was as firm as the hands he used to push Rory gently out of his space. "My name is Pete Spencer. Call me Pete or call me Spence."Rory stared at him, his face  both defiant and hurt. "But don't call you Daddy?" "Exactly."                                                
***

Ooooh, boy, these guys have ISSUES.
You have no IDEA.
But you can read all about it in Reserved, at the moment available only in the UnCommon Bodies Anthology.
So. What are you waiting for?
Hope you all have a lovely and safe, non-toxic long weekend.
Kisses to all my Darklings.
~SM 

SM Johnson ~ An Interview with Karl Five ~ Author of the Rick&Jerry series

Good afternoon Darklings, and welcome to winter (ugh). It did not creep up  quietly on me this year while I frantically wrote for NaNoWriMo, because I only managed to NaNo 6,000 words due to graduate school. Graduate school, it turns out, is A LOT OF WORK. And a TREMENDOUS TIME SUCK. In a good way. But still. Doesn't leave a lot of time for writing 50,000 words in the month of November. 50,000 words of research papers, perhaps. But novels? Not so much.

So that's what happened with me and National Novel Writer's Month. But have no fear. I have a month off from school from mid-December to mid-January, so it's very possibly that I will just do a delayed NaNo, because I started working on the next Dungeon novel, and I'm excited about it. But let's move on to today's little treat, shall we?

I have such a treat for you today....

An interview with a delightful writer who goes by the name Karl Five...


I have had the pleasure of reading Karl's Rick&Jerry series, and I'm quite looking forward to reading his Orgasm Incorporated series, too. I'm a girl who writes M/M erotic romance, but I was first introduced to M/M erotica years and years ago on something archaic known as ListServ and File Transfer Protocol (FTP), or, more simply. Alt.com. When you went into Alt.stories/gay, you got gay stories written by gay men. And they were different than than gay stories written by straight women. And you get that difference with Karl's stories. The men are gay, but the men are men. And the stories are a delight to read.







And now for that interview, shall we?


SM: Hi Karl! I had a great time reading about Rick and Jerry, and one of my favorite things to do on this blog is to share with my Darklings other writers that I really enjoy. So I'm tickled that you've answered some questions for me. Rick reminded me a little bit of one of my favorite modern literary characters, Lee Child's Jack Reacher - ex-military, very competent, traveling the states to see what he could see of his home country. Do you have any favorite literary characters or a particular author that you’d love to be compared to?
Karl Five: At the present time, no.  I used to write a lot of fanfiction, and whichever character I was writing about at the time was, of course, my favorite.  Other than that, there are just too many excellent authors out there, so I can’t choose just one.
SM: Tell me something about your writing process. For example, do you write at the same time every day, scheduled like Stephen King?
Karl Five: I write in bits and pieces when I have time, not by a strict schedule.
SM: Are you a 'plotter' or a 'pantser' - meaning do you write from a plot outline, or write by the seat of your pants without much of an outline? 
Karl Five: I’m a plotter as far as making a rough outline of what’s going to happen before I begin the actual writing, but that plot often changes dramatically by the time the story is finished.
SM: Do you write longhand or at a computer? 
Karl Five: Much of my writing is done with pen and paper, especially the new ideas that keep popping into my head.  Once I transcribe all of that into my computer, I use the computer to edit my deathless prose, fill in transitions between scenes when needed, go over the wording, rearrange things if necessary, add details when called for, and so on.
SM: Do you write in an office or somewhere else? 
Karl Five: I don’t have enough living space to have an office, so that’s out.  My computer is in my living room, where a lot of my work is done.
However, if I’m using pen and paper and searching for inspiration, I often sit out on my porch or in the yard.  I keep asking myself “What if ---?” and then jot down every possibility that comes into my mind.  Later on, I separate the wheat from the chaff.
I usually describe my method of writing as being like the creation of a patchwork quilt.  Once I have a rough pattern in mind, I write whichever scene that inspires me at any given time, then set it in place in my planned layout for the quilt.  I don’t sew them down yet, since they may need rearranging later on.  When all of the individual patches are complete, I look it over carefully to see if anything is out of place and should be moved, or even removed and kept for future use in another quilt, if it doesn’t seem to match well in this particular quilt pattern.
When I’m satisfied with the layout, I stitch them all together as seamlessly as possible.  Then I set my hypothetical quilt  aside for a few days, and go back later on to look for any loose threads or small corrections that need to be made.  Finally, I hang my quilt out where it will be visible to others and hope for the best.
SM: Do you NaNo? (participate in NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writer's Month, where millions of writers attempt to write 50,000 words of an original draft during the month of November). If you don't, it's not too late to start!
Karl Five: Oh goodness no!  I can barely write one story in a month’s time, much less a full length novel.  To do an entire novel would take at least a year if not more for it to be completed to my satisfaction.I find that I do best with long story arcs, so that I write stories that range from 1,500 words up to about 20,000 words, each one capable of standing on its own, but when they’re taken together the collected stories form a larger overarching plotline.
I’ve only written one actual novel, and it’s what I call Anthropological Science Fiction, since it deals with aliens on their own planet and in their own culture, with no humans involved. (Walls of Ancient Stone, written under my SF pen name of K. L. Schaefer.)
SM: Ah well. November's NaNo is almost over for this year anyway, lol. I'll put in a plug for next year though - those of us who get addicted to NaNoWriMo never get those 50,000 words completed to our satisfaction - we end up with very very rough drafts - usually the skeleton of a good story that we revise and work on and maybe get to a publishable state sometime in the next year (wink). It's a fun self-challenge. I failed miserably this year (see above) due to being a conscientious grad school student. Anywhoo. Next question....
SM: When was the most inconvenient moment that the Muse dropped a story idea on your head? (I think of my Muse in the guise of a seagull who laughs at me while she flies past, dropping ideas on me like poo – nice visual, hmm?)
Karl Five: I had been mulling over a crucial scene in one of my Rick&Jerry ebooks for several days without coming up with anything that I liked.  Then an idea hit me while I was sitting in the dentist’s chair having my teeth cleaned, trying to keep my mind off the pain by thinking of something else. Usually, when that happens, I grab a pen and scribble down the terrific idea I just came up with, but I wasn’t able to do that under the circumstances.  I had to wait until I was outside in my car, where I keep a notebook and writing implements just for this sort of thing.
SM: What is your favorite of the stories you have written, and why is it your favorite?
Karl Five: I don’t have a favorite.  Whichever story I’m working on at any given time is my favorite.
SM: Do you write with a particular audience in mind?
Karl Five: Yes.  Other sex maniacs like me.  :-)
To be more specific, my Orgasm Incorporated Series is aimed at Kinky/BDSM folks, while the Rick&Jerry Series is meant for those readers, mostly female, who enjoy reading gay male erotic romance.  (Of course, I’d like to think that there are gay guys out there reading it also.)
SM: So... (blushes)... why do you write "dirty books" instead of more, uh, "respectable" sorts of stories?
Karl Five: I like to play around with sex, often turning it inside-out and upside-down, especially in my Org Inc books.
I want to explore the many meanings and feelings about sex.  There’s so much variety out there for something that seems to be so very basic and simple at first glance.  I want to create different and unusual ways to have my characters enjoy each other’s bodies, not just repeating lurid descriptions of ordinary intercourse, or even not-so-ordinary intercourse, over and over and over again.  If I can’t change the basic actions, I want to at least change the situations and circumstances, the emotions or the feelings, the meanings and reasons above and beyond just the physical actions and reactions.
SM: I am SO going to have to read the Orgasm Incorporated series. There were some really hot moments in the Rick&Jerry series, but I'm getting the feeling there might be some more of that in the Orgasm Incorporated, and that's just the kind of "naughty" that really winds my crank. 
Thanks so much for being a guest on my blog.
Darklings, you can follow Karl Five here on Facebook

Buy Karl Five's books at 
 Amazon
Smashwords
Barnes and Noble Nook
Kobo
iBooks but I never have luck finding links

Get ready and Pre-Order! UnCommon Bodies!

Coming November 24 2015!

 UnCommon Bodies Anthology(goodreads)from Fighting Monkey Press

Step right up to the modern freakshow — We have mermaids, monsters, and more. You won't be disappointed, but you may not get out alive.
UnCommon Bodies presents a collection of 20 beautifully irreverent stories which blend the surreal and the mundane. Together, the authors explore the lives of the odd, the unbelievable, and the impossible. Imagine a world where magic exists, where the physical form has the power to heal or repulse, where a deal with the devil means losing so much more than your soul.

I have a darling little story in this anthology called Reserved.




It's been five years since the accident that killed Pete Spencer's younger lover and left him grieving, bitter, and broken. He's tired of his lonely world, but the kind of young men he's attracted to dismiss him the moment their eyes land on his cane. Pete's learned to hide behind the safety of his reserve, but he's never met anyone like Rory.






UnCommon Bodies is available to pre-order from Amazon HERE.

Go! Click! Pre-order! Do it now!

This is an awesome collection of strange and wonderful stories. You won't be sorry.

Thank you!

~SM

PS. If you love Reserved, you can look forward to more of Pete and Rory's story in the future, because I adore these two men, and I'm excited to share more of what happens between them.

SM Johnson ~ A Collection of Naughtiness

So I did a thing....

I compiled Books 1 - 4 and The Story of Hawk and boy into one HUGE ebook.
Collected Novels from the Dungeon
Amazon



Buy from AMAZON
So there you go, my Darklings. It is priced at $5.25, which is a steal for something like a gazillion pages (945, according to Amazon).
If you've nabbed Above the Dungeon for free, the beautiful (and working) table of contents in the beginning of the Collection will allow you to skip right to book 2, Out of the Dungeon, and you may pick up right where you left off.
It is currently only available at Amazon, although I do intend to upload it to Smashwords when I get a chance, and then it will distribute to Barnes and Noble, Kobo, iBooks and so forth.
Have a kick-ass Halloween!

SM Johnson ~ Fabulous Fall Giveaway

All links on this page GO HERE

Good afternoon, darklings!

Just want to let ya'll know that I'm sponsoring a fun little fall contest that benefits The Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

So click this link and enter a Rafflecopter contest to win Amazon gift cards! Like and Follow awesome authors to get more points (entries into the Rafflecopter drawing, I think? I'm not the greatest at knowing how all this works - I just put up money to fund the gift card prizes, lol) and then you earn even more points when you buy the books on the contest page. And as an added incentive, some authors, including myself, have reduced the price of those books for this promotion.

So what;s the hold up? These books are just hanging out RIGHT HERE waiting for you to buy them! CLICK HERE ALREADY.

Thanks! You're the best readers in the whole wide world. I hope you win $200 bucks to spend at Amazon. Someone has to. It might as well be you.

BTW - All the links on this page go to the same place. I didn't want anyone to get lost. So if you clicked on any link here, you're all good (grins with all teeth showing).

DeVante's Children (revamped) is on sale for .99 from October 12 - October 18. It would be so amazing and awesome if you could find it in your heart to leave an honest review at Amazon. So far there's only one tiny little review available for readers to read (wipes away a tiny tear). It's hard for people to buy a book based on just one totally awesome amazing 5-star review.... (sniffle)









Click HERE to enter

SM Johnson ~ Shameless Promo Post ~ A really pretty excerpt

This is a sexy vampire novel for just $2.99. I promise my vampires don't sparkle, they bite.

Amazon
Nook
Kobo
iBooks
Smashwords

SM Johnson ~ Personalized

This is me.


This is Alice.


This is Me & Alice.

I am having a bad hair day.Alice is having a bad tail day (shedding).

And this is Alice when she was a wee little babyon the SAME rock as great big Alice above.

Look at her tiny little feets!OMG, the cuuute!
We have other pets.We have an adorable dog.We have a cranky asshole cat.But Alice is my favorite.(Shhh, don't tell the others, it's not nice to have favorites)

SM Johnson ~ Love Letters ~ Everything Changes

from http://izquotes.comLove Letters: E is for Everything Changes

And here we are. A jolting, shocking, unforeseen, never could have been expected time of change.

What to do? Where to turn? A crossroads at which it is impossible to foresee which decision might the the correct decision. All choices are right. All choices are wrong. No choices are right. No choices are wrong.

My thoughts are live things chasing tails - there are so many possible directions I could go right now, that what I actually do is sit still and decide nothing.

Isn't that weird? I jumped into graduate school with both knees bent to spring, eyes wide open to the fact that an intense school program would make for a lean writing year, but everything in me was geared up for the challenge - and when the application process and the financial aid process all slipped through like the whole system was well-lubricated, I thought, well, damn, this was meant to be. I was offered a really great internship, but turned it down because I wanted an experience I thought would challenge me in a different way - or, rather, a different kind of growing way.

And then summer semester was really hard. I mean... really hard. I worked my ass off, and in the end wondered if I was actually going to pass my classes. (Yes, I passed, with a B+).

And then the bomb, the betrayal, the absolute stunner... of which I can share no details, but I can tell you this: You can use your skills and education and heart to genuinely and honestly help a hundred people or two hundred people or five hundred people to the best of your ability. You can bring warmth and compassion and build therapeutic rapport. You can be kind to people that few others are kind to. You can try your level best always to do no harm. And still, eventually, you will be fucked over.

If not by the people you serve, than by the people who oversee the people you serve. And it doesn't matter at all what you were trying to accomplish, it doesn't matter if no one got hurt, and it doesn't even matter if you actually helped a real person. Someone, ultimately, doesn't like what you do, or read, or write in your private life, and that cancels out every good fucking thing that you ever did.

Interesting, hmm?

I think it's very interesting.

I was in a panic for a while. I had reasons, after all, to pursue a master's degree in a field other than writing. I wanted to help people.

But I'm starting to think the human condition is beyond my help, and the liability is too big to go into debt over. Like maybe there's too much liability to even try (sigh).

I have two weeks to figure it out and get my money back, so I guess if I sit still today, the world won't end.

The plus side is... I can always write books. But the health insurance plan sucks.

~SM

New Release! DeVante's Curse

NEW RELEASE! NEW RELEASE!


Growing up in Katarina's castle changed a boy named Ernesto into a cold-hearted creature who calls himself DeVante. But which came first, the monster or the man? DeVante's Curse is a 10,000 word companion story to the Vampire DeVante series.




Is this crazy, or what? I didn't even give you guys any warning on this one, just popped it right out there!

This is a lovely little story called DeVante's Curse: Katarina's Castle, and the ebook is for sale RIGHT NOW at Amazon for kindle and Smashwords (all formats) for the tiny little price of 99 cents. Less than a gas station cup of coffee, folks, and way less than a fancy drink at Starbucks, right?


You may remember I released a pretty rewrite of  DeVante's Children back in June (or you may not, since I started graduate school shortly after, and haven't had much time to spend doing promotion) - but Katarina is a nasty piece of work featured in DeVante's Children, and DeVante's Curse gives you a little more background of the history between DeVante and Kat. And lets you see more clearly how DeVante became the cold and distant sort of being that he is - and why his attachment to Emily is such a big deal. Because it is a big deal. A really big, huge deal (grin).

DeVante's Curse is an awesome story of transformation, and it's romantic and beautiful and, yes, somewhat tragic, but not like, in a bad way, although it doesn't have a traditional happy ending - more of a gothic it has to end this way, kind of ending. Okay? So go check it out. And if you enjoy it, remember how much reviews help us poor struggling authors (insert pleading smile here).

Have a great weekend, my darklings!

~SM