K.A. Merikan's Blog, page 11

News

Scavengers: July and Scavengers: August are now available on Smashwords. The last installment of the series, Scavengers: September is finished and we are working on minor edits.

This weekend, however, we decided to write a short story for an anthology call. It’s going to be another addition to the world of Gentlemen’s Tales of Love, Lust and the Undead. It should be finished by the time I go to bed with our writing speed

 

Agnes Merikan

Back from the2012 UK LGBTQ fiction meet!

I gotta say I felt apprehensive before this meetup. I knew that like in case of all small communities, most of the 70 attendees would know one another and I felt we might end up as those people no one speaks to, but the conference was nothing like that. With everyone being so friendly and helpful, we could just relax and enjoy the event.

 

Everyone got goodie bags which contained some pretty cool items, including candy, chocolates and even paperbacks The day was filled with discussions and talks (some of which could have been longer, but I imagine it was hard to squeeze the whole program into a single day). I especially liked how Jordan Castillo Price put the development of our favorite genre into perspective,  I tend to forget what a giant leap in terms of availability of computers we have made during the last decade. For aspiring writers like me and Kat, it was simply good to hear a story of rejection followed by success. We could relate to that (though on a much smaller scale). We have been  told that some of the things we write are too vulgar, to straightforward, and so on, but ultimately, we moved on and the site we created gathered a large amount of readers in our native Poland. We both truly believe there is no “right” way of writing and the author should follow their own gut, be it the style or the topics they want to explore.

Lunch was perfect. There’s nothing better than discussing books and fetishes in good company;D We also did our pitch to Riptide over the table, so fingers crossed for “The Copper Horse” ;D

After several hours of interesting discussions (I am kinda sad we didn’t move during the Buffet of Banter, but it was too hard to leave the BDSM table ;D), we went to a tapas bar and then walked over to the cabaret venue with Uli. The Proud Brighton Ballroom is one of the coolest clubs I have been to;D I loved everything: the interior, the acts, the music, the waiters (especially one particular blond cutie), but it was all overshadowed by the fantastic company! With cocktails being served every 10 minutes, the atmosphere got better by the second ;D It’s been a long time since I had this much fun in a club, for real. You guys are great!

Videos:

Pride Brighton Ballroom

Pride Brighton Ballroom Burlesque

Special thanks to the people we had most personal contact with: Josephine Myles, Melanie Tushmore, Aleksandr Voinov, Larissa Hagen,  Blaine D. Arden , Anne Brooke, Tam Ames, Jordan Castillo Price, Katherine Halle, Clare London, Anna Martin, Jay Rookwood,  Charlie Cochrane, Ariel Tachna, Uli and many others that we cannot name due to some problems with name-face matching ;D Please, forgive us.

Now I can’t wait to explore the pendrive…

 

Agnes Merikan

Yet another progress update

August had been slow, but we managed to produce 61k in the last two weeks. Some work has been dedicated to non-english projects, including Till the Heart Stops (set in the same universe as Scavengers) and The Lion and the Unicorn, but it is the progress on The Copper Horse that really makes us proud.

In this long novel we once again explore the dangerous world of Gentlemen’s tales of love, lust and the undead, which means there will be zombies, steam technology and gentlemen in top hats. This time however, we are going to delve deep into London’s underworld, where conventional authorities have no power whatsoever.

We are now through 15% of the planned story (which reminds me that I have a synopsis to write ) and approaching 20%.

Next weekend, Kat ad I will be attending the UK GLBTQ fiction meet  and we are so excited already! We decided to seize the opportunity and stay in Brighton for the whole week to sightsee and do some research for a contemporary novel we plan to set in that city. Looks like we are up for a 7-day extravaganza ;D

Back from Hungary

Ah, traveling… it leaves you with so many questions. Like… how come spiders can be the size of a car key (if you don’t take the legs into account)? And while I do realize that some grow to the size of a human hand, we do not have those in northern Europe and the bigger a spider, the more it freaks me out. We encountered our first Hungarian spider during the first evening in Tihany, a historical town at the Balaton lake. It walked over the road in the street light and I mistook it for a giant cricket. It had it’s own frigging shadow! Back in the apartment, we discovered another huge arachnid and, to my horror, a praying mantis, which was the length of my palm! These bugs always reminded me of mutant people and they freak me out like nothing else. We quickly learned that the twilight marked the beginning of the hour of the spider, which meant that it was better to avoid standing too close to thatched buildings.

Before the horrors, me, Kat and our three friends spent two days in Budapest, which turned out to be an interesting city with an old town that curiously reminds me of Lord of the Ring’s Minas Tirith, but there are many examples of interesting architecture within the city center.

     

The Balaton lake is located three hours by train from Budapest. Its warm, celadon waters are inviting, though the lack of sandy beaches put our group off a bit. On our side of the lake, most beaches were  for some reason covered with concrete. The local people though, seem to love this idea so much that even in places that had grass at the shore,  they chose to get their tans on the concrete. I am convinced there must be some dark secret behind it. One thing though, that was constantly comforting was the EPIC HUNGARIAN FOOD ;D

       

I will be spending over a month with Kat at her place, but with the regular Internet access, we should get back on track with updates:)

Translation – Candy

This week’s translation comes from the second book of Guns’n'Boys. Domenico has some issues…

Domenico caught Seth’s gaze, his jaw squeezed shut tight.He felt more and more ashamed with every moment. “Yes,” he finally uttered. “I do like sweets, you happy now?!” Domenico refused to look at his partner. “Sue me!”

Seth’s mouth fell open, his eyes fixed on Dom. “Well… it’s just that you didn’t eat much of that stuff before… American candy I mean,” he explained, furrowing his eyebrows. This whole situation was more than confusing. He held out a hand to stroke Domenico’s long, dark hair.

“It’s… retarded. Men don’t like sweets that much!” he declared, visibly tense. “It’s… a weakness of mine.”

“But Dom…” Seth looked at him with apprehension, touching his arm. “There’s nothing wrong with that,” he insisted, still disturbed by the fact, that it needed to be clarified. “It’s just candy. I admit that it was baffling at first, but… you know, you didn’t gain any weight. Your metabolism must be extremely efficient.”

Dom pouted. “I’m always hungry.”

Seth looked at him, shocked by this confession. “But you eat all the time…”

“But… you know, when I don’t. You have no idea how much it costs me to hide that I eat this… crap!” he cringed, then rolled the Snickers bar through the grass.

“Dom, you don’t have to hide it!” Seth muttered with disbelief. “You may eat anything you like. It might not be luxurious, but that isn’t obligatory, is it?”

The other man glanced at him. “It’s immature.”

Seth laughed, shaking his head. “And you are just so serious and mature,” he said in a high-pitched voice, as if Domenico were a little child.

Scavengers: August excerpt

An excerpt of Scavengers: August is now added . Feel free to check it out

The second instalment of “Scavengers” is out!

Scavengers: August is now available for Kindle, though various Amazon sites might make it accessible with a slight delay.  The book will be released in other formats later this week.

We are very happy with the feedback the first book received and hope that all those who likedScavengers: July  will equally enjoy reading about the new development in James’ and Ira’s lives.

The last instalment of the series, Scavengers: September is almost done. It will probably take at least another month until its ready for release though.

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This week, we have been mainly working on a short story which might be released later this year (fingers crossed ;D).

We are also very excited about upcoming projects. The Copper Horse is next on the list, along with two other short stories, but those are still a secret

For instant updates, you might want to visit the WIP page.

Cover art for Scavengers: August by Kat Merikan

Weekly translation – Born Under The Moon

This week’s translation is a fragment of “Born under the Moon” .

“And what are ya gossipin’ about, girls?” Cyan asked with feigned carelessness. He did his best to cover the tension in his body.

Oxana made a move to grab him, but backed out in the end. “I heard he touched you! That true? Are you all right?” she asked in a nervous tone.

Cyan exhaled, looking at Xan who sat in the corner sipping hot milk from a colorful cup. “Ya shouldn’t frighten the ladies,” he said, shaking his head in a joking manner.

The other man gave him a smile and shrugged. “What can I do? Nothin’s goin’ on here and we are running out of topics for conversation. And this Remidoff, he seems awful interested in ya,” he stated, looking at Cyan with renowned interest. “Is he…” he trailed off, closing his hands and rubbed the thumbs together. In moonelf culture, this gesture indicated a homosexual man. Because they were talking about a tanelf, the non-verbal signal had a lenient overtone, rather than one of contempt.

Cyan shivered at the sound of laughter, but he had to laugh as well to protect himself from suspicion. “Dunno, he’s a tanelf. They’re different.”

Progress Report

This last week had been tough. There has been very little writing progress due to my lack of time. I had to finish my graduation project and so, Kat has been abandoned ;D We did write some silly stuff for relaxing though and we might later use those scenes in some serious writing.

With edits being at the last stage, “Scavengers: August”  will be released very soon. We needed to add a few sentences to make certain historical facts clear without relying on footnotes. There will be a short glossary in the book though.

Last weekend, we wrote a short story featuring main characters from our first novel, American High. It’s entitled “The Birthday Burglar” and will be available some time after we are done with all the follow-up work.

Well, lets hope this week will be more fruitful ;D

- Agnes Merikan