Ari McKay's Blog, page 24
March 23, 2013
Sneak Peek! The Whole Kit and Kaboodle
Our next story, “The Whole Kit and Kaboodle”, is coming out on April 22 as part of Dreamspinner Press’ Closet Capers anthology. Since we’re only about a month away from the release date, we thought we’d share a little sneak peek!
Our protagonists are Grey Harris, a history professor, and Henry Adams, head of the special collections area of Hartwell University’s library. Sparks flew from the moment that Grey and Henry met, but Henry has been inexplicably reluctant to acknowledge, much less act on their mutual attraction, which has intrigued and frustrated Grey for the last two years.
Sneak peek snippet after the break!
Henry’s appearance was as understated as his personality. He dressed conservatively, and his dark brown hair was long, curly, and tended to fall into his eyes. The eyes in question were probably his best feature, huge and vibrantly blue behind horn-rimmed glasses. Otherwise his face was sensitive rather than striking, and most people would dismiss him as being nothing more than a stereotypical, tweedy librarian. But that first sizzling contact had told Grey there was more to Henry than met the eye, and all the devouring glances Grey had received since seemed to confirm it.
Yet every attempt Grey had made to flirt with Henry had been met with silence or unease. At first, Grey thought Henry might be in denial or still in the closet, but the subtle rainbow pin on Henry’s jacket lapel on Gay Pride Day had quashed that notion. But other than heated glances, Henry never said or did anything that indicated he felt any attraction to Grey at all.
It was intriguing and arousing, and Grey was glad he didn’t have to invent excuses to invade Henry’s domain and seek out his attention. Grey never pressed when Henry seemed to withdraw, but as a result, he was no closer to understanding why Henry was unwilling to act on their mutual attraction or respond to Grey’s subtle invitations to make their professional relationship a social one. When Grey decided to take the direct approach and asked Henry out, Henry had grown adorably flustered and murmured an apologetic refusal, but he hadn’t given a reason, not even a lame one.
It was the lack of excuses that made Grey begin to think Henry already had a lover, which meant Henry could look at but not touch other men. Yet this explanation somehow didn’t make sense. If Henry was already in a committed relationship, why didn’t he just say so? The more Grey thought about it, the more perplexed he became. If it hadn’t been for the way Henry had continued to look at him as though he were a particularly tasty treat Henry would secretly love to devour, Grey might have given up.
Turning back to the book in front of him, Grey stared at the pages without actually seeing them. He had no doubt Henry would be back in the doorway again before he left, but Grey wasn’t quite sure what to do about it. Yet there was an answer to every mystery, and Grey knew that he wasn’t going to stop until he’d solved the puzzle of Henry Adams, once and for all.
March 9, 2013
Next up…
We didn’t have a publication this month (woe! But that’s how the schedule worked out, alas), but we do have one coming next month, in Dreamspinner Press’ “Closet Capers” anthology. We’re rather excited about this one, since it’s a light-hearted “mystery”, and it pulls in one of our favorite themes to write. I don’t want to give too much away, but let’s just say that appearances can often be deceiving! Hopefully everyone will enjoy the story, which is entitled “The Whole Kit and Kaboodle”.
Then in May, we have the novella from Torquere — “Fennel and Forgiveness”, a sequel to “Bay Leaves and Bachelors”. June will give us “Love’s Cabers Tossed”, in the Dreamspinner Press’ Day Dose. And we cap off the summer with not one, but TWO novels, our first in print! A historical western, “Heart of Stone”, is coming from Dreamspinner, while “Blood Bathory: Like the Night”, a paranormal action adventure, will be published by Torquere.
We’re excited to have so many works on the way, and more to come. In the works at the moment is the third story in the “Recipe for Romance” saga (which started with “Bay Leaves…”), and a sequel to Blood Bathory. So stay tuned, and thanks to everyone for reading our stories!
February 13, 2013
Giveaway Winner!
Congratulations to Giulia, the lucky winner of our Valentine’s Day giveaway! Please check the email address you used to enter the giveaway for your free copy of “Fortune’s Slings and Cupid’s Arrows”, which has been sent to you!
New Release Day!
New Release Day!
Fortune’s Slings and Cupid’s Arrows is out today! And later we will be announcing the winner of the free copy!
February 11, 2013
Contest, and On Writing and Real Life
First up today – don’t forget our Valentine’s Day Giveaway – a copy of our forthcoming story “Fortune’s Slings and Cupid’s Arrows”! You can enter multiple times, so keep putting your name in there! The contest ends February 12th at midnight, and we’ll announce and inform the winner on February 13th!
To enter the give-away, please GO HERE!
Or HERE: a Rafflecopter giveaway
On a different note, I thought I’d talk a little bit about writing and “real life”. Both McKay and I have day jobs — although I’m certainly hopeful that could change one day if we are successful enough! I’m a systems engineer, which means I build, develop, and maintain hardware and software for “big iron” computer systems. I also have two children, although my youngest is now a sophomore in college. While McKay and I had been writing together for a very long time, a lot of things came together about the time my son graduated high school, and it coincided with when we decided to “go pro”.
I think the hardest part with trying to fit in professional writing (as opposed to fanfiction) with real life is that there is far more urgency with the professional work. Most of the time we are working under a deadline we want to make for a particular call for submissions, which can be a little problematic if something comes up at work and I get stuck having to deal with it (or McKay has the same thing happen). Of course family still intervenes, “empty nest” or not. My daughter’s wedding this past December of course cut into writing time rather significantly (not that I begrudge it!) but it can be kind of stressful. I know that the writing comprises a self-assumed responsibility, but both McKay and I feel that we want to keep momentum up, to keep writing and getting our work out there. We have stories to tell, and characters clamoring for attention, and it’s HARD to go for a time without writing. I imagine it’s the way some people feel about exercise — they get cranky and don’t feel right if they don’t get their “fix”, and it’s the same way for us. Writing is an outlet, and we enjoy it. When it’s no longer fun, it’ll be time to stop.
Anyway, I would be interested in knowing how other people view their writing in relation to the rest of their lives. 
February 10, 2013
Valentine's Giveaway!
This story takes background characters mentioned in "Santa's Naughty Helper" and brings them to the forefront for their very own Valentine's Day romance!
Dane Coulter is so far in the closet, he can’t even see the door – not even when his father forces him into an engagement he doesn’t want. Randolph Coulter rules his family with an iron fist, and Dane is so concerned about his mother’s happiness that he is willing to sacrifice his own. But when his best friend Cal seduces him in a desperate attempt to make Dane confront the truth about himself before he makes a terrible mistake, it only complicates matters and drives a wedge between them. Now Dane is alone, and he has to make a decision. Can he stand up to his father and fight for his own happiness, or will he lose Cal forever?
Our give-away will run through February 12, and one lucky person will win a free copy of the story, which will be emailed to them on its release day (February 13). Good luck!
To enter the give-away, please GO HERE!
Or HERE: a Rafflecopter giveaway
February 8, 2013
New Novel: Blood Bathory!
We are proud to announce the Torquere Press has accepted our novel Blood Bathory: Like the Night for publication. We don’t have a release date yet, but we were too excited to wait to announce it!
This is a story that is very near and dear to our hearts for many reasons. It was the first novel we completed after leaving fandom writing to try our hand at getting published, yet it still has roots in the world where we honed our skills for so many years. We needed a television show fandom to use in a fanfiction story, and because we didn’t want to inadvertently stir up any drama by using a real fandom, we decided to make one up. Figuring it was in for a penny, in for a pound, we went all out on the endeavor, creating LJ communities for the “fandom”, and accounts for the “fans” who posted to the them. We even wrote fanfiction based on the non-existent show!
We did more world-building for our fictional TV show that wouldn’t even do much more than serve as a background for the main story than we had on anything we’d written prior, and we discovered that we enjoyed it and were pretty good at it. In fact, there were people who said they’d watch the show if it was real.
The original Blood Bathory was meant to be campy and cheesy, but when we decided to dust off the concept and use it as the basis for our first original m/m novel, we had to revise it heavily to make it more realistic and less cheesy. But the two lead characters and the Big Bad remained the same, and we made sure to create a solid foundation for the supernatural world they live in.
We’re very proud of the characters we’ve created and the world-building we’ve done, and we’re thrilled that our first “baby” is finally going to be published — and in print as well as ebook format!
Blood Bathory: Like the Night is the first book in a planned trilogy, and we’ve already got plots, plans, and even drafting underway for the next two books. We hope everyone will enjoy reading Blood Bathory as much as we enjoyed writing it!
February 6, 2013
Collaborating
Ari and I have been writing together since August, 2004, and we like to joke that our writing partnership has lasted than some celebrity marriages. Although we moved in the same fandom circles, we hadn’t really interacted much before we started writing together, but we’d read each other’s solo stories. For my part, I thought her writing style and preferences were similar to mine, and what she wrote hit my reader buttons in all the right ways, so I felt pretty confident that we would write well together.
Once we did start writing together, we developed a smooth collaboration process that still serves us well all these years later. Because we don’t live near each other, we use Google Docs to write our drafts. The benefits of using a collaborative writing tool is that we can both access the documents at the same time and write together in real time when we’re online together in the evenings, and we can access the draft and take our turn in the current scene when we have time during the day. It saves drafts automatically, and the draft can be downloaded as a Word document once we’re ready to start editing and formatting in preparation to submit the story.
Recently, we’ve begun using Evernote to organize notes about our stories, clip webpages and photos we can use for inspiration, write up character bios, and keep an on-going plot bunny list (39 bunnies and counting!), among other things. We give our novels their own notebook; the Recipe for Romance series has its own notebook, and our short stories all go in the same notebook. It’s been a very handy organizational tool, and the best thing is that we can both access it from our computers, our smart phones, or our iPads.
Our writing process is pretty simple, and we’ve got it honed to an art form at this point. First we decide on the overall plot, which is determined based on whether we’re writing for a specific call for submissions or we’ve been attacked by a giant, rabid plot bunny that’s sunk its teeth into our ankles and refused to let go. Sometimes, it’s both!
After that, we discuss the main characters. Sometimes, a character will pop up and start yakking at one of us. At that point, deciding who writes whom is easy. For example, Cal Monroe from “Fortune’s Slings and Cupid’s Arrows” sauntered up to Ari and informed her that he wouldn’t look out of place tossing cabers at the Highland Games and let her know he’s tall and broad-shouldered with auburn hair and green eyes, and he looks dead sexy in a kilt, thank you very much.
That meant I would be writing Dane, the other leading man. He’s shorter than Cal and blond, and he’s been under his father’s thumb his entire life. Although it was Cal who stepped forward first, the story ended up being primarily about Dane’s emotional journey as he learns to accept himself and start living his life on his own terms.
We stick to single POV within a scene, but we do alternate POV from scene to scene so that the burden of exposition doesn’t fall entirely on one of throughout the story. We did have single POV through the whole story in a few works — Caribbean Blues, Steam Heat, On the Rocks, and A Hundred Lonely Halloweens — for one of two reasons. Either the story length requirement was so short that we thought it wouldn’t be worthwhile to switch or we thought the story would work better seen through the POV of a single character.
After we finish the rough draft, Ari takes the first editing pass. After she’s done looking at it, I format the work to the publisher’s requirements and take my editorial pass through it. Sometimes, we get someone else to look at it as well if we’re worried about any particular aspects of the story or we want to make sure it reads well. We’re pretty much a well-oiled machine when it comes to writing the rough draft, but we do tend to get bogged down in the editing and revision stage. That part always seems like a necessary evil when we’d rather be starting on the new shiny!
To read Cal and Dane’s story, check out Torquere Press on Wednesday, February 13! Or sign up for a chance to win a free copy of “Fortune’s Slings and Cupid’s Arrows!”
To enter the give-away, please GO HERE!
Or HERE: a Rafflecopter giveaway
And if you’re interested in keeping up with us in other ways, please feel free to friend/like/follow us!
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AriMckay1
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ari-Mckay/266185570179748
February 4, 2013
Valentine’s Day Give-Away!
To celebrate the most romantic day of the year, we’re giving away a free copy of our up-coming Valentine’s Day novella, “Fortune’s Slings and Cupid’s Arrows”!
This story takes background characters mentioned in “Santa’s Naughty Helper” and brings them to the forefront for their very own Valentine’s Day romance!
Dane Coulter is so far in the closet, he can’t even see the door – not even when his father forces him into an engagement he doesn’t want. Randolph Coulter rules his family with an iron fist, and Dane is so concerned about his mother’s happiness that he is willing to sacrifice his own. But when his best friend Cal seduces him in a desperate attempt to make Dane confront the truth about himself before he makes a terrible mistake, it only complicates matters and drives a wedge between them. Now Dane is alone, and he has to make a decision. Can he stand up to his father and fight for his own happiness, or will he lose Cal forever?
Our give-away will run through February 12, and one lucky person will win a free copy of the story, which will be emailed to them on its release day (February 13). Good luck!
To enter the give-away, please GO HERE!
Or HERE: a Rafflecopter giveaway
