Bru Baker's Blog, page 10

Musical inspiration: 'We're not Young' and '32'

Proof for my editors that despite what it seems like,
I *do* actually own a Chicago Manual of Style...  
I almost always write to music, and that music usually flavors the tone of whatever I'm working on. I try to match up my character's mindset with what I listen to, which sometimes drives Hubs crazy. (When I wrote Island House, I listened to a few sad Weepies songs on repeat for months because Niall, the main character, is in a bad headspace. Hubs still flinches every time they come...

Soggy soccer games and steamy summer fiction!

This has been a busy week here in the Baker household. The Barnacle's preschool let out last week so it was the start of her summer vacation, and the Bub's last day of kindergarten was Tuesday. It's been stormy and gross here, which means I've been stuck inside with grumpy kiddos who had gleefully been awaiting the arrival of summer for weeks (there were charts and a video count-down diary involved...the Bub is very thorough).

All kindergartners read apocalyptic classics, right?Luckily, the B...

Safe sex: Should characters in M/M fiction wrap it up or not?

I'll start this post with the disclaimer that not only am I a woman, I've been in a monogamous relationship for the last 16 years. And while I read a lot of M/M fiction, I'm definitely not an authority on gay sex. I research my scenes to ensure that positions and reactions are realistic, but one sticking point for me is condom usage.
Photo by Qxukhgiels
Should contemporary M/M fiction promote safe sex? I posed the question to a group of authors and got varied responses. Most agreed that safe se...

Editing and the EDJ

Things are plugging along for me, despite the Evil Day Job's best attempts at getting me off track. I'm a freelance journalist, so most of the time after a long day of interviews and writing the last thing I want to do is write more, but I'm trying hard to get past that. Having the daily word count goal I set at the Dreamspinner Author Workshop in April has been a big help.

I just finished the first round of edits on my latest novella The Buyout, which will be published by Dreamspinner Press l...

Turn that frown upside down...dealing with rejection

I'm fully aware that as a newbie author, I've been incredibly lucky. I spent months trolling internet discussion boards, blogs, and publishing resource sites trying to pump myself up for that first submission, armed with all of the publishing horror stories about how many rejections it takes before you finally get that successful bite. When I did take the plunge and submit to a publisher, the surge of nervous anticipation right after hitting send felt like every birthday-Christmas-night-befor...

Turn that frown upside down...dealing with rejection

I'm fully aware that as a newbie author, I've been incredibly lucky. I spent months trolling internet discussion boards, blogs, and publishing resource sites trying to pump myself up for that first submission, armed with all of the publishing horror stories about how many rejections it takes before you finally get that successful bite. When I did take the plunge and submit to a publisher, the surge of nervous anticipation right after hitting send felt like every birthday-Christmas-night-before-the-tooth-fairy eve I've ever had. (I'll be honest, I've sent off four more since that first one, and the feeling is the same every time.)

My first three submissions were accepted, which I'm over the moon about. Every time I send something off, I feel like a small part of me holds its breath until I hear back. (For my upcoming novella, The Buyout, that wait was six weeks. That's not a really long submission lead-time in the publishing world, but damn, that first full breath after its acceptance was a nice one!)

This time, though, the much-awaited email was a rejection. My submission for an anthology didn't quite fit the bill, and I'll admit I had that heart-crushing moment of self-pity. But the editor was compassionate and professional, so the self-pity didn't last long. The rejection was sandwiched between a "I really liked it, but..." and a "You could try to re-write it and submit it as a novella," so I decided to turn that frown upside down and make it a smile. Or rather, turn that short upside down, add a few thousands words, and make it a novella. There's no guarantee that it'll go over better this time, but at least I've tried. And I love these characters, so spending a little more time in their world is a pleasure, not a hardship.

Connor and Jake have been together since college and their relationship has fallen into the rut that many longterm relationships do. They take each other for granted. They work overtime, they miss dinners. They slide into bed at night and keep to their own side because they're so damn tired that all they want to do is sleep. To make matters worse, they have a roommate, so their love life lacks the spontaneity of kitchen sex or even just the wanton thrill of being as loud as they want to be when they do find time for sex. When Connor becomes secretive and pulls away even more, Jake starts to worry that their relationship is in trouble. He even begins to suspect that Connor's having an affair. Just as Jake is sure that Connor is pulling the rug out from under him and sending their stable relationship crashing to the ground, though, Connor surprises him with a romantic weekend that puts all his fears to rest. (See? Would you be sad about having to spend more time writing with these guys? With all this angst-turned-sweetness, my rejection frown is definitely turned upside down now!)

I'll be finishing the novella up this week and sending it off, so think happy thoughts for me. I'm also waiting for the submission editors to review my first full-length novel, Island House, so I'm a big ball of nervous angst right now. And while that's bad for my blood pressure, it's great for my house. I'm an anxiety-cleaner, so things are looking pretty spotless around here right now. (It makes up for how neglected things get as I finish up a manuscript!) *g*

What's coming up

I was lucky enough to get to attend the Dreamspinner Press Author Workshop last month in Chicago, and I came home super-charged and ready to write all the things. Of course, that only lasted a day or two before the realities of shaping my writing schedule around two young kids and a my freelance writing gig.
Driving into Chicago for the Dreamspinner Author Conference

First, can I just say how impressed I was with Dreamspinner Press? The workshop was awesome, and I really did feel privileged to...

Diving In release date: June 1, 2013

Diving In
Release date: June 1, 2013
Dreamspinner Press Make a Play anthology



Being the pool boy makes it easy for Max Jansen to ogle his long-time crush, water polo player Everett Caldwell. Never mind the fact that Max owns the company and is extremely overqualified for the task of monitoring chlorine and cleaning skimmers. He's just happy to watch his unattainable dream play—until one day Everett invites him over and suddenly Max is his platonic plus-one for everything from movie nights to rac...

Diving In release date: June 1, 2013

[image error] Diving In
Release date: June 1, 2013
Dreamspinner Press Make a Play anthology









Being the pool boy makes it easy for Max Jansen to ogle his long-time crush, water polo player Everett Caldwell. Nevermind the fact that Max owns the company and is extremely overqualified to be monitoring chlorine and cleaning skimmers. He's just happy to watch his unattainable crush play—until one day Everett isn't so unattainable anymore. When Max finds out that the one-time Olympian and heir to the biggest soft-core porn magazine empire in the world isn't as straight as everyone assumes, the bottom falls out of his world. Suddenly he's Everett's platonic plus-one for everything from movie nights to racy industry parties, and Max isn't sure how long he can hold out before his crush turns into something more.

Read an excerpt from Diving In here.

Cover reveal for The Buyout

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I'm thrilled to finally be able to share the cover for my upcoming book with you! Lou Harper at Dreamspinner Press did an amazing job putting it together--I really couldn't be happier!

The Buyout
Release date TBA
Dreamspinner Press

All Parker Anderson has ever wanted is to take
over as CEO of Anderson Industries when his father retires. But when
his father is ready to leave the company, he doesn’t plan to pass
the reins to Parker. Instead, he plans to sell the company,
jeopardizing not only Parker’s job but hundreds of others.

Parker finds an unlikely ally in Mason Pike, the
company’s resident IT guru. What starts as a flirtation takes them
from coworkers to coconspirators in a plan to forcibly buy Anderson
Industries out from under Parker’s father. While they focus on the
buyout, their budding romance has to be put on hold, but that doesn't
stop them from flirting and teasing each other to distraction—and
once their master plan comes to fruition, nothing and no one can keep
them apart.

Read an excerpt from The Buyout here.