Anna Butler's Blog, page 39

SAVE THE DATES!!!

 







 

 









 

 

Join me at  the

BUTLER’s PANTRY

14 JANUARY

to see the Gyrfalcon cover!!

Links To Blog Posts on Writing

 

Here’s the latest collection of articles that caught my eye over the last week or so.

Writing (general)

2015 Resolution For Writers: Be Big (And Then, Be Small)

Chuck Wendig is a writing treasure. A profane and opinionated on, I grant you, but a treasure. Read his take at Terrible Minds on the philosophy of writing. Live his final sentence. Art hard, motherfuckers!

My 2015 Writing And Publishing Wishlist

Chuck again, with thoughts on, well, everything. Just go and read it.

Why The Best Fantasy Stories Include Mundane Everyday Life

Author Anne Leonard at IO9, on how the mundane everyday things are needed in fantasy, if only to help us understand the scale and impact of magic and wonder. What she’s talking about here is worldbuilding – but ‘accessible’ world building. Interesting.

Reviewing Reviews

I picked this up from the DSP authors forum, and although it’s not new, Amy Lane is eminently sensible in how to deal with bad reviews. We all get them – she shows how she works through them. She references an earlier blog post, The Five Stages of A Bad Review, which is also very good.

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Writing (skills)

25 Must-Read Tips on Plotting from Top Authors and Editors

A useful list compiled by editor M J Bush at Anne R Allen’s blog, complete with links through to the source of each tip.

Five Stupid Writing Tricks Starting… Now

The inimitable Chuck Wendig on plot, character, writing how you think… and obsidian dildos. Only Chuck.

Stirring Higher Emotions

Donald Maas at Writer Unboxed on emotional intelligence: how to write big emotions without falling flat.

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Publishing

Evaluating Publishing Contracts: Six Ways You May Be Sabotaging Yourself

Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware on the clauses in publishing contracts that will cripple you if you aren’t watchful of your rights. Do read this and other contracts advice carefully. Publishers are out to protect themselves and their rights and profits, not yours. Caveat emptor rulz OK, right?

2015 Book Publishing Industry Predictions: Slow Growth Presents Challenges and Opportunities

Interesting thought piece from Mark Coker at the Smashwords blog – his annual predictions about where the industry is heading.

Kindle Unlimited

Is Kindle Unlimited Devaluing Books? The Dark Side of Exclusivity

Mark Coker at the Smashwords blog with more thinky thoughts on the impact of Kindle Unlimited. Honest, I’m beginning to think that I should start a whole new section just for KU.

Are Indies Treated Like Second Class Citizens?

Hugh Howey on the relationship between Amazon and indie authors, with yet more references to Kindle Unlimited. Actually quite remarkably balanced and thought-provoking.

Amazon Offers All-You-Can-Eat Books. Authors Turn Up Noses.

A New York Times article with yet more analysis and opinion on… guess what? Yup. The ubiquitous Unlimited. Majors on the problems authors are having with seeing a massive drop in income and the rise in short stories and novellas to compensate.

Subscription Model Squabbles

John Scalzi picking up on earlier thoughts on KU, with his usual acerbic take on things. He makes a compelling argument about KU reducing writing to a zero sum game, with some thought provoking comments in his penultimate paragraph that set out the issues more clearly than anything else I’ve read on the topic.

A Janus sort of mood today

A belated Happy New Year to you all. Also, a belated new year post.

January gets its name for a good reason. The Roman god Janus had two faces, one looking forward and one looking back. The turn of the year lets us be reflective and hopeful at the same time.

I would have posted sooner but that the beginning of the year was taken up with finalising the galley proofs for Gilded Scarab. After the rush of Christmas and new year, I decided to take a couple of days away from writing and instead I glued the backs onto 185 spaceship brooches and made the covers for two more Kindle cases.

But that’s looking forward to what I hope 2015 will bring. I should take a look back at 2014, I suppose.

First the good things. It was the first year that I really tried to make a go of being a writer. I’d talked about it before, even published an indie sci-fi novella (FlashWired) and got a couple of short stories accepted by Dreamspinner for various anthologies in 2013. Mixed responses for all of those—said wryly, you understand, and with a self-deprecating smile.

But last year, I decided to stop shilly-shallying around and actually do something to make it all happen. So, I revised the first of the Shield novels, wrote three more books and started on a fourth. I was, to say the least, prolific.

Pro-lif-ic.

In my terms, of course. Maybe not quite so many books as in the image. I can’t churn out a novel a month like some writers manage (not a bad thing since it keeps their name out there) but I was very happy with progress all the same. The count was:

Taking Shield series

Gyrfalcon revised                                  97,420 words

Heart Scarab completed                     102,280 words

Makepeace completed                          95,480 words

The Chains of Their Sins started         36,097 words in

 Lancaster’s Luck series

Gilded Scarab completed                    c 113,000 words after editing.

I was over the moon in June when Wilde City took Gyrfalcon and Heart Scarab, and in August Dreamspinner offered a contract for the Gilded Scarab. Thrillsville, people. Thrillsville.

See? Decide to take writing seriously and Things Happen.

That was the good stuff, along with still being with D and loving him and Molly, the Deputy Editor to bits.  The not so good stuff was health related. My mother fell and broke her hip in February, and her already reduced mobility is now considerably worse. She’s making a reasonable recovery and is taking on more in the house to test her independence a little, which is all to the good. Then I ended up with the chest infection from hell in June, and was wiped out for months afterwards. Turned out to be Vit. D deficiency. But hey! look on the bright side. At least I didn’t end up with rickets.

So what about 2015?

Well, first of all, the proposed publication date for the ebook of Gyrfalcon is the 28th of this month (the print version will be a few months down the line). Squee! I’m waiting on edits and a final cover, but here’s a little glimpse of a bit of it. 

Earth’s last known colony, Albion, is fighting an alien enemy. In the first of the Taking Shield series, Shield Captain Bennet is dropped behind the lines to steal priceless intelligence. A dangerous job, and Bennet doesn’t need the distractions of changing relationships with his long-term partner, Joss, or with his father—and with Flynn, the new lover who will turn his world upside-down. He expects to risk his life. He expects the data will alter the course of the war. What he doesn’t expect is that it will change his life or that Flynn will be impossible to forget.

Yeah, I know that’s a bit of a tease… But you can see why I’m doing Kindle and iPad cases and creating little rocket ship brooches. I’ll need something to give away on publication day! Watch this space for a full cover reveal.

And in February (probably) Dreamspinner will publish the Gilded Scarab. What can I say about this? I love Shield, and Bennet and Flynn, but Rafe Lancaster stole my heart away. He is, to quote one of my editors at DSP, *awesome*.

When Captain Rafe Lancaster is invalided out of the Britannic Imperium’s Aero Corps after crashing his aerofighter during the Second Boer War, his eyesight is damaged permanently, and his career as a fighter pilot is over. Returning to Londinium in late November 1899, he’s lost the skies he loved, has no place in a society ruled by an elite oligarchy of powerful Houses, and is hard up, homeless, and in desperate need of a new direction in life.

Everything changes when he buys a coffeehouse near the Britannic Imperium Museum in Bloomsbury, the haunt of Aegyptologists. For the first time in years, Rafe is free to be himself. In a city powered by luminiferous aether and phlogiston, and where powerful men use House assassins to target their rivals, Rafe must navigate dangerous politics, deal with a jealous and possessive ex-lover, learn to make the best coffee in Londinium, and fend off murder and kidnap attempts before he can find happiness with the man he loves.

And yeah, another teasery picture. Reese Dante did the cover and I am beyond delighted with it. Keep tuned in for a big reveal here when I have a firm publication date.

And more of the same, I hope for 2015. As soon as I’ve finished Chains of Their Sins, I’m going to write the second Rafe Lancaster book. It has a title: The Dog Who Ate Millions. I love that title. I only hope I can write the book to match it! Then it’ll be back to write the last two Shield books, and maybe, finally, get a start on the Frontier Women book that certain friends nag me about now and again.

But what I’ve taken away from 2014 is this. All fun aside, don’t waste time. I did. I only got myself focused, really focused, on my writing last year and as a result, in the next couple of months I will have two novels published. I’m proud of that. But it comes about not because of any innate talent of mine, but because I started treating writing seriously—as work.

I’m really looking forward to 2015. No more time for lollygagging – get cracking and write those books! No more procrastination.

It’ll be fun.

The Deputy Editor wishes you all a very merry Christmas

Gingerbread and Sprinkles

I don’t know about you, but I’m on the last frantic run up to the festive season. All the presents are bought and wrapped, thank goodness, which puts me ahead of the game compared to most years. Christmas Eve is a washout in terms of preparation—we’ll be with family for most of the day which will be lovely, but you can’t deny it plays merry hell with your plans to make a Hansel and Gretel gingerbread house, or get the dog groomed, or get yourself groomed. Really there’s just today and tomorrow to make the last of the presents: chocolate discs and gingerbread cookies. So I’m feeling a bit rushed.

I haven’t been terribly enthusiastic about Christmas this year. I’ve been working hard on the edits for The Gilded Scarab, and fretting over the (as yet) non-appearance over the edits for Gyrfalcon, the first Shield novel, all while working on the fourth Shield book (currently at about 36K words). Dear husband and I only have Christmas Day to ourselves before heading up to Norfolk to spend the last of the year with friends, so I’m also fretting about loading Scrivener onto my laptop just in case I get the chance to do a little work while I’m up there. I’m sure I will. Marcia’s working on a book too, and I foresee a few quiet afternoons when we send the husbands out with the dogs while we sip genteelly on Margaritas, nibble on Christmas cake and commit immortal words to hard-drives. Perfect working conditions, I think.

I’ll be a little more enthused later today when I’ve got the dog back from the groomers (nope, wasn’t kidding about having to fit that in!) and am making the dough for the cookies. Gingerbread smells of winter and spices, and I love making cookies. I won’t bake them until tomorrow, but it improves the flavour if the dough is left in the fridge overnight. Here’s the recipe, for those of you who fancy making some:

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Gingerbread cookies

400g plain flour

¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda

2tsp ground ginger

2tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground allspice

¼ tsp ground nutmeg

¼ tsp ground cloves

½ tsp salt

180g unsalted butter, at room temperature

125g soft dark brown or dark muscovado sugar

1 large egg

125g black treacle

1tsp grated lemon zest

Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, nutmeg and salt in a large bowl and set aside for a minute while you have a sip of sherry. Or two.

Cream together butter and sugar. I use the trusty ancient Kenwood Chef, but any freestanding electric mixer will do. Use the paddle shaped attachment, not the dough hook. Cream on slow speed until the butter/sugar mix is light and fluffy.

Turn the mixer up to medium speed and beat in the egg and treacle and lemon zest. This is messy, and you’ll have that delightful moment when you’re scraping unmixed bits in from the side of the bowl with a spatula and then an instant of cursing later, you’re scraping bits of treacle out of your hair where the mixer has merrily thrown it.

Turn the mixer back down to slow speed and add the dry ingredients mixture a couple of tablespoons at a time. You’ll have to stop the mixer now and again to scrape in the bits that have been flung around the side of the bowl—that’s because you’ve learned from your mishap with the treacle, that stopping the mixer first for a second or two may be wise. Go you.

Once the dough has formed and is even in colour and texture, take it out of the mixer bowl, divide into 3 and wrap each piece in clingfilm.

Leave to rest overnight in the fridge. Retire to the sofa with a glass of something alcoholic. You’ve earned it.

When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 170°C (325°F) Gas 3.

Take the dough out of the fridge and leave to soften for about 10 minutes. Lightly dust a clean work surface with flour and roll out the first batch of dough to a thickness of about 4 mm

Cut out shapes with the biscuit cutters. I never do gingerbread men because that smacks of festival cannibalism. I make lots of snowflakes and stars, instead. Arrange the cookies on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper and bake for about 10–15 minutes. Roll out batches 2 and 3 while the previous ones are baking. You can get a neat little production line going here.

Leave the cookies to cool slightly on the trays before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

Then, if you’re feeling particularly crafty and dextrous, you can ice them. Good luck with that.

Enjoy! And if you are a really generous, big hearted person, put a few into a pretty polythene bag (got mine at Lakeland, and they’re printed with snowflakes), tie with a nice tag and give them to people who either you love very much or who you want in hock to you for next year.

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Chocolate discs, though, are so easy they barely count as cooking. These are a French confection called Chocolate Mendients (or Mendients Chocolat if you want to try that with a seductive French accent and reverse the words because the French have a funny habit of doing that) and decorated with fruit and nuts. Fruit and nuts are food for birds and health freaks, so I decorate mine with a dazzling assortment of sprinkles. Last count, 22 bottles of different sprinkles, including little candy snowflakes and golden balls. This year, we’ll be having the sugar freak’s assortment of dark, milk, and white chocolate and I’ll be trying out mint flavoured ones, too.

Very, very simple. Take a bar of the chocolate of your choice and go HERE to find out how to melt and temper chocolate. When it’s melted and at the right temperature, take a tray lined with greaseproof paper, take a teaspoon of chocolate and allow it to form a disc on the paper. If you’re posh, you can fill and use an icing bag and pipe out the disc, but a teaspoon works just as well and you can lick it clean at the end.

Decorate with sprinkles—essentially what I make are these lollipops (points to left) in all chocolate varieties and without the sticks—allow to cool in the fridge, put an assortment into one of the pretty gift bags mentioned earlier and there you are. People will actually think you expended time and energy on them and will admire you excessively as they glut themselves on chocolatey goodness.

Whatever holiday you celebrate at this time of year, I hope you’ll have a happy and joyous one. I’ll see you on the other side. Probably at a weightwatcher’s meeting…

Happy Holidays!

Links To Blog Posts on Writing 5

Here’s the latest collection of articles that caught my eye over the last week or so. Enjoy!

Writing (general)

Even More New Year Resolutions for Writers

Keith Cronin at Writer Unboxed with the *best* list of resolutions for 2015. Really good article that’s thought provoking, especially when it comes to how (and in what) we compare ourselves to other writers. Nothing earth shattering, but I found myself nodding a lot as a read. Worth it for all of us who doubt ourselves.

The Ultimate List of Writing Apps for iPad to Mobilize Your Creativity

Joe Warnimont with a short review of apps that can help convert your iPad into a useful authorial tool. Personally, I adore my iPad but I don’t try to write on it. I hate the onscreen keyboard and without a wireless keyboard, it would drive me nuts. But if I have to carry around the keyboard as well as the iPad, I might as well just have a laptop and be done with it. But for those of you less grumbly than me about Apple’s limitations, there may be something here you’d like to try.

Getting Started With Scrivener

James Scott Bell at the Kill Zone with some tips on Scrivener and a ‘how I use it’ account.  I converted to Scrivener earlier this year and I love it to death, even if I do put the whole text into Word at the end to make the text spiffy. Best writer’s aide ever. After the quill pen and parchment, of course.

 

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Writing (skills)

Crossing Words Off Your List: Making the Most of Editing “What Not to Use” Lists

Janice Hardy on self editing out filler words and noise, that get between you and a clean, concise, strong draft.

The Spit Shine: Things to Check Before You Submit

An older article referenced by Hardy, above, with handy dandy lists of rogue words to watch out for.

Self Editing Tips – Development Edits

Obviously this is the week for people talking about techniques for editing your work. This is an insightful article from KJ Charles which has some good tips to follow, good questions to ask yourself as you work through the content edit – not the nitty gritty colons/commas/spelling sort of edit, but looking at characterisation, pacing and plotting. Very good article.

Self Editing Tips: Line edits

The second article from KJ Charles, following on the one linked to above. This time the technical edits to look for: PoV, speech tags etc.

 

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Marketing for Writers

Social Media Monday—How Facebook Changes for 2015 Could Affect Authors

Edie Melson with a review of the changes FB is introducing to charge businesses for promotion (not new) but excellent – if depressing – post on how the trickle down will start affecting writers.

Social Media Monday—Basic Social Media Strategies for 2015

A follow-up from Edie Melson with ideas for how to diversify your social media promotions.

How I Gave Away Over 2,000 Books on Kindle in 3 Days Without Any Prep Work

Author DJ Gelner over at his blog, on his strategy for using a free book for raising his profile. Some useful tips on linking to other promotional sites etc. with some advice on how to leverage the giveaway into a sales boost. An interesting read.

Spam, self-promotion, and the thin, jellyfish-covered line between

A short piece from Seanan Maguire about crossing the line between promotion and spamming. It is short, and doesn’t offer tips for avoiding spamming, but it did speak to me. There are several people on my FB friends lists whose posts in various groups I belong to go straight into the trash. I can bear one or two posts about your new book and the reception it’s getting. I can’t bear two or three an hour for weeks where you add each new review on top of all the old ones and send the whole lot out again. And again. And again. So as I’m winding up for two book releases early next year, this was a salutary reminder to aim for moderation.

Facebook for Authors

A very good post by writer Jane Friedman over at her blog, on how to build the right kind of presence on Facebook. Bear in mind Edie Melson’s posts though (above).

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Publishing

One Year: No Regrets

Brenna Aubrey on her decision to refuse (and I quote) ‘multiple’ offers from traditional publishing and go indie. Apart from goggling at her earnings (wow, we should all be so successful), I thought her long list of learning points was interesting.

Hi! Can We Talk About Self-Publishing?

Doucette at the Huffington Post on his own experience of the freedom that self-pubbing has brought him. He’s more prolific than me, is all.

The Copyright Naughty List

A reminder from Susan Spann at Writers In The Storm of what to watch for in copyright terms as we blog – quotes, images, even recipes…

What The Hell’s Happening With Kindle Unlimited?

The inimitable Chuck Wendig on some intriguing developments at Kindle Unlimited and Amazon’s decision to inject some cash into it to ensure authors get a little more in payment. A whole 3 cents more, apparently. His article reinforces my decision to wield bargepoles to keep KU at a distance.

Gilded Scarab Goodies

It is with great delight that I can announce that there is a street map available of the area around the Britannic Imperium Museum in Bloomsbury, Londinium, showing the exact location of Lancaster’s Luck Coffeehouse, Will Somers’s bakery and such essential local necessities such as the Museum Tavern and The Plough. I am bursting with pride and excitement here.

Whaddya mean, is that it?

But I like street maps. I really like street maps where you can see the modern day city overlaid over one from 120 years ago (hint, it has barely changed). But most of all I love them when they make everything I’ve been writing about and working on for the last few months feel real and substantial. If there’s a street map with Rafe’s coffeehouse shown on it, then it’s there, innit? It’s on the map. It has to be real.

It should come as no surprise that I like detail-y stuff that helps make worldbuilding feel three (and four) dimensional. Hence, street map. With the coffeehouse. And don’t worry. I am very capable of hugging this to me with quiet enjoyment and I do not need you all to share the enthusiasm. Although it would be nice if you tried.

As an alternative, how does a Gilded Scarab glossary grab you? Lots of fun for logophiles there, I promise you. Here’s a selection:

Aether   –  In some versions of alchemy – and for the purposes of the Gilded Scarab – this is the fifth element in addition to air, earth, fire and water. In Gilded Scarab, aether in its lightbearing (luminferous) form, is an inexhaustible power source.

 

Convocation House  –  One of the eight ruling Houses of the oligarchic Britannic Imperium, ruled by the Queen (God bless her). The Convocation Houses hold all political power and divide government departments between them, staffing them with their own House members and those of their allied Minor Houses.

 

Marconi   –  Device for communication through the air, a radio/receiver.

 

Phlogiston   –  A particle that determines the combustibility of materials. According to theory, wood has a good amount, oil is saturated with them, and rocks have none. In the Gilded Scarab, phlogiston particles when combined with luminiferous aether enhance the energy output of an engine or weapon. It’s usually described as a scarlet thread lacing through the aether chamber.

Steampunk is such fun!

Links To Blog Posts on Writing 4

Here’s the latest collection of articles that caught my eye over the last week or so. Enjoy!

Writing (general)

Outlining: Why I Made the Switch and Tips for Trying It

Elizabeth Craig at Writer Unboxed, on her switch from panster to outliner. This issue seems to be a thing, at the moment, but at least Craig has some tips to help those making the change.

Character driven or Plot Driven

Veronica Sicoe on why that’s not a helpful division. Interesting blog post and I agree with her totally – what matters is that there’s tension to drive the storytelling along.

Plotting The Non-Plot Driven Novel

Donald Maass at Writer Unboxed with a complementary post to Sicoe’s (above) that just proves her point. What matters is tension.

Are There Any Original Stories Left?

Cathy Yardley at The Writer Unboxed on how everything’s been done before. I particularly liked her notion that creativity flourishes under constraints. Yes. Yes it does.

Survey: Readers Prefer Books Written by Authors of Their Own Gender

A survey of Goodreads members reviewed by Time Magazine. The more I read about gender imbalances in the industry the less surprised I am by them. If someone told me men queued up all night to buy the next Jodi Picault, then I’d be surprised.

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Writing (skills)

Infodump, Mary Sue And Other Words That Authors Are Sick Of Hearing

Charlie Jane Anders at IO9 on a few things that depress this author, at least!

Tricks & Tips for Catching All Those Little Typos in Your Own Work

Jodie Renner at The Kill Zone with some hints and tips on self editing. One thing I try to do is read the stuff aloud—in the privacy of my own home, of course, so as not to get banged up for talking to myself on the bus to Sainsbury’s. That really can help with flow and cadence.

The Trouble with Frosting

Therese Walsh on the Writer Unboxed on the perils of self editing too soon. My favourite post of the last couple of weeks. Well, cake. It’s about cake.

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Marketing for Writers

Top Four Best Practices for Writing Great Book Blurbs

If not for writing the best possible title for your article… Still, Digital Bookworld with tips on how to help hook potential readers.

New Facebook Rules Will Sting Entrepreneurs

An article in the Wall Street Journal about small businesses generally and FB use, which is applicable to writers. Sigh. I wish there was a viable alternative to FB.

Social Media The Second Time Around

Jael McHenry on how to start marketing using a new pseud – something I know some of my writer friends have considered if they move to a different genre where a clean break with their current author name might be the best thing to do. Not a deep thinking article, but maybe enough to get you started.

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Publishing

Kindle Unlimited Crushed My Sales

H M Ward at Kboards, on the impact KU has had on her sales and income. This is a discussion board with a loooonnng discussion following Ward’s original post, but useful to read if you’re thinking about putting your books into Unlimited. Or even if you aren’t, because knock on effects.

Held For Ransom by Layla M. Wier

No, not me. Just as well since we’re skint and you’d all have to pass the hat to get me out again. Held for Ransom is Layla’s new book, and I’m delighted to welcome her here to talk about it. Not to mention, she’s giving us a sneaky little peek into it… Over to you, Layla!

Hi Anna! Thanks so much for having me!

A good friend of mine once described the general theme of all my fiction as “finding home”. I think that’s a great way to put it, although home means different things to different people. It can be a place, it can be a person …. it can even be a spaceship, as any Firefly fan knows!

But “finding home” is very much the theme of my new novel Held For Ransom. It’s the story of a drifter, Ransom, who wanders into a small town, has a one-night stand with a local, and just might have found a place to lay his head for more than one night. And it’s the story of local kid DJ Lanning, who’s always had a home but never quite fit in, finding out that for him, “home” just might be wherever DJ is.

 

Excerpt:

          Ransom killed the motorcycle engine outside 324 Elm Street and sat on the seat for a minute or two, gazing along the street at the neat rows of porch lights glimmering through the chill winter darkness. Idyllic. That’s a good word for this place. It looked to him like a set from a family sitcom, the sort where father knows best and no problem is too big to be resolved in twenty-two minutes. A part of him thought it should be possible to peek behind those house fronts to see the scaffolding propping them up and the hands scurrying around the dark backdrop of a soundstage.

            He wondered what it would have been like to grow up here.

            The sky was flat black, the low clouds were lit with the dim glow of some bigger town off to the northwest—Heatherfield, probably. The air had a dry, sandy taste that bespoke ominously of snow.

            You should be on the road.

            But he wasn’t.

            After a time he dismounted from the motorcycle, hung the helmet on the handlebars, patted his jacket pocket to make sure the all-important bundle was still there, and then unlatched the low gate. DJ Lanning’s house had an honest-to-god picket fence. The yard was a patch of slightly overgrown lawn with little solar-powered lights picking out the walkway. Frost glistened in their cold blue glow. It was going to be a chilly night.

            He rang the doorbell and waited. He was raising his hand to ring it again when DJ opened the door—breathless and tousle-haired and lit from behind. “Hello! Hi!” he said. Then he stopped and blinked helplessly, clearly having exhausted whatever short conversational script he was working from.

            “Can I come in?” Ransom prompted after a moment. “It’s cold out here.”

            “Oh! Oh. Yes. Please.”

            DJ ushered him into a living room that was all Ransom had expected based on the outside of the house. A real estate agent would probably have called it “cozy.” It was a little too small for its burden of overstuffed furniture, but the effect was welcoming rather than off-putting.

            DJ snatched up a crumb-laden paper plate on an end table and scurried off to the kitchen with it. Ransom watched him go, amused, and laid his leather jacket over the fat blue arm of a cheap, overstuffed couch. By the time DJ came back with two cups of coffee, a box of crackers, and a bottle of hazelnut creamer, Ransom had staked out a place on the end of the couch. It was a very comfortable couch. Then he got to watch DJ try to figure out where it was best, politically, to sit. DJ eventually compromised on a recliner next to Ransom’s end of the couch.

            “The committee ate everything in the house that wasn’t nailed down,” DJ said. “I hope you like crackers. Uh, sugar and stuff in your coffee? Creamer?”

            “Creamer’s good.” He’d eaten dinner at the diner in Osmar. Typical small-town diner food. He’d had plenty of it in the last year. He watched DJ arrange crackers on a paper plate and thought that this could easily be the weirdest date he’d ever been on. If it was a date.

            DJ Lanning had a soft sort of good looks. He was a little overweight—not fat but definitely padded—in the way of someone who spends a lot more time at the computer than at the gym. He wore an open-necked polo shirt, revealing a dusting of light brown chest hair. On a TV show, he would have been cast as the geeky best friend or the comic relief. He’d never have graced a calendar or glowered from a movie poster, but there was something comfortable-looking about him, like he’d always be there to come home to, offering bad coffee and earnestly arranged, slightly stale crackers.

            Ransom thought he must be tired if he was having thoughts like that. Home wasn’t an option for someone like him. Not that kind of home.

 

 

Genre: M/M Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Dreamspinner Press

Length: Novel/200 pages

Release Date: Nov. 14, 2014

 

 

Buy Links:

Dreamspinner Press

Amazon

 

 

Blurb

Two weeks before Christmas, the small town of Osmar is gearing up for its annual winter carnival, but the death of the event’s long-time organizer might mean the end of the festivities. Everyone is turning to her son DJ to save the carnival, but DJ can barely save himself. He’s spinning his wheels in Osmar—working part time at the gas station, living in his parents’ house, and trying to figure out what to do with his life. DJ is caught in a large, loving web of well-meaning family and friends, but they can’t fix his life for him.

Into this mess comes Ransom, a handsome mystery man on a motorcycle. Ransom is traveling around the country, making up for his past sins by doing “good deeds.” He and DJ have a one-night stand that neither can forget, but that’s just the start, because Ransom has a plan to save the carnival, and DJ has a plan to save Ransom… and possibly himself.

 

About Layla

Layla M. Wier is a writer and artist who grew up in rural Alaska and now lives on the highway north of Fairbanks, where winters dip to 50 below zero and summers yield 24 hours of daylight. She and her husband, between the two of them, possess a useful array of survival skills for the zombie apocalypse, including gardening, blacksmithing, collecting wild plant foods, and spinning wool into yarn (which led to her first Dreamspinner Press novella, “Homespun”). When not writing, she likes reading, hiking, and spending way too much time on the Internet.

 

Where to find Layla:

Blog: http://laylawier.wordpress.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/Layla_in_Alaska

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laylamwier

Tumblr: http://laylainalaska.tumblr.com

 

 

Stops on the Held for Ransom blog tour (Nov. 12-Dec. 1):

Wednesday, Nov. 12: Anne Barwell – http://annebarwell.wordpress.com/

Friday, Nov. 14: RELEASE DAY! Charley Descoteaux – http://cdescoteauxwrites.com/blog/

Monday, Nov. 17: Shae Connor – http://shaeconnorwrites.com/

… and **ALL-DAY RELEASE PARTY** on Facebook and WordPress:

http://laylawier.wordpress.com – https://www.facebook.com/laylamwier

Wednesday, Nov. 19: Grace Duncan – http://www.grace-duncan.com

Friday, Nov. 21: Jana DeNardo – http://jana-denardo.livejournal.com

Monday, Nov. 24: Anna Butler – http://annabutlerfiction.com/blog/

Wednesday, Nov. 26: Aidee Ladnier – http://www.aideeladnier.com/

Friday, Nov. 28: Sherrie Henry – http://sherriehenry.blogspot.com/

Monday, Dec. 1: Because Two Men Are Better Than One – http://becausetwomenarebetterthanone.com/

Links To Blog Posts on Writing 3

Every couple of weeks I collect together a list of the articles I’ve been using to procrastinate improve my skills/knowledge in the art of writing. Here’s the latest lot.

Writing (general)

Readers love a good anti-hero, so why do they shun anti-heroines?

Emma Jane Unsworth writing in The Guardian on yet another gender imbalance in fiction… An interesting article but I’m goggling rather at her contention that Elizabeth Bennet and Jane Eyre are anti-heroines. Really? Any strong minded, intelligent female character qualifies? Who knew?

Is Talent Overrated? 8 Things that are More Important than Talent for Writing Success

Author Anne Allen with an excellent blog post on skills vs. talent.

How To Motivate Yourself As A Writer

Chuck Wendig really has to be on everyone’s reading list. If you don’t already subscribe to his blog, go and do it. It’ll save me putting the articles in here. The man is gold.

How To Take Critiques (AKA How To Take A Punch In The Gut)

Megan Carney at the Critique Circle on her survival kit for getting through feedback on her WIP.

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Writing (skills)

The best—and worst—ways to use backstory

An old post, but a useful one, from Ninie Hammon, who doesn’t like novels being thrown at sleeping cats.

Editing Checklist for Writers

Writers Write with a checklist of what to look out for on your first-pass self-edit. It’s both a little vague and simplistic, but it’s a start.

A Playwright Explains How To Write Great Dialogue

Playwright Maggie Sulk at the Write Practice on writing dialogue. I could have done with more real discussion and examples and generally something less superficial. A starting point only.

Ten Questions To Find Your Unique Writing Voice

Joe Bunting at the Write Practice on developing a unique voice. Again, a starting point article. It may get you thinking.

Making Your Character Voices Distinctive

Susie Quint at the Critique Circle with an interesting blog on making sure your characters don’t all sound alike.

Flog a Pro: would you turn this bestselling author’s first page?

Ray Rhamey on starting your book, with a neat checklist of what’s going to grip the reader. Enlightening quote on how not to do it from a best selling book that had me yawning.

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Marketing for Writers

7 Best Seller Marketing Strategies for Writers

An older post from the Best Seller Lab with some tips on how to get your book noticed and build sales. I don’t think there’s anything there that’s earth shattering, but it’s a handy reference post.

Forget the Book Launch

Digital Book World, part 3 of a series of articles contrasting traditional promotion methods with what we need to do now.

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Publishing

The 50 Shades Effect: Women Dominate Self Publishing

A Guardian article in which the establishment is late catching up with what’s really happening in the writing world. Again.

Amazon Won’t Be Earth’s Biggest Bookstore. Facebook Will.

Mark Gimein at Bloomsberg.com with a view that one day more books will sell on Facebook than anywhere else. Am struggling with that. Yes, my circle of friends there are fellow writers and readers, so maybe that’s a skewed sample, but even so my news feed is full of memes and kitten pictures. I can’t see Gimein’s idea taking off. FB is not about reading books.

Ebook Publishing Gets More Difficult from Here – Here’s How to Succeed

Very interesting article at the Smaswords blog. Mark Coker analyses the current landscape for indie authors and has tips on how to succeed in a market that’s slowing.

Self Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing: How To Choose

An interesting overview on the publishing game from the Miami Herald, published to coincide with the Miami Book Fair International. Balanced and non-judgemental. That’s a first.

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Resources

The Graveyard Shift – a resource for people writing crime novels and police procedurals.