Kate Lowell's Blog, page 13
June 23, 2015
Tuesday Guest Tickle: Branded by Ana J. Phoenix
Author: Ana J. Phoenix
Genre: Fantasy, M/M Romance
Publication Date: June 23, 2015
Word Count: ~68000 words
Available at: Amazon
Review: Prism Book Alliance
What’s it about?
Asher doesn’t like people, and people don’t like him. He’s cool with that—all he needs from them is sex, anyway. But when he’s suddenly thrust into a strange and dangerous world filled with magical creatures, joining forces with other people may just be the only way to survive.
It’s not all bad though—in this new world, he can turn into a fire-breathing dragon! Which would be awesome if it weren’t for José, the pesky fire elf sharing his fate whose goal in life seems to be to stop Asher from ever having fun. José is hot, though and Asher wants to get into his pants just as much as he wants to get home. But José is also blind, and Asher has no clue how to charm a man without relying on his looks.
Somehow, Asher has to show José that he’s more than a sex-obsessed pyromaniac with no filter between his brain and mouth. Preferably before either of them ends up dead. Civil war rages around them, and finding the way home isn’t going to be easy. And for Asher, getting there in one piece, and with his heart intact, might just prove impossible.
A Sneak Peek:
“Where exactly are we going again?”
“Home, I hope. Eventually. But it looks like we’ll have to get to the other side of the continent. She says there’s someone there who’ll help us.”
“And you think that’ll work.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
Asher kept quiet, not having anything to say. For a moment all that could be heard was the crackling of the fire.
“You should try flying.”
“I still don’t have any damn wings.” Never mind that flying was about the last thing he wanted to do, second only to falling.
“I told you, you have to transform.”
“And I still have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”
Blind Guy took a deep impatient breath. Beckoning Asher to follow, he walked out onto a clearing. “Come here and close your eyes,” he said.
Frowning, Asher did as he was told, even when it made him feel ridiculous.
“Breathe in. Hold your breath.”
Asher inhaled and stopped and glared at Blind Guy. What was this supposed to accomplish?
“Feel that?”
Feel what? He was about to ask when he did feel something. It was subtle, but with every beat of his heart, small ripples of an undefinable energy ran under his skin, through his body.
“What is that?”
“Magic.”
“For real?”
“Try it.”
“How—” Asher started, but stopped himself. The simple act of thinking was enough to cause a reaction in his magic level. The energy he’d felt before hadn’t been powerful, but as he tried to draw on it, the feeling overwhelmed him. He’d only touched the tip of the iceberg. Eager to discover all of it, he delved deeper into the stream of power until it enveloped his body in a warm glow. He lost his sense of being in the sensation. A rush of energy flooded his consciousness like a primal force, threatened to sweep him away. A roar sounded through his ears. It wasn’t until he closed his mouth that he realized it had been him.
Filed under: Tuesday Tickle Tagged: alternate universe, dragon shifter, fire elf, mm romance
June 20, 2015
T-Rex Takes on Groupon!
I really want to do this now. In my brother’s office. :D
Just how fun must it be to work there, if this sort of thing that can happen? Honestly, management everywhere, think about this and what it means.
Filed under: Random Weirdness Tagged: dinosaurs, hilarioius, office pranks
Lead Me to You is Live!
And, ARe is have a 25% off sale, so Bite Me Tender and Christmas Goes Analog are both on sale!
Filed under: My Releases Tagged: mm romance, sale
June 19, 2015
Tomorrow’s the Day!
Lead Me to You will be live on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited! :P I hope everyone likes Henry and Jaime as much as I do.
While I wait (and to keep myself from becoming a bundle of nerves), I’m organizing promotional stuff for Flesh Market. The amount of research that went into this book surprised me once I got it all together .
I’ll have recommendations for each topic if you want to dig further–some books, some webpages. Even some videos you can hunt out to watch.
Filed under: My Releases Tagged: contemporary, mm romance
June 17, 2015
Tuesday Tickle: Flesh Market
Whoops! It’s Wednesday, isn’t it? I really have no excuse. Writing was going well yesterday–that point in the story where you’re at the end of the downhill part of the ride, flying fast with your arms out to the wind. Only a few scenes left now, then I can start combing through the story for nits to pick. The Editor in Question has the synopsis to look at, so I’m chewing my fingernails over it.
I’m really mean to Julian throughout this, except I keep giving him opportunities to say no, and he keeps turning them down. Silly man.
Leo grunted and stepped away to give Julian room to stand up. “You’re sure you’ll be all right in there by yourself?”
“I’ll be fine. They’re not going to do anything but pictures and the video. Find that database, Leo. I’m feeling pretty sick about this afternoon.”
Leo grabbed his arm hard. “Do you want to call it off? I can have HRT here in an hour.”
“An hour’s too late. And I’m damn well not wasting the time you’ve spent here or the beatings I’ve taken over a half hour’s discomfort.” Discomfort. Ha, funny man. He wished he’d figured out how this operation was going to play out before he said yes. Or maybe not. He could see how an older agent would have trouble passing here. And Julian had always been an ends-justify-the-means kind of guy. He wanted this ring broken. No, not broken. Pulverized. Nuked from orbit, and then danced on by ninety-nine hookers in fuck me pumps. Vulnerability made Julian uncomfortable and angry, and this role was nothing but. He’d do just about anything to end it, and fast.
Filed under: Tuesday Tickle Tagged: FBI, human trafficking, lgbt, mm romance, romantic suspense
June 15, 2015
And Progress is Being Made
I’m finishing off the synopsis today and sending it to The Editor in Question so she can comment on the general storyline and I can fix any major issues I’m too blind to see before I go to beta. It’s also a show of good faith, since I’ve been a total flake for nearly two years.
Working on this synopsis felt harder than working on the story. I’m at the point with that now where I’m not worrying so much about getting it finished , though I am worrying about keeping it under 50K. But the synopsis was all “What do I take out? How do I keep it from being a snorefest?” A synopsis often is, unfortunately.
The next two weeks will be fun, getting to fix everything I find wrong with the story, then I’ll have a week to start putting together the blog posts for promo.
There’s a lot of different topics I can cover for this story. And I’m really liking Scrivener for this, because any time I come up with a topic, I just move down my menu to the folder I created for all these blog posts and add a new file into it. It’s great!
I feel weirdly organized. Which probably means that something’s going screw up. Grrrr.
Oh, and Lead Me to You is going to be reviewed by The Novel Approach. Yay! I don’t know when it will come out though. I told Lisa that she could post whenever was convenient. It only seems right, given how late I left all this. Fingers crossed she likes it!
Filed under: Random Weirdness Tagged: mm romance, work in progress, writing
June 12, 2015
Lead Me To You Now Available for Preorder!
Who takes their claustrophobic boyfriend spelunking for his birthday?
Henry can’t say no to Jaime. So, despite his misgivings, he lets Jaime lead him into the bowels of the earth for a surprise. In the intimate dark, he discovers that his love for Jaime is stronger than his fear of imminent death at the hands of Mother Nature.
And Jaime has an ulterior motive that will make all the hyperventilating worth it.
Find it at:
So ridiculously excited about this. I feel like a big girl author now, with my own self-pub stuff and all. Lol. It’s also going to be in Kindle Unlimited, because that’s what you do with shorts, right? I’m curious to see how it does. With Unlimited being so fluid, it’s hard to predict what might happen. Fingers crossed it goes over well. :)
Filed under: Uncategorized
June 11, 2015
And I Did It!
Though you can’t see it yet. And my wordcount has suffered tremendously the past couple of days.
I uploaded my romantic short to Amazon.
:)
It’s called Lead Me To You–I threw up a preliminary cover a week or so ago. The new cover looks like this:
Not much different, just a little blue tinge around the edges so it doesn’t blend completely into a white background (thanks to Ana J Phoenix :) )
The lovely Sasha Knight edited it and called it “sweet, sexy, and cute”. *happy dance*
It’s very short–only 5K. I’ve priced it at $1.49 and it should be available for pre-order tomorrow. If you have Kindle Unlimited, it will be in there too.
Actual release date isn’t until the 20th, because I’m a chicken and apparently a masochist. I really wanted that week to just chew my nails off and pace around the house muttering crazily. Not like I can keep tweaking it and tweaking it until the minute it goes live. :P
On a side note, if you’re looking at self-pubbing, don’t go for the lowest price package. I was originally looking at that, then Sasha talked me into the next step up. Half a cent more per word, 100% better. It’s worth the cost.
Filed under: My Releases Tagged: contemporary, mm romance, sweet
You Might Be a Writer If…
This is so true. And she’s given me some ideas. (Hey, NSA, my job has just been made redundant. Got any application forms? I can type, and I make a mean coffee.)
Originally posted on Kristen Lamb's Blog:
A lot of “stuff” has been going on in my life lately. Hard stuff. Heavy stuff. The kind of stuff that just makes me want to write massacre scenes….except I am so brain dead I had to google how to spell “massacre.”
Masicker? Missucker?
WHAT AM I DOING???? *breaks down sobbing*
I am supposed to be an adult an expert okay, maybe functionally literate. Fine, I give up! I have nothing left to saaaaayyyyyy. I am all out of woooords *builds pillow fort*.
I figured it’s time for a bit of levity. Heck, I need a good laugh. How about you guys?
We writers are different *eye twitches* for sure, but the world would be SO boring without us. Am I the only person who watches Discovery ID and critiques the killers?
You are putting the body THERE? Do you just WANT to go to prison? Why did you STAB…
View original 1,289 more words
Filed under: Uncategorized
June 8, 2015
Feeling Optimistic
33K on the FBI story. Lots of bumps to smooth out, and about 8K to add, I’m guessing, but this is probably the fastest I’ve ever written something. Not counting the squirrel, which went remarkably quick.
I’m liking the end of the case for Julian, because I beat him up a lot through the story. He gets the opportunity to get his own back, and in a big way. It needs to be fleshed out a bit, but I’m wary of adding too much and slowing the pace. This part needs to read at a breakneck pace.
As for the rest of it, who knows? I need to get this framework down before I can see where I need to take the mallet to it and bang it into better shape. But I’m pretty confident I’ll make the due date. (That will relieve the Editor in Question.)
I love this part, where I can start tweaking and fixing. The first draft bit, where you’re just writing it down, knowing you’re making mistakes, fills me with anxiety. But this next bit, after that 8K, is the most fun. And the most frustrating. That part where everything you fix breaks two other things, and you fix those and something else is broken, and the whole thing feels like the snake Ouroboros, where the mistakes just bring you back to the first one again. It’s a real puzzle, trying to make it all fit together properly. But I like puzzles. :)
Filed under: Random Weirdness
