Ingela Bohm's Blog, page 60

Excerpt from Rival Poet

“Hey, don’t I know you from somewhere?” His eyes searched Will’s face curiously, and for a moment Will was hit by the ridiculous thought that his poems had somehow preceded him, that rumour of his rejected writings had reached this man, this shooting star, this paragon of writers. But almost at once he realised that the question wasn’t to be taken literally. It was a pick-up line – a parody of a pick-up line, and therefore impossible to respond to without making an ass of himself.

He stared at the smirking man. “I-I know you,” he stammered stupidly, snippets of Amores and Dido clouding his brain.

Beside him Richard shifted, embarrassed. “Burbage.” He clasped Master Marlowe’s hand, or rather the two fingers not currently employed in elegantly balancing the pipe.

Marlowe smiled briefly. “I know.”

Richard looked stricken for a moment. “Oh, er… I’m, well I’m honoured, Sir – I mean…” His customary cool seemed to have been completely sucked out of him. “Ah… please meet my very good friend William Shakespeare.” He gestured towards Will, apparently eager to deflect the attention.

“Charmed, I’m sure.” Their new acquaintance laid his pipe on the table and enveloped Will’s hand with both of his. They were seething hot and Will almost yanked his hand back. “And please, call me Kit. All my little friends do.” He glanced at the confused trio still waiting for him in the corner.

“I’m such a fan,” Will blurted.

Obviously delighted at the praise, Kit pulled up a chair and sat down. Only when his hand dragged Will down with him did Will realise that he was still holding it. “So… you’re an aspiring dramatist, then?”

“Oh, I… no… well, that is…”

“Never mind.” Kit finally let go of Will’s hand and grabbed Richard’s mug. Realising that it was empty, he set it down again in vague disappointment. “Where are you from? You’re obviously not a Londoner.”

“Stratford.”

“Stratford?”

“Upon-Avon.”

“Never heard of it. Hah! So much for a university degree.” Kit lit his pipe again, seemingly in need of something to do with his hands. “Well, nothing of value was ever taught in such a ridiculous place. Come to think of it, maybe they did mention domestic geography at some point, but education and alcohol really is a detrimental combination! You can’t have one without the other, and yet one innocent drink takes away the whole performance. So, Stratford… a shit-hole, no doubt?”

“On the contrary,” Will protested. “It’s a beautiful place. I was reluctant to leave.”

Kit grinned broadly and slapped Will’s back. “Spoken like a true gentleman! Never let on how much in love you are with the big city, you might come across as a simpleton. Wax lyrical about the unpolluted countryside instead, and you’re automatically in, eh Robert?” He winked at one of his abandoned friends. The one presumably named Robert, a thin man with a straggly red beard, muttered something inaudible in reply. Kit immediately lost interest and turned to Will again. “You should work on that accent, though.”

“Wh… what’s wrong with it?”

“It’s bloody incomprehensible, that’s what’s wrong with it! You don’t think I got to where I am by speaking like a Canterbury ale taster, do you?”

Despite himself, Will chuckled. It was difficult not to be contaminated by Kit’s exuberant manner.

“Hey, you written anything I might know?”

Will hesitated. Was he being ironic again? “Well… not really… I’ve put together some poems, but…”

Kit snorted. “Poems! Stop right there, darling. Your shoes are growing too small for your feet by the minute, and you know it. Poetry and la-di-dah is all very well, but the theatre, now that is the future.”

Will smiled tentatively. “I can see why you’d say that.”

“Setting aside my own glorious self for a minute, think about it: not everyone can read. But even the most down and out hooker has ears, and they flock to the play-houses like simpering lords to Rhenish wine. As a playwright, you have the ear of the entire city – fuck it, you have the ear of the Queen herself! And a soliloquy is poetry in its own right. Only, getting your poetry read aloud by an artiste like Edward Alleyne… not to demean you, sir,” he looked briefly in the direction of Richard, “… that just makes it so much… grander! It’s almost better than sex.”

Will nodded slowly, his mind awash with images of said Alleyne tearing the stage apart in his bloodied shirt. But he didn’t dare compliment Master Marlowe – Kit – on his intimidating talents, for fear of being taunted. Instead he mumbled, “I don’t have the imagination.”

Kit shook his head impatiently. “Don’t be stupid. Stories are ten a penny. It’s what you do with them that counts. It’s all the same crap anyway, life and love and death, blah blah blah. Use whatever’s around, that’s what we all do.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Look, when people just buy and read your stuff, you never get to see how your words seduce them. Wouldn’t you like to hear the sea-surge of applause?”

Will felt the dangerous tug of Kit’s imagery and protected himself with feigned annoyance. “I’m sure it’s all very exhilarating, but I’m quite serious when I say that I can only write poetry.”

Kit hesitated, and then shrugged. “So what? We’re the makers of manners, puppy. And verse makes for excellent crutches. That’s why you begin by writing speeches.”

What’s it to you? Will wanted to ask. Instead he said, “I just don’t know how to translate the stories that I love into dialogue. I read something and I’m inspired, you know, but when I try to write, it comes out poetry. I can’t bridge the gap. I can make poetry out of stories, but I can’t make stories out of poetry.”

Kit smiled. “That’s just the kind of phrase that makes me wish you could. You have the art of rhetoric down pat – God knows how you’ve managed to pick that up from your provincial education! All you have to do is push the boat out, and I’m here to help you with that.”

Will frowned at his assailant. Just a few minutes ago, he had been wilting like a dead man in his lonely corner, for all the world like someone who had just lost his whole fortune, and now he was a veritable river of words. “Why do you care anyway?”

Kit looked stricken, but just for a moment. “Well… why did you want to meet me, if not to further your career?”

“I didn’t! I was leaving, it was you who… Ask Richard!”

Kit glanced without interest at Will’s silenced companion. Then he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, put it in his belt and blew the last cloud of smoke into Will’s face. “Tell you what. Why don’t you write a speech about…” He turned to his morose-looking friends who must have given up hope of his company by now. “Robert! You said you needed some kind of soliloquy, didn’t you?”

“What?” The red-bearded man flung up defensive hands. “No, I don’t need any help.”

“Yes you do, shut up. It was Constance, wasn’t it?”

“No.”

“Yes, it was, don’t lie to me.” Kit turned to Will again. “He needs this pompous speech, you know, anguished ramblings of the tragic heroine and all that… and he has trouble connecting with his feminine side. His women come off as wooden statues. Don’t they, Robert? Now you, on the other hand,” Kit grabbed a lock of Will’s hair and twisted it between his fingers. “You are surely very good at identifying with girls, am I right?”

Will stared at Kit’s face, suddenly so close to his. This man had no personal space. “Oh, I don’t know… I mean, of course I took on roles at school, but…”

Kit laughed. “And I would have loved to see them! So you’ll submit something?”

“I…” Will looked over Kit’s shoulder at the fuming writer in the corner. “I don’t know, he doesn’t seem to…”

Kit scoffed. “Don’t pay any attention to Robert! He expects me to help him out – he doesn’t see the difference, poor sod, doesn’t realise how glaringly obvious the shift is, from his language to mine, I mean, honestly! But maybe if you wrote it instead, as a fellow amateur your text wouldn’t jar so much against his.”

“We don’t know him,” Robert complained. “He could be worthless.”

“Don’t be so inconsiderate, Robert! We won’t know his worth until we let him try. Besides, we need some new blood. If his text is good enough, you two could even collaborate on something. Or at least he gets to show that no-good printer of his what he missed, and that’s as noble a mission as anything, right?”

Will made a face. So he had been listening in.

“Hey Will, wouldn’t that be great?” Kit implored. “When you’re a famous playwright he’ll come crawling back, begging you to grace his worthless printing house with your immortal poetry!”

Will looked down at the table, striving to hide his smile. “Okay…”

Kit cocked his head. “Okay?”

“Yes, okay. Just to shut you up, mind you.”

Kit grinned broadly. “You’re in good company, my friend. Many a thing has been done just to shut me up.”

You can find Rival Poet at Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, All Romance Ebooks, iBooks and Kobo.

50% off Rival Poet

“You’re just moping because Kit isn’t here,” Richard muttered.

“I’m not moping!” Will burst out.

“You’ve asked for him every day since that meeting.”

Tom gazed at them both from beneath his ragged fringe. “Yeah, he… he sometimes has that effect on people.”

Why? Find out in Rival Poet. For your 50% off, use the coupon code UT32K at checkout.

Cover reveal and preorder

1587. A young Will Shaksper arrives in London, hoping to publish his poems. But rejection hits him hard, and he wants to give up – until he meets Kit. Dazzled and drawn in, Will is shocked to find their friendship escalate into something else – something dark and dangerous in a country where sodomy is a capital offence. When Kit finally tries to seduce him, will he be able to resist?

Preorder at Smashwords, All Romance Ebooks or Amazon (pending). Release date: June 1.

Excerpt from The Subjunctive Mood

“Good afternoon,” he said into the chattering void, and saw exactly no one take notice. He breathed in to say it louder – already tired to the bone from the strain of constantly, constantly shouting – when the door opened and someone came in. A late-comer?

He turned, and his heart did a double-take. It was the temp.

What the hell?

“Sorry to be late.” The smile he gave looked unsure, as if he was asking permission to enter – as he bloody well should. Taken aback, Jack just stood there gaping for a moment, until he became aware that the intrusion had grabbed the attention of the class. All the noise had died down, and an eerie silence filled the room. So there was still something that could make them sit up and take notice? Something out of the ordinary. Something from the ‘what if’ side of life.

“Oh, uh, that’s fine,” Jack heard himself say, because that was what ten years of training had drilled him to do: take any sudden change in his stride and make it part of his plan. “Class, this is…” He glanced at the temp, feeling his cheeks warm a little.

“Alexander,” came the quick reply, and Jack was jarred off course for a split second. Alexander. It was stupid, but that name… it just resonated within him. When he’d been a child, a weird loner with unorthodox interests, he’d made lists of boys’ names that he liked, and Alexander had always been at the top of those lists, every single time. He shouldn’t be thinking about that now, of course, but the mere sound of those syllables cut through his professional mask and revealed the person beneath – if just for a moment.

But of course no one noticed.

Alexander made a quick gesture as if to say go on, and Jack came back to himself. “Uh, yes. Today we’re going to revise the subjunctive mood…” What’s he doing here, isn’t he done for the day? “So…” He looked down, shuffled his papers, felt his heart beat a little quicker than usual. The class was still strangely quiet. Now that he didn’t have to shout just to be heard, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. “Um… so we’re doing these exercises… you can use the computers if you want…”

There was a collective groan, the first sign of life since Alexander came in, and Jack relaxed a little. Good. Dismay and complaints. That I can handle. Same procedure as yesterday, and the day before that.

Or will this day be different? Find out in The Subjunctive Mood for free!

25% off lots of romance titles!

April 15: One day only sale at All Romance Ebooks! 25% off many titles, including Strings Attached for only 0.74 dollars.

Advertising Erotica on Twitter – Sex For Money Post #2

Originally posted on Cameron D James:

Sex For Money is a semi-regular blog series about my experiences in writing, publishing, and marketing gay erotica and M/M erotic romance.  All of this information is from my own experience, so your experience may differ.  It’s hoped that sharing this information might be helpful to new and aspiring erotica and erotic romance authors, as I see a lot of questions and a lot of misinformation out there.

Marketing ebooks on Twitter, particularly erotica ebooks, can be one of the most depressing experiences an author can have.  For all the work an author might put into promoting their ebooks, sales are usually dismal.

Then along comes a promotional package offered by a marketing company.  They promise to promote your book on their Twitter accounts, sending the tweets out to thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of Twitter followers, opening the possibilities of massive sales.

It can be tempting to hand over…

View original 1,122 more words

Excerpt from Strings Attached

Someone walked up behind him to wait for his turn. Embarrassed to be caught in a reservation fuck-up, Jeremiah turned with an apologetic smile – and did a double take. Before he’d even processed the visual, his mouth had formed the word, “Hello.”

The man looked up, and his eyes widened a little. Long lashes beat once against his cheeks. “Maestro Edmonton.” The semi-stranger grinned and held out his hand. “So pleased to meet you.”

Jeremiah took the offered hand. It was nice and firm, and he almost let slip a chuckle. Even if he hadn’t known that this was the famous Tony Lamb, he would still have pegged the man for a violinist. That particular kind of strength was easily recognizable.

“So it seems we’ll be working together tonight,” Tony grinned.

“Yeah.” Jeremiah realized that he sounded less than enthusiastic, and hastened to explain. “My flight was really late, so I just came here.”

“I know. Your people called.”

“Yeah, I… uh…” He grimaced, wanting to say more, but all his words seemed to evaporate under that candid gray gaze. Suddenly embarrassed, he picked at his damp jacket and tried to gather his thoughts. “I, um… I would have liked to meet the orchestra to have a quick run-through, you know, but I guess… we’ll just have to wing it.”

What was he doing, admitting his misgivings to the bloody soloist? He should be taken out and shot.

But Tony just continued smiling. “It’ll be fine,” he said. “Toi, toi, toi, right?”

“Yeah.” Jeremiah smiled back – it seemed slightly impossible not to, especially when Tony apparently knew and referenced Jeremiah’s love for opera by using the highbrow equivalent of ‘break a leg.’ “So… have you just arrived as well?”

“No, no, I was just out to get a new shirt. The one I brought missed a button. And now I need a toothbrush.” He laughed. “Everything under control, right?”

Jeremiah shifted his weight. “You can… um, you can go before me, because there’s some kind of hiccup with the, um…”

“Yes,” the receptionist cut in, relieved to find an opening. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t find your reservation, sir. And I’m afraid the hotel is fully booked.”

Well, woe is me, what to do? Find out in Strings Attached!

Excerpt from The Road Taken

“Welcome.”

The man’s handshake was warm, his smile affable. Signals of good-natured professionalism, a necessity in the cut-throat record company business. But when his eyes raked down Jamie’s body, it made him feel like an amphibian to be dissected – or perhaps as an unruly child to be kept in line. A child who makes money for you, he pointed out silently as the man took Michael’s hand and held it a moment too long.

Jamie’s nostrils twitched. He felt nauseous. The not-quite-rendez-vous at the hotel had reached the ears of the higher-ups and this was the result. Paul had gone whingeing and whining to Patrick about how the axman of Pax was still banging the bassist, and now here they were: in an audience with the grand high ruler of everything.

Feeling rebellious and yet strangely cowed, Jamie sat in the chair indicated by the ring-laden hand of the boss man. He was probably insane to think it, but that man – what was it? Mr…? He couldn’t remember and didn’t really care, except what if he was asked by the police later when Michael was found with his throat cut in a dumpster? Anyway, that man was suppressing some serious urges. Urges to rip the head off his enemies, to divide and conquer. To destroy. Jamie could feel his fingertips going numb, cold. His joints stiffening uselessly. If it came to violence, he would never be able to protect Michael with hands like this.

Breathing deeply, he shook his head at the thought. Violence? Why would a record company meeting escalate into a fistfight? He swallowed down bile. This is just a routine meeting! But something about it didn’t feel routine at all. Not even when the dragon in the suit started listing the things the company had done by way of damage control could Jamie relax. Something about it sounded so fake, like a serial killer reading from a phone book at a poetry slam.

“Look, you don’t even have to bother with all this,” the dragon man said and patted Michael’s hand in a poor imitation of fatherliness. “We’re handing out fact sheets, recalling a few pictures, and as for the music, well, just keep it short and snappy next time, okay?”

“Sh… short and snappy?” Cal was instantly wary.

“Yes.” The dragon pursed his lips, rested his fingertips in a concerned pyramid against his chin. “Anything that might be construed as… different. We don’t want that, you see?”

Cal’s lips pulled apart in a genuine grin. “It’s a bit late for such qualms, Mr O’Dell.”

“Is it?” Blank eyes turned on him. “Is it really.” O’Dell hitched up his lips a little, as if trying for a smile, and then he turned again to Jamie and Michael. “Look, we’ve put up with your shenanigans long enough. Dave leaving, those poncy clothes of yours, bloody eight minute songs… You need to get some radio play, okay? You need to reach the football crowd. Write a fucking chorus, why don’t you?”

The swear word was jarring in the austere setting, as if a priest had suddenly conjured a demon. Jamie almost scoffed to himself. O’Dell! O’Devil, more like.

“We’re a progressive band,” Michael mumbled, but his subdued voice was hardly convincing.

“Oh, is that right?” O’Devil laughed heartily. “Well, how’s that working out for you?”

“Quite well, actually,” Cal said, chin out in childish pride.

O’Devil rolled his eyes. “Patrick’s been filling your heads with cotton candy, right? Well, yes, you may have attracted a few nutters, I’ll give you that – a few potheads and flower power hobos – but I’m talking mainstream money here, boys. The big bucks. The girls. Girls don’t listen to prog-whatever. You need a haircut and a gym, that’s what you need.” He flashed Michael a pointed look, and Jamie’s hands curled into fists at his sides. O’Devil seemed to see it, and immediately cranked up the charm a little. “We need to work together, boys, don’t you see? And I’ve been in this business forever and a day. I’ve got the statistics of everything that’s selling right now. I’ve got next week’s frigging top ten in my little black book, okay? You want to be a part of this world, don’t you? You want to tour, to get fans, to be written about in more than just a few local rags? Well, then you’d better do what I tell you to.”

Cal gazed at him through narrowed, thoughtful eyes. “Are you like… taking over from Patrick?”

O’Devil shook his head impatiently. “No, I’m just filling in the blanks. Doing what he can’t, bless his sentimental little soul. He has a soft spot for you guys, so he can’t be frank like I can. Sugar-coating, all that. I don’t sugar-coat. I chisel you down to size and make you marketable. Because that’s what you really want.” He paused a beat. “Don’t you?”

Jamie held his breath. He wanted to say no. Instead he asked, “Why did you pick us up if you didn’t like our music?”

“I didn’t. My predecessor did. And he got the sack, so I think that says something.” O’Devil sighed impatiently, waved his hands in the air. “Besides, it’s not about what I like. Look. I realise that you’ve got all this… ah, artistic integrity and all. I get that. I do. But this is the real world, boys, and this is the second album. Botch this one and you’re out. One hit wonder kind of thing. You need to get it out there, and you need to get it out there fast.”

“But our first album–” Jamie stopped, tried to find the words to make a man without a soul understand. “Mr O’Dell, no offence, but that was years of work. Michael had been writing on those lyrics for ages, and making the songs took a whole summer and… well, the autumn…” Jamie’s voice trailed away at the painful memory. Michael didn’t look at him, but he felt him tense. Those months of isolation, that was when the songs had come to be. Not with the two of them together, but as far apart as they could be. Jamie had meant to leave Michael behind then. He had done his best to make it real. And then in one instant it had all crumbled: all his resolve, his simple future of success and groupies. Just because Michael had turned up at Dave’s garage with those lion tawny eyes of his.

But the songs had already been finished then.

“So who’s the brains in the group?” O’Devil was asking. “It’s you, right?” He looked at Michael, who glanced at Jamie and Cal and coloured.

“No, we’re all… I mean, like he said. We make the songs together.”

Jamie winced at the lie, and of course O’Devil noticed. “I think you’ve got someone of a different opinion here,” he said, chuckling mirthlessly. “The thwarted guitarist, am I right? Handsome, but not just a pretty face?”

“Michael writes the lyrics,” Jamie declared with some vehemence. “But we make the music together.” As if saying it again and again could make it true.

“Sure you do,” O’Devil grinned. “I know about your history, you know. Your manager isn’t exactly a clam. So young Mr Vaughan here pens the lyrics, and Gardiner and McKenzie, you make the music. That’s wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. No, no, don’t object. Let’s just keep it that way. No need for the ex-turtle doves to spend any time together.” He laughed loudly against the wall of silence that was Pax. “But from now on you’ll have to convince me that you’re not up to anything naughty. No hanky-panky on stage, no going knocking on each other’s rooms in the middle of the night, no bloody make up. Okay?”

Not waiting for their meek nods, O’Devil stood and moved across the room. Three pairs of eyes followed him as he pressed a button on a VCR and sauntered back to his chair, pretending to adjust his suit while really glancing at Jamie and Michael, checking for reactions.

It was the promo video from the first leg of the tour. Tangled in sweaty sheets back at the apartment Jamie had once shared with his sister, Michael had told him how Cal had shown it to him in an effort to convince him of Jamie’s feelings. Now that Jamie watched their interplay in rising mortification, he could see how it would do the trick. In fact, he could see how Patrick had become suspicious in the first place.

God.

Seriously, God.

On-screen Jamie was flirting shamelessly with Michael at every turn. Each chord fired off towards stage left was accompanied by a come-hither look, a twist of the hips as if to mime another kind of thrust. The smiles, the coquettish shoulder-rolls, the tossing hair and batting lashes… It was a miracle they hadn’t been called out before. That the disgruntled thug in Leeds hadn’t bunched the two of them together and tossed them in the nearest trash can.

Find out more in The Road Taken, part 2 in the Pax Cymrica series!

The grumpy writer's guide to appreciating the day job

http://slashingpax.wordpress.com/2014...

Free sample

Sample 7 chapters of my WIP m/m novel Mindfuck on Wattpad:

http://www.wattpad.com/story/12973872...