Kyell Gold's Blog, page 27

Adorable Fox and the (Norwegian) Hound Pics

Via Tumblr and Dingomutt on FA, a series of absolutely adorable pictures of a fox and his best friend, a Norwegian GSD (I think?).

I love the description of the book, which is linked from that article–I mean that unironically, I really do. Well, maybe except the last line: “Since we all live on the same planet and all animals need the voice of the humans, the Norwegian book will also be translated into English.” Will it be translated into other human languages? Maybe Chinese? I hear a lot of people speak that.

Anyway, SO ADORABLE and fox-promoting, so yay all around!

Thankfully

It’s Thanksgiving here, technically, and like everyone else in the world I have some things I’m thankful for(*).

* It’s not a bad thing, this parade of gratitude across the Intertubes, but I know it can get a little wearying.

My list, of course, begins and ends with Kit, my husband, who has been support, inspiration, companionship, adventure, love, and so much more in my life. Whenever you guys thank me for my stories, you should include him as well, because without him, I don’t know how those stories could exist.

I’m also thankful this year for the people across the country who are coming to the realization that two people getting married, even if they happen to be of the same gender, is not a threat to Western civilization. New Jersey, Hawaii, Illinois…there are now more states than we can count on both hands were Kit and I are recognized as a married couple (including Oregon, where the residents can’t get married, but where they are recognized if they’re married elsewhere).

And I’m deeply grateful to all of you. For talking about the books and stories, for spending your money (which I know is in short supply for many of you), for chatting on Twitter and coming to my panels at conventions and showing up for impromptu LiveStreams. You make it not only possible but enjoyable to live this writer’s life, which has been a dream of mine, and I try to remember always that I owe you for it. Thank you all.

Now go have a happy Thanksgiving, or a happy Thursday if you don’t celebrate it, and I’ll do the same.

My Twitter Rules

[NOTE: this should not be taken in the sense of "My Twitter Rules All Other Twitters," which is clearly untrue, but rather in the sense of "These Are The Rules By Which I Try To Govern My Twitter Posts." Sorry for the confusion.]

Not for any reason other than thinking about this a bit this morning. These are rules that I have occasionally broken, but I try hard not to. Also note that none of these are an indictment of how other people tweet. My Twitter, my rules; your Twitter, your rules. Some people thrive on Internet arguments; some people need to vent about their feelings; some people use Twitter as a sort of diary to record their lives. It’s all good.

If my thought is…

“This is an amusing thought that I think many people would enjoy.”

Tweet it. This is basically why Twitter was invented.

“That person is WRONG and I have to tell everyone!”

No. Really, what good comes of this? Do I need another Internet argument in my life?

“That person is wrong about a fact which substantively affects their or other people’s actions in the real world.” (e.g. “Hey, I heard if you go to the Sofawolf table at MFF and whisper ‘huskies are awesome,’ they will give you a free book!”)

Yes, to politely set the record straight, as long as someone else hasn’t already done it (check responses to their tweet).

“Man, I am in a shitty mood today.”

No. What does that solve? I’ll bet getting away from the Internet improves my mood more than tweeting about it.

“I have a technical issue with a device/program.”

Yes, but I try to give as much info as possible, otherwise I’ll get people suggesting the obvious solutions and/or solutions that don’t apply to my problem. P.S. This is one of the ways to get a bunch of responses, if I want to clear out my @ queue for any reason.

“This thing happened to me that I want to complain about.”

Depends. Have I already been complaining a lot today? Then no. Is the thing unusual, or can I make my complaint funny? Sure.

“I’m traveling, and–”

To let people know where I’m going and when I’ll be there, yes. Otherwise, see above rules on complaints. Sadly, traveling often comes with a lot of downtime, and a lot of things to complain about, and the temptation to write stuff on Twitter sometimes overwhelms the above rules.

“I need to get in touch with that person.”

No. Send e-mail. Make an effort to get the person’s e-mail if I don’t have it.

“I want to say something positive to that person that I don’t mind other people hearing.”

Yes. This is one of the primary use cases of Twitter.

“I want to say something negative to that person that I don’t mind other people hearing.”

No. I don’t like being negative.

“I want to contact that person for a business project–”

No.

“But–”

No. N-O. If I have a business relationship or want one, I should use a more private and professional means of communication.

“Okay, but what if I met them at a con and they said, ‘We should work on a project together, hit me up on Twitter,’ and I really want to work on a project with them?”

SIGH. Fine, but I’ll try to use Twitter only to establish a connection, then ask for e-mail or another means of communication right away.

“This person tweeted something I think my followers would enjoy/be interested in.”

Retweet it.

“I’m not sure I should tweet this.”

I shouldn’t.

Where to buy Red Devil

Yes, Red Devil has a preview listing on Amazon now. This is mostly so that I can get the audiobook registered with ACX and production started on that as soon as the text is final (this week! yay!). But the cool thing is you can see a small version of the cover, and you can see the blurb text for it!

You’ll note the date on Amazon is February 1, 2014. If you are attending Further Confusion (January 16-20, 2014–just two months away!), you will be able to get the book there. Once the Sofawolf guys get home from FC, it will be available on their website, and after they have finished shipping all those orders, then I imagine they will send some stock out to Amazon, and then Amazon can fulfill orders. So you’ll get the book anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks sooner through Sofawolf.

I point this out ’cause a bunch of people excitedly pre-ordered Divisions when Amazon listed it and then had to wait while everyone who ordered from Sofawolf or went to FC got their copies. So forewarned is half an octopus, or whatever. For reasons I have detailed elsewhere, it benefits me more if people buy direct from the publisher (Sofawolf in this case, FurPlanet for “The Mysterious Affair of Giles,” coming in February at Furry Fiesta), both directly (I get more money) and indirectly (my publisher gets more money and is more inclined to publish more of my books), but I know that’s a lot harder for some folks. Anyway, there you go.

The e-book version will be out sometime in the first half of the year. I will work on negotiating that once the print version is done. The audiobook will be done when it’s done, but the narrator wants to get working on it quickly, so I’m hopeful it’ll be available soon after the print release.

I’ve updated my publication dates page with the relevant info.

Gay Almost-NFL Player’s Story…

It’s worth reading and not too long. This athlete starred in college, though attitude and injury led to him remaining undrafted. I wonder if he’d have found it so easy to walk away from NFL interest if he’d had a guaranteed rookie contract…

http://www.phillymag.com/g-philly/201...

Furry vs. Gay

While I was writing “Volle,” I wanted to show people that you could have a novel that included sex scenes and a good story that made use of those scenes. But my only experience with adult fiction was short stories in which, y’know, there’s a certain pacing. How much sex was right for a novel? Weeeeell… I started out with implied sex, to let people know that this is that kind of book and to show the kind of character Volle was. And then I sort of sprinkled sex in liberally over the book, and although I maintain that all the sex scenes are in the flow of the story, I will also say that having Volle introduced to a brothel partway through the first section opened the story up for more sex scenes than if I’d introduced him to, say, a church.

The point being, I was playing around with pacing and sex scenes. Many people told me that by the latter half of the book, they skimmed the sex impatiently to get back to the plot, which I thought was pretty cool. So okay. Less sex.

Out of Position grew out of three short stories, which form the beginning of that novel, and short stories, as I have said, have their own pacing. So the novel is front-loaded with sex. The second half of OOP and the next three books, so far, have much less sex. I think OOP2-4 have like two explicit scenes and maybe a couple implicit ones per book. Of course, in OOP4 there’s less sex because of the injury, but–oh, wait, you haven’t read that one yet.

Anyway. In general, my furry fans have been much more vocal about wanting story over sex (although someone did comment that “Camouflage” is “good but lacking in gay sex,” to which I can only say “be careful what you wish for”). So it was interesting going to Bent-Con last week and encountering a mostly non-furry gay crowd.

People there were gratifyingly enthusiastic about OOP, but their focus was more on the sex. Apparently while I wasn’t there, one person asked if IP had as much sex and when told “no,” opted to buy “Volle” instead. So okay, it’s a different audience, and that’s great. People like what they like, and whatever level my books appeal on, I’m happy about.

You know, my novels have been getting less sexual, from “Shadow of the Father” (two scenes, a mostly non-sexual story) to “Green Fairy” (no sex; the entire “Dangerous Spirits” series will be no more than R-rated and “Red Devil” isn’t even that). People don’t seem to mind, and it does open them up to a slightly broader audience (I believe that the subset of people who are open to a gay story but absolutely will not pick up a book with explicit sex is small but worth writing for).

But I am not abandoning sex! OOP will of course remain sexual. My Cupcake series in general has been a place for experimentation. “Bridges” is a series of short porny stories with heart behind them; “Science Friction” caused Fred Patten to write that he had difficulty finding a PG excerpt for his review. “Winter Games” is less so, and “The Mysterious Affair of Giles” is non-sexual, but the Cupcake after that (written immediately after I finished “Giles” and possibly in a reaction to it) is full of a gay wolf doing gay wolf things with other gay people. FFS, it starts with him waking up naked at a party trying to remember whom he just had sex with (like you do). So yeah, there will be sexytime stories for those of you who like them, and in the meantime the novels will do what they do. Both the OOP and “Dangerous Spirits” series will wrap up in the next couple years, and after that, who knows? I have a gay romancey tennis book that will have some sex in it, and a fantasy book that doesn’t, and the Calatians novels that mostly don’t (it’s implied in some parts).

It’s cool to know there are people who really like the sex as well as the story. I used to worry that they got in each other’s way, and now I just look at it like this: I’m writing books that appeal to a bunch of different people for different reasons. So that’s pretty cool.

Bent-Con

Arrived at the con yesterday. It’s a lot of fun! Sales are slow but a lot of people are interested in furry books and we had some great conversations. Last night we attended the Califur party and met some cool furries, and then crashed because we got up at 6:30 am to drive down to L.A. Today should be a bit less fatigued. If you’re in the area and can get to Burbank, it’s a fun con to attend!

Rainbow Awards Birthday Party

The Rainbow Awards, celebrating gay romance, are also celebrating their fifth birthday (you might recall who won the first Rainbow Awards in 2009) and the seventh birthday of Elisa Rolle’s blog. As part of the celebration, Elisa is posting every day with excerpts from some gay romance novels, and if you can guess which novel the excerpt is from, you win the novel. There are some neat excerpts to read, and a few of my books might be offered as prizes, so check in on her blog and maybe you can snag yourself a nifty romance.

I’m reading for the “Gay Paranormal Romance” category as a judge this year, and I will definitely have a couple titles to recommend when the awards are done, if you guys would like to check out some fun gay romance books outside the furry sphere (but some are shifter romances, so there’s a furry spin to them, and another one is related to my books in another way…). Anyway, Elisa’s having fun with the competition. Check it out!

What The Fox Says

In case you’ve missed it, I’ve had a mailing list going this year where I talk about what I’m working on, provide an excerpt of my work, and give a writing tip. It posts once a month, usually on the first Monday of the month, and that’s it–no other mailings (though I may use it for book announcements).

If you’ve ever thought that it was hard to keep up with author updates just on Twitter/Facebook/FA (they scroll by so fast), or if you’re interested in writing tips or exclusive excerpts that I don’t post elsewhere and sneak previews of upcoming stories, hop on over to https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=e... (terrible URL, just terrible) and subscribe. I promise no spam.

NaNoWriLife

Every year around this time, someone asks me if I’m going to participate in NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month. I thought I’d written a journal about this in the past, but I can’t find it, so it must’ve just been on some Unsheathed episode. So in brief:

1. Short answer: no.

2. NaNoWriMo is a great exercise for people who have never written a novel or need a fire lit under them, a team to be accountable to, a deadline, and so on. It’s a great community thing. It’s a wonderful way to find out whether you can write a novel, a fun experience, and a worthwhile way to spend your November. By all means, if you are interested in writing a novel but just can’t get around to it, or aren’t sure how to proceed, this exercise will kick your tail into gear.

3. My life right now revolves around writing, editing, publishing, promoting, and talking about my novels. My schedule was going to include writing a novel for November; that’s now been pushed back a little. I have some short stories to work on this week, a novel to edit, and a new novel to write, as well as a couple novel/novella projects to wrap up. I have great confidence in my ability to knock out 50K words in a month if I need to; for the Clarion Write-A-Thon, I wrote 60K words in six weeks, which included nine or ten days of AnthroCon, ReaderCon, and Comic-Con during which I think I wrote a total of a thousand words. Oh, and I finished three days early and went to RMFC. Last year I hit 70K in six weeks, again including Comic-Con. When I’m first-drafting a novel, 12-15K a week is a solid pace for me. 50K a month is not really a challenge when writing is your job. When you have to do another job in addition? Yeah, then it’s a big deal.

So anyway. I’m not doing NaNoWriMo, but you totally should. Good luck! Let me know how it goes.