In which I gear up for the next (say it softly) freebie

I'm busy these days writing the second "Finding Family" book, The Family We Make. It's Rick's story, and to some degree his brother Sam's. I hope to self-publish this one, although not for free, and dip my toes into the official self-pub waters.

I also have two books, the next Hidden Wolves, and The Rebuilding Year sequel, in line for editing. Real life stuff has slowed me down, but I'm getting back into the swing of it. I hope.

So I'm looking with a mix of eagerness and trepidation at the 2014 Love Has No Boundaries writing event, getting underway in the M/M Romance Group. This will be the fourth year for this reader/writer love-fest. Over the next day or two, members are submitting story prompts with a picture and a description of the story they envision from that image. Starting late tonight, my time-zone, the first prompts will begin to be posted, a few at a time, until 200 are released. And authors will begin claiming the prompt that sparks their imagination. And... yeah, I'll probably grab one.

I don't need another story to work on. But at the same time, these prompts have given me some of my best stories: Like the Taste of Summer in 2011, Into Deep Waters in 2012, Nor Iron Bars a Cage last year. Since I write best from an initial visual and the hint of a character, this style of prompt is right up my alley. So I'll be looking at them. Hoping to find something I can keep short (really) and good (hopefully) and maybe a bit different again from my previous books. We'll see what catches my eye.

If you are a group member, you can still get a prompt in. There will be 200 authors of M/M, from new writers to well-known names, looking for inspiration and planning to write a free story for you. The info and link for getting the prompts submitted is here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... At the moment there are 69 slots left for new prompts, but they are counting down. 131 submitted already.

If you're an author or aspiring author, I'd encourage you to think about picking up one of those prompts to write. Do be aware that the time frame is fairly tight - about 45 days to finish. You also will have to be able to handle seeing your story reviewed, afterward. And be able to live with at least one awful review, probably more. (Everyone does. For Nor Iron Bars, between the really nice reviews, I got things like: "I made it to 30% but was really bored. I didn't connect with characters or their relationship at all. Out of what I read it was "meh"..." And others like that.) But you will also get great positive reviews, encouragement, the fun of participating, and a lot of readership. The last set of story anthologies have something like 19,000 downloads, and that doesn't even consider the downloads of individual stories. It's fun, challenging, rewarding, and a great way to get your name out there.

So... about 10 hours until the first prompts post for claiming. And my current book is only at 96,000 words. Must get back to writing...