Hello and Welcome,
Thanks for stopping
by my blog. In all likelihood, you got here via a link at the end of one of my stories.
If that’s the case, thank you for reading! I hope you really enjoyed yourself!
While it’s true that I’ve been making up tales for many years, I’m
brand new to publishing them. For
any new author, the climb up the “learning curve” looks precipitous from below—figuring out what appeals to readers…
what I need to work on… So I'd love to hear your thoughts on my writing. And
not just the good parts, although I never take praise lightly (*obsequious grin*).
I’m particularly interested in anything that didn't work for
you, especially if you can share insights that might help me improve. If all you’ve got is “Hated it!” then
I’m afraid all I can offer in return is, “I am truly, very sorry.” I’m
an avid reader, and once in a while I’ll finish a book and not be able to put my
finger on exactly why I didn’t care for it. But usually, I can at least narrow
it down to a few likely suspects. So, as much as I’d adore hearing about what
you liked, I’m even more interested in anything you didn’t—especially if you
can say why. I hope to be in this writing game for many years to come, so this is
your opportunity to get in on the ground floor—as it were—in helping me to improve
my craft. "Plastics, my boy. Plastics!"
As a reader, I love
Author Bios! When it’s an author I haven’t read before, I’ll skip to the end
and check that out before I start the book. It’s often less than satisfying,
because it’s only a short paragraph and, in many cases, could be about almost
anybody. So, if you want to know a little more about me, please read on.
Otherwise, there are newer posts (above) that are less about me and more
about what I’ve written (but, of course, what
you really want is to get to know me, so why would you skip up there so soon? *bats
lashes*).
As my Bio indicates,
I grew up in The South. I was born in Atlanta and raised in North Carolina,
with a one-year stint in Minneapolis when I was a toddler. From the age of
three, I’ve been in North Carolina except for a few years in Boston in the
1980’s. I’ve worn a lot of hats over the years. After “some college”, I
worked as a stage manager and lighting designer (I was “Born in a Trunk in the
Princess Theatre in Pocatello, Idaho”—not really, that’s a song). After
that, there was barista (decades before that became a thing), waiter, chef,
technical support specialist, software consultant, trainer/road warrior,
seamstress, nursing assistant, and medication technician. If I recall
correctly, there were also numerous engagements as a professional dishwasher
peppered in among the others. All these experiences have contributed to who I
am and what I write about.
And, speaking of
writing, how did that get tacked on, here at the end? Well… all my life people
have told me I should do it. I never gave the idea any serious consideration
until I stumbled across a genre that I find absolutely irresistible as a
reader. As you’ve no doubt guessed by now, that would be Male/Male Romance. I
don’t know what rock I’d been living under for fifty-some years, but it was
about sixteen months ago when I inadvertently typed something into my Kindle
search box… (I dunno, something like “gay cowboy”). Imagine
my surprise! (*grin*) Life has never been the same. I immediately tore
through Laura Harner’s Willow Spring series like
there was no tomorrow (in retrospect, I refer to Laura as my “gateway drug”).
Then, I discovered Kaje Harper and couldn’t put her down until I’d
read every single word she’d ever published! Since then, I’ve devoured nearly
three hundred M/M titles.
Early in all that
reading, a friendly soul directed me to the M/M Romance Group on Goodreads, and that was
another life-altering experience. If you read in this genre and aren't already
a member, you should definitely join! I started “drabbling” on the flash
fiction thread there, and the writing bug bit me. Hard! Then, Love’s
Landscapes (their 2014 Don’t Read in the Closet writing event) got underway. I was delighted to learn that I would be provided with a full summer of
free reads, but I had no intention of participating beyond that—I wasn’t “an
author” after all. About a month after the last of the prompts had been
claimed, one became available again due to some unknown difficulty. I hemmed
and hawed for a while, but finally squeezed my eyes tight, pinched my nose, and
leapt off the high dive. Suddenly, life got very strange! For the next two
months it seemed that, every time I turned around, yet another unforeseeable
aspect of the universe was unfolding itself in some unlikely way to aid in
bringing the story to life.
The resulting
novella, Raising Cade, will be released in the very near future (details
coming soon). In the weeks since submitting the manuscript—during intermittent
periods of waiting for feedback from an editor, then proofreaders, then formatters,
and, finally, the fine folks at Quality Control—I’ve managed to finish a short story (which will very likely be included in a fundraiser anthology), and started a
second one which, barring any unforeseen tragedy that might prevent its
completion, definitely will be in an upcoming holiday anthology (more
info on both of these in the very near future, as well).
So, again, I
appreciate your time and interest. The men living in my head can be very
demanding when it comes to having their stories told! I look forward to sharing
their experiences with you, and writing more effectively with each new book. If you take half as much pleasure in
reading my work as I do in writing it, then we really are helping one another
out. Thank You!
