Writing Update and Rough Trade Bonus Release

I’m going to do my best to provide you with a writing update, but since I’ve been a bit of a hot mess creatively of late, I’m not sure how coherent it’ll be. Apologies in advance if you get to the end of this and your face looks like this:

I don’t know what Tom Hiddleston’s hair is doing in this gif, but I would like it to stop.

After the release of my novella, Your Mileage May Vary, I found myself at loose ends. I had a lot of projects waiting in the wings, but I just felt tapped out. Nothing seemed particularly interesting, and when I did try to work on something, I found myself relying on cliches and overused, obvious phrases. Signs of a tired brain that isn’t willing to put the work in.

I decided a staycation was in order. So I took a whole week off. And by the time I came back, I felt so energized that I had the opposite problem—I couldn’t decide what I wanted to work on first.

With the end result that I’ve made a little bit of progress on three different projects. Bearing in mind that everything I say here could change and that I refuse any amount of responsibility when it comes to actually completing something if I don’t wanna, here they are (in no discernible order):

1) I have about 30k words on a story that I think will be my next Patreon piece, although I’m not 100% on that yet. Don’t quote me. It’s about a strong-willed, takes-no-bullshit woman married to a bona-fide rock star who worships the ground she walks on, but this particular rock star is also maybe, sort of, could be in SERIOUS PERMANENT CRUSH with his incredibly old-fashioned bandmate who thinks threesomes are things only the bad kids do. :D So far, it’s shaping up kind of like this:

And then Anya was like, “What the fuck, obviously you two want to bone, why are you fighting this so hard?” And they stared at their feet sullenly until Zac broke and said, “CAL STARTED IT.”

2) I have extensive notes and two chapters of what will eventually, probably, maybe, might be my next full-length M/M romantic suspense. I really like the heroes, the situation, and the secondary cast of characters, but it’s going to require a looooot of research. I really like troubled, angsty, trying-to-get-their-shit-together heroes—that’s all three of the Woodbury Boys, in retrospect, but for this new book, I sort of wanted to go back to a dynamic closer to the one in Bad Judgment. Like Embry and Brogan, both of these guys are ON TOP OF THEIR SHIT and WILL NOT GIVE AN INCH and EXCUSE ME COULD YOU PLEASE MOVE I’M BUSY DOING AWESOME AND I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR HOW CUTE YOU ARE SORRY. This pairing is kind of like that. Also, that was a lot of capital letters. Too many, some would say, but those people are wrong.

3) I have six pages on what will definitely be a Patreon story. I mean, there’s no way any publisher on earth would buy it. It’s a horror/suspense/supernatural/historical/quiet slow burn that’s sort of a retelling of If You Give A Mouse A Cookie.

You will be forgiven if your response to that last one is:

OH BY THE WAY. The Rough Trade Bonus Content is available now. YAY. It consists of a whole brand-new short story that expands the epilogue considerably. For reasons relating to the exhaustive pain in the ass it is to reformat huge chunks of writing that have been pasted on my website, I’m storing those scenes on Patreon now. IT’S STILL FREE, I SWEAR. You don’t have to be a patron to access them. Just go here and then find the tag on the left for Rough Trade.

Also, I’m running a poll on Patreon so that patrons can vote on what the special feature for my next release should be. If you’d like to support democracy by voting too, (plus you can unlock lots of other exclusive goodies), sign up on my Patreon page for my $5 tier (also here).

Among the special feature options are deleted scenes and commentaries and a short story in which Embry and Brogan accidentally get a dog. How does one accidentally get a dog? Machinations upon machinations, my friend. Machinations upon machinations.