I haven’t blogged much since the every day in April blogfest and honestly while I DO have something to say in this space I don’t have time for it at the moment. Mostly because I have to do edits on my writers group stuff.

And more importantly finish the edits for MLR press on my elves at the anime con story. I couldn’t download it thanks to that internet issue. I’m still having it but at least now I can download stuff. I was even able to upload a picture today so maybe I can get onto uploading my steampunk symposium pics.

I’m excited to be working with a new press. So far they seem as easy to work with as DSP is so that’s really cool. I feel a little spoiled by that.

I am still slowly plugging away at These Haunted HIlls and I’m glad it seems to be popular in Rainbow Snippets.

I all but given up on my Christmas steampunk. I am just swamped and a little depressed, neither making it good for writing.

I DID start something for a horror anthology but it’s gone. I know I typed it but I’ve looked all three places I would have saved it and there is nothing. Luckily I haven’t lost much but still, annoying.

I did skip last week’s for good reason: I really had nothing new to talk about. I don’t really this week either but I didn’t want to let it go too long. I am waiting on the edits of one scene, the lost scene, from my beta. You have no idea how happy I am to find that scene. It does something important for all that it’s only 1,600K long. But now comes the task of what to cut to shoehorn it in. I have one scene I know is going but I’m not sure they’re the same length (I doubt it).

Once that’s done it’s on to my usual beta and about three pairs of new eyes (and THANK YOU for volunteering. You know who you are!) Once I hear back from them Blood Red Roulette is going back out there.

I am working on rewriting the ending of both Conned (which needs a better title) and Cassadaga Nights (ditto). I’m also struggling to finish my steampunk Christmas story. It has to be done soonish if I’m going to make any of the early cut off dates.

I’m still struggling with my depression but one thing that has made me smile is the reception to These Haunted Hills in the FB community Rainbow Snippets. I’m so thrilled people are liking it. Now to find time to WRITE it. That would be nice. I mean this whole weekend was wasted for writing, for teaching, for literally anything. It’s a shame too. And more a shame that it was warm and perfect for hiking except for the fact it won’t stop raining. Sigh.

Given the first week with our new illustrious (cough) leader in charge has been depressing as fucking hell, not much has gotten written other than a few lines for the flash fic I promised to Lex. Yeah I haven’t been able to write 500 words.

So why even update? Because I DID finish my whole novel revision of Blood Red Roulette! I’m very happy about that since I’m way ahead of my self imposed deadline. However, four things still need doing. I need to go over the first 10 chapters AGAIN (shoot me). I’ve decided to change one more thing which I think will help Arrigo look less like a selfish ass and a bit more intelligent so I have to go fix that. In the process I should double check Luc’s dialogue. He gets more Cajun as we go so I need to make that more consistent.

There are only three sex scenes in this, two short blow jobs (one very awkward one, done purposefully) and the one time they aren’t having a quickie. Problem: I hate that scene. It doesn’t work. It really doesn’t so I’m going to scrub it. I’m half tempted to not redo it but I think it needs to be there so back to the drawing board with that one.

And then I realize there is something missing. There is a scene in the 20-something chapter range where Arrigo goes to help Luc remove his stuff from his dad’s place which was a nice scene because we finally learn something about Luc’s mother and how much he loved her and the few things he kept that were important to him. That scene is now missing. I’ve been through every flash drive and as far back as last April that scene was gone. It doesn’t exist in the chapter break down files either. In fact in me sending my beta readers chapter by chapter files, I totally skipped over the 20s. I caught them up apparently with the full document instead of chapter files and I know this because I just spent a half hour scouring my sent folder for them.

I want to add that in but there’s a problem. What do I remove to do so? In removing Craig’s whole plot line, I only lost barely 2K. This thing is still about 113K. One of the original complaints was it was too long. I could remove Damien but I liked having him there because if nothing else it gave Taabu something to do and I’m NOT removing her. I wanted a few scenes to humanize her so people care when things go sideways.

I’m not sure what to do.

Once I get these things polished, I’m going to work on the finding new beta readers for it. I’m not looking forward to that. I better brace my ego.

We’ll keep it short as a) there’s not much in the way of actual news b) it’s been a depressing week with little reprieve on the horizon.

I did agree to do a flash fiction prompt thing for Lex Chase’s blog. I have the idea. I just need to sit my butt down and do it and for it NOT to get insanely long.

I find myself wondering if there are any Halloween anthologies out there. I’m in the mood to write something scary but I haven’t gone searching yet.

I’m up to chapter 28 on edits for Blood Red Roulettebut it’s hard going for a couple of reasons. I’m to the point where I’m going to remove an entire plot thread so I have to be very careful that I get it out. Also I noticed another thing I need to do to the beginning so that means rereading the first 10 chapters AGAIN. OMG I am never going to want to see this again by the time it’s accepted somewhere (or I self publish it). But if I do this thing, it will make Arrigo look less like a selfish dickhole so it needs doing.

It’s hard also because every time I fix something it adds word count, not removes it. Sigh. I’ve managed to get 1k out of it but it needs more to go. It doesn’t help that I keep seeing person after person posting about how no one wants fantasy/SF/paranormal romances because they’re not selling. Granted they would never reach the levels of contemporaries but I can’t believe they’re not selling judging by requests I’ve seen in writing challenges, the sheer amount of people in communities like Queer Sci-Fi and how many of the authors who love writing it. I mean, if you love writing it, it stands to reason you’re buying it. It’s the ONLY thing I buy. I’ll be pretty damn sad if I have to stop following some of my favorite authors because they’ve had to give up on genre fiction because they can’t make it otherwise. (I’ve tried to read some of their contemporary stuff and while well written did literally nothing for me).

So wish me luck on getting Blood Red edited and sent to betas. Wish me even more luck on getting this depression under control.

I almost didn’t bother with a post today because there really isn’t much to say. I’ve written all of two paragraphs on These Haunted Hills and all the rest of my time has been sucked up by the first week back to school stuff and editing Blood Red Roulette and making a fine mess of it.

Then I thought, you know what, let’s start this year out right by thanking the people who’ve helped me. So thank you to Betty and & for offering up some thoughts on how to even FURTHER revamp the beginning of Blood Red so Arrigo looks less like a selfish idiot because that isn’t what I wanted him to be. When I reconfigured Eleni to make her a more worthwhile villain, it was at Arrigo’s expense and that isn’t working either. So thank you, ladies.

And thanks also to & for weighing in on the rejection of Cassadaga Nights because I had to agree with the editors of the publishing house who said no. I had worried about that and now those worries were confirmed but you know, I think CN can wait until I get my way through BRR.

Sadly I see there is one less publishing house to consider. Wilde City closed its doors. I had noticed it wasn’t open for submission when I shopped around for CN and while I have nothing there personally it’s sad to see SO MANY indie LGBT publishers going under. I’m also worried about Wayward Ink. The owner there had said hopefully by Jan things would be rolling again (health issues are the concern here) but it’s mid Jan with no contact. Oh well. Right now I have enough on my plate without worrying about the SF short I have in consideration there. Once I get BRR and CN reworked, and if there is still no word by then (because seriously I’m thinking it’ll be mid-March by then) THEN I’ll pull that story.

Of course, I guess the argument could be made that we could just self publish all of these things but that really isn’t what I want to be doing right now. Mostly because with the indie publishing houses I at least have some marketing support, editors to help me and cover artists (I mean have you SEEN all my cover art? It’s amazing and I could never get anything that good on my own.) So yeah, it’s sad to see another one go and good luck to my friends who are affected by this. It’s not an auspicious start to the new year (especially following on the heels of the All Romance nightmare).