bucolic

Beware, this is a bucolic, pastoral post, instead of me doing any actual writing of fiction.

I usually power-down between Christmas and the New Year and this season has been no different. It’s cold and it’s wet and it’s dark and it’s much nicer to spend my time curled up inside in front of the fire watching mildly rubbish TV with the kids than trying to be creative. Or to try and wrest a living from the land, which is is what I attempt to do when I’m not writing.

The children went back to school last week and Mr AL and I spent the time getting our collective heads on straight; putting the decorations back up in the loft; catching the plague of mice that arrived out of the decorations boxes and started eating the tea-towels; and generally taking a breath.

For me it was also a week of heightened anxiety, because Lost in Time was released. I didn’t realise how much boshing up self-publishing early last year had affected me, up until now. I have had to work really hard not to compulsively check for new reviews and get on with the job of writing new words. Mr AL has been looking at reviews and feeding things back to me and that has worked really well as a cushion between me and the world.

This week, then, I feel better about Acting Like A Real Human ™ and despite it being cold and wet and having spent most of the morning standing in my pyjamas shouting things like “WHERE ARE YOUR TRAINERS! HAVE YOU CLEANED YOUR TEETH! TURN ALEXA OFF!” I can feel words bubbling up inside me almost ready to boil over on to the page.

I need to plant lettuce and get the hens back in to lay and decide whether I’m going to mate the rabbits again this year. But for now all that can wait whilst I retreat to 1920s London for a while.

 

 

 

Queeromance Ink

This post is a heads-up about Queeromance Ink. It’s an author-driven directory service that lists books by and for queer authors and readers.

I’ve been a member for twelve months as an author and they are currently having a drive to make more people aware of what a good resource they are, so this is my helping hand.

As an author, I pay them twenty dollars a month.  For readers, it’s free. Categories are very precise and searchable. You search for what you want to read and then click through to buy it either direct from the publisher, or from the eReader platform you prefer. There is a ‘To be Read’ section on the site, and you can also click the star next to any author to ‘like’ them and to be notified when they add or release books. Plus, you’ll get an email if any of your TBR list books go on sale.

To join, just go to the membership page and click on the SELECT button next to ‘Reader’. Then fill out the information on the following page and submit the form. As a sweetener for new joiners, you’ll be sent five free queer fantasy books after February 1st. I hope it becomes a go-to resource for QUILTBAG romance books.

There is also a sister site, Queer Sci Fi.

Here endeth the blatant push!

 

Lost in Time Blog Tour

So, I did a blog tour for Lost in Time and the dates are below.

You can win a $10 Amazon gift voucher by entering the rafflecopter draw. (This is the link to the Signal Boost page for the book, and the draw is near the bottom).

January 7 – Book Review By Virginia Lee
January 8 – The Novel Approach – Blog Post
January 9 – Valerie Ullmer
January 10 – Alpha Book Club – Blog Post
January 11 – Mirrgold: Mutterings & Musings
January 12 – Love Bytes -Blog Post
January 13 – Padme’s Library
January 15 – Drops Of Ink, Bayou Book Junkie, Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words, MM Good Book Reviews
January 16 – Diverse Reader – Blog Post
January 18 – MM Good Book Reviews – Blog Post

Because I am a) an introvert and also, possibly b) a really sad British cliche, I am finding promoting myself almost physically painful. So thank you for reading this… and now the new year is here and my writer’s block seems to have shifted, I hope to be polishing the sequel “Holding the Border” soon.