Current Events

It's been a busy couple of months for me, and there's really no end in sight... my writing schedule puts me for - and this is just stuff I have planned, contracted, or verbally agreed to with publishers - booked up mostly solid until 2017.

Yikes!

But, in the meanwhile...

Building Us will be released by Torquere Press on June 18th.

Antho blurb: In “Building Us,” by Lynn Townsend, Eric and Temple discover that, for want of a nail, a ring is lost...

Two-Line blurb: Construction foreman, Eric, wants to build more than just a house with his steady boyfriend, Temple. But can Temple convince Eric that it's the relationship, and not the ring, that matters most?

Marketing Blurb: As a construction foreman, Eric knows how to build a house. What he's uncertain of is how to build a life, now that he's finally found the man he wants to spend his with. Temple, a university professor with a stack of erudite publications as long as his – arm – has always played the single's game, until he met Eric.

Will a roof-top proposal lead to “I do” or will the whole thing fall apart when Eric can't put a ring on it?

In case you don't know, and because I do this publishing bouncehouse thing I often can't advertise publications at one house in publications from another house, "Building Us" is the sequel story to "Home Inspection" which can be found in my collection Whetting the Appetite. The two stories have the same lead characters and Building Us picks up with Eric and Temple about a year after they first got together.

This story also contains some of the hottest m/m I've written thus far.

Thing(s) Two:

I've had some guest spots around the blogosphere, first stop was with All Romance cafe as part of their LGBT pride month, where I talk about being the silent B....

Then I dropped in to raise up interest in an older story, Synchronous Rotations, on Guys Like Romance, Too...

And I've got a full length interview coming up June 18th with SSLY Reading Room (Smile, Somebody Loves You!)

Thing Three:

I took a two-week vacation during the middle of May to seriously hate on my story. That happens, sometimes. Which sort of sucked, since I wanted to be done with Howling Bitch's first draft by June 1st. On the plus side, I did some plot work with Elizabeth Brooks (Honestly, if she and my husband didn't spark on each other wrong after about 12 hours, I'd just marry the girl and get on with my life, because I don't know how I'd live without her. And that would be easier if she was in the same house. Oh well.) and managed to get past the hurdle. Yesterday, between the morning where I got in about 3 hours of work, then in the evening, I tapped out another 2 hours, I finally finished the damn thing and wrote The End.

So, Howling Bitch is finished. Which is GOOD because it's contracted already with Vamptasy, and will be published March 17th? 18th? I'd have to check my contract, but it's mid-March of 2015. Which seems like a long time, but to me, it was just March '14 like 10 minutes ago!

I'm going to let it sit for a week or so, then go back and poke some of the plot issues that need to be massaged into place, add a bit in the middle, and then I'll send it out to my beta readers.

Thing Four:

Which means I'll be getting back to Chicago and the Rainbow Connection boys. Blues was written and finished back in Dec/Jan ish, and has been with my beta readers for a while now. I've gotten some good feedback. This novel has not been hit by the "god, I hate my own work" bug - the boys still talk to me regularly. Well, Vin actually yells at me a lot.

The plan is to edit Blues for the rest of this month and then send it in... eh, maybe mid-July?

At which point I'll be ready to start writing Book Three, Classic. (writerly aside, I've already written the opening chapter because I seriously cannot get people to shut. up. And the first chapter of Punked Up has ALSO been written. At the MOMENT, All That Jazz and Punked Up are still looking like 20 - 30,000 word novellas and I'll release them as one book.) And I may write a bonus short story, because right now, there's a scene in my head - and it's important! - that doesn't fit in the timeline of any of the novels.

And that's ... mostly it, that for the time being.

I've got a writer's retreat in September (not a fan/marketing event, but a networking/chat/drinking/writing event) that I'm looking forward to.

And then as fall starts, I have several short stories that will come out; Fair Game in Kristina Wright's For Love of a Soldier, Full Frontal Neighbor in the Sexy Librarian's Big Book of Erotica, and Living Proof with Antimatter Press's Local Magic.

Somewhere in there, I also need to edit and do another word cut of Marked Man, my fantasy romance - I have tentative interest from one of my publishers with that, provided I can slice out another 20,000 words or so from that monstrosity... I may take another look at the rough and see if there's a "good place" to split it in half, because it's currently around 130,000 words, give or take, which would make 2 novels, and maybe we could release them 3 months apart, or something... I dunno, something to think about.

And then I'll want to write Sins of Angels, which is Book 3 of the Demoniac Codex series...

Yeah, busy writer is busy...

Exciting Things!

I think I threw a teaser out here that I'd meant to get back to faster, and didn't...

And here it is; I'm guest podcasting for Jonah Knight and Mikey Mason's Pros & Cons Podcast. Which is just super exciting for about half a dozen different reasons.

• Jonah and Mikey are completely cool, nerdy guys who sing the kind of music that I love. In fact, Jonah was my live talent last year for my Christmas party (and will be again this year!) and I use a lot of his music to inspire my stories. The entire London Steam series of short stories have been inspired by Jonah's album Age of Steam: Strange Machines.
• The podcast was nominated for a Parsec Award and was a finalist this year, so that's pretty awesome and it means I'm getting some potential new readers (hi!)
• It was just a lot of fun to do - I love both guys to pieces and I'm really happy to work with them on projects.
• I think I've mentioned that Jonah's working on another project, Antimatter Press, and so after (or before) the show started, we chatted a bit about my idea and what I was going to be doing.
• Mikey is almost as dirty-minded as I am, so after the show, we cracked some really inappropriate jokes and had a giggle. He's also a fan of good beer and has another podcast called Beer Powered Time Machine that's kinda like sitting around with your friends, drinking beer and telling stories; pants optional. You should totally check it out.
• And I got to do my favorite thing, which was talk about my work with people who actually care. (I try really hard not to bore people to death in my real life with details about my job.)

So, I'll link here and probably put something permanent over on the side bar for y'all to listen to when it goes live... 

Other exciting news, I got some swag for Blood Cries Up:

These are scented soy-wax tarts - Whipped Pumpkin and Kettle Corn - with the Lights Out! cover art... made by my dear friend at Raven Hollow Candles. I'll be giving these away as part of the blog tour I'm doing, along with some other nifty things...

And then, most extremely awesome:

My short story, Full Frontal Neighbor, got accepted into the Sexy Librarian's Big Book of Erotica. I'm really, really excited about this; I particularly love this story and I think y'all will, as well... So I'll let you know more about those details as I get them. Also, this makes 18 publications I've had now in the last two years.