On writing and not writing

I'm starting to feel weird about calling my website "Jane Seville Books" because so far there is just the one book.  Call it a nod to optimism.  One of my New Year's Resolutions was to make better use of my social networking opportunities and communicate more with my readers.  So, here's what's going on.

I have been writing, a lot, but the things I have been writing may or may not see print, and none of them have had anything to do with my previous work.  "But Jane, you promised us a sequel!" I hear you saying.  Well...promise is a strong word...

Let me say that a sequel to Zero at the Bone is still planned.  It is still very much desired by me.  In fact, one sequel was begun, and I wrote about 50 pages of it.  So what happened?

Well, it wasn't a sequel.  Or, I ought to say, it wasn't the right sequel.  I had this idea, I started in with it, it was actually going really well, until I realized that this story was not appropriate for a follow-up.  If anything, it was a third book, or more.  It was too...well, I can't say much without spoiling it (and it may eventually end up as one of a series) but it just wasn't right.  These things happen; writing is an inexact pursuit, sometimes infuriatingly so.

Which dumped me back to square one, without an idea.  I want to write more about Jack and D, about their relationship, their lives, their continuing adventures...except I didn't have a plot.  Which is kind of important.  Some authors can just start writing without a plan.  These writers are not me.  Right now what I'm doing is the author equivalent of doodling: writing random scenes and beginnings of stories and hoping one of them catches on.  I am also writing what will probably end up as another short-novella/long-short-story like "A Very D Christmas" that will be available on the website for a nominal charge ($2-$3).  I am also writing things that have nothing to do with Jack and D.

So I hope that you will be glad for another short story, and if I end up publishing something totally unrelated first, that you will forgive me and read it anyway. 

Gay for you?

The gay romance genre comprises a number of sub-genres. The usual sorts, such as fantasy, science fiction, historical, and so forth. But one of the sub-genres unique to m/m romance is what's sometimes abbreviated as GFY - Gay For You.

In a GFY story, the characters were not previously gay, or at least didn't know they were, until they met that one special someone and embarked on a gay relationship with them. The implication is usually that one or both protagonists wouldn't be in a same-sex relationship except with this one other person. Because they're Gay For Them.

Personally, I'm fine with GFY stories, but there are lots of readers who really don't like this particular story trope.

I've seen "Zero at the Bone" referred to as a GFY story a number of times. I never thought of it that way myself. I can see how it could be considered as such. Neither Jack nor D has really ever had a long-term or significant relationship with another man before. Both were at one time married to women, although both relationships were over long before they met each other. Jack is described as having had at least physical relationships with men. D hasn't, but he's had romantic and sexual feelings for men before.

So in my mind, it was clear that they were both gay before they met each other. They just hadn't had a gay relationship before. That could be considered GFY. But they were both gay for more than just each other, so using that definition, it wouldn't be.

What do you think?

Happy New Year!

I hope all of you had a good 2010. It was a year of big changes for me and lot of activity. Sadly not a lot of it involved writing, but that's certainly changing! Writing A Very D Christmas has really gotten me excited again about writing about Jack and D. Now all I need is a plotline.

Yoo hoo! Plotline? Here, boy! *whistles* Damn, he was just here.

I had a very nice holiday. Over Christmas I was finally able to visit Lake Tahoe. After having written about Jack and D holed up there, it was awesome to see it. It is just as beautiful as I'd heard it was. Pictures don't do it justice.

Anyway, the new year finds me here at my laptop, writing on a variety of projects, one of which is definitely another Jack and D book.

Remember to pick up "A Very D Christmas" before January 31st! It will remain available for purchase, but only until 1/31/2011 will any of the proceeds go to benefit The Trevor Project. Click the link above to download the story for $1.99.

Wishing everyone a happy and prosperous new year!

It's a very D Christmas, after all.

Awhile back, I decided that I definitely, positively, 100% wanted to have a new web story available for this holiday season. I even had a title..."A Very D Christmas." So I started writing it. And writing it...and writing it...well, pretty soon it was long enough that I no longer felt super comfy offering it for free. It was expanding into short-novella territory, upwards of 40 pages.

Then I had the idea - why not make it a fundraiser? I could offer part of the purchase price as a holiday charity donation. But which charity? There was only one answer: the Trevor Project.

The recent spate of teenage LBGTQ suicides has spurred interest in the Trevor Project as well as Dan Savage's associated It Gets Better Project. Both are amazing, worthy causes and I know you'll be just as excited to support them as I am.

So now, "A Very D Christmas" is for sale for $1.99, $0.50 of which will be donated to the Trevor Project in the name of all my readers.

Please click over to my website, the story purchase link is on the front page.

http://http://janesevillebooks.com/

If you would like to leave a comment about the story, please do it on this post.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, hopefully

Soooooooo yeah. It's been like a year and a half since I posted here. But I have finally figured out how to keep several identities active and signed in (the secret = two web browsers. shhh, don't tell).

I have received so many wonderful letters from readers. I wish I could have replied to each and every one of them. I am going to at least send out a group reply to everyone who's written me so that you know I got your note. But I appreciate all the kind words and encouragement.

Here's the sitch.

Not long after "Zero at the Bone" was published, I had significant, life-changing surgery. I was not ill nor did I have a serious condition, but it was a major procedure that's wrought huge sea changes in my life. Most of my mental energy since the summer of 2009 has been dedicated to that process. I have been writing, but almost all of it has been comfort writing. Easy and fun. Unfortunately, writing for publication hasn't been my priority. I'm returning to the point where that's something I want to focus on again. I know many readers are wondering about a sequel to Zero. Finding my way to that story has been difficult, more difficult than I ever anticipated it would be. But hope springs eternal.

In the meantime I hope to have a more active Web presence in the future, even if there's no publication date for anything new from me on the horizon. Thanks for hanging in there!

There are too many books in the world!

I do enjoy reading books besides just m/m fiction. But I haven't been doing much of that lately, that's for sure. There's a new book called "Bones of Summer" by Anne Brooke from Dreamspinner that I want to read, and Josh Lanyon's new one, and I'm trying to catch up on the huge backlist of staples of the genre that I haven't read yet...I wish I could read while sleeping.

I hope to have a new Web story up by the end of the month. Come July, I am having surgery in the middle of the month and I'm hoping to have some good writing time on the sequel during my six weeks of leave from work, as well as another m/m book I've begun that isn't connected to "Zero."

Mmm. Hungry. Think I'll have a burger.

Pride in Cinci

Last Saturday I attended the Cincinnati Pride festival as part of the contingent from Dreamspinner Press, which also included fellow authors Ariel Tachna and Nicki Bennett. It was a beautiful day and everyone was in a great mood. I wore my big patchwork hippie dress. I've never been quiet so exposed in my life, I don't think.

We sold some books and gave out a lot of promo CDs, which had two free short stories on them along with chapter-length excerpts of all the novels. I think that's a fantastic idea!

We talked to a lot of people. Men, women, young, old. As usual, we ran into people who were shocked (shocked!) that straight women might want to write about gay men. I don't know why it's so strange to people, honestly. But I'll tell you, people were a lot more interested when they found out we were authors who'd written some of these books!

I really wish I were doing a table in Columbus for our Pride, which is this weekend. I mistakenly thought that if I were there on my own, I'd only have my book there, which would look kinda pathetic. But my lovely publisher would have sent me boxes of other people's books for the table, and a nice cloth with the name on it, and all that stuff. I could totally have done it. Sigh. Oh well, next year.

I've been reading some great m/m novels lately. I really need to get Josh Lanyon's new one, "Somebody Killed His Editor." I still haven't read all the Adrien English books...I've been sort of rationing them out so I won't be so bereft when they're done.