My turn already? Wow, that two weeks sure comes around fast. At this time next Sunday, the hubs and I will be frantically preparing for 50 people to invade our house for a combination Significant Birthday/Superbowl party. Yes, the significant birthday is mine, and no, I won't tell you which significant birthday it is. All I'll say is that it contains a zero. The number alone is enough to make me want to hide, but since I'm going to turn *coughcertainagecough* anyway, might as well party it up with some friends and family.

In writing news, I'm caught up with trying to think of a plot for a story I'm contracted to write for Torquere Press. I've got a title. Is that enough?

Also in writing news, watch for a short story from me sometime in March (along with a co-written novel). Teagan and Cash from Tabula Rasa spoke up and said they wanted me to show a bit of their daily lives, so who am I to refuse rodeo cowboys anything? Here's a little snippet of that:

***

“What?” Teagan Rafferty had the comical urge to pull the phone away from his ear and stare at it.

“I said I was sorry, Raff.” Cash sighed heavily on the other end of the line. Teagan could picture him running a hand through his blond spikes, making them stand on end even more than usual.

“I know, I just… Christ, Cash. There are two new mares coming in on Tuesday and another three geldings on Wednesday. You said you’d be here to help out.”

Another sigh came down the line. “I know I did.” Cash sounded guilty, for which Teagan was at least a little glad. “But Bucky Draper’s having a bull showing tomorrow, and if I go, you know I’ll get good word-of-mouth on who to watch out for in the finals. I’ll just be one day late. Maybe a day and a half. Come on, don’t be mad.”

Teagan rolled his eyes. ‘Don’t be mad’ was a common phrase out of Cash’s mouth. It mostly worked, too, when Cash was there in person. Mischievous turquoise eyes and a crooked smile went a long way in diffusing Teagan’s anger. But Cash was six hundred miles away from Wyoming tonight, roping steer in Tulsa. ‘Don’t be mad’ wasn’t quite as effective on the phone.

“It’s Monday. You’re seeing the bulls tomorrow?”

“Yeah. I’ll leave first thing Wednesday morning. Or tomorrow night, even.”

“No, God. Don’t drive all night.” Teagan worried when Cash was out on the circuit alone. He made long drives with only the radio in his truck for company and Delilah in the horse trailer behind him. “Wednesday morning’s soon enough. Eight hour drive, so I’ll see you that night?”

“You got it, kiddo.” Cash lowered his voice to the smooth drawl that Teagan was so familiar with. “Be ready for me. It’s been a long week without you.”

***

Mmm, cowboys. Happy Sunday!

Hot Links

I've been mostly offline lately, and today's blog date kind of sneaked up on me. So when all else fails, hey, post links to other blogs! Though in my defense, these blogs are chock-full of eye candy, manlove, and more, while each has inspired my work at one time or other:

Hot male strippers! Eye candy aside, this blog is also informative on the industry front for both customers and dancers:
http://malesinmotion.blogspot.com/

Hot illustrated men, many of them from manga and anime:
http://hotfictionalguys.blogspot.com/

Hot submissive men! Some femdom, but lovely M/m scenes as well. The focus is primarily on the submissive, not the Dom/me, and in deliciously compromising situations:
http://malesubmissionart.com/

Hot alternative boys!
http://fuckyeahhotweirdguys.tumblr.com/

Hot twinkie boys!
http://itsaboysworld.tumblr.com/

And all sorts of hot men doing hot things together:
http://fuckyeahsodomites.tumblr.com/

Yes, the unifying element here is H-O-T, but with plenty of variety. I hope you'll find these blogs as inspirational as I have. Enjoy!

Dis is so tru...

O hai, internets! Okay, so the truth is, I'm on hiatus. Not much writing has been happening in Chez Zoe...or much of anything else. It's safe to say that I have become terribly boring and I can't say much of that will change for awhile.

2011 is beginning in a heavy RL kind of way. Not unhappy about that but it does cut down my ability to do anything else. Still, I'm sure I'll be back together soon. I hope. Er...yep. I hope. Heh.

See y'all!

Gay Romance Literary Retreat!

In case you haven't heard, the first annual Gay Romance Literary Retreat is now open for author and publisher registration! Reader registration will begin in late February. So far we have a huge list of participants who've registered, with more signing up every day.

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To all Authors and Publishers of M/M or GLBT Romance:

The organizers of the GayRomLit Retreat would like to cordially invite you to the first, of what we hope will become an annual literary event that features Gay Romance in Literature. This is about bringing you and the reader together for an event unlike any other. From the Bourbon Orleans hotel, located in the famous French Quarter to the River Boat book signing cruise on the Creole Queen, we've designed and organized events and parties taking full advantage of the location while providing you with a multitude of opportunities to mix with readers, other authors, and publishers.

There will be no seminars or workshops - this is about showcasing you the authors and publishers, along with the genre we all love and continue to support. With registration for everyone set at $100 per person we want you all to understand that this is not a money making venture for any of the organizers. All money collected will be passed along to attendees by way of food, goods, and/or services.

We hope you all will join us down in New Orleans, October 13 – 16 of 2011, to get Steamy in the Big Easy.

Your organizers,

Amanda Young - Carol Lynne - Ethan Day - JP Bowie - Lynn Lorenz

For more information or to register please follow the link below to our website which will remain open for Author and Publisher Registration until February 10th, 2011.

For a detailed list of events and pricing follow the directions below:

After selecting Author or Publisher Registration you can scroll down past the form and click on the link that says:

"See Publisher Events for more details"

or

"See Author Events for more details"

The official website for the 2011 GayRomLit Retreat

http://gayromlit.com/

Oh, art is indeed the joie de viere!

...even more so when the subject matter is the beauty of the male form! Add a dash of fantasy to the mix and it's completely, totally, undeniably *yum*. :o) I'm excited to announce that I'll have a couple of pieces in the new edition of Erotic Fantasy Art, due out later in the year. Hopefully in time for San Diego Comic Con, where *drumroll please* it looks like I'll be holding court in Artists Alley. I'll share more info as it comes, but I hope I'll get the chance to see some of you there this year!

An amusing snippet

Bubbles tracked the decent of Michael’s strawberry through his champagne. Nothing better than New Years with good drink and good company. What was the old saying? Whatever you’re doing on the last stroke of midnight is how you’ll spend the next year? Sounded mighty fine to him. It’d taken Michael forever to convince Mark to spend the New Year’s night with him.

Michael leaned down, brushing Mark’s unruly dark hair from his eyes. Then he fished the strawberry from the bottom of his glass. Licking the drops of champagne from the piece of fruit, he smiled to himself. Mark’s blue eyes when wide and he arched his back when Michael ran the now chilled strawberry across his bare skin.

“Shh,” Michael leaned down and breathed the word into Mark’s ear. “Don’t thrash so much, baby.” He tugged on the ropes tying Mark’s wrists to his ankles. “You don’t want to spend all next year with rope burns.”

One-and-a-half Thumbs

My thumb got into an argument with a kitchen knife and a head of baby bok choy last Tuesday night. I blame the bok choy. Four stitches and one week later, it's getting better but it's still hella annoying, and I can't go climbing until the stitches are out. ::pout:: I am trying to look at the plus side, however. It is the one digit I don't need when typing. :-) So here I am, plugging away at a manuscript that I hope to have done by the end of the month so that I can start on the steampunk short story I want to write. Somewhere in that very loose timetable, I expect to be getting edits on the novella I contracted with Torquere. Busy, busy!

Gooooood morning! Holiday weekend here in the States, thanks to good old Dr. King and his quest for equality. We're getting closer, but not quite there yet.

My co-written novel, Happy World, is finally finished and at the proofer's! My amazing and talented co-author is Kiernan Kelly. She whipped up a short little promo vid just to wet your whistle. Happy World will be available in late March. More details to follow!

Hot enough for ya?

It's cold here in St. Louis, as it is in much of the northern hemisphere today. Here's a little eye candy to warm everyone up:



See more of model Austin Victoria by photographer Rick Day at Homotography.

Recommended Reads

Since I have absolutely nothing to talk about (have I mentioned how dull my life is right now thanks to the nasty weather?) I thought I would share a couple of recent reads that I enjoyed. One of the three isn't a gay romance, but we all need a little diversity sometimes, right?

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After the Gulf Coast is battered by three tremendous hurricanes, a deadly virus breaks out, turning the infected into mindless, blood-thirsty zombies.

Within hours, the plague has spread throughout most of Texas and shows no signs of slowing down.

San Antonio police officer Eddie Hudson finds himself in the middle of the outbreak, along with a few other survivors.

Eddie does his best to fight off the zombie horde and locate his wife and son, who he believes still are safe and haven’t been infected by the virus.

---

Johnny Rayne has had enough - enough of being at the top of the rock music industry for the last decade, enough of constant touring and recording. He wants something more -- just something very different. Moving to a farm in West Virginia, Johnny meets Sheriff Virgil Grissom on his first morning in the mountains.

The sheriff challenges Johnny in a multitude of ways - with overt machismo, disdain for Johnny's musician past, and all-around know-it-all-ness. The two men clash continually, and Johnny resists succumbing to the sheriff's brash charm until Grissom forces him to admit some very basic truths. One: Johnny's definitely attracted to men. Two: Johnny's definitely attracted to Grissom. And three: Johnny's definitely going to enjoy every moment of it.

---

Sequel to Vamp Camp

A hundred years after his turning, Mårten Larsson and his lover Oberon have taken the compassion and caring they found in Vamp Camp and created an empire that brings balance to vampire society around the world. Once two giddy young vamps, now they're the most formidable vampire hit squad in history: The Obscurati.

As the “Unseen Death,” the duo enforces vampire law. When a vampire breaks the rules anywhere in the world, or when the local vampire leaders can’t control a situation, that's when The Obscurati show up. Mårten and Oberon turbo-charge the action with the latest in anti-vamp firepower and more, all the while pushing their steamy relationship to the next level.

Happy New Year

Welcome to 2011! I'm actually pretty happy to have seen the last of 2010 - it was an exceptionally challenging year and December in particular, was full of pain and heartbreak.

First I was rear-ended on the 2nd (I was stopped at a crosswalk) and trying to recover from the physical and property damages from that in the midst of trying to get ready for Yule with my extended family and especially my youngest son - now 9. Since I'm the primary "elf" for Yule and I was restricted to not driving or shopping for a while, I was stressed out :)

Then I had to put one of my cats to sleep on the 21st - his illness was very sudden and very severe as well as quick progressing. That took pretty much everything I had left and I felt like I was holding on by a thread.

But now it's 2011, I'm allowed to be back at my Evil Day Job full time and can sit at the computer for a while now. I have a new car and not crying every time I think about what happened with Alex. Time to move forward!

I'm spending the first couple of weeks of January organizing my office and my plans for the year. This includes getting my blogging back into a rhythm and doing it ahead of time!

I'm working on an urban fantasy/steampunk called Desert Alchemy at the moment but I have the following list of possibilities for the project after that:

• In Service (This is the full length sequel to a m/m steampunk I have coming out in February. Think airships, Hawaiian opium dens and hunky men in uniforms).
• Music of the Heart (This is the first in the m/m celtic rock band series Bran's Visions)
• Hidden Depths: Secret Graves (This is the first in my m/m sniper/hydro-geologist series)
• Unnamed Yet (This is the continuation of Bittersweet so I can finish this story)

Thoughts? What have I forgotten? I can't promise I'll do requests first but I want to take them into account when planning my year.

James Buchanan Free Read and discounts at Rainbow eBooks

This weekend, January 15th & 16th, I am the featured author at Rainbow eBooks

all James Buchanan titles on Rainbow eBooks are discounted by 20% from Friday evening to Monday morning. Plus, I've formatted up a free download of an out of print Nicky & Brandon short: Technique that will be available on their site.

We Are Hereby Resolved

Happy New Year, everyone!
I had a lot of fun making New Year's Resolutions for my characters last year. They're easier for me to keep and besides, my characters are so much more fun than I am. So here goes with some new ones.

Not Knowing Jack
Jack: *coughs* Honesty is the best policy.
Tony: Laundry. Swear. I'm going to get to it. Soon. Ish.

Bad Company (Coming June 7)
Nate: It's all right to sometimes be—be—wr—wr—
Kellan: The word is wrong, Nate.
Nate: I knew that.

WIP (Fragments 2)
Simon: What Nate said, kind of.
Tyler: *eye roll* Hey, who's that hottie over there?

Me? This is my theme song for the year. And hopefully all the years to come because life is fun.
And considering this conversation Josh Lanyon and I were having, I'm working on not saying to myself if I had a dollar for every time someone asked me why I don't try to write and sell mainstream romance or fiction (and five dollars for everyone who asks it a second, third and fourth time). I know they mean well (as in I don't get this gay romance thing and isn't it a little smutty?) but I am, to quote the esteemed Freddy Mercury as above, "Having such a good time, I'm having a ball."

Bring on 2011!

It's resolution time again and I've picked a new one. This year, I resolve not to travel to North Korea. (My old resolution of not buying Norway was getting old, and since I'll more than likely be in Norway later this year, not buying it--or at least small bits of it offered up for my touristy pleasure--seems unlikely.)

I had a reasonably good 2010. I know a lot of people who didn't, and I certainly wish them a better year in 2011. In fact, I wish everyone a better 2011 than 2010, which, if you had a good 2010, would hopefully make this year pretty darned awesome. :) I finished 2010 off well, IMO, by resubmitting a manuscript to a new-to-me publisher, and by hosting a New Year's Eve pajama party. January 1 was spent in the usual fashion: sleeping in; watching a marathon on telly (in this case, Wonderfalls on DVD); and making sure there were black-eyed peas with dinner. (I'm not from the south, but my granddad was, and who am I to argue with the tasty tradition of black-eyed peas on New Year's Day for good luck?) All in all, it was a great weekend.

I'm about to depart on another January tradition later this week. That of going to play in the snow for a few days. (Snowshoe badminton! Woo-hoo!) Another thing I try to do while there is finish whatever unfinished manuscript is on the top of my list. It's another NaNoWriMo novel again this year. I find the change of scenery and atmosphere most helpful in recharging my creative batteries.

Here's wishing everyone a productive, successful, and above all else, HAPPY New Year!

Hello 2011

Happy 2011!!!
Even though it's only 3 days into the new year, I hope it's going well. ^-^
I logged on thinking of ranting about resolutions, but I see Tory already beat me to it - lol
Well, I'm bidding 2010 farewell with a long sigh of relief. It's been a rough year personally and professionally that included several rejections. My look on the new year looks bright though as there will be many changes in the next month or two.
The biggest being that I'm actually getting a part-time job. I wasn't looking for it, but it just kind of fell into my lap and it's something completely different than I've ever done. I'm looking forward to the challenge (including having an actual job to go to each morning - it's only 4 hrs a day). I've also discovered that I do more writing and can seem to concentrate better when I've got a job. It sounds odd, but I see me accomplishing much more this year. *crossing fingers* Those rejected manuscripts won't be sitting too long as well as finishing a couple of nearly finished ones.

So what is your outlook on the new year? Are you glad 2010 is over? I'm all ears :)

Well hello there, 2011! You've started off okay, so let's think about continuing this trend, shall we? I know a lot of people who had a rough 2010, so my hopes for 2011 are high indeed.

I don't really make resolutions. The guilt when I break them is too much for me. Instead, I just try to live my life the way I think a good person should, with maybe a little less profanity than the year before. I'll let you know how that goes. Do you guys have any "non-resolutions" you try to make? Anyone made a resolution that you've actually kept? My personal favorite is the weight loss one, especially since a knee injury and then foot surgery have kept me from the gym for months now. Let me tell you, holiday cookies still taste the same.

Let me know what your resolutions are (or aren't). I'm off to a one year old's birthday party today. Something tells me that reading your comments will be much more fun. Let's hear it for smartphones and the ability to check email!

Happy New Year, y'all.

Happy New Year!

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all Slash and Burn authors and readers a Happy New Year! Here's hoping we have a terrific 2011, with plenty of hot manlove to keep us warm through 2012.

I am especially excited to have Silver Wings, the first M/M steampunk anth from Phaze Books, ready for release in February. I don't have a story in this book, but I had the responsibility of acquiring and editing all the stories within, and it's my hope M/M readers will love it! You'll get stories from current Phaze authors Mahalia Levey and Cari Z., plus work by Ross Baxter and my friend, JT Whitehall. Phaze has looked for steampunk works for some time, and though we have one or two this is the full all steam collection, and I adore the cover as well. I have to admit, reading and putting together the work was almost as fun as writing one of my own - I may connect with Phaze later in the year for another call, but on a different theme. We'll see. I have so many plans for 2011 that I want to get them all done.

That includes making up for lost time. I've longed to write follow-ups to some of my existing M/M works, including the Jack of... series and a sequel to Taste This and a prequel to The Healing. I'm also several chapters into the next Dareville work, an MMF. I've also resolved to blog more, even if I don't have works out or in progress. I know it's something I need to do, so if you're interested in the (not so) exciting life of an M/M author hope you'll see what I have to say.

Until then, hope you've recovered from your parties. Please check me out on Twitter and Facebook. Happy New Year!