Upcoming Stories

 Hey there darlins!

So, no new blog story here yet--that'll probably start next week. While eventually I plan to pick up in the Bonded Universe where I left off with out heroes, and to do a fourth and final book for the Train series as well, for now I'm pretty sure I'm going off the rails into a Bonded-Universe-But-New/Side-Character setup. There's going to be a space station, a spacial anomaly, a plot for revenge and a plot to be just left alone, for the love of space, leave me alone. But will our hero be left alone to pine in peace? No, no he will not.

I hope it'll be fun! Thanks for sticking with me, babes.

All the irons, so many fires!

Hey darlins!

Here's a quick update on me, just so you know where I'm coming from lately, writing-wise. I'm trying to make this word-thing work for me while I'm juggling grad school, my lovely but EXTREMELY ENERGETIC kidlet, and being a decent wife, mom, and person at the same time. So!

I just subbed a story I've been working on for four freaking years to PitchWars. If you don't know that name, don't worry about it, it's just something I'd really love to get into. Basically you query four mentors you'd like to work with with your first chapter and some other book info, and if they're interested in helping you try for an agent/publication, it's a BIG DEAL. It's also hugely popular and I have no clue how I stack up, but I'm trying to think about other things.

I'm writing a cracky little myth retelling for my master's work right now (yeah, it's an MFA, I'm doubling down) and that's fun, but hard to focus on.

I'm trying to get writing jobs on Upwork like nobody's business, and it's extremely hit-or-miss.

I'm trying to get hired to write serial fiction for an online subscription service, and trying to get a contract to write some short fiction for a company that wants tie-in stories for their tabletop games. Cool, right?

I'm trying to edit other people's work, probably for not enough money, but I need the experience and I love it so much.

I'm trying to write a chapter for my next coauthored book with L.A. Witt.

And I'm writing the current blog story. And trying to republish my backlist from Dreamspinner.

I'm busy as hell, but also super anxious about everything right now. I'm going to go workout this afternoon and see if I can beat some of the nerves out of myself. How are you guys? How's life?

Happy New Year, upcoming, and an excerpt!

Happy New Year, darlins!

I hope that whatever comes at you in 2019, you manage to live your life with grace and joy and fire and fury, in whatever proportions you need at the time. I'll be working toward that myself.

So, what's up with me lately? Well, firstly, I'm sorry to report there's still no new Mutable. It's been a hectic week--my husband is one of the govermnent employees impacted by the shutdown, so in addition to the craziness of the holidays there's that fun to deal with/plan for. And by fun, I mean it's a pure and unadulterated shitshow. There are absolutely no guarantees with this president when it comes to things like backpay during times like this, so it's stressful. At any rate, new story next week, excerpt of a novel I'm working on down below.

As for upcoming stuff, I've got two novels in the works for Dreamspinner Press. One is already contracted and due at the beginning of April, and involves art thieves and intercontinental chases and firefights and two gentlemen with very different goals falling for each other. The other one is the sequel to Off The Beaten Path, and is about--you guessed it--werewolves. Mostly. That's the one that gets the excerpt down below.

Other stuff...I finished the rough draft of my bugbear at the beginning of December, so I'll start revising it in January with the goal of participating in Pitch Wars this August. I've got some freelance editing contracts to work on. I've got Mutable to finish, and then the third story in The Train/The Tower to start here on the blog. I've got a coauthored book with L.A. Witt to finish. If I can squeeze in anything else that isn't ghostwriting I'll be amazed.

As for the rest of my little world, I've got my baby and my man and my family close by, so things are pretty good. I'm so in love with the little ball of gorgeous, coquettish manipulation that is my child, I can't even tell you ;)

Anyway, here. Have a little excerpt from On The Right Track, and once again, Happy New Year!

***

On the Right Track

Chapter One

 Davis POV

It was loud in the cockpit of the Cessna 185 Skywagon, louder than I remembered a small aircraft like this being. Heavy crosswinds made the yoke buck in my hands, and as I steadied our course for what felt like the fiftieth time in as many minutes, I wondered yet again why I’d decided to spend half my vacation flying up to the middle of Nowhere, Alaska.

My companion heaved a sigh, and I smiled to myself. At least I wasn’t doing it alone. Not that it would do to let him know I was happy about that. “Can you breathe any louder? I don’t think they heard you down there.” The little city of Kotzebue curved like an apostrophe into the sound, glowing with street lights even though, this far north, it never really got dark at this time of year.

My companion looked over at me, unamused, took in a deep breath, and exhaled loud enough to make the microphones on the headsets crackle. I winced. “Better?”

“Do you give Ward this kind of shit?”

“Ward doesn’t drag me to the Arctic Circle right before our wedding, so no, he gets a pass.” Henry Dormer, alpha of the La Garita werewolf pack and fiancé to Ward Johannsen, my best friend, eyed me steadily. He was a big man, over six feet tall, with dark red hair and pale blue eyes that turned gold when he shifted into his wolf form. He was an intimidating guy, but only when he wanted to be. Right now, he wasn’t really trying…but then again, neither was I.

“I’m your commanding officer,” I reminded him.

“And we’re doing this op completely off the books, over your vacation, so you’re not Lieutenant Colonel Carlisle right now. You’re Davis, and I’m allowed to say that you kind of suck.”

He had a point, but still. “You agreed that this is worth checking out.”

“I know.” He sighed again. “I just wanted to be there to help with preparations for the wedding. With Sam so far along, Ward’s having to do a lot more than I’d like.”

“Ward taught freshmen college students physics for almost a decade, I think he knows a little about wrangling cats,” I said, checking my bearing. We were past Kotzebue now, and I adjusted to follow the coastline more carefully. Ten more miles and we’d hit Cape Krusenstein National Monument, and shortly thereafter, the coordinates of our white whale.

“Werewolves aren’t cats,” Henry muttered, but he didn’t follow it up, so I let myself fall back into thinking about what we might be getting ourselves into up here.

 

Two Fantastic Things

Hi there darlins!

It's time for news, news, news. My feet have recovered, my fingers are flying and I've got all sorts of stuff going on. The big things lately are this:

Firstly, my upcoming Riptide release Friendly Fire is available for preorder. It comes out in October, but preorder and you get it a whole weekend early! Elliot the conman-made-good, Lennox the frustrated cinnamon roll, plus a teenage girl, a tiny dog, intrigue, drama and, of course, firefights. Because yeah, I might have written something contemporary but I'll be damned if there isn't something/someone getting shot or blown up in it.

http://riptidepublishing.com/titles/friendly-fire

The other thing...do you guys remember Soothsayer? Cillian Kelly making bad choices and a landvaettir inhabiting the body of his lover as they swung along for the ride? Pretty banner?

I reworked the lame parts, edited the whole thing and sold it to Nine Star Press! Urban fantasy fun ftw! I'm very excited to be working with them again. Now, the bad part...I had to take most of the story down off the blog. The posts are still there, but only the first few paragraphs of story remain, if that. I've gotta be fair, after all. I hope if you've read it before you'll want to pick up the new and improved version, and if not...hey, at least you got it for free in the first place, right?


That's it for now! I'm working on a few other interesting things, including some fun collaborations I look forward to telling you more about, but the next thing to look forward to is the culmination of The Train, coming on Tuesday.

Status Update

Because I don't update my website often enough... (this weekend, swear to god, it'll happen)

What the heck am I doing lately? When are my new releases coming out? What are they, even, and why am I so terrible at promo?

We'll just disregard that last question and move right along.

What I'm working on currently: Redstone, and am having to resist the temptation to jump ahead to the next story in the Bonded universe, which will go back to Cody and Ten and everyone, with a heavy side focus on Jonah. Make of that what you will.

Also, my NaNo project this year is the beginning of my next Samhain project, which is a complicated contemporary that I'm grappling with like the Nemean Lion. Fear not, I will skin this bitch and hang it's wordy carcass on my wall before deadline.

Upcoming releases: I've got a coauthored short story with Caitlin Ricci called Worth the Wait in this year's Dreamspinner Advent Calendar, available in December: Advent Calendar

The whole collection is on sale right now, so if you're interested, it's a good time to jump on it. Our story is sweet and feel-good and involves freezing your ass off in line in front of a bookstore to get what you want, a feeling I know I'm not alone in.

On January 13th my novella Dangerous Territory will be re-released through Less Than Three Press: Dangerous Territory

It's an m/m, alt history, shapeshifting adventure story that was originally published in Storm Moon Press' Forgotten Menagerie anthology, but has since been re-edited and given a beautiful new cover. I want to be up front: this is a re-release, folks, so if you read it in the original antho, don't expect anything drastically new here.

In February I've got Shadows and Light coming out with Pride Publishing, formerly Totally Bound. This is one that I first published on Literotica years ago, and has been edited to within an inch of its life, is getting beautiful cover art I can't show off yet, and released as a 70k novel. I'm pretty sure if you've read my stuff for years (which some of you have--crazy, I love you) you've read this one, but I'm pleased to be releasing it as a real, grown-up book. I mean, magical pseudo-vampires and BDSM. What's not to love?

In April Tempest comes out with Samhain, which is ridiculously exciting because they're an amazing company and this, honestly, is a pretty epic book. My longest publication to date, a dark fantasy that nevertheless pulls it out at the end, I'm so excited for this one. Cover soon! I also get to go to the Romantic Times conference in Vegas in April, so this is looking to be a good month.

Last thing I know for sure: Panopolis #3 will come out with Riptide in May. No cover or link yet (I'm still doing edits, pray for my soul) but I'm really, really happy with how this one came out. I think it'll surprise people. More info for you when I have it.

That's all I know, on the writing front. Personally, my honey and I are going to travel to Cambodia at some point next year to visit my darling MIL, who is working with the Peace Corps there. Japan this year, Cambodia next year: I know a lot of fucking awesome, travelsome people. I'm lucky to be able to go and visit them on their adventures.

So! My calendar for the forseeable future. ;)

Oo, I sold a story!

Hi guys!

So, this was a bit of nice news in an otherwise unhappy morning. My story In Memoriam, which I wrote a few months ago and pitched to Dreamspinner, was accepted for publication. So, I'll have a genderbent version of Hades and Persephone available for consumption in July or August! I posted an excerpt of it last month here, if you're curious: http://carizerotica.blogspot.com/2014/12/update-and-new-story-excerpt.html

Now I'm trying to finish my cyberpunk novel for Riptide (I don't know they'll want it but they're my first choice for it), beta-ing my epic fantasy to get it ready to pitch to agents, and working on Soothsayer. Plus a few other short stories as they occur in my brain.

Also, it's my honey's birthday today--Happy Birthday, darlin! You're the only weirdo for me :)

Cool Sh*t!

Let's start with the shit that I want to give you:)  By unanimous decision (2 whole votes plus me = a majority) I'm going to so an ebook for The Captain series first.  Yay!!!

Gotta love us some Age of Sail, Napoleonic-era, Trafalgar-glorifying sea battle action!  Historical fiction, obviously:)  This is the first story I ever wrote for public consumption and I've had it up in three parts on Literotica for years, but I'm going to edit them more nicely together and get the grammar mistakes out before offering it up to you in ebook form.  Hopefully this will be out before the end of the month, it's my first time putting something like this together.

Other stuff I have coming up...more Paradise (soon, swear, my computer works!  It's ALIIIIIVE!!!), I'm working up a serial story concept that may be offered in the new year, a Winter Fae story in an anthology coming out in December, and a free story in an SMP anthology with a legal theme before the year is out.  Plus my mind is never, ever silent, so there are lots of things that could happen in the near future. 

And lastly, some personal cool shit: while my man and I still aren't moved into our house (I'm sort of thinking it may never happen at this point, but whatever, my cousin's couch is formed around the shape of me at this point) I'm going to go to a writing conference this next weekend.  Three days of writing seminars, huzzah, plus a query review and a pitch session.  Which is awesome!  Hopefully I'll come out of it better prepared to do the thing I'm trying to make into my career.  How freakishly adult of me.

Happy Sunday, guys.