Coming Soon.... Reubaltach Cridhe

So, my story for this year's DRiTC event is complete and was submitted (more or less on time).  Yes,
those two totally unpronounceable words - that's the title... it's Gaelic... it means Rebellious Hearts.

It's another historical story, first person narration and I am hopeful that readers like it.  As usual though, I won't be reading any reviews.

It comes in at just over 20,000 words - so the second longest of the five stories I've written for the event.  I am not having a cover made (I couldn't do it myself given I've the artistic talent of a squashed fly biscuit) so will have the standard cover for the event - but that's fine as it will match the previous year's stories.

I was very fortunate to have four beta readers, two friends who predominately read M/M (Kat and Elci) and are fantastic cheerleaders particularly in times of me having one of my "I can't do it" moments.  One highly regarded and rated author in the genre (whose support for my writing over the last four years has been invaluable - thank you Kaje) and my poor friend (Rachel the Witch) who I know from back in the day when we both read and wrote Girls Own fan fic and original stories - I say poor friend because she doesn't read M/M and is "allergic" to romance and very cynical when it comes to a HEA.  She bravely followed me from GO through general YA fantasy and into M/M without thought to her personal safety........ she's also developed a fondness for multicoloured highlighters which use uses to mark my drafts into a veritable rainbow of things for me to review..

As always I am amazed by the fantastic team that organise the event. They are all non professionals in the publishing world, and I think most also have full time jobs and families to balance with running what is now a huge event.  My editor this year got my story back to me very quickly (with thankfully only minor queries and a mass of grammar issues - seriously, I am going to insist that Yorkshire break away and develop their own coma).  I whizzed through the edits - rectifying the random floating body parts - and sent it back.  I am now with the formatting and QA teams.  No release date, I won't know until about 3 days before it comes out, but I am guessing sometime towards the end of June.  I am quite excited, but I am sure I'll get over that........

Intensive treatment......

So, if you've followed this blog for a while you might recall about 3 years ago I pulled a teeny tiny hang nail on a toe of my right foot.... and 24 hours later ended up seriously ill with cellulitis... my doctors gave me antibotics but the swelling in my leg caused by the infection never went down, and it was eventually decided that I'd probably got lymphodaema....I got a referral to a specialist lymphodaema nurse who is part of the McMillan Nursing Service (as lympodaema is most commonly associated with post surgery for cancer).

Anyway.... fast forward three years and I am at my wits end.... in that time I've seen my nursing specialist only a handful of times (not her fault, the service is a charity, and the lymphoaedma service is very poorly funded, with only one specialist for the whole of the county).  My own doctors is about as useful as a chocolate teapot.... seriously, one time I went to the doctors three times in one week and saw three different doctors none of which were my own.

For three years I have battled on my own, with only a pair of bondage stockings (okay, pressure garments) which I wasn't told should have been replaced ever 3 - 4 months.  But I couldn't wear them anyway as I had a sore patch on my leg.......

I was starting to get horribly depressed about my leg.... the main feeling being I'd like to take a chain saw to it at the knee and get rid of the thing totally - seriously it's like having an elephant's leg attached to my knee.... anyway, with some prompting from my counsellor (who had other evil ideas about me looking at it for 10 minutes a day and thinking about how I feel about it...... seriously with the chainsaw...) I phoned the specialist nurse with a plea for help....... she was off sick and I saw a stand in who didn't know what to do with me..... but thought she might no someone else who might......

As a result, I had a referral to the leg clinic.... I first went back at the end of April..... and they ummed and ahhed over my leg... then suggested I could take 4 weeks off work and go into a nursing home on bed rest with my leg elevated...... when I pointed out to them, hello full time job, 4 dogs, 2 cats, no one else at home, get a grip... they agreed to try something else.....

So, yesterday I pottered along after work for my first session of wrapping.... the idea being basically to squeeze the hell out of my leg till the fluid has no option but to bugger off elsewhere...

What they do is put on a layer of padded bandages, then another layer, then another... then top it all off with conforming bandages...... essentially it's like having a plaster cast on the lower half of my leg (my toes poke out - I may paint my nails)... but the cast is soft and I can walk on it, and drive, and basically carry on as normal (except for the whole point and laugh thing by small children who don't understand and whose parents are too fucking numb to tell them that it's rude to stare/point/laugh)

Today I had the first wrapping taken off, and the leg has shrunk quite a bit, but the bandage slipped so when today's went on... it's gone on lots tighter and higher, I can only just bend my knee.  But hopefully it will work.  If they squeeze enough out on Friday when they take off the wrap then they will measure me for more bondage stockings - only these will be higher strength and will be replaced more frequently.

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that I am feeling all over the place at the moment.... I want to be treated to help my leg, but wish to hell this had been addressed three years ago when it all kicked off.  It's not something I will ever recover from - I will live with lymphodaema for the rest of my life - but hopefully we can get it all to a manageable level....

April's reading selection

This happens a lot when I am reading!

This month has been taken up quite a bit with writing rather than reading as the Love Landscapes
story is due by 1st May (well it should be I've a short extension to finish up my edits as my four wonderful beta readers have sent me a shed load of comments to consider)

I also had to ban myself from reading anything good... or save it for a reward, which I did...... in fact at one stage I decided that to push myself into writing I was only allowed to read het erotica.... I ended up writing my story in a little under two weeks..... it's just about 20k words so not the longest in the world, and unexpectedly in first person POV - though that did cause a little dilemma, I asked my research assistants to give me a "blow by blow" *snicker* account of someone going down on them so I could get the right reactions for my narrator when it happens for the first time to him........ apparently, all those long winded and descriptive paragraphs you read about how it feels are wrong... because all three of my assistants said, "it starts with a sort of "oh wow" and then your brain goes off line"....

Anyway back to the books.....

Favourite reads this month were three that were someway above four stars for me - Cherish & Blessed by Tere Michaels is two stories that have previously been published in her Faith & Fidelity Series that I'd not read as standalone books.  I am glad I caught up with this series before the 6th book is published. Axel's Pup which is a well written BDSM/paranormal book with a very intersting take on wolf society and finally Restless Spirits by Jordan L Hawk which is a paranormal historical with ghost hunters and as usual with this author some very well written female minor characters.

So the whole list.....

1. Cherished & Blessed - Tere Michaels
2. In Your Eyes - Cardeno C.
3. A Clean Break - Keira Andrews
4. A Way Home - Keira Andrews
5. Axel's Pup - Kim Dare
6. Mark Cooper vs America - Lisa Henry & J.A Rock (r)
7. Brandon Mills vs the V card - Lisa Henry & J.A. Rock (r)
8. Morning Report - Sue Brown (r)
9. Complete Faith - Sue Brown (r)
10. Papa's Boy - Sue Brown (r)
11. Her Dom, her doctor & her daddy - Emily Tilton (m/f pure smut)
12. Out of the Rain - Hollis Shiloh
13. Training Lady Townesend - Annabel Joseph (m/f)
14. To Tame a Countess - Annabel Joseph (m/f)
15. My Naughty Minette - Annabel Joseph (m/f)
16. Under a Duke's Hand - Annabel Joseph (m/f)
17. Restless Spirits - Jordan L Hawk
18. Silver Bullet - Rolf & Ranger (r)
19. all the Falls Chance Ranch short stories - Rolf & Ranger (r)
20. Culpeper's Complete Herbal - Nicholas Culpeper (research)

Writing tunes......

I am in the midst of writing my DRiTC story for the Love's Landscapes event... and as usual have been listening to a lot of music as I write.

Two songs though have stuck in my head during this process, both for very different reasons, and I thought I'd share them here...

The first, well, the first line of the song is something that one of my characters does...

(yeah, I know there had to be a Frightened Rabbit track involved)

The second is a very old favourite that has always resonated for this particular pacifist...

Mad March Reading

Not much was done in the way of reading in March... mainly because I was up to my eyeballs in research for my DRiTC project (which I mapped out - freaked myself out over then had to scale back massively after I wrote 5K and scrapped it in a hissy fit)

Stand out book for me this month was Heat Trap - the third of the Plumbers Mate books by J.L. Merrow.  Followed by another third in a series -  Scrap by Josephine Myles. I also enjoyed the cowboy historical - End of The Trail by Jane Elliot (though this one definitely won't be for everyone as there is some M/F sex in it.

So - the full list

Monsters Under the Bed - Susan Laine
No Enemy But Time - Angel Martinez
Bayne & Lucas - Kayci Morgan (PIFM book)
Dear Mr President - Adam Fitzroy
End of the Trail - Jane Elliot
Blood in the Water - Tami Veldura
Bromance to Romance - Elizabeth Daniels
Until the Bitter End - L.L. Bucknor
Murder 101 - Faye Kellerman (non M/M)
Heat Trap - J.L. Merrow
Scrap - Josephine Myles
Splintered - SJD Peterson
Not Just a Kiss - Jennah Scott
With Abandon - J.L. Langley (r)
More than Just A Good Book - Sloan Parker
This Too - Isla James
Assassins Love - Sammy Goode
Falls Chance Ranch - Rolf & Ranger (r)
Three Traders - Rolf & Ranger (r)
Mustang Hill - Rolf & Ranger (r)

Why yes, I did end the month with some comfort re-reads.... and I've started April the same way.

So far I've managed to stick well to the only 1 book purchase a month rule (though I had 2 new books this month because I forgot I'd ordered Scrap back before Christmas).  However, that's kind of all fallen apart as I got $25 ARe voucher from a friend for my birthday.......... I also picked up some freebies for Earth Month and on Amazon...... which means that I am currently at 272 on the Kindle..... which is hardly much of a dint in the just over 300 I started the year with..... I have a horrible feeling I am going to end up with more books on the Kindle come New Year's Eve this year than I started the year with.......

Finally... February reading....

Better late than never.... I did read books in February... but it was a short month, and there weren't that many of them.........

Favourite book by a long way was Butterfly Hunter by Julie Bozza.... I want to read the rest... damn book buying ban!  The other stand out was my re-read of Hard Tail.  I am always skeptical when I re-read a book I loved that I will not like it as much - no problems here, and this has now made it to my buy in paperback list (which I shall do at the UK Meet in September)

The total list....

1. Butterfly Hunter – Julie Bozzza
2. Science and Fiction – Ray Van Fox
3. Fall into You – Posy Roberts
4. Jackdaw – K.J. Charles
5. Mauled – S.J.D. Peterson
6. The Archers of Kynthos – K.M. Harty
7. A Case of Spirits – K.J. Charles
8. Hard Tail – J.L. Merrow (re-read)
9. Charon’s Dilemma – Eloreen Moon
10. Yarulf’s Duty – Vicktor Alexander
11. Blackbird Knitting in a Bunny’s Lair – Amy Lane
12. El Presidio Drives North – Romero Domashita
13. The Forgotten Holocaust – Scott Mariani (non M/M)
14. Triskelion – Jana Denardo
15. Miles and the Magic Flute – Heidi Cullinan
16. Jaden’s Honour – Sassy Lane
17. Training Season – Leta Blake
18. Murder at Pride Lodge – Mark McNease

Normal Service Will Resume Shortly

I know, its March already and I've not summarised February, or done the book's read list.... and the reason for this tardiness?  It's prompt weekend over at the Goodreads M/M Group.

For the last week the organising team have accepted 200 prompts from members and this weekend they are up for "adoption" by prospective writers.

This year I was going to try for something different - possibly a paranormal or fantasy....... but, well, after trying to ignore a historical for nearly 24 hours I started sneaking a bit of research into my afternoon, then some more, and before I knew it I had a prompt.

So, here is my companion for the next couple of months, and the prompt that has been given to guide us on our way...

As you can see we’re in Scotland. The year is 1745 and the Jacobite rebellion spells disaster for the Highland clansmen who followed Bonnie Prince Charlie into battle against the English.

It’s so not the right time for this man to fall in love which of course means that, inevitably, he does. But with who? A fellow rebel? An English soldier? A man from a rival clan?

I leave the details in your capable hands, dear Author, but if you could find room in your story for a couple of Gaelic endearments and that fabulous horse he’s riding, I’d be thrilled.

Could you please make sure that my lovely highlander finds happiness— even after Prince Charlie has fled the blood-soaked battlefield at Culloden.


So, there we have it... I've already got names for my characters, and the horse (who is called Bran) ... I now just need to tell their story :)