First update of 2024

Oh my god, it’s the first update I’m making to this blog in 2024.

I’ve been alive and it’s not like things aren’t happening, just…quietly.

But it’s time to share some updates!

I’ve got at least two stories coming out this year, both in anthologies edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel. The first, in July, is my man-looking-beautiful-in-jewelry flash piece “Magpie” in The Big Book of Quickies (Bookshop.org link).

The second, “With Wand’ring Steps and Slow,” is Biblical fanfiction about Eve and Adam’s first time having sex out of being cast out from Eden. It’s also a love story to non-penetrative, non-procreative sex, and I can only hope it is less politically relevant when it comes out in December than it is now. It’ll be in Best Women’s Erotica of the Year, Volume 10 (Bookshop.org link).

Both men in jewelry and non-penetrative sex are not insignificant elements in the WIP, which I’m working on Draft 3 of. I’m still at the point where every thought and feeling I have seems to want to make its way into this story and that’s not practical, even if it is 2 books/250,000 words long.

Oh yeah, that NaNo novel I mentioned last time I posted? I completed it, split it into two books (it was about 220,000 words by that point), revised it once, and am now in the thick of doing so a second time. I’m excited for it and still trying to figure out a pitch that isn’t a string of AO3 tags. But heck, here’s a tag-style elevator pitch: “F/M/M hurt-comfort in a low fantasy/alternative medieval history setting.” (In fact, the same setting as my Lady Crayl series; Elise and Adam make appearances, and wow was it fun to revisit their characterization a decade on.)

While I was able to complete the novel, my co-editors and I got the point where we realized we were not able to make Erato II happen. Or at least we were stuck on an evil treadmill of “maybe next week we can start work on it…” for months. And something new always came up to get in the way. Rather than leave authors waiting even longer for us to get our act together, we decided to cancel and regroup. I still hope to edit some more anthologies with the New Smut Project, but with tighter focus and different timelines (paradoxically, I’m wondering if a shorter timeline will be easier to work with).

My COVID recovery seems complete, thank goodness and vaccines, and my region of the world is experiencing sunlight and mildly warm temperatures, both of which are encouraging. Hopefully it won’t be so long before I share my next updates.