Next year seems like a million miles away in writing terms. Talk to a publisher, book marketer, or an editor and they turn and look at the production board and shake their head. All the work before the holidays – release dates, deadlines, where’s the effing MS you promised…
I am all of the above: the writer, the marketer, the chastiser, the deadline harbinger of doom. Don’t get me wrong. I have help on this end. I have an outside editor and I have the people who pressed me to publish. They have also been dragged along on this journey and as we put out book four (in 18 months) they are digging through other manuscripts while my muse stands behind me with a rather large whip wondering why I can’t type fast enough. Then there are the fans, who I greatly appreciate, but the “more, more” is making things feel a bit rushed, and from my perspective, it has left my writing not to the standard I usually set.
So, for 2013 I’ll start reviewing writing gadgets/software to streamline my writing process. I don’t think I will ever walk away from writing by hand because writing is too intimate for me. Typing words into the pc still leaves me with a massive disconnect that I’m not comfortable with. But maybe 15 years of writing longhand has made my pen a permanent part of the creative process…dunno.
What should you expect for the next year?
Well, gay romance fans have asked for more steam, and non-erotica readers requested something more palatable to them. I’ll be working on both: A new two-book gay romance which will be as “fiercely masculine” as Afflicted, and a deeper introspective exploration into cross-generational homophobia within a family. There are also a few other stories up my sleeve that we haven’t decided what to do with yet. These are older manuscripts and are completely different than anything you’ve seen from me thus far. I may put them out under a different pen name to see how they do, or I may go into them in some depth and make the characters LGBT. I haven’t decided yet. (Proceeds will still go to charity.)
But before that, I’ll be taking a break (doing lots of reading) and focusing on work, family, and life beyond the internet. Writing for me is still a hobby and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
Thanks for all your support.
~B