A few years ago I wrote an erotica novella called Exhibitionist Punk. A year or so later, I decided that the pairing had potential that I hadn't fully explored in the novella. Rather than writing a sequel, I took advantage of one of the coolest features of self-published ebooks - the chance to rewrite an existing story.
Like a Chanel suit, novellas love to be reworked
Exhibitionist Punk (16.5k words) became Hot Blood Punk (41.2k words).
It was a great experience and I enjoyed it a lot, and I know that fans of the original story are going to enjoy the rewrite. It has the same characters and core conflict but is much more fleshed-out. Radically more fleshed out, in fact - Hot Blood Punk is 250% the length of Exhibitionist Punk, and uses just under 35% of the original text. If you're super into numbers, those exact figures are 253.63% and 34.63%. Text from Exhibitionist Punk makes up 13.67% of Hot Blood Punk. That sounds like not much - and it isn't, this is a radical rewrite - but the main characters and key intent of the story is the same. What I'm saying is: It's the same story, only way better.
Another exciting change is the new cover to my novella Knockout Andrew. Same great story, awesome new graphic!
Everybody get ready to wiggle around in
excitement, because I have exciting news!
I have a new story available, and it is
awesome!
It's called Boganettes, and it's the
first lesbian romance I've put online.
'Boganette' is the feminine version of
'bogan', which is like the New Zealand version of white trash.
You might know bogans from the New Zealand TV show Outrageous Fortune, which has that super catchy Hello Sailor song as a theme song.
Outrageous Fortune is kinda the
Auckland version of bogan, whereas Boganettes is more interested in
the small town version of bogan, which combines farming spirit
and metalhead culture.
Boganette is the story of two girls
searching for love and friendship during a road trip and music
festival. Going for a road trip with strangers is pretty much the
best (and scariest) blind date ever!
The protagonist, Kelly, is a cynical
Fine Arts student who loves horror movies, heavy metal and stomping
on misogyny. She falls for Gisi, a tirelessly optimistic writer for a
music blog. Gisi loves absolutely everything, and Kelly is drawn to
her like a moth to a flame.
Here is the blurb:
“Spare seats from Hamilton to
Wellington Wreckfest. Share the gas money and share a tent. Flexible
preference: Two hot boganettes.”
Kelly replies to the ad in the student magazine partly because she
needs a ride to Wreckfest—the biggest metal festival New Zealand
has seen in years—but mostly because she wants to meet the person
who uses the phrase 'hot boganettes'.
Growing up around barbecues, booze and tractor races makes Kelly a
member of the bogan subculture, but she's never thought it was
something to be proud of. She studies Fine Art at college and dreams
of a better life.
Kelly never expected to make friends during the Wreckfest road trip,
let alone a possible girlfriend. She's amazed to find herself falling
for a fellow passenger. Gisi is a smiling sun of positivity to
Kelly's black hole of cynicism; friendly, fun and gorgeous to boot.
She understands Kelly like no one ever has before, and faces life
with boundless joy and contagious optimism.
Gisi could be the better life that Kelly's always yearned for, if
only Kelly could make a good impression. In the space of a car ride
and a music festival, all of Kelly's dearest hopes might be
satisfied—or crushed.
In terms of orientation, Kelly is
bisexual and Gisi is lesbian and asexual (but not aromantic). Boganettes is a long short story, or short novella.
You can find Boganettes on Smashwords, and it will be out on Amazon etc very soon!
I loved writing these girls, and I hope
you'll enjoy reading them!
When
I was 14 I saw a Jack Black video, which went a little something like
this:
I
was seized by the idea: If
you love something - if you truly love it - quit your job. Just do
that thing you love. Quit your job and let yourself rock. And if you
can't make it work forever:
There it is. So it goes. Now you know, and you tried. And that's
better than spending your whole life wondering and talking about
could-have-beens.
Perhaps
it would be a better story if I'd learned anti-orthodoxy from Black
Flag instead of Jack Black. But we can't help what shapes and
inspires us in life. Jack Black's ear worm was fully in place,
working its way toward my brain.
There's
this path we're meant to take in life, and stages at which we're
meant to make changes. We live somewhere through school then move
away for college, get a job, move in with a monogamous committed
partner, have children, progress through higher-paid
higher-responsibility jobs, retire. Cultural narrative says those are
the broad stages of life.
I
followed that narrative and did all the stuff I was meant to. But
you know the thing about dominant cultural narratives? They don't fit
everyone.
I
was miserable. I woke up to go to work, then crawled into bed to
sleep as soon as I got home. It wasn't until June of last year that I
suddenly realized how deeply unhappy I was. I made some mantras to
focus on feeling better:
Find
what makes me happy and do more of that
Find
what make me not happy and do less of that
Simple
enough but, like lyrics from Jack Black that seems obvious, sometimes
we just need a few simple and clear phrases to remind us what's
important.
I
was on minimum wage but I lived very small and put aside everything I
could, saving for the someday
when I would have the courage to chuck away the cultural narrative to
follow my own happiness - and Jack Black's advice.
I
wasn't happy at my job and had tried to quit several times. Then this
year, thinking of those fateful words I'd carried around with me all
this time, I finally did it. With no partner or kids or pets or
commitments, I took the chance that I'll possibly only ever have once
in my life. I quit my job to focus on what made me happy: Writing. I
found a place that's low-rent because it's in the middle of nowhere,
and gave myself a year to just write.
It's
beautiful here. I've lived in the city all my life, and now I wonder
why. Amidst bush and pasture it is calm and quiet without the jarring
noises and constant rush of city life. Being completely alone means
being under no pressure but my own. And it's constantly
breathtakingly beautiful.
There
are downsides. I'm four hours by car from any of my friends, and I
don't have a car. It's an hour and a half walk to (unreliable)
internet and phone reception, and a three hour bike ride to the
supermarket - so a round trip of six hours for food. My house is
affordable because it's isolated, and also because it's uninsulated -
which means four months of the year will be spent huddled by the
fire while outside there's snow and black ice.
But
I found what made me happy, and committed myself to doing more of it.
I
might have to upload stories from a library three hours from home,
but I will have the luxury of time in which to write those stories.
And that's the best gift a writer can have: Time to just do the thing
you love.
I love reading book reviews. I don't
believe in the concept of 'objective reading': there is no one 'true'
way to read a book because a book isn't an objective reality of its
own. A book is different to every reader - changed by their memories
and associations and motivations, the mental and emotional state
they're in when they read it. Think of a book you've read again and
again. Every reading is a completely different experience. The text
hasn't changed but, for you, the book has changed.
So I love reading book reviews. They're
an insight into a book as it was read by the reviewer. I enjoy
reviews for books I haven't read - adding and comparing the different
readings to create a collage of what I may expect from reading the
book myself. But most of all, I enjoy reading reviews for books I
have read. I compare different reading experiences, marvel at the
difference of reading, and gain insight into my own experience. I
think this is a similar motivation to my love of 'headcanon' and the
idea of fanfiction.
Very important to me is is the belief
that everyone deserves a voice - I'm greatly in favor of blogging and
self-publishing, as well as reviewing. I love that the internet lets
us break down the bottleneck of traditional publishing and limited
shelf space to allow more voices to be heard. Book reviewing no
longer belongs only to select magazine and newspaper writers.
I also love writing book reviews. I
love sharing my interpretation of a book. But I also love the act of
writing a review, and how it changes my own perception of a book:
even thinking about writing a review changes how I read a book while
I'm reading it.
I love writing reviews but, like all
writing to me, it's also difficult and exhausting and anxiety-ridden.
Even blog posts are very difficult for me to write - this is why you
see so few posts from me. Even if I manage to struggle an idea to
completion, I worry that it's not 'good' enough to share. I'm working
to overcome that fear. If you're reading this then - yay! - I've
succeeded, and you're a valuable part of the process. I appreciate
it!
Writing is fraught with difficulties,
but it's always worth the effort and I'm always glad I did it. I'm
trying to cultivate a habit of writing book reviews. I hope I'm not
alone in enjoying reviews penned by authors, and I hope that others
will enjoy my insights and perspective. I also like feeling that I'm
'giving something back' - adding to the conversation around books
which is especially crucial to small genres.
My ultimate goal is to write a book
review every week. I haven't reached that goal yet, but even my
every-few-weeks attempt has taught me a lot and, I hope, has added
something to the conversation. Since I decided to attempt more
reviews, I've written four with a total of over 2.5k words.
In the future I'd like to write reviews for books
which are less popular, to increase the value of my contribution to
the community and also to broaden the scope of my reading within the
genre.
Here are the four reviews I have
written since I decided to attempt more reviews:
I have something new for you all to read! It's a novel! A novel with werewolves!! Romantic werewolves! It is a free novel with romantic werewolves!!!
Links, in the hopes that mobile users can avoid having to load all my excited gifs: Jagged Rock on the MM Romance Group on Goodreads Jagged Rock on Goodreads MM Romance Group site (features all stories free for download, and you don't have to be a member)
Hey! I wrote a novel!! It's 97k and it's totally finished, and it's totally available for you to read!
Cover produced by Sue of the MM Romance group. Thanks so much, Sue!!
I am excited. I am going to dance around, and I am going to bring all the exclamation points with me.
All the excitement! All the exclamation points!! All the gifs!!!.
Launch day!! Free novel! Free novel for everyone!!! Have phallic fruit emoticons!
Jagged Rock is the novel I wrote during March and April, for the MM Romance Group on Goodreads who have an annual free story event. My prompt was by Carey.
The prompt really caught my imagination and, better yet, it caught my follow-through too! It's been some time (read: years) since I've been able to finish anything more than a short story. And then Jagged Rock was started and finished in a couple of months!
This novel feels like a giant personal success for me. It was also a fantastic experience - stressful and exhausting and terrifying, but all in a good way! And, ultimately, it was rewarding.
I haven't had that much nerve-destroying fun since my first NaNoWriMo!
Here is a gif I found on the internet [on mashable.com, credited to paint-me-a-butt on tumblr but paint-me-a-butt on tumblr is a page about mortgages??]. This gif is appropriate because it represents both my excitement at having a new story for you, and also the process of writing that story.
So, there it is! My first fully finished story in years. Out of my head, and onto your screen. I really hope you enjoy it :)
In case anyone doesn't know about it yet, there is a MM romance group on Goodreads which hosts an annual free story event. Readers submit picture prompts, writers write amazing stories, and then they're all uploaded free!
I really love this event. I love that it's free: I can feel that every story I read was written simply out of joy at storytelling, and a need to share stories with others. I love that all the stories are treated equally, regardless of the experience of the writer. I love finding new writers to enjoy in the future.
If you're interested in the stories I have personally read, you can see them all here. Nowhere near as many as I would like to have read - I am actually an astoundingly slow reader! But when I do get to finish a story, I enjoy it :) For a beautiful week there, before real life took over again, I was able
to read every story as it came out. That was an incredible experience!
From the stories I've read, here are some I'd recommend:
The Case of the Insufferable Slave is a slavefic, so it's not everyone's cup of tea. But it's also a stunningly well-written hardboiled detective story, with astounding control of language. It was very difficult to put this story down so I could go to work, let me tell you!
To make an amazing story even more amazing, it's the author's first published work. I can't wait to see what else they have up their sleeve :)
Carte Blanche is a slow-building sweet story of a recluse falling for his friendly neighbor. The characterization in this story is just divine. Everyone is lovable and believable. I could quite easily read more about this pair, and I'm certainly interested in reading more by this writer!
Mr. Jaguar is an enemies-to-lovers novella about a down-on-his-luck mechanic being dragged into richness by the school nerd he used to bully. The main selling point for me is the angst of the jock character. His shame at the start of the book is hearbreaking and perfectly described.
--
Also, stay tuned for my own contribution to the event! I wrote a werewolf novel, and I'll update when it's posted :)
