lgbtq writers

To Plan or Not to Plan?

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Writing is tough. That’s really obvious to anyone who’s ever had to write anything ever. Writers everywhere have different styles of writing and of planning out their writing. A lot of writers tend to fall into two main camps: architects and gardeners.

What is an architect-style writer versus a gardener-type writer, you may ask.

An architect-style writer will basically plan their writing as best they can before they start writing. I tend to be more of an architect style writer. I come up with an idea and then I try and plot out what happens. Depending on the writer, the outline or planning stage may differ. Some writers will make a point-by-point list-style outline. Some people will brainstorm or mindmap their ideas. Some writers will do freewriting exercises to get their ideas down and then organize them. Some writers will plan out each scene’s purpose and create character arcs in colour-coded charts. The sky’s the limit when it comes to the architect’s planning.

On the other hand, the gardener tends to be more organic. There is very little to no planning, just the ideas in the gardener’s head that then end up on the page. The gardener will write and write without stopping for planning. In fact, for the gardener, planning actually makes it harder for them to come up with ideas! One may wonder how this style of writing could possibly work, but that’s what editing is for. Once a gardener-style writer has their ideas down on paper, then they go back and revise.

Then again, maybe a combination of both types of writer would work as well! For example, for all the architect plans their story, sometimes the characters will do something unexpected and all that planning has to take a sudden turn. Or perhaps the gardener needs just a little planning for an aspect of their riveting-but-confusing detective story. There’s no right way to be a writer. The only real rule is not to give up. We all start somewhere.

What style do you like to use?

Summer 2020

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Hello everyone,

I’m just tuning in to let you all know of the progress happening with my WIPs.

Unfortunately, a lot of stuff is being put on hold because I’ve been focused on the Black Lives Matters movement. I think this issue is of great importance. I’m so so worried about my Black siblings who have been put in the line of fire simply for asking people not to kill them. It’s devastating to me that their lives are not held as precious as any other. I will not be taking comments against this movement on my page. If you don’t agree, the unfollow button is right there.

I’ve submitted Far Patrol and am awaiting a response. I’m really excited to hear back. As I said before, a LBGTQ+ beta reader helped me with this work and does amazing work in the community. That is Siobhan Crosslin (@siobhancrosslin on Twitter) who made sure that all my plotholes were covered before submitting.

I have finished and gotten feedback on Weekend Girl and am just giving it a little time before revising my draft. I’m really excited to also submit this work for publication. It will be my first novel-length story with a genderfluid protagonist.

I will be starting to write on both the sequel for Far Patrol and the sequel for Weekend Girl in the coming months. I hope to be able to update you all with further progress on these projects.

Thanks for tuning in!

Rangers Over Regulus rerelease!

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Hello all,

I’m excited to announce that Rangers over Regulus is going to be re-released on December 14, 2019 with JMS Books! I have a brand new cover for this book, so thank you to the hard-working team at JMS who made it all happen.

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Rangers over Regulus was originally released in 2014 and was one of the runners-up for the Rainbow Awards that year. I hope that you all enjoy it.

Here’s a quick blurb for your enticement:

Liberty is a vampire living on a space station on the edge of civilization, a place where only those avoiding attention from the government tend to land. Libs spends his days working for the gangster who runs the place. He is somewhat content with his lot in life.

Riordan Dalhart is a Ranger working as a government enforcer, and he’s been sent to the furthest reaches of the galaxy on a secret mission. Liberty is immediately suspicious of his motives. Whatever his mission, Rory’s presence throws a wrench into the finely-tuned dynamics of the space station as well as upsetting the balance of Liberty’s life.

What is Rory up to and why is he here? Liberty is determined to get to the bottom of this situation… and so is the gangster he works for.

So that’s it! This novel is an m/m gay romance and is about 56k words long. The link to preorder the book is HERE.

Thanks for tuning in, and I hope that you have a great December!

Hiatus over?

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Hello all!

It’s good to be back!

I’m sorry for being gone for so long. I was mostly working on my education, so I hope you will forgive me. I am graduating from UNBC with an MA in English on May 31st!

Anyway, that’s exciting for me. But what’s exciting for you guys is that I am back to work on creative writing stuff! I am currently finishing up dev edits on Yaliana that I was supposed to finish up over a year ago. Now that it’s back on track, I will probably be able to give you an update on publication dates soon!

Not only that, check this out!

Read and Write with Pride Turns 5

I’m doing a reading event in Edmonton again! It’s the annual Read and Write with Pride happening with some great LGBTQ writers in attendence. I’m excited about that, but I still don’t know what I’m going to be reading! I’ll let everyone know closer to the date.

There are so many things I’m working on right now, but I will have time this summer to work on creative writing, and hopefully taking a gap year between MA and PhD will give me lots of time to write.

I’ll tell you more about projects as they develop!

For now, glad to see you all!

Pride Prince George

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Hello everyone!

Just this weekend, I was able to attend Prince George Pride! I had an author booth at the festival, which I thought was fun. I saw a lot of people I know in the community, and it was great to see everyone out in celebration and resistance.

I think my time at the Pride festival was moderately successful. I sold a few books of mine, including a copy of Geek Out, which is a collection of trans romances. I’m going to try and get more involved in my own community, which will be fun. Up until recently, I have only ever participated as a queer author in online communities. I think Prince George needs to know that our city has queer writers and that we are writing queer lit.

I had the interesting experience of meeting lots of queer youth who had no idea that there were queer romances out there. They also had no idea that their voices could be heard, and that their own stories could be put out there in the world, too.

So, to those of you in Prince George, please feel free to chat with me. I’d love to connect with more queer writers in the community. I think at some point I will establish a queer writing club as well, to connect writers together.

I’ve done a lot of activism, but I think it’s time to join my online presence with my actual physical presence on the ground. After all, I’ve been dividing my time and presence between two places, and now it will be one. 

So welcome new followers! I will try and keep in touch with everyone! And if I can establish a queer creators community, that would also be great!

Happy Pride!

Camp NaNoWriMo 2017

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Hello everyone! 

This is just a quick blog post to announce that I’m officially ready to start writing for Camp NaNoWriMo on July 1st! I’ve set my goal for 50 000 words, which will hopefully finish off my second novel for my ace/aro dragon series. 

In preparation, the first thing I did was reread Far Patrol, which I finished in November 2015 for NaNoWriMo. This was very interesting, as I haven’t touched the novel in a long time. I kept getting surprised by things I forgot that I put in the novel. I also keep thinking to myself “I should include this” and then finding that my past self already did. This is very amazing for me, because it shows me that I’m pretty consistent in my writing.

I always wonder if I wrote a scene at a different time how differently it would turn out. So some evidence that it wouldn’t drastically change is nice.

I’m outlining the second novel, which I’ve dubbed “The Youngblood Society.” I have about 17k words written of this novel already, and I’m planning on adding another 50k, so it should be a fairly good-length novel by the end of the month.

Anyway, I’ll keep everyone apprised of my progress on Twitter!

Thanks for tuning in!

Summer 2017 Updates

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Hey all,

Just wanted to update you on what my current projects are looking like.

I finished my dev edits on “Yaliana.” I’m currently looking for an alternate title for this one and am debating with myself over which one is best. I might go with “The Jungles of Harr” because that one was most popular when I did my poll. I haven’t received the line edits back yet, but I expect them to be a little while. This one is well on its way to being published, however, so I’m looking forward to working more on it!

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Links to original page

I have one book draft written in a series of three that I need to revise. This is my ace/aro dragon series which seriously needs to get finished. I’ve had the draft of the first novel written since November 2015, which I did for Nanowrimo. I have a solid plan to finish the other two books. I have three chapters written for the second novel. I plan to finish the draft of the second novel in July for Camp Nanowrimo. Then, I plan to finish a draft of the third book in November for NaNoWriMo. It’s getting finished!

 

Lastly, I just need to revise Rangers over Regulus to resubmit it. I think I should only need minor revisions for it. I’m also going to do huge amounts of revisions on Across Borders and resubmit that one as well.

I just received the rights back for Insanity Girls as well, and with the encouragement of a few different people, am planning on self-publishing it! It’s only 15k words, so it’s not too long. But I think maybe it could do well. I’ve asked my sister if she will do the cover art for it, and she has agreed! I’m excited about it!

Those are my current projects, I just hope that I will be able to keep up, especially with grad school taking up so much of my time.

 

Read & Write with Pride 2017

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Hello all! 

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I’m super excited to tell you about the reading event Read & Write with Pride that took place at Audrey’s Books last night.

We had five readers: Ruby Swanson, Heidi Belleau, Marina Reid Hale, Rob Browatzke, and myself. We were hosted by Sheldon L’henaff, who did a great job of keeping us all on track.

When I first arrived, I was nervous that a) I would say something really dumb (which happens at times) and b) that no one would show up.

I was nervous for absolutely no reason, because not only did lots of people show up, but for the first time, I managed to do an intro to my reading which made complete sense, and I didn’t forget anything. This is a good thing.

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So, I read fourth, and I read from my yet-to-be-released story with the place title “Yaliana” but which will soon have a proper title. I asked earlier on Twitter whether I should do an action scene or a sappy scene, but found, to my dismay, that most of the scenes I could choose from were all action scenes. I tried to include some light banter before all hell broke loose, so I hope I succeeded.

Ruby Swanson read first, opening up out little gathering. She read from her book A Family Outing which is about her and her son, who comes out to her as gay. It was a very poignant piece, and I think that a lot of people were touched by the scene where she and her son sit in her office at the U of A and talk.

Heidi Belleau read next, and she read a section from her novel that she co-wrote with Sam Schooler, Dead Ringer. She read a rather intense scene between the two main characters Percy and Brandon, who are discussing Brandon’s grandfather James Ringer and his sexuality.

Then Marina Reid Hale opened with a bang, reading from one of her slam poems about female bodies and male entitlement. She performed several more poems from her book of poems titled These are NOT Love Poems.

Lastly, Rob Browatzke read from Wonderland. The section that he read from is a flashback from his childhood and younger years about all the times that he has been bullied for being gay. It was also a rather intense reading. He also read a short section on his own experiences, which was a deeply personal piece to read to us. 

All in all, we all had a good time meeting and greeting people afterwards as well as doing the actual readings. I had a lot of fun, and I will hopefully be back next year for more of the same.

GRNW 2015 is coming!

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It’s that time of year again! Officially less than a month away from the Gay Romance Northwest conference in Seattle!

I always make a big deal out of this, because I love going to this conference. It’s only in its 3rd year running so far, but already, the Gay Romance Northwest meet-up is growing and changing. I’m so glad to be a part of this conference about LGBTQ+ romance and fiction. 

As usual, there will be a pre-conference meet-up the evening before and a book reading at Hugo House! Last year was a lot of fun, so I’m looking forward to meeting everyone there! Once again, the conference is at the Seattle Public Library, which has hosted for the previous two years as well. There’s going to be lots of fun panels and activities for readers and writers, including a Pitch session with publishers and a reader meet-up!

Afterwards, there’s going to be a book festival at Hotel Monaco! 

This year, I’m an Attending Author and have been invited to be on a panel. I’ll be driving down with my friend J.K. Pendragon and their boyfriend Laurence. J.K. is also going to be on a panel this year, which is exciting news for both of us. We’ll both also have booths at the book festival, so come visit us! I think we’ll be sitting at the same table, so it will be easy to visit us both at the same time.

If you love LGBTQ+ romance, then you’ve got to check out all the other Attending Authors as well! There’s lots of amazing authors attending, as well as publishers, editors, and cover artists! 

Gay Romance Northwest has opened registration already, and their early-bird deal is on until August 31st, so hurry and register early for the best deal! I’m ready to go, and there’s still a month till the conference.

Hope to see you there!