Tuesday, July 20, 2010

So . . .

Here's what's new. I'll keep this on the bright(er) side, since I'm sick to death of the dreaded T word.

First, I apologize for not visiting more blogs more often. Please don't take it personally. I've been busy, and endlessly harassed by you-know-what. I do pop in to see what's up from time to time, but I rarely post anymore. For some weird reason, whenever I use Word Verification or Captcha, those T's seem to get active. Maybe I'm just being paranoid. I don't know; I'm at a loss.

Mobry's Dick is now up at All Romance eBooks. To my amazement, so are some of my Ellora's Cave and Cerridwen Press titles. (Some kind of "rebate" lowers their prices. WTF is that?)

The steampunkish WIP is finished at 53,000 words. Title? I'm torn. At first it was Mongrel, then some very inconsiderate person went ahead and published a book called Stray. That's a little too close for comfort. The other possibilities are Mongrels and Mystics, The Dog King, and All the Dog King's Men (although the last might be a bit too precious -- do you think?) I haven't yet decided where to submit this.

Back to contemporaryville with my next story, precious_boy. At least I have the title down!

Just finished the first round of edits for Electric Melty Tingles, coming in late September from Loose Id. Gosh, I love that novella. It gives me the warm fuzzies, although it isn't all angsty and maudlin. Neither is it action-packed, centered on a mystery, or crawling with paranormal beings. It's very simple. Here's a fresh, new blurb:

It's August of 1970, and the friends of 21-year-old Oliver Duncan are having a blast at his bachelor party. Except Ned Surwicki. He isn't an Ivy Leaguer. He doesn't appreciate female strippers. And although he's been Oliver's best friend since they were 14, Ned isn't much inclined to celebrate his pal's impending marriage.

Ned is gay, something he's known since he kissed a boy and got the melty tingles. Ned is also in love with the groom-to-be. Ned is miserable.

On the night before his wedding, Oliver realizes that he's miserable, too. Of course Ned comes to his rescue.

Thus begins a romance that spans forty years, requires one coming-out after another, and survives a broken engagement, a menage with War and Pees, world travel, an ill-advised marriage, scores of fuck buddies, a father who thinks his son is destined to be a clone of Liberace, parents who reject their son, and, worst of all, the failure of two misguided men to pursue their fondest dream.

The most important coming-out for Ned and Oliver is summed up in a declaration they spend too many years trying futilely to forget: "I love you. That's never going to change."

(Ta-da!)

16 comments:

Clare London said...

*hugs*
Always good to see you, regardless!

That's a fascinating blurb - seriously. I can't wait to read it.
*taps fingers impatiently*

Tam said...

Wow cool blurb. Looking forward to it.

I like Mongels and Mystics. Just cause, no logic.

I was just thinking about you yesterday and wondering what you were up to. Glad you are lying dead in a ditch in Wisconsin after being rolled by tourists. :-)

K. Z. Snow said...

Hiya, Clare! I tried to win your CP book at Chris's but ended up with another trojan instead.
:-(
How does it feel to be famous?


Tam, I hope you meant "aren't" instead of "are." (No self-respecting tourist would roll me anyway. I'm too fat and too poor. *g*)

Kris said...

KZ! *tackle hug*

I like The Dog King as a title. And don't aske me about the rebate thing as I've no fucking idea either.

Chris said...

Hmm. Something else is afoot, KZ - I suspect you haven't completely gotten rid of the original infection. :( My site's really, really low on the scripts and stuff that could actually give you the ick.

Wish you were closer to me. My coworker (the desktop support guy) works on computers on the side for a case of Budweiser...

K. Z. Snow said...

Kris! *dodging out of the way* I've been snooping around your place. Heh-heh.

The Dog King is the book's title right now, but I'll toss out some others if/when I get an editor and ask for input. I'd rather not have a title that begins with "the."

Chris, yeah, I'm pretty sure that's the case. I never thought it had anything to do with your site. That doofus I spent my money on either didn't clean out my computer or introduced something new.

Right now Ad-Aware is saving my ass, but it's a big fat pain to have this thing keep cropping up. Ad-Aware removes it and -- blammy! -- a day or two later it's back. (I wonder why Avast or the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool can't detect it.)

Chris said...

Hmm. Ad-Aware might just be removing the symptom... And if it's something you had when you installed Avast? It's probably hidden itself from Avast. :(

Tam said...

Oh my god. How rude of me. AREN'T in a ditch, definitely AREN'T. LOL

I think the rebate deal was to "discourage" people from buying EC books at ARe. When you buy one, you pay twice the price of their website but then you get half of it back in ARe money so you are "forced" to buy more books to use that money. IMO, it's stupid and I'm sure has turned many people off who may have made impulse buys but won't go to the website to get it. I do that as a shopper all the time. "oh, that looks cool" throw it in the cart but if it's too expensive I'm not going to go find it, just pass it over. Kind of a dumb strategy if you ask me but hey, I'm not a publisher.

K. Z. Snow said...

That's what I figured, Chris. I know that many malware programs have obfuscation built into them. But one would think AV programs would be hip to this and figure out how to overcome it.

K. Z. Snow said...

Tam, you're right. A lot of EC authors have been kvetching about that company dragging its feet on selling offsite. As much we talk about the benefit of third-party vendors (how they can extend the life of a book and keep royalties coming in, how they can introduce our work to new readers, etc.), EC still thinks it's "all that" and readers should come to them instead of vice versa.

The fact they insist on doing everything their way, regardless of any negative impact on their authors (and I mean from contractual points to some ridiculous editorial standards to their jam-packed release schedule to distribution) is why I haven't subbed there in a long time. :(

Chris said...

KZ: Did you run a deep system scan after you installed Avast?

Trojans are nasty, tricky beasties...

Here's some free trojan removers recommended by Gizmo's Freeware. From a different article on the same site, it looks like Ad-Aware might be missing stuff. *sigh*

Chris said...

Re: EC - oh, the horror stories I've heard from authors...

K. Z. Snow said...

Chris, what's a "deep scan"? (I can't recall having seen that option. I've done full-system scans, but they've never revealed anything.)

I'll check out that link.

Chris said...

Full-system scan. :)

Lily said...

So sorry to hear computer problems are still in force. That so sucks!!

Oh my, I love the blurb. The story sounds great. Looking forward to it.

K. Z. Snow said...

Hi, Lily! Nice to see you!

Thanks for the sympathy. Yuppers, this trojan invasion has been both mysterious and maddening. I've nearly pulled out what little hair I have left.

I hope you like EMT. I really fell in love with that couple.