Gay Days Literary Festival

Just a quick note — I’ll be a guest author at the Gay Days Literary Festival next weekend in Orlando.  Join me if you’re in town for the festivities!

 

 

http://www.gaydays.com/Literary-Festival/literary-festival.html

I didn’t set out to write gay fiction

It’s Sue back again.

I’m the complicated one of the three because I didn’t set out to write an M/M, it just…kind of… happened.

Can I put a blurb in about my novel? It may help when I explain what happened.

“Perfect Score” is set in mid West USA in the 1960s and is a story about family relationships, corruption, growing up, integrity, responsibility, and being a man of worth in a society of the worthless.

The two main characters are Alex and Sam. Alex, who lives with a wealthy uncle, is a blend of musical genius, stubbornness and firmly believes in his fantasy that his love for Sam is reciprocated. Sam has more direction in his little finger than Alex has in his whole body.

He’s strong, yet of small stature and has developed a tough outer-coating after the knocks of a traumatic up-bringing which left him homeless. His one aim in life is to earn enough money to look after his disabled sister. He has no time for a spoiled, rich, guitar player. Sam also stutters and has what is probably a severe form of dyslexia.

When Sam unexpectedly disappears, Alex begins a somewhat bungling quest to find him, only to discover that Sam has a fearsome enemy: Alex’s powerful and influential yet sociopathic uncle.

As Alex spirals downwards towards alcoholism, many questions need answering. Just why did Alex’s evil uncle adopt him at age eleven yet deny him any affection? And what’s the mystery behind Alex’s father’s death?

When I set out to write the novel, I knew I wanted dyslexia and the homeless as my main themes. I also wanted to set the novel in the late 1960s because both situations were largely ignored or misinterpreted at that time.

Originally Sam (ahem) was a girl. But the more I delved into dyslexia and being homeless, the more I realized a girl, at that time, would never have survived such an awful upbringing and cruelty because of her dyslexia. I was stuck – the storyline wasn’t going where I wanted and I couldn’t figure out why. Until one of those skull-breaking flash-of-brilliance moments (few and far between, unfortunately) hit me square between the eyes.

That’s how  Sam became a man – a quick sex change that didn’t hurt him one little bit.

An added little something here (not so little, says Sam), extra stuff stuck on there  and my writer’s block was cured. Fact is, I reckon it was Alex and Sam who wrote “Perfect Score” in the end, not me.

Has this ever happened to anyone else?

Of boys and men (by Jay Di Meo)

Hi everyone. I thought it was about time I popped in too. 🙂 I am Jay, I am a girl, and I love men.

There, all said.

I love men and love writing stories about them.

All well so far…

I tend to write Young Adult/romance stories and the protagonists are often young angsty men who are not always vampires. They may have some other paranormal trait, though, and paranormal is always featured in my stories.

Then, two years ago, I met Marie Dees, and, as the goddess she is, she initiated me into a new mystery:

m/m erotica

I found that writing YA with angsty young men could easily be turned into erotica with angsty young (and handsome!) men. Since then, I’ve been writing a lot of m/m erotica (while still writing YA in my other life). I have published quite a few stories already, ranging in length from short story to full novel. I will talk about my stories another time, this time I only wanted to introduce myself.

But I did want to share that I just got a great review of my novel “The Falcon and the Jackal” – you can read it here.

 

 

And you know what the funny thing is: The reviewer says “The romance is quite young, and the sexuality is in virgin territory. I think this is a great older young adult novel.”

Seriously? I still write YA with angsty (and handsome!!!) young men, even when I write erotica.

Maybe it’s genetic… 😉

Coming out about writing gay erotica

Last month I attended our local writer’s meet up group.  We had a number of new attendees which is always great. So we all went around the room to introduce ourselves.  I was midway through the group, so I gave my name, mentioned that I edit for a publishing house and that I have a handful of novels out under my pen name Marie Dees.

“Tell them what you write,” the group leader said.
Now the group leader is a professional gentleman in his sixties.  I’m, well, let’s be honest. I’m a short, slightly chubby middle-aged woman who could easily be an extra in a hobbit scene for the Tolkien movies.  But this group had only recently discovered what I actually write.  This is because I brought the cover art for “Lair of the Jaguar God” to share and it’s sort of hard to avoid people noticing that my romance novel has two men on the cover.   But now the group was proving to be delighted with the secret knowledge that they had a gay erotica writer in their midst.  Of course, I also have a completely non-erotic mystery series out (It does have gay characters and a bit of gay romance) but what everyone wants to hear is —

“I write gay erotica.”

Shock gasps and giggles from the audience.  Then things die down a bit as they come to grips with the idea that I just don’t look like the person they expect to be writing gay erotica.  So, why come out with it? Why admit in public that I write gay erotica?  Well, first, because I’m in a position where I can.  I might surprise people, but my job isn’t in danger, and I’m not even going to be judged for my sexuality.

But when we write, we expose part of ourselves to the work. We share our dreams and fantasies. The twisted dramas we come up with when no one is looking. We bring that part of ourselves out and not only show it to the world, but ask them to become a part of it.  And this is utterly terrifying for many new writers, regardless of their age.  I can see it in the group when someone suddenly realizes that if this short, chubby little woman can write gay stories and even get them published, then maybe the group won’t think their work too strange.  With newer writers, it’s a matter of winning small battles.  With me, it’s just a matter of saying I’m comfortable with who I am.

A HEART-FELT WELCOME

Welcome to

Tempests in a Tea Cup

We’re three “in your face” published authors who have several goals in mind:

1. To sell our books

2. To support other published Authors in any way we can.

Authors! Have you noticed that we’re kindred spirits? We love to get together and natter about our beloved craft. We’re fascinating and congenial people when we meet up. No author’s eyes will glaze over at a party when a stranger tells them that they too are an author. Instead the two will have a never-ending discussion and leave with a hunger to    meet up again and continue a myriad of topics. We never run out of conversation.

My name’s Sue and, very soon, you’ll meet Jay and Marie. We all have much in common – we’re  published (some of us more than others); we write fiction; and we love to make the world spin on its axis.

As authors, we all tweet, FB, blog and tour. But isn’t it time we did something else?  How about an Author Buzz?

Over the next few weeks, Jay, Marie and I will be starting our campaign with a varied schedule. We’ll be promoting our books, your books – anyone’s books.

There’ll be rants if the mood takes us, contests to level out the fun; book talk – chats about books that have caught our eye or are yet to come. This’ll be the place to let off author steam because if you can’t do it here, where can you do it?

But don’t leave us on our own. Come and join us! Do you want to promote your books and suggest ways for others to do the same thing? How about posting a short story for everyone to read?

We’re still a tiny blog but we plan to become gynormous. Come back often, join us and see what we all have to offer each other. Authors should stick together – we understand each other.

***There are just a couple of stipulations: The three of us have published M/M books (although, not only), some of which have been erotic and some  completely non-explicit.  If you’re happy with that, then we’re happy with you.

The other stipulations are: You must be over 17 years old to take part in this blog and you must be a published author.

Why not leave us a comment? But in the meantime – Watch this space!