Welcome to my little corner of the gay erotic romance universe . . . well, half of it, anyway. (You can find the other half at RachelHaimowitz.com.) This is the place to come for sneak previews of new projects, release information, and the occasional M/M book review. I'll also share thoughts on the industry on occasion, and I hope you'll come share yours in return.



Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Crescendo Release Date Moved

Hi all. As I'd suspected on Monday, the Crescendo release date has been moved due to hurricane Irene. The next available slot in my publisher's schedule is November 18, so that's when Crescendo will be releasing. Folks who pre-order will still be able to download it two days early.

This mess? Is what it looked like yesterday just four miles from me.



Yeah, that's the National Guard not having any more luck than anyone else.

I don't usually get up on my soapbox, but if you live anywhere near any of the hard-hit areas and can donate blood to the Red Cross, it's desperately needed. If you're not (or are) in the area and want to help, you can donate funds to the Red Cross. Or text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10.

My home is far enough from any of the nearby rivers to have missed the serious flooding, but I did and do have a mess to clean up. The job is compounded by the fact that towns are completely isolated here--few to no roads open in and out, supermarkets closed, sketchy or no power (mine just went out for an hour while I was trying to make this blog post), bridges (and highways, oddly enough) washed away, etc. While I'm in the middle of all this, please don't worry if it takes me a few days to answer an email or if I drop off the radar completely. Like I said, power outages are still an issue, and I don't have a smartphone, so when it goes I lose my internet and can't get out to go find it somewhere else.

In the meanwhile, I hope you'll consider donating blood or money or both (er, but not blood money, kay?) to help the thousands of people who've lost everything this week and are still stuck in Red Cross shelters, waiting to go home. Also please consider shopping with Candlemark & Gleam, a lovely independent speculative fiction press who is donating 100% of the sale price of their ebooks to Vermont victims of Irene.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Irene Update, Crescendo News

Good morning, all! Those of you who frequent Fantasy Unbound know this to be a pretty relentlessly happy place, but I'm afraid I have some potentially bad news for fans of Crescendo today, and it's going to involve a little bit of explanation that veers toward the sort of thing I usually would rather not discuss, but since it affects anyone waiting for Crescendo, I think you deserve to know. (If you're short on time, scroll down to the bottom for the tl;dr version.)

Good news first about Irene, though. Actually, it's all pretty related, so . . .

Irene veered east at the last second, and the eye of the storm--and the most damaging winds--missed us. Miraculously, we kept power (excepting a long series of brownouts during landfall), despite hundreds of thousands of people all around us losing theirs. We have water damage, my whole house smells like a swamp,  the local river flooding is catastrophic and only getting worse (people in town have water up to the second floor of their homes, and the rivers won't even crest until tomorrow), and my dad still hasn't been allowed back to his house to inspect the damage (he lives about 100 feet from the beach), but we're all safe. (Give it a week; I suppose the mold might kill me? :-p) I hope everyone else was at least as fortunate.

Now, to explain what this has to do with Crescendo, I need to back up a few months.

Very late into the process of getting Crescendo ready, I learned my dear publisher, Guiltless Pleasure, was closing down due to a serious illness with the owner (she is well on the mend now, thank goodness). Storm Moon Press stepped in and offered to publish Crescendo on a ridiculously tight timeline, since the release date had been set a year back from Guiltless Pleasure and I very much wanted to stick to it if I could.

This meant that everything was crazy compressed, and there was much less time to focus on things like edits and production than anyone was entirely comfortable with. Neither myself nor my new publisher were willing to deliver anything less than the very best we were capable of, so we all started putting in long, intense hours to make it happen.

That meant every hour of every day was both precious and critical to hitting the release date. Fast-forward to Irene. I lost half a week preparing for the storm and the inevitable flooding, since this isn't the sort of thing we're generally ready for up in these parts. Stupid things like buying batteries for my flashlights could take hours and trips to several sold-out stores. All the furniture (and junk stored) in the basement needed to be moved. Good thing we did, as I was up all night helping my sump pump bail the basement out. The flooding's slowed but hasn't stopped, even though the rain has, because of the situation with the rivers. Now there's a big pile of cleanup to come, and more lost hours and days from my edits.

So, I'll be late turning these in to my publisher. Which in turn throws off my publisher's schedule, since mine is by no means the only book they're publishing this fall. This means they now have to scramble to work proofreading, layout, conversion, and galley proofing into an already packed schedule. This means there is a very good chance that Crescendo will miss its release date. I want to stress that this has nothing at all to do with Storm Moon Press, who has bent over backward at every point in the process to deliver the best book possible.

I'm trying to do the same, but it's looking like it's time to beg your understanding and patience in the event the book misses its scheduled release by a couple or few weeks. A lot hinges on how capable I am of making up for lost time in an already very full schedule, and of how much lost time I'll actually need to make up for--I won't really know the extent of the flood damage (or the consequent cleanup, which is already monstrous) until the waters crest and recede, and I may yet still lose power to said floodwaters at any point (and those who already have lost power have been told not to expect it back for over a week, nor can many evacuate to somewhere that does have power because the town has turned into an island). Just as much hinges on how how quickly the manuscript can be worked into my publisher's production schedule if/when I miss my due date. (I must stress again that this is entirely beyond their control.)

So, the tl;dr version? Weather sucks. Crescendo might be a few weeks late. Please don't kill me :-p


Friday, August 26, 2011

The Weirdness Continues

Happy Friday, all! Alas, it's looking like a bit of a mess round these parts, as the eye of Hurricane Irene is forecast to, well, glare really hard right over my head. (Is anyone else surprised that, between the very rare northeast hurricane and the even rarer northeast earthquake, that nobody's yet found a way to blame God's wrath on teh gays or portend End Times? Doesn't that usually happen right about now?)

Anyway, long story short, the disaster folks are telling us to expect power outages for days and possibly even weeks. Since I don't have time to front-load my blog, I'm afraid it will go without updates for as long as I'm stuck without power/internet. An even more unfortunate side effect may be the delay of the Crescendo release by a couple weeks, since I'm supposed to be wrapping up edits in the next couple weeks and can't do that if my battery's dead. If it looks like the power situation is truly ominous, I'll try to get out of town, but where I live literally becomes an island when there's flooding and odds are good the roads will be closed for a while.

Don't worry about me, though--I'll be perfectly safe in my (sadly flood-prone) basement, reading my Kindle by candlelight as the storm blows by. Until . . . well, whenever! :-)

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Sex So Good the Earth Shoo-- Oh, Wait.

Yeah, so, that was a thing that happened, eh? My first earthquake ever. If you live in the affected area, was it your first as well? Did you know what it was when it happened? I . . . did not. I've had attacks of vertigo on rare occasion, so that was my first thought. My second, since I live about 10 minutes by air from Newark Airport, was that we were being buzzed by a plane. My third was that a plane had crashed. My fourth was a bomb. Friggin' earthquake in Central Jersey? Yeah, that was a distant fifth. And thank goodness it was nothing serious, because even after I figured it out, I was still just sitting at my computer, watching stuff on the walls rattle, totally baffled. Here, let me illustrate:

O_o

Then all my neighbors went outside to O_o at each other. After a few minutes, we decided that, yes, that did actually just happen.

And then . . . then pictures of the devastation started coming in from Washington:

via famousdc.com

So, er, yeah, everyone's fine round these parts, except perhaps for a little too much group excitement :-)

Monday, August 22, 2011

Conference Swag Giveaway

Morning, all. Let's start the week off with a giveaway, eh? 

I have a giant pile of AAD conference swag. My giant pile of AAD conference swag, let me show you it. (Click to make gianter.)


Comment if you want it, and I'll select one winner at random on Friday. Also, yeah, that's my conference badge in the back there, and yeah, it is indeed powered by tiger blood. I'll send that along too if the winner wants it.

Friday, August 19, 2011

A Good Editor . . .

. . . is worth her weight not just in gold, but also in coffee, chocolate, and kittens. While I'm neck deep in some very, very good (and difficult, sigh) edits on Crescendo that will make the book about a thousand times better than it was in draft form, I wanted to take this Friday to celebrate good editors all around the world, and mine in particular, Tal Valante.


(Actually, I'm pretty sure the cat's hers too.)

So thank you, Tal, for kicking my ass with such gleeful vigor and skill.

Have a lovely weekend, folks. I'll be huddled indoors, nursing my sore ass and the slowly emerging wheat from the chaff of my first draft :-)

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Crescendo Deleted Scene

Good morning, folks! Edits on Crescendo continue (have you pre-ordered your copy yet? /shameless plug), and a recent edit had me cutting an entire three-page scene. It was a wise, wise cut (I mean, nothing happens in this scene but a whole lotta navel gazing), but still, seemed a shame to waste it. So, my deleted scene, let me show you it.

Beneath the jump, for first-draft sloppiness and potential spoilers. (I mean, I don't terribly think so? We all already know it was Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with the candlestick, after all. But better safe than sorry, I suppose.)

Monday, August 15, 2011

Authors After Dark Photo Recap

Afternoon, all! I'm finally recovered from the wild time that was Authors After Dark 2011 (or #AADPhilly for my tweeps out there), and now I come bearing photos. I also came home with fifteen(!!!) free books and two giant tote bags stuffed with swag. It was pretty insane.

I also have karaoke video, but Blogger is giving me fits, so I'll be putting that up on my facebook page instead.

Met lots of wonderful new-to-me authors and readers, and also finally met a great many of my GR, Twitter, and blog buddies who I'd never seen face to face before. All the fun, beneath the jump--click to embiggen.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

New Cover Art, and AAD Bound

Morning folks! I promised you on Monday that I'd tell you a little about Master Class, my new BDSM novella releasing with my new business venture, Riptide Publishing, this fall. I'm still waiting on the official blurb, but here's a rough rundown:

Nicky Avery is starring in the Broadway revival of Godspell, but he lacks the confidence and self-respect to look beyond a string of heartless one-night stands to fill his needs. A quick flogging, a rough fuck, he blows off steam and seeks a new whip-hand to manipulate next. He finds challenge but no satisfaction in such pseudo-domination and pain. Nobody's managed to master him, and he thinks that's just fine. But he simply doesn't know what he's missing.  
Devon Turner is a self-possessed film star and expert Dom who knows what he wants the moment he sees it, and what he wants is Nicky Avery. Nicky's clearly a broken boy, but Devon knows exactly how to put his new sub back together again. 


Yes, those are the boys from Sublime: Collected Shorts, finally getting their full-length story. Well, novella length :-)

Also, my gorgeous cover art by L.C. Chase, let me show you it. (Click to embiggen.)



The book is complete, so expect a blurb and some excerpts soon!

In the meanwhile, I'm heading off to Authors After Dark tomorrow morning, and I'll be there through Sunday. If you're hunting for an invitation to submit to Riptide, I'm amenable to being pitched. I'll be hosting a hospitality suite at 9am on Friday with the lovely Cat Grant, so that's a good time to find me.

Friday will be hot men picspam, and I'll be back on Monday with tales (and blackmail photos) from the con.

Monday, August 8, 2011

The Seekrit Project Unveiled!

Good morning, all! You've been putting up with me talking about my Seekrit Project for some time now, and today I'm very, very excited to share it with you. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to the love-child of myself, Aleksandr Voinov, and Chris Hawkins:


Our stage-one website launched late Saturday night at RiptidePublishing.com. We're a gay fiction press with a focus on romance, but we also publish erotica and literary gay and trans fiction. 

There's quite the lineup already, including some M/M favorites and some amazing new talent: Andrea Speed, Brita Addams, Bryl Tyne, Cat Grant, Damon Suede, Kari Gregg, L.A. Witt, Peter Hansen, Rhianon Etzweiler, Storm Grant, and of course works from myself and Aleksandr Voinov, too. 

We're opening this fall, but in the meantime, we hope you'll visit our website to learn all about us, check us out on Facebook and Twitter for all kinds of behind-the-scenes tidbits, and join our already very active Goodreads Group to chat with our authors and learn more about their upcoming works.

On Wednesday, I'll tell you all a little about the new book I'm releasing with Riptide. If you're a fan of Devon and Nicky from Sublime, you'll want to see it :-)

Friday, August 5, 2011

A View of the Cutting-room Floor

Morning, folks! I'm still banging away at Crescendo edits, and a big part of the editing process is to "kill your darlings." I've been doing a lot of that with Crescendo; a first draft, for me at least, is almost always overwritten because so much of it is exploratory. Rather than condemn these passages to the darkness of deletion, I thought I'd save some to share with you. So, here's one that won't ever make it into the final story.


The road sloped gently upward, toward the third wall and the Second Ward beyond it a league or so distant. Beyond that, at the top of the rise, Ayden could just make out the parapets atop the final wall and the spired roof of the castle keep.
Their caravan halted at the heavily-guarded third wall, and Ayden watched with wary interest as a captain spotted the ambassador and rushed his fellows into opening the gate. They were afraid of this man, and if their actions weren’t enough to confirm it, their songs certainly were.
After three weeks on the road with him, Ayden couldn’t blame them.
The air in the Second Ward was sweet with broad gardens and autumn leaves, stately terraced homes of brick and stone set wall to wall but well back from the cobbled road. ‘Twas sweet relief to be among the relative quiet—fewer songs pressing in against his mind-ear, fewer threats against which to hold himself ready. He spotted no idlers on the (clean) streets; the men were about their business, the children surely at their lessons, the women no doubt home where these humans so single-mindedly thought they belonged.
Yet he knew the sense of security here was false. A few powerful men were no less dangerous than an armed mob. 


And ooh, if you haven't seen it yet, the whole first chapter of Crescendo is up now at the publisher's site!

Have a lovely weekend, folks!

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Autographed Ebooks with Kindlegraph!

Happy Monday, folks. This weekend, a friend of mine discovered a very cool little application that lets you collect personalized electronic autographs on your Kindle! The site is KindleGraph.com, and I thought it was pretty neat, so I created a page there too: http://kindlegraph.com/authors/RachelHaimowitz.


Neat, huh? You just go to the site, search for the book you'd like autographed, and send a request. The author receives the request, types in a note, signs it, and hits "send." (You'll receive the document via your Kindle email address.) And viola!, you have a signed ebook :-) (For more information, play their "about" video.)

I'm happy to sign anyone's ebook--I don't even think you actually need to own the ebook (it looks like KindleGraph basically sends you a signed title page that you can then add to a folder on your Kindle or manually insert into your own PDF documents). After all, this author's ego isn't big enough already . . . as you can tell by her referring to herself in the third person.

And if your favorite authors aren't on Kindlegraph yet? Well, I'm sure most of them wouldn't mind you giving them a little poke through their various social networking sites. I'll be doing some poking of my own for sure. Watch out, Rowan Speedwell, my poking stick is sharp >:D
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