Progress

Phew. Today I finished up a futuristic novella I've been working on/off over the past 3 months, in between other projects. AGAINST THE GRAIN is a speculative fiction futuristic, set in a society where homosexuality is the norm and heterosexuality is seen as a throwback to ancient times. My story follows four individuals who break free, because they want to be with members of the opposite gender, something that is forbidden in their society. This was originally a short story called “Delfidian” which some of my readers may remember from the SEXTOPIA anthology (a Circlet Press book edited by Cecilia Tan and including authors such as Catherine Asaro.) Both "Delfidian" and the anthology were nominated for 2002 Spectrum awards, which made me very proud.

I really enjoyed playing this story out to its full potential, expanding the world building and digging deeper into the philosophy of a strict society (as well as writing lots of hot, forbidden sex, of course :-) I love the challenge of working in different sub-genres, and although I feel contemporary erotic is where it flows best for me, I try to give every project the respect it deserves. The novella feels jam packed, the most complicated novella I've written, so we’ll see how it fares. It has gone to editing now so I'm taking stock and my to-do list is crammed.

Tomorrow I’ll be finishing up a short story called THE DEVIL YOU KNOW, and an article about Storm Constantine's influence on me as a writer, for the Visionary Tongue publication (a great place for new fantasy writers to get started, that's where I began!) I'm looking forward to working on both. Then on Tuesday, I'll be cracking on with my new novella for Berkley.

I hope you've had a great weekend!