Maybe This Will Shut Him Up

The hubs, who knows I only write M/M these days, has been pestering me to write F/F. I told him this was the only way I could do it. He hasn't bugged me since. Hee hee!

###

Xena peered warily around the bedroom. “Tell me why we’re doing this again?”

“There’s this thing, “ Gabrielle explained patiently. “It’s called F/F. It’s a subgenre of romance. Basically it’s two women, er, being really friendly with each other.”

“You mean having sex.”

Gabrielle got red in the face. “If you want to put it bluntly.”

Xena shrugged. “It’s not like I’ve never heard of it. I hear it’s all the rage on Lesbos. Plus the Amazons do it all the time. They only take male lovers when they want children. So you want to write this … F/F?”

The red of Gabrielle’s face deepened to a fine shade of brick. “Okay, so the bard biz hasn’t been the greatest lately. I heard there was a niche market and I thought I might—you get that smirk off your face!”

“I’m not smirking,” Xena said with a smirk. “This is a knowing grin. You want to do research, don’t you?”

Just when you thought a blush had limits, Gabrielle’s cheeks proved her wrong. “It’s not like I’m all that … experienced. You’re a woman of the world. You’ve been around. You know Amazons. I was hoping maybe you could, y’know, tell me a couple of stories.”

“I thought writing was all about showing, not telling.”

“I knew you were going to make fun of me. I should’ve tried to write M/M, but I know even less about that.”

“M/M?”

“Two men together. It’s really popular right now, especially among the Athenians. And the Spartans, but they won’t admit it publically.”

“Two men together …” Xena grew thoughtful. Suddenly she grinned like a demon. “Now that sounds like something I’d be interested in seeing.”

The door opened and Dean Winchester and Castiel stuck their heads inside. “No, you wouldn’t,” Dean said. “Trust me.” They disappeared again.

“Who the hell was that?” Xena said, staring at the door.

“Cameo appearance. Anyway, is there anything you can tell me about two women in a, well, romantic situation?”

Smiling, Xena took her partner’s hand and guided her to the bed. “I’d much rather show you. That was your plan all along, wasn’t it?”

Now Gabrielle smirked. “What can I say? You got me.”

“Damn right I got you. So how does the writer handle this part of the story?”

“Well, usually if they don’t want to offend anybody, they end the sentence with three dots …”

# # #

Much gasping, moaning, and bed-creaking followed. Dean, at the window, struggled with his fly. “Holy shit, this was totally worth popping into ancient Greece for,” he rasped.

“You shouldn’t be watching them,” Castiel chastised.

“Shut up, Cas. Goddamn zipper.”

“Do you need help with that?”

“Well,” a desperate Dean said, “now that you mention it …”

Why I Love Writing

Thank you to everyone who bought, or even just viewed, Speed Dating last week. It's already received a stellar review on Goodreads. I had no idea I'd put all that subtext in there! My goal is to tell an entertaining story in the best way I possibly can. The reactions I get in the upcoming months will tell me how I did.

Meanwhile, life, and writing, goes on. I'm thinking about attempting NaNoWriMo yet again. Maybe this time I'll last more than two or three days. I'm also thinking about stretching my writing muscles into something outside the romance genre. I've written in other genres before, but this would be all new territory. I'm hoping it inspires me enough to stick with it for the whole thirty days. If I get stuck, I do have another M/M I could switch over to so I can keep going. After all, the rules don't say the 50K words have to be used on only one story. As long as you write 50,000 words in a month, it's all good. No excuses!

Outside of NaNoWriMo, I'm working on another paranormal/shapeshifter M/M romance. This one's also a stretch for me, as it's my first attempt at a BDSM story. I've already run into a snag. The sub is a horse shifter, and he likes to be disciplined in his horse form. Which made me realize: does this count as animal abuse? It shouldn't, because he's a sentient being and he gives consent beforehand, but outsiders wouldn't know that. They'd just see some big guy beating on a tied-up horse. What's the sub going to do? Change shape? Reveal himself to a human? Shifters get killed for things like that in these books. The poor little horsie just wants to be whipped, and he's found someone who'll do that for him. Neither of them should be judged for it.

But what about the readers? Will readers stand still for a horse getting whipped, even if I make it clear the horse requested it? It's not like his Dom is drawing blood or tearing off strips of hide or anything. The horse draws the line at that. But people who'll happily read about women getting tied up and beaten (but only if she consented) might throw fits if it's an animal getting the BDSM treatment. I'm going to have to figure something out. I may even have to talk to my publisher.

This is why I love writing. Tell me one other job in the world where things like this come up. Every day is a whole new adventure. You wake up in the morning looking forward to it. What kind of challenge will I face today? How will I meet it? How will others respond? Like the time I had to ask an editor the difference between "come" and "cum." There's something you never have to deal with in a secretarial job. If you do, get the heck out of there. Trust me.

There's never a dull moment in writing, and there'd better not be any on the page. It's the best job ever, although ... I do wish it paid a little faster. I won't be getting a check from my publisher for another three months, and payment from secondary markets like Amazon won't come in for over three months after that. Time to start looking for "pay on acceptance" markets, I suppose.

It's Here!

Sometimes love comes at you fast. Answering an old friend’s call for help, hunter Dillon Royce comes to Arizona to stop a shapeshifter who’s targeting gay men. He finds himself falling for the prime suspect, cheetah shifter Kaz Genovese. Kaz insists they’re fated mates. Or is he just trying to get close to his latest victim? Dillon needs to solve this one fast, before he totally loses his heart … or his life.

EXCERPT

“Sorry, speedy. I can’t take any chances. You’re going into a holding cell until we get this resolved. If you want to call a lawyer—”

“That won’t be necessary.” Kaz shifted. The bonds meant to restrain a human fell loose on the cheetah’s form. He slid his paws free and bit through what he couldn’t slip out of.

Then he leaped at Dillon.

They fell backward, onto the narrow bed. Kaz shifted back. His teeth grazed Dillon’s throat, just a tease, before he crashed his mouth against Dillon’s in another of those soul-blasting kisses.

Dillon had his knife. One thrust and it would be over.

Instead, he accepted the kiss. How had he gone his entire life without being kissed like this? Like Kaz intended to swallow his soul. As if he already had.

His hands moved as if with minds of their own, exploring, groping Kaz. Not an inch of him was still. Every speck of Kaz’s naked body seemed in constant frantic motion. Holding him was like holding on to a primal life force. His body was the desert, spare and barren at first glance but harboring unexpected bursts of color and flavor and life. An entire ecosystem of fiery desire, all of it focused on Dillon.

So long. Too long since he’d had any relief, or so desperately wanted it.

Only when he realized Kaz was tearing at his fly did Dillon come back to his senses. This was all happening too fast.

Somehow, he got his eyes to focus. “Don’t I even get dinner first?”

“What? Oh.” Kaz slumped, all over. Even then his body still vibrated with speed. “You humans and your stupid rituals. What a waste of time. You’re my mate. We were born for each other. Isn’t that enough for you?”

“Sorry, no. I don’t have the luxury of instinct. Right now, I’ve got a set of murders to solve. That’s my first priority. You and your mating urges—” Our mating urges, he couldn’t help thinking. “—Are going to have to wait.”

“Go slow?” Kaz tested the concept and, from the lift of his lip, clearly found it distasteful. “I don’t know if I can do that. Though it would be an interesting test.”

“You’re going to have to. And you’re going to have to sit in a cell for a while. You’re the prime suspect. Can’t be helped.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Kaz said firmly. “Tell you what. I’ll go do some investigating on my own. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow night and we’ll have that dinner. And then I’m claiming you. That’s as slow as I can go.” He palmed Dillon’s cheek. “We’re going to be spending our lives together. I suppose I should ask you your name.”

“It’s Dillon. Dillon Royce.”

“Dillon.” His name sighed off Kaz’s tongue. “Until tomorrow night, my love.” He captured Dillon’s mouth again and sent his senses spinning. When Dillon opened his eyes, those delightful lips were gone, the hand at the back of his neck was gone, the scent of cat was a fading memory, and the door to his room stood open.

He went to the open doorway, although he knew it was pointless. Of course, Kaz was nowhere in sight. The ache in his groin was now joined by a more poignant ache in his soul, its one true mate discovered and abruptly torn away. Maybe there was something to the mate bond after all, even where humans were concerned.

Or maybe that was guilt he felt, that in spite of everything he was falling hard for his number-one suspect. That he’d let a possible killer go free.

Available from Evernight

Cover Art!

Just got my cover art for my latest book, Speed Dating. It's scheduled for release on October 4. I'll be back then with the blurb, an excerpt, and the Evernight link. See you then!

Getting to Know You

Hello! And welcome to my blog!

I'm Jen Collins, and I write M/M short stories for Evernight Publishing. This is my first post and I'm groping for words here.

Let's see, background ... I grew up reading Marvel Comics and Wendy Pini's Elfquest and started writing at an early age because I wanted to tell stories like that, with love and adventure and action and superpowers and love. Did I mention love? Good, because I love to write romantic stories. Where's the fun in saving the world if there's nobody there to hug you at the end?

Where I'm at ... I live in northern New Jersey with the hubster, Chuck, and a tortoise who lives in our back yard. I tend the garden, he mows the lawn and cleans out the gutters. It works.

What I write ... paranormal romance with a touch of humor. It was going to be M/F until Chuck pointed out all my favorite fan fictions were slash. Then there's those two cute guys on my favorite TV show so I decided, why not have some fun? Evernight published my first paranormal M/M ,Lost and Found. They're the greatest! This should give you an idea of what goes through my head while I'm writing:

Right now I'm doing a lot of shorter paranormal stories, but I might write a longer work soon. The story decides how long it wants to be. There isn't much I can do about it. I might try a contemporary someday too. I have a couple ideas. Regular people are heroes too. There are lots of ways to save the world.

Thanks for stopping in. I hope you like my books!