Snippets

The clock is ticking on my third Mountain novel -- Fall Down the Mountain will be coming out on Wednesday, June 23, from Torquere!  Mark will be getting his day in the sun at last. He'd been left rather in the lurch in both "Snow" and "Mistletoe" and it's time to let him have a chance.

This skiing novel should both cool you down and heat you up.  Allan, a new character in the Mountain environment, has reason to notice Mark, a tall, lean ski patrol who's big on responsibility but sometimes short on a sense of proportion.  Jake and Kurt, whom you'll remember from "Fire" and "Snow," appear again; they're Mark's friends. Jorey Taylor turns up again, too -- maybe he needs his own story.

More info and links as they come active!

A little promptfic for the Talking Twolips crew, who play the game a bit differently than we're used to on the LJ.

Mahalia Levey At a ice skating pond a couple go on a date...sharing a cup of hot cocoa from a street vendor would be sweet somewhere in there
Kalisto In the snowy woods he lurks
AKM Miles invigorating and redolent
Winnie Jerome "Australopithecus, "supernova"
Kathryn Scannell Cooperative

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Our breath made plumes in the night air, showing white in the spotlights that lit the ice. Wapiti Lake froze over sometime in mid-November and stayed that way until spring. The resort didn’t miss a trick when it came to the winter experience; benches, a snack stand, and a skate rental kiosk lined the banks of what was more a pond to this Michigan boy. If not for the electric lights and the modern clothing, it could have been a Currier and Ives picture, right down to the full moon in the star-sprinkled sky.

Currier probably talked Ives out of drawing people sprawled flat on their faces on the ice, where Kurt lay at the moment.

“I thought you said you played some hockey.” I skated over to give him a hand up. Kurt was a highly competent guy, so watching him fall flat, literally, was a bit of a shock.

“I certainly did. In hockey skates.” He let me pull him off the ice. “These rental things are figure skates.”

“Toe pick!” I didn’t get to outshine Kurt all that often, and he’d hauled me up off the snow a few times today.

He pushed off carefully, trying to avoid fouling the serrated blade tips on the ice again. Trudging more than gliding, he wobbled while trying to maintain a more flat-footed approach than he was used to. I skated nonchalantly beside him, carefully not commenting and only offering a little coaching. The role reversal was totally weird – it was usually him teaching me something.

“Okay, I’ll bite, Jake. You said you played hockey, too.” He glanced over at me and caught the toe pick again.

“I did. I also have a sister who dreamed of being Jamie Salé and drafted me to be her David Pelletier. It was probably the most cooperative thing we ever did.” He refused my hand up this time, getting to his feet with a determined jut of the jaw. I knew that look – those skates were going to be pwned by the end of the night.

“Just call me Australopithecus,” Kurt informed me later. “Since I’ve managed to stay off my knuckles for a while.”

“You’re doing good.” I’d abandoned him for a few solo turns around the ice when he’d glared at me, taking the opportunity to see if I remembered how to do any spins or jumps. I’d popped off a single toe loop and decided not to push my luck further, no matter how invigorating it was to find an old skill hadn’t vanished completely with non-use. The ice was a little too crowded to risk it again.

“Ready to try dance position?” He held up his hands to my shoulder and waist, grinning slyly. “I’ll bottom tonight if you’ll skate backwards for me.”

The little circle I skated around him was a bit sarcastic. “You’ll bottom tonight ‘cause you love it.”

“True.” He put his hands down and pushed off, noticeably more graceful than when we’d started. I watched him get nearly a quarter of the way around the pond before making up my mind, but I caught up to him, spun around to skate a few strokes backwards and facing him, before flipping beside him.

“We don’t try any lifts until you’re steadier,” I told him, slipping my hand into his.

“Sure, Coach.” He squeezed my fingers, and let me have my hand back before we got all the way back to the benches.

“Tourist prices for some hot chocolate, or shall we head home and find those last few cocoa packets your folks sent?” Kurt asked, unlacing his skates and eyeing the toe picks with disfavor.

“Home.” Call me a tightwad, but tuition only went up and I was saving my pennies. “The shuttle won’t be here for another twenty minutes. Want to walk?”

There was a path through the pines back to the Wapiti Creek employee housing, and enough light from the moon to make us willing to take it without flashlights. It was still damned dark, and the trampled snow was our best guide for getting back to the apartment. We had about a quarter mile hike ahead of us.

The trees thinned out about two thirds of the way there, letting the moon shine down into the snowy woods where no one lurked but us. We were totally alone in the forest in a way that we hadn’t been since we’d put our ranger green utilities aside for the winter. The air was redolent of pine; that and the moon brought memories of nights in the Uncomphagre National Forest last summer when Kurt and I learned to be lovers. I pulled him into my arms and crushed my mouth against his.

His lips parted under mine, his tongue meeting my demanding invasion with equal need. His kiss didn’t promise the moon and the stars – no, it promised supernovas, and when we broke apart, we ran the rest of the way home.

The authors of Midnight Seductions very kindly had me do a guest blog post for them. The full text can be found here: midnightseductionsauthors.blogspot.com/2009/10/guest-blogger-pd-singer.html

Other good news! I got the cover art for "Snow on the Mountain!" This is book 2 of the Mountain series, and will be available from Torquere on November 11. "Snow" follows rangers Jake and Kurt to Wapiti Creek, where they will have just as much adventure as they can handle, between jobs, colleagues, and an unforgiving mountain.

My favorite pub for Irish trad music has been on hiatus-some dust-up with ASCAP. They seem to think that royalties are due on having live music. Since all the musicians are unpaid volunteers and most of the music is so far beyond copyright, their stance on this mystifies me, but it means I haven't played in a group for a couple of months while we get this resolved. Guess it's time to try one of the other sessions in town. Sunday afternoon, yeah a good time, and I'm betting there will be familiar faces.

All revved up to go because the story I'm working on is set against such a session. Names and quirks have been changed, though "Suiul a Run" remains as beautiful a tune as only "Emily" can sing it- her voice cannot and should not be meddled with.

Hugh finally cooperated, though it took more words than originally envisioned:



We'll see what the rewrites do to it.

My, my today was a good day! I cracked the whip on teenagers (heh heh) and now butter that the MU had parked in the seat pocket of the car and allowed to melt all over is cleaned up and the big freezer is defrosted. When the kids want $$ they can be remarkably useful.

Got a ton of practicing done- revving up for fiddle camp. The paltry number of tunes I know have to be all purty to show off for the other campers, and hopefully I will come back with magic fingers and a better grasp of accompanying singers. I could probably lead around 40 tunes at this point, follow a great deal more. For some reason, the ornaments that end into a first finger note are sticking. Those are the little Irish twiddly things that make the music so distinctive. MORE PRACTICE! I actually took the fiddle to work yesterday and plan to do it again tomorrow, since lunches run an hour. If it isn't raining I'll go outside and if it is, the warehouse outside the IV room is officially declared remote enough to play. Audiences are scary things. Better living through chemistry- I have propranolol.

Last but certainly not least is that "The Man Behind the Bar" is coming along nicely. Got quite a bit done today! The plotting is complete, the ending is clear in my head, and all that is needed now is peace and quiet to write. Even without P&Q the story grew substantially today.

My new novel, Fire on the Mountain, is now officially available through Torquere Press!



When Jake signs up for a season as a forest ranger in the high country of Colorado, it seems like a great way to take a break before continuing his education. The mountains are beautiful, he gets to live in a cabin near a small lake where he can fish, and his partner Kurt is coaching him in archery. It’s heaven, with the occasional forest fire.

Kurt’s a good partner -- confident, competent, experienced, just what a rookie like Jake needs. He’s also good looking, not modest, and always around. Jake’s living in the closet, not just in the great outdoors, but is Kurt trying to get him to come sniff the fresh air? Jake can’t tell, but when a small fire whips out of control, things could really heat up!


http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2083

I'm also the featured author at Torquere, which let me mix crazed imaginings about a more exciting life with real thoughts on writing.

I got my contributor's copies of both the "Walk the Plank" Taste Test and "Fire on the Mountain" today!

Completely twiddipated now.

A heads up from Addison Albright (may the readers smile upon her upcoming release, Another Dream, coming from Torquere Press on July 8th) led me to look at Alessia Brio's website. She does a great deal of the cover art for the publisher, and while I was admiring all the pretty covers for other people's books, look what I found!

I haven't been officially notified, so this may not be the final, but it's so amazing to see this worked up! It's a little different from Dragon King's vision, but I expected that. I'm dancing around, I'm so excited.



My cover! Whooo!

I just got the word that Torquere wants Cannons and Honor for their 'Walk the Plank' collection, due out in July. This is cutting it rather fine!  Once I managed to understand what I was reading, I'm afraid I did some shrieking. "They bought another one!"  Unfortunately, my younger son interpreted this as "Call 911!"  Understandable, since I am not usually a shrieker. So, poor boy is asking, "Do I ask for police or fire department?"  Not sure he was at all enlightened when I picked him up and danced with him. He's 5'4" and weighs about 100 lb, so it was some dance.

So, the initial elation has settled enough that I am just grinning instead of alarming everyone around me.

This story was a question mark; I wasn't sure it would sell to this particular market, since the tone is very 'Horatio Hornblower' although the theme is very m/m romance. It's Age of Sail, and the necessary jargon coupled with the more formal speech and public behavior made me wonder. It remains to be seen how much will survive edits.   There is a period flavored section of exposition at the beginning, which may be the first thing to go; I did rewrite it in a more 'showing' fashion but the POV becomes rather iffy-omniscient, even. I should quit borrowing trouble now; if they want changes, they'll say so.

Mara also sold a story to this collection, and Eden Winters is still waiting to hear back. Eden's tale is delightful, though it went in late enough that it may not have made the consideration pile. It would be incredible if we all three made this one collection. Knock on wood!