I think it’s about time I started writing here more often!

I’ve been pretty quiet for the past few months, but the editing process is gearing up for my book and I’m expecting things to get really busy really soon. Expect lots in this space!

“Inside the Beltway” has been through one edit and I’m expecting the next one soonish. I also know they’ve started working on cover art, which is so exciting. I wonder what they’ll decide to do. Either way, I’m so excited!

Lately I’ve been working on another book about a talk radio host. (It’s partly inspired by Stephanie Miller’s story.) I’m also working with Stella Harris on a story for a Goodreads event. There’s lots more on the horizon, too, but I’m going to have to focus pretty soon on publicizing “Inside the Beltway.” I’m imagining there might be some local interest, since it’s the story of a senator’s self-discovery through an unexpected love affair and a nascent presidential campaign. This is, after all, the D.C. area, and us D.C. types love to read about ourselves.

But for now, I have to get to bed. Oh, day jobs, why must you exist?

Very good news to share!

My first novel will be published by Dreamspinner Press in summer 2012!

I can’t say much yet, but I can say that it will be a timely, steamy read just in time for the election season to heat up. I’ll update more as things move along. For now, hooray!

Sauntering Vaguely Downward by Nessa L. Warin

From my best friend in the m/m romance world, the delightful Nessa L. Warin, a novel about finding love and letting your geek flag fly -

Sauntering Vaguely Downward

Dylan Rojers is excited about Dragon*Con—a huge convention in Atlanta celebrating pop culture, science fiction, and fantasy—but he and his last-minute roommate, Brendan Stone, get off on the wrong foot. It seems that every time they manage a tentative truce, something happens to set them back, and by their second day at the convention, both think there’s no way they can get along. But maybe Dylan and Brendan have more in common than they thought….

Sauntering Vaguely Downward is available in paperback and e-book. I’ve had a sneak peek at it and it’s fantastic! Buy it now.

Higher Learning anthology out today

Today the Higher Learning anthology from Dreamspinner Press is out, featuring my story, “Rainy Days and Star Charts”! Buy the ebook here and the paperback here.

Rainy Days and Star Charts
by Ellen Holiday

College freshman Joel is admiring Andy’s freckles from the seat behind him in their shared Astronomy lecture. Overwhelmed by all of the math involved, Andy turns around one day to bemoan the lack of star-gazing he’d expected when he signed up for the class. When Joel tells him about the astronomy club’s “star parties” on Monday nights it seems like a match made in heaven. But every Monday night it seems to rain, so instead they end up spending the time getting to know each other, sharing their stories, each learning how to take a risk and reach out into the universe—at college or in the cosmos—and make discoveries in unexpected places.

Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Why not celebrate by treating yourself to a copy of Cross Bones?

Discouragement on the cusp

So those who know me know that I’ve been prepping my first novel for submission recently. It’s a book that I care a lot about, and I feel like I’ve finally ironed out the wrinkles in it. And I know it’s going to succeed.

Pride goeth before a stab in the heart. I let slip to one of the higher-ups at my day job that I was submitting a novel, and he said “What about?”

“A gay senator,” I said.

He stopped and stared at me as though horribly disappointed. “There’s nothing new about that!”

Well, I told him, that’s why it’s a romance novel. But the stab to the heart had been given. And i thought to myself, well, that’s the last time I talk to him about writing.

Am I discouraged from submitting? No, sir. Do I know he knows nothing about me or my writing? Of course I do.

Does it hurt?

Well. No time to talk about that, I have a novel to submit.

Appearing at Dragon*Con this weekend!

I’m pleased to announce I will be appearing with my fellow M/M authors this weekend at Dragon*Con this weekend! I will be part of the Meet the Authors of M/M Romance event in the 10th Floor Lobby of the Mariott at 1 PM on Saturday. I may make another appearance on Sunday as well, depending on availability.

For the occasion I have posted a new, free story on this blog. Please enjoy Dreaming of Castles!

And don’t forget to order your copies of Cross Bones from Dreamspinner Press. Having had a chance to read through it, I must say, it’s a wonderful anthology! I really loved the variety and the sexiness of the stories.

See some of you this weekend!

Editing is an anagram of dieting. Coincidence?

Oh, bliss, thou art a two-week vacation. And frustration, thou art a completed manuscript. I had thought you two would get along famously, but now I am starting to worry. I blame that Jezebel, the 140th pound.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m a perfectly healthy woman. at 135-140 pounds and 5’2″, I’m hardly the skinniest chicken in the shed, but I am not hefty. (I used to be 170 pounds and that was much worse!) That being said, when I hit that 140th pound, I can see it in my face. It’s like I suddenly go from waxing gibbous to full moon. This is probably a delusion many women share, but that doesn’t make it any more pleasant.

So I would love nothing more than to get it off. Problem is, vacation doesn’t lend itself to willpower, and despite exercising every day, I am still skirting 140-142. And I’m unsure how to get it off, even though I’ve tried to be more or less reasonable in what I eat. It may be that I’m just not stressed out enough to be shedding the pounds I do when I’m working full-time.

But Ellen, this is a writing blog, why the hell are you babbling about your weight? you may ask. Well, here’s my deal: I’m getting stagnant holed up in my apartment, and all I want to do is go hang out at Panera or Buckstar’s for about three hours and edit there.

But baked goods that way lie.

Today I think I will work out, then change and go out to see if I can’t control my mouth as I try to control my words. There’s some sort of grand metaphor there I’m missing by a hair. But I need to rewrite several scenes, and add a subplot, and I only have a week and a half left of this gorgeous thing called vacation. I just would really like to come out of it in at least as good mental and physical shape as I went in.

To end this on a positive note: Cross Bones is now available at the Dreamspinner store in both e-book and paperback format! It contains my first published story, “Touched by the West Wind” – please enjoy it!

Boy meets boy.

My bio says it all – what I love, more than anything, is that moment when eyes meet and words drain away and the magnetism of two bodies and souls takes over.

Boy meets boy. They talk, they find a kinship, and then the sparks catch and it’s a fire.

Would that every story could be like this!

It used to be, back in the old days, that I had a million plots but no interesting characters to execute them. Now I find I have engaging, beautiful characters, but I fear that I have not enough interesting plots. While I could read a thousand stories of boy meeting boy, friendships blossoming, hesitant and awkward first times followed by the acceptance of the new kinship, I am certain there needs to be a little more to a story.

It’s finding that little bit more, that conflict that makes the coming-together satisfying, that is my challenge right now.

I’m writing a story right now for a deadline, and I have a beautiful pair, they fit the theme and their journey together is lovely. But they’re altogether too happy. I’m looking now for the pain in the story, and the closest I can come is their painful shyness. I wonder, does it have to be that way? Does it need to have more pain than that to be a gripping story?

I suppose it does. And I suppose the answer will come to me — it always does, just in time, after making me worry that I have lost all inspiration.

I guess as the writer, that worry is enough pain for me. But readers probably need a little bit more. So come on, muses… bring me pain.

The first line is always the hardest.

What do I say? I might as well start, as those old computer programs used to, with:

Hello, world!

My name is Ellen Holiday. I write gay romance, and I’m about to be published in Dreamspinner Press’ new Cross Bones anthology (see sidebar for links). I hope in this blog to keep you apprised of my work, post a few freebies, and talk in general about the process of this brave new world of published authordom.

I recently finished the first draft of a novel about which I’m very, very excited. I hope to share more details with you about that in the coming weeks and months, depending on how editing goes and whether it is accepted for publication. I’m also hoping to have some shorter stories published.

I thank you for joining me here, and look forward to hearing from you!