Is the story ready or does it still need work, or are you telling yourself it still needs work because you fear putting your words out into the world, or is that an excuse for not doing another editing pass, another rewrite, or are you procrastinating making a cover and writing the blurb and and and

Holy shit

Exciting news! 🎉 My short story, 'Hoofbeats', will appear in the next issue of @innerworlds.bsky.social ! My first piece published in a magazine AND it's comes out on my birthday! How cool is that?!? Very cool! 🎉 💙📚📝

I'm loving reading all the "lure people into reading your novel by posting your first line" contributions, but feeling extreme choice-paralysis about picking one of my own 😂

There's only one bed 👀 Oh, so you're not in love yet? Fine. Now there's only half a bed. Still holding out? Bam. A quarter of a bed. Feeling unlucky in love still, assholes? Think you can resist each other's charms in an eighth of a bed? Don't test me, I have a circular saw and a hunger for a HEA...

My coffee is cooling just beyond reach, because the cat decided she'd deign to sit on my lap and there's no way I'm discouraging that.

You have until the end of the day to grab any book for half price or all of them for 20 bucks!

Anyway. A funny wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey gay romance about a dying dude who gets the strangest of second chances with the one that got away. (And OMG that cover.) Link: books2read.com/u/4DW0kQ

Given the state of the world right now, if you managed to write even twenty words this week about people being tender, or in love, or having rampant sex, or leading each other to a fade-to-black bedroom, I am proud of you.

Your friendly semi-regular reminder that the single greatest way to help your favorite authors is to rate and review the books you've read. Goodreads, Itch, Kindle, they all give you the opportunity to rate/review and it REALLY helps us get visibility!

So, some of you may not know that I'm one of the best short-form writers in genre romance. Here's some of my work that clocks in around/under 10K! KICK AT THE DARKNESS: books2read.com/u/4Xrqqv IN HER SERVICE & A ROGUE'S GAMBIT: books2read.com/u/38E7YB JESSE'S GIRL (free read!): tinyurl.com/427c983n

It feels strange to read political news and feel hopeful, but I like this feeling and would enjoy more of it, please.

Would you like to get in on the ground floor of a new sci-fi romance? Of course you would! Check out the Prologue to Human After All, my new weekly serial, at the link below and sign up to receive the next chapter directly to your inbox! www.dianeackland.com/human-after-...

Today's the day, y'all!!!!! My queer, antifascist western, Dangling High, is officially available on Amazon as a paperback or ebook, as well as Kindle Unlimited!!!! a.co/d/bR3kzUC #lgbtq #kindleunlimited #queerbooks #mmromance #dystopian #antifascist #western #ocsky #queerart

Today is the last day of queer history month, which also happens to be Halloween… so what better time is there to read The Woods All Black? An historical Appalachian gothic about queer-trans bodily autonomy and resistance ft. bash-back revenge, monsterfucking—

Happy Halloween! This week's post is free for all to read as a treat. I covered some interviews Bela Lugosi did in the early 1930s that show his haunted past. www.patreon.com/posts/142438...

'Nathan's whole 🧵 is worth reading, but this last line really stood out. It's something I struggle to remember, especially when squeezing writing in around a day job and other IRL obligations. Not writing in those slivers of time feels like squandering it! But trying to force it never works out.

Do you ever look at the first draft of stories you're still working on, and when they date back to, and find yourself astonished that it's been so damn long? It just randomly dawned on me, where I can add a scene I'd been pondering about into a story I started in 2019. Brains are funny things.

Have I been working on my main WIP, or the final edits of my next release, or agent queries, or anything else on my to-do? Heck no. I've been writing a random smutty short story inspired by a not-even-porn video I saw the other day, which'll be too niche to sell so I'll just give it away 😂

Trying to put a starter pack together of writers and artists who do trans men and mascs in romance and erotica, especially who do monsterfuckery & fucked-up dynamics! Further recommendations appreciated! go.bsky.app/QCGDtAH

Look, you can't not repost with a pun like this.

The Chace Verity Halloween sale! Through November 1, get six queer paranormal romances for $5 USD! Payhip only, but the books are DRM free, so you get to keep them forever. payhip.com/b/9h0kS

No way of telling for sure, obviously, but I have a sneaking suspicion some wonderful person just bought every single book I have released on Smashwords 👀 If it was you, thank you 🥰

My bad, totally gave out the wrong link before. 😅 THIS is the sign up link for the Indie Ink Awards. Come be a judge with me! #booksky #IndieInkAwards

A fun announcement: SEEK SHELTER NOW will be re-releasing soon. My other project, HELIOTROPE AND HELLFIRE, will hopefully be out by the end of the year. I'll explain things in this Saturday's newsletter/update thing, so follow on Ko-Fi for all the details, plus a bunch of other stuff.

This just rocketed to the top of my "feedback I desperately hope readers will give me" list.

Thinking, this morning, of the guy who thought he was writing a book with ChatGPT's "help" but it kept giving him a fake download link and then apologizing and giving him another fake link and then people on reddit had to explain to him that nothing existed AI just told him what he wanted to hear.

Hey, so, if for *whatever* reason you’re in the mood for a queer heist/be-gay-do-crimes novel or two, may I suggest the Grant and Chase books from @robbyrnes.bsky.social? Think Dortmunder, but queer.

Resisting the urge to Wade Into The Day's Discourse

There are three agents at the same agency who all might be a good fit for one of my stories, but now I have to decide which agent to query and my brain is opting to simply melt instead.

Should add really that if you're a smol newsletter bean who would dearly love to NOT be on Substack, then I will happily roll (and manage) a Ghost install for you for cost + a small maintenance fee. I'll talk you through setting up your own mailgun and stripe. Do that and you keep ALL your revenue.

I always forget that I have a (free!) Halloween-themed story. It's definitely more sexy than scary, though 🧛

5k words in, and you know the "it's just the author's barely disguised fetish" meme? 😳

There is no such thing as a HEA, only a Promising HFN.

I love Felicia's essays, because not only do I invariably learn something interesting, but her voice is just so pleasing to read.

I wrote a little about some of the little details you might have missed in this video and why it hit me so hard as a trans person this morning: www.burnsnotice.com/you-have-to-...

I have an idea for a fairly silly, still hopefully sexy short story but my brain is currently uncooperative when it comes to actually writing it down.

Look, it starts with his former best friend (who he now resents, for perfectly reasonable reasons) heroically preventing Oli's porn from playing through his mom's Bluetooth speaker, then things only get more awkward. Is it enemies-to-lovers if he doesn't know you hate him? #DVpit #LGBT #Own #A #R

Take one secretly-bisexual pop star, trapped by his image. Add a wry, gay assistant who hates pop music and can't trust his heart. The Type A manager; A risky new album; And feelings too dangerous for love songs. Because once the spotlight finds you, there's no going back. #DVpit #LGBT #Own #A #R

kinda sweet that bookshop.org's anti-prime sale overlaps with banned books week, which means today you can get free shipping PLUS 20% off their banned books list! bookshop.org/info/banned-...

EDGE OF NOWHERE is $0.99 as an ebook right now. A cranky smuggler gets hired to teleport an unconscious man. They get stranded in an alien wilderness, rely on each other to get home, and spend the rest of the book in varying states of horny panic. books2read.com/edgeo... or feliciadavin.itch.io...

Wanna reach divinity? Recommend indie books to your friends.

It's a lovely morning on the internet and you are a horrible queer! Drop your links to queer books! Yours, someone else's, tradpub, indie, share ALL THE QUEER BOOKS to make a fash shit themselves. Go!!!

Don’t wanna piggyback someone’s perfectly good post with book promo, but lrp: Might I suggest The Woods All Black, an historical Appalachian gothic set in the late ‘20s that explores gender, sexuality, and trans/queer bodily autonomy? It’s also (1) horny (2) spooky and (3) a bash-back revenge story

Trying to think which of my books would be most fragrant, and keep coming back to "College Wrestler Secrets" because who doesn't love the scent of fresh jock sweat and spandex, right? Right? 😳 (Psst it's on sale ($2.99!) at the moment, all the stores here... alexpendragon.com/college-wres...)

Out today. Drawing on my own experiences growing up queer in a small town in Indiana, this book has had quite a journey to its present form, and I'm prouder of it than I've ever been. Links to purchase: jonwesleyhuff.com/pages/fiction #BookSky #HorrorBooks #HalloweenBooks

7 months after taking "Farmed Out" out of Kindle Unlimited, it just got 16 page reads. Someone presumably had it downloaded all this time? I'm flattered! 😂 It's not in KU now, but it IS discounted to $2.99 if you like your bi-awakenings high-heat and full of angst... alexpendragon.com/farmed-out/

I just want to say that last-night-Alex's "Oh, it's getting late so I'll just watch half of this next episode" was a lie, he knew it was a lie at the time, and yawning-today-Alex is very displeased with him.

Oh god I'm thinking of that romantasy idea again

Somewhere, in a parallel universe, there's a version of Alex who quit his day job and just pounds out 2-4 stories of Very Horny Gay Erotica a month, and while I don't necessarily want to be him, I do want to see his royalty statements.