Pickup Lines Posted!!

Hello My Readers,
I have wonderful news. My story, Pickup Lines, has been posted. I wrote it as a part of the M/M Romance Group's Love Has No Boundaries event. You can find the photos, the prompt, and THE STORY here.

Blurb

Edmund and Mack have been friends for years. Edmund has been in love with Mack for almost as long. Things finally seem to be shifting between the two until Edmund ruins everything for the sake of petty infighting with his family. Can Edmund prove to Mack that he is more important than all of that or will he loose Mack forever?

If you read it and like (or I guess if you don't) please please please click over to the goodreads story page (linkity here) and give it a rating and/or review. I would love you even more than I already do. :D

Love Has No Boundaries Update

Hello All,
Figured an update was in order. I just got back my edits from the LHNB team for Pick Up Lines. It is shaping up well and will hopefully be posted in the near future (not sure when but I am getting really excited!).

Just a reminder, this is a story about the love between these two fellows. ;)

And here's a brief little excerpt to whet your appetites:

"So, you're my best friend, right?"

Mack had sat down at his desk and he looked up sharply with a wary glance. "Yes. But I don't think I'm going to like where this is going."

I smiled sweetly.

"Yeah, I know I'm not going to like it."

Cover Art

Happy Monday my Blog Readers!
Today I bring you Cover Art. Because I generally live paycheck to paycheck, whenever I have cool covers for my stories I have made them myself - either with cheap/free stock photos or photos taken by myself, my friends or my family. I load my chosen photo into Pixlr Express and go to town. I usually go through three or four (or even five or six) cover design ideas before I settle on the one that ends up going with my story. Thankfully my usual beta is good about being a sounding board for cover art as well. She has often steered me clear of ideas that seemed wonderful in the moment but really really weren't. I have just recently made two covers - for my two upcoming Love Has No Boundaries stories. This is also the grand revealing of their TITLES. I hope you enjoy the little look behind the scenes at my cover art. :D

Love Has No Boundaries story #1: Pick Up Lines
You can find the prompt here.

My initial plan for this cover involved pints of beer on a bar. Then it shifted and I was going to have the title printed on a sign/menu board for a pub. Then the bubbles from a beer were going to be the background. Eventually after not finding any stock photos that I liked, I gave up on the whole pub angle. I shifted my focus to the other character. The prompt photo portrayed a man dressed to the nines in a tuxedo so I started searching for men in tuxedos, close ups on tuxedos, bowties, cuff links, etc. I generally try to avoid using faces on my covers because I hate when books have covers with the main characters on them and they do not live up to the image in my head. This photo originally had a head - I cropped it out. Since this is a lighter story than a lot of the stories I write I decided to soften the focus and go with a whimsical font. The red color came from the fact that I needed a color to be able to see the title over the changing background color. Red is significant in the story because one of the major plot points is anger. A fight is what drives one of the aspects of the story forwards. Also, red can be romantic.

Love Has No Boundaries story #2: Falling Apart
You can find the prompt here.

My initial plan for this cover involved darkness and shadow. Both of the images from the prompt were highly shadowed so that was definitely a theme I wanted to continue with in the cover. Because I paid for the picture I needed for my previous cover - not much but money is money - I had to find something free for this cover. I searched through screen after screen of free stock photos inputting searches like "darkness", "shadow", "fire", "death" and nothing was striking true. Before I had completed writing the story I had mocked up a cover involving a skeleton walking over calm water surrounded in flames. However, as I completed the story this cover did not fit the feel or the themes of the story. Then I hit a sudden inspiration. I had a series of pictures taken of the fireplace at the cabin where I honeymooned last month. I dug them out and found this one. I knew I had found the photo I wanted to use. I tried a few different fonts and settled on this one because it was clearly visible on the background, was not too frou-frou and had some ragged edges which made me think of the dystopian nature of this story. I softened the whole a bit, gave the font it's shifting color and put a canvas texture over the whole thing. I am not 100% sure about the canvas texture and that may change before publication. The placing of the font is taken directly from the typewritten note that is a part of the prompt itself.

I hope you enjoyed this peek into my mind as I create the cover art to go along with my stories. I sometimes find myself saying, "Wouldn't it be great to be able to afford to pay a professional cover artist?" but I enjoy this almost as much as I enjoy the writing so I don't think I would give it up.

Adieu for now,
Kathleen :D

Hump Day Happy

Hello All,
It is Wednesday and it has been a loooooooooong week so I am going to share some pretty to help me (and everyone else) get through the rest of the week. Also, check out a brief scene from the story that I am writing for Goodreads M/M Romance Group's Love Has No Boundaries event. I am not meant to reveal names or title yet so those are blocked out.
Happy Hump Day!
Kathleen

Excerpt:

As I saw Man's Name squatting down to wipe up splatter from a fallen tray that had reached to the corners of the room, I was instantly, almost violently, reminded of the first time I had met him. 

Back then the bar had been a dive – dark booths, dark corners, dark alley behind. I had stumbled in after storming angrily out of a family function a few blocks away. The rain outside had just started coming down hard. I looked up from the bar where I was nursing a pout and my beer when the side door had slammed open. It was almost like one of those horror movie scenes – lightening flashed, rain streamed down in heavy sheets and a huge dark shadow centered itself in the doorway. An instant later, the shadow had crumpled to the floor, the door had slammed shut and I had shot off my bar stool.

In the dark of the bar, it was hard to make out details but the large shadow was sitting, collapsed in the corner next to the door. As I approached I was able to make out wild red hair and an untamed red beard. Almost before that registered, I saw a different red staining most of one side of his face and down his shirt. He was bleeding from cuts on his cheek and forehead and had a few choice bruises starting to form across his face and neck.

I held back for a moment - after all, I didn’t know this man. But my eyes met his pain filled blue ones and any hesitation fled my mind. I held out my hand.

“Need a hand?”

He looked at me a little funny, then cracked a wavering smile. “You trying to pick me up?”

I marveled that he could crack a joke while bleeding on the floor but beyond the words, I could hear the wavering fear, the panic held at bay and the need to pretend everything was normal.

I smiled back at him and gamely pretended he hadn’t just had the bloody crap beaten out of him. “Yup. My place or yours?” I winked.

He reached up and grabbed my hand.