GayRomLit

This past weekend, a number of authors met up in the UK for a writing conference celebrating LGBT. I would've loved to go, but clearly I'm on the wrong side of the ocean now so I just got to hear about it all afterward. The nice thing is, however, I'm in the right country--even just a couple states away--for another get-together next month.

I'm talking about GayRomLit in Albuquerque.

GayRomLit isn't the usual convention or conference. The organizers like to call it a retreat, basically a long weekend (starting on Thursday, the 18th) for readers and authors to interact. There are a whole bunch of parties and customized author events, as well as Q&As, readings, and a booksigning. I didn't go last year, but considering its success and its location for 2012, decided to give it a go. I'm not sure how much partying I'll really do. Those kind of gatherings aren't really my style (though the cabaret-style evening for Saturday sounds right up my alley), but I'm rather keen to sit and talk with people in a more intimate setting. I'm hoping for a lot of that, actually.

On top of that, I've signed up for a Q&A, and I'm bringing books, both mine and some as Jamie Craig, for the booksigning. My swag arrived today, too, which makes it all that more real.

If you're going, let me know so I can look out for you!

A little bit of Leverage

I can't help it, it's another TV post. That's because yesterday morning, I got to watch one of Sunday night's episodes of Leverage. Does anybody watch this show? I've watched it from the start, mostly because I was a fan of both Timothy Hutton and Christian Kane. I stuck with it because, while it might be formulaic, it was fun formula. The banter was great, the plots energetic and fun, and the performances interesting enough to engage me.

This summer season has shifted my feelings for it a little bit, specifically The Rundown Job, the first of the episodes that aired Sunday night. It centered on Eliot, Parker, and Hardison handling a terrorist threat in Washington, DC, with Adam Baldwin having a guest role. Over the seasons, these three have become my favorites, for different reasons. Hardison is the geek I understand. Parker is the lonely girl, unaccustomed to making personal attachments, that I know. And Eliot...well, Eliot is the ultimate badboy hero, now isn't he? He's got a major chip on his shoulder, he's a loner by nature, and he growls half the time at the people he loves. When these three get together in scenes, it's often funny, sometimes emotional, always entertaining.

Yesterday, I went from liking the show, to loving the show. Mostly because of Eliot.

While I like the direction the show has taken by having Hardison and Parker date, I would have honestly preferred if it had been Parker and Eliot. Don't get me wrong. Hardison is exactly what Parker needs. He brings out the best in her. But the chemistry between Parker and Eliot has been off the hook since the show started. These two get each other. And that moment in the climax of Sunday's episode where they just looked at each other and knew what they were going to do without ever uttering a word, leaving Hardison in the dark and safe? Sealed it for me.

Because I think Eliot and Parker could work, albeit in a different way. They're very similar, and it would take a hell of a lot longer because of their mutual trust issues, but they would combust where Parker and Hardison simmer sweetly.

Except...Eliot will never go there now. He has too much respect for Hardison to ever put Parker in that place again. Which means he's doing the honorable thing and being alone, and when that combines with all his yummy badass-ness? Pretty much my catnip.

Man, I love this show.

A second chance for AI

I thought I was done with American Idol. I really did. It's been so lackluster the past few years, my love for Steven Tyler notwithstanding. And even though I kind of adore Philip Philips, it wasn't "ohmigod, I have to see AI before I get spoiled on Twitter!" (Trust me, sometimes it really sucks living on the west coast. As a spoilerphobe, I've learned that if I really care about a show, I have to stay away from Twitter, which annoys me to no end because it's my favorite form of social media. /rant)

When they announced Mariah Carey, I really thought I was done. I. Am. Not. A. Fan. Even though my husband is. Don't get me started on his diva fixation. I even have the photo proof of Toni Braxton sitting on his lap in Vegas to show it.

But...they've announced the other two judges now. Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban. And I'm all kinds of curious how on earth they're going to gel together. Or work together. Or, you know, support an aging franchise like AI when they're not actually aging themselves.

Frankly, I would've thought Nicki would diss AI as the lamest thing on the planet. That whole too cool for school thing. But it would seem they've taken a page from the judges over on The Voice. I mean, it's not like judging a televised talent show has hurt Adam, Cee Lo, Blake, or Christina's careers. Their chemistry is off the charts. AI would seem to be hoping to copy it.

Will it work? I have absolutely no idea. Frankly, the biggest problem with AI isn't the judges at all. It's the fact that it's become so bloated in the past few years, with two-hour long performance shows that are mostly filler and product placement, and results shows that suffer even more. Getting new faces at the judging table isn't going to solve that problem.

But...yeah, I'm probably going to give it another year to see for myself. In all likelihood, the usual will happen. My favorite won't win, I'll roll my eyes at the overrated singers and lack of real critique, and I'll question whether or not I'll watch again when it's all over.

But I'm going to take the chance and hope that I'm wrong.

Six Sentence Sunday

Welcome to my SSS! For the month of September, I'm highlighting sentences from a short story that released two years ago, a contemporary gay erotica piece called Yesterday's Names. Last week, Jonathan Lynch, a teacher who goes to Italy for a very special purpose, met a guy at a club named Davide. After some private time in a dark corner, Davide is walking Jonathan to the taxi stand, holding him close to his side like they are boyfriends. This closeness is what Jonathan is referring to at the very beginning of my six.

...The glow left from my orgasm remained a lot longer than it might otherwise, because of that. The fantasy of having someone like this all the time was almost more delicious than the sex had been. I live a life of closed doors and whispered secrets, where denying who I am is as natural as breathing, where having someone walk next to me only means one of my students is having problems and is trailing beside me in hopes of help. Men didn’t walk me home, or slide their hand into my back pocket as a show of ownership. So I was going to enjoy this as long as it lasted, even if none of it was real. Because for tonight, I was going to pretend it was.

To check out all the other six sentence contributions, head over to the official website.

Thinking outside the box

My husband, who's a science geek to the core, always tells me I'm the creative one in this relationship. But creativity isn't limited to fantasy worlds artists create, whether it's with words, music, or paint.

It's about thinking outside the box. The ability to imagine something that isn't there. Frankly, I marvel at scientists. The lengths they go to, the research they undertake to try and make this world a better place, so many things that all of us take for granted.

For instance, I was reading today about some recent research done at Harvard. A group of people from various disciplines - mechanics, tissue engineering, and materials science - have been working on creating a new substance, a hybrid hydrogel with phenomenal strength and elasticity. Though it's still in developmental stages, the preliminary results are incredibly encouraging in a number of fields, including many potential applications in medicine. It's being posited that it could become an artificial cartilage, replacing broken or destroyed cartilage in humans, a process that is currently impossible.

How amazing would that be? Osteoarthritis plagues millions of people, with joint replacement on the rise. There is no cure for it, just treatment, but if ten or fifteen years down the line, the scientific community finds a way to utilize this hydrogel safely within human biochemistry, a common affliction could become much less so. Those aches and pains that so many have to live with could be a thing of the past.

And that's not even taking into consideration other possible uses for it. The article mentions both robotics and optics, as well as artificial muscles, but I'll bet that's just the tip of the iceberg. It always is, isn't it? We're only limited by our imaginations.

Lucky for us, scientists have some of the best ones.

Mercy Thompson

I love urban fantasy, but I have a confession to make. I'm incredibly picky about which series I follow. There are some popular series out there that I wasn't able to finish the first book with, others where I read it and went, "Meh," and some that just don't appeal to me at all.

Mercy Thompson never fell into any of those.

I discovered them late, when five books were already out. I read the first four quickly, but when I got to five, things kind of stalled. I don't know why. I read the first two chapters, but I just wasn't losing myself in it so I set it aside, hoping it was my mood.

That was about a year ago. I finally finished Silver Borne two days ago.

I don't know what went wrong. I still love Mercy, and Adam, and all the secondary characters, but this one just couldn't grab me. In hindsight, I think a good part of it was that it was trying to fix too much. There were all these threads in Mercy's life, conflicts that had grown out of control, and it felt like the author realized that if she didn't do something about all of them now, she'd never be able to fix them and sew the narrative into a whole tapestry again.

So the story ended up skipping all over the place, with the most interesting aspect of the novel - that of Samuel's issues - getting resolved in the last third by such a case of deus ex machina that I couldn't believe it. I felt cheated. Disappointed.

But more than that? Kind of relieved I'd finished the book so I could move on to the next one.

Not right away. I'm too invested in these characters to give up now. But I think I need a little distance. Book 7 comes out in March, 2013, and I'm probably going to wait to closer to that date so I can read six and seven together. Mainlining series fiction is more fun like that anyway.

Flexibility is important

My husband and daughter have been suffering with a cold the past week or so, but I'd been doing pretty good about resisting it.

Until Monday night.

I have officially lost that battle.

Considering how much international flying I did this year, it's a minor miracle this is my first real cold of 2012. The problem is, however, I don't want to exercise because I can't breathe right, and I could give two figs about eating right since my body is rebelling on me anyway.

So I've given myself permission to be a little lax until I improve.

On health stuff, anyway. Not on writing. I'm sticking with my daily quotas, no matter what.