Facebook Link to My Reader Group: Wendyland

If you follow this blog and want to keep updated, it's best if you join my Facebook group Wendyland, where I am very active. It's private and I share new projects, excerpts, blurbs, cover reveals, free books, and more!

Here is the link to join: https://www.facebook.com/groups/718074255203918/

FYI: I write all male/male romance now. So that's what you can expect from me.

Happy reading!

Wendy

I'm Participating in a Christmas Fiction Blowout Sale!

Get swept away to times past.

Fourteen authors are having a half price or less sale of one of their m/m historical romances.

Fourteen authors share the history and setting of their books or book excerpts on their blogs and websites.

On the bottom of this page, follow the links to the authors’ websites to

read all the authors’ posts and then go pick up a great read

for half-price or less from December 12 - 24!

🎄🎄🎄

For every day of this promo (Dec. 12-24, 2017), my new book Ganymede: Abducted by the Gods, will be on sale for $2.99 on Amazon. That's half-price of the $5.99 price it was this week! So if you haven't bought it yet, now's the time!

Also remember you can get a free copy of my book "Letters to an Android" if you sign up for my newsletter. 

🎄🎄🎄

Many Greek myths contain same-sex affairs between the gods, half-gods and humans, but Ganymede's abduction is one of the most blatantly homoerotic tales. Basically, Zeus kidnaps him to be his lover simply because Ganymede is the most beautiful youth he's ever seen. Yes, he pays Ganymede's father for the loss of his son. Yes, he says he wants the innocent and lovely Ganymede to be his "cup-bearer", but really he wants to possess him and have him in his bed.

In the myth, Ganymede remains one of Zeus's favorites, so much so that he is the only human Zeus ever bestows the gift of immortality on, giving him the name Aquarius and making him a constellation.

I had an erotic story in my head, inspired by this myth, for about a year before I wrote anything down. When I did, it took off in its own direction. I took the basic story of the myth and made up my own fantasy version. First, I decided that since Ganymede is abducted against his will, the theme would have to be more along the lines of Ganymede's hopeless and helpless situation. He goes through a lot of homesickness and culture shock. The gods in my universe have technology that includes far star-travel, and Ganymede is introduced to it all at once, which is a shock to his system. Also, being on Olympus against his will causes resentment (duh!), and he never really falls for Zeus. Instead, he falls for the raven (in the myth it's an eagle, but I like ravens better) who flew him up to the stars. The Raven is a shape-shifter and the real romance happens between him and Ganymede, but not until the second half of the book.

This book does not follow a traditional formula romance, so it is for those looking for something deeper, different. It has eroticism (because I like it) and my penchant for poetic details. It is about being a fish out of water, and learning what it might be like to suddenly be given the gift of immortality. But of course, Ganymede finally does find love!

This book has inspired me so much that I am writing more books in this universe which I call my "Fantastic Immortals Series". Look for future books focusing on Zeus, and Eros.

🎄🎄🎄

Follow the website links below to discover a new author.
Find a new book to read.

Silvia Violet - Revolutionary Temptation - Website
Era: American Revolution

Anne Barwell - On Wings of Song - Website

Era: WWI - 1920s

Wendy Rathbone - Ganymede: Abducted by the Gods - Website
Era: Bronze Age, fantasy, alternate myth

Ruby Moone - Memories - Website

Era: Regency

Brita Addams- Beloved Unmasked  - Website
Era: Early 20th Century New Orleans

Summer Devon & Bonnie Dee - Simon and the Christmas Spirit (Victorian Holiday Hearts series) - Website
Era: Victorian

Christina E. Pilz - Fagin’s Boy: The Further Particulars of a Parish Boy’s Progress - Website
Era: Victorian

JP Kenwood - February and December (Dominus Calendar Series I) - Website
Era: Imperial Rome

Alex Beecroft - The Reluctant Berserker -  Website
Era: Early Medieval/Dark Ages Saxon

Deanna Wadsworth - Wrecked - Website
Era: pre-Civil War Key West, Florida

Joanna Chambers - Unnatural - Website
Era: Regency

Michael Jensen - Man & Monster  - Website
Era: 1799, America

Charlene Newcomb - Men of the Cross (Battle Scars I) Website
Era; Medieval - 12th century

Two New Books!

I'm excited to announced I have two new books available, both LGBT romances, both male/male romances.

It feels like I've been waiting a million years for it, but my 55k novel Ganymede: Abducted by the Gods is finally out! This book is very loosely based on the Greek myth, one of the more homoerotic myths out there, wherein young, beautiful Ganymede is kidnapped by the god Zeus to be his cup-bearer and lover. In my version of this myth, the gods are jaded alien immortals, and Olympus is a floating city on a far distant planet. Also, Ganymede may lose his virginity to Zeus, but he does not end up with Zeus. Read and find out why!

The wonderful cover for this book was done by the talented Sadie Sins (check out her books on Amazon or her website).

My second book is a Christmas novella The Elves of Christmas, also a male/male romance with tall, broody elves at the North Pole expecting a surprise visit from Santa. It's a sweet, cozy curl-up read.

Both books have been receiving wonderful reviews this past week, and I thank each and every one of those readers!

Ganymede has a somewhat interesting backstory. It started out as a sort of five page poem which I decided had to be a novel. I used the unfinished poem as a sort of very abstract outline, and started over, writing the book. I knew Ganymede was taken against his will because of his beauty, and that he missed his dog. I knew Olympus would be a portal in a different sort of time-flow that overlooked the entire galaxy. Slowly, awhole world unfolded before my eyes and I knew there would be other books about these fantastic immortals. It was Sadie Sins who suggested I subtitle the book "The Fantastic Immortals Series" allowing me to pursue more books in that universe. I'm just about to finish up a novel about Zeus's origin called Zeus: Heir to the Gods. I plan to write stories about Eros, and Sable (Sable is a character from the Ganymede book). The Sable book will probably be a sort of stand-alone sequel to Ganymede. I'm very inspired and I can see myself writing about six of these books, upping my game with each one.

I still have one more release I'm hoping to get out by the end of this year. Prey is a dark, sci fi, alien abduction and rescue novella. It poses some darker themes, such as: What if you are taken young and the only life you know is with abusive aliens and when you are rescued you no longer fit with human society? It is one character's story about this very question, and his unique seduction of his proper, wound-tight rescuer. It is about guilt, Stockholm Syndrome, shame, freedom and transformation with a lot of inky dark pools shimmering around the edges of sexual coercion and sexual freedom. Look for it soon.

Don't forget you can get a free copy of my book "Letters to an Android" if you subscribe to my newsletter.

Now, back to writing!

Wendy

Poem Nominated for the Rhysling Award!

Many of you know I belong to the SFPA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association).

This year I was honored to be nominated twice for their yearly Rhysling Award. Voting is not yet complete, and winners are usually announced in the summertime. Anyway, here is the nominated poem in their "short poem" category. (And to read the poem nominated in the "long poem" category, go here.)

Build a Rocketship Contest: Alternative Class A Instructions and Suggestions

by Wendy Rathbone

Section One

it shall please the wind

if you make your rockets

of silk and balsa

for this journey is not about

functionality

it is all emotion

how trembled sands

and vortex seas

make a language

in the shape of yearning

how the wings of your

star-boat flicker

to a thrill

more about the hunter

less about the hunt

Section Two

Past winners include rockets made of

magnetic poems

and Victorian lanterns

a candle in every porthole

your vessel may run on the fuel of wine

trailing fumes of oakmoss and patchouli

you will be rated on the colors of

its vapors

how well they curve and twine

in pink torrents or Mediterranean blue
and if the black fog of the thrusters

can be distilled to ink

for the old parchment logbooks

your captain will require

Section Three

your final judges--

all former starship commanders

who have suffered the inexorable isolation of space

 *

Thanks for reading!

Wendy

The Goblin of Wishes -- a flashfic

For my blog entry this time, I offer a poetic, weird little flashfic for fun. My gift to this month of December, 2016.

The Goblin of Wishes

Wendy Rathbone

On a moon called Firelight, in a sector of space more like black marble than hollow void, lived the goblin of wishes.

Where he walked, all energy bent and curved beneath him like candle flame. His hair leaked phosphorescence. He gave off a sugared scent.

At his core lay cold dark like longing, the taste of far voyages and dreamless nights.

No one who encountered him could capture and keep him, though many tried, hoping they could force him to make their wishes come true.

One day, in a starship shaped like a twist of ribbon, came three astronauts from three different sectors of space.

They kidnapped the goblin of wishes and put him in rooms of silk, behind bars of gold.

The goblin never defended himself. He was taken easily, with nets made of lilies and silver foam, and led to the cage where all of manner currency to buy his services awaited him. Poems. Rings. Roses. Pretty cards with funny bears on them. Promises. Violins. Wine. Rain sounds on a curtained window.

He was given furs and leather, shirts of taffeta. Boots of dragon scale. Kilts of alien light.

Songs carved from the tongues of extinct fairies filled the rooms.

The goblin sat among his beautiful gifts, in his prison, and said nothing.

He watched his captors with still eyes that rarely blinked, watched what they favored, how they moved and talked, what they ate, studied their language and what might be missing.

He knew what they wanted from him. It was why they treated him well.

One day, the astronaut called Million came to him and said, “If you can give me my heart’s desire, I will drug the others and set you free.”

The goblin produced, as if from the air, a small oval hand-mirror in a frame carved with images of snakes eating each other’s tails.

Million took the mirror and looked into it. He cried out, for within were the ghostly images of his wife and daughter, dead from an alien plague.

“This is a trick!” he said. “I will never set you free!” But he took the mirror anyway, and could not stop looking into it.

The edge of the goblin’s mouth lifted in a half-smile at the word “free”, for these astronauts were incapable of holding him forever, for they were mortal and he was not.

The second astronaut, Clea, came to see him later that evening when the ship was humming quietly and the goblin could hear the sad, grieving dreams of Million as he slept, and the erotic dreams of the third astronaut as he dozed in a fitful slumber.

Clea had blue hair and doll-like brown eyes, but those two traits were all that were physically beautiful about her. The rest of her—face, hands, body—was lumpy and scarred. Her mouth formed a hole beneath purple, misshapen cheeks.

“No one will love me because of how I look,” Clea told the goblin. “If you can help me, I will find a way to return you to your moon.”

As if from thin air, the goblin produced the loveliest mask in the galaxy, with filigreed edges and a feathered crown. Lunar lavender rhinestones outlined the holes for the eyes.

“You want me to wear that? Ridiculous! Offensive! Monstrous!”

But Clea took the mask from him anyway and left, her promise to let him go unfulfilled.

The goblin waited two days for the third astronaut, Gren, to visit.

The first thing Gren said to him was, “Clea and Million are not happy.”

The goblin watched Gren as he paced before the golden bars of the caged room. Gren had a kind face and smile, but he seemed shy. His black hair fell in a glossy braid down his back. He had a habit of chewing his lower lip. He would not allow his body to be still, to be himself.

“You fulfilled their wishes in ways they do not like. I’m not sure if I should ask you what you might have in store for my wish.”

The goblin did not need Gren to voice his wish. He’d felt it through the ship’s bulkheads for three days. He motioned Gren close. The young man hesitated, but finally moved forward until his chin nearly touched the bars.

The goblin came to him. Their faces were very close. Through the bars he leaned in and kissed Gren delicately on the lips.

Gren was the only one who hadn’t promised the goblin anything for his wish.

But it was Gren who stayed with the goblin after he took him home, where space is more like black marble than hollow void.

Good News Despite Set-Backs

Writing, whether it is part-time or full-time, is one of those occupations that is a continuous roller-coaster with ups and downs that never end. No matter how much experience or how many sales and publications you have under your belt, the let-downs happen, the set-backs occur. It requires a tough approach, a thick skin. Just when you think you're up, bad news floats in. Amidst the bad news, good news can pop in at any time. You never know. But you have to remember that the good does happen.

I have faced a lot of rejection this year, probably because I marketed my work more heavily this year than in the past. But I have also had some great acceptances. After all my years of playing off and on in various writing genres, I still find rejection hard. It's stupid, really, because editor tastes are individual and not for all, and because the competition is fierce and good things get rejected simply because editors can't fit all the good stuff they get into their projects. But still, rejection in general makes me second-guess myself, question myself. And these are dangerous waters to tread.

So I like to focus on the good, and on accomplishment. And this year I have had a lot. Here's the list:

I sold a novel to a real publisher. "The Android and the Thief" will be out from Dreamspinner Press April 2017.

I sold a novella. "Eve of the Great Frost" will be out in the holiday anthology "This Wish Tonight" from Mischief Corner Books December 14, 2016.

I published "The Coming of the Light," a sequel to my novel "The Moonling Prince."

I published a book of poetry, "Dead Starships."

I had a long poem nominated for the Rhysling Award.

I had a poem win third place in a long poem category of a poetry contest. It won a $25 award. You can read it here: We Shall Meet in the Star-Spackled Ruins.

I had poems published in Asimov's, Eye to the Telescope #21 and #22, Love is Love, and Lupine Lunes.

I focus on all these positive things on this list to keep myself going into the next year. It is about pushing forward, always striving to do better. I have a lot of writing experience, but the more I do, sometimes it feels like the less I know. Writing is about trusting. Running blind. Stepping off a ledge into the unknown. You just have to do it and hope. And then repeat and repeat and repeat.

I have more projects for the coming year, 2017. I am working on a new queer scifi romance called "Lake in the Stars". I am working on a new poetry collection called "Superheroes Take Over the World". I am working on a collection of the best of my best queer vampire stories, "Bitters," which will be out very soon (since all of it is already written).

I will not lie that disappointments for me in being a writer, and doing my very best, run vast and deep, but I keep looking at my list of accomplishments from just this year and I know I can go on. I'm not griping, I'm just saying that it's a very hard road. I always wanted to do this full-time, and I can't.
The enthusiasm and excitement with which I approach it comes with a lot of hair-pulling, anxiety and even resentment. Every writer overcomes these things in their own ways, but the battles are real. This has been both a good year for me, and a hard year. But I am off and running into new projects, new hopes, new dreams.

I look forward to 2017 and all it will bring.

Winter Fantasy

the utterances of

the winter dragon

his breaths of ice

snow over the tiny

sleepy town

Writing Sales News and other Tidbits

As autumn arrives, I can feel my muse wake up. It's been a long, hard summer of travel for work, work and more work. No time for writing.

But I did manage to edit and submit a new novella to a Christmas anthology called "This Wish Tonight" from Mischief Corner Books. The novella entitled "Eve of the Great Frost" was accepted! It will be out probably at the end of November and you can bet I will post links and info. on it as soon as I have it. This novella is a gay, erotic romance set on the alien world of Niobe in a far distant future where much of the galaxy is colonized.

I also managed two in-depth edits on my novel for Dreamspinner Press, "The Android and the Thief." Originally, that novel had been accepted by their genre imprint DSP Publications. But over the summer some romance reviewers gave me information that they DO NOT review that imprint. I also heard complaints from some authors from DSP that apparently romance readers were a) avoiding that imprint because they did not think it was "romance", or b) did not even know it existed. I panicked, envisioning my novel languishing on unseen websites, shoved to backs of dusty digital shelves because the title is not "fluffy" enough and because it would be labeled that dreaded word "genre". I politely asked that my novel be moved to the regular romance line-up of Dreamspinner Press since it is, really, a romance despite the futuristic, scifi setting. The wonderful people at Dreamspinner agreed to my request. While there are some GREAT titles/authors in the DSP Publications line-up, and I recommend people check them out for some great reads, I am happy to be moved into the main line-up of gay romances.

That said, I often lately find myself confused as to how to label and market my books. I enjoy writing gay characters, erotica, AND science fiction. To wit, I often include all three in my books. I bust out of the formulas for all of those genres and just write the story that falls naturally onto the page. I don't follow the entire romance formula, yet my books include romantic themes, beautiful erotic scenes, and characters undergoing transformative experiences, including the transformation of falling in love. I love erotica, but my books are not comprised entirely of boinking, so they are not technically porn. I love to world-build and describe beautiful alien vistas, but I am not writing hard scifi with info-dumps and techno explanations that delight much of that crowd. I am writing about the people, period. So where do I belong in that tangled web? If I label a book "gay romance" I alienate the scifi readers. If I label it scifi, I alienate the gay romance fans. As usual, I fall between the cracks. No one knows what to make of me. I need to create my own label: gay starshiptopias where people find love amongst the stars and the shadows but you will also get those Bradbury moments of lyrical wonder, nostalgia, poetry. (But no techno-dumps explaining how the dome on the asteroid works.)

Okay, so I fall through the cracks. I always have been an outsider, even in "outsider" groups. And here's more: I am a poet, gods help me. That right there puts the kabash on most writing conversations. Forget about the readers!

Updates on the poetry front:

I had a poem, "Marco Polo 3879," published in July's issue #21 of "Eye to the Telescope". The theme is "male perspectives" edited by Marge Simon. There was some rancor politically over that issue's theme despite the editor being female and accepting submissions from any-gendered poets. You can see the issue (and my poem) here. The rancor died down. The predicted public drama (the opinion that men already have had their say in this patriarchal society, so the theme might be anti-female) never happened.

Much to my utter shock (and joy), I also had a long poem, "We Shall Meet in the Star-Spackled Ruins," win 3rd place in the "long poem" category of the Science Fiction Poetry Association's poetry contest. My prize: $25. The link to the winning poems, including mine, is here.

I also sold a poem to issue #22 of "Eye to the Telescope." The theme is "ghosts" and it will go live Oct. 15. I will share the link when I have it.

On the fanfiction front, yes, I do still write the occasional fics. My current love is "Captive Prince" fandom based on the "Captive Prince" trilogy by C.S. Pacat. You can check out my newest fanfic, all written during April/May 2016, under the name Natasha Solten here. Simply, Damen and Laurent are irresistible.

I thank you for reading to the end of this blog.

And may you have a happy autumn!

Wendy