Every year, the Goodreads MM Romance group does an event that gets authors to write stories based on the suggestions of readers. [If you’re not a member of the group, here’s the link to sign up – it’s free. Goodreads MM Romance Group] The event is call Don’t Read in the Closet (DRitC). For those not familiar with it, the reader writes a ‘Dear Author’ letter. They provide a picture and what they see in the picture. Based on those two things, the author that claims the prompt writes ‘that story.’ The MM Group then compiles these stories, and posts them over a three month period. [There were 200 prompts this year so do NOT ask me how they manage to collect, format, and post these, but they do.] They also group the stories into anthologies after all the stories are posted. The stories are free to read on their website: M/M Romance Group. You can also downland them for free in ePub, Mobi or PDF formats. Continue reading Ashes of Life – My DRitC Entry – With Cover Reveal and Sneak Peek
Tag: Gay Fantasy Novel
Guest Author – Kim Fielding
Thanks so much, Andy, for letting me visit here today! This is the fourth stop on my blog tour to discuss my new novel, Pilgrimage. And since my characters, Mike and Goran, spend the book on a pilgrimage, I thought it would be fun for us to follow along.
Having been zapped to an alternate universe, Mike must visit a series of shrines to a death god. The second shrine he visits is at a cemetery outside the small village of Ugolin:
Just past the village, a narrow pathway twisted through a flower-speckled meadow and skirted a small hillock before passing under an elaborate iron archway. Mike thought this was strange, because there was no wall or fence, just the arch. Once he was through the archway, he saw hundreds of small metal bowls with lids. They were laid out in careful rows, and the vegetation between each row had been flattened by trampling feet. Continue reading Guest Author – Kim Fielding
Book Two Of – ‘Champion of the The Gods- – Is Done
Kinda. Sorta. Maybe. Hopefully?
So After many months of start and stop, of rewriting while trying to keep the story intact, I’ve finished the rough draft of Book 2 – The Eye And The Arm. Those who’ve followed my blog know I struggled with this. Not because I didn’t have the story set, but because I had to make the story fit within a word limit. I’m having second thoughts now. Overall, I feel the Champions series is good – dare I say very good, though I know the hubris of saying that. My issue is I wanted it to be a bit more epic.
Nendor has three main continents – Ardus, Laudria & Erd. My goal was to make each book a journey that took the reader to each continent and back and than in Book 4 I’d wrap things up. The 100-120K word limit left me two choices: abandon the 4 book model in favor of more books or abandon the original series and try to create a new, scaled down story that would fit in the 4 book model.
Originally I decided to go with the former – preserve the overall story by breaking things into more, but shorter books. That sound great in theory, but the issue has been conflict, tension and keeping the readers attention. My original book 2 would have been about four times longer than the current book. With revisions and eliminating things that aren’t essential, The Eye And The Arm would probably be about three times longer – give or take 20-30 words. The first third set up the rest. Cutting it down to the first third didn’t make sense because it was all set up and no conflict/tension – or not enough to justify a book.
Re-writing the story required a major rewrite, I might as well have written a whole new book. That has been the labor of the last ten months. (Of course I also published Purpose, finished NaNoWriMo, wrote a couple other things when I needed a break, joined the Wednesday Brief Flashers group – oh yeah, and I got married and helped raise our daughter.)
The next step is to do a quick self-edit and send it to a few people who’ve agreed to read it and give me their honest opinion. Once I get that back, I’ll know where to go next.
In the meantime, I plan to work on another of the many projects I’ve been wanting to write. Stay tuned – details to follow. 🙂
-AQG
The Last Grand Master: Review By Full Moon Dreaming
Thursday, June 13, 2013
The Last Grand Master Review
The Last Grand Master
Author: Andrew Q. Gordon
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
American release date: January 31, 2013
Format/Genre/Length: Novel/M/M Sc-Fi Fantasy Romance/344 pages
Overall Personal Rating: ★★★★★
Review by: Julie Lynn Hayes
“The Last Grand Master is an epic tale and one I highly recommend. The good news is that there will be more of this series, and I can’t wait to read them. Inside this book, you will find adventure, humor, romance, action, drama, sci-fi and fantasy, intricately woven into an amazingly fantastic tale.”
Read the full review here: Full Moon Dreaming
Lily’s Reviews: The Last Grand Master
Posted May 3, 2013
Review: I really loved everything about this book from the storyline to the characters to the dialogue.
Mr. Gordon has a gift for descriptiveness that I greatly enjoyed. I think my favorite is the endless pocket – regarding which I have just one question: Where can I find one outside of the book? 
I also like the idea behind Haven, if not the need within the world Mr. Gordon created.
GIVEAWAY #12: ANDREW Q. GORDON
Am a guest on Sid Love’s blog today as part of his Giveaway Drive. While I’d like to say they saved the best for last, that would be a huge stretch given the other really talented authors who participated in the Drive. If you get a chance, check it out, answer the question and enter the giveaway. Also take a moment to read what the other authors who participated are doing.
– AQG
Another Review for The Last Grand Master
This review is also posted on Joyful Jay’s Site: Review: The Last Grand Master by Andrew Q. Gordon
Pixie at MM Good Book Reviews gave the first review of my latest book, The Last Grand Master.
Worldbuilding Blogfest Post 5 – Excerpt from The Last Grand Master.
Since yesterday’s entry was about the culture of Nendor and much ink was spilled discussing the festivals, I thought it would be fun to show how Farrell dealt with the preparations for his union ceremony. For the sake of better understanding the excerpt, Horgon is Miceral’s father and the First Minister of Haven – meaning he runs the day to day operations in Farrell’s name.
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STARING at the parchment, Farrell rubbed his eyes. “Are you sure all of this is necessary?”
Horgon gave him a brief smile before nodding. “I’m afraid so. As Prince, you can’t sneak off and get joined. All this…” He waved at the papers. “…is just part of what’s involved. I’ve left the more mundane things out, figuring you don’t much care about things like color of the invitation or which flowers will be on the altar.”
“Unbelievable.” Farrell shook his head, lifting another sheet from the stack. Continue reading Worldbuilding Blogfest Post 5 – Excerpt from The Last Grand Master.
Holidays, Food and Culture of Nendor
I suppose it is somewhat obvious that when world building, one should give the inhabitants something uniquely their own, but it wasn’t to me. Although I like to cook, I’m hardly a foodie. To me, reading a description of what the characters are eating is boring. Generally I skip over these parts, especially if there isn’t anything unique or important in the description. Example of important food would be Lambas bread in the Lord of the Rings or Aliantha berries in Stephen Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant Chronicles. Thus far, Nendor doesn’t boast any such miracle food.
Like any other author, I bring to the table what interests me most. I really don’t care what people eat. The fact that characters eat is sufficient. That is probably a bad attitude and given the feed back from the editors at Dreamspinner, I suspect future books will need to highlight something unique to Nendor and I’ll need to pay a bit more attention to what the characters are eating. Continue reading Holidays, Food and Culture of Nendor