I was talking about writing and publishing with someone at my day job the other day, and I realised there are a lot of things I’m pretty bad with when it comes to the whole process. I’m okay with the words and the editing, but I’m terrible when it comes to promotion. People always say you need to promote your brand. The problem is, I don’t know what my brand is.

Most of the time I tell myself that I tend to skew dark. But then I remember that J.A. Rock and I wrote the Playing the Fool series, which, although it had a few sad moments, was mostly light-hearted. If anything, it was a thinly disguised trilogy almost entirely dedicated to our love of Shakespeare, Skittles and donuts.

On the other hand, my last book, Stealing Innocents, was so dark it was released under a different name.

So I guess that what I would hope is that I’m not too easy to define. I hope that when my readers pick up one of my titles, they don’t know if they’re going to get a boatload of giggles, or smacked in the face with angst and left reeling.

At the moment I’m writing a few different things, and I skip between them because I have the attention span of a humming bird on speed.

I’m writing a super-fluffy and hopefully funny book about an 18 year old guy who strikes up a Friends With Benefits arrangement with a co-worker so he can lose his virginity over the summer break before college.

I’m writing, with M. Caspian, a pseudo-medieval fantasy novel that goes into some quite dark places, and provides a twist on the usual HEA.

And with J.A. Rock, I’m writing a novel about a young man trying to reconcile his sexuality with his very conservative Christian faith.

So, for me, it’s all about the variety. I want to be the sort of writer who can surprise her readers with something a little different every time. And I hope that’s what I’m doing.

So today I’m going to leave you with a brief excerpt from the untitled super-fluffy work in progress. Meanwhile, if anyone has any ideas on what my brand is, please feel free to let me know! Here’s the excerpt:

Me: Holy shit dude, u have to help me!
Devon: What u do?
Me: Remember how my dad got me this job so I’d “straighten up & fly right” before college?
Devon: Yeah…
Me: There’s a guy at work I want to do things to. With my tongue & my dick.
Devon: Dude. TMI.
Me: If I suck his dick on the site I’ll probably get fired right?
Devon: Dude.

Jai Hazenbrook is ridiculous. Firstly, there’s his name. If Nick were on a quest to return the Ring to the fiery pits of Mount Doom, Jai Hazenbrook would totally be the hot as fuck elf in tight leather pants who could shoot the left testicle off an orc at a thousand paces. Whereas Nick, of course, would be the short hairy-footed guy who likes beer and fireworks and second breakfasts. Even in his fantasy worlds, Nick is a realist.
What? He’s been waiting for another growth spurt, okay? He doesn’t want to be a giant or anything. He just wants to crack five foot ten, really. That feels a lot more respectable than five foot seven.
Nick’s been waiting on that growth spurt since he was fifteen. He’s eighteen now, and starting to think it’s never coming. Not that he obsesses about it or anything. He’s got much more interesting things to obsess about.
Jai Hazenbrook, for example.
Jai Hazenbrook is tall, fuck him. (Nick wishes.)
He’s tall and has features that can really only be described as chiselled, if Nick’s late night research into romance novels can be believed. Which they probably can’t. Otherwise surely Jai would also wear kilts and be a millionaire, but whatever. He’s tall, and he’s chiselled, and he has incredible eyes that sometimes can’t decide if they’re blue or if they’re gray, but are usually narrowed in Nick’s direction in a glare. A why-the-fuck-is-this-kid-always-staring-at-me glare.
Nick is not always subtle.
Okay, Nick is never subtle.
Which is why he’s pretty sure he’s going to be fired by the end of the week.
Nick’s dad got him the job at Grover Construction. Disappointingly, it has nothing to do with the Sesame Street puppet, because Nick totally would have been down with that. Harvey Grover is one of his dad’s clients. His dad is an accountant. It’s his life’s deepest regret that he’s dedicated himself to pecuniary responsibility, and has somehow managed to raise a son who “doesn’t understand the value of a dollar.” Hence this experimentation with a “job”.
Look, Nick likes having a job, it’s just that Mr. Grover very sensibly doesn’t trust him much around the actual construction parts of the construction job. Because power saws and nail guns. So it kind of means that Nick answers the phone, and runs errands to the sites and back, and spends as much time as he can staring at Jai Hazenbrook’s fucking perfect ass.
It is seriously fucking perfect. It’s the sort of ass that should inspire goddam poetry. Nick’s not the kind of guy who can write sonnets or anything, mostly because he can’t remember how to, but if he happens to have a page in his notebook dedicated entirely to ass-related haikus, that’s his business, right?

That ass is so hot.
I would totally hit it.
Yes yes yes yes yes

Nick’s haiku skills are maybe a little rusty too, but at least the sentiment is heartfelt.