Hello! This month I thought I’d talk about how great it is to have a writing buddy. Writing is a solitary occupation, one that requires shutting out the rest of the world. It can get lonely. My family and friends are great about giving me the space to write. But fellow authors get the world of a writer from the inside out.
Those legs belong to me and my writing buddy, Charley Descoteaux, the pic taken while we were on a writers retreat in February. I met Charley, who also writes as Charli Coty, at the Dreamspinners Author Conference in 2014. Charley lives in the Pacific NW also and we have attended several writers events together. At some point we got in the habit of emailing at least weekly about our writing process—woes, victories, and WTFs all included. We beta read for each other, help with plotting, provide encouragement when one of us is in the dumps, and generally are there for each other as writers and as friends. I can’t say what a difference it makes to have a fellow writer in my corner with whom I can vent and problem solve. Thanks, Charley, for sharing the wild and woolly world of writing with me!
I’m particularly pleased to be posting this on Charley’s release day for the last novel in their Buchanan House series, Art House. I remember beta reading the very first story in this series and knowing that Charley had something special in the setting and characters.
Blurb:
Chase Holland spends his days painting Portland scenes to hang in local businesses, neglecting his own surrealist style. After twenty-five years as a full-time artist, he’s frustrated that his career has stalled, but churning out the equivalent of corporate art is better than getting a day job. Chase and Garrett have been together—off and on, but mostly on—for a decade. If asked, they would both say the source of their trouble is the seventeen-year age gap. The truth is less clear-cut. Life would be so much easier if Chase could make a living with his own art, or if Garrett held less conventional ideas about relationships.
Garrett Frisch has been watching their friends get married for the past two years, and it’s taking an emotional toll. When he proposes as a way to keep them together permanently, he thinks he’s being responsible, but Chase is ambivalent and hurt and can’t hide it. It doesn’t help that Garrett’s anxiety is out of control and he’s dealing with insecurities about his own art career. They will have to do their least favorite thing—talk about something more important than which food cart to visit—if they are to get the happy ending they both want.
Everyone go get Art House and while you’re at it, check out the entire series.
Dreamspinner Press: eBook Paperback Buchanan House series page
EDITED FOR A NEWS FLASH! The cover for my upcoming college novella, The Kinsey Scale, has been officially revealed. Go here for the unveiling and a chance to win an ebook from my backlist. Also, all my new adult stories, including The Kinsey Scale, are 35% off at Dreamspinner through 8/26.
That’s it for this month. Have a wonderful end of the summer and talk to you in September.
CJane
After years of hearing characters chatting away in her head, CJane Elliott finally decided to put them on paper and hasn’t looked back since. A psychotherapist by training, CJane enjoys writing sexy, passionate stories that also explore the human psyche. CJane has traveled all over North America for work and her characters are travelers, too, traveling down into their own depths to find what they need to get to the happy ending.
CJane is an ardent supporter of LGBTQ equality and is particularly fond of coming out stories.
CJane is the author of the award-winning Serpentine Series, New Adult contemporary novels set at the University of Virginia. Serpentine Walls was a 2014 Rainbow Awards finalist, Aidan’s Journey was a 2015 EPIC Awards finalist, and Sex, Love, and Videogames won first place in the New Adult category in the 2016 Swirl Awards and first place in Contemporary Fiction in the 2017 EPIC eBook Awards.
CJane you’re the best writing buddy anyone could hope for. That retreat was a blast, we’ll have to do it again sometime! <3
Thanks Charley! Same back atcha! <3