SERIES TOUR – NACHO MAMA’S PATIO CAFE NOVELS
Friends, fags, & fun in a little college town
Any Summer Sunday
Boys in the Band meets Le Cage in an Indiana drag bar
Who Plugged the Dyke?
Elections are hard. This one is Murder
The two books stand alone and can be read in either order, although Any Summer Sunday was written first and contains more background information. It is a more character driven story. Who Plugged the Dyke is a mystery.
Overall Heat Rating: 2 flames. Tawdry, but not dirty. Sex is described as part of a story, but not in detail. No sex scenes. Not romance. Not erotica. Think of gay friends in a bar who might describe a conquest (but not the specifics).
I formed my own publishing company to self-publish Any Summer Sunday at Nacho Mama’s Patio Café. The book was a work of love that took nine years to get right. It does not nicely fit into any category. A book about a group of middle-aged friends who gather weekly in their small town’s only gay bar to watch TiaRa del Fuego’s Parade of Gowns drag show and talk about life is not what big publishers, or agents who want to sell to big publishers are seeking. I had spent time during the years that I wrote the book going to conferences and submitting to agents and publishers and collected a good pile of rejections. I decided that I cared more about having the book out in the world than being the next literary star.
Since that time, I have brought out a second book in the series, Who Plugged the Dyke, and am finishing the editing of a third. I have written and published a middle grade ghost story, a children’s picture book and a memoir by other authors and have several other books in the works, both of my own and by other authors. I am happy and content – two emotions that seem to be lacking in the world, so I would like to share some advice about writing.
- It’s ok to write for yourself.
Most new authors start with a picture of talking to an auditorium of adoring fans, going on talk shows, and million-dollar advances. It happens and some people also win the lottery. I’m not interested the national obsession with personality and stardom. I haven’t Kept Up or Real Housewifed or Idoled or Influencered. I would rather write books that touch me and those who read them. That has brought me contentment. - Marketing vs. Writing
If you build a better mousetrap, the world will not beat a path to your door if they don’t know about it. I enjoy talking about my books. I enjoy reaching out to people. I enjoy telling them about what I’m doing, answering their questions, sharing our thoughts and ideas.
I watch a lot of videos about book marketing and it took me years before I realized that many of these folks were viewing books as just another product. They could be selling lawn ornaments. They focused on what search terms people were using and were writing for that. They often don’t write their books. They hire ghost writers. There are many videos about selling no content or low content books.
For them. I, however, did not become an author to sell soap flakes. That does not feed my bliss. I also do not want to read crappy writing that has been pumped out to feed a need. There are enough books in the world.
I try to write books that can be read multiple times. Books that make the reader think and feel. Books that give me joy that I brought them into the world.
Decide what kind of writer you want to be. - Stuckness – the 10-minute trick
I know that some writers can pump out thousands of words a day. I’m amazed and respect that. It’s not the kind of writer I am. If you get stuck, I have a trick that has served me. It got me through my dissertation and continues to get me through that difficult first draft. I need to write every day. However, my deal with myself is that if I write for just 10 minutes, I’m good. I can write anything, even “God, I don’t know what to write, but I promised” or channel The Shining. The only requirement is 10 minutes. Most days, that gets the engine to turn over and I can do more. For me, it’s more important to be regular than to blow a big chunk out every few days. - Rewrite and Time
For me, the first time through a book, my only goal is to get from beginning to end. When I do that and the book is a whole entity, it feels like a series of gears click into place. Instead of a bunch of paragraphs and notes, it is complete. However, it is not completed. Now it’s time to dive into the rewrites. I do read throughs, first to hack out redundancy and then to clean prose. I do read alouds to catch awkward passages. Then I set everything aside for a couple of weeks and come back. I’m horrified how the prose I thought was swell has degraded into swill after a couple of weeks away. Rewriting takes time. Embrace it.
If you are a writer, keep your day job, but write. The reward is the feeling you get when your words make you or someone else laugh or cry or feel or think. I’ve tried a lot of things that purport to make you feel good. I’ve not found anything better.
If you are a reader, bless you. Tell your authors when they touch you. Most of us do this because we love it. It’s nice to know we’ve made a difference.
How far should you go to save a friend from her own desires?
BOOK 1
Book Title: Any Summer Sunday at Nacho Mama’s Patio Cafe:
Drag, Songs, Friends, Laughs, Lies, Danger & Redemption
Author: Steve Schatz
Publisher: Any Summer Sunday Books
Cover Artist: James at GoOnWrite
Length: 75 000 words/ 234 Pages
Release Date: June 21, 2019
Genre: LGBT Humorous Fiction
Trope/s: Reluctant hero, power of friendship, metonymy (Drag – the entire life around performance in a gay bar & Nacho Mama’s represents a safe place where friends gather, gossip, and support each other)
Themes: Friends, Small town gay, Drag and Performance, Lookin’ for love
It is a standalone story
Buy Links
Blurb
TiaRa del Fuego is in love and that means trouble for her friends. Every Sunday evening we meet in Hoosier Daddy, our small college town’s only gay bar gather to watch TiaRa del Fuego’s Parade of Gowns drag show. Performance, love, betrayal, spies, and friendship fight to the fore every Summer Sunday.
However, this Sunday, dear TiaRa, thin enough to hate, yet broken enough to love, announces she has found love…yet again…and is leaving after that evening’s show to be with her new man. We know she is making a huge mistake…again. What can we do?
Any Summer Sunday is a celebration of friends, drag, and life. Come and join in the fun.
Excerpt from Any Summer Sunday
With few exceptions, the same group of reprobates gathered every week. We are no longer young, but all have spent our years wisely or wildly enough to hold one’s place when the conversation turns a bit too bitchy. We enjoyed our youth, are enjoying the years beyond youth without regret, and occasionally enjoy youths—when the opportunity arises, as it were.
All societies celebrate the young, but in gay circles, this celebration borders on idolatry. Twenty-somethings and now even teeny-somethings who celebrate their coming out are welcomed into a glorious disco summer camp with every conceivable need provided. For those of us who are years past the realization and/or announcement, being out offers far fewer invitations. We often find ourselves between worlds—not certain of a welcome in either gay or straight society.
In “normal” society, it is tiresome to yet again face the “ . . . and your wife?” questions in every new group and to worry if it is going to be an issue. If I have an urge to explore square dancing, must I find a gay square—hmmm . . . Mr. Lynde springs to mind. Sometimes it’s easier not to bother. Then there are those moments when it suddenly pisses you off that you are supposed to feel gratitude merely for being accepted or endured by the dominant pairing paradigm.
In the gay community, the adulation of youth and horror of aging can make one feel diseased. Even previously enjoyable activities can be snatched away. Take window shopping. I enjoy looking at a pretty pair of pants when it walks by, even if I know it will never fit, I can’t afford it, and the style is all wrong for a man of my years and shape. I look because it is pretty, and I enjoy looking at pretty things. But, if every time I go looking, the trousers, upon noticing my gaze, gasp in horror, turn away with a look of sardonic pity, and begin to whisper with their fellow couture, I eventually will give up looking.
So, when we find a group and an enjoyable activity where we can simply be, without the need to prove or explain ourselves, then it is something to be cherished. Not misty-eyed, bosom clutching cherished, but those people and enjoyments are simply too dear to give up without a care. Sunday afternoons were like that. That is why, when one Sunday, TiaRa del Fuego—dear, sweet, damaged TiaRa—announced that she had found love, yet again—this time on a dating site and was leaving town to be with her new man who was driving up that very day to help her move—well, we knew something had to be done and quickly.
BOOK 2
Book Title: Who Plugged the Dyke?
Author: Steve Schatz
Publisher: Any Summer Sunday Books
Cover Artist: James at GoOnWrite
Length: 218 pages 67,000 words
Release Date: July 2020
Genres: LBGT Mystery, LGBT Humor, LGBT Fiction
Trope: Reluctant hero
Themes: Friendship, small town gays, detection, politics
It is a standalone story.
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A gay mystery full to the tits with action and wit.
Blurb
Some Elections are hard … This one is Murder!
Get ready for Excitement, Laughs, Thrills and Fun!
In 10 days she’ll be the 1st in your face lesbian judge elected in homo-hating Indiana. But someone wants to kill her and her little dog too.
The friends from Nacho Mama’s Patio Cafe must put on their big boy panties, get out of Hoosier Daddy, the only gay bar in town, onto the streets and go hunting for the culprit.
Thrills, drag shows, danger, laughs and a kick line of drag queens in judicial robes as the anti-heroes dodge explosions, fire, guns, knives and terror, seek out the hidden mastermind and sashay to the rescue.
You loved Any Summer Sunday at Nacho Mama’s Patio Cafe. Now, the merry band from the small Indiana college town’s drag bar return. It’s an Indiana Election Mystery. Who Plugged the Dyke?
Excerpt from Who Plugged the Dyke?
I noticed that the big, bearded Tooth Fairy had moved nearly in front of me. There is something wonderfully wrong about a big ol’ hunka hunka in a pink tutu. I grinned at him. He didn’t grin back. His attention was fixed on Deb. However, he was not smiling. He was just staring. Something in the back of my mind tickled. I started watching him more carefully. He was playing with his magic wand. It was about three feet long and trailed stars and strands of glitter. But he was pulling off the covering and it was looking less and less like a wand and more and more like a weapon. Recalling what I had been told, I looked for Roger or Petunia or one of Nacho’s Twinks. I couldn’t see Roger. Petunia was at the back of the stage, guarding the way in. I saw a couple of cute Twinks, but didn’t know if they were Nacho’s boys or not. I started to raise my hand and kind of gesture toward the Tooth Fairy. I was trying to be cool and not alert him that I had noticed anything untoward. He continued to pull away the spangles. He was looking down at the wand and then up at Deb, and I could see a look of menace grow across his features.
I waved my hands over my head and then pointed down at him. Some in the crowd saw what I was doing and waved, too. They thought it was a celebratory gesture. I began to wave my hands and point more emphatically. I nearly lost my balance, but no one seemed to get the message. No one was heading in that direction. I looked at he man, who was no longer looking fairy-like at all. He had finished pulling all the detritus off his wand and while I was not a weapons guy, even I could recognize that what was once a wand was now, very obviously, a weapon. A blow gun.
He reached into his bag and pulled out, not a handful of glitter, but a rather large dart with a very large and very sharp point. By this time, subtle was no longer on the table. I waved my hands wildly above my head, then pointed at the guy. I did not care if he saw. I had to stop him, and no one seemed to be coming to do anything about it. Deb was talking. The girls were dancing. And the Tooth Fairy dropped the dart into his blow gun.
Steve Schatz writes with a crazy mashup of laughs and excitement and humor. Readers can’t stop reading, but don’t want the story to end. Each book is an adventure where endearing anti-heroes struggle against this crazy world and triumph using the twin forces of intentional, creative action and friends helping friends. Schatz draws on a lifetime of varied and fascinating experiences, from instructional designer and college prof to party clown and nightclub owner.
His series of adult fiction highlights a group of middle-aged gay friends who gather every week in a small, Indiana college town. Mixing drinks, snappy repartee, and the humor and joy of long-time friends, in one book they rescue the fair drag queen from an obvious miscreant. In another, they ride to the protection of a lesbian candidate for judge who is being targeted by mysterious evil-doers. The excitement reveals itself against a backdrop of drag performance and efforts by anti-heroes. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll beg for more. Steve Schatz offers a new voice and a smile for the LGBT community and their friends.
Author Links
Blog/Website | Twitter: @AnySummerSunday
Enter the Rafflecopter Giveaway for a chance to win
one of three ebook copies of Any Summer Sunday,
one of three ebook copies of Who Plugged the Dyke?,
or an audiobook of either book.
Total of 8 giveaways
