Cinco de Mayo and another free book for joining #newsletter this month #newslettersignup #freebook #queerscifi #LGBTQ+

For the month of May, Coil Me Up is part of the freebie giveaway if you sign up for Queer Sci Fi’s Newsletter. They are all speculative fiction, fantasy, paranormal, science fiction, and the like.

Coil Me Up is the the second story I wrote, about a year after Charon’s Dilemma, for the M/M Romance Goodreads group. Thank you to the group for having the platform for the story prompts then and now, and to Aden, who unfortunately no longer writes, for the assist with this story. I was struggling to finish it on time for publishing in the group and they jumped in when I needed the help. It was a lot of fun and I hope that I can collaborate with them again in the future.

It’s been almost 10 years for this story and I’m looking forward to revisiting it and the universe. Perhaps I will finish a sequel. I do like mythology, especially of the Greek and Roman kind, and had started an outline for a second book, with notes for a possible trilogy or continuation of a series. I hadn’t quite gotten that far in the planning/thinking, but you’ll see what I mean when you read it. If you like it and want to see more, feel free to let me know here, in email, or on the various social media platforms.

For the M/M Romance Goodreads group, maybe I will look at the group posts again and see if there are other story prompts to inspire. I’m still a member but it has been many years since I’ve read anything there, nor selected a prompt to create. We’ll see how it goes. I did get my website in order so who knows, perhaps this is the year I put a few more stories out.

~Eloreen

Welcome new blog subscribers from Queer Sci Fi’s March 2024 Sign up #newslettersignup #newsletteronly #blogpost

Subscribe to continue reading

Subscribe to get access to the rest of this post and other subscriber-only content.

It’s almost the end of April and another free book for joining #newsletter #newslettersignup #freebook #queeromanceink #LGBTQ+ #epilogue

This month, I have Together as part of the freebie giveaway if you sign up for QueeRomance Ink’s Newsletter. These stories are more towards romance with MM characters and Gay literature.

Together is the first story I wrote and published with Amazon and was part of a people of color charity anthology back in 2017-2018 originally called Beautiful Skin. I was proud to be a part of it because stories about people of color, or written by people of color, are beautiful and make the work richer. The anthology is out of print now, but the story is still available. A couple of years later, I wrote a flash fiction ficlit, an epilogue of sorts, as part of a blog tour I did August 2020. Thank you again to Sharita for the idea so many years ago. You will need to read Together in order to enjoy the vignette below.

While re-reading it for this post, I did a little more editing on it so it would flow a bit better. This is version two of the teaser that hasn’t been published before. -wink- Eventually, I will re-release Together with the epilogue. Perhaps I can get my act together this year. 🙂

~Eloreen

Saturday Night Date Night

Victor

It was Saturday morning and my turn to pick what we were going to do for our date night tonight. I thought making plans for two people for semi-regular dates was nail-biting. Try planning a date for three people regularly. We all have such different tastes and personalities that it can be a challenge. Luckily, we took turns choosing. If I had to do this every time, I’d go crazy and probably flail.

“Whatcha doing?” Enrique Cruz, my little writer said faintly but rapidly getting closer, startling me slightly. I quickly closed out of the browser I was looking at so he wouldn’t find out my plans and ruin the surprise. I had set things up to do this thing a few weeks ago with my best friend and business partner, Angela Carter, since I was neck deep on some major software updates that we’d rolled out for our mobile game we had first released a couple years ago. This Saturday night date night was special and too important to not have help. It was the one-year anniversary of myself, Enrique, and our other partner, Miguel Armenta, finally getting together as committed partners to each other. If the three of us could legally marry, I would have popped the question a while ago.

When he got close enough, I turned around in my chair and quickly pulled him into my arms and lap for a quick peck on the lips as a distraction. Except, it wasn’t quick. At all. He deepened it and claimed my mouth like it was going to disappear. Silly man. I wasn’t going anywhere.

Someone moaned. Might have been me. Then I felt another set of hands sliding down my naked chest as I had just gotten up from our bed earlier and didn’t bother to put a shirt on to finish the plans.

I gasped a mumbled explicative as my senses fired up when Miguel’s hands found my nipples and started rubbing them just like I like them. Something was nagging at me though. Something important.

Suddenly, I wrenched my now swollen lips away from En’s assault and placed my hands on El’s to stop his movement. I panted a little while I waited for my brain cells to get online and thing again. Fuck, we didn’t have time for round two.

“Stop.”

They tensed, stilling instantly.

“Sorry, nothing’s wrong, loves.” I kissed En first to reassure and then turned my chair, vaguely noticing that at some point the screensaver had kicked in and my chair was sideways. Someone must have moved me to get to me, the little minx.

“Mornin’,” I gave El a kiss on his impish lips to reassure him as well. They both relaxed and then I had a double lap full of my men. Good thing I had splurged for a high-weight computer chair.

“I’m sorry, my dears,” I started after they settled. “While I would love to go back to bed, we need to get ready for tonight’s date.”

Miguel glanced at the clock on the screensaver. “It’s only 11 am.” He turned back to me, confusion in his blue eyes. Then they cleared and narrowed. “What did you plan?” He stood up to get a better look at my facial expressions.

I was so close. I really couldn’t hide anything from El. Both of them really, but especially El with his sharp litigator mind. It’s why I had Angela make the arrangements in the first place. I was about to see the details of said plan when En came into the room.

“Nothing,” I said innocently. Not really, and it wasn’t working for either of them if their disbelieving expression where anything to go by.

“Uh, huh,” En said flatly, and stood up too. Yeah, that didn’t work either. En was a sharp observer too. They put their crossed arms on their equally naked chests nearly at the same time. That was hot.

I broke down. “Ok, there is something going on with tonight’s date night, but I actually don’t know what the details are yet.” I looked at them sheepishly. Out of habit when I got embarrassed about something, I looked down pulling my dreads forward and tried to hide behind them.

“Look at me,” El said with love and reassurance in his voice. I felt his hand gently lift my chin so I would look at him. When our eyes met, he continued. “I love you. You know we will love anything you have planned for us.”

“Yes, but I wanted it to be a surprise,” I sighed. “It’s why I had Ang make all the arrangements with my contingencies in case there was something on my initial list that wouldn’t work.” I had several options and back up plans to keep this particular date a surprise that I had to keep myself in the dark too.

En interjected, “You are fine, honey. I love you, too.” He put his hand on my neck and his forehead to mine. I closed my eyes content as they both returned to my arms and lap.

Speaking of lap, we needed to get moving if we were going to get started on this afternoon’s activities. “Let me up,” I said as I gently pushed them to their feet.

“There’s stuff starting in an hour or two and we are ending at The Melting Pot downtown.” I said the last thing absently missing the expressions on my men’s understanding faces as I went back to the computer.

“Fuck me, he’s proposing,” En blurted out at the same time El sucked in a breath shocked.

I paused from logging in. Damn, they really did know me well.

It’s March… when did that happen? #freebook #newslettersignup #queerscifi #anniversary

I looked up and it’s suddenly it’s March. I had signed up to be one of four authors to provide a free book as a four-pack when you sign up for Queer Sci Fi’s Newsletter. Great place to find wonderful queer spectrum books and stories. Check it out!

Join the queer sci fi email list...
Four book covers Imperfect Illusions by Vanora Lawless, No Shelter But the Stars by Virginia Black, Charon's Dilemma by Eloreen Moon, and Warring Lions by Astrid V. J.
...and get four spec fic ebooks free
https://www.queerscifi.com/join-our-maillist/

This is the first story I wrote and published way back in the Goodreads.com MM Romance Group days 10 years ago (this month actually) where authors would get prompt suggestions and you would pick the prompt you like and write a story to be published there later on. It was fun and I did it the following year year but life got in the way.

If you are a reader of my blog, you’ll know that I will eventually edit this story, possibly put a new cover on it, and rerelease it. Perhaps I’ll do that this month as an anniversary of publishing for the first time. If you do join the newsletter, read my book, and want to know more, have suggestions, or like it, let me know. I’m open to suggestions for revamping it. Perhaps even a sequel. You can stalk, I mean, follow me on social media, or email me eloreen at eloreenmoon dot com for any feedback. If I like any suggestions for updating and/or a sequel, perhaps I’ll include it and send you a free copy of the book in question when complete. -smile-

~Eloreen

Welcome to the new Moonbeams over Atlanta #newyear #newhosting #writing #blogging

Greetings and Salutations! Welcome to 2024 readers!

Person standing front ‘Welcome Board’“/ CC0 1.0

After a few hiccups, I’ve migrated my site from WordPress to self hosting. I intended to post this mid-January, but work was plenty busy and the #DreamHost pro services migration team had to help me figure out a few things. This transfer has been a long time coming. I’ve had the domain for awhile but never got the time to get it moved over from my first blog site at eloreenmoon.wordpress.com. Now that everything is in order (mostly), I’m going to delete that site in the coming weeks.

Plans? I have no plans… Well, actually, I do. I plan to restart blogging, get back into writing and publishing stories, and perhaps self publish here on the site. There are several of my older stories I would like to revamp and republish. A few that I started, but didn’t finish. A few that I got 80% there and then life got in the way. You should see my folders for the various stories I started. I have at least 15-20. *smile*

Since my original newsletter account was killed because of inactivity, I’m going to take a look at options and then set things up again. Perhaps I will have an edited and republished earlier story ready to provide for signing up. So many things to consider.

I know I’ve been saying this for years but there really is a light at the end of the work tunnel. The company I worked for was bought early in 2023 and we’re on the home stretch for the final integrations. We are bigger, better, and offer more support. I hope to see my nights–and a few mornings (I’m NOT a morning person)– plus weekends free up soon. Maybe in a couple months, possibly three months. We’ll see.

landscape photography of snowy mountain
Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Pexels.com

It has definitely been a mountain to climb in this work-life balance. I realized recently that it’s been over 10 years since I started this blogging/writing journey. What better way than to have that website I’ve been wanting for the last 5 years. Now, if only I can get a good price on a MacBook Pro as I liked being able to write on that OS. And I want to get into Vellum, which is only available on a Mac.

If you would like to follow along, fell free to follow my blog, or any of my social media. I will likely post here first then it gets shared to social media second. If you don’t want to follow along anymore, on the blog or social media, feel free to remove yourself. You can also message or email me directly. My contact information is on the page designated for that purpose.

Eventually, there will be a restart to the Newsletter for those that rather have things in their emails, and with it, a free book for joining. Depending on timing, it might be a revised version of an older work, or a new one. It will depend on what stories I manage to get to and finish them for publishing before I restart the newsletter. This self publishing gig is hard.

I think I’ve rambled enough on this post. *wink* Hopefully, the social sharing will work correctly. That was the main hiccup I had and wanted to resolve before I started posting. Please let me know if you succeeded in seeing the link to this post on social media (by interacting/commenting or contacting me on the various platforms). I’m curious to see who sees these posts. 🙂

Ringing in the new year with a new site #newyear #newsite #blogging #reviews #author

Hello everyone. Well, I’ve gone and pulled the trigger to migrate my blog to my self-hosted WordPress site last month. I will have more options there, including setting up a commerce site to self publish my books and possibly reorganize the blog. Will it complete this year? Not sure, but that is the goal.

This will be my last post on my WordPress.com site. Within a week or so, the blog.eloreenmoon.com URL will point to https://eloreenmoon.com.

I’m still re-learning everything and plan to be more active this year in writing and all the things as an author and blogger. I’m going to attempt to pick up reviewing more as well as that is what I started with over 10 years ago and I would like to return to that periodically. Hard to believe I’ve been blogging that long. I might return to reviewing Rainbow Gold Reviews as well, at least partially. 2024 is full of goals and I hope to accomplish more this year. 🙂

Speaking of reviews, once my blog URL is live, I will be posting a review for a book with a new-to-me author that I read in one sitting and can’t wait for more. It will be the first post on the new site and I can’t wait to share with you on it. Feel free to subscribe to the blog on the new site should you wish to continue following my journey and see the review. I plan to setup a Newsletter again and will invite my previous subscribers here to it. It will be a double opt in so if you no longer want to follow, feel free to ignore or opt out to remove yourself my my list.

~Eloreen

happy new year text
Photo by Jill Wellington on Pexels.com

New Kindle Together #promotion and #newsletter, #writing, and #socialmedia updates

Apologies everyone who was a newsletter subscriber and it stopped and faded away fall of 2022. I just found the emails that Mailchimp had sent then that they deleted my account when it went inactive for 24 months. Oops!

Partial view of two Dell monitors with text and images on them  on a white desk with a coffee mug in the middle below them, a black pen and mousepad with a partial picture of a mouse, and what looks like an Apple keyboard below the coffee mug and papers to the left with scribble notes
Photo by Picography on Pexels.com

I’m working on recreating my newsletter with Mailchimp and re-adding what I had before. I believe I’ve relinked my Mailchimp account so my blog should post to it again. Not that I have any subscribers anymore. Oh well. Such is life.

Mailchimp changed a bit so I’m trying to figure out what I should do. Being out of pocket in writing and online presence in general for the last four years is tough. Covid fog is a thing. I’m slowly coming out of my self-induced online isolation as I slowly come out of the offline one. I’m an introvert (most everyone who knows me in person will know this) and so not being social is the norm most of the time. I do like to see people on occasion, and I live in a polyamorous household, but I do have to retreat to my bedroom to recover from socializing. I’m hoping that I have enough spoons to see this through.

If you are one of those that would like to be back on the newsletter, feel free to email me and I can add you again. I believe I have a signup form back on my blog but it might be pretty bare bones as I get everything setup in the next week or two. As always, if you do signup up and want to opt-out later, feel free to do so. Previously, I provided a free copy of one of my earlier works for signing up called Charon’s Dilemma via the automation of Mailchimp but I don’t quite have that updated yet. If you would like it, sign up for my newsletter and let me know to send it to you and I’ll manually send it in whichever format you prefer. I have EPUB, MOBI, and PDF. If you are like me and like all formats, I can send that too. 😀

Stay tuned to the blog and I will follow up as things progress.

Top-down look at a white coffee mug with coffee in the center, a Kindle tilted 45 degrees to the bottom right with a red and green small-leaf succulent and a larger large-leaf succulent immediately to the right and above the Kindle on a white background.
Photo by Adrienne Andersen on Pexels.com

To celebrate getting back into things with writing and online presence, I’m running a book promotion for the US Independence Day (July 4th) weekend July 1st through 5th since the 4th is on a Tuesday for my eBook of Together on Amazon.com worldwide where you can purchase it for free. It’s on Kindle Unlimited as well but I thought I would see if others who don’t have Kindle Unlimited would like it too. If you would like the book, please purchase during this time and consider doing a review on Goodreads and/or Amazon and sharing on social media. I’m most everywhere even if I’m not active on the platform specifically currently. I’m trying to get back into the social media game. 🙂

Along those lines, I will potentially do a second version of the book to include the short story I wrote for a blog tour I did for Together as an epilogue a few years ago. Some of the people who had read it before then wanted more about my characters. I appreciate my readers especially those who give me feedback as well. Really, Really, please let me know how you like it especially if this is the first time you have read anything of mine. If there was something you didn’t like, or formatting issues, let me know directly with feedback from here or directly to my email that’s posted on my About Eloreen Moon page. I’m still pondering and may look into do some editing of both before publishing them together for the first time. It may or may not have a new cover (I really like my cover) but refreshing covers is something that is done in this industry. I will have to see after I do edits and figure out costs for all of it.

Drawing of lightbulb on yellow Post It note pinned with a red thumbtack to a background of a corkboard.
Photo by AbsolutVision on Unsplash

For those that want more writings from me, I do have flash fiction published in a few anthologies (details in About Eloreen Moon page here and Goodreads.com) on topics across all LGBTQ+ and genres. I’m working on a few new projects and will probably edit and re-publish other writings I did in the beginning, including Charon’s Dilemma and Coil Me Up. It’s one of those things that I will start somewhere one word at a time. It’s a little daunting being out of the loop for so long and starting up again. It’s almost like starting over but different. -wry smile-

Speaking of Coil Me Up, I talked with Adan recently and she’s given permission to re-edit and re-publish it fully under me again. She had helped me with writing a few chapters to get it finished for the the contest that inspired the story when it was originally published in October 2015 and hasn’t had motivation to write for quite awhile. I hope that we get to collaborate on something new as it was a lot of fun working with her. It is about snake shifters and if that’s not your thing, feel free to pass it up.

I think I will close with a picture of my favorite flower that’s about to bloom this year: Oriental Stargazer Lilies. I used to have Starfighters but I think they died out several years ago and these have been going strong for at least 4-5 years now. I’m not 100% sure but I think the ground-cover plant below them are baby strawberries from another pot elsewhere on the porch…

#contest submission away #amwriting #QueerSciFi #flashfiction

Sorry about it being awhile since I last posted something here. It’s been a crazy several months with mostly work and family taking precedence to writing.

I’ve just submitted my entry for this year’s Queer Sci Fi’s Flash Fiction contest closing on Monday, May 1st. If you want to check it out, there’s still time; although, only a few more days. They start in March and close beginning of May each year. If you want to try next year, check out the page then. See the link below.

QSF Flash Fiction Rules

I’m slowly getting used to have time besides work. I’m looking into buying a gaming laptop (Windows) and possibly a refurbished Mac for writing. I miss my old laptop that died before the pandemic. We’ll see.

I’m hoping to get back into writing again. I say that every so often, but I hope it will actually materialize. Perhaps getting the Mac to replace my previous writing device will help. I do have an iPad and I wrote my flash fiction on it (I have a case with a keyboard: It looks like a baby laptop -smile-), but publishing won’t happen until I have something that can handle the apps. I’m considering Velum, should I get a Mac again. Authors, if you like it, let me know in the comments. That may be the incentive to get a new Mac. 😉

I will leave you with a picture of a Writer At Work below and contemplate at least doing more blog posts. That’s writing, right?

~Eloreen

It’s Mother’s Day 2020 #musings

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers whether biological, guardian of, or fur babies. 🌻 🌷 🌺 🌼 💐 🌸 😍 #authorsofinstagram #mothersday #happymothersday #motherhood https://www.instagram.com/p/CAAyGvSAIqw/?igshid=1447dmipnhwey

I’ll post more soon. 🙂 Eloreen

Where did this year go? #Preptober #NaNoWrimo #NaNoLanta #amwriting

What the heck happened to 2019???

 

So, it’s about that time. If you are a writer, you may be prepping for #NaNoWriMo in roughly 2 weeks. The site is now merged between the main NaNoWriMo and #CampNaNoWriMo so there is only one location now. I haven’t poked around much yet, but plan to to sign up for NaNo before the end of the month. Come find me and let’s be friends. I think my original friends were wiped in the merge. 🙂 Link to me via my profile pic:

 

If you are in the Atlanta area–Heck, even if you aren’t in the area, and want to join #NaNoLanta, the regional group on #NaNoWriMo for Atlanta on Discord, visit the server here: https://discord.gg/pQMqMjW. There’s brainstorming shenanigans soon (6 pm EDT) today. Assuming work doesn’t spontaneously combust, I’ll be there.

So, sorry for not being around much this year. I’ve haven’t had much time to think, let along write, but I’ve been picking up social media a bit. Mostly Twitter, some Facebook, and occasionally Instagram/MeWe.

My flash fiction for Migration was published a couple of months ago. There’s an ebook (linked) and paperback versions. I also published Together in print over the summer. I dropped the price to $7.99, It’s still available on #KindleUnlimited for free or purchase for $1.99.

I was going to do a freebie for Halloween but didn’t make the cutoff (today!). If I can finish in a reasonable time before Halloween, I might publish it on Amazon for $0.99. We’ll see. It hasn’t been going well and I need to brainstorm some to get it going again.

I have a paranormal people of color novella that’s rapidly turning into a novel or a trilogy, I’m not sure which. I might work on it this NaNo to turn it into a novel. Not sure yet.

Now that I’ve realigned some things at work, I hope to have more time for writing, family, and the readers. I’m a reader myself, and I miss it when I’m so busy I don’t have time to read. Bad Eloreen, No Biscuit.

As always, I’ll be intermittently posting reviews, book blasts, and tours. Can you believe it’s been 7 years since I started this writing road? Perhaps I will do something next month. Keep in touch. You know where to find me.