From comments

Well, y'all are awesome, but I already knew that.

Thank you for the great feedback on Trent and Jason and The Mystery of the Golden Goddess!  I'm glad that everyone's having so much fun with them!

Okay, from comments, I got votes for Talin and Selorin to take their turns next in ITL.  And was it my imagination, or did Vade's name keep cropping up?

Talin and Selorin.  Let's compare.

(This is where I mention, just for the sake of clarity, that this is a conversation for fun because I like to hear what y'all think, but the plot of ITL is already settled, and it was decided long ago which book is next.  I don't want you to get all annoyed if you vote for Desin and The Green Book isn't next.)

We've seen Selorin with a string of boyfriends, but he reserves his deep relationships for family.  Still, playing the Maiden to Orinakin's Wanderer is no fun.  Now that Orinakin's a.) always away and b.) married, it makes sense for Selorin to move on and find someone of his own.

Talin has known great love (Anosanim) as well as great heartbreak and betrayal (Hitari).  He seems to think that he'll never know romance again, but I can't wait to prove him wrong.  In time, he'll heal and learn that his days of passion aren't all behind him.  Is now the moment?

What kinds of guys would be best for Selorin and Talin?  Ack, I can't answer.  All of my answers either give too much away, or are deliberately misleading and take my brain off on interesting tangents which lead to fun new worlds of cheerful sex adventures.  You tell me what you think about the kinds of guys Selorin and Talin should end up with.

Emmytie, I wish you all of the best in your job hunt!

Coming soon

The end of the The Gold Book is almost here!  I'm in the process of wrapping up this stage of the journey and preparing for the next romance of ITL.


Orinakin got Bade.  Kudorin got Xio Voe.  Remin got Tano.

Who's next?  Which of the Seven Siblings will be next to fall in love?

And who will the other guy in the romance be?  What kind of guy will we meet in the next book?

What are you looking forward to as we move to the next story in ITL?

Golden Goddess e-book

The Mystery of the Golden Goddess!  Hooray!  Writing this story was so much fun, I'm really glad to be able to share it with you.

Print version here.


E-version here.

Thank you so much for your support!

Preview

The Mystery of the Golden Goddess should be out this week.  I thought that it would be fun to give you a snippet to read while you wait.  But which snippet?  The first scene, to get you started?  Part of a sex scene?  You've already seen the map; what could top that?


My real problem is that around all of the sex scenes, The Golden Goddess is a mystery, and I don't want to give anything away or say too much about the wrong character or spoil your fun.  I want to tell you all about who the hot guys are and who they're going to have sex with along the way, because some of the foreign people showing up to sign the treaty are very fun and very sexy (and very dramatic, in a particular young king's case).  And there's a bunch of romance in the middle of it, so I want to talk about the love and drama and heartache.


Writing The Golden Goddess made me want to write some prequels and sequels so that we can get more of the story.  I want to flesh out everything that happens before and everything that's going to happen next.  When the story ends and everyone goes home to new, changed lives, how does it go?


I want you to have read The Golden Goddess already so that we can talk about these things!


It should be up in the next few days (fingers crossed).  After the print version's out, we'll try to put out an e-book or a Kindle version or something, for The Golden Goddess and for Trent and Jason, before we do whatever comes next (which should be A Suitor's Tale).


Until then, I still don't know what the best excerpt would be, but I'm always amused by this little bit from Rini, after the Golden Goddess has been stolen and they're trying to figure out what's happened:


“However it works, however servants pass around keys in this place, if whoever needs to get in here to change linens or start fires or prepare baths or clean or dust or scrub or whatever, if all of those people can get in here when they need to, then that lock is about as secure as the buttons on my pants.  Anyone can get in for any reason.”

Map!

We're prepping The Mystery of the Golden Goddess for publication, and as we work on it, I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you that I have a map!

As I've mentioned before, when I wrote The Mystery of the Golden Goddess, I drew a map of the nations involved so that I could get a grasp on their geography and how they related to each other.  (I am such a Serious Writer.  You have no idea.  SUPER PROFESSIONAL.)  The map I drew myself was horribly simplistic and laughably ugly, so Diamond was kind enough to draw a professional map for me.  It'll be included in The Mystery of the Golden Goddess to give readers (you!) an idea of the countries under discussion.

The two countries at the top and the one in the middle (Klase, Elkennes, and Hac Sawj) used to be one unified country, Hac Jawesse.  Then there was civil war and other bad stuff, and the country split up into the three nations you see today.  The guy who's on the throne of Hac Sawj today is part of a long line of kings leading back to the throne of Hac Jawesse.

And there's your cursory history lesson on nonexistent kingdoms!

In other news, we're hoping to have some Kindle versions of everything up sooner, rather than later.  Fingers crossed!

ITL mystery

Now that Trent and Jason is available, let's talk about what's coming up next!

As it turns out, I've written a mystery story.  Not, as I mentioned earlier, a murder mystery.  The world of ITL is filled with so many cialexes that someone running around killing people would have the main characters all distraught, and it would lead to more outraged speech-making than hot wild sex.

The Mystery of the Golden Goddess takes place post-Purple, pre-Rainbow.  Orinakin and Bade are off on a diplomatic mission, and they bring Rini along for fun.  Orinakin plans to make a quick stop to get some people to sign a treaty before he takes Rini to visit some Leetesrian family members.  It'll all be a quick, simple little excursion.

Or not.

See, back in the day, there was some old country (OC) that got into a bunch of strife and stuff.  It split from one country into three, but it had some fancy super-important statue (FSIS), and the OC was worried that something would happen to the FSIS in the middle of all of the war and violence and hard times.  So the leaders of the OC handed the FSIS to Kudorin for safekeeping.

Now the current rulers from the OC and their neighbors (who were sucked into the war and violence and hard times) are meeting up to sign a treaty.  Everyone agrees to peace, the OC gets its precious FSIS back, everyone wins!

Except that before Orinakin can hand the FSIS over, it sort of disappears.

Oops!

Now Orinakin has to find the FSIS before the treaty falls apart.  You know how Orinakin is, he'd get all upset and stuff if war broke out again.

That description of events didn't sound very sexy, did it?  NEVER FEAR!  I managed to cram sex and romance into this story JUST FOR YOU because I know how much you enjoy it.  You will get mystery and drama, as you would expect, but you will also get sex and romance, because when you come to Matthew Haldeman-Time, you get the full package.

Hmm.  That sounded kind of dirty.  Let's leave it that way.

Guys in Cars

Hooray!  Guys in Cars!

It's up on CreateSpace now and should be on Amazon in a few days.

Thanks to Diamond for the new covers for Guys in Cars, Guys in College, and Off the Record.  I'll keep working on updating images and links.

Diamond's working on the cover for Trent and Jason now.  (Yeah, we've ended up going with Trent and Jason as the title.)  You know what that means?  NEW FICTION FOR YOU!  It's taken way too long to move my existing work to Amazon, but now we're getting into the new stuff, and that means HAPPINESS FOR EVERYONE.

Thank you for your patience!  Trent and Jason will be here soon.  And then the ITL mystery, I hope.  And then A Suitor's Tale (fingers crossed).  Hooray!

Publishing update

I still need to edit my site to upload the new book covers, update links, etc.  For now, here's where stuff stands:

The first volume of The Purple Book is here.

Off the Record is here.

Guys in College is here.

Guys in Cars will be next as soon as we straighten out issues uploading the cover.

After that should be Trent and Jason, once we format it, figure out a title, and design the cover.

After that should be the ITL mystery.

Then (fingers crossed) should be A Suitor's Tale, the rest of The Purple Book, The Rainbow Book, The Gold Book, and the novel about dragons.

The cover for the ITL mystery will be tricky.  If it were a murder mystery, it would be easier, because we could just splash some blood spatter across the cover and be finished with it.  But it's not a murder mystery, because the Anorians are such cialexes that the atrocity of murder would be so upsetting it would sort of derail the whole plot.  It's an "oh no this priceless artifact is missing WHATEVER SHALL WE DO" mystery, with romance and sex scenes and random humor thrown in for fun because that's how I roll.

Publishing news

https://www.createspace.com/3819396

Yay.

Got the first volume of The Purple Book up; it should be available on Amazon itself in a few days.  Much more to follow, including some stuff already on Lulu and some new stuff (hooray).  Diamond and I are formatting and editing and reviewing and hope to have most of it up this month.

What's going on

Thanks to a note in comments, I'm going to try moving from Lulu to Amazon.

Right now, the goal is to publish anything new (like The Rainbow Book, the Trent & Jason book) through Amazon and to re-publish everything that's currently on Lulu (like Off the Record) on Amazon as well.  That means that it'll also be easier for me to publish for the Kindle, if you happen to have one.

Looks like I forgot to add A Suitor's Tale to the list of upcoming fiction I posted earlier, so I'll go ahead and add that.

I started a short story for Wamesh that went well but wasn't really what I wanted for him; the completely different second story makes a much better "A Senator's Tale."  And I wrote a short story for Jonan that will probably be a better story in a different timeline or a different country; it also has the potential to be much longer than I expected to include in A Suitor's Tale.  So there's some fiction that won't make it into the book which you'll probably get in other forms.

Suitors

Emmytie and Sylvie, I really appreciate the support!  And the recommendation.  I'll look into it.

I've been working on short stories for A Suitor's Tale this weekend.  I need to finish "A Judge's Tale" and edit "A Vizier's Tale," but "A Senator's Tale" is going very well.  Can't wait for you to read it!

Hunh.  I was going to stop there, but maybe I should explain.  Bade and Xio Voe got their own stories (you know, The Purple Book and The Rainbow Book, maybe you've heard of them!) but the rest of the suitors we saw wanted their own stories to be told.  So each one got a short story to flesh out what happened to him after he met Anosukinom.

All of the suitors' stories will be gathered together for publication in A Suitor's Tale.  The ones already on the site (Aiae, Dranz, T'rin, Dillane, Gael) plus the ones I haven't finished (Wamesh, Lansester, Jonan) along with "A Brother's Tale" (spun off from Aiae's story).

I enjoy writing the suitors' stories.  It's fun to write about cultures outside of Orina Anoris.

Who's your favorite suitor?  Which suitor's story did you like the most, or which one are you looking forward to?

Upcoming releases

New fiction for 2012! Here's some of what you'll see this year (if all goes according to plan):

The Rainbow Book: As we finish The Gold Book and move forward in ITL, it's time for Kudorin and Xio Voe's story to hit print!

Trent and Jason: A short story collection featuring our favorites from "Incredible" and "Stupid Question." So far, the title's Trent and Jason because I haven't bothered to come up with anything else. I'll either think of a better title or just publish it as Trent and Jason. Or Incredible, maybe.

ITL Mystery: Yes! A mystery story based within the world of "In This Land." So much fun to write. (No, the actual title's not ITL Mystery. And yes, the mystery will involve sex and romance! More details later/soon!)

Dragons: This novel may, someday, make it off of my hard drive. Will 2012 be the year? Fingers crossed!

2012

Hooray for the first ITL update of 2012!

This year, we shall wrap up The Gold Book and launch the next plot of ITL.

Orinakin, Kudorin, and Remin are taken care of. That leaves Selorin, Desin, Anosanim, Talin and Rini.

Who do you think will be the next romance of ITL?

POC in ITL

Nikki asked, "I'm curious, are there any people of color in In This Land?"

Yes.  T'rin, for example, is not white.  I do not have the citations on me, but this conversation came up a while ago, and there are descriptions in ITL of T'rin having darker skin than Rini.

Overall, I would like to write more often about people of color.  And people with disabilities.  Just more kinds of people in general.  Kim and I talk about it a lot.

(Side note: "Kim" is the name I use when I'm talking about someone but, for whatever reason, don't want to disclose that person's identity.)

I want my writing to be more inclusive, and I keep talking to Kim about it to bounce ideas off of her.  I've written about people of color on both of my websites, and I want to do it more often in the future.

ITL specifically is set in a fantasy world.  In my mind, that makes it an entirely new place, like a fresh start.  However, I've spoken with readers who don't view it that way, who carry over assumptions from this world.  They view ITL through their real-world perspective, and bring in bits of real-life thinking on sex, gender, politics, etc.  If Xio Voe had chocolate-brown skin instead of white-pink skin, if he had curly black hair instead of straight, white-blond hair, they'd read and interpret the story differently.

That doesn't mean that I shouldn't do it.  It just makes me wary of how I represent people.  I would like to include more people of color in ITL.  I just want to do it well.

Speculation

It looks like the first volume of The Rainbow Book will be the next thing published.  Diamond was working on the cover last night, I think.

This time of year, all of the folks around me talk about food.  About cooking and baking and recipes.  I wonder what Tano would make for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I wonder what kinds of Christmas cookies he'd make.

Rini would probably throw a terrific New Year's Eve party.  Or a terrific New Year's Eve orgy.

Blogging

Thank you all for the happy comments!  One of the best parts of this blog has been reading your comments.

One of the worst has been looking at this blog.  So unpleasantly ugly.

It does allow me to tell y'all about writing and stuff, though.  Yay for that.

Speaking of writing, I talked to Diamond last night about writing relationships.  Part of what's so fun about writing a relationship is building the dynamic.  What do these people have to offer each other besides the basics of being nice or fun or sexy?  How do these two people mesh with each other?

The guys of ITL are all hot and smart and fun - - or hot and smart and Jacacean - - but they have different quirks and personalities and desires.  Bade and Orinakin, perfect combination.  Bade and Talin, not the same dynamic.

I've enjoyed meshing Bade and Orinakin's lives, figuring out how Kudorin and Xio Voe's dynamic works, and matching Remin and Tano.  For the rest of the guys, I've been plotting out why the people they end up with are right for them.  It'll be fun to show you how it works out!

AU

As my mind wanders aimlessly, I think about odd ITL alternate universes.

Like, what if ITL were set in a college? Would the Seven Siblings and Xio Voe be in rival frats? And where does that leave Bade? Would he be the country hick from a small town who got a scholarship to some big-city university?

Or what if the Seven Siblings were really a post-apocalyptic gang?

Or what if the Seven Siblings ran a modern-day business?

Kudorin: CEO
Anikira: president
Remin: COO
Orinakin: PR? Whatever "strategic management" is?
Selorin: legal team
Desin: sales? Production?
Talin: marketing
Rini: HR
What would Anosanim do? Information technology? CFO?

Xio Voe, of course, would run a rival business, while Bade ran a small, family business getting crushed by the competition.

Wednesday

Hi, Mandy! Thank you!

I spent some time working on non-ITL stuff, like the upcoming short story collection, prepping and editing and writing blurbs. Now it's back to ITL. I really enjoy Tano, and it's fun to see Remin connect his mature, devout, responsible self with his sensual, avaricious, sexual self.  We've heard a lot about the old Remin, but it's great to see him in action.

In other news, I just had a birthday. So, that was nice.

Upcoming fiction

I've been working behind the scenes on a lot of different bits of fiction.  A short story collection, a mystery, the first volume of The Rainbow Book, etc.  It's a lot of fun, and I look forward to showing you all of this new work.

Currently, I'm trying to prep some things for publication.  The formatting and cover art and such are Diamond's field of expertise, so I'm putting together character sheets, blurbs, author's notes, that sort of stuff.  It's fun to set everything in order.  I hope that you all enjoy the new fiction when it finally makes its way into the world!

The short story collection should be the next thing to hit publication.  Fingers crossed.  I finished what I hope will be the last of the edits yesterday.

The Places of ITL

Primary setting: Orina Anoris.  Main capital: Orikodisata.

In The Purple Book, you'll learn about:

Nosupolis, a little mountain country in the middle of nowhere, ruled by King Mindo
Ilaeia, a major cultural center, home of some of the world's most important art, ruled by King Ouia
Lorbain, one of the world's major powers, ruled by the unethical Sultan of Lorbain
The plains, where clans like the Kela live and battle each other for access to precious resources like water
Vafiance, a nation suffering greatly from a long drought

There are also places like Mannillea (where Ambassador Dillane is from) and Grenade Sandwich (not how it's actually spelled in ITL, just how I pronounce it) which has been at war with Vektin Kchet.

There are hints in The Purple Book of Orina Anoris' rival, the Jacacean Empire.  You'll learn more about Jacacea in The Rainbow Book, I assure you.

People have asked for a map of ITL's world, but the series is so large and will go on for so long that I don't want to limit myself.  I see no need to pin every detail of the geographical world down concretely.  Also, I personally have no ability to draw a map.  I tried to sketch one for a short story and ended up failing miserably.  Maybe I'll post it later so you can all point and laugh.