tav fox left a comment on my other Patreon to the effect that the new story being serialized there (“The Price of Thorns”) was not what they expected after reading the Calatians books. That got me thinking about my work over the last year and how I haven’t really yapped at y’all about it, so I’m gonna do that now.
A good chunk of my work published under Kyell Gold is just fuzzy gay romance. Different settings and different situations, but the entire OOP series, the Argaea series, Love Match, and probably most of the Cupcakes fall into that category. You could, if you squint, fit Dangerous Spirits in there, and if you really squint, Camouflage has some gay romance elements. I did write one straight romance, The Silver Circle, about a human and a werewolf.
The Tim Susman work has been basically New Tibet and the Calatians series, about fuzzy folks living alongside humans in a far future and colonial era of our world, respectively. Both of them are about societal issues in those worlds.
Upcoming Kyell books include another Argaea novel, the Ty Game sequel, and Squeak Thief, which is a gay heist story with some romance elements, so that’s right in line with what you’d expect (those last two are being serialized on my Patreon, if you feel like dropping a few bucks a month to help me out). Might do a sequel to Camouflage, which would probably not include gay romancey elements (but who knows!), but it won’t be completely unexpected.
On the other side of the shelf, though, upcoming books include Unfinished Business, a contemporary story starring a human (!) in a completely new world where supernatural creatures live alongside us. There are societal elements to that one too, but it’s more of a thriller/romance that honestly owes more of its DNA to Silver Circle than anything else (he is gay and his ex-bf is a werewolf). There’s also The Curse of Lone Pine Gulch, a straight-up noir-mystery with no fuzzy elements at all that is so out of my usual repertoire that I am having to find an agent to sell it to another publisher because it just doesn’t fit with any of the publishers I have relationships with. And then there’s The Price of Thorns, which is very much an old-school fantasy adventure that does happen to have fuzzy elements but is unlike anything else listed above. I’ve also got another fantasy epic I’m itching to get started writing that at least stars a fuzzy character, even if it’s not a fuzzy world.
The point of all this is that I love to try new things, but I know that people familiar with my work will have developed certain expectations. If you just want gay furry smoochin’, don’t worry, I’ve got you covered. But if you feel adventurous and you trust me to give you something neat and different, check out one of the above when they come out. I’m really proud of them and I’ll talk more about each one as publication approaches.
October has been spent basically wrapping up Unfinished Business to send off to the publisher and then researching agents and crafting a query letter for The Curse of Lone Pine Gulch. The whole process of querying is something I’ve done a couple times in the past and it feels very much like going out on job interviews, where you’re trying to put your best foot forward and 99% of the people you approach are going to reject you because you’re just not the right fit. Agents are looking for a book they think they can sell and hopefully also one they like, and that’s so subjective and dependent on many circumstances out of your control. The only thing you do have control over is writing the best book you can and sending it out. So I’m doing that, which doesn’t involve a lot of writing, but I’m still going on my Patreons, so it’s not entirely a fallow time.
A reminder! I set aside one week each month to answer writing questions/give writing advice, but if I don’t get questions and don’t feel strongly about any particular aspect of writing at the moment, I’ll just skip it (as I did this past month). Another week of the month I’ll devote to a spotlight on a book that’s coming out (or a book-related thing, like Furry Book Month this past month) or I’ll post an excerpt of something I’ve been working on. Sometimes I’ll skip that too—this hasn’t been a good month for excerpts, for examples—but I’ll try to post at least one or two things other than this here update.
What have I been watching? Well, for a lot of October I’ve been watching Taskmaster on YouTube. I started out just watching individual tasks and then started watching full episodes, which are about 45 minutes each but well worth it if you have time. The prize tasks and live tasks rarely get clipped out but are very fun, and each crew of contestants develops a rapport with the hosts and each other over the course of a series. Each series has its own charm, but if you’re looking for somewhere to start, I’d suggest series 4 (with British Bake-Off hosts Noel Fielding and Mel Giedroyc) or series 5 (just a great all-around cast).
We also watched Only Murders In The Building, with Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez, and loved it. The two Martins play restrained characters compared to their madcap reputations and are effective and engaging in those roles. Selena Gomez keeps up with them effortlessly, and all three make the most of some excellent writing. The show balances mystery with character and some great cinematography, and let’s not forget the Arconium, the titular luxury apartment building, which I want to buy and move into with all my friends.
Kit and I are slowly making our way through The Wire and recently finished season 4. I know it’s 15 years late but that show has earned all the accolades it’s accumulated over the years. Season four was an interesting change of pace; maybe less violent overall (maybe not) but more gutting and affecting than the others.
We watched the new Halloween Kills, and it was…a Halloween movie. I’m new to the slasher genre so I’ve only seen this one and its predecessor and they’re effective in a way. This one was trying to include a message about mob violence that was somewhat undercut; “mob violence is bad!” is tough to convey when the mob is going after a supernatural psychopath (feels reasonable) and never really engage with the side effects of their rage, nor do they impede someone who might actually be able to make a difference. They chase a scared guy off a ledge at one point but they think he’s Michael and never get to see that he’s not, until he’s dead. Anyway, if you want to see a whole lot of people get killed with various household implements, I can’t think of many better places for that.
And we’ve now watched two of the three Fear Street movies (Netflix). They’re pretty good horror as it goes, though they get a little too wrapped up in their own mythology sometimes. Their idea of “setting a time period” seems to be mostly “let’s play pop music from around that time,” and you know, that works to the extent it needs to. The plot (angsty teens, town drama, horror!, research, plan, carry out elaborate plan) works, and the third promises to resolve the lingering mythology questions and take us through the 1666 hanging of Sarah Fier, the witch who started it all.
We started Midnight Mass! We like it and will finish it!
I hope you had a Happy Halloween. The holidays are almost here!