Yolande Kleinn

A couple days into 2019, it's hard not to be a little introspective. I'm not going to make a list of last year's accomplishments, or come up with resolutions for the coming year. Those aren't really traditions I go in for, not least because I'm competitive as hell. The last thing I need is a string of posts I can find and compare myself to year after year, which will inevitably leave me feeling disappointed when I don't hit new milestones or write as many words as before or or or…

But I've got a lot of things right now that I'm grateful for:
* A day job I sincerely love, where I get to work with books every single day
* A supportive family who will always have my back
* Incredible, kind, talented, indescribable friends that make me feel lucky as hell
* Time and energy to keep writing, even when the query/submission process is overwhelmingly daunting

At the moment, I've got one manuscript in submission limbo. Took a while (not an unreasonable amount of time, just longer than my brain and heart wanted to wait) to hear back from my absolute top choice agent. The good news is, I got farther than I expected. She liked my query enough to request a partial manuscript. The bad news is, the partial didn't win her over. Obviously I'm going to try again… And obviously I'm going to sell this manuscript elsewhere… But rejection stings no matter what.

One thing I will say for this coming year: I have more stories than ever reverting to me after their contract terms expire. Historically, I've been slow as hell about revising-reformatting-rereleasing old stories. The very few I've done so far (Sage & Sand, Wonderly Wroth, Especially at Christmas) have taken me ages to get done. Not because they're long or especially challenging, but because every time it's like starting over with no knowledge of the process.

I'm going to try and stay more on top of this going forward. I already have covers designed for the next couple stories. That still leaves additional editing and then the dreaded formatting-to-publish (not to mention questions of what to do with two or three more stories I haven't touched yet). But I'm determined to stay on top of my back-catalog and get things wrangled so that nothing stays out of print too long.

And of course, there are things I'm writing right now. I can't wait to finish and share them with you, guys, they're going to be so good!

In the meantime: Happy New Year! May you find luck and safety and wonderful friends on your own forward path. Let's make 2019 excellent!

So the thing is, one of my favorite parts of re-releasing old stories is the fact that I get to design new covers for them. I don't love the revision process, or formatting the actual contents of the book. But cover design? That's more fun than it has any right to be.

I've got a handful of stories (most of them very short) that have reverted to my control this past year, and a couple more that will be coming back to me soon. Which means I need to get off my butt on formatting and re-releasing these titles. Sage & Sand is still set to come out on December 13th, after almost a year on the back burner. I'm hoping to move a lot faster in 2019, with at least two stories to re-release, possibly three (in between new things I'm working on and will hopefully be able to announce soon/along the way).

Anyway. That was rather a long tangent to preface the fact that the next story I'll be re-releasing is Anticipation (smutty PWP friends-to-lovers fic in the range of 7,000 words). I don't have a release date chosen yet, but what I do have is a cover design to share.

( I'm gonna tuck the image below a cut for the sake of the dramatic reveal... )

Thievery
By Yolande Kleinn

"I forgot what it's like here. The noise, the people, the ridiculously low ceilings... Was it always this crowded?" Gareth asked without looking at Lee, too busy gaping around him at the rush-hour chaos of crowds both human and not. The station's companion hub on the planet's surface wasn't nearly this claustrophobic, but space was valuable in orbit. Magre Station used every possible trick and then some in its design, and the result was a genius arrangement of uncomfortably tight corridors and quarters.

( Click to read on... )

 

Reunion
by Yolande Kleinn

( Seven years is a long time. )

 

First person POV and I don't always get along, so this was a little ways outside my comfort zone. As with my other dabblings, this story is just a short and self-contained little thing, not part of a greater whole. Just a quick little piece of fluff, which I hope you enjoy.

Testing the Waters
by Yolande Kleinn

"Did you mean it?" Julian asked. "What you said before. About me. Was it true?"

For a moment I was too shocked that he was even talking to me to form a coherent response. After my wretchedly awkward confession, what could he possibly hope I'd say?

"Mason." He snapped his fingers in front of my face as though not sure I was even seeing him. "Mason, come on, man. You can't go catatonic on me, we need to talk."

( Read more... )

 

Exciting news of the day: July 23rd is the day Torquere Press releases "Rode Hard", a cowboy themed anthology of epic proportions. In my own contribution, "Sage and Sand", a young man runs into some excitement (danger! bandits! rescue?) on his father's mail route. The story is historical fiction, m/m romance, with a nice helping of adventure to warm the blood.

Here I bring you a teaser snippet in anticipation of the coming release. Enjoy!


Teaser: Sage and Sand
( He doesn't know this Marshall Maddox. He's got no reason to trust him beyond the fact that so far the man hasn't tried to shoot him. )