Guest Blogger: Hayley B. James - What is Yaoi?

October brings me many wonderful things. Cold mornings, cool afternoons, crispy leaves beneath my feet, sweaters, scarves, boots, pumpkins, Halloween, and my birthday. But best of all: October also has Yaoi Con!If you’re unfamiliar with yaoi con, you ought to be ashamed of yourself and cry in the corner. Or simply read the introduction page here and get on with life.

Yaoi was my first foot into the door of the wonderful world of male on male romance. Wikipedia has a nice article on it here. In short, yaoi is a representation of gay men in loving or plain sexual—healthy or unhealthy—relationships with a target audience of women. There’s manga, novels, drama CDs, animes, and computer games.Fans of the genre will tell you about the “rules” yaoi must live and die by. The top is always taller, older, larger, than his bottom. The bottom is usually a clueless sort and more feminine than his top. Sometimes these rules are broken, but it seems to be a faux pas in the industry. I admit my library of yaoi manga is measly compared to most fans, but I’ve read enough to know the filthier ones are strictly to squeeze your legs together while reading, or marvel at how that little guy took that big guy without lube or a fingerfuck first.
For a starter manga (comic) series, I suggest The Sex Therapist. It’s pretty much a "plot-what-plot" with something that might resemble plot if you squint and turn your head. Mainly, the therapist has sex with men who are too chickenshit to confess to their crushes, and he cures them of their stage fright so they can admit their love. You can read it online in the USA, UK, and probably other places too because it doesn’t seem to be licensed and for sale outside of Japan. (Just do a quick search online to be sure.)
Junjo Romantica is a long, popular series that is enjoyable for the plot and sex. If you don't want to read comic form, that's okay because it’s also an anime available online to buy in your (maybe) region! It is not dubbed, so you’ll have to read subtitles. Yaoi novels are now being released as digital format for your e-readers. I prefer the written novels over the comic format, so I’m happy I can now buy as an ebook and save some shelf space. (not to mention how much easier ebooks are to hide!) These are most like the M/M romance novels we all know and love, but if you're used to the western style romances, you will notice a difference.

If you’re a fan of M/M romance novels (which you should be if you’re reading this), I recommend branching into Yaoi. You might find a niche you enjoy.I don’t like every anime or manga that’s released, but I do find a few I love. Netflix has a few older titles available that I can't suggest completely because I've only seen Descendants of Darkness, but if you ever have a free Sunday afternoon, might as well check them out.

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If you're in the San Francisco area between October 21st through the 23rd, swing by Yaoi-Con and find Hayley B. James at the Dreamspinner Press table in the dealer's room. She'll sign a book and give you a free bookmark too!

You can also follow Hayley B James on http://twitter.com/hayleyb_james or read her blog at http://www.hayleybjames.com/

(You can also read a guest blog from me, J.R. Loveless, on Hayley's blog! So be sure to stop by and visit her at http://www.hayleybjames.com/ !!!)

*1: Logo from http://www.yaoicon.com/

*2: Image borrowed from: http://iamfujoshi.tumblr.com/post/9536644684

*3: Image from Right Stuf store: http://goo.gl/WPvRH

*4: Image from June store: http://www.junemanga.com/digitaledition/

And the Winners are....

Sorry for the late posting!! I have had an extremely busy weekend and only have just now had the chance to make the post. The following are the winners of the Labor Day Weekend Promo Op:

1. BobbeJean
2. Judianna

Congratulations, to both of you!

I'm very sorry for those who weren't chosen. I woud love to give everyone a copy, but I only have two available.

Thank you for participating and keep an eye out for more opportunities like this in the future! :-) My new book Chasing Seth comes out Sept 30th and a new Christmas short was accepted by Silver Publishing called White Rain. :D

Promotional Weekend - Opportunity to Own a Copy of Swift's Temptation E-Book!

To celebrate Labor Day Weekend, my birthday, my new website and the upcoming release of Fragments of a Unicorn's Soul, I will be hosting a promotional opportunity to own a free copy of Swift's Temptation E-Book!

The rules are super simple!

1. Merely Visit my new website: J.R. Loveless.

2. Browse the site to discover the answer to my questions:
A) What was J.R. Loveless's screen name on AarinFantasy.com?
B) What is the name of the main character in J.R.'s Free Read?

3. Submit your answer via the Contact J.R. form

4. You have until Monday, September 5th, to submit your entry.

I will randomly choose 2 winners Tuesday morning with the correct answers to receive one free copy of Swift's Temptation e-book! All winners will be notified by email, so please be sure to include your email address when filling out the form! I will post the winners here on my blog after the contest has concluded.

If you are uncertain of any of the rules, please drop me a note and I will explain further.

Good Luck!

September an exciting month!

My newest novel from Dreamspinner Press, Chasing Seth, is due out this month on September 30th! Chasing Seth E-Book or Chasing Seth Paperback
Be one of the first twenty people to order a paperback copy and receive a signed copy by yours truly!

This weekend, September 4th, is my birthday and I'm going to be celebrating with friends! Can hardly wait!

I will be having a Guest Blogger next week, Hayley B. James! So keep watch for her post(s)!

I feel really stupid...

Ever done something that made you feel utterly stupid? Like the biggest bonehead walking? I did something today at work that my manager expressly told me never to do. It's hard to explain it was in detail, but basically I did it because I didn't think it would make that big of an impact. Boy, was I wrong. It became apparent not even five minutes after I did it, and it had a ripple effect throughout the entire day and is still not fixed.

I burn with shame and embarrassment. No one can ever be as hard on me as I am on myself. Even now I abhor the idea of going back to work tomorrow and facing my manager. I feel so stupid and with that stupidity comes the restlessness I feel at the moment. It's 2am and I should be sleeping. Only I can't.

On the bright side, the restlessness allowed me to complete the entire MS round 3 edits of my newest novel Chasing Seth. Everything went pretty smoothly. There was a lot but it was mostly punctuation, which I admit is my biggest downfall. I either use too many commas or not enough. I've gotten a bit better I think. At least from when I started!!

I guess I should go lay down and try to sleep. Blah. But, I shall leave you with a pretty picture to send you all off to sleep to hopefully dream of hot, sexy men! :P

Editing Nightmares

Okay, so on my most recent accepted novel the first round of edits was super easy. It took me a couple of hours to knock out. But the second round was not so easy. Apparently one of the editors found that my story had a few similarities to someone else's and they were concerned. The plot line and characters itself were original and such, but a few key points in the story seemed to run parallel with another author's. This led to a large amount of revisions being requested.

I had to change quite a few points and add additional information to some of my characters and their background. I didn't really mind that at all. Because the more unqiue something is, the better right?

My biggest pet peeve over these last two novels that I've had to edit is that the 2nd editor asks questions that make it appear that they have not read the entire story. There were several questions in this round of edits that made me go.... *blink* *blink* LOL. Are you serious?

Is it a pre-requisite for editors to make comments off the cuff but not ensure their facts are straight before challenging the writer?

I'm also of the belief that you don't have to detail out every single little thing because then the reader gets bored and loses interest or it's like... why would the reader care about something so trivial? Let me show you an example: Who owns this log cabin the character seems to be in? (Paraphrased, not exactly as it was worded.)
The question seriously made me *facepalm* because what reader is going to stop in the middle of the scene and go... hmmm.... I wonder who owns that cabin they're in? Is it his? Is it a friend's? That really bugs me that I dont know!

Sorry for the sarcasm, but I had to vent that out there. I've had stories that I have picked up to read and dropped back within the matter of a couple of chapters due to TOO much detail. I was reading a young adult series set in Ireland about faeries. The writer went into so much detail about the scenery the main character only saw in passing that I couldn't help but get bored. It was every page. They would describe the designs on a tree or the way a leaf was bent. No joke. I think I still have the series but I never finished it. I wish I could take it back. -__-

Let's hope the new revisions are enough to ease the editor's mind and not trigger the thought of plagarism in the reader's when they read it.

As always, here's a sexy picture for your enjoyment. :) Aren't they gorgeous?

Newest Free Read Update & Some Minor Rambling Thoughts

Hey everyone! My newest update to my Free Read - From Fiction to Reality is up on my new website!! Click Here <----------

You can send me an email from Contact J.R. or comment here when you're done if you liked it!



I'm excited that I managed to complete my free reads post! Woo! I like the way it's coming out. :D

I have one work in progress that's about halfway through Chapter seven and I am looking into the idea of actually revamping a story that I have written in the past which is almost complete but still has a bit left to go. It was an extremely unique story, at least to me, and I think it may fascinate some who have a love of the underwater world. But that's all I'm going to say! LOL.

September seems so far, yet so close. I dont even know what to do for my birthday this year! And I have a short story and a novel coming out next month. But the novel may be delayed or at least pushed to the end of the month since there's a minor hiccup we reached. I have a lot of work to do this weekend! Oy! Just thinking about it is making my head hurt! Editing is probably my least favorite part of the process, but it's a necessary evil of course.

A friend of mine is really awesome! She is making up flyers for both of my books that are already out and handing them out in her LGBT community along with a bunch of the bookmarks I sent her! She's amazing! I was shocked when she offered to make the flyers, but when she told me that one of the centers she goes to is going to have an actual meeting where she is going to hand out my flyers and talk about my books floored me! You couldn't ask for better advertisement than that could you?? I want to do something really nice for her, but I dont know what. She lives in Michigan and I thought maybe feeling her out to see if she likes flowers or maybe sending her a gift card for her and her husband to go to a nice restaurant. :D Any suggestions?

Well, my lovely readers, I will leave you with this mad sexy picture and hope to see your comments about my newest update to From Fiction to Reality soon!