Today I am so pleased to welcome TC Blue to Joyfully Jay. TC has come as part of the Coastal Magic Convention Blog Tour to talk to us about her release, Making It Up! Please join me in giving her a big welcome!

 

Hi, all you lovely readers of this Blog! *grins* TC Blue here!

The lovely proprietress (Jay, of course) has been kind enough to allow me to visit again, and talk about Coastal Magic, as well as a rerelease that will be coming soon!

coastal magic badgeAs some of you may know from prior years, I attend the Coastal Magic Convention in Daytona every February. It’s a fun, relaxed event, with loads of authors and a good ratio of authors to readers. Also, it’s on the beach. In Florida. In February, when it’s cold-cold-cold in many other parts of the country (and world). I would probably recommend it for that reason, even if it weren’t one of the most comfortable and inclusive events of the year… but it is, so I recommend it even more! *grins*

From the parties in the evenings to the Damon Suede hosted and run Cinema Craptastique, to the signing, to the panels and so many other things, Coastal Magic is one event I look forward to every year. I start planning for the next one about a week after I get home each year. LOL

If you can attend, I hope you will. And if you can’t, hopefully you can join us all on Twitter for the live-tweeting of Cinema Craptastique! It’s seriously a highlight for everyone (and usually trends, too)!

So in the last year, I’ve started to embrace the self-publishing aspect of things, following the implosion of what was my main publisher. I was off to a good start when I broke my wrist (end of March). It’s now almost December, and I’m more or less healed from the second surgery, which means I can finally get back to work with the writing and re-editing and rereleasing, and I’m kind of excited about it all, to be honest!

I’m hoping to have two of my reworked books available in the next few weeks, and hopefully sooner! (One is a Christmas story, so I’m feeling a bit pressed on that one. Haha?)

It’s been a while since I first wrote Making It Up, and it’s not completely like most of my stories. It has a much larger cast of characters and takes place mostly in a small town, where everybody is involved in everyone else’s business. This turns out to be both helpful and annoying for my main characters, Tommy and Johnny, as you can probably imagine.

See, the guys were involved when they were teenagers, but they had a very ugly breakup, and now… well, let’s just say that one of them is about to make a huge mistake, while the other is about to find out just how difficult it is to fix things after ten years. Fortunately, they have friends and family rooting for them (though it doesn’t always SEEM fortunate LOL).

This book has a brand new cover, courtesy of the always lovely Kiernan Kelly, has been re-edited, and a certain scene that was missing from the original version has been written and added where it was needed. (Yep, I’m going out of my way to avoid saying I added a sex scene. Because I’m shifty and stuff. Yep. *hee*)

There’s a bit of an excerpt coming, if y’all are interested. I don’t have an exact release date as yet, but very soon would be my best guess (and I’ll absolutely share the info on FB when I have it)!

Thanks so much for your time, guys, and I hope to see you at Coastal Magic, or at least at the live-tweet! 🙂

Oh, and just to set up the excerpt, Johnny and Tommy first meet while waiting in line to buy tickets for the rides at the county fair. (There. That’s nice and vague, isn’t it? Hahaha!)


Excerpt

Johnny sighed, fifteen dollars clutched in his fist as he waited to buy tickets — tickets, for God’s sake — that would allow him to join the hillbilly hoe-down going on around him. Like he wanted to be there in the first place, much less wanted to wait for the privilege.

Jesus, it was like a nightmare already, and he’d only just gotten there.

Swaggering guys with beer guts and big-haired women in polyester. Younger guys, without the guts, and big-haired younger women in denim. Guys around his own age — some of whom he’d seen in cut-off jeans like his own, at the pool — and their girlfriends with their smaller hair. But Johnny could see the desire in them for Dolly Parton-esqe hair-dos. Could see how badly they wanted to be just like their mothers, sisters, aunts, whatever.

Okay, he was being unfair, and he knew it. He just… wanted to be home, damn it. And the truth was, if his folks had brought him here to vacation for a week or two, he probably would have been having a great time. He would possibly have made some friends already and gone fishing or whatever at least once. That idea definitely held some appeal.

It was the concept of actually living there that was putting him off. Even after his mother’s carefully quick words while Dad had been in the port-a-john hadn’t fully reconciled him to the situation.

“It’s his heart, Johnny,” Mom had said. “Doctor Sumiash said he needs to slow down or he’ll have another heart attack, and this time it’ll probably kill him. So managing the feed company is almost perfect, and I know you don’t want to move, but I — we — don’t see any way around it. We can’t afford the pay cut he’d have to take back home if he went to part time, and that’s what he’d have to do. He’ll be making less here, but the cost of living…” and then Dad had come back and he’d dragged Mom off to some pie contest or something, and here he was. Waiting for tickets. To get on rides that would probably be boring as all Hell.

So, yeah. It sucked. And Johnny was stuck. Deeply and helplessly… stuck.

Stuck and likely to get himself beat up if he didn’t stop staring at the bouncing ass in front of him in line, too. Which wasn’t to say that the guy was an ass, but that he was bouncing and had a nice… well, ass. And he did. Round. Firm. Not too bulge-y, but not flat and blah like some guys’ asses were.

Johnny liked to think of himself as an ass connoisseur. He’d rarely touched one on purpose, other than his own, but he’d for damned sure looked at an awful lot of them. Clothed, of course, except for on the computer and a couple hot spots in the French Quarter, but even so, the guy in front of him had a damned fine one. In Johnny’s top five, even. Above Mitch Jeroux and Jake Linscomb, but not quite as high up as Rob’s. Not that he’d ever tell Rob that, but still.

The guy was pretty much tied with the dude who stripped at that place down on Bourbon Street, and that was saying something, because that guy? Made his living from his ass… and other parts. In more ways than just by dancing, Johnny had heard, but he’d never quite gotten up the nerve to find out. And now he never would, damn it.

He sighed again, forcing his eyes closed, just so he could turn his head and open them to something that wasn’t the lure of straight farmboy butt.

Of course, that was when he was suddenly hit and as he stumbled, then went down, landing with an “ooof” in the dirt, his one thought was Great. I got caught, and here comes the hanging… and now I get to die a virgin. Perfect.

***

“Fuck!” Tommy yelped, almost stumbling again when he turned, he was trying to move so fast.

He took one grab at the guy he’d just about flattened, only to miss. Of course. Because when it really mattered, Tommy was the clumsiest thing going, and he knew it. Everyone else knew it, too, which was why Coach never put him in when it was a make-or-break play. Hell, it was a good thing his scholarship was academic. He’d have been shit out of luck if he’d needed one for sports.

None of which had anything to do with the guy he’d just knocked over.

“Shit,” he muttered, ignoring the way Molly Kincaid was laughing at him. She usually did, which was fine since they’d been friends forever. They’d even tried dating for a few weeks back in freshman year, but she’d dumped him for Travis Kilenny, which was just as well since Tommy kind of knew it wasn’t going to be anything, anyway.

He still let her — and everyone else — think she’d broken his heart. It made it easier when he turned down dates with his friends’ sisters and such.

“Hey. Hey, buddy. You okay?” he asked, worried because the guy’s eyes were closed. Jesus, what if he’d really hurt the kid? Then they opened and Tommy found himself staring into the widest blue eyes he’d ever seen. “Uh… hey.” He smiled. “Didn’t mean to get all bull in the china shop, here. Tell me I didn’t break anythin’?”

The guy blinked, then blinked again. “Um, I don’t think so. Broke anything. Didn’t. I… Shit. If you did, you’d have to buy it.” And Lord, Lord. The kid was bright red, probably from realizing how those words had sounded, but damned if it wasn’t cute.

“I’m fine,” the guy managed, sounding just a little bit out of breath. “Swear.”

It was only when those so-blue eyes pulled away from his own that Tommy realized he’d been staring, and fuck. He didn’t know what the guy must be thinking after that. Of course, this kid with the black hair and bright eyes had been doing a bit of staring, too, Tommy told himself, though he couldn’t be sure if it was shock at being knocked down, or interest.

He kind of wanted it to be interest, he realized with a small bit of surprise. He’d never seen the guy before, but… well, that was a damned shame because Tommy was pretty sure he’d be spanking the monkey to the memory for months.

“Good,” he answered with another, broader smile, “then you won’t mind if we get you up and stop making a scene? Because Molly just might wet herself if we don’t.” He winked, then blushed at the loud laugh the guy let out.

Oh, he liked that sound. Wanted to hear it again, even.

“I’m Tommy,” he said, even as he grabbed the guy’s hand and pulled him to his feet.

“Johnny. John,” the kid replied, still blushing a little. “Sorry about that. I… I’m usually less… distracted.” And just like that, the blush was deeper, though Tommy couldn’t figure out why.

Tommy grinned down a couple inches into those amazing eyes. Damn, that blush was cute… and he did not just think that. Except he had. “Well, Johnny-John. Nice to meet you. I’m guessin’ from the accent you’re from somewhere that’s not here, right?”

Jesus. Just Jesus. Just like that, they were having an actual conversation. It was… cool, Tommy thought with a smile.


Bio

TC BlueTC Blue is the top hat wearing, every-day-is-Halloween believing originator of such rarely-repeated phrases as “I’m digging the homoerotic insinnuendo,” and “Oh, my debatable goodness.”

She resides near Washington, DC with NO cats, and lives by the mottoes “More is more,” and “Meh.”

Stalk TC on Facebook as T.c. Blue, and on twitter as @tc_blue (she doesn’t use twitter much, but when she does… Heh-heh.)