A Spartan Love

Blurb:

Alone, Andreas toils on a remote farmstead for a Spartan overlord. When a kryptes enters his world, Andreas fears for his life. The dread warriors stalk and kill helots—like Andreas' father—as part of their training.

Andreas sees only one way to save himself: he must tame the fearsome warrior.

But what began as self-preservation develops into attraction. Yearning for the company of someone other than his ferret Ictis, Andreas decides to trust the Spartan warrior and risk the fate that claimed his father.

Born to rule by the sword, Theron sees the world as his and acts accordingly, taking everything Andreas offers and reaching for more. However, love between men in Sparta is considered shameful and requires either exile or suicide to redeem Sparta’s honor. Now, only the gods can save them from the terrible price Sparta extracts from men who desire other men.

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Spartan Myths - All Slaves Are Alike

That is mostly true in the ancient world. As Lisa Henry pointed out, Roman slaves were chattel. Meaning they were property, an item to be owned, not quite human any more.

Things in Sparta were a bit different. Did I hear someone sigh and mutter, "Of course"?

I did warn you, even the other Greeks thought the Spartans were weird. But don't say it to their faces. The biggest badasses on the block can be as weird as they want to be.

So Spartan slaves. They more or less were owned by the polis (city-state) of Sparta and were comprised of the previous landowners. When the Dorian tribe that later became known as the Spartans invaded Lacedaemonia, they enslaved the previous inhabitants.

This new class of slaves, called helots, was unprecedented in the rest of the world. First they couldn't be bought or sold at the whim of their "master" because they didn't really have a master. Helots belonged collectively to the state not unlike mediaeval serfs.

Most were assigned to a plot of land (klēros). They were expected to give a set portion of the bounty of their fields to the Spartiate (Spartan citizen, i.e. adult male) the land was allotted to. Almost as if the land provided everything the Spartan needed, including the wherewithal to tend itself.

As long as their quotas were met, they were given an amazing amount of leeway in their lives.

Secondly, Helots were allowed to marry as they chose and raised their children with little to no fear they could be sold at any time, unlike chattel slaves. Some of the agrarian helots found themselves performing more traditional roles in Spartiate households. But even there they were not subject to some of the harsher realities of slavery.

But it wasn't all sunshine and roses.

One of the few things the Spartans worried about was a helot revolt. Helots vastly outnumbered the dwindling Spartan population. So in an effort to keep the helots subdued and "cut off the head of the snake", every autumn, the ephors declared war on the helots. This meant that a Spartan could kill any helot without risk of bloodguilt/ritual pollution.

This usually translated into some of the more promising young warriors in training being sent into the countryside with just a knife and the clothing on their back. The youths (18-19 years old) known as kryptes were expected to use stealth to steal what they needed to survive, spy on the helots and stalk their prey.

Any helot caught outside after dark was killed, as were any helots who were respected enough to be considered possible leaders for a revolt. The young men also targeted the best and the strongest as a way to show off their training.

Through terrorization, some but not all revolts were kept in check.

So the helots had in some ways the best life a slave could hope for in the ancient world, but it came at an equally terrible price.

Spartan Myths - The Spartan Boy and the Fox

A story I remember my mom telling me when I was a kid was about a Spartan boy and a fox. I pretty much believed it word for word and could only think how brave (and later how stupid) that boy was.

The story goes like this:

"In the case of another boy, when the time had arrived during which it was the custom for the free boys to steal whatever they could, and it was a disgrace not to escape being found out, when the boys with him had stolen a young fox alive, and given it to him to keep, and those who had lost the fox came in search for it, the boy happened to have slipped the fox under his garment. The beast, however, became savage and ate through his side to the vitals; but the boy did not move or cry out, so as to avoid being exposed, and left, when they had departed, the boys saw what had happened, and blamed him, saying that it would have been better to let the fox be seen than to hide it even unto death; but the boy said, 'Not so, but better to die without yielding to the pain than through being detected because of weakness of spirit to gain a life to be lived in disgrace.'" – Plutarch, Moralia circa 100 AD

And again:

"The boys make such a serious matter of their stealing, that one of them, as the story goes, who was carrying concealed under his cloak a young fox which he had stolen, suffered the animal to tear out his bowels with its teeth and claws, and died rather than have his theft detected. And even this story gains credence from what their youths now endure, many of whom I have seen expiring under the lash at the altar of Artemis Orthia." – Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus from The Parallel Lives circa 100 AD

Plutarch was the earliest reference to the story I could find and he lived several centuries after the story originated. I'm sure the tale circulated with other sources and by word of mouth, but to my knowledge none are still extant.

How much of this was myth and is there a kernel of truth in there?

The kernel of truth:

When Spartan boys joined the agōgē at the age of seven, they were kept on short rations and expected to steal what else they might need. At first, this sounds not only harsh but also encourages thievery. But as might be expected of the Spartans, that wasn't what they were trying to teach.

As an army that paid little concern to logistics, preferring to live off the land, Sparta expected the warriors to be able to forage and take what they needed from the conquered peoples. They also wanted first-in scouts to be undetectable so stealth was prized. As with their marriage customs, the expectation that the children would feed themselves through theft encouraged stealth. As did the beatings the boys earned if they were caught at it.

The floggings at the altar of Artemis Orthia are discussed in a previous post. But by Plutarch's time, the rite of passage had become such a popular blood spectacle that an amphitheater was built to accommodate the spectators. Youths (boys and young men) were beaten until they bled and it wasn't uncommon for them to die. The deaths could have been prevented if the youths had chosen disgrace and walked away. But they would have lost their status as Spartiates if they had made that decision. So they were more than capable of accepting death before disgrace. A concept that modern peoples have some difficulty with, but was not unheard of then.

Syn tai e epi tai! With it or on it! The parting words of the Spartan women when their men went to war. In other words, the warrior should return with his shield, showing he hadn't thrown it down to run from the fight. Or on it, as his body was borne home.

With this kind of ingrained training and expectations of honor vs disgrace, what choice did the Spartan boy have?

The myth? You will have to decide that for yourself.

My take on it? Propaganda for sure. But very likely with a basis in fact. The Spartans weren't known for lying or making up stories. Laconic derives from their practice of saying only what needed to be said.

Embellished over the centuries? Undoubtedly, but not by the Spartans.

Taming Theron Blurb

Alone, Andreas toils on a remote farmstead for a Spartan overlord. When a kryptes enters his world, Andreas fears for his life. The dread warriors stalk and kill helots—like Andreas' father—as part of their training.

To save himself, Andreas must tame the fearsome warrior.

Andreas is torn as what began as simple self-preservation turns into attraction. Yearning for the company of someone other than his ferret Ictis, he decides to trust the Spartan warrior and risk the fate that claimed his father.

Born to rule by the sword, Theron sees the world as his and acts accordingly, taking everything Andreas offers and reaching for more.

Can a lonely state-owned slave and an elite Spartan warrior find common ground? And if they do can even the gods save them from the terrible price Sparta extracts from men who desire their own sex?

Photo Credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/44124324682@N01/8477124634/">mharrsch</a> via <a href="http://compfight.com">Compfight</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">cc</a>

Spartan Myths - Spartan Women Had to Dress like Men to Catch a Man

Lycurgus urged the Spartan girls to engage in wrestling.
Here they urge the boys to fight.

A bit of malarkey I ran into the other day, insisted that Spartan wedding traditions were proof that Spartans were gay. On the surface, that kind of statement is absurd.

Nothing could be further from the truth. While Spartans did practice pederasty, which most people point to as their main proof of homosexuality, the practice in Sparta was purely platonic mentorship. Unlike Crete or Athens where the practice was often sexual.

In Sparta, the older man, or mentor, was considered to stand in as a foster father for the youth. They did not court the boys, as occurred elsewhere. Instead, the boy asked them to be their mentor. As a foster father, any sexual activity between the man and boy would be tantamount to incest and punished as such. The pair would be required to commit suicide or go into exile to erase the stain on Sparta's honor and to a lesser degree, their own.

This prohibition extended to any males seeking the arms of another man. Possibly because Spartans were slowly dying out and needed to increase their population to refill their ranks. Either way, the Spartans were some of the more homophobic people in ancient Greece.

Now for that wedding tradition.

Young women in Sparta had to be at least 20 years old to wed. While in the rest of Greece thirteen-year-old girls were routinely given to men up to more than twice their age. The Spartan maids cut their hair and dressed as men before going to their own bed on their wedding night. Not as one person postulated, because the Spartan men couldn't stand to touch a woman.

The young warrior had to sneak into the bed with his new wife and be gone before dawn the next day. In fact, that was the pattern of the early years of their marriage, until at age 30 he could have a home other than the barracks. Then the couple could live together for the rest of their lives.

The sneaking around was good practice for a warrior. Men who were caught visiting their wives were likely teased for not being stealthy enough, not for desiring a woman.

The Spartans were surrounded by a culture, and had probably shared the same culture at one point, that believed marriage by capture to be the norm. So much so that the tale of Hades kidnapping Persephone was a myth designed to legitimize the practice and give it the godly stamp of approval.

The practice of cutting the woman's hair may have started as a way to prevent a bride from being kidnapped on the eve of her wedding. Later, this practice likely became a rite of passage. A visible sign that she had left childhood behind, as such she would have been proud of her newly shorn hair. It also allowed men to tell at a glance who was recently wed (her hair would be short for a couple of years) and they wouldn't court another man's wife.

As you can see, putting a modern spin on an ancient and often misunderstood culture while ignoring what the people themselves did or said about the subject is misleading to say the least.

Spartan Myths - Spartan Warriors Embraced Homosexuality

I run across this photo or something similar every so often and want to say, "That's the Thebans!"

The Sacred Band of Thebes, consisting of paired erastês and erômenos, was founded by commander Gorgidas in 378 BC and fell to Philip of Macedon in 338 BC.

Greece in general, and Sparta specifically, was not the haven of homosexuality that many people wish to portray it as.

Crete, Athens, Corinth and Thebes practiced pederasty. A homosocial institute that encouraged love in a myriad of forms between an older man (erastês) and a youth (erômenos). The terms carry certain connotations that directly or indirectly influence modern views on this relationship.

The mentor, or erastês, is intended to be an older man who guides the youth through the upper echelons of society. This was a form of social networking. Erastês means "lover". This has been taken to imply a sexual relationship. Especially as erômenos means "beloved". These are not so much descriptions of the individuals as titles for their place in the relationship.

Were all pederastic relationships sexual? I doubt that was the case, as the majority of men now, and likely then, identify as straight/heterosexual. That's nothing more than statistics. Were there bisexuals and bi-curious individuals? Without a doubt, but once again not to the exclusion of straight individuals.

In ancient Greece, men, regardless of their sexual identity, were expected to marry and produce offspring. They married her and got their heirs. Then they had mistresses, went to brothels, and of course boys were an option.

Even then, there were strict rules on who, when and how. Who: Young men of the upper classes. Wouldn't do to have commoners hobnobbing with their betters. When: The youths must be beardless. Once he grew facial hair, he was no longer acceptable. He was now an equal and if the relationship continued, he lost that standing and became "womanish". How: Intercrural, where the older man places his penis between the thighs (literally, not figuratively) and rubs off on the youth. Penetration was only for inferiors, i.e. women and slaves.

So that is pederasty in the Hellenic world.

Sparta was always a bit different, but they really began to march to their own drum under Lycurgus the Lawgiver. He set up their entire social order to make them the best warriors the Hellenes ever knew.

The two kings were usurped by his ephors, becoming primarily generals and priests. All children underwent the agōgē, a strict method of schooling that produced elite warriors and strong-minded women. He changed pederasty to more of a foster father/son relationship, the titles employed to "inspirer" and "hearer", and made sexual love between the man and youth punishable by exile or suicide.

Xenophon of Athens, the only contemporary source, sent his sons to participate in the Spartan agōgē. He categorically denied any sexual aspects to the relationship in Sparta.

Aristotle further claims that the lack of homosexuality in Sparta was responsible for the deplorable way the Spartan women acted. They were literate and schooled in mathematics, song and dance, and participated in athletics. All purviews of men. Thus they were considered outrageously outspoken by the rest of the Greek world.

I'm not saying that homosexual relationships didn't occur in Sparta, I'm sure they did--after all, I've just written a series of novels based on the idea of a forbidden love set in Sparta--just not out in the open like elsewhere in Greece. And look at my previous post about Apollo and Hyacinth, a Spartan prince. Just remember that is a "survival" of an older system that was supplanted by the Spartan view of themselves.

I suspect that the more prevalent form of pederasty may have been practiced in Sparta until someone who later came to power had a very negative experience and chose to stamp it out of their society.

Spartan Myths - Artemis Orthia

A later stone representation of an xoanon.
The Orthia was a wooden pillar.

I'm going to continue in a similar vein with another myth set in Sparta, not a myth about Sparta. Don't worry, I'll get there.

When the Spartans descended on the Peloponnesus, they brought more than just their sky gods with them. They brought the whole pantheon.

Apollo's twin sister Artemis, the virgin goddess of the hunt, was popular with the Spartans. She was the protector of girls and in Sparta that protection extended to the youths as well. However, she developed a darker aspect here than elsewhere in the world.

When the Dorian's conquered Lacedaemonia, they found a wooden post-like idol of Artemis already present in a willow thicket. This idol became known as Artemis Orthia. Once again, most scholars agree that an older goddess, Orthia was supplanted by the conquering goddess Artemis.

(Lacedaemonia is the name for the land that the Dorians conquered. The Dorian invaders became known as Lacedaemonians or Spartans.)

The idol, known as a xoanon, was a malevolent, nonhuman wooden effigy. Legend says, Spartans from the surrounding four villages quarreled while making sacrifices to Artemis Orthia. Most of the Spartans were killed in the ensuing fight and the remainder died of disease. Whether because of the idol's influence or because a miasma fell upon them due to their blood-guilt is unclear.

Following this, an oracle proclaimed that Orthia's altar must be stained with human blood and human sacrifices by lot were established. When asked why Sparta didn't just follow the practices of the Skythoi (Scythians) and sacrifice captives to the goddess, Apollonius said, "It is not congenial to any of the Greeks to adopt in their full rigor the manners and customs of barbarians (non-Greeks)."

When Lycurgus the lawgiver came to power in Sparta, he altered the custom. The sacrifices were abolished, but to slake the goddess' thirst for blood the youths of Sparta were flogged until they bled. An ordeal known as the Diamastigosis.

Standing at the rear of the amphitheater
looking down at the altar of Artemis Orthia.

This rite of passage was so popular that an amphitheater was constructed for the audience. During the Roman times the ritual became little more than a blood spectacle that sometimes ended in the death of the young men, coming full circle in a return to human sacrifice. Showing the modern myth that the future is more progressive isn't always the truth.

This is an instance of what is called a "survival", where a former deity, ritual or cult is absorbed into the new reigning deity's sphere. Sometimes only the portions that fit with the new deity's identity are absorbed piecemeal, other times they are engulfed whole. Thus "converting" the followers of the previous god. Or would it be more correct to say subverting the newcomers?

Spartan Myths - Apollo Hayakinthios

Apollo and the mortally wounded Hyacinthus

I haven't blogged much recently because no one wants to hear that I took the kids to school today and I think I'll do some writing before I have to go pick them up.

While researching Taming Theron and A Spartan Love, I found all kinds of, for lack of a better word, myths about Sparta. Some are just minor things, such as trying to apply a modern mindset to an ancient culture and one that even its contemporaries considered strange. Others are the result of the other Greek city-states giving them bad press. No one really liked the bullies on the block.

So I thought I would start with a real myth and explore its origins.

First the myth. Hyacinthus was a prince of Sparta. Both Apollo and Zephyrus courted the beautiful young man, but Hyacinthus preferred Apollo. One day while Apollo and Hyacinthus were throwing a discus, Zephyrus, the West Wind, blew the disc off course in a fit of jealousy. The discus struck Hyacinthus in the head, killing him.

Apollo was heartbroken. He refused to allow Hades to take the prince to the Underworld. Instead, he gathered the youth's blood to create a flower, the hyacinth. Aphrodite, Athena and Artemis carried the divine hero's body to the Elysium Fields.

Apollo mourns Hyacinthus

The likely origins. A tomb to Hyacinthus can be found near Apollo's altar and idol in the village of Amykles southwest of the modern city of Sparta and dates to the Mycenaean era. Most scholars consider Hyacinthus to be a local deity who predated the Spartan's and Apollo. His name with the suffix –nth shows him to be pre-Hellenic. (The Greeks called themselves Hellenes.)

When the Doric Spartans invaded the Peloponnesus, they brought their sky gods with them. The Spartans considered Apollo to be one of their patron gods. Since Apollo was one of the most likely to take a male lover, Hyacinthus was quickly accounted as his lover.

As is commonly the case when one god absorbs another's place and prerogatives, the older deity had to die. Hyacinthus met with an "accidental" death at another, although minor, sky god's hands. Apollo stepped in to fill the religious void, laying claim to Hyacinthus' sacred site and becoming known as Apollo Hayakinthios.

A Spartan Love

Ancient Greek Battle Prep

A Spartan Love is coming along nicely. As is the case with my stories, A Spartan Love has been growing as it goes through my editing/revision process. The original rough draft was about 86K. Now at about 25% through my second draft, it is up to 96K. I have no doubt that it will be 100K+ by the time I submit it.

Most of the growth is due to world building. I try to get as much of that in the rough draft as possible, but it's not until I get the story back from my betas that I find any holes in my descriptions and explanations. Their questions let me know what I need to clarify. Just because I know my world, doesn't mean others do.

So the story gets longer and more involved. With two tiers of betas, that can be quite a bit of additional material tucked in here and there as unobtrusively as possible.

A Spartan Love is as much an adventure as a romance. After all, I'm not going to expect my warriors to avoid battle and valor.

Andreas and Theron live in 5th century BC Sparta. I try to make the somewhat enigmatic city-state of Sparta as historically correct as possible. However, many aspects of their society and thought processes were mysterious even to their neighbors, many of whom hated them and portrayed the Spartans in as bad a light as possible when they actually wrote about them. So sources are hard to come by and often contradictory and/or suspect.

I have also decided to write about the world Andreas and Theron think they live in. So as in Homer, the gods and their lesser brethren are real. As are ghosts, known as shades or phatasma(ta). I'm hoping that the stories retain a feel not unlike Homer's works, although not as flowery and wordy. I'm not really a songsmith.

The goal is to submit A Spartan Love before Taming Theron comes out. That way there will be minimal time separating the stories.

Taming Theron Has a Home

Apollo and Hyacinthus

I just signed with Dreamspinner Press for Taming Theron. The novel started life as a prequel to A Spartan Love, Apollo's Men II. However, no matter what I did, I couldn't keep it under the 7K cap for the anthology Lust in Time which contains another of my ancient Greek stories, 496 BC.

All the Apollo's Men stories take place in Greece during the early 5^th century BC. Alexios' Fate in Thrace. 496 BC on the coast of the Aegean Sea. Taming Theron and A Spartan Love on the Peloponnesus. And the final two in Delphi.

A Spartan Love is about a helot named Andreas and Theron, a kryptes. This pair is made up of natural-born enemies. Helots are a class of slave in Sparta that vastly outnumber their masters. Special elite warriors known as kryptes are set to watch and summarily execute all helots that stand out from the herd in any fashion, culling any possible rebels.

Taming Theron is the story of how Andreas, somewhat unintentionally, befriends one of the dangerous kryptes and discovers that food is the way to a man's heart.

Taming Theron is tentatively set for release at the end of the year. Hopefully, by then I will be able to announce a release date for A Spartan Love.

Taming Theron and A Spartan Love

It's taken forever, but I finally finished the first rough draft of A Spartan Love. It's much bigger than I anticipated at 82K. I've sent the MS to my first beta reader and hope to hear back soon after the new year.

I'm going through Taming Theron and doing some touching up and making sure everything still agrees with everything in A Spartan Love. Sure would be embarrassing if I missed something. I already had to change one character's name because it was too much like another character in A Spartan Love whose name could not be changed.

Then a quick pass by my final beta before subbing it.

It'll probably take a couple of months to get A Spartan Love ready to sub, but at least the two stories should only be a few months apart that way. <Crossing Fingers>

What's New with Apollo's Men

I know it's been a while since I said anything about how the series Apollo's Men is progressing. First it was because I couldn't get Blogger to work. Then it was because I was writing and writing and writing...

Now that I've got Blogger working and have made some substantial progress, it's time for an update.

Alexios' Fate was the first story in the series. Some readers felt it contained unresolved issues because let's face it, it's a series so I couldn't fix everything in book 1.

I immediately set about writing book 2 (it's untitled) to begin resolving one of the biggest issues as far the readers were concerned. I was about 1/2 way through with the MS when I received a call for an anthology of historical short stories (Lust in Time). So what did I do?

I wrote a short story entitled 496 BC. It is Alexios' Fate 1.5 and told from Galen's POV. He deserved to tell his side of the story. And boy did he!

Then of course, I went back to work on book 2. I even had the vague outline for book 3, A Spartan Love. About 2/3 through the MS (Are you sensing a theme here?), I realized that A Spartan Love takes place before and a bit concurrently with book 2. So I started on A Spartan Love.

But there was still one unfilled spot in that anthology. A short story about how Theron and Andreas from A Spartan Love first got together formed. No matter what I did, I couldn't keep Taming Theron under the 7K word limit. I chopped all over the place, but it felt like it had taken a hatchet to it. Finally, I gave up and made it into a novel.

Now (Finally!) I'm working on A Spartan Love. I'm about 1/2 through with this MS. But don't worry, I won't be switching gears. Because of how Taming Theron ends, I have to have A Spartan Love ready to release soon after Taming Theron. I don't plan on subbing them separately.

Then I'll get back to that poor unnamed MS. So I actually have three books written or nearly written and getting close to being subbed.

I also have a vague outline for an untitled book 5. Then I have a couple of contemporaries I really want to work on.

Apollo's Men:
Alexios' Fate
496 BC
Taming Theron
A Spartan Love
Untitled book 4
Untitled book 5

Apollo's Men

The series Apollo's Men is centered around pederasty and the strongly homocentric culture of 5th century BC Greece, when women were sidelined in most of the city-states. Sparta was an exception. Spartan women were trained to be matches for their men, to be athletic and educated. "Because only Spartan women give birth to real men."

In Homeric fashion, the gods and all their lesser brethren are real. Apollo walks the world Alexios, Galen, Lykos, Theron, and Andreas inhabit. He is not a benevolent omniscient deity. He is more a personification of his attributes as the Lord of Light (notice that is not the sun god, Helios), healing, music and the arts, and of course prophecy. He has a darker side as do all the Greek gods, having all the personality flaws that men, ie humans, do.

Alexios' Fate is the first book in the Apollo's Men series. This is where we meet Alexios and Galen. Alexios is the heir to the city-state of Dicaea. Galen was purchased as a birthday gift a decade before when Alexios has still an eight-year-old boy. Together they learn more about themselves and each other in the face their own mortality.

496 BC, Apollo's Men #1.5, continues Alexios and Galen's saga. This story gives us our first look inside Galen's heart and mind, exploring his feeling for Alexios, his new status as a recently freed slave, and his antipathy toward his lover's mentor. As well as giving a better view of slavery, class status/distinctions, and the homocentric nature of portions of the ancient Greek world.

Taming Theron, Apollo's Men #2, is the story of Andreas, a Spartan helot, who finds that food is the way to a man's heart. He sets off to "seduce" a young elite Spartan warrior, but may have bitten off more than he can chew. Taming Theron is off with my second beta reader. When he comes back, I will address any changes/suggestions she makes and get it ready for submission.

In the meanwhile, I've started A Spartan Love, Apollo's Men #3. This tale continues the story started in Taming Theron. Theron fears that his relationship with Andreas has been compromised, placing Andreas' life at risk. He has to make some life-changing decisions, and fast.

Apollo's Men #4 is still unfortunately without a title. The rough draft is approximately 3/4 finished. But when I realized that Taming Theron and A Spartan Love preceded it chronologically, I put it on hold and started with the other works.

Apollo's Men #5 adds another couple to the mix, but I think I'll wait a little longer before revealing who they are. I've got to have something to surprise you with.

Getting to Know Me

Last week, I took a little "Getting to know you" questionnaire over at LRC. I don't think many people read it, but it occurred to me that my friends and fans might be interested in my replies. So here it is.

Tell us about your favorite character from your books.
What if I'm a good mother and like them all?
* Galen from Alexios' Fate is a real sweetie. He's put up with so much and is now trying to come to terms with his freedom.
* Cinder in From the Ashes is another sweet guy, but he's coming into his own as a young man.
* Andreas from A Spartan Love is a lonely young man, learning to trust.There lovers are princes and/or warriors.
I guess that means I root for the underdogs.

Tell us about your current release.
My current release is From the Ashes. It is a Cinderfella, an m/m Cinderella, set in 16th century France.
Blurb: Cinder never thought that he could rise from the ashes of his life, but an unexpected encounter with a woman claiming to be his fairy godmother may be just what he needs. Finding himself flung into his very own fairy tale, she sends him off to meet his Prince Charming. But was the gown really necessary?

When in the day/night do you write? How long per day?
I do most of my writing during the week after the kids have gone to bed. One the weekends, I write in the morning while the kids play games. I would say I write anywhere from one to five hours, depending on the day and if the muse is talking to me.

What is the hardest part of writing your books?
Finding the time to do it. I have some of my best ideas while I'm driving to and from work, but I can't stop and get it down on paper. Then I get home and while I have the ideas, the really good words have already disappeared. :(

What does your family think of your writing career?
They don't really know about it.

What do you think makes a good story?
Engaging characters are a must. If I don't like the characters, I find it hard to keep pushing on. But I think my pet peeve is when the logic is lacking or the information is just plain wrong. Research, people! I love research.

Plotter or Pantser? Why?
Pantser. I have the basic idea, and some times it's really basic, and then I let my characters tell their stories. My best stuff happens when one of my character takes the bit in their teeth and runs with it.

How do you develop your plots and your characters? Do you use any set formula?
I get the basic idea and then while I'm driving to work, I do my best to make it both logical and plausible. It's kind of like solving a puzzle. How do I get from point A to point B?

What book are you reading now? Any favorite authors/books you want to do a shout out for?
I'm not reading anything right at this moment. Maybe later today, I'll start a new book, if I get my writing and other chores done first.
I did recently beta read two wonderful stories: Leather+Lace by AB Gayle and Easy Ryder by Deanna Wadsworth. You will want to get your hands on both once they are released.

What do you do to unwind and relax?
Cuddle up in my recliner with a blanket and a good book. Frequently, I also have a child in my lap. Good times!

Do you have any suggestions for beginning writers? If so, what are they?
If you enjoy writing, write for fun. Don't get discouraged. It's also a good idea to start at one of the fanfiction sites to hone your skills. Write about something you enjoy.

What hobbies do you actively pursue?
Cross-stitch and writing.

Morning Person? Or Night Person?
Morning person. I pop right out of bed, often before the alarm goes off.

Coffee, tea or other drink to get you moving in the morning?
I post photos of hotties labeled "Morning cup of Joe" and "Double espresso", but I despise coffee! I rarely drink anything first thing in the morning. I do like a cup of tea when it's cold out. Doesn't happen too often in Houston, TX.

It's a new year so do you do resolutions or goals for the upcoming year?
I've got a few WIPs going right now. I intend to get at least half of them published. The Apollo's Men series first and anything after that is a bonus.

What is coming up from you in 2013? Anything you want to tease us with?
* I have an Alexios/Galen (Alexios' Fate 1.5) short story entitled 496 BC coming out in an anthology.
* I am also working on the continuation of Alexios and Galen's story, as well as another novel in the series called A Spartan Love.
* The first section of A Spartan Love I am calling Taming Theron, in which our young hero Andreas learns that food is indeed the way to a man's heart.