The Home for Mell Eight's Original Fiction
Mell Eight is an author of LGBTQIA original fiction, primarily M/M.
If that is not your thing, hit the back button, otherwise welcome and enjoy!
If that is not your thing, hit the back button, otherwise welcome and enjoy!
Out Now:
Heartbeat
October 3, 2018 
Coming Soon:
If A Butterfly Don't Fly
More Information Coming Soon 
The Coup and the Prince
More Information Coming Soon 
Current Projects:
Submitted Projects:
I have been working with Less Than Three Press since December 2011.
Supernatural Consultant Volume One received this award.
Ground of Insurrection was Nominated
Hadash Aviv was Nominated
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1/5/19
I hope everyone had a happy holiday season and a good new year. So far, my new year is starting off well. I have lots of news to share, but first I want to tell you my new years resolution for writing: Get all my edits done on time! Conversely, if I'm struggling with the edits, contact LT3 well ahead of the deadline so we can work something out before it gets away from us both. I'm not going through that again this year, and it's not right that I put LT3 on the spot like that. 2019 is a new year with a new start where I will juggle my real life and my writing life competently. With that out of the way, on to my news: Edits have returned. The Sentinel's Prophesy has arrived in my inbox to start the editing process, which I'm super exited about. There's always a lot to do for the first round of edits, but nothing crazy jumped out at me after a quick glance through. I started working on it already and I hope to get a big chunk completed this weekend. By Sunday night I should know how crazy this round will be, and how many rounds of edits this particular story will need. I want to get Prophesy back to LT3 quickly because I'm expecting edits for the two postponed stories to appear at any moment. Both If A Butterfly Don't Fly and The Coup and the Prince went back for more edits. I don't know what the timeline is for either story, which means I don't know when to expect them back, and in the interest of avoiding overlapping edits (which is one of the things I had issues with last year), getting Prophesy completed soon is a high priority. Two of my stories have had their contracts renewed. Road to Home, book two of my contemporary spy thriller series, will continue to be sold through LT3 without interruption. I will not be making any edits or changes, so if you own the book don't worry, and if you don't own the book, you have plenty of time to get your copy. The other renewed contract belonged to Wings of the Stars, a short sci-fi story I wrote for LT3's A Loose Screw collection. Wings of the Stars is technically the second story in a series I've always loosely called Space Stars. The first book in the series, My Truest Love, was written for LT3's Rocking Hard anthology, and it went out of print a few years ago. Therein lies the dilemma. If I wanted to renew Wings of the Stars, I needed to do something with My Truest Love. I spoke with LT3 and they have accepted My Truest Love again. I would like to have new covers made for both stories that reflect the fact that they're in a series together. I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes. The last bit of news is that the voting for M/M Romance's Best books of 2018 closed. I have to wait until next weekend to learn how Ground of Insurrection did. There was a lot of competition, but I'm still hopeful. Thank you to everyone that took the time to vote. 12/16/18
Today only, Magnified is .99 cents at LT3. If you haven't read it yet, this is a great chance to get a copy: https://lessthanthreepress.com/books... Magnified is a vampire story and is probably the closest I'll ever come to writing horror, and is one of my favorite stories that I've written. I think you'll like it too. Ground of Resurrection was accepted for publishing by LT3! I'm really excited and I honestly hope this is a sign that I will be able to get back on track. I'm still waiting for word on If A Butterfly Don't Fly and The Coup and the Prince, but having this small success is definitely helping me get my confidence back. I'm hoping this week will therefore be a good one for writing. I am soooo close to finishing writing Ge-Mi: Part Two; with a couple days of focused effort I just might be able to do it. Wish me luck! Ground of Insurrection, the prequel to Resurrection, is available to vote for at the M/M Romance Awards on Goodreads. I'm trying not to spam your inboxes with this, but I'm still so stoked about being nominated and I really want Insurrection to do well. I have recently learned you have to be a member of the group to vote, so if you are a member please consider Insurrection as your choice! You can vote here: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/181365-best-fantasy-you-must-click-on-the-book-you-would-like-to-vote LT3 has confirmed receipt of Wounded Alpha, so it continues to be a game of patience on my part. I have to wait for the call to close and for LT3 to go through all the submissions before I'll hear, but the story was so interesting to write and I just want to know now. I can be patient, I promise, but it's definitely something I'm super excited about. Until then, it's back to writing! 12/11/18
Ground of Insurrection has been nominated in the Best Fantasy of 2018 category in the M/M Romance Awards! It's an honor just to be nominated, but now comes the real test: winning. Voting is open right now and all you have to do is click a link on their Goodreads page to participate. There's stiff competition from other authors I really respect, but I think Insurrection has a chance to beat them all! I just need your help to get there. Please, if you have a minute, go check out the awards and vote if you're so inclined: www.goodreads.com/poll/show/181365-best-fantasy-you-must-click-on-the-book-you-would-like-to-vote I really appreciate it! 12/2/18
I don't know what sort of crud I've got, but it's been a slow recovery. The fever finally broke, but I've still got a bit of a cough. The problem is, I'm still finding it hard to concentrate. My body just wants to curl up and sleep it off, while I wanted to spend this weekend writing instead. That's just not going to happen. I need this crud to go away so I can get back to a regular routine that includes getting some writing done. I was able to get a last edit of Wounded Alpha completed and I went ahead and submitted it to LT3. The call doesn't close until the end of January, so LT3 won't take a look until then, but now it's one less worry on my plate. I can instead focus on all the other things I know will be coming, including a lot more edits. Until then, I am going to continue plucking away at all my stories to see if I can get some completed. One thing I was able to take a look at was Thunderbird (one of the stories I'm hoping to submit with my fairy tales), and I'm concerned about it. Way back when, I submitted it to LT3 and they rejected it. They were kind enough to provide a reason why and after looking through the manuscript again, I can see that they were right. I need to add a few more scenes in order to smooth out the issue, but I'm not finding that an easy task. The problem is, as the story stands now, it flows nicely. The plot and the world building both work as they are. I just need to make a few tweaks to one of my characterizations, and one or two additions to the romance, yet I can't decide where to cut into the story to start adding those changes. Anywhere I try, I leave blatant hatchet marks in the plot and the flow immediately dies. I don't want to scrap this story as I think it's the most unique one in the bunch, but I can't resubmit it as it stands, which means I've reached an impasse. Does anyone have any suggestions? Aside from fixing Thunderbird, I have two other stories in my fairy tale bunch to finish. A Heart's Dream started out as yet another Cinderella rewrite, but I'm trying to get it to go more of a Sleeping Beauty route. I think that will fit better with the characters, but planning that out has been really slow going. Trip Trop Trail, my Billy Goats Gruff rewrite, hasn't been worked on at all. I was trying to get A Heart's Dream completed first, which has left Trip Trop Trail patiently waiting. Unfortunately, it's going to have to continue to wait as I have a few other things I need to get done first. Only once all three of those stories have been completely worked out can I start looking at final edits and formatting, which is months away. 11/29/18
I am home sick today. Sore throat, low grade fever, cough. Ugh. I keep waking up from a nap and wondering when I can take another nap. It sucks. Even if I had the energy to write, which I don't, I can't use my leave from work for writing purposes. Instead, I'm hoping to read a good book. Since I didn't have edits this past weekend, I got to read Mercenaries of the Stolen Moon by Megan Derr, which just came out. I enjoyed it so much I went and reread the rest of the series...again...and bought Mercenaries in print. Now I need something else to read in between my naps today. I've got an overstuffed bookshelf in my apartment and a bunch of ebooks on my computer, so I'll figure something out. Here's some super wonderful good news: Ground of Insurrection has been nominated in the Fantasy category in M/M Romance's 2018 Members' Choice Awards on Goodreads! The last book I had nominated was Hadash Aviv back in 2013. Given I only have two books eligible for nomination this year, having even one of them chosen is amazing. Voting opens next month and I'll post all the links you'll need then. I don't have any news to share about my upcoming books. If A Butterfly Don't Fly and The Coup and the Prince are still in process, I know that much, but I don't know anything else about them just yet. The Sentinel's Prophesy is also going to start the editing process sometime soon. Ground of Resurrection has been submitted, but I won't hear whether it's been accepted for a few more months. As for writing, I've had a good week. Ge-Mi: Part Two is almost there! I've had to pause actually writing in order to organize and plan the final battle scene, but that's led to good progress. I am hoping to have it completed by the end of the year. Wounded Alpha, my story for LT3's Bound by Nothing call, has been sitting for long enough. I'm thinking if I have some energy tonight, I might start giving it a final edit. I've decided it would be better to get it done and submitted sooner, just in case I get drowned in edits again. The last thing I want is for the submission deadline to arrive while I'm busy with other things. This way it's one less thing on my plate. For now, though, it's time for another nap. |
