Cuddling: an anthology

I know I don't blog often. Usually this is because of a lack of something to say. I blog to get something off my chest, or to answer a question someone has asked me, etc. But hey! I have something to say tonight!

Cuddling, an anthology from Dreamspinner Press, is coming out August 12. It contains my short story, Quarter Moon Over a Ten Cent Town. The paperback is 17.99 and the ebook is 6.99. If you go to the Dreamspinner Press site you can even pre-order the darn thing! How cool is that? And you get stories by Anna Martin, Rob Rosen, Caitlin Ricci, Eva Clancy and many, many more!

Okay, that's the commercial. Really, buy the book.

I was thinking about my story in the book, Quarter Moon. There's a little bit of autobiography in there, just a smidge. For one, I live in a rural area. It's a 12 minute drive just to get to a small town such as the one described in Quarter Moon. A town with a Wal-mart? 15 minutes away. One with a Barnes and Noble, and a mall? That would be Rockford, 40 minutes away.

And that's not the only similarity. Way back in the day, I was in a relationship--I can hear my friend Matt asking "Was this before or after the dinosaurs?"--and we'd been together for about five years. Tension grew between us after a pal of mine, Chuck--who was straight, by the way--stayed overnight on our couch. I can't even remember the reason he slept over, but my bf became convinced that Chuck and I were having an affair. Of course, I didn't find out that this was what was causing the tension until about two weeks of the silent treatment had gone by. When I finally learned what the argument was really about, I laughed. Chuck? Really? Chuck? If I was going to go for a straighty, Chuck wouldn't have been my choice.

Now, when I wrote Quarter Moon, I certainly wasn't thinking about those days. At least not consciously. But maybe a little of that time creeped into the story. At least the notion that two people, even if they've been together for several years, can still make mistakes about each other and get their signals crossed. Life happens.