What I should have been doing this afternoon: Working on my book.
What I did instead: Wrote a Nancy Drew parody story about Antiques Roadshow.
Eh, it happens.
Please enjoy. :P
(more…)Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category
Pansy Crewe and the Mystery at the Antiques Roadshow
Posted: July 3, 2020 in Books, Feminism, General Weirdness, LGBT, nancy drew, queer stuff, Short Stories, WritingTags: antiques roadshow, lgbtq, nancy drew, pansy crewe, parody, queer, short fiction
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TJ Talks to TJ: A Totally Normal Author Interview
Posted: June 30, 2020 in Blog, Chosen, guardians, Interviews, LGBT, queer stuff, Works In Progress, WritingTags: author interview, books, chosen, fantasy, gay fiction, guardians, LGBTQ+, now my search history includes venereal disease, queer fiction, queer stuff, totally normal interview, works in progress, writing
Greetings, friends, and thank you for joining us. My name is TJ, and today I’m going to be interviewing…*checks notes*…TJ.
TJ: Thank you for having me, TJ.
TJ: It’s my pleasure, TJ.
TJ: Do you think this format might end up being somewhat confusing and/or irritating for readers?
TJ: Most likely. Well, let’s begin! So, TJ, first of all, why don’t you tell us something incredibly fascinating about yourself. No pressure.
TJ: Uhh… Well, I was a three-time Scrabble champion in elementary school, and I used to be able to do a round-off back handspring without killing myself in the process. Is that fascinating?
TJ: Eh. Let’s move on. Tell us about your books.
TJ: Sure thing. My first book came out way back in 2007, and it’s a gay romance called Talking About Fungus because I didn’t listen to the repeated pleas of my writer friends and change the title to something that did not bring to mind venereal disease.
TJ: Good call on that one.
TJ: My second book, Following Grandpa Jess, came out in 2013 and involves no fungus of any kind. While it was marketed as a gay romance, it’s really more of a family story with a gay romance in the midst of it, and I find it far less cringey to look back on than TAF.
TJ: TAF being…
TJ: Talking About Venereal Disease.
TJ: Gotcha. Well, this is all very fascinating. Why don’t you tell us now about the projects you’re working on currently? Our reader(s) desperately want(s) to know more about them, I’m sure.
TJ: Well, the one I’ve been focusing on lately is Guardians, a YA LGBTQ+ fantasy/action novel in which queer teens fight to save the world from an invasion of dimension-hopping body snatchers. The book is actually in its final editing phase, though I’m sure I’ll wake up at 3 AM some night with the realization of a massive plot hole that will require me to deconstruct the entire story and build it back up again from scratch. For now, though, it’s pretty much finished – huzzah!
TJ: Huzzah indeed. And why do you think Guardians is worth our reader(s) caring about even the slightest tiny bit?
TJ: Well, it’s a pretty fun adventure, for one thing, and really one of my goals in writing it was to set a story in my hometown in Western Pennsylvania (one of the whitest, straightest places on Earth) and then fill it with queer people and people of color. So that is what I have done. :D
TJ: Well, it sounds like our reader(s) will have a gay old time reading it.
TJ: I hope they do, TJ. I hope they do.
TJ: And your other project, TJ?
TJ: My other project is Chosen, a queer fantasy epic I’ve been working on for the past 7,000,000 years [citation needed]. I’ve actually finished it a bunch of times and then scrapped it and started over, because I enjoy rolling boulders up and down hills for eternity, apparently.
TJ: Wonderfully obscure reference, thank you.
TJ: You’re welcome.
TJ: Well, I think we’ve just about run out of time, so why don’t you tell our reader(s) where they can find you on social media, buy your books, etc.
TJ: Well, if you want to buy my books, you can head over to the Books page and buy-buy-buy away, and if you want to find me on social media, I’m @TJBaerAuthor over on Twitter.
TJ: Glorious. Well, thank you so much for being here with us today, TJ.
TJ: I didn’t really have a choice in the matter, TJ, but you’re welcome, and thank you for having me.
TJ: Wonderful.
TJ: Indeed.
Site revamp, shiny new covers, and cats
Posted: June 17, 2020 in Blog, Books, LGBT, Short Stories, Works In Progress, WritingTags: book covers, books, cats cats cats, ladies in love, lgbtq, queer fiction, rain would come, short story, site revamp
So, if you’ve stopped by the site lately, you may have noticed that everything is completely different.
Yes. Hi. I did that. :D
It was time for a change, so I revamped the site entirely, making it easier to access my books, check out my blog, read the bad sci-fi of my youth, and (of course) learn more about my cats. (Because come on, we all know that’s the kind of content you’re really here for.)
I also, through the help of Fotor’s Book Cover Maker site, created some spiffed up covers for several of my projects, including a shiny new one for my 2013 short story, “Rain Would Come.”
And hey, did you know that you can go buy “Rain Would Come” right now on Amazon for the low-low price of $0.99? IMAGINE.
Anyway, if you feel so inclined, take a stroll around the new site, browse through my books, check out my works in progress, and learn about the Feline Management Team, a vital part of the T.J. Baer organization.
In which gay teens fight monsters
Posted: May 25, 2020 in LGBT, Works In Progress, WritingTags: alisha, gay fantasy, gay teens fight monsters, guardians, lgbtq, wip, works in progress, writing
I’d hoped to get some writing done today, and shockingly, I did! :O
…but not on the project I was actually hoping to work on. Ah, well. :P I’d been hoping to add to my forever-WIP and gay fantasy epic (TM), Chosen, but instead I unearthed a long-ago begun story and added a few chapters to it.
Said story is tentatively entitled Guardians, and it’s a fun little YA story about teens fighting monsters and trying to stop the end of the world, because that plot hasn’t been done before.
The story, though, is surprisingly engaging, and I can say that because I started writing it long enough ago that it no longer feels like something I wrote. :P The main character, Alisha, is a kickass seventeen-year-old with frizzy hair and a talent for fighting monsters and keeping her narcissistic younger brother out of trouble. Her mother fought monsters back when she was a teenager but now is Retired, and her dad is a researcher who likes punning, Doctor Who, and annoying his children in the most loving way possible.
I have, of course, felt obliged to put as much gay into the story as possible, so Alisha’s older sister has a girlfriend, her brother’s love interest is an awesome trans girl, and Alisha has definite chemistry with nemesis and fellow teen monster-hunter, Belladonna.
Anyway, here’s a quick excerpt from a draft of a scene when Alisha visits Belladonna’s excessively nice house in search of info about this whole ‘end of the world’ thing:
How could I sneak with this fine physique?
Posted: May 22, 2020 in Blog, Chosen, General Weirdness, LGBT, Teacher Life, Works In Progress, WritingTags: chosen, garfield, glorious gayness, lgbtq, perfect strangers theme song gives me life, project gutenberg, protect wrong hordak at all costs, scorpia mvp, she-ra, teacher life, they're the ants who ruin your dinner, tv shows of my childhood, writer life, writing
Greetings, friends. Greetings and hello and hello and also greetings.
I find myself with a bit of time to spare this evening, so I thought it was about time I posted an update. So to all those readers who have been weeping bitter tears into their pillows at night wondering when I would return, you may now rest easy. Your prayers have been answered.
Memoir: June 12, 2009
Posted: June 21, 2019 in Japan, LGBT, WritingTags: japan, LGBT, memoir, nonfiction, past-ten, publications, writing
A short memoir piece of mine about the challenges of being LGBTQ+ in Japan is being featured on the Past-Ten website, an excellent web journal that asks the question, “Where were you on this day ten years ago?” If you feel in need of a short venture into my mental state in 2009, feel free to check it out. :P
Direct Link: June 12, 2009 by T.J. Baer
Chosen and Queer Ladies in Media
Posted: May 26, 2019 in Chosen, Feminism, LGBT, Sci-fi, WritingTags: all the gifs, awesome ladies bein awesome, books, captain marvel, caramon kinda is kronk tho let's be real, chosen, commentary, dragonlance, LGBT, marvel, queer, raistlin, she-ra, star wars, video, Vlog, writing
Creating this five-minute video somehow took all freaking morning (and beyond), but I’m fairly satisfied with the result, so I suppose all is well. :P In any case! A look at my ongoing LGBTQ+ fantasy series, Chosen, and the general state of queer and powerful ladies in media, accompanied by a great many gifs because a video of just my voice + a black screen would probably be less than scintillating.
“Jump” on Flash Fiction Magazine
Posted: April 3, 2019 in WritingTags: action, fiction, flash fiction, flash fiction magazine, jump, writing
I’ve recently had a few short fiction pieces accepted by literary publications, and the first one is live, live, LIVE!
You can now find “Jump,” a short action piece, on Flash Fiction Magazine‘s website, direct link here:
“Jump,” T.J. Baer.
If you read it and find yourself overflowing with love and admiration, feel free to leave a comment. :P
On Chosen and queer lady vegans
Posted: February 24, 2019 in Books, Chosen, Feminism, LGBT, Vegan and Vegetarian, Works In Progress, WritingTags: chosen, gay fantasy epic, lady power, LGBT, lgbt fantasy, queer lady vegans, vegan, works in progress, writing
Greetings, friends. Today I found myself faced with a truly monumental decision: Should I watch The Jeffersons marathon or the Supermarket Sweep marathon?
Sometimes life is hard.
In other news, I’ve been doing some work on Chosen (also knows as the LGBTQ fantasy epic I’ve been chipping away at since approximately the age of the dinosaurs), attempting to inject some more action and awesomeness into the book. It’s going pretty well so far, and I’ve also done another experimental gender-switch and transformed the main love interest, Nicholas, into a female character who is primarily attracted to women. This wasn’t something I planned, but it makes her romance with Kaine (biologically female but male by every other definition) all the more interesting and complex, and also ups the number of main female characters.
In which I am old and TAF gets a new release (probably, eventually)
Posted: October 28, 2018 in Blog, Books, General Weirdness, LGBT, WritingTags: books, gay fiction, kdp, LGBT, old, talking about fungus, vlogging vacay, writing
Taking a brief vacation from the new vlogging obsession, I thought I’d compose a short post that actually pertains to writing – ho ho. I recently realized that my first novel, Talking About Fungus, passed its ten-year publication anniversary last year, and that is both impressive and deeply, deeply unsettling, for it further underscores the fact that I am old.
Old.
Old.
OLD.
So, yes, in sort-of honor of that milestone, I thought I would have another look at Fungus (I’ll take Weird-Sounding Sentences for 400, Alex), give it a little spiff-up, and then re-release it as Version 3. So, that is what I’m in the process of doing.
Unfortunately, Amazon Createspace, the platform I’d previously used to publish Fungus after its initial rights at Torquere Press reverted back to me, is now in the process of being swallowed up by the Amazon Kindle Store, and the Kindle Store – or KDP, as it jovially refers to itself – is giving me a great deal of grief in the republishing of said book. Rather than going into details about that (Cliff’s Notes Version: non-matching ISBNs, cover text, cover image, cover text again – DIDN’T I ALREADY FIX THE COVER TEXT??!!, etc.), I’ll just say that the whole situation is In Progress, and hopefully soon I’ll be able to link to the new and improved print version of Talking About Fungus.
The good news is that the Kindle version was far easier to create, and thus I can in fact share that:
Talking About Fungus, **NEW AND SPARKLY AND IMPROVED** Version
This updated version boasts a new and semi-attractive cover, which will end up being slightly different for the print version since…well, see above re: KDP giving me grief. :P
I fixed a few formatting errors from version 2, deleted some of Jamie’s monologuing (which, as a kind reviewer pointed out in his Amazon review, does tend to go on a bit), and just generally tidied things up.
Another sign of my advancing age, perhaps, is that I now look upon the sex scenes (which multiple reviewers have informed me are quite tame) with an excess of embarrassment, and in general I just feel as if this is 100% the book of a Young Person (TM), which I presumably am no longer. Regardless, it’s still a book I enjoy reading and which I think does some things quite well, so if you’re in the mood for a quick and youthful read, perhaps give it a go. (It’s only 0.99 cents, so hey, why not? WHY NOT INDEED.)
Evidence above re: why writers should not do their own marketing.
Anyway, more on the print edition when information becomes available, and/or when KDP decides to stop tormenting me and just publish the durned thing. And yes, I did just say “durned,” because…
