Z.A. Maxfield

It’ll nearly be like a picture print from Currier and Ives

These wonderful things are the things we’ll remember all through our lives. (Mitchell Parrish)

Okay, we don’t have snow here, and that kind of makes sleigh riding difficult.  I always wanted to do it though, and wonder if there’s any place even remotely close where one might have the opportunity.  

The very first thing I ever wrote with the idea of submitting it, (here’s where I’m going to lose EVERYONE) was a “Win a Dream Date With (unnamed celebrity) Contest”.  That was when I was about ten, and it was probably held by Tiger Beat Magazine.  I very carefully hand wrote a lovely scenario, a dream date, what would it be like, how it would go, how it would end.  My very first stab at romance writing.  In it I included a sleigh ride, an isolated chapel eerily unoccupied and lit with branches of candles everywhere.  Me in a full length white velvet ensemble with a fur muff (how uncool now), and probably, because I was ten, the entire thing culminated with a marriage proposal.  

There was weeping, and gasping, and a humble acceptance with moist eyes.  

I was TEN, okay?  

I brought all this up because from that day until I submitted the story “Catch Me If You Can,” which you’ll find on the Freebies page on this website, I never submitted another thing, and that was many, many long years.  Yet that one took second place at Yaoicon, (and you can blame them for encouraging me) and that was 2007.  In 2008 I had three novels and a short story published and I’m still pinching myself.  

And yeah, that ten-year-old is still twirling around the den in her mind to “Copacabana” (No the unnamed celebrity was NOT Barry Manilow) And NO, I didn’t win that contest.  I wrote the whole thing out in longhand on Mickey Mouse notebook paper and I’m thinking that there was a submissions guidelines epic fail.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eek-XeZvHn0[/youtube]

Happy New Year. Maybe the highs and lows of this year will reverberate through many years to come, but there’s always room for hope that the world will work itself out, become a nicer place to live, and we can all spend the next few hours thinking about our place in it.

I’m hoping everyone’s dreams come true…

With Warmest Regards,

~ZAM~

Here, at Loose Id.  So of course that means I’m off the clock for the rest of December, a whole two days!  Then we’ll have that drawing on January first and see who wins my books**!  I want to thank everyone for their support this year; it’s been such a whirlwind of crazy new things for me.  I need a video!  This?  Calls for

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vgy9Va1kKvM[/youtube]

Hrithik Roshan

**Go to my Yahoo Group, Z.A. Maxfield’s Cyber Cafe here, and simply join to enter!!

I put all my book trailers under the heading Video Book Trailers at “Find It Here” 

on my website blog page.

The I Do Anthology

An anthology of stories by authors dedicated to Marriage Equality. All the profits from the book will go to to Lambda Legal Fund.   

I am so thrilled to be a part of this, and humbled too, by the number of fine writers who have donated stories.  (If you see Alex Beecroft, who was the one to propose the idea, that’s me hanging on her coattails and her every written word. Write like the wind, Alex!)  

I Do will be available in January.  Printing costs and distribution services have been donated by the phenomenal people at MLR Press. 

This Anthology defines “Labor of Love”, and I’m so proud!

TABLE OF CONTENTS??

The Lindorm’s Twin Brother by Tracey Pennington??

Desire and Disguise by Alex Beecroft??

The Roaming Heart by Charlie Cochrane??

Outed by Clare London

??Lust in Translation by Storm Grant

??Making memory by Lisabet Sarai??

Swansong by Sharon Maria Bidwell??

Finally Forever by Jeanne Barrack??

Code of Honour by Marquesate??

Tango and Temptation by ZA Maxfield??

The Mistake by Pat Brown

??Holy Macaroni (and Cheese) by Allison Wonderland??

The Snow Queen by Erastes??

Better than beautiful by Zoe Nichols and Cassidy Ryan

??Semi-detached by Emma Collingwood??

Rules of the Game by Mallory Path

??Templeton’s In Love by Jerry Wheeler??

True Love by Moondancer Drake??

Salad Days by Fiona Glass??

Wedding Announcement by Lee Rowan

First look at the new video!  

This was my Christmas gift from Zoe, my daughter, the Evil Video Genius.  This one bored her because it was so somber, but out of filial love she completed it on time and under budget!  

**Please watch it in high quality at the YouTube site and comment if you like it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogj535dBHUI[/youtube]

On Christmas Eve is figuring out how to put my Christmas story on the web, but, AHA! I figured it out. So all you have to do in order to find out about Barry and Ethan’s first Christmas together is click on the link that says Merry Christmas on this blog page at my website under the words “Find It Here”

It’s 1978.  Ethan and Barry have moved to San Francisco.  Karen Carpenter is singing “Merry Christmas Darling” (a lot).  Ethan’s been disowned by his parents, Barry misses his. They’re both trying to stay warm, look on the bright side, and be the only family they’ll ever need.  But times are hard, money’s tight, and as usual, nothing goes like Ethan planned…

Please enjoy The Cursed Noel, and hug your own families a little tighter tonight if you can!

Hugs and gratitude,

Don’t forget you can join my Yahoo Group and still be eligible for for the New Year’s Day drawing until December 31st, at midnight EST.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZAMaxfieldsCyberCafe/

~ZAM~

I’m running out of stupid exclamations.  But really, I couldn’t be more shocked.  I was getting my daughter’s friend a book on Amazon and decided to check out… well… MOI, and there I was… # 10 on the gay and lesbian bestseller list for Kindles.  Here

This changes hourly, and then, when I showed my husband I was #2.  Okay.  I’ve been sick for a few days, and now I dunno.  I’m just so amazed to see myself there at all!  *gasps*  

Okay, I’m seriously working on that Ethan and Barry story to have it all wrapped up and under the tree for you by tomorrow night, when even silly google-wanking writers (oh, you knew that’s what I was doing, didn’t you?) will be tracking Santa’s progress with the offspring and searching the sky for a little red-nose-reindeer.  

I couldn’t have a better year without accidentally losing four sizes and finding the money for a new wardrobe in the attic.  Everyone of the people at my publishing houses and on my flist and in my yahoo group and with whom I’ve had reason to correspond has become very dear to me.  Thanks everyone, I’ll post again tomorrow, but right now, I just wanted to say wow.  And Happy Holidays.  

I just discovered The Long Way Home is a Kindle Edition at Amazon!  I have a Sony eReader which I only purchased a week before the Kindle came out, what rotten timing!  It’s not that I don’t like my reader, it’s just that the Kindle sounds so much sexier.  I’m a Kindle Edition, Rawr.  Kiiiiiiinnnndle, like ‘light something on fire’.  Hmm…

Don’t forget you can still be one of the first folks join my Yahoo Group, here, so you can tell everyone you knew me when (I wasn’t a homeless old woman living in her car and talking to statues. ) I might have mentioned that I’m having a drawing on January first and everyone will have the chance to win a signed print copy of Crossing Borders, and eBook copies of The Long Way Home and St. Nacho’s.

I’m delighted to announce that my short story, “Tango and Temptation”, was accepted by the team of writers who were making the decisions for the charity anthology “I DO”, spearheaded (and I don’t think that’s a metaphor, I think she really has a spear, ) by Alex Beecroft.  This book will be released in February by MLR Press, and all the proceeds will be given to Lambda Legal to support marriage equality.  

Alex is such a terriffic person and a wonderful writer.  I wish I had all the names, but I know some of my favorite writers are involved which makes me feel like I was picked for the cool kids team at school. When there’s more to follow up with on this story I’ll be sure to share it.  

Yes, now you know why all those YouTube tango embeds…

You can see from the ‘Freebies’ page on my website that marriage equality is a cause dear to my heart so you can imagine how delighted I am to be able to participate in this way.   

Hey! This just in… for those of you who have been following the Freebies Uber Couple, Barry and Ethan, sometime before Christmas Eve, I’m going to share the story of their first Christmas together, in “The Cursed Noel”.   

Their love was new and the boys were poor!  Ethan’s family had disowned him and Barry’s wanted him home for Christmas.  Ethan was surly and declared that they were a family and didn’t need anyone else, trying to make Barry choose. Barry was understanding until he had good reason to think Ethan might have made other plans.  Christmas 1978: Karen Carpenter is singing ‘Merry Christmas Darling’, and everyone is still dancing disco, and Ethan’s plan to wrap his lover in beautiful music almost causes the whole thing to end there and then.

I tried to do this though the invocation of the super mysterious “Special Notice” powers on my Yahoo group.  I failed quite spectacularly.  Once again that which my preview showed me turned out to be not at all what showed up on the finished project.  Hmmm…

Okay, according to this, I have a picture, now I just need a link thingy…

If you press here, it should take you to the polls, that is, if you can do it without joining a group.  And yeah, if you have to join, it’s a total pain in the butt.  And since it’s just because I’m an egomaniac, anyway, so you’re probably asking yourself right now, “Is it worth it?”

The answer is categorically, emphatically no, nyet, never, and yet… **has big kitty eyes and quivering lips** whole WARS have been fought for less, right?