Kim Fielding's Blog

J. Scott Coatsworth & I have a new MM fantasy romance out, Chaos and Order book 1: Office of the Lost. And there’s a giveaway!

When Perfection Collides With Chaos, Sparks Fly

Crispin Eladrin, desk fae at the Office of the Lost, could find a needle in ten haystacks. His desk is so neat it would make an accountant blush, and he’s never failed to complete a recovery mission. He has no idea how adorable he is, especially when he’s at his most annoyingly officious.

Enter utterly chaotic Leopold Lane. His life is a masterclass in disastrous events–and it’s about to get worse. He’s the latest thing that Crispin has been sent to retrieve, but when they meet, sparks fly. Literally. And now they must find their way back before someone—or something—enchants them, eats them, or stomps them to death.

Neither knows why the Office of the Lost is so hell-bent on acquiring Leo, but they’re determined to survive long enough to find out–and to see if opposites really do attract.

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Giveaway

Scott & I are giving away a $20 Amazon gift card with this tor:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Direct Link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b60e8d47327/

Excerpt

Chapter One

Crispin Eladrin Moss’caladin was a by-the-numbers, check-all-the-boxes kind of fae, the only desk fae in the Office of the Lost with a ten-point-two perfecality score. This made his chest swell with pride whenever he thought of it, since it technically wasn’t possible to rise above a ten-point-oh.

He hummed happily as he worked his way down the Recovered Assets form, filling out every line with careful precision, dipping his quill in the inkpot with exactly the right angle and timing to collect the perfect amount of ink with nary a drop spilt on desk or parchment.

He was barely aware of the sounds of the other desk fae around him, sitting at the hundred or so identical white marble desks extending out from his like blocky petals of some strange stone flower.

Item Recovered? Check.

Item in Good Shape? Check.

Description of Item: Slightly used spelled red oak wand, possibly from the Third Dynasty.

World of Origin? Therrin.

And on and on, cataloging all the minute details of how he’d acquired the formerly lost object.

He glanced up at the hands of the enormous clock on the near wall. Five minutes to five. Perfect timing. He’d be home to his tree bole in the Greatwoods on Torevor—and his pet squirrel Minkis—right on time. Punctuality is Perfecality.

As he was slipping the form and the small box with its recovered contents into his outbox, a shadow darkened his sparkling clean desk, dimming its reflected glow.

Crispin swallowed hard and looked up into the beady eyes of his supervisor, Bidulla Krönk.

She was an ogre of a woman. Literally. Her sallow skin was the color of a rotten lemon, two pointed yellow teeth protruded a good three inches past her lips, and paint nearly melted off the walls when she smiled.

Like she was doing now.

“Hello, Curator Moscow.” Her voice was like a rake over gravel.

“That’s Moss’caladin.” He tried not to sweat, rather unsuccessfully.

She nodded. “Yes, Moscow, just like I said.” She sank down on the corner of his desk, and the far side lifted an inch off the ground. “I’m told you are doing excellent work.”

He wanted to cover his ears to block out the avalanche of sound, but decided that wouldn’t be at all proper. He should have been thrilled that his perfecality score was at last being noticed, but instead he wanted to shrink under his desk and hide until she left. He’d spent his entire career—well, if you could call five years a career—under the desk, figuratively, and he couldn’t imagine for the life of him how his cover had been blown. “Thank you, ma… Supervisor Krönk. I was just heading out—”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible.” And when she said afraid, it felt more like rumbly angry. But that might have been just her voice. Which, to be fair, was comparatively lovely for an ogre. Still, ogres weren’t known for a subtle expression of emotion.

“Why is that?” He found himself blinking and instead tried to stare at her politely, which somehow felt worse. She also had a strong… personal aroma, which was making his eyes water.

“Something urgent has come up, a task that we feel is more wisely left to one of our best curators.”

We? There was now a we who were aware of him? His heart dropped. “The best would be Curator Deepmountain, ma’am.” Theodor ur Deepmountain was a dwarf, and one of the most experienced members on the team. And by experienced, Crispin meant ancient; his long, wispy white beard was probably older than Crispin. Surely she’d see the wisdom in his suggestion.

She growled—or was it a purr?—and his entire desk shook. “We think this particular task needs more… finesse than Curator Deepmountain possesses. The Oracle specifically asked for you.”

Me? He suppressed a squeak, but there was the damnable blinking again. Crispin forced himself to stop.

Then he blinked again. She was complimenting him, in a heavy-handed, very ogre sort of way. The proper thing to do with compliments was to acknowledge them. Right? “Um, thank you?”

She nodded as if finally he’d done something right. “Here are the details. If you need anything, staff will provide it.” She handed over a dark blue folder with the Office of the Lost “OotL” logo embossed in gold. Some people called Crispin and his co-workers “oodles” as a result of the rather unfortunate acronym, but he stuck steadfastly to “curators.”

He peered over her shoulder. Three sylvan fae hovered behind her with clipboards and magical quills that never needed dipping.

Crispin sighed heavily. It was clear that there was no way out of this one, so he might as well acquiesce gracefully. “I see. Well then, I’ll go home and get a good night’s rest so I’m fresh for this most important task in the morning, and….”

Bidulla shook her head. “This matter is top priority.” She pointed at the proffered paperwork, and sure enough, it was stamped “Top Priority.” The red ink seemed to sizzle as he stared at it.

“You’ll leave tonight. With your… skills”—she said it as if there was still some doubt as to whether he possessed any—“you should be able to convince the subject to return with you forthwith.”

Author Bio

Scott

Scott lives with his husband Mark in a yellow bungalow in Sacramento. He was indoctrinated into fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine. He devoured her library, but as he grew up, he wondered where all the people like him were.

He decided that if there weren’t queer characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to his own ends.

A Rainbow Award winning author, he runs Queer Sci Fi, QueeRomance Ink, Liminal Fiction and Other Worlds Ink with Mark, sites that celebrate fiction reflecting queer reality, and was the committee chair for the Indie Authors Committee at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) for almost three years.

Website: https://www.jscottcoatsworth.com

Facebook (personal): https://www.facebook.com/jscottcoatsworth

Facebook (author): https://www.facebook.com/jscottcoatsworthauthor/

Mastodon: https://mastodon.otherworldsink.com/@jscottcoatsworth

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jscottcoatsworth.bsky.social

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jscottcoatsworth/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8392709.J_Scott_Coatsworth

QueeRomance Ink: https://www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/j-scott-coatsworth/

Liminal Fiction: https://www.limfic.com/mbm-book-author/j-scott-coatsworth/

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/J.-Scott-Coatsworth/e/B011AFO4OQ

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/j-scott-coatsworth

Kim

Kim Fielding is very pleased every time someone calls her eclectic. She writes fantasy, mm romance, science fiction, horror, and whatever else her muse demands.

Winner of the 2021 BookLife Prize for Fiction, a Lambda Award finalist and Foreword INDIE finalist, she has migrated back and forth across the western two-thirds of the United States and now lives in Oregon, where she will never have enough bookshelf space.

She’s a university professor who dreams of being able to travel and write full time. She also dreams of having two daughters who fully appreciate her, a husband who isn’t obsessed with football, and a house that cleans itself. Some dreams are more easily obtained than others.

Website: https://www.kfieldingwrites.com

Facebook (personal): https://www.facebook.com/pgerstenfeld

Facebook (author): https://www.facebook.com/KFieldingWrites

Mastodon: https://romancelandia.club/@KFieldingWrites

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/kfieldingwrites.bsky.social

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kfieldingwrites/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4105707.Kim_Fielding

QueeRomance Ink: https://www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/kim-fielding/

Liminal Fiction: https://www.limfic.com/mbm-book-author/kim-fielding/

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Kim-Fielding/author/B006FN2T78

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/kim-fielding

I’m getting ready for another journey. Pre-pandemic I traveled a lot, and this year I’ve come close to ramping back up to my old ways. This weekend I’m off to Germany for a week. This will be my third trip to Europe this year and my fifth time out of the country, both of which are personal records. I also did several long road trips this year and one journey by plane from California to Virginia and back.

Because I do travel a lot, I’ve developed some habits that make me feel comfortable and, I think, serve me well. Here are some:

On long air journeys, I bring a king sized Snickers. That way, if it’s late when I arrive and I haven’t had dinner, I don’t yet have to worry about finding my way around, making sure I have the local currency, etc. The candy will be substantial enough to tide me over until morning. For some reason, Snickers serves this role better than other candies.I pack light. Sometimes. If I’m going to be dragging myself around on buses and/or trains, which is often the case in Europe, I don’t want the hassle of a lot of luggage. During my two previous European trips this year, I took only a backpack and a carryon sized suitcase, which was fine for 2 weeks. I did sink laundry along the way. It’s a little harder when the weather is cold, as it will be in Germany next week. And if I’m going by car, I tend to overpack because why not?I always bring extra reading material. My Kindle of course, but also a paperback or two. Just in case! I also pack several pairs of cheap reading glasses: one for my purse, one to use in my hotel room, and one extra.I bring a print copy of addresses (of hotels, etc), my travel itinerary, and other things I need to know. Also just in case.I arrive super early at airports. I kind of have a thing about this. But I’d rather get there early and relax (I like to write in airports!) than stress, especially since I’m 100 miles from all of mine, and traffic can be iffy.If I have time, I spring for a paid tour with a local guide. Preferably a walking tour. I learn so much, and the sights become so much more meaningful. And I love getting to know the locals. I’ve met such lovely people!If I’m traveling somewhere English isn’t the first language, I try to learn at least a couple of polite words, like hello and thank you. People seem to appreciate the effort even if that’s all I can manage. Good walking shoes. Also Band-Aids and Glide in case blisters happen anyway.I try to take time to sit in a local cafe and just people-watch.I try to eat the local delicacies (although I don’t eat mammals, so sometimes this is a little tricky). I also visit local grocery stores if I can, because it’s really fun!I always back up my computer before I go. A couple of years ago, my laptop bricked mid-road trip, while I was in Nebraska. But I didn’t panic because I knew everything was backed up. I made do with my phone for the remainder of the trip and bought a new laptop as soon as I got home. I was able to upload everything from the old one really easily.

What are some of your treasured travel habits?

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I really love roadside attractions and quirky little museums–and I’m fascinated by the people who run them. This was one of the inspirations for my new novel, The Taste of Desert Green, in which one character owns a dinosaur/outer space themed museum in the middle of the Mojave. Sadly, Wally Harlow’s Fossil Galaxy exists only in my imagination. But here are some real places I’ve visited and enjoyed!

Oregon Vortex and House of Mystery : where objects seem to cool uphill, etc. Winchester Mystery House : built by the Winchester rifle heiress, it’s huge and… weird Icelandic Phallological Museum : a penis museum in Reykjavik, and it is amazing Meteor Crater : a big old hole in the ground, over 1.2K in diameter. There’s a space museum there too. Cadillac Ranch : an art project. A bunch of cars stuck upright in a field outside Amarillo, Texas. You get to cover them in spray paint Carhenge : more cars in the ground, this time as a scale model of Stonehenge, in very rural Nebraska Maryhill Stonehenge : another Stonehenge, this one to scale and made of cement, in rural Washington. The nearby Maryhill Museum is also extremely cool Museum of Broken Relationships : the original is in Zagreb. People have donated items from past romantic and other relationships, and little cards tell their stories Jerome, Arizona : this is a tiny former mining town, where the jail slid down the hill, the hotel is in the old hospital, and you can stand above a 1900-foot-deep mineshaft Neon Museum : at this place in Vegas, they’ve collected old neon casino signs. Visit at night! Vancouver Police Museum : includes the old city morgue Mutter Museum : medical museum chock-full of specimens Wyoming Frontier Museum : the former Wyoming State Penitentiary Trees of Mystery : giant redwoods and Paul Bunyan

Are there quirky museums or roadside attractions near you? Have you visited some good ones on your travels? Please share in the comments!

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Here we are, well into August, and my fall semester begins in 10 days. Sigh.

It’s been quite a summer. I went to Europe twice: to Paris and Florence with my husband and then, a few weeks later, to Zagreb, Lisbon, and Porto with my older daughter. Went to BayCon. Also spent a week on the Olympic Peninsula and a several days at Big Bear Lake. Had a very mild case of Covid. Helped my older kid move 100 miles north to her own place; she’ll be working on an MA in Economics. Took my younger kid to the airport to fly north for her second year of college. Spent hours and hours and hours doing day job department chair stuff. Taught a summer class.

I managed to get some writerly things done as well. The Taste of Desert Green, a fairly angsty contemporary set in the Mojave Desert, releases August 23. Farkas, a sort of retelling of Stoker’s Dracula (set in 1950s LA), just finished final edits and will release in October. There are plans in the works for an audio version as well, with one of our favorite narrators! A holiday novella tentatively titled Ash and Clay is currently in edits. And I’m working on the 10th Bureau book. Meanwhile, Joel Leslie is working on the narration of the third Bureau anthology (which includes Caroled and Camouflaged).

So a good summer, an extremely busy summer… and it’s nearly over.

In the last four months of the year, I’ll be looking at more travel adventures and, I hope, a lot more writing!

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I have a confession to make: I haven’t done any writing for over a month.

That’s actually a bit of an exaggeration. I have written things, and I’ve also edited things. But in May I got about two-thirds through a holiday story before life stalled me, and I haven’t revisited it yet.

I also haven’t written any novels this year (I wrote four last year!), although I have written a couple of novellas and a short.

I have reasons for this. The day job has been especially demanding. There’s lots of other stuff going on in my life. I’m very close to being an empty-nester, so I’ve been trying to spend extra time with my kids. I’ve been traveling again too–I was in Europe for two weeks in May and am currently in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest; in July I have trips planned to the San Francisco Bay Area, Europe again, and the Sierras.

So, yeah. Reasons. But I still feel guilty. I’ve stranded a human and a fairy mid-story, I have a 10th Bureau book eager to be written, and I have an entire herd of plot bunnies pounding on my door.

Sigh.

Anyway, the words are waiting for me, and I’ll return to them soon. In the meantime, I have a nice long novel due out in August, The Taste of Desert Green.

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My husband and I just got back from two wonderful weeks in Europe. I had a day job conference in Paris, so we spent a week there, and then we took the train to Florence. If you want to see a lot of photos, check out my Instagram posts.

A really weird thing happened in Paris. I woke up at 3:00 one morning with a tragic gothic ballad almost complete in my head. I’ve never written a ballad before, and poetry has never been my thing. I went back to sleep. But later that morning, as I sat in my conference trying desperately to grasp some of the French, the ballad was still there. So I wrote it down. My editor has it now, and if she thinks it’s not awful I’ll share it.

Now, the creative process is always mysterious. I fully understand why the ancient Greeks believed in muses, because often ideas just seem to appear from nowhere. So we can speculate about the source of my ballad. But here’s something interesting: I was staying in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, a very literary neighborhood. Sartre and de Beauvoir hung out in the cafes, as did Hemingway, Richard Wright, and Camus. Oscar Wilde died in that neighborhood, about two blocks from where I was sleeping.

There’s the view from my tiny hotel room, where there was a big window.

If you care to believe in such things, maybe the spirit of one of the neighborhood writers visited with my muse as I slept. Knowing her, she’d be delighted at the opportunity. And maybe, just maybe, the spirit and the muse cooked up a spooky little ballad to amuse me in the morning.

My muse, courtesy of Lex Glass Follow

I’ve been in a very grouchy mood this past week, mostly due to the day job. That’s been making it hard to work on my WIP, which is a light and fluffy holiday tale. I’m just not in the right mindset for light and fluffy–I want darkness and despair (with a happy ending, probably).

I don’t know to what extent this is true for other writers, but for me, the overall tone or mood of a story is as important as the characters and plot. In my head, I don’t just hear and see what’s going on–I feel it. My best writing happens when I become full immersed in the story’s world, so that I’m sort of a ghost experiencing events along with the characters and recording those events as they occur.

I find some moods especially easy to immerse myself in, such as mid-century West Coast noir (as you may have noticed from the Bureau series). Sometimes moods are influenced by my location. I’m likely to write a different kind of story while sitting on a balcony in a cruise ship, for example, than I would while sitting in a coffeeshop in the Loop in Chicago. Weather also plays a part–it can be a struggle to write a Christmas story when it’s the middle of summer and 110F outside. And of course the things happening elsewhere in my life can bleed over into the tone of the story. Like now, when my day job is frustrating me.

I don’t mind writing dark stories when I’m in a dark mood. In fact, I think it’s a little therapeutic in that it helps me express those feelings in a way that doesn’t hurt anyone (except my poor fictional characters). I often like reading darker stories for the same reason. And hey, if we can pull off an HEA or at least an HFN after the gloom and doom, even better.

But for now I need to finish the light and fluffy. We’re talking fairies, magical coffee houses, and holiday cheer. I’ll get there. Sigh. Maybe more caffeine will help?

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After allowing my yarn stash to sit dormant (and mocking me) for a decade or so, I’ve finally returned to it. I made a scarf/shawl thing that I really like. And last week I finally finished the Century Afghan!

The real name of this pattern is Lizard Ridge. But I knitted those many squares over a decade ago and picked them up again recently. It took another zillion years to join them and then knit on the million miles of I-cord edging. So I think of it as the Century Afghan. I blocked it yesterday and thanks to warmish, windy weather it’s almost completely dry this morning. I love the way it looks and I am so happy to have finally completed it!

I decided on socks for my next project. I have a lot of sock yarn. Unfortunately, the particular skein of yarn I choose was done up poorly by the original dyer and spent the last decade tangling itself into oblivion. Despite help from a swift and my patient husband, it was a knotted disaster that took hours to deal with. Niki helped too, toward the end.

As you can imagine, she was extremely helpful. But we finally have the yarn wound into submission, and today I can cast on the socks.

Oh, and in Book News: Did I mention that Potential Energy released last week?

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You know how sometimes very small things can be supremely satisfying?

I just drove my younger kid back to her college in Portland. It’s the same college I attended, a very, very long time ago. I haven’t lived in Portland since I graduated, but my family is up that way so I do visit. But here’s the satisfying thing–I remembered exactly which lanes I needed to be in for the somewhat convoluted route between the college and my parents’ house. I felt very competent.

Here’s another satisfying thing. I always feel slightly cheated when I see those signs on the highway warning of wildlife, but then don’t see the actual wildlife. Today, though, there was an elk sign–and a mile or two later, there was a herd of elk. Exactly where they were supposed to be! Clever animals.

And then I got to my hotel (the drive is 700 miles, so a bit much for one person in one day) and I was hungry. I had a Grubhub gift certificate. I was in the mood for something different from what I usually eat. And lo and behold–empanadas! And with tip and fees, my order came in almost exactly at the gift certificate amount.

Of course, major things satisfy too. Like the release of a new book. Potential Energy is available in a couple of days–April 5–and I’m ridiculously excited about it.

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I’m planning travel.

Yeah, I know. I just got back from a trip. But I do love to go places, and if the world keeps on turning properly, I’ll be going lots of places in the next 7 months. Oregon. Paris. Florence. Washington state. Canada? Lisbon. Zagreb? San Francisco. Virginia.

In the Time Before, this wasn’t an unusual number of trips for me. In 2019, for example, I had an overnight trip at least once a month. Not only does travel inspire a lot of my writing, but it’s important for my emotional health. It refreshes me and gives me new perspectives.

Now, of course, everything is weird. Not only has the pandemic messed everything up, but there’s so much political and economic instability. Planning travel feels uncertain and actually doing it feels risky. I also have some guilt feelings about enjoying gallivanting around while so many people are suffering.

I guess the best I can do is try to make positive contributions to the world, do a lot of Plan B and Plan C and Plan D preparation in case things fall through or disaster strikes, and cross my fingers. And when things work out well and I do get to go somewhere, I can enjoy and appreciate every damn minute.

And when I go, I’ll share photos.

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