Brad Vance Author

That’s right folks. All of it over the $2,000 funding goal. So spread the word 🙂 (Edit, if you want to look up my contribution history to IAVA and other orgs, it’s all under my real name, Orland Outland, which is the name that *sounds* like the preposterous pseudonym…) http://kck.st/2ppS8cU I’ve told this story before, but now’s a good place and time to tell it again. When I wrote A Little Too Broken, there were all kinds of “military romances” out and about, mostly hetero, and mostly quite awful. They exploited the “new adult” “I’m broken” trope and created Navy SEALs, Special Forces dudes, all Heros with Dark Secrets, all written without the authors giving two fucks enough to even Google PTSD. It reeked of exploitation to me – profiting off the suffering these authors were dropping into their crappy soup for flavor. The fact that veterans were coming back with Dark Secrets, and it wasn’t the kind [MORE]

Read it here. The screenplay of “A Little Too Broken” is out and about for feedback, we’ll see! Got this from the guy who runs Scriptrevolution.com: “Very strong opening scenes Brad and an excellent idea to set it all in a Humane Society. Lots of emotion dynamics played with to keep the mind at work. I like the way you immediately set up the tone for this story by showing external vs internal contrasts in the character’s behaviour. I really hope the script gets the attention it deserves.” I got some helpful feedback from a screenwriter on Reddit about my tendency to editorialize emotions in Action lines. I promptly did another purge of that and reposted 🙂 That said, he added, “These are just my thoughts on what I read of the first few pages. I think you do some nice character work and the dialogue is fine.” And this from a reader of the novel: “I read the script, and though I loved the book, I LOVED this script even more. [MORE]

Here’s the link to the PDF. Okay, it’s the first draft, technically speaking, though I’ve gone over it a bunch of times and tinkered and rewritten. Now it’s time to unleash it on the world, for some to constructively criticize, and for some to say “u suck” (hey, it’s the Internet). I cried like a baby over some of this. And WTF, because I’ve been through this story how many times? I cried when I wrote the novel, when I rewrote and edited the novel, when I did the audiobook (Patrick crying at dinner was not acting on my part), and now when I did the screenplay. So the question is, do I have a really emotionally intense story on my hands, that’s going to resonate with all kinds of people, or am I just a big blubbering baby who’s lost sight of reality? I know lots of readers have loved it to death, but how will it play outside the gayrom world? I’ll find out soon enough. I’ve had to make quite a few changes to the [MORE]

Not the worst month for the book, although the audiobook made, um, $4.49 on 4 sales. Whoo hoo… I was a bit of a drama queen on audiobooks the other day. “I’m not making the promised millions so fuck it.” Then I realized, you know what? If I’m sitting here, not doing an editing job or some other freelance thing for cashmoneynow, recording another audiobook is at least some extra income each month. I’m now actively finishing Would I Lie to You, and I’m using ACX going forward, because Amazon rules us all and 40% of lifetime bondage is better than 25% – commission on Authorsrepublic, and I get the sense that since almost every penny’s coming from Amazon/Audible sales anyway, well, duh. The screenplay for A Little Too Broken is 50% complete! You can see it here. Yeah, I’m excited. I have zero expectations of it ever being bought or turned into a movie, but if I can get some positive feedback (and harsh criticism) that will [MORE]

It’s been a crap last couple of weeks, with two episodes of “lung stuff” in a row, both of which have impeded most creative progress. I’ve been able to hit the A Little Too Broken screenplay because that’s been more like an editing/rewrite job, whereas writing Conning Colin has been about generating brand new content, wrestling with motivation and story arc, etc. And that’s not really compatible with a racking cough, and Z-pack, and fatigue. (And the fact that I want it to be really really good and I had to make some story arc decisions and change the rest of the outline, which meant fewer actual content wurdz each day towards the total count.) So, CC is still coming in May, just not May 1. And as for audiobooks, well, I’ve had one damn lung or stomach thing after another the last six months, and ta da! now it’s allergy season. So my goal is to at some point, somehow, finish Would I Lie to You: The Audiobook, but… that may be [MORE]