This post is an act of thievery. I fully confess the crime. One of the things I look forward to seeing on my reader the most is one of Josh Lanyon’s occasional “Five Things I Love/Am Grateful For” posts (read the latest here), because I am all about sharing the love. I love that he shares his loves, and I love to share my loves. So get ready! (And apologies to Josh for the pick-pocketing.)

I am, to put it mildly, an enthusiastic person when I latch on to something great. I tell everyone I know about it (my friends can attest to this; I usually tell them at least five times each). I shout it from the rooftops. When I’m enamored by a person, place, or thing, I am like a cheerleader punch-drunk on pep and a gallon of Red Bull.

But.

These infatuations of mine usually have a shelf life. Exclusivity + frequency – availability / distraction X work overload, or something. This is not to say that I stop loving these things–far from it–but that my enthusiasm powers down enough to let something else shove a spoke into the hamster wheel that is my brain. All this to say that, every so often on this blog, I’ll write a post about some things that I love. But I’m giving it a little twist so that the lovely Mr. Lanyon doesn’t sue (please don’t, I’m a writer. I literally have some sunflower seeds and a 15-year-old TV to my name), in that these are five things I’m loving right now. As in, if you see me this time next week, I’ll still like them. But I (probably) won’t go full-on Tracy Flick on your ass.

So, without further ado, here are Five Things I’m Loving Right Now:

1. It seems fitting to get the party started with the author who inspired it all. One of the first M/M anthologies I ever read was His For The Holidays, because I am a sucker for holiday-themed romance at Christmas time. I am normally one of the biggest bah-humbugers of all time, so the fact that I love nothing more during my few late-December days off than to cozy up with a cuppa and a smutty Christmas tale confounds me. But it’s truly one of my great loves of the season. I quickly hunted down Men Under the Mistletoe for the same reason. But the past few Christmases, there haven’t been such anthologies–or maybe just not of that caliber.

This year, Santa has been especially nice because this Sunday, the anthology Comfort and Joy is being released. It features the estimable Mr. Lanyon, as well as my faves Harper Fox, Joanna Chambers, and L.B. Gregg. Four presents for the price of one! If I read one a week, it’ll be like a literary advent calendar. But who am I kidding? I’m waiting for my Boxing Day mug of chai.

2. The Flash/Arrow crossover episodes, “Flash Vs. Arrow” and “The Brave and the Bold”.

Best crossover in TV history. Exciting, angsty, and funny as hell, featuring hot guys in tight leather, science-girl power, scintillating sidekicks, formidable foes, and some touching, thrilling writing. If you’re not watching these shows, binge from the start!

3. London theater on demand. I thought it was a dream come true when I could go to my local cinema and see productions by the National Theatre live, like the incredible version of Frankenstein Danny Boyle directed, featuring Benedict Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller. Now there’s a web site that has a library of older productions you, like me, might have missed because… Oh, you live thousands of miles away and barely get a vacation every two years, if you’re lucky. Well, lady fortune has whammied you today, my theater-loving friends, because you can now watch “the best of British theater” in your jammies! Just subscribe to Digital Theatre, and let the streaming begin! It does cost a wee little something… but a lot less than a trip to London and a ticket, even from the half-price booth in Leicester Square.

4. This Medieval Princess Bathrobe from Think Geek. Because don’t we all want to pretend we’re Galadriel every once in a while?

5. I won’t often use this space to self-promote or talk about personal things, since it’s meant to be an exercise in fun, but I have just put out a new book and, as a consequence, I’ve had to confront some experiences that I’d been dreading for months. Namely, the reaction of my friends and family when they discovered I write M/M, and exactly what that means. I think most bookish introvert types like myself can relate to the fact that few of our online adventures spill into the real world, especially if you have a family that has very rigid/conservative ideas about things (I don’t mean that in the political sense). The point of it all is that it’s your private play time (though of course a lot of good can be done in the process) and people in your real life don’t know that much, if anything, about it. This was the case for me.

But when you publish a book, well, how can you keep that a secret? Especially from the people who love you. When I decided to focus on writing M/M, I knew that one day I would no longer be able to hide behind my computer. That actual living, breathing people I talk to on a regular basis would learn about this side-profession of mine, and I’d have to talk to them about it in the flesh. I should mention that I am not in any way ashamed of what I do. But I confess I was a bit nervous about how this all would play out.

Turns out, I didn’t need to be. My uncle joked that he wanted me to start writing M/F/F and my sister read some of the sex scenes to her friend over the phone. When I tried to hedge by saying that I know it’s weird, my sister corrected me and said it’s not. My mom read the book in two days and loved it. Something that had me quaking in my boots turned out to be no trouble at all, and I am so very grateful for that.

Hopefully you can find something in there to inspire you!

Selina 😀