This will be a short post. I haven’t had much time to write. No, that’s a lie. I’m wrapped up in a malaise. I don’t seem to be doing much of anything, not even helping out much around the parents’ house. I feel bad about it. I’m not sure what’s wrong, just like I’m stuck in molasses.

I did make a little progress on Aaron’s story for a charity anthology so there’s that.

I also managed to get a few more pages of the Cassadaga story edited through and realized that since it’s not a short story any more I can add some more scenes to make it feel less rushed.

I’ve made a plan to attack Blood Red when I get a chance which might not be til August since I didn’t bring the hard copy and I can’t find the final copy on my flash drive. Sigh.

Hopefully I’ll have more accomplishments this week coming.

This week I’m switching to  Kept Tears as I’m working on a short story in this universe for a charity anthology (but I don’t have enough of that to share yet). I’m still very happy with this one set in my home town area. This snippet is from chapter one where disabled vet, Aaron, has just met fantasy author, Rhys, at a steampunk party (and is completely unaware that Rhys is actually a Tylwyth Teg, a Welsh faerie).

Aaron licked his lips. Nervousness tied his tongue for a moment. His attraction to the stunning young man awakened his insecurities. He’d tried getting close to someone once or twice since the attack only to be met with a strange, inner vulnerability. He mentally fast-forwarded to the moment where he’d have to be intimate. Aaron imagined the rejection, the humiliation, when all his scars were uncovered.

Blurb Having left most of his arm and his self-confidence behind in the Afghanistan desert, young veteran Aaron Santori has enough on his plate learning to use his prosthetic arm. Attending graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh makes life both interesting and challenging. Mentally, he’s ill prepared for meeting Rhys Edwards, a young-adult novelist from Wales and everything Aaron could want in a man. Between the scars from the explosion and his PTSD, he’s reluctant to date. Ready or not, though, Aaron finds himself jumping into the deep end of the relationship waters.

What Aaron couldn’t possibly know is that Rhys isn’t human at all. As a prince of the Tylwyth Teg, Rhys is fae, with a list of enemies he’s accumulated over the past few centuries—among them a former lover, Morcant, who is back to make Rhys’s life miserable. An unwitting pawn in their Machiavellian fae politics, Aaron only knows he’s falling in love, never suspecting love might be his death sentence.

You can find Kept Tears here

If you’d like to play along, Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook community where we post up 6 sentences of one of our LGBTstories every Saturday. It’s been fun and you can find it here. Be sure to check out all the offers! It’s been a great supportive group!

I knew the writing might fall off a bit once I got back home with the parents. And of course it was my birthday this week and father’s day so not a lot of writing got done.

Speaking of which Happy Father’s Day!

I did write a poem for the Love is Love’s poetry anthology for one of the many writing charities to help the victims of the attack at the Pulse. I’m not usually much of a poet but hopefully I came up with something worthy of being part of it.

I do want to try a couple short stories too. I’m not sure I’ll have time for one of them unless I can muster some writing time and inspiration. I have the story. It formed in my head in the drive to Pittsburgh. I just need uninterrupted time. I’ll definitely have time for DSP’s so I’ll be working on one with Aaron & Rhys from Kept Tears.

I did hear back from DSP on Blood Red Roulette and it was disappointing news on one hand but hopeful on the other. They offered up many suggestions and asked for it back once I made the changes. I have to admit, they were all things that I was afraid of when I sent it in. If you go back several weeks you’ll see me listing them out here. Once I knock out these charity stories, I’ll get back to this (well maybe after camp nano). This story is too important to me not to try again.

Still no news on Corpse Powder and the weird west anthology.

Still contemplating trying that Dreamspun Desire, once I pick myself back up off the ground (I got the rejection on my birthday so yeah, a bit down but it’s only a failure if I don’t try again.)

Since Blood Red Roulette turned into a misfire (back to the drawing board) I decided to find something else to share. However, it’s a crazy busy weekend so why not something that’s already out there in the wild. And since I’m working on Dad’s computer right now with a version of word so old that it can’t open docx files, I’m rather limited.

Here’s a little something from Soldiers of the Sun, my 1930s demon hunters (menage, more action/adventure than actual romance). Temple has just met his new partner who is related to General Taglioferro, head of this faction of the Soldiers of the Sun (Taglioferro is the he Temple’s referring to).

“He said he was going to castrate me if I touched his niece!” Temple blurted out as his partners nearly doubled over, laughing at him. “I can’t believe that he partnered me with a bird,” he moaned.

“I can’t either. We all know what you’re like. You’re going to look stupid neutered,” Caleb wagged his head.

“He will get fat and doughy. With his coloration he will look like a plump snowman with a bloody head,” Agni said, rubbing his chin.

Blurb Caleb Davies and Agni Pradesh are worried about their teammate and lover, Temple Chevalier. Not only has he lost his long-time partner, Fu Li, but he nearly died fighting a demon himself. Also, Temple isn’t sure he’s ready for a new teammate after Li. Caleb and Agni are even more concerned that their three-way relationship with Temple exists less because he loves them and more because he’s hiding from the pain of Li’s loss.

1932 shapes up to be a terrible year for the Soldiers as they welcome the New Year fighting demons and then end up investigating a case that pairs them up with the Knights Templar. This would normally be a good thing, but it forces Temple to face his painful past. Worse yet, the case leads right to Astaroth, a Prince of Hell, who might prove to be an unbeatable foe.

You can find Soldiers of the Sun here

If you’d like to play along, Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook community where we post up 6 sentences of one of our LGBT stories every Saturday. It’s been fun and you can find it here. Be sure to check out all the offers! It’s been a great supportive group!

As little bit of a difference I’m going to talk about when things accidentally fall into place as I’ve not been writing much this week (tons of cleaning had to be done) . Also I’m still waiting on acceptance/rejection notification for Corpse Powder and Blood Red Roulette.

I’m noodling around with two new things. One that might be aimed at light and fluffy contemporary (as a challenge) and the other a SF short. The first I wanted to set partially in Vegas and partially in Columbus (as a counterbalance to all the research I had to do on Corpse Powder) as I know these places fairly well now. On the first few searches I only found one anime con in Vegas (and surprisingly Columbus has several but I knew that because I attend those!). It was also just far enough off strip (@ 1.5 miles) to be a pain in the butt. Then I found one that is on strip more or less. Huzzah. I don’t know what will become of this one but I’m considering it for camp nano.

So that fell into place for me. Then came Deveral. He’s from a SF short I’m working on (watch it not stay short). I knew for a couple of years ever since I saw this video that I wanted to have a character with chromatophores in his/her skin.

And I wanted a few other non-human attributes so I settled on the eyes (because I have a thing for eyes) and decided I didn’t want the cat pupils. Instead, I went with goat because they’re freaky . Being a biologist, I know that it’s more than just pupil shape at play here but I didn’t know all that much about goat eyes. A few minutes of research fixed that. One thing about them is they allow for great peripheral vision and are found in prey animals (goats, deer, horses etc). Okay then.

So I had two attributes that went with a species that gets preyed on. So now I’m working on an ancient predator (now extinct) that fed on these people. I don’t know if it’ll end up in the story but why not? It probably shaped their culture. Even if it’s one line, it’ll probably be there.

And now, back to my cleaning. Sigh.