I’m continuing with Kept Tears again. This takes place right after last week’s. Corrine and Aaron are at lunch and Rhys has just called to make a date with Aaron leaving him flummoxed.

“You made a date with a handsome guy with a sexy accent. Now, man up, put your phone away, and let’s talk about where you’re going and what you’re wearing.” She patted his hand, nearly bouncing on her seat.

He slipped the device into his pocket. “What makes you think you have a say in this, woman?”

“Because if someone doesn’t stop you, the date will be to the comic book store, and you’ll be wearing your Batman T-shirt.”

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 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!

I’m continuing with Kept Tears for now. This is the day after Aaron meets Rhys at the steampunk party. Corrine is Aaron’s classmate, best friend and fellow steampunk enthusiast. She sees it as her job to help Aaron to get back to a normal life as part of his post-war injury recovery. (it’s six lines but slightly more than six sentences since they were super short. I’m playing fast and loose with the rules this week).

As they waited for the rest of their lunch, Corrine leaned on the table, her eyes glinting. “Did you get Hottie’s number?”

A blush leapt up his face. “Yes.”

A wide grin bloomed. “Did you call him?”

“No.”

She tapped his toe with hers. “Why the hell not?”

“Because what man wants to go out with someone like me?” Aaron flexed his mechanical fingers. “One who wakes up screaming in the night and has a body that makes people flinch?”

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 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!

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.)