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Rainbow Snippets

The struggle continues though this time I’m running behind because I got to go to a local production of The Mousetrap that was very good, surprisingly so and to a St David’s celebration. My area of Ohio is heavy on the Welsh heritage and we hosted a group of voice students from Wales for this. It was fun.

So we finally get to see Aneirin’s gift for his birthday and how displeased he is in this snippet from Behind Blue Eyes (Yes it’s way over 6 sentences but there’s no good place to break this)

There was nothing else Aneirin could do now but face the young man he’d been given. The Toymakers had sent him nearly naked, adorned with several necklaces of Zabetian glitter-stone and an improbable privacy cover that defied classification as an article of clothing. Luminescent green cloth as gossamer and brilliant as a butterfly wing wrapped over the Toy’s belly and hips. It did little to hide the sway of his genitals as he padded closer to Aneirin, his feet bare.

The Toy sank to his knees in front of Aneirin, so he must have been shown a holo of whom he was being given to. He canted his face up to Aneirin. Eyes, an inhuman color of sapphire, glared up at him. The Toymakers might have been able to dress him up, but they hadn’t ground every bit of hate and defiance from those slit-pupiled eyes. So, he was half Mishani. Of course, leave it to Pherick to remember Aneirin’s professional – and sexual, if he was honest about it – interest in hybrids. Aneirin’s gaze slipped from those fierce eyes, moving down over the young man’s fine features to the delicate leather collar around his neck. From it dangled a charm bearing Aneirin’s house symbol. That was just too much, probably part of Masozi’s bells and whistles. He didn’t want to own a sentient being, damn Pherick. What was the idiot thinking?

“What am I going to do with you?” Aneirin muttered.

The Rainbow Snippet group can be found on Facebook. It’s a fun low-pressure snippet sharing group for LGBTQ+ fiction. Come join us. https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets

Rainbow Snippet

Still struggling to keep on track with these better than last year. Weekends are always so crazy busy. I’m actually writing a little again so that’s a good thing.

I’m simply continuing here with Behind Blue Eyes. Aneirin has seen his birthday gift and it is not going well.

“He’s a Toy. They sign up for the privilege of having their every need taken care of in return for pleasuring their master. Don’t go in for a wobbly hyper-jump, Aneirin,” Masozi snorted.

At that statement, Aneirin saw the Toy’s eyes flick over, sharp and hard as if he wanted to bury the teeth hiding behind his painted lips in the man’s neck. Of course, this young man was from the slums; he was probably capable of that and worse.


“That’s not the point,” Aneirin snarled, getting to his feet.

“This wasn’t how I thought this would go,” Pherick shrank back against the couch pillows.

“I’m not sure how you thought it would go well.” Mireio glared over at him.

The Rainbow Snippet group can be found on Facebook. It’s a fun low-pressure snippet sharing group for LGBTQ+ fiction. Come join us. https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets

Rainbow Snippets

As I try to prepare a test for my microbiology class, I almost ran out of time to read and post (again). Doing these is making me want to pick this story up again soonish.

Last round of Behind Blue Eyes, Aneirin is dreading what his friend, Phelan, (who is the sharpest tool in the shed) and his buddy had gotten him for his birthday. He finally finds out.

The young man followed Rioke, head down as if determined not to look at the people around him. The light played on the poor Toy’s thick, raven hair, picking up a hint of sapphire and amethyst rosettes in it. His hair had been meticulously spiked and dressed with beads that twinkled and lit up like a field of stars.

“Masozi asked me what you liked and he got it with all the bells and whistles,” Pherick said, his tone getting more hesitant as he read the fury on Aneirin’s face.

“You gave me a sentient being as a gift,” Aneirin rasped out.

The Rainbow Snippet group can be found on Facebook. It’s a fun low-pressure snippet sharing group for LGBTQ+ fiction. Come join us. https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets

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It’s been a while

Mostly all you’ve seen from me in years now are snippets and promos for others. Today I finally sent in a novel I finished writing almost five years ago. What took me so long? Glad you asked.

When I finished this at the end of 2018 beginning of 2019 there was a lot of turmoil going on. For one there was the whole fiasco with a certain publisher. While I am forever grateful for them giving me my first break, I will equally be forever disappointed in how that ended up. Hell it took me over 2 years to ask for my rights back because the depression was paralyzing.

Topping that was the utter failure of Blood Red Roulette. I’ll be honest, I still don’t get why it was stillborn. Maybe it was the rumblings of what was going to happen with the publisher. Maybe it was bad marketing (I tried but I definitely feel it was lacking). Maybe it was vampire burn out.

That said, vampires tend to do well. It had an amazing cover. And it was literally dead on arrival. I can count on my fingers how many reviews it got and I’m not sure I saw much payment at all. That took the wind from my sails. Was I a bad author?

I could rationalizing some of my others not doing fantastic. A polycule urban fantasy set in the 1930s is pretty niche, after all. But a modern day vampire story set in Vegas, I would have thought it’d do better. Hell I’ve had better sales on novellas and short stories than that novel.

Not going to lie, that crushed me. I had worked off and on for 20 plus years to get that story told the way it was in my head. I had been excited to share it with the world. That failure was gutting.

Just as I was picking myself up from that Covid hit. While you’d think we’d be reading more locked up in our houses, what I was seeing in social media was the opposite. Author after author – some relatively big names too – bemoaning having a release during lock down. We might be learning how to bake in our lock down time but apparently we weren’t buying books. I shelved the idea of self pubbing then.

2021 broke me a life changing accident in Feb. I destroyed my leg, nearly lost if I’m truthful about it. It took about a dozen surgeries to put it back together over the course of more than a month. I was hospitalized for over two months. I had to relearn how to walk. The leg has stents in it to keep the blood flowing below my knee. The nerves were severed and I can’t feel my calf and much of my foot.

2021-2022 was dedicated to recovering from this. I put off a novella I owed Ninestar Press (I DO need to get back to that) I did noodle with short stories (especially in 2022) even published a few but novels have now been back burnered for years. I started to blow the dust off my novel These Haunted Hills set here where I live. I edited it slowly, as meticulously as I could as I’ve lost most of my beta readers.

I finally sent it out. I feel like I’m starting at the beginning again. That’s not entirely true of course, I have a decade of experience good and bad behind me. I have high hopes for this novel. I have a duology I need to return to. I need to get another novella edited and rewritten because I think it has potential but it has problems. I have the framework of a novel that is also nearly 20 years old, started when I lived in Florida after yet another life changing injury. I think that might be why I’ve never pursued that one (then again when I first started things they were mostly only pubbing m/m and this is m/m m/f and unapologetically bi).

Am I back? I would like to think so. I am at least trying. Am I afraid? Yes a little but I’m also trying and at the end of the day I would rather try and fail than not try at all.

Rainbow Snippet

I am a little late this week because I was busy getting my first novel in a few years sent in for consideration (crosses fingers)

Back to Behind Blue Eyes. Aneirin is about to find out what he was given for his birthday by his friend who doesn’t think things through well.

Rioke returned with the ‘gift’ and Aneirin knew he’d never like this. Damn, Pherick for being so easily led. His gift was young, barely into his twenties, unless Aneirin missed his guess. If he had met the young man in a club, Aneirin knew the man would have taken his breath away. He’d been robbed of that critical element now, but for all the wrong reasons. His father would have been furious with this gift, which is probably why Masozi hadn’t tried to talk Pherick into this before now.

The Rainbow Snippet group can be found on Facebook. It’s a fun low-pressure snippet sharing group for LGBTQ+ fiction. Come join us. https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets