Well I am not off to a great snippety start but hopefully I’m getting my crap together now. I’m back to trying to get back to this story (work title Behind Blue Eyes) but I am still not quite there with These Haunted HIlls edits (mostly because work is being super extra)

Anyhow this is more like a freaking excerpt mostly because there was no place to break it to make it very interesting and it’s rather the pivotal plot point for the story. Aneurin (we met him last snippet) is from a ridiculously wealthy family but spends his time in his lab. He’s more interested in science than money. It’s his 30th birthday and his equally wealthy friends are giving him gifts, one that is going to horrify him.

“Well, Masozi and I pooled our gift,” Pherick said, catching Aneirin’s full attention. It would probably be something insanely expensive.

Aneirin’s mind raced through things he might want in that category. The list was surprisingly short. “You have my curiosity aroused,” Aneirin said, and his wariness, but he naturally kept that to himself.

“That’s not what we want to arouse,” Masozi laughed.

Aneirin saw Mireio’s brow pinch. Her wary expression probably matched his. There was one thing he and Masozi differed on strongly. Well more than one thing. Masozi was an advocate for the Toy parties and full out orgies which had become part of their class’s favorite ways of blowing off steam. Aneirin’s late father had been trying to get the Toys outlawed. But there was one thing in the expensive arousal category, and it was something Pherick could be talked into doing. “You didn’t.”

“I know you’ve been a little down on the idea, but that’s a lot of your father talking,” Masozi said. “You need to relax a little.”

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

The 2020s have been a giant ball of suck so I’m almost afraid to wish for good things in 2023. That said I am hoping for good because I have the first long thing almost ready since 2019. While I wrote in 2020 it was on other projects. 2021 I nearly lost my leg and I’ve been dealing with the aftermath ever since. Maybe 2023 will turn things around. Here’s hoping.

I’ve already shared from the long thing, These Haunted Hills and I’m almost through doing a final edit before trying to shop it around. In the meantime I’m going back to the SF wip that I would like to finish but I know it has some plot issues I need to work out. The file name is Behind Blue Eyes (probably not final title)

Before I broke for the holidays I was sharing some from Blue Eyes. Kaleo has left the prison world slum he was born into and while he thinks he is going to find work off planet, he’s actually been kidnapped and altered for sale. Now meet Aneurin.

“So how does thirty feel?” Pherick asked.

“It feels like twenty-nine. You know I don’t worry much about age.”

Aneirin leaned back, the form-fitting foam of his chair adjusting itself. He tapped the volume control of Pherick’s sound system, lowering it a bit as the Mishani symphony got a bit raucous. Aneirin counted himself lucky he even got to pick the music, but since it was his birthday, he got a pass on Pherick’s newest craze; whatever the spy-bots caught in ‘Slumming It.’ Aneirin didn’t like spying on the slums. What good could possible come of it, he didn’t know, but it had been a mainstay of In-Home holovision for over a decade. It made him uncomfortable.

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

Look at me actually getting this out there two weeks in a row. It has been a ROUGH December but I got in some fun by driving out to Cincinnati to see the art museum (top notch) and the festival of lights at the zoo (also fantastic) and up to Chillicothe to explore the Adena Mansion’s holiday event.

Last week we had Jacob’s point of view from my steampunk holiday story. Here is some of Al’s.

As much as he might wish Jacob would retire and find other work, Al knew the airships were in his blood; he could never deny Jacob the sky. Al missed Jacob when he was gone, but it made the times he was home that much more sweet, like a rare wine to be savored.

“You’re going to be up all night, aren’t you?” Al jumped at the sound of Grace’s voice. She swept into the room, her coat gone, no doubt hung up, but snow still clung to her boots. Her dark hair seemed mashed a bit, probably from the fur hat she usually wore in winter.

Blurb:

As Chief Tactician for the airship DeGrasse, Jacob Scarberry has spent the last six months on a wearying tour of duty. He’s missing home, and his prosthetic leg is conducting the December cold straight to his core. But with the holidays coming up, he’s looking forward to a well-earned leave, sharing some Christmas surprises with his lover, Dr. H. Alphus Troyer, and welcoming in the dawn of the 20th century.

A professor at Ohio University, Al is already on Christmas break, and his unconventional household is in a festive frenzy. Al is a bit less joyous, his anticipation of Jacob’s return warring with uncertainty over the special gift he had commissioned for him. Would Jacob appreciate it, or will it put a strain on their relationship?

Suddenly Al’s worries become trivial when the newspapers report an attack on the DeGrasse. With Jacob fighting for his life miles away, Al is left to wonder whether Jacob will return at all, or whether the planned festivities will become holiday heartbreak instead.

If that intrigues you, you can find the rest here https://ninestarpress.com/product/the-glow-of-luminiferous-aether-on-tinsel/

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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Wow it’s been a little while between nanowrimo, the end of the semester and word press not letting me in. Here’s hoping to get back in the swing of things for the new year which will be here so soon.

Have a little from an older Christmas story of mine The Glow of Luminiferous Aether on Tinsel. It’s a steampunk story with Ninestar Press. Jacob here is an airship captain.

Jacob wished he could wear a third set of pants to keep out the cold, but he’d never be able to move in them. A union suit and woolen uniform trousers should have been enough to keep out the December chill, except his metal prosthetic leg, a miracle of spring-work technology, conducted the cold straight through his stump, up into his jewels, and even made his bladder ache. His slow path around the ship’s deck as he kept watch did little to warm him. He had one sure way to feel warmer: thoughts of a certain Dr. H. Alphus Troyer waiting for him back home.

If that intrigues you, you can find the rest here https://ninestarpress.com/product/the-glow-of-luminiferous-aether-on-tinsel/

Happy Halloween everyone. I love this holiday. I spent this weekend doing historical touring and paranormal investigations and I had a blast. I had meant to continue one more round of Cassadaga Nights (on sale by Nine Star Press) BUT realized it wasn’t on my flashdrive and I’m on the work laptop (did I mention my laptop died?) So have some more of Kaleo’s story. It’s pretty scary

When we left him, he’d just blasted off planet with a group of teens born on a prison planet, thinking he was going to get training and a place in the galaxy. Instead he was drugged. We’re picking up from there

When he finally came back to, Kaleo didn’t know where he was. He wasn’t sitting up in a take-off seat. Stretched out on a hard cot, he shivered under a thin sheet. Trying to get up only made his head ache like never before. Pressing one hand to his forehead, Kaleo tried to figure out what had gone wrong. Did he get some form of space sickness? His fingers brushed over his collar bone, meeting something hard and strange. There, in the left-hand space between collarbone and chest, was some kind of device. His pain-addled brain dredged up images from a dream he had had, something that belonged in a slum sewer.

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