Moondrake Revisted

I have to take a few paragraphs and talk about this past month: February 2018. This year, I committed myself to overhauling my original Moondrake written in 2016. What was a single POV is now three separate POVs. What was about 40,000 words became 60,000. What was "unfinished" is currently being written and is another 20,000 words presently.

I mentioned in a prior blog about my goals for each month. Here are the main three at the moment:

Goal one: write a monthly blog.

Goal two: write at minimum 5,000 words for Moondrake

Goal three: write at minimum 2.000 words for the next Southern Jersey Shores installment.

I'm happy to report that all of February's goals were met and exceeded. Yeah!!! But I also gotta "toot my own horn" because not only did I exceed 5,000 words on Moondrake... I killed it with 11,134. For SJS, I wrote just over, totaling 2,126. I haven't had such a prolific month since my last Camp Nano and I think I only squeaked in around 15k with padding from blog posts and review writing.

I hope I'm able to keep the momentum going. Gotta get through March and then on to Camp NaNoWriMo in April.

Also for this month, I've got to work on my IMPACT flash fiction, a 300 word submission for my Queer Sci-Fi group. I've submitted works for the past three years. I haven't won, but my stories have all been accepted for inclusion in the yearly book that comes out. Only the top 100 make it.

And on that note, how about I include year one's flash for you. The theme: Discovery
(Oh! I'd forgotten, this first one is actually a take off of Moondrake. How serendipitous.)

Craving Scents

The alien leader nodded, and a sweet, heady aroma of vanilla and spice arose. Mason scowled as his crew grew languid, their stances relaxing. Their mouths slackened, and they gazed at their captors as they were drawn apart.

The two aliens who’d shot his lover, Bran, knelt beside him, pressing him effortlessly to the floor of the spaceship. Mason watched him succumb to whatever magic these strange beings had, and gasped when Bran stared hungrily at the mouth of the one in front of him. Bran's full lips parted, his beautiful hazel eyes blown wide—that lustful, hungry gaze belonged to him, not some alien creatures! He glanced over at his crew and found them all with greedy, wanton expressions. He’d never seen this in all his travels through the solar systems.

Mason rounded on the humanoid-appearing aliens. “What did you do to them?” he protested. And why am I  the only one unaffected?

Startled, their leader lunged forward, grabbed Mason’s upper arms and spun him. He held Mason’s back to his chest. Mason twisted, but his muscles refused to obey, his efforts futile against the alien’s strong grip, and yet his mind stayed sharp. All his men, including Bran, had given in to their cravings, wrapping themselves around their captors, kissing them with abandon. He shuddered, and the alien holding him leaned down, placing his mouth against Mason’s ear.

“Why are you not affected, little captain?”

The breath of the alien blazed hot on his neck, his arms were pulled behind his back while fingers worked to bind his wrists. He struggled ineffectively, his body sluggish and unresponsive. He’d carelessly given the leader time to subdue him. To work his magic on him. He panted, inhaling more of the scent, the fight fleeing his body, spiraling him into unconsciousness.

Voyeur Valentine - New Release!

Eep.

Well, so much for blog posting once a month. But, I did get a lot more posts in this year than the year prior. 2018 isn't starting off so well either. My goals for 2017, however, were mostly achieved, and I even managed one short story release. Cue the Music arrived at the beginning of December, both as a single purchase and part of the anthology, Never Too Late. The anthology consists of 9 authors joining forces for stories about men and women older than 50 years of age keeping love, finding love, and discovering love across the spectrum of sexual identity.

Cue the Music:

Every relationship has had it at some point. The singular argument that escalates, that lingers. More often than not, the couple finds their way back to status quo. But what happens when they don’t? What happens when one gives up?

After months of trying to resolve their issues, Ty loses hope. He leaves, with only his music to keep him company. Until one day, he feels someone watching him intently from the bar. Maybe, just maybe, Ty won't end up alone after all.

Cue the Music is a stand-alone short story in the Southern Jersey Shores series.

   

Never Too Late Amazon                        Cue the Music Amazon

Never Too Late - BTP Page                    Cue the Music - BTP Page

And now, today in fact (February 1, 2018), I'm releasing my first self-published book. I'm blessed to say I had quite a bit of help, and I'd like to take a moment and just show you all how Cupid's Arrows came about and make thanks to these special individuals.

It all started when author Paula Wyant told me about an open call by Dale Lowry Cameron. Myths, Mayhem and Magic. Three protagonists, erotic, LGBT spectrum and of course, paranormal. A month of writing, a month of editing and off for submission. Unfortunately, I was not selected, so back to do a bit more editing. And with Valentine's Day looming, it was time. It took a bit until I came across the three arrows, and then Wulf Godgluck happily made my simple but perfect cover. He also formatted the story for me, and then , with a little trial and error, got it uploaded to Amazon Kindle. I need to add a shout-out of thanks to Wendy Rathbone for insisting on having me create an author profile, which I hadn't realized I didn't have.

So now, I present to you: Cupid's Arrows, book one of a new series entitled: Divine Connections.

Himeros wants what any God of Love wants: his disciples to be happy in love. When Eros comes to visit his sexually-charged modern-era bar, Himeros grabs opportunity with both hands. Arrows fly, and three best friends join, but the voyeuristic Himeros needs more. He coaxes Eros to follow, and once they secret the boys away, it’s time for a little show and tell. 

Amazon Link

Time Marches On

For the life of me, I couldn't come up with a catchy title for this month's blog, then I thought about the fact that I've been spending most of the last three months working hard for my son's high school marching band. I'm duly impressed, but that's no surprise. We are blessed to have one of the top high school marching bands in our town.

So between work, "doing the soccer mom" thing of driving to various sports practices and marching band practices, all the games and competitions, and adding scouts on top of it, I've had an active Fall to say the least.

September saw me writing in spits and spats, I was still in a lull of sorts. Finally dragged myself out of it by committing to rewriting MOONDRAKE, a 38k MMM Sci-fi/fantasy, I'd written in 2015 in response to a prompt and photo through Goodreads' MM Romance Group, Don't Read in the Closet. 

I'd been stoked to get the prompt as I'd already written a prior flash fiction for it. 

Here's the pic prompt:

My original 100 word flash was contemporary, but my letter prompt was science fiction. A merchant spaceship hijacked. Now I had to think hard... but I was pretty happy with my story, although I rushed it... and regretted it. After some thoughtful reviews were posted I knew what I needed to do, it just took me two years to commit the time to doing it. Now (as of Oct 25th) the original story has been altered. I added in the POVs of the two other main characters, took out some dubious non-con (not sure I had that in the first place) and some violence. Gave voice to a few other minor characters. All in all, I added about 7k (of course I probably took out a good 1k of "ick" along the way too). Thus creating Part I of the story.

The rest of the year is now devoted to writing Part II. I'd left my three men dangling with quite a few loose ends. Even as I'd finished writing the original I had plans to continue. 

This is my chance. 

Cracks knuckles

Wish me luck.

Gettin' it done

The kids are back to school, and I'm finally---FINALLY---getting stuff done. As meetings roll around, and dates come due, I'm diligently following up and through on commitments I've let languish over the summer (including August's blog post). Took at look at my monthly and yearly goals, and while the monthly ones have mostly been completed or pushed off for various reasons, the yearly ones... not so good. BUT, I did do the most important one which was sending off and then receiving a passport. I haven't been out of the country since a youth group trip in high school to Israel. I can't even tell you how excited I am to be going to Great Britain next year.

It's starting to look like I'll only have the one small release this year, which means I want to kick myself into high gear and get some writing done for 2018. Oh, that's not to say I haven't written anything, but one project has been derailed and the other may never be seen by more than my betas. I like it, but I'm mostly writing it for me. Feedback will decide otherwise.

Meanwhile, I've got plans in motion to free up more of my precious time and delegate responsibilities out where they can be done more effectively than by me. A good leader knows how to delegate, right? *wink, wink* There's writing projects I want to devote time to, especially in light of some recent inspiration.

Current Workings:
Still no word on a release date for Cue the Music (the small release I mentioned above). Proofing is in progress and it will come out in both a Beaten Track Anthology and as a standalone purchase.
Metamorphic Heart still has some minor work and a cover to create. I also have a 300 word flash fiction releasing this month as part of Queer Sci-Fi's Renewal Contest. I was chosen along with 100 or so others (from over 250 submissions) for inclusion in the collected works. I'll have more about the flash fiction next month.

Now, I'll go and make a new checklist for September... see if there isn't another goal I can attain...