Can't I just be healthy and write?

I'm sorry I've been so nonexistent. Dealing with a great deal of personal stuff, and distracting myself with work as much as possible.

Why is it that every time I seem to hit my stride, something comes along and knocks me out of it?

Ah, life.

Surprise (a smutty short) ~warning for gore

Thus the deal was done. The man Francis Michael O’Connol was mortal no more. Uriel wept.
Nasreddin grinned, and was gone.

*

“Deeevvvvvvyyyyyy,” Nasr called out on a long, ascending note, as if calling for a reluctant cat. “Deeee~eeeeevvvy,” he tried again.

Piety Update

Current Update here.

Whole thing is here.

This story contains themes of slavery and violence, as well as non-consensual sex. Please DO NOT read it if you are uncomfortable with those things.

We'll see about getting something for the rest of you up soon. :)

Piety Update

I forgot I had volunteered myself for library things today, and so did not have nearly so much time to write as I had hoped. Also, my day was remarkably full of interruption. People on my block are dropping like flies. :(

Piety Update 12 is here.

The entirety of Piety is here.

This story contains themes of slavery and violence, as well as non-consensual sex. Please DO NOT read it if you are uncomfortable with those things.

Piety Update

Piety Update 11 is here.

All of Piety is here.

Do not follow these links if you do not like stories that contain violence or nonconsensual situations. I will not masquerade rape as goodtimes. That said, the recent update contains no force.

---

P.S. - I should not drink tea at 9:00 at night. What was I thinking??

Piety Update

Hey. I got a couple of hours in which to write. Yay for not being sick!

Piety update 10 is here.
All of Piety is here.

This story has heavy noncon themes. Please do not read it if that sort of thing squicks you!

I've been sick again (yes, for weeks). Further proof that I'm not cut out to be an author. A proper author would be writing despite it all.

Oh, well. I shall get back to supplying free porn to the masses soon enough! In the meantime, I'm reading Asterios Polyp. It is absolutely delightful in every possible way, and if you like graphic novels, you simply must invest in a copy. Or at least bum it from a friend and then invest in a copy if you liked it enough to do so. It really is masterful. Just.. don't do it when you're hopped up on codeine syrup.

Concessions to my need to keep things orderly.

From this point forward, new Piety content will be released as "updates" versus "chapters."

Piety Update

I did not like how Chapter 9 was going, so I killed it and wrote this instead. It really should have been at the end of the last bit. Oh well! First draft and all. Organizational revamps and editing will come at the end. Must not bow to OCD. *twitch, twitch*

Chapter 9 is here!

The whole thing is here!

WARNING: THIS STORY CONTAINS NONCONSENSUAL MANSEX.

I'm tired of working 7 days a week. :|

I tried. I fail. Work has been grueling. Hopefully tomorrow will be a shorter day of putting my nose to the grindstone, and then this weekend I can knock out these last few pages. Thank you all for your patience. For now, I have to go slip into a restful coma.

Happy 29 (again) to me!

Marie/Felix drew me a sexilicious picture. Check out the new ILLUST @ Avenier!

Muchas Gracias!

Piety, now with more plot

Chapter 8 is here, and woefully lacking in smut. (About time, right? I know. Gawd. I'm half way through the next chapter though, and should have that up Friday.)

As always, the entire thing is here.

HEED THIS WARNING YE MORTALS: This story contains themes of slavery and violence, as well as non-consensual sex. Please do not read it if you are uncomfortable with those things.

Today's economy: twice as much work for half as much money

My Ideal Schedule
The following is highly flexible.

11:00am-12:00pm: wake up at some point
12:00pm-02:00pm: love making, grooming, maybe some breakfast
02:00pm-04:00pm: exercise and yardwork
04:00pm-04:30pm: food prep for the evening feast
04:30pm-05:30pm: more love making
05:30pm-06:30pm: feast prepared, devoured, and cleaned up
06:30pm-08:00pm: game,conversation,dessert, movie, other activity with lover
08:00pm-11:00pm: writing
11:00pm-12:00am: reading & snack
12:00am-01:30am: writing
01:30am-03:00am: love making
03:00am-11:00am: sleep

My Actual Schedule
The following leaves very little wiggle room, but is modified on days with client meetings

08:00am-08:15am: get up. no, really. get your lazy ass out of bed.
08:15am-08:45am: breakfast & grooming
08:45am-09:15am: yardwork
09:15am-10:15am: exercise
10:15am-01:00pm: work
01:00pm-01:15pm: lunch
01:15pm-01:30pm: exercise
01:30pm-05:30pm: work
05:30pm-06:30pm: food prep & consumption
06:30pm-07:30pm: clean or die
07:30pm-07:45pm: shower again
07:45pm-08:30pm: more work
08:30pm-10:00pm: sit around in a catatonic haze, work on remodel, write, read
10:00pm-08:00am: sleep


I need to inherit a wealthy benefactor. Ha. "Dear Marcus- I will pay you a sum of $200,000.00 a year to write me smut. Sincerely, Mister/Missus Deeppockets" Might as well dream big, yah? xD

Say wut?

Did I edit my own writing instead of someone else's? Why yes; yes I did. Why? Because we all deserve sexy story books.

Behold, the vastly improved 2:21. Click it. You know you want to.

Fuck you world. I loved that cat. He lit up every goddamn day no matter how bad that day got. And today was a -good- day. Until that.

Pardon me while I go into a depressed spiral for a bit.

Marcus out.

Good (a smutty short)

Some mornings were more difficult to wake to than others. José found his eyelids were heavier than usual, and that opening them even the slightest bit made his stomach clench unpleasantly. He breathed slowly through the parting of his lips, waiting for the sensation to pass as he eased out of the confusing haze of his dreams. Slowly, slowly, José opened his eyes again.

O M G

TEH DRAMA!

I tried posting this as a comment on EREC, but Google kept complaining my URL was too long, then putting weird gaps and breaks even after I'd split the comment up. So. My response to this article:

I'm not a straight woman, and I'm also not a reader of romance, but there are some things I find curious from the original article.

"If you aren’t familiar with M/M fiction here’s what it is: Straight women fetishizing the lives of gay men."

Already we are opening the doors for this to be a misunderstanding of semantics. Labels are difficult things, and one person's m/m label is different from another's. Is this meant to be a definition for the content of the article, a definition for the mainstream, or simply a statement of the author's opinion?

The Beginning (a smutty short)

It was difficult to restrain himself. So very difficult. Time had condensed itself to strange hiccups and bursts. He’d lost track of the bed, though he was vaguely aware of the frame creaking, of the headboard striking against the wall. The sheets, the pillows, the twists and tangles of blanket-- all things that had once seemed so important-- mattered only in that they did not interfere now. Not now, when there was a canvas of skin before him, a canvas flushed pink from work and writhing. Vibrant against the thin, golden wisps of hair that were scattered in sparse whorls across broad chest and long, muscled torso.

sabo

As those of you who follow my twitter likely already know, I recently suffered the loss of the novel I was working on. Three spiral-bound notebooks of notes and writing have disappeared into the world. Despite having put my name and number into the front of each & begging return should they be found, I've received no calls (nor do I expect to). Most likely they've been sent off to the dump, along with my ancient Jansport covered in faded patches and rusting pins.

I've let this keep me from writing, which is really just shameful. I should be rewriting like mad while it's still somewhat fresh. At the very least I should draft up some new notes. Instead I just stare sorrowfully at my screen and stuff my nose into books I've already read. It's not that I don't know what to write, it's just that I'm not doing it. Such is the difference between the weekend warrior & the professional.

At the recommendation of MacAllister Stone, I did read one new book. Grammar should be fun, and this book makes it just that: It was the Best of Sentences, It was the Worst of Sentences. It may not be very interesting to those of you who do not have any interest in writing mechanics (and reading mechanics, for that matter), but I found it to be an absolute joy.

And now I'm off to pen a short for you lovely folks. Tomorrow is a full day of work, followed by an evening of rewriting. No more of this mopey nonsense.

Regret (a smutty short)

Warning for sap!
-----

“You have to stop this.”

“Stop what?”

“You know what,” I whisper, lost somewhere in the haze between being asleep and being awake.

“Why?”

Why is a difficult question. I open my eyes, but there’s little to see. The moon has already fallen past the trees, and the light coming through the parting of the curtains above the bed does little to illuminate the room. All it does is make the shadows darker, emphasize how dusty the corner of the dresser has gotten, and suggest that the lumps of blanket alongside me might contain a body.

Michael & Vee (a smutty short)

It's a quickie! Working my butt off with my food-giving job. I love August.
------------------

"I don't know about this, Vee," Michael whispered, his voice misting through the cool night air.

"What? Suddenly you don't like my kisses?"

"It's not your kisses."

I like to move it, move it...

Chapter 7 of Piety is here.

As always, all of Piety is here.

DISCLAIMER IS HERE: This story contains themes of slavery and violence, as well as non-consensual sex. Please do not read it if you are uncomfortable with those things.

Though this particular chapter is neither violent nor noncon. An overhaul to the formatting will be coming soon. Chapter headings need to be consistent, bookmarks need editing for ebook readers, etc.

Debating whether or not my links on avenier should open up there or continue to pop over here. Hmm, hmm.

August? August!

I'm home! I haven't forgotten you! Working on the next bit of Piety and have scads of ideas for other things. Should have an update with some meat on it within the next few days. :D

( also; I wish the people up here knew how to drive )

Perhaps I'm just too negative.

Going home is a difficult thing for me, as I imagine it is a difficult thing for many of us. I find myself at odds with my own family. My father, from whom I am many years estranged, was appallingly bigoted. My sister seems to have adopted some degree of this into her own personality, as well as our mother’s more abusive traits. I've spent the past week reliving far too memories vicariously through my nephew.

My grandmother is cruising from senile and into the happy land of dementia, where grandchildren steal socks and plot to keep her children apart from their hot dogs. An aunt with whom I have nothing in common, and who shrieked at me for years, has turned out to be remarkably pleasant. The catch here is that she’s remarkably pleasant to everyone, and will agree with whatever outlandish thing that is said in order to keep from entering into quarrels. Apparently the lithium has made her a slave to avoiding conflict; a decided contrast to regularly seeking it out.

The houses here are not so dilapidated as they once were. This is a good thing, but jarring when I go to find my old friends with their tag-marked stucco and boarded windows. In their places are vibrantly colored vinyl facades with orderly, layered fenestration and well-manicured lawns. Dirt paths that once spilled onto pock-marked asphalt have been replaced by crisp-edged sidewalks, and forests of half-dead shrubs by orderly wrought-iron fences. Sure, these are wedged in between the familiar lawns of astroturf and tiny, run-down boxes holding too many people, but there is a steady invasion of the Unfamiliar.

July? July!

July! I'm going camping & taking a trip to the South. See you all in August!

Piety Update

Amg so busy! The strawberries in my garden are small, but delicious. Mmmm.

Piety chapter 6 is here!

The entire thing is here, and I've gone through and edited the bookmarks to make it easier to navigate. I'm such a .pdf newb.

THIS IS YOUR WARNING: Piety contains themes of slavery and violence, as well as non-consensual sex. Please do not read it if you are uncomfortable with those things.

The whole shuffling through borrowed computers thing is getting tedious, but I'm hoping to have my own machine some time this fall. It'll make life so much easier. Hope everyone is having a sexy summer! (Yes, today I'm feeling particularly bouncy. Onward!)

Oooooooooh art.

This is Baal.



Marie drew him. She draws such lovely things. You should visit her website.

You can also read a short with Baal here.

As always, more writing and artwork are available through http://www.avenier.org.

Temptation (a suggestive short)

Written with Felix Avenier.
----

Uriel liked the snow. It didn't even have to be falling from the sky for him to be pleased with it. Drifts of the stuff along the edges of the sidewalks tickled his fancy, and he enjoyed watching the dirty hills turn to slush at the roadside. It was early spring in the North, and things were starting to melt off. It probably wouldn't flurry again, but there were still patches of ice here and there. The sun was out, but it was cold enough for mittens and scarves, for soft woolly caps and long heavy coats. 


Goals? What are those?

In the world of Things That Feed Marcus, summertime is my busiest time of the year. I fear my writing goals are not being met, and that I should accept that this will continue to be the case until the slow-down in September. What breaks I am taking from financially motivated work are being spent doing things like going backpacking, exploring side streets with neon-lit mosques, and finally dealing with the room full of stuff (mostly Star Trek paraphernalia) that belonged to my (now-deceased) mother.

My health is largely maintaining its upward trend. I am most pleased by this. I must continue to work on realistic goal setting and recognize that just because I am feeling better, I cannot simply take on the whole world all at once.

As a side note, if you like pulp & fantasy, they don't get much pulpy fantasier (amg the words I make up) than The Dresden Files. This is excellent reading-on-the-bus material. It's got bad puns, a bit of grunge, and gritty detective stories with the added spice of magic & the paranormal. Satisfied my junk food craving good and proper. ;)

Nope, no hardcore degrading mainstream porn here. Sorry!

Some of the google searches that land people on this blog are just.. remarkably obscene. Even by my standards. I am far too amused by this.

LVL excerpt (short smut)

This one I'll be completing and polishing behind the scenes. Don't worry, I'm still working on Piety too! I seem to have become enthralled with reading history books. Psh.
-----

Lorenzo winced and sucked a short, sharp breath in through his teeth.

“The path to salvation is not without sacrifice, Lorenzo.” Laurent’s voice was a low rumble against Lorenzo’s ear.

“Sì, monsieur.”

onoes a rant

I started writing something. It was going to be a short something. It has turned into.. well, a beast. One thing led to another, and I was knee deep in reference books and notes. I possibly have more pages of notes than I do of actual writing. Historical fiction is no light undertaking for someone who skipped all but the required history classes in favor of the sciences for credits in school. It is unhelpful that I continue to become distracted and am simply reading these text books instead of digging out the significant information that I require. Even as I undertake this, I wonder just how much I actually need for the purposes of my story. I suspect very little.

On another note, I read Black Wade at the recommendation of this blog. The art is positively gorgeous. The writing leaves much to be desired. The dialogue is stiff and the script hackneyed. To say nothing (except that I am saying something) of the fact that it contained a few of my pet peeves in commercially available erotica. For example, why would the brawny pirate with thick body hair and scraggly jaw take the time to give his junk an immaculate shave? Did he do this while they were sailing in open water? At high seas? Imagine if they'd hit a swell. Oops, there goes a testicle! Guess it's Eunuch Wade we're reading from now on.

Then there's the issue of rape. This story isn't the only one guilty of it. It's an all too common theme. The author feels the need to incorporate forced sex in order to win over the 'curious' protagonist. However, at some point during this rough fucking, the victim (yes, dammit, victim) comes to enjoy the act. Now, I can understand the point that publishing houses don't want to publish actual rape. That a hint of resistance in the beginning and utter yielding and enjoyment are required for the sake of actually having your story hit press. However, if it's not rape, why not just skip it entirely? Use some other device. It's insulting.

Rape is not sex. Rape is not something that the victim enjoys. Sure, some people enjoy rape fantasies, but these are two very different beasts. In the realm of the fantasy scenario, I am the very willing partner playing out the role of the straight-laced archetype fighting and resisting my also very willing partner who is playing out the role of the big-bad pirate. Presumably we even know just how far the other person is willing to take said role. In the case of an actual pirate having kidnapped an actual naval officer (who has supposedly never dabbled and only has eyes for his well-bosomed fiance) and opted to give him what-for with ye old immaculately shaven endowment, the rape victim is not going to continue to cry 'stop' while visibly enjoying himself. And no, I don't just mean involuntary erection with possible ejactulation. I mean swooning expressions and lust-driven moans. I see it all the time in m/m fiction.

"Sure I fucked him. Yeah, he said no, but he didn't mean it."
"How could you tell?"
"The look on his face, your honor! The sounds he was making. He wanted it. Hell, he started begging me for it!"

In what universe does that not make the rapist sound like an ego-driven fuckwad? Oh yeah, the universe of m/m erotica. You know, the one in which the antagonist and protagonist shack up afterward and live happily ever after somewhere under the cumbow.

Dear writers, give us a little credit. Oh, and you know what else? Rape is not okay. Read about it, write about it, what have you. Just stop equating it to love-making. Your magical fuckstick is not going to turn that straight guy queer no matter how much you force him to take it up the ass.

Hobbies are so difficult to maintain when you have a life.

I sacrificed smut this week for rocks. Can you forgive me?

I still haven't finished moving them all. Never buy a house with a rock garden. This shit is heavy, yo.

I did write comics that will hopefully be illustrated. In the meantime, mad plans for writing over the weekend after I get off work. I think I'll go to Peet's, have a nice tall glass of iced tea, and covertly write naughty things while tucked into a corner.

How embarrassing!

Apparently you have to tell blogger to accept anonymous comments. I did not know! Thank you J for shooting me an e-mail to that effect. I've enabled anonymous comments, and will leave the commenting system registry free so long as I'm not inundated with constant spambots. :)

Piety Update

Ogosh. Did you miss me? I missed me! Hate, hate, hate being sick.

Today I am finally feeling better.

Short update to celebrate this fact. Hopefully the next one is longer!

Chapter 5 is here. All of Piety is here, as usual.

(This story contains themes of slavery and violence, as well as non-consensual and consensual sex. Please do not read it if you are uncomfortable with those things.)

Oh! I also got a facebook and a twitter. I can be social in the non-explicit social media world. Mwahahaha.

To do (besides the ongoing effort above): Another short for Felix to illustrate. Art-trade story. Another short for you nice folks.

Remember, life is Glorious!

on and on and on

The thing about being immuno-suppressed is that it eats into every aspect of your life. Things that might give another person a day or two of discomfort can take you down for a week or two (or three). That week or two is spent in bed, possibly largely out of it tending to the things that Absolutely Need tending to, and thereby driving the illness on even longer. Laundry stacks up. Dishes stack up. The smell.. oh, the smell stacks up too. If you've got something bad enough to leave you with a monstrous fever and you've thrown up on your bathroom floor and can't clean it up? Yep. That stays there too.

Since I started my daily regimen of pills & supplements, I find that my life goes quite a bit more smoothly. I do not spend every day in a state of vague malaise due to always having something picking at me. I do not fall quite so behind on my work as I did before. When I do get ill, it does not last as long, and I recover (remarkably) to the point of health I was in before the illness pulled the rug out from under me.

Yet even in this there is no little frustration. I would love to be dependable. Reliable. Even to myself. I have difficulty scheduling things, for fear of the big what-if. What if I'm feeling ill that day? What if I'm spending that day trying to catch up on all of the things that Needed doing before I fell ill? And that's not counting the years of general catching up that hover all about me and cast their ominous shadows into the light of my improved spirits.

I certainly couldn't hold a conventional job then, and I don't think I could manage it now. I'm still down too often. Even at that, what about my reputation for meeting my deadlines? Those are easier these days, and I do take on more, but even so...

What if all of this good health doesn't last?

I wonder these things, coming out of a stomach flu that took me down into dehydration, which took me down to very much worse. Still sore from the repeated poking of needles trying to find my sunken veins. I caught up on the dishes, and while I was not up to washing them, stripped my bed of its sick-smelling sheets.

But what if I'm sick again tomorrow? What if all of this energy (and even recovering I have more energy now than I did before) siphons away?

I wonder these things, wishing I had enough energy back to write something more than a distressed rambling stream of thoughts.

Don't mind me while I play with this whole RSS feed thing. Would that I were just a bit more geeky than I already am.

At what point?

At what point does one cross the line from erotica to pornography?
At what point does one cross the line from romance to erotica?

I tend to be of the opinion that erotica is pornography, just the less harshly-phrased spectrum thereof. I think that anything more than implied sex pushes one into an erotic scene, though the journey from that point to "main-stream pornography" is a long one.

Is erotica simply the realm in which one is nibbling at tiny morsels of story between sexual encounters, and romance the realm in which one is nibbling at tiny morsels of sexual encounters scattered through long stretches of story? Is it possible to maintain a balance of both and appeal to both readerships?

Food for my thought, in any case.

On a related note, Marie doodled me this:



I was too charmed not to share.

Rain (a smutty short)

And now, a break from my recent bouts of trying to improve technically.

The challenge: Make it sexy in 750 words or less.

So I lapsed into my usual style. To hell with language conventions.

------

The sheets were warm and humid with sweat. The cabin wouldn’t stop swaying. The dim shadows within shifted constantly. Gunter could hear the rain hammering against the thick poured glass of the windows. It fell in a steady pounding to the deck above. Patterpatter sprinkle splatter.

Dialogue (a smutty short)

My aunt and grandmother have left. Sad day.

My cat is happy for the return to normalcy, at least. I do believe he missed our morning coffee breaks in the sun.

Here, I've written you some sappy fucking. Warnings for.. hm.. sappy fucking.

---------

“It’s dusty,” David whispered.

“It’s not my fault we fell in here,” Joshua murmured between nips and kisses scattered across the curve of his lover’s shoulder.

“You should have been able to ho-ah, ow! Not so hard. You should ha-,” David paused in order to swallow twice. “You should have been able to hold us up.”

“And you,” Joshua replied with an edge of effort to his tone, “should not- ogod, yes, do that more. Should not have shoved me so hard against closet door.”

“Oh ffff-.”

More Piety rough, now with spankings!

Piety Chapter 4 is here.

The entirety is here, with some minor revisions in the beginning of chapter 3.

To answer an inquiry, yes I do intend to restructure it once I am done. Some things will be made longer, some things will be cut altogether, and the chapters will be more chapter shaped. In the meantime, I bring you the opportunity to observe the process as it occurs. Oh, and smut. \o/ smut.

Fences

Because sometimes our brains do things other than we want.
-----

I don’t like fences. Some prat tosses you up against a wood one while suckin’ off yer knob, and whaddaya get? Splinters in yer fuckin’ shoulders. Chain link? Pinches. Pinches every little bit of thrust. Feels like the devil’s bitin’ at yer ass. Fucking fences. Only ones that’s even half way decent is the ones them richies keep. Yanno the ones. Them what got the smooth metal bars spaced out with the spikes high up overhead. Only fucked ‘gainst that kinda fence once though. Rich fuckers don’t like it when ya fuck ‘gainst their fences. Neither do their dogs. Fuckin’ dogs. I don’t like dogs.

*

I love fences. Walls are better, but fences are nice. Oh, especially those diamond metal ones. What are those? Whirlwind? Yes, those. Oh, they’re so lovely. Don’t tell anyone, but I got a blowjob through one once. It was exquisite. Down on the South side of campus where all that brush is growing. There was just a bit of light, and I was so afraid of getting caught.

But oh, his mouth! His mouth was so soft, and warm, and he sucked like you wouldn’t believe. I’ve never had anyone swallow me back like that. It feels amazing. If you’ve never done it, I can’t recommend it enough. I almost came right there and then!

Hmm? Oh, right! The fence. Ha, the damn fence. It was so loud. It rattled and clattered as it bowed and bent. I tried not to push into it too much, but it’s hard to resist a mouth like that, you know? It was nice, though, how it gave and still supported my weight. Obviously the holes were convenient, and I got to cling tight to the spaces above me.

Really, the only down side was I pinched one of my fingertips. I had a recital the next day, and that was a real bear. Nasty, nasty bruise. Damn fence.

I love traffic lights...

I got the stomach flu. Don't you just love the stomach flu? I know I do!

Oh, wait. Wait. No I don't.

More pleasant is my family is coming in from out of town this week, and shan't be leaving until next week. There will be merriment galore, and a decided lack of privacy. Don't be surprised if I'm scarce!

Until my return, I highly recommend Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson. The whole damn series really. It can be intimidating for some, but its lexicon is historical, and you don't need to plow your way through a handful of appendices in order to understand it. It takes place in one of my favorite periods of history. Nom.

For more light-hearted fare, check out Hanna is Not a Boy's Name. It is positively charming. The archive can get a bit glitchy, but I'm sure you're clever enough to plug in page numbers to get past that.

Writing. Confusion, conundrums, and things to do in between.

Romance! It's what everyone wants to read when they're not skipping between the smutty bits with a more tangential goal. I've been taking a break from Piety in order to try my hand at it. The results have been laughable.

Browsing about on various writing forums, I have found that most writers seem to have difficulty with writing sex scenes, and the rest just flows. I seem to be afflicted with the opposite problem. What's more, I do not feel as many of them seem to, that writing smut is a more personal/revealing thing than writing any other genre.

So. Where's the love story? Where's the shmoo? The fluff? How to make it not be overwrought cliche tripe? How to do anything at all interesting with fawn-eyes and staring contests?

It's not to say that I haven't seen it done, but when I have the romance has been some side-matter in a novel dealing with so much more. Erotica seems to have romance as the main focus of the plot. I know; I've been researching. Quandry, quandry.

In other news, my rosebush became so top heavy that it fell right over. It's amazing what you can find to distract you when working on something challenging.

For Gaz. Walking. (a smutty fanfic)

(World of Warcraft is copyrighted to Blizzard. That's all them.)

The night was a wash of darkness, the moon a token crescent in the sky. The stars were bright, but they cast little in the way of illumination to the jungle below. The torches did that. The bonfires. The lanterns. There was the sound of drumming in the distance, and the high-pitched buzz of saws that cut through the steady pounding. The saw mill never stopped, and the stench of ogres drifted here and there on the jungle breeze.

Son be a Deeeentiiiiiiist.

This week is thusfar thin on writing and does not promise to get any heavier what with the current state of agony that is the inside of my mouth. Who doesn't love paying $1,400.00+ for three hours of torture? I get to do it again next year, but then I'm through. Hopefully for a few decades more at least.

However! I do have a reading suggestion for those of you who enjoy fantasy. Even moreso for people like me who adore character-driven plots, witty narrative, and clever dialogue. The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie is an absolute delight to read. Some books I take my time to savor, read a chapter here and there, and splice other books into my reading schedule because their prose is so wonderful and thick (*cough* Neil Stephenson *cough*). These books are more the sort that you want to clear a few hours of your life away in order to plop down and devour the words from cover to cover. Don't say I didn't warn you.

At least I'm going slower on the re-read.

more piety rough, less noncon

Chapter 3 is here.

The entire thing is here.

Take this outline and shove it.

Story is happening how it wants to. Some things are out of sequence, some things are shorter than intended, others are longer. It'll all work out in the end.

I lost my writing day today. Had it all planned out, but I had an adverse reaction to my new medication. There's nothing quite like walking down your hall only to suddenly feel like you're actually on a ship and it just pitched to the side. I've been grabbing walls and furniture between trips to the water closet, the bed, and the sofa. My cereal wound up all over the kitchen floor. I gave up half way through cleaning it up, but the puss was kind enough to lap up the milk. Life is amusing.

Swordspoint inspired me to try my hand at smut. I highly recommend it for those who have not yet read it, though it is not a particularly erotic novel. It is very witty, and very charming, and has its share of racy moments. It's by this lady here: Ellen Kushner. The Fall of the Kings and Thomas the Rhymer are also excellent works, but Swordspoint is what did me in.

Repetition

I like repetition as a device. Do you like repetition as a device? I like repetition as a device.

How do you know when you've gone too far? Hmmm, hmm. It's against the "basic rules of writing." I suppose you just read it and see if it works.

Sentence fragments? Hanging clauses? Repetition? As devices?

Grade school teachers everywhere are cringing in horror.

more Piety rough

A rough draft means it is not edited. Don't worry, I'll butcher it to hell and back when I'm done. I'm not looking for critique at this point, but if you are excessively compelled, please do so -privately-. I won't be reworking it until I've finished. All kinds of wacky things can happen when you reach the end of a story, even if you've mapped it out to the chapter.

Chapter 2 is here.

The complete file is here.

Plastic (a smutty short)

The tablecloth came in three layers. The bottommost layer was a strange, fibrous fabric to ensure that it clung to the surface of the table. The middle layer was a sheet of vinyl printed with washed out daisies and sun-faded stems. The top layer was a sheaf of thick plastic, presumably to make it easy to clean. None of these was pleasant to the touch, but Jess was considering turning the damned thing over anyway. The plastic on the top had long since cracked, split, and warped. It was digging into his ass in the most uncomfortable of ways, leaving little welts and shallow cuts, rolling to press lumps into the tense stretch of his musculature.

Piety rough drafts are fun to read

I know I love em?

You may download the first part here.

For Denise

The train is there, stuck on the tracks. Again. It's got us all blocked in. Boxed in. Again. Nobody cared when they laid the damn things, nobody cares now. Nobody that matters. We're just the little people in the wrong part of town. Shoved in the garage. With the trains. And the tracks.

They're shakin' it up. Rattling and rolling, with the high-whistles and the low-horns and the way the two blow loud and discordantly. The traffic is stopped. Cars just sitting there in the streets. Nobody can move. The train is there. Why? What's it waiting for? Car horns now, mixing with train whistles. It's been there for forty minutes. Just sittin'. Once a week at least.

Maybe they're experimenting. Sociological experimentation isn't that much more sophisticated, they're just better at hiding it. One day the train cars will open up, and gas will pour out, and we'll all be dead.

Except then who will tend their bars? Who will cross the tracks to clean their hotels? Who will paint the art they croon over in their lavish uptown galleries? Guess we're not lucky enough for the gas.

Fuck if I know. Fuck if I care. I just can't stand that damn whistle, or the way it makes my bones rattle when it passes. Like it's grabbed hold of my marrow and is shaking me from the inside out. I can use a good shake, you know? But from the outside in. That's all I'm saying. Forty-five minutes now, and we're still sitting here. We're sweating on bar stools, listening to horns and cursing, and watching the slow-moving ceiling fans push the cigarette smoke down.

It's the kind of shit that drives a man mad.

Flirtations (a suggestive short)

I love you. I love you I love you I love you. No commas. No periods. On and on forever, until the words no longer make any sense. Until I've run out of breath. Until my lips are dry and cracked from mouthing the sentiment. My chest is swollen with it. Broken. Spilling and pouring.

Your hands are in your hair, and you've no idea I'm watching. I'm watching your fingers curl in and out of the black tendrils of it as it spills toward the book you're reading. Thick and heavy and old, sprawled open on a table covered in papers. Papers covered in writing. Writing from your hands. I love it for being yours.

Your hands are on your face, with their long fingers curled along the solid angling of your jaw. I watch the pad of your thumb slide past the cleft in your chin to catch on your lower lip. You're red with frustration, but I do not think that languishing over the book will provide your answers, my love. You see me watching. The green of your eyes gathers all of my attention, and I am distracted from your hands, from your thumb at the chip in your tooth. You smile, and it makes me smile, and I think it again. I love you.

You're upon me with nothing more than this exchange of glances, and of smiles. Here with the smell of leather and dirt, of hay and oats and horse. Your boots are filthy, and flakes of mud fall off on the honeyed wood of the floor. I do not mind. How could I?

You're heavy on my thighs, and I'm losing the circulation to my feet as they press into the edge of my chair, but I also do not mind this. How could I? Not with your hand pressing up against the crotch of my jeans, your thick fingers tracing out the sideways tuck of my cock. I remark that I think you like feeling it grow so fast. You remark that it started large to begin with. We laugh together, and you toss your head. You kiss me. Your mouth is warm, your lips chapped. You taste of strawberries, and there is a purr to your voice as you tell me to shut the computer.

How could I not?

I've moved from Livejournal.

Too. Many. Ads.

I mean, really. Why? Why? I miss the days when Brad was running the show and the server was crashing every other day. Okay maybe not the crashing part. Remember the fund raisers for more servers? Ah, good times. Bye bye LJ.

That image on my header? Done by the inconceivably talented Weissner. All rights reserved there. Don't steal shit or I will come eat your brains. On toast. With blueberry jam. Yesssss.