Monthly Archives for October 2013

Guest Post – Julie Lynn Hayes

leonardodicaprioisavampirefinalI hear voices in my head.

No, I’m not daft or certifiable—at least no more than any other writer, I think. The voices that I hear are not the kind that tell me to do strange things or incite me to desperate acts, rather they belong to my characters, both those I know and those I’ve yet to meet. And I’ve learned something in over forty years of writing—when they speak, I listen!

Carrying paper and pencil or pen is wonderful advice for those moments when your characters begin to speak and you want to capture them for posterity. It’s all well and good to say oh, I’ll remember that, no problem, until  you’re sitting in front of your computer screen and your fingers are in place upon the keyboard and suddenly you’ve forgotten every single word you were sure you’d remember forever. As they talk, you should write, that much is just a given. Continue reading →

Controller: Chapter 2

Wednesday BriefsTime again for Wednesday Briefs. It doesn’t feel like a week to me! Ah well, I hope you enjoy the second installment. Oh, and this weeks prompt that I used was the Great Pumpkin.

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Chapter 2

Hello Kitty? Why in the hell would I want a USB drive that looked like Hello Kitty? The fact I had to pull off its head to plug it in was a step in the right direction though.  Stupid, just really stupid. I flipped through the other USB drives and found a Great Pumpkin drive. God, I loved Charlie Brown and the whole Great Pumpkin thing. I drove Mom nuts with my obsession over it when I was eight. I was determined to wait for the Great Pumpkin. It didn’t matter to me that the nearest pumpkin patch involved a twenty mile drive out of Chicago. As I stood grinning over my mother’s moment of realization of what a stubborn child she had, I noticed one of the store employees had walked up beside me.

“Can I help you find something?” he asked, tucking his dark shoulder length hair behind each ear.

“I need a USB drive. I was headed to the library and can’t find mine.” I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. “I can’t seem to keep up with the things.” Continue reading →

Controller: Chapter 1

Wednesday BriefsSo this week I’m trying something new. I’ve joined a group of writers who publish a flash piece (500-1000 words) each week based off a writing prompt they’re given. Most of the authors are writing them as a weekly series, which is what I intend. Also, there are links at the bottom of each story to other the other authors, so you might find someone else you enjoy reading.

So, this is chapter one of the first-person contemporary romance titled Controller. Oh, and the writing prompt I chose was Tootsie Roll Pop.

Chapter One.

The controller swung in a vicious arc, my thumbs sliding across multiple buttons on the pad as the sounds of war echoed on either side. The end of my gun was barely visible, and the barrage of bullets erupting from the barrel gave the impression of a light saber. A sensor went off, and I bit my lip as I did a front roll to escape the slicing katana whizzing through the air a hair’s breadth above me. I spun and blasted the assassin from the packing crate, his head exploding with a satisfying splatter of gore.

“Die, motherfuck’r!” Continue reading →

What? Tagged?

What? Huh? Dang it, I’m never watching when I get tagged!

You got me Hel. Okay, so I guess. Hmmm

What are you working on right now?

I’m editing a contemporary M/M set in the rodeo circuit. The novel is 52,000 words and titled Drawing the Devil. Dustin is a young bullrider in the hunt for one of the spots at the National Finals Rodeo and Shane is a bullfighter (rodeo clown) in his mid-twenties and has been at chasing bulls around the area since he was fourteen. Both of them are coming to terms with their sexuality in the homophobic world of professional rodeo. I’m hoping to send it off to publisher by the end of the year. That means I need to get the final copy to my beta readers the first of December. Yikes!

How does Drawing the Devil differ from other works in its genre?

Well, I think the occupations of the two main characters are unique and interesting. The bull riding event is like watching demolition derby, people go for the crashes, and there are plenty of crashes in this story. Oh wait, that wasn’t the question. I guess the what makes Dustin and Shane’s story different is in how I tell it. Like most of my work, the details put you firmly in whatever the pair are doing.

Why do you write what you do?

Well, I enjoy storytelling and but having grown up in several rural locations I thought most contemporary writing didn’t do justice to LGBT people who make the choice to live outside of the city. I keep hearing from my readers how strongly they identify with the characters, that they are people they’d like to sit down and enjoy a beer with, or I’ve described them at eighteen, twenty-eight or sixty-eight. I guess I’m a softy at heart. I want the nice guy to finish first,

How does your writing process work?

I decide what setting I want to work in before developing the characters. The character’s names are an important part of my story development. Sometimes they’re pretty blunt i letting me know their names, other times they squirm and change several times before finally settling in and feeling just right. Dustin and Shane both had different names early in the process.

Next for me is the beginning and the end. I need to see where I’m headed and where I’m coming from. Next I plan out the story, some. My planning is pretty generic, more bullet points of things I want to happen in a chapter. Finally the fun begins and the characters take on a life of their own. Sometimes they behave, sometimes they argue with me, but mostly we work it out. Sometimes they sneak things past me and I think “where’d that come from?”.

Thanks, Heloise, for the tag. I’m reaching out to tag Jaci, JC, Jena Wade and Genna Donaghy. Should I duck and run?

NaNoWriMo: Yes, I am crazy

nanowrimoSo for those of you who might not be aware, every November is National Novel Writing Month. I’ve never done it before, never heard of it until the last few months, but this year I’m going to give it a shot. The goal is to write the rough draft of a 50,000 book in November. I’ve been planning, (and planning and planning) a fantasy novel, Obsidian Sun with an alternative bronze age setting, and of course cool magic. This is going to be really different from my normal contemporary characters. So here’s a rough teaser for the series.

Anan returns from a hunting trip to find his clan decimated and the children taken by slavers. The only survivor to the attack is Terja who is one of the spellspinners. As a spellweaver, Anan recognizes he needs Terja’s talents to form the other half of the clan’s magic and rescue the children, but he’s never been a leader before, and Terja is a trembling mess. Can they meet the toll of a bloodweaving and rescue the future of their clan, or will their own demons destroy any chance.

If you’d like to follow along or want to buddy me, just go here. I’ll try to keep you posted on how it goes.

Wish me luck, we’re gonna let’r buck as Mitch would say.

Sandbox: First Love

This story I wrote quite a while ago and I’m glad to say my writing has improved since then. But I thought I’d share it with you, I think it’s still a fun little story. The writing prompt was intercourse.

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Danny had been on pins and needles for months waiting for the arrival of his eighteenth birthday. Today was the day. His breath came in gasps as Kirk’s tongue invaded his ass. He could feel the stretching of his hole and was eager to give himself to the most popular football player in school. Kirk’s tongue burrowed deeper as Danny’s toes curled. He was ready, Danny knew he was in love, and wanted to share everything. Continue reading →