Oh HAI!!

I'm playing over on the Torquere Livejournal today (torquere_social) so come join me and help me come up that unique brand of Torquere nuttiness. Will have snippets and prizes and randomness and best of all, pimping of my new release which comes out on Saturday!

(I introduce to you Damian Keith Carrick, Keith's son from his first marriage. This is set about . . oh, I don't know . . . 10-12 years after my initial Mark and Keith stuff, and alludes to a lot of backstory that I haven't even mentioned so far and that I'm not going to tell you just yet. But for the record, Rachel is Keith's daughter, also from his first marriage, and she's maybe four or so years older than Dami. And dang, I really like Dami and the plot bunnies are starting to nibble at my brain, fuck it)


"Thanks Dad."

Keith looked up from the case notes he was pouring over to see his 14 year old son, Damian, standing in the doorway to his office. He smiled at his son, unable to help the slight tinge of pride that always wrapped itself around his heart when he saw his tall, goodlooking, athletic boy.

"You're welcome, Dami, but what are you thanking me for?"

Damian grinned and waved the pile of luridly colored magazines he was holding in his hand.

"Oh . . . those," Keith felt himself blushing a bit. Well, he'd wanted to make sure the boy was . . . well-educated . . . but wasn't sure how to broach the subject. Most of the time Damian was a loving, openly affectionate son, quite happy to display his love for both his fathers in public, but on certain subjects he was fairly reticent. Not suprising, given that he was both a teenager and a child with two fathers and a long dead mother.

"Yeah, those," Damian smiled broadly. "I especially liked the fact that you put in a selection of both straight and gay porno mags. Although that picture in the last one - do you and Mark *really* do stuff like that."

Keith blushed deeply at that and chose not to reply to his son's blatant needling. "I just wanted you to know it was . . . okay, you know? Whether you're gay or straight." And then he grinned just as widely as his son. "I'm not going to be disappointed if you come out as hetrosexual, son."

Damian kept on smiling and just shook his head. "I told you - I'll let you know as soon as I know." Keith had a feeling Damian was pretty much kidding him on that point. Sure, Keith himself hadn't really admitted to himself that he was gay until he was in his thirties with a young daughter and a divorce under his belt. But, when he thought about it, he'd probably known much younger than that. Mark claimed to have known he preferred men from a very young age, even if he'd spent years hating himself for it.

"Did you do the same thing for Rachel? A mix of straight and lesbian mags left in an obvious place for her to find?"

Cheeky brat. Damian was going to get teasing material out of this for weeks if not months.

"Um . . . no. I set Mark on to her when she was quite a bit younger - had to, what with girls getting periods earlier and all."

Damian wrinkled his nose up at the mention of his sister's menstrual cycle. Rachel had grown up in a household full of men, but thanks to Mark's open and informative attitude towards sex and puberty - and in large part, thanks to Rachel's confident and outgoing nature itself - she had absolutely no 'too much information' filter when it came to sharing the details of her reproductive cycle with her brother and fathers. And even if she hadn't told them, the fact that she turned into the Uber Bitch Princess (Bitch Queen was reserved for their cranky, aging tabby cat) once a month would have told them to duck for cover.

Of course, Keith could see right through Damian's supposed disgust. Dami was the first one to take his sister ibuprofen and a hot water bottle and sit with her rubbing her back for endless hours when she was suffering through one of her more horrific periods.

"Yeah, well, sorry Dad - Mark got to me first too. About a year ago actually." Dami walked futher into the room and propped his hip on the edge of the desk, briefly scanning the top for material he shouldn't look at, then quickly glancing away so Keith had a chance to shuffle things back into the file.

"What? Bloody nurses!" Keith exclaimed. "What did he tell you?"

Damian stuck his tongue out. "It's not his fault you're a coward. And he told me less that what's in some of these magazines for one thing."

Keith's anxiety eased a little - Mark had about as much of a 'tmi' filter as Rachel did.

"Coward? You're calling your father - a dedicated and decorated officer of the law - a coward?"

"I just calls them as I see them." Damian deadpanned.

At that Keith pulled his son off the desk and down into his lap, and began tickling the teen mercilessly. Dami responded by laughing and squealing and wriggling like a five year old, but didn't make much attempt to get away. Keith loved that about his son - so far, despite a lot of the usual male teenage attitude, Damian hadn't gotten too old to fool around with his dad. Finally stopping when Dami was out of breath, with tears running down his face, and pleading iminent danger of peeing himself, Keith dropped a kiss on the boy's forehead and slapped his butt. "Go hide those magazines under your mattress like a proper teenage son. If Mark finds them, don't tell him I had anything to do with them."

Dami stood up and heaved a mock sigh. "Dad, you know if Mark finds them he's more likely to want to sit down with me and get my opinion on which cock is biggest and best . . ."

Keith growled. "Don't say things like that - that's my boyfriend you're talking about." He shuddered and swatted Damian's backside again.

Dami stuck his tonuge out and danced out of range as he headed towards the door. "You're just jealous - you want him to think yours is the biggest in the world."

Keith almost howled at his son for that - bad thoughts in his head, bad thoughts. . . but the boy was racing down the hallway laughing his head off, and hopefully going to torment his other father or sister for a while.

Heaving a sigh of his own, and shaking his head, Keith sorted the case file out again and settled back down to work.

It's Torquere Press' fifth anniversary, and amongst other birthday celebrations, Torquere is holding a Scavenger Hunt. Find the Scavenger Hunt 'button' somewhere on my livejournal, make note of the URL, then collect the buttons from other participating authors. Submit all the links to Torquere Press, and you could win a Kindle E-book reader loaded with Torquere Press books!


The official information for the contest can be found here: http://www.torquerepress.com/contest/scavengerhunt.html along with a copy of the button you're hunting for, and a list of the author sites you need to visit.

As for where the graphic is is, could it be under ( Here? )

It's Torquere Press' fifth anniversary, and amongst other birthday celebrations, Torquere is holding a Scavenger Hunt. Find the Scavenger Hunt 'button' somewhere on my livejournal, make note of the URL, then collect the buttons from other participating authors. Submit all the links to Torquere Press, and you could win a Kindle E-book reader loaded with Torquere Press books!


The official information for the contest can be found here: http://www.torquerepress.com/contest/scavengerhunt.html along with a copy of the button you're hunting for, and a list of the author sites you need to visit.

As for where the graphic is is, could it be under ( Here? )

Those of you with cats will know the significance of the title. Hehehe.

The author (ocassionally known as Laine) is sitting here looking like a monster. I went to town today for my weekend cheezburger fix (not such a good idea as it turns out, given that my meds ran out on Thursday and I haven't refilled the script) and in the process of obtaining said cheezburger, I also bought a rather expenisive, mineral clay face masque (because my boys refuse to come out to play unless I'm looking my best. It's bad enough, they say, having to perform in front of a woman, without the additional distraction of a woman with large pores and blackheads. Therefore, regular facials). It was $34 (NZ) which is more than I'd usually ever pay for anything merely for my face. But I'd budgeted some money for frivolities this week (given that I worked extra last week and spent three hours FILING) and so I thought eh, why not. And it was from the Body Shop, and usually I can't even afford to walk in the door there, let alone buy anything. Usually I walk in, smell everything, avoid the shop assistant, and walk out. This time I was a *real* customer and got helped and *everything*. So yeah, a beautiful, good quality face masque, and whoah, was the money worth it. ::smears it on face:: Oh lordy, that feels gooood.

Nothing like a touch of luxury (and a dose of monthly hormones) to get the writing juices flowing.

All of which is meant to tell you that I wrote today. Well, actually, *Laine* didn't write today. Her more mundane alter ego wrote today. Unfortunately, she wrote non-Laine stuff. Some of you, on the non-Laine flist, will get to read it anyway. But the rest of you miss out, boohoo. But I'm not totally mean, so I'll post a snippet here. If you *really* want to read the rest you'll have to convince Laine's alter ego to friend you. Hehehe.

Then I'm off to rinse of the face masque, have a shower, and write more of the naughty pawn.

Oh, and y'all remember I have a Chaser series coming out in the New Year, right? Put it on your to be bought list! Or no more naughty pawn for you!

(My cat his hicupping on me. I hope this isn't a prelude to puking on me.)

Heh, and just as an aside - I went to town wearing my "Property of Dr. Fell t-shirt". I was so proud to be owned. ::grins::

Yeah, yeah, you want the pawn.

Cuddling closer to Isaac's big body, Ten arched his neck to allow better access to the hot, questing mouth, and moaned as Isaac's rough hands slid up under the satin of the chemise, sliding, just as he'd imagined, on the smooth, hairless skin of his thighs. Ten grinned as Isaac paused in suprise as he registered the absence of the light scattering of soft hair that usually dusted Ten's thighs. The big man looked up, catching Ten's gaze in question. "Ten . . . ?" Ten just wriggled in answer. Deliberately, Isaac let his hands caress further up, calluses biting on tender skin as he dipped between Ten's thighs and pushed them apart. A questing hand slowly groped around Ten's throbbing cock, rolling baby smooth balls, and exploring his hairless pubic mound. Then he dipped further, behind Ten's nut sac, slipping along his perineum - also freshly waxed - and into his crack. His fingers immediately encountered the liberal coating of oil Ten had smeared around and in his anus, and then nudged firmly against the slender plug. Ten hissed and squirmed, grinding his bottom down on Isaac's bulging groin as he did so.

"Oh, Lord." Isaac's face was a picture in suprise and arousal. He swallowed convulsively. "Oh, Lord God, Ten."

I've written five hundred words tonight . . . it was a stuggle but I need at least 500 to 1000 more (my current daily word count goal is 1500 - it's a modest goal but fits my current life circumstances and mood state.) I suppose part of the problem is that I keep letting myself get side tracked by other things (like this post). Earlier I wiled away time trying to come up with a name for my professional dominant (He ended up as Master Alban, although I'm not sure I really like that. It'll do for now I guess) and now I'm designing his bathroom - well, not *his* bathroom, but the one he uses with or for clients. And as I think about it, I wonder - what *would* a professional dominant have in his bathroom. Especially as presumable the normal functions of getting oneself clean and performing one's necessary bodily functions are actually secondary considerations. A large shower would be a necessity - one with lots of room for at least two, and probably more, people to move. Big enough, perhaps, for an entire orgy of soapy, wet, nekkid submissives to slip and slide around in. More than one shower head. Handy hooks and rings for restraining one's sub so one can bathe him or her at your leisure . . . and possibly use the water to taunt or to tease. A big, luxurious tub, of course - one with a spa function just because (you could do breath control play in a nice big tub). Toilet and handbasin (it is a bathroom after all). Plenty of cupboards and storage space for towels, lubricants, massage oils, paddles . . floggers . . . waterwings . . (okay, kidding about the water wings). A massage table that can double as a range of things (so restraints, or at least the fastenings for them, are a must). And everything would have to be finished in a completely waterproof and disinfectable surface, so quite possibly tiled from floor to ceiling. Non direction inset lighting that can range from very subdued to BRIGHT BRIGHT BRIGHT. A big mirror so the sub can see himself being tied and gagged and plugged . . . The color of the tile I'm not sure of . . . something simple but elegant and easy to clean . . . white is too stark and bright, black too macabre and cliched (and doesn't show up the blood properly anyway, should that be your thing) . . . A soft dove gray perhaps? I don't see Master Alban as a pastel kind of man . .

I guess I'll waste a bit more time on the interwebs looking for more ideas.

Edit to Add: Got my word count for tonight. But OMGOSH am I writing drivel. ::sighs:: Hopefully some of it will be retrievable. Maybe I need to rethink this and make some radical changes. I think the idea is sound, but I don't like the way I'm executing it. But here, have a snippet from today's word count.

"If Keith was quite honest with himself, he realised that he never would have thought of beginning the night like this if Master Alban hadn’t listed it amongst the services he offered. But Keith had been intrigued by the idea, and Master Alban had quickly realised Keith’s interest (damned the man and his keen intuition). After discussing it further, Keith realised he was more than intrigued, he was down right turned on, and even if Mark didn’t find it arousing, for some reason, Keith knew he would."

I'm quite excited today - I had a short story (novelette length) accepted by Torquere as a Single Shot. Which is exciting enough, but then it occured to me that as I was already writing another short story using the same characters and dealing with similar themes, and had an idea for a third one pinging about my head, well, why not ask if I could make it a Chaser series (that's three novelette length stories that are released two months apart . . . I'm currently waiting for the third one in Lee Benoit's Servants of the Season series and dying from the anticipation). And the nice editor agreed that it could be a Chaser series. Which maybe suprised me a little bit because I really didn't think anyone in their right mind would actually contract something from *me* that I hadn't written yet! ::ponders this:: I'd better not say that maybe the editor *isn't* in her right mind, at least not until the contract is signed.

But yes . . . THREE new releases coming out from moi, although quite a distance into the future. The series will be called "Lessons in Mastery" (catchy huh?). The first one is "Under Control", the second one is currently called "Under Duress" although I'm not sure I like that so much or if it conveys what the story is about, but the third one will almost certainly be called "Under Fire". Number one will be released in March 09 (I KNOW - long time away!), Two will be May 09 and three will be July 09 - that's a WHOLE YEAR AWAY!!! WOW! How will I contain my excitement that long. Oh yeah, but writing two and three. And finishing that novel I'm hoping they might just schedule if I'm lucky and cross all my digits.

Anyway, in celebration have a very rough, raw snippet of what I wrote tonight - accompanied, somewhat appropriately by "Mercy" by Duffy on the MP3 player doohickey.

"Lessons in Mastery - Under Duress" by Laine Williams (hey, that's me!)

Mark closed his eyes, his face turning even further into Keith’s hand as if he craved the contact. “Tell me who I belong to. Tell me who’s boy I am.”

The relief almost took Keith’s breath away. “Mine. You’re my boy. My boy, and my boy only.”

“Good.” The word was barely audible, said more or less to himself as Mark gave a firm little nod and turned his attention back to the Master standing patiently behind them, watching.

“Yes, I consent.”

“Agreed and witnessed,” The Master responded. “Boys?” The last was directed towards the two young men sat on the other side of the room, more or less forgotten.

“Witnessed.” They replied.

(I'm such a tease).

. . . that despite having a list of stories to write, in the order you want to write them, your brain gets hijacked and you end up starting something different all together! It even has a title, which means it must be written, because usually I have trouble with titles.

So, current writing order is:

1. Lessons in Mastery (bwahaha)
2. Tattoo Guy
3. The First Day of Christmas
4. Coming to Rest

then in no particular order

5. The Devil May Care
6. Committed.
7. Bite of the Winter Wolf
8. Soldier guy

Most of which mean nothing to any of you. Hehehe. But it's a good way of me keeping track of the ideas in my head.

Anyway, today's writing was bought to you courtesy of my friend, Kirst. She lives at the other end of the country, but we spend a lot of time playing World of Warcraft together and chatting while we do. Today when I logged on I discovered she was in a 'getting things done' kind of mood, so, to make herself do something productive, she'd game for a bit, then go do half an hour of housework or something. So we did this on and off most of the late afternoon and evening, then, just as we were settling in for a good run with our characters, and talking about how I'd write and she'd draw tomorrow, for sure, she said "Well, why don't we just go and do that for an hour NOW! And then come back and tell each other what we've done." So that's what we did. I wrote for an hour, she drew for an hour, and beneath is a short snippet from what I wrote on a new short (well, hopefully it will be short!).

( Snippet hot off the presses. SFW. I think. )

Yes, I am writing - miracle of miracles! Have an entirely boring completely work safe snippet (I haven't gotten to the good stuff yet).

The photo album was older than Mark was. Old-fashioned and bound with leather, the pages were thick, black card with tiny slits cut into them for the photos to slot into. Mark remembered his mother sitting with the album late at night, often after his father had gotten into one of his rages and stormed out of the house. He never talked to her when he found her sitting at the table, sorting out the family photos and carefully placing them in the album as she wept silent tears onto the tablecloth. If she’d known he was there, she would have been angry and whatever pain his father had inflicted on him would have been followed up by his mother’s own weaker version of it.

I know very little about alcohol because I don't drink. Not at all. Well, okay, I will admit to the very occasional bottle of vodka being downed over the space of a weekend. But only when I can't get hold of prescription benzos ::straight face:: My point is then when it came time to figure out just what my characters were going to drink while sat in the bar they were in, I didn't have a clue. What do tough guys drink? What do pretty little fairies (literally and figuratively) drink? So I picked bourban for the tough guy - pretty safe with prime American whiskey for a tough guy who doesn't feel like a beer, right? But what about my pretty boy? Well, Long Island Iced Tea sounds good . . . who knew it has no tea in it? ::grins:: Who knew it's made up of vodka, gin, tequila and rum among other things. Problem is my pretty little fairy boy doesn't drink. So I had a good laugh at myself and stopped trying to be fancy, and just changed it to plain old iced tea. Maybe with a splash of lemon juice. Ah, the life of a writer - one day you're learning about alcoholic cocktails, the next you're researching the breeding cycle of the New Zealand fur seal.

All of which leads to the point of this post, which is to brag that I actually wrote something today and post a short piece of it. None of the things I'm working on really grabbed me today (although I did have a short menage piece pop into my head while I was driving - I hate that!), so I decided to *make* myself work on "The Devil May Care". I posted the rough as boots first bit of this a week or so ago, but the tone was off for the narrator, so I've revised what I've got so far extensively so the narrator is more of an arsehole ::grins:: But anyways, here, have a short bit from today's effort:

“Please remove your hand from my arm.”

My face twisted up into a smirk. He was feisty, no doubting it. I liked feisty, and my I could feel my cock start to throb at the thought of taming him in bed.

“Now, why would I want to do that?” I drawled, squeezing his wrist firmly to demonstrate my strength. Not all of faery-kind could out-muscle humans, and, as far as I knew, pixies were one of the breeds that couldn’t.

His gaze stay fastened on my hand, and I let the offending appendage drift down to caress his fingers, my own digits stroking up and down the slender, delicate length of his. I could do gentle when the need arose.

“Because if you don’t, I’ll snap it off.” He replied, smiling sweetly. I started to laugh at the threat in his voice and the fire in his eyes, but quick as a flash his other hand darted out to clamp cruelly on my wrist. I heard bones crunch, a sharp stab of pain following hot on the heels of the sound as he tore my hand off his arm.

I've finally gotten around to editing the short story I was working on last weekend - I sent it off to my faithful beta, and she sweated blood and tears over if for me and sent it back, and now I'm going through making the changes I agree with, ignoring the ones I don't, and swearing at her under my breath when she disses some particularly marvelous piece of purple prose. (She also reads this journal, so you know the next time she proofs for me she's so going to pwn me. It's true, I am her beyotch.) So I give you the editing process.

1. Play WoW for most of the day.
2. Plant some lettuces in pot plants even though it's nearly the begining of winter.
3. Reread Lainey Cairo's Fand for about the fourth time (seriously, if you're looking for something nummy to read, I would reccomend any of Lainey's works - also availalbe from Torquere.)
4. Finally sit down and open up the Word document.
5. Switch from using OpenOffice to Word because Word has a spellcheck (Open Office probably does too, but I haven't figured it out yet).
6. Get up and let the cat out. Cat refuses to go out because it's raining. Get up and let second cat out. Second cat refuses to go out because it's raining. Repeat this four times. Throw both cats out forcibly.
7. FINALLY get around to actually changing things in the document. So, here we have the process.

We go from this, my original paragraph:

Mark was bone-weary that night when he got home, two hours after his shift had officially ended. His evening had gone from bad to worse, with the young gay man he'd sent home battered and bruised arriving back in short order, this time unconscious and in an ambulance. He'd barely gotten home, it seemed, when his boyfriend had laid into him again for some imagined indiscretion, and this time he hadn't stopped until the police arrived to pull him off. The young man was currently in the intensive care unit being nursed one on one, after the surgeons had finished wiring the bones in his face back together. If the swelling in his brain went down soon enough, he might even get back to normal some day.

To this, with the lovely betaress' (Is that a word) comment in bold:

Mark was bone-weary that night when he got home, two hours after his shift had officially ended. His evening had gone from bad to worse, with the young gay man he'd sent home battered and bruised arriving back in short order, (three-pronged sentence again! I’d probably kill it here, and then say: This time it was unconscious and in an ambulance.) He'd barely gotten home, it seemed, when his boyfriend had laid into him again for some imagined indiscretion, and this time he hadn't stopped until the police arrived to pull him off. (Long sentence again. I’d break it.) The young man was currently in the intensive care unit being nursed one on one, after the surgeons had finished wiring the bones in his face back together. If the swelling in his brain went down soon enough, he might even get back to normal some day.

To this, which at first glance seems to be okay:

Mark was bone-weary that night when he got home, two hours after his shift had officially ended. His evening had gone from bad to worse. The young gay man he'd sent home battered and bruised came back in short order, this time unconscious and in an ambulance. He'd barely gotten home when his boyfriend had laid into him again for some imagined indiscretion. This time he hadn't stopped until the police arrived to pull him off. The young man was currently in the intensive care unit being nursed one on one, after the surgeons had finished wiring the bones in his face back together. If the swelling in his brain went down soon enough, he might even get back to normal some day.

Then we reread it a while later, realise some words are repeated and one of the sentences is to short and not descriptive enough, and we get this, which (as we're sick of this paragraph and ready to drown it) will probably be sent off as the final version:

Mark was bone-weary that night when he got home, two hours after his shift had officially ended. His evening had rapidly gone from bad to worse. The young gay man he'd sent home battered and bruised came back in short order, unconscious and in an ambulance. He'd barely gotten home when his boyfriend had laid into him again for some imagined indiscretion. This time he hadn't stopped until the police arrived to pull him off. The young man was currently in the intensive care unit being nursed one on one, after the surgeons had finished wiring the bones in his face back together. If the swelling in his brain went down soon enough, he might even get back to normal some day.

The changes are subtle but important, and I'm finding that I'm actually enjoying the editorial process and learning a lot at the same time. I never used to bother with getting people to edit things for me when I posted them for free, and I guess I had a bit of an Ann Rice complex and thought everything I wrote was *wonderful*. I liked it, after all, and it gave me a warm fuzzy to reread it. When I got back my first piece from the editor at Torquere, I was horrified to discover just how often I used ellipses (the three dots) - in my mind it was a way of introducing pauses and breathing and drama. To the editor's mind it was just a way of interupting the story and throwing people out of the narrative flow. I sulked for a day or so and then went back and had another look and realised - OMG, the editor is right! At which point I went back through the story and took out *all* the ellipses that had been highlighted except, I think, two instances, where I felt justified using them for stylistic reasons. I know that by the end of the exercise I was thoroughly sick of removing those damned little dots (so I can only imagine how exhausted the editor was), and with this story, they made far fewer appearances. When I did my own first edit, I then went through and removed most of the instances did occur, and was thoroughly proud of my self and had a little image of a happy, relieve editor sat there thinking "Thank God, no dots!"

So I learned, even from that one instance of editorial input. You'll notice that my beta this time has mentioned my 'three pronged sentences', long sentences with three distinct sub-clauses. Er, yeah - I tend to do that a lot too . . . . as my beta has repeatedly told me. I also tend to do a lot of run on sentences - seriously, some of them are four or five line long monsters. Something else to work on I guess.

Of course, the above paragraph is actually one of the ones with the least number of betatorial comments in them - sometimes the commentary is longer than the paragraph it's critiquing ::grins evilly at beta:: But the lovely beta in question is always good humoured about it, so I end up with comments like this, which at least make the editing process amusing:

"Oh yeah, gorgeous, I like what I see, (.) (…yeah, I’m going to be bugging you about this unto pretty much forever…JUST BECAUSE I CARE, DAMMIT!)" Mark moved to the bed, sitting on its edge and reaching for his 'welcome home' kiss. He got it, and more, (here I’d probably use a colon HA HA HA BAD PUN, i.e. “…and more: Keith’s mouth was gentle but firm…”)

Seriously, she needs to give up her day job (which is boring) and go into stand up comedy editing full time.

And the last step in the editorial process? Go and let the damned cats back in before the scratch the door down.

Unsuprisingly, I didn't do any writing today. This is often the case when I've just finished something and am waiting to get it back from my lovely beta. I'm just still so wound up with the story I've finished that I can't get into the next thing. And at the moment I can't even decide what that next thing will be. In this vein, there are some essential tools for writers - especially when procrastinating.

1. A cat. I know it's a cliche, but truly, a cat is an invaluable tool for a writer. For one thing, when you're marvelling over your absolutely magnificant prose, they're completely unimpressed. They don't care if you've come up with a brand new, non-corny, completely erotic and original word for penis. They just want you to get the gooshy food out of the fridge. They also aid with procrastination in a number of ways. They demand constant petting, thus limiting your ability to touch type. They sit on the top of your laptop so you can't even open the lid. And, most importantly, they eat any and all food scraps that might be hanging around on the table, thus mitigating your guilt over eating when you should have been writing. Because they are so indispensible, I have three, although I only use two (the third is more likely to bite you than write with you, and she spends most of her day at the neighbours aiding the older gentleman with his TV watching). I imagine I would do much more writing if I could actually get the computer open.

2. World of Warcraft. Many a writing hour has been spent running around this rather large, online, multiuser game. One of it's predecessors, Diablo II, was directly responsible for my undergraduate honors thesis being handed in three months late. Enuff said.

3. Other people's writing - I spend possibly ten times the amount of time reading as I do writing. I blame all the excellent m/m authors out there. It's all your fault that I don't write more.

Today at work my workmate was telling me about a blog he stumbled across. It was the blog of a writer, who just happened to be gay, who had realised that he could make much more money writing the 'gay equivalent of Mills and Boon'. My workmate was quite incredulous that such a genre existed. And all the while, I was sat there, biting hard down on my tongue to prevent myself from blurting out "You don't have to tell me - I *publish* in that genre." ::grins:: I suppose I could have 'outed' myself at work, but given that I work for a Child Protection Service I decided that it might not be wise. It was extremely funny though. But now I'm curious - who is this publisher that's publishing, in print, the gay equivalent of Mills and Boon, and why haven't I heard of them? Have I heard of them and not known about it? He couldn't remember the author or name of the blog, and I probably shouldn't push him for it.

Tomorrow - hopefully I'll either do some work on a new piece, or, at the very least, get the one I've just finished back from my beta and start rewriting as per her suggestions (she's hell on my sentence construction).

Yay, finished the short story I'm working on. It has a name now - "Out of Control", and is 10,000 words long. Because I've been working on it for a while, some parts are betaed, but the stuff I wrote yesterday and today need polishing (of course). I have an unfortunate tendency to include corn with my porn, and also the less sexy or romantic sides of sex (hey, sex is messy and awkward, right). So I decided that, in celebration, you could have one of the aforementioned completely unsexy parts of the sex scene I've just finished. You lucky peeps you!

The head of Mark's cock popped through the ring of muscle protecting Keith's rectum and his lover hissed. Mark stilled instantly, alarm lurching in the pit of his stomach. “Keith? Okay?” His voice wavered a little, both from worry and from the strain of not continuing to move forward.

Keith's eyes fluttered open, and he smiled almost beatifically. “Yeah, yeah, lover, I'm fine, it's fine.”

“I didn't hurt you?”

“No, no – keep going, God, keep going, please? It just feels weird, you know, like . . . uh . . .” A light stain flushed his face and spread down onto his chest. Yeah, actually, Mark did know.

“It feels like you need to take a dump, yeah?”

Keith snorted, blush darkening and spreading further down his body. “Yeah. Sexy, huh?”

Mark grinned. “Oh yeah, very sexy. But very true. And to take it further, when I start moving again, push out as I push in like you were . . .”

“I know – taking a dump. Just, fuck, keep going, would you? I don't care what it's like – it feels good.”

Procrastination mostly!

I figured it was time to try and make semi-regular posts to this journal - and decided to do so tonight because if I do that, I don't have to actually write! It's a constant battle I wage with myself - the desire to write versus the desire not to. Often, the desire not to wins!

At the moment, my intentions are to firstly, finish the short story I'm writing and submit it. I'm hoping to have that done this weekend. Then I have two shorts and a novel to work on, although I'm not sure in which order I'll work on them in. One is a Christmas short, called "On the First Day of Christmas". One is a . . . well . . . futuristic urban fantasy thing called "The Devil May Care." The novel is a contemporary urban fantasy (although light on the fantasy aspect) called "Coming to Rest." None of these are contracted at the moment, although I have high hopes.

Presuming the procrasination doesn't eat me. (Can't write, clowns will get me).

On the problematic list is a ?novel called "Out of the Ordinary" which is difficult because the laws here are different to the laws in the US, but because the publisher is in the US I have to abide by their guidelines. Which makes it tricky, because the hole set up for the novel revolves around underage prostituation (Interesting facts: The age of consent in New Zealand is sixteen. Prostitution in New Zealand is legal, and the legal age for working as a sex worker is 18. These things are vital to the novel's context).

But noone came here to listen to me ramble - you all want snippets, don't you. Oh, okay then! Here, have a few snippets.

From the as yet unnamed short story I'm working on this weekend, which features my characters, Mark and Keith, from my first Torquere Sip, "Mark's Toy Box" available at www.torquerebooks.com (gotta work on my link inserting skillz!). In this short, Mark finds himself in an interesting situation:
From "The Devil May Care":


From "Coming to Rest" which I hope to have finished soon - only a few chapters and one sex scene to go!


And finally, from "Out of the Ordinary", my problematic orphan child:


And don't forget, you *can* get my Sip from Torquere!

My Sip, Mark's Toy Box, is now available for purchase from Torquere Press! I'm very excited, because it's the first thing I've ever published! YAY! ::bounces::

Public Service Announcement:

::taps microphone:: ::cough cough::

Tomorrow (today? I don't know - never could work out time zones) is MY day on the Torquere Advent Calendar . . . there, should you choose to go click on the number 30, you shall find a rather hot (if I do say so myself) snippet featuring the boys from my as yet unscheduled but upcoming Sip - the snippet features Mark and Keith coping with the unique challenges presented by a New Zealand Christmas, while the blurb I wrote for the Sip goes thusly:

"Mark's Toy Box" focusses on Mark Laughlin, a 27 year old nurse, and his detective lover, Keith Carrick. Already in a committed, monogamous relationship, these two men find that their love for each other only brings them increasingly closer together, opening up avenues for a kind of relationship neither has experienced - and creates the opportunities for hot, and increasingly kinky sex along the way. The story deals both with Keith's unexpected discovery and exploration of Mark's chest full of adult toys, and an exploration of their developing relationship as they deal with the influences of the past. Theirs is not a random, fleeting encounter, but something that will endure for a lifetime.