#RainbowSnippets: For Paula

Welcome to Rainbow Snippets!

Every Saturday, those participating post and share six sentences of LGBTQIA+ fiction on their blogs. It can be their own. It can be someone else’s. It just needs to be LGBTQIA+ .

To read a wide variety of samples of LGBTQIA+ fiction, go here…

https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets/?ref=group_header

Paula, I’m dedicating this one to you. 😉 Can you guess what it’s about? 😉 Yes, it’s a little longer than six sentences, forgive me. (bows)

 

“No need to be rude, my snarky serpent.” Nimmie Not released me and stepped forward to give Prunella a reproachful look. “This is why I brought him to you, so you can measure his destiny, so to speak.”

“Measure his destiny, my snout. You mean his potential use.” Prunella lowered their head, so it was level with me. “You haven’t been fool enough to accept any gifts from this kobold, have you?”

“No, I haven’t.” It took every bit of courage I hadn’t realized I possessed to look Prunella straight in the nose. Not in the eye. Never look a dragon in the eye. It was one of the few lessons my mother had passed on that I remembered. “We did make a trade, though.”

7-7-7: The Hand and the Eye of the Tower

And now for something completely unplanned in the middle of the week…the 7-7-7 challenge delivered by Rian Durant via Twitter! I’ve been asked to share the first 7 lines on the 7th page of my Work in Progress!

The question is which Work in Progress do I choose? The ones occupying my mind at the moment aren’t that long.

After due consideration, I’ve decided to go back to A Godling for Your Thoughts?, the third novel under revision in my ambient fantasy series, Tales of the Navel/The Shadow Forest…

 

He tried to convince his twin to hide, too, but Danyel was curious. Some of these people were staying, building cottages next to theirs. They planted crops in the formerly empty grasslands between their cottage and the forest.

No one mentioned the tower. Their eyes passed over it as if it wasn’t there.

“Don’t say anything about the hill,” Map warned her sons.

 

 

 

Me Me Monday: Conversation with Christopher

Welcome to Me Me Monday, a day to promote, strut, and celebrate your Me-ness!

Christopher: Only you almost forgot to write anything. Again.

Me: (blinks) All right, with that tone and attitude I almost thought you were Quartz.

Christopher: He’s at the Forbidden Cauldron, remember? Due to be reflected at your Facebook Author Page in the evening. Because you could never figure out how to adjust the time on your Facebook Author Page posts, only the date.

Me: Yes, that attitude is definitely Quartz-like. Why are you harassing me?

Christopher: NaNoWriMo is coming up, remember? I want to know what you plan to do with Danyel and Tayel. (The darkness appears to gather around him, making his shadow stretch in a sinister fashion.) Not to mention what you already did with Damian.

Me: I’ve got plans for you all, never fear.

Christopher: I’m always afraid because you’ve always got plans.

Me: Well, conflict is the essence of life. Especially a plot’s life.

Christopher: Just what are you up to?

Me: Well, right now I’m running around trying to do things before NaNoWriMo.

Christopher: And once NaNoWriMo begins?

Me: My project is the rough draft of the fourth book in Tales of the Navel/The Shadow Forest. It’s called My Tool, My Treasure.

Christopher: Is this a reference to myself? Or Leiwell?

Me: Both of you. Along with the twins and Damian.

Christopher: (The darkness at his feet writhes.) I hope you’re not planning anything we’ll all regret.

Me: (shuddering) Just when did you get so scary? You were such a sweet, docile boy in all the ongoing preludes I posted here.

Christopher: That was before the events in Stealing Myself From Shadows and The Hand and the Eye of the Tower. Not to mention whatever weird form you put in for A Godling for Your Thoughts?

Me: No spoilers!

Christopher: How could I spoil anything? I’m not sure what’s going on.

Me: You’ll find out, you’ll find out…we’ll spend some quality time together soon. I promise.

Christopher: Is that what you said to him?

(He gestures to the hole at his feet. Rhodry’s voice calls from the darkness.)

Rhodry: Is that you, creatrix? Will you be returning to my story any time soon? Please?

Christopher: He’s always polite to you. Look how you treat him.

Me: Well…(hems)

Christopher: Maybe Quartz has a point about the whole knocking on your imagination so you don’t forget us.

Me: I haven’t forgotten you, I haven’t forgotten you…we’ll spend some time together soon.

Rhodry: (from the hole) Really? I’m so glad.

(Christopher crosses his arms and looks at me. Pointedly.)

Me: So many characters…so little time.

Christopher: Try making more effective use of it.

Me: This rebelling really doesn’t make me go any faster…

Christopher:…

#RainbowSnippets: Aissa and Polyxena

Welcome to Rainbow Snippets!

Every Saturday, those participating post and share six sentences of LGBTQIA+ fiction on their blogs. It can be their own. It can be someone else’s. It just needs to be LGBTQIA+.

To read a wide variety of samples from LGBTQIA+ stories, go to…

https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets/?ref=group_header

 

For my own, I’ll offer another sample from my m/m mythical tale of cross-dressing, which I’m currently polishing up before sending it out in search of a home…again.  Here’s a taste of Aissa and Polyxena…once more, it’s just slightly longer than it should be for the sake of coherency…

How came I to have this vision? I haven’t the gift of prophecy, not like my siblings, Helenus and Cassandra.

The boy still appeared in my dream, not theirs.

Beautiful he was, with ebony hair a little too lustrous and rounded limbs a little too finely made. An all too mortal sorrow cast shadows under his liquid black eyes.

He held out a cup, richly embossed with gems, trembling in his hand.

“Troile, son of Troy.” His rosebud mouth trembled around each word. “Would you share my fate as well as my heritage?”

Me Me Monday: Conversation in the Corners of My Imagination

It’s Me Me Monday! A day to promote, strut, and celebrate your Me-ness!

In honor of mine, I’ll take you on a journey deep into my imagination…well, all right, not that deep. We’re only going to the fringes where my characters await.

A figure sits, like Rodin’s Thinker, only he’s far more slender and androgynous. He could easily pass for a she or something beyond gender entirely. He rests his hand on his chin, contemplating the shadows churning around him, whispering and hissing.

Careful not to step on any shadows, a dwarf trundles out on stocky legs, smoothing his graying beard. He starts to scowl at the figure, only to relax his brow at the bent shoulders of the neglected character.

“Well, look at you,” Quartz said, for it was Quartz, wandering out of his universe beyond the fourth wall as usual. “Never thought the scribbler would neglect you of all the figments of her imagination.”

“She’s occupied with Danyel and his brothers.” Christopher studies a couple of wispy, slender shapes, even slighter than his own, flitting about each other. “Even their development is being abandoned right now.”

“No doubts for very good reasons, other deadlines, pressing projects, blah, blah.” Quartz lets out a harrumphing sound. “I wonder sometimes about your story and the scribbler. Seems like she gave way too much away.”

“I’m not part of previously published work.” Christopher allows a melancholy smile to cross his face. “Sometimes I wonder if my entire tale will ever be published.”

“You and me both.” Quartz finds a convenient lump of stone, sticking out of the ground, and seats himself upon it. “Used to envy all the attention you got, ongoing stories in the Cauldron three times a week.” He raised a bushy eyebrow at the other character. “Seeing you abandoned after all that makes me wonder if you’re not as sorry as the rest of lurking in here.” He sighed. “Center for a little while, only to be shoved aside whatever else demands the scribbler’s imagination.”

“We’re in better shape than some.” Christopher lifts his head and gestures to a dark hole, which appears in the ground a few feet from Quartz and himself. “Listen.”

The two characters grow silent, pricking up their ears.

A faint sound comes from the hole. It’s a boy’s voice, younger than Christopher, soft and hesitant.

“Um, excuse me? Where am I? What world am I in? I’ve been in so many, had so many names changes. I’m no longer sure who I am, let alone where I am. I’m still Rhodry, aren’t I? I used to be Rhodry Mavelyne. Now I’m Rhodry Nevalyn, right? Am I in a library or a tower? Perhaps both? I’m not sure about my surroundings. They’re dark and fading, I understand that you’re busy, but if you could think of me, from time to time, shine a little light on my existence, I’d really appreciate it. Any snippet of story I could get involved with or a blog post? Please?”

The voice fades away.

Christopher and Quartz look up and stare at each.

“He’s been neglected for far longer than either of us.” Christopher crosses his arms, hugging himself, dropping his head. “I feel a little bad taking Danyel, Tayel, and Leiwell from him, all things considered.”

“He’s been rewritten so many times. Now he’s abandoned.” Quartz examines his beard, sneaking glances at the hole. “If he was a secondary character, I’d offer him an interview…wait a moment!” Both of his thick eyebrows shoot up. “You took Map’s boys from him?”

“They weren’t exactly Map’s boys. Map wasn’t Map either. It was a different universe and they had different names. Rhodry had a different name, too, well, slightly different.” Christopher raises a fist to his lips, giving the other character a sidelong glance. “Now they’re what they are and part of my world. It’s complicated.”

“It’s always complicated.” Quartz chews on his lower lip, considering Christopher’s words. “And that scribbler has to remember it all.”

“Hence the dark moments when she focuses on something else.” Christopher glances into the darkness, seeing the flashes of color from other ideas, other fragments, other stories flying about gossamer wings, only to fall in mid flight. “We’re never far from her imagination, though.”

“Don’t you forget it.” Quartz puffs out his chest. “Don’t you forget it either.”

A smile spreads across Christopher’s face, slow and hesitant.

Well. It looks like those two are bonding. Will miracles never cease.

I’m glad they’ve glimpsed a little of the mess in here. I haven’t forgotten either one of them or their stories.

They’re never far from my imagination.

Neither is Rhodry.

Why else would I use his name as my handle at this Cauldron, the Forbidden Cauldron, my dreamwidth account, NaNoWriMo, Twitter, and tumblr?

Your stories are boiling, being prepared in this Cauldron of Eternal Inspiration. Take heart, for it is eternal and so are you.

I’m not. I’ve got to make the most of every moment I’ve got, to tell as many stories as I can.

Yours included.

#RainbowSnippets: Aissa and Polyxena

Welcome to Rainbow Snippets!

Every Saturday, those participating post and share six sentences of LGBTQIA+ fiction on their blogs.

It can be their own work. It can be someone else’s. It just needs to be LGBTQIA+.

To read a wide variety of samples from LGBTQIA+ fiction, go here…

https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets/?ref=group_header

Ever since a mythological submission call years ago, I’ve been working on my m/m mythical tale of cross dressing, Aissa and Polyxena.

The first version was rejected.

I made it much longer, over 40 K to meet another submission call.

It was rejected again.

I’m currently looking it over before I pitch out once more…if you see any submission calls you think this fits, let me know?

Here’s the first eight sentences…yes, I went slightly longer in the interests of coherency and drama (bows apologetically)…

Muses may sing of heroic deeds and ancient quarrels. Too often their lips are silent when it comes to hidden truth, even when those truths should hurled into a screaming void of lies.

Too often have tales been voiced of how Achille violated me, decapitated me, delivering unto me many a horrible fate.

This does not trouble him. Achille would rather go down as the most brutal lover in mythology than breathe a word that might bring an end to our strange union… or shame to his beloved.

For shame belongs to me as well for what happened during the Trojan War. I was no less passionate that Achille was, in following my heart away from honor and duty.

It all began with a dream, a fatal passion I imbibed from Ganymede’s cup.

 

Me Me Monday: A Work In Progress

Welcome to Me Me Monday! A day to promote, strut, and celebrate your Me-ness!

I’ve gotten my first celebratory rejection for Wind Me Up, One More Time. Celebratory, because there may be a home for it elsewhere with Mischief Corner Books’ Young Adult line. I just need revise and resubmit.

One of the revisions I’m working on is fleshing out the setting of my story a bit more.

I thought I’d let Nathalie, one of the characters from my story talk about the setting. It’s a town called Verity in which she and Grace (the main character) have lived for most of their lives…

 

We live in a town where time has stopped. Only traces of the modern, a skycraper here or two peeks out of a landscape of brick and wood. Every once in a while, what appears to be thatch raises its head amidst the dwellings.

At the center of everything is the factory with its clockwork tower.

It’s a place which attracts people who don’t want to move forward, like Ursula Grumple. People who want to dress their daughters in frilly dresses and curl their hair.

It’s odd that Morisot, my adopted mother would choose to settle down in such a place, an independent woman with no husband except for one odd tradition in the town of Verity.

Women are the heart, soul, and blood of the toy factory in the center of the historic part of town, a historic town which thrives with females running the shops and getting their hands callused at the toy company which dominates Verity.

It’s said a girl called Verity is the one who founded this town. She ran away from somewhere else, only to settle down here and sew her fingers off.

Every girl learns to sew here. Those who don’t aren’t all that accomplished.

Yes, we still have accomplished young women in this town from every corner of the globe who grow up to be accomplished young ladies. They sew, stitch, and labor every day often without any help from anyone, allowing their dreams to be crushed under the workloads they carry.

Unless you decide to do something different, like my mother did.

#RainbowSnippets: Wind Me Up, One More Time

Welcome to Rainbow Snippets!

Every Saturday those participating post and share six sentences of LGBTQIA+ fiction on their blogs. It can be their own. It can be someone else’s. It just needs to LGBTQIA+

To read a wide variety of samples from LGBTQIA+ stories, go to…

https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets/?ref=group_header

My own is from a Work in Progress called Wind Me Up, One More Time.

Yes, it’s a Work in Progress. Yes, I’ve posted a snippet from it before. Not long ago, it was a submission. There’s a little real life story behind this…

Not long ago, I huffed and puffed to get this to Nine Star Press. Alas, it was a bit too Young Adult for their holiday line. It was rejected.

I sent it instead to Mischief Corner Books’s holiday submission call instead.

I got one of the nicest, most promising rejection letters ever.

I was told it didn’t fit into their holiday line, but Mischief Corner Books was starting a Young Adult line. They saw a lot of charm in my story and a potential place if I revised a few things.

Right now I’m working on those revisions. Here’s a little of what I have, thus far…

 

I never doubted that Nathalie was the hero of her own stories. Who else could rescue my teddy bear and Maia in a single night?

The first time Nat told it was on Christmas Eve. I sat before her with open ears, unable to keep my eyes from Theodora. She sat upright on Nat’s knee, earnest button eyes gazing at me. Those round eyes were the same size as her small black nose.

Me Me Monday: Quartz Speaks Out

Hah! Bet you readers didn’t think you’d see me here, did you? Yes, it’s me, Quartz, eldest of the seven dwarves in Fairest, cruelly killed off by a plot device scheming scribber, until I hammered on her imagination long enough to let her know I wasn’t dead. Not that I didn’t have help from loyal fans in the persuading…thank you, Paula, m’dear.

No need for the rest of you to give me that look. I’m sure you didn’t think to find here in Cauldron, did you? No, you expected me to continue to haunt the Forbidden Cauldron and the scribbler’s Facebook Author Page, popping up for my monthly moment of glory in Secondary Characters Speak Out.

Word to the wise. I’m part of the scribbler’s imagination. You may think this limits me and well, yes, it does, but anywhere the scribbler goes, I can go. Anything the scribbler writes, I can stick my nose into.

Me: Unless there’s copyright involved. Otherwise I’m painfully aware of this.

Quartz: Hello, I was doing a monologue! Are you trying to reduce me to a dialogue dwarf and nothing more by interrupting?

Me: I didn’t say-

Quartz: Copyright, that’s the giant explosion that created multiple universes, right? Once all characters were part an endless imaginary landscape, until copyright came, seizing chunks of it by legal right, separating them into galaxies which could no longer touch, right?

Me: Well, not exactly…although I can see how a fictional character might see it that way-

Quartz: There you go, on and on, Me Me and yet more Me! Fine, you want an interview with the author? I’ll give you one!

Me: (grumbles) It is supposed to be Me Me Monday and this was supposed to be my blog until you threw me out and banished me to my livejournal-

Quartz: Clearly you have not learned any lessons from your banishment. Nor have you been produtive enough. Just how much progress have you made in my book, eh? You’ve finished and submitted Aissa and bloody Polyxena!

Me: I haven’t finished Stealing Myself From bloody Shadows!

Quartz: Oh, yes, you have finished Stealing Myself From bloody Shadows, you’re just dithering over revising it. What’s taking so long?

Me: I’m trying to self publish Stealing Myself From b-I mean Shadows. There’s a lot to learn!

Quartz: You could be working on other things while you’re learning. Like my book!

Me: You wanted me to read the rest of The Ultimate Guide to Crystals and Stone: A Practical Path to Personal Power, Self-Development, and Healing by Uma Sibley before I finished writing Of Cuckoo Clocks and Crystal Coffins–

Quartz: You can alternate writing with reading, can’t you? Wouldn’t be much of a scribbler if you couldn’t. All the recent book reviews you’ve been posting say otherwise.

Me: I can only write so much at a time. Besides I prefer to write a review when my impressions of a book are fresh.

Quartz: Excuses. Speaking of sorry excuses, what’s with that sorry excuse for a title? Of Cuckoo Clocks and Crystal Coffins? Couldn’t you think of anything better than that? Something sleek and elegant…like Sanguine?

Me: Now you’re just flattering Paula Wyant, who already has a book out by that title. Which is about vampires, not dwarves.

Quartz: You know what I mean. You can come up with a better title than Of Cuckoo Clocks and Crystals Coffins.

Me: Was that actually a compliment? Usually you seem to be in league with my Inner Editor.

Quartz: I want you to succeed, scribbler. My existence depends on you.

Me: Thank you.

Quartz: So get on with it and succeed!

Me: (mutters) Now he’s in league with my muse at his most abrasive…

#RainbowSnippets: A Symposium in Space

Welcome to Rainbow Snippets!

Every Saturday, those participating post and share six sentences of LGBTQIA+ fiction on their blogs. It can be their own. It can be someone else’s. It just has to be LGBTQIA+.

To read a wide variety of samples from LGBTQIA+ stories, go to…

https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets/?ref=group_header

Today I’m going to share a snippet from my upcoming release with Nine Star Press, or perhaps I should say the rebirth of a short story as a novella?

This is a snippet from the extended version of my f/f futuristic story inspired by Plato’s classic, A Symposium in Space: A Feast of Words…

 

The invitation resembled an eyeball.

A floating, pink orb drifted up to the open panels of Pausania’s apartment. It fixed me with its lidless stare.

I froze, unsure how to react. An unfashionable citizen of the Intergalactic Democracy, I still ran around in a vest with pocket protectors, unfamilar with the latest technology. The bobbing globe made me think of tales of magic from Ancient Earth.