Tag Archives: young adult

August Blog Chain

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It’s that time of the month again- AW‘s blog chain is here!!! lol What did you think I meant?!?! My flash fiction piece is below. At the end is a list of the other participant’s blogs where their flash fiction pieces will be. It’s a kinda cool topic this month, so go read some of the others.

 

This month’s prompt:
Child of the devil

Whether the devil be literal, figurative, or Cruella. As always, can be prose, poetry, play, fiction, nonfiction.

Instructions:
Simply post your blog’s URL in this thread to join. I’ll let you know in this thread when it’s your turn. Once your turn comes up, you have two days to complete a blog post using the prompt. When you are finished, please add a link to your post on the thread.

1000 words or less

Date Night at the Devil’s House

“Don’t scare Trevor, dad,” she told her father. Then she turned to Trevor. “Don’t let dad scare you. I’ll only be a second grabbing my wrap.”

She turned and walked out of the room confident the two she’d left behind would get along. Her surety lasted only so long as it took to grab her wrap from her room and return. She almost walked into a low yet heartfelt discussion.

“I promise I only have the utmost respect for your daughter, sir.” She heard Trevor say so earnestly, it almost colored the room.

“Don’t stay out past her curfew. And if I find out that you’ve laid one single hand on my daughter, I promise I’ll make your life hell.” Her dad’s tone of voice was even, which was incongruous with the words he’d spoken.

She didn’t doubt her dad would make any guy who hurt her regret it. Could possibly make that guy’s life a living hell if he desired. Literally. He was the Lord of the Underworld. The proverbial devil- with a capital D,  after all. Satan. Beelzebub. And a host of other really odd sounding and spelled names.

She’d long ago given up the hope of having a second date with any guy while she still lived at home. Most guys took her out once.

Before meeting her dad, they would be all excited to have her agree to a date. Then they would meet her dad. Not wanting to offend him, they couldn’t very well turn tail and run on the spot. So invariably the date would proceed. But it would proceed in the sense that the guy would treat her like his kid sister and not an almost adult female. A few had given her a chaste kiss goodbye. Most just said ‘see ya later’ and then ran-walked as fast as they could far, far away from her and her house and her dad.

In the beginning, she’d just thought the guys were being nice in a gentlemanly sort of way. But as she waited and waited and then waited some more for a phone call about a second date, she’d finally gotten a clue they hadn’t been nice or gentlemanly. No, they’d been petrified of her father.

At first, her feelings had been hurt. But over time, she’d realized that such spineless ninnies weren’t for her anyway. Still, she’d wished that at least one of them had had a backbone. Seriously, was every guy such a wuss? Apparently, all the ones that came into her sphere of existence were.

Trevor would be the same. She had no doubt he would be like all the others. After overhearing her dad’s spiel, she at least understood why her other dates had all but peed themselves.

Resigned, she stepped back into the front room where Trevor was standing close to her father.

“I’m ready,” she said in a cheerful manner that belied her certainty that this date would be like all the others and just fizzle.

“I forgot to tell you that you looked fabulous, Lily,” Trevor said.

He walked over to her, pretended to help adjust her wrap and then kissed her lightly on the cheek.

She was so surprised by his actions, she couldn’t form a reply.

Her dad looked murderous. Whether it was because she was in the room, her dad kept his silence, however, just glowering in his dadly way. On anybody else, the the smoke coming out his nose would have been hypothetical. But since her dad was her dad, he had real little puffs of smoke coming out of his nostrils. Not a lot. But enough for her to know he was ticked.

She’d have to talk to him later. It wasn’t as if she were a child. She was 17 after all and a kiss on the cheek was pretty damn tame compared to some of the stories she’d heard from other girls.

She smiled. Maybe this date wasn’t going to be like all the others. It had certainly started out different.

She turned her head slightly so she could look directly into Trevor’s eyes. “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

Her dad followed her to the door and waited with the door open as they got into the car. As soon as the doors were shut, words tumbled out of her mouth.

“You’re brave, you know.”

“Not really. But if I had let him see I was afraid it would have colored our relationship.”

“Yeah? How?”

“I just wanted him to know he could care about you but so can I. Plus, it was a man thing. Trust me, he’ll respect me more for it and next time I come pick you up, he’ll be less intense.”

“Seriously? Is there like a handbook on this?”

“Nah. It’s just that my dad behaved like your dad when my sisters were dating. I figured it out then.”

“You’re dad’s a dick too?”

Trevor laughed. “Not normally. But the guys my sisters would date thought so. Until they started bring home guys he couldn’t intimidate. Then he chilled.”

“Great,” she muttered. “Wished I’d figured that out ages ago.”

Trevor broke out into a full on smile then. “No way, babe. Then you might’ve been taken when I was ready to ask you out. Besides, your dad’s gonna be more pissed when he figures out who my dad is.”

“Who’s your dad?”

“Michael.”

Well shit. What were the odds?

“Umm, my dad and your dad used to be friends. I overheard my mom talking about it once when she was complaining to her BFF that dad doesn’t get out for a guy’s night out anymore.”

“Yeah, I think they had a falling out.”

“Must have been serious. How long have they been on the outs?”

“A pretty long time,” Trevor told her. “But maybe if we keep going out, we can get them back together again.”

“The world might end if we do.”  Literally.

“True.”

“We’re going out again?” She couldn’t keep the hope and surprise out of her voice.

“Absolutely.”

“Cool.”

 

Participants and posts:

ishtar’sgate – http://chickenscratchbc.blogspot.ca/ (link to post)
orion_mk3 – http://nonexistentbooks.wordpress.com (link to post)
areteus – http://lurkingmusings.wordpress.com/ (link to post)
BDavidHughes – http://bdavidhughes.com/ (link to post)
Ralph Pines – http://ralfast.wordpress.com/ (link to post)
articshark – http://www.drslaten.com/blog (link to post)<———–me
pyrosama – http://matrix-hole.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
Anarchic Q – http://anarchicq.com/ (link to post)
meowzbark – http://www.lizzylessard.com/ (link to post)
MsLaylaCakes – http://www.taraquan.com/ (link to post)
grace elliot – http://graceelliot-author.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
Angyl78 – http://jelyzabeth.wordpress.com/ (link to post)

milkweed – http://www.thistlequill.blogspot.com/ (link to post) [after 8/15]

Current Projects

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The bane of a writer’s life is all the ideas that bubble up inside the brain. So many stories, all limited in getting on the page by how fast I can type. At this point in my life, I really, really wish I had taken a typing course in high school or something. I didn’t. So now my stories are prisoners until I can liberate them slowly. In the meantime, I can use a pencil like a ninja. So I guess that would make me pencil ninja. Able to sharpen my tools and take copious notes in a single bound. So what if my superpower is that I can outline like nobody’s business. In the end, even with notes and outlines, I type like molasses.

Normally the speed of my typing isn’t too much of a problem. It takes my ideas a little while to percolate and become grownup enough to need to be told. At some point, they are so ready and ripe, they won’t leave me alone. I think about them when I am awake and I dream about them when I sleep. They hammer and hammer at me until they become the black on a white page and get told.

The problem right now though is that I have four stories in progress. And I feel a little schizophrenic. They are all clamoring to be told. Each one is yelling that it is more important than the other. As they yell over each other, I am finding it hard to listen to any one of them because I can’t hear just one clearly. I need them to take a number and stand in line. Otherwise, I fear that madness is not too far off. Okay, I am already a little crazy. But these four stories that I am in the process of writing are so not helping by being the crazy-making stories that they are. Each one feels like it is the most important. None of them want to take a backseat to the others. Unfortunately, I am only human and can only write one story at a time. Slowly. So very slowly.

I think the one that is winning out currently is my contemporary romance. It is going to be the first in a five to seven book series. I didn’t know it would be a series until I started writing it. But shortly after I was properly introduced to the characters, I realized that some of the secondary characters needed their story to be told. Those secondary stories aren’t even more than glimmers of thoughts. Yet. I have a feeling once I am done with the first story, one of the others will start making itself known in ways destined to bug me until I do what it wants. So this contemporary romance is winning out right now because even with all the yelling in the background, I can hear the voice so clearly. I can see the story in my mind.

I put my May-December bdsm story on the back burner. I started writing it and realized that the idea wasn’t quite ripe. It was hard for me to. see the story line clearly. And the writing was coming slowly, not because of my typing speed but because the story wasn’t completely mature. It was hard to put it away because even in the early stage, this story wants to be told. And it is a compelling story with some great characters. Plus, I don’t like stopping the story telling in mid story telling. If that makes sense. I feel a certain amount of pain when I stop. But it’s not ready and I can’t force it. I can feel that it will be ready soon though. Really soon.

The next book that I have partially written is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi/urban fantasy combo. Yes, yes, it is crossing genres (but not really). Which I don’t think is as bad a mixing metaphors but what do I know? This tale is going to be told in three parts. It came to me as a trilogy and it has remained that way. In fact, a lot of my stories come to me as trilogies. I don’t know why. In the end, I am glad. Because sitting down and trying to write a 300,000 word single title would really take me around the bend. I couldn’t do it. I won’t do it. I think this project is in three parts because it is a classic tale of questing. Only the main characters don’t know they are on a quest. Not yet. They will by the end.

My last current project is a middle grade/young adult space opera. Really it is more like a space western. It started off as a request to write something everyone could read cause I normally write naughty things. No smut in this one. At all. Just lots of shoot outs and action. Good guys versus bad guys, lots of ingenuity and some math and science thrown in for good measure. It is is the far future, unlike my PA Sci-Fi/UF which is in the near future. The far future has brought a lot of changes to Earth. A lot. But the basic stuff is still the same because no matter how far in the future you get, underneath it all, we are still human. With all our human greatness and all our human failings. Good to know, right?

While all these full length stories are battling each other for supremacy, I have lots of little projects as well. Teasers, pleasers and short-shorts. I need to write the second of three novelettes that are loosely affiliated to the novelette that was recently accepted (did that even make sense? it did in my brain). It is going to be about shifters and will be MFMM menage. Then I have the second of a two part story that is novella length. This is also a menage but it will be a MMF menage about a witch, a vampire and a shifter. I have another short I want to get out about a dominant woman as well. Not a lot out there about Dommes. More needs to be. So that will be my contribution. See how giving I am? lol There are more little projects but until I can get the ones already outlined done, I really can’t even spare the brain cells for even thinking about them.

It’s a good thing that I am able to multi-task. Because if you think my real life has stopped to let me write, you would be sadly mistaken. My real life hasn’t even slowed down. Then again, I didn’t really expect it to. Life NEVER works that way.