Running with Wolves…
Running with Wolves…
So the NaNoWritMo event is coming up. I have to admit this is the first time I’ve heard of it. I guess I had my head down on my own shit I was writing to think about any sort of writing event outside of my carefully crafted worlds.
Let’s see the line up, shall we?
- Angels of Mercy (Volumes 1-3) – This one isn’t a surprise that it’s first because Volume 1 is in the can and on its way for final smoothing edits from a highly qualified editor that I am over the moon happy to be working with. So yeah, the boys (and girls) of Mercy, California are first on the list but theirs isn’t a supernatural story (despite the mention of Angels in the title – that is a reference to the high school mascot – an Avenging Angel).
- Far Wars – Fear the Feigr – This is my fantasy story that has quite the sci-fi slant all over it. I am talking Fae. But not just any Fae of the Celtic sort, no we’re going further back than that – I am talking NORSE fae – their forebears, the Feigr. Only my Feigr are fierce. They are in your face, kick assed dangerous bad asses – and we humans had better just learn to give them a wide birth. This one is a dark tale with a big gay twist (in that for the Feigr, it’s not gay at all… what could I possibly mean by that?).
- The Cove Chronicles – My Lord of the Rings epic tale gone completely NATIVE (as in Americans). This one is bold. It begins in the small town of Hallet’s Cove, Long Island (which later became Astoria) in the early 1800’s but wends its way to the Gold Rush time in San Francisco. But the Chronicles don’t end there. They stretch all the way to our more modern times in present day Hallet’s Cove – relocated to an inlet bay in Northern California. The Natives are restless and there’s good reason for that. They’re only defending the world against total annihilation as we know it. Yeah, it’s another epic. I tend to think Cecil B. DeMille epic.
- HO’M,O – Yeah, you read that one right… I have a book called HO’M,O. They really are initials that just happen to spell that the book is one big euphoric gay werewolf romp fest. Okay it doesn’t imply wolves at all, but I am telling you that’s what it’s about.
This last entry is the one I want to discuss today. You see, I am starting this bad boy off with the NaNoWritMo event that challenges authors to write a novel in 30 days with a minimum of 50K words. Now for a guy like me who can hammer out close to 10K a sitting (I am NOT bullshitting in the slightest – just look at my blog entries – words and the speed in which they flow are NEVER a problem for me), 50K is gonna be a breeze. I am more worried that I’ll get into it by November 15 and go well shit, I am only half way through the story and I’ve just broken 150K words! What the fuck am I gonna do now, Blanche?
That’s the real worry I have with the NaNoWritMo event. I think I’ll get too far ahead of myself.
HO’M,O is a tale about a young man in his senior year in high school. He lives a quaint and generally quiet life in the fictitious town of Sparrow’s Hollow (Holler) in the southern part of West Virginia (I chose it because my hubby is from WVA and can give me the 411 on it since he grew up in that area around the time I am setting the book (the latter part of the 1950’s). So no cell phones, no social media, hell, there’s barely ANY media of any kind in this po’ dunk of a town! And there be wolves in dem thar hills!
The Celtic take on Lycanthropy
I wanted to play with the whole supernatural werewolf/shifter element in the m/m genre.
Now, to be clear, I still don’t fully ally myself with the m/m romance genre that so many of my author contemporaries write to. My books, from my perspective as they are created that way, are Gay Lit Fic across other sub-genres – in this case, supernatural. It has the gay element (which is why the whole Gay Lit thing is first). With my work, that is implied. It will generally always have a gay element to it. Why? Because there is a boat load of that other straight shit out there that they don’t need me reminding them of why they fall in love. Their romances do not intrigue me in the slightest. They are fully represented by the masses of authors who have to keep reminding that crowd of why they do what they do. Our side is still woefully under-represented. So yeah, totally on-board with the whole gay lit thing. It’s a given.
Anyway, I also wanted to do classic horror setup from the 1950’s. I am utterly fascinated with the 50’s in that it was an era of absolute dullness (nothing really went on). The social upheaval of the 60’s was still around the corner and down the road a piece. The frantic forties (what with the War occupying a great majority of it) are also of interest but in this case I wanted the horror classic feel of the 50’s in this book.
Straight from ‘American Werewolf in London,” right?
So yeah, wolves. In West Virginia, no less. It just sort of popped up in my head. I’ve never been to WVA. I have no knowledge of the area first hand BUT I do have it second hand (as I said my hubby was born in Wheeling, WVA). So yeah, I got that part covered AND from the same era as the book (hubby is a tad older than me).
I am working like hell to get the character sketches down. To flesh them all out. To make my bad boys be more, I dunno, wolf like. Wolf primed? Wolf enabled? I gotta come up with something better than that when the contest begins (I have to keep reminding myself that I m not competing with anyone other than myself to get the job done). The contest is to complete a novel in 30 days with at least 50K words in the body of the book. I think I can do this.
So why the blog post?
Because I am on pins and needles about it all. About the whole crafting it by the seat of my pants. Yeah, I am pretty much a pantser (what writers call themselves when they write by the seat of their pants) when I write. I have a general frame work, I have fully formed characters (and I do mean formed when I say it). I also have a majority of the plot line fully formed in my head before I ever put a word down on digital bytes and bits. It’s all a matter of hammering it all out.
Love a boy in wolf’s clothing, don’t you?
Alfred Hitchcock (an idol/hero of mine) often said that for him the fun of making his movies or telling his stories was in the planning of it. The rest was just busy work to get it all down. I sooooo, get that. Epically get it. Epically – to the nth degree – do I get it.
Hank O’Malley (my Omega – and if you don’t know what those are in Lycanthrope lore, you better do your homework like I have) is my protag. He’s an amazing character. I love him already. I can’t wait to throw him to the wolves of Sparrow’s Holler (so to speak).
NaNoWritMo – it’s just around the corner as the final days of October come to a close. November 1 is the date. I start writing my new opus then. It’ll be far shorter than my other works, but I can already see a path to writing a series on these boys. It’s an ensemble cast from many aspects, so yeah, it could definitely grow into a real series. Hell, it’ll probably be even gayer than that whole Teen Wolf thing on MTV.
Sort of a Happy Days cross with Teen Wolf – eh, no, wait. That isn’t what I was shooting for at all. Well, it’ll come together I am sure.
In 30 days.
Thirty…
Days…
Tic-toc, tic-toc, tic-toc…
Wrestling with Monsters…[NSFW]
Author’s Note: This is a converted blog entry. It was originally published on 04.21.14 @ 10:10pm, US Pacific.
[NSFW] Not Safe For Work entry! Fair Warning…
So I didn’t post yesterday.
You wanna know why? Cause I spent all of Easter Sunday (I am NOT religious by any stretch of the imagination, so no worries there – just giving a common frame of reference for ya) battling the server that this site is hosted on.
So why the battle that raged since 3am on Saturday morning through the day and well into Sunday evening? Well it seems that the application I am using to build this here site is a tricky bitchy monster when it comes to its built in SFTP capabilities. I put the tech at TMD Hosting through the wringer this weekend. And since I am a network engineer by profession (aspiring to move away from that to full time writing if I can swing it) I knew what they were dealing with on their end trying to get my software ftp client to consistently allow my newly changed files to upload to their servers.
Yeah, it was a monumental struggle. Ticket updates flying back and forth. The really pisser of this whole thing? The FTP builtin client on this web development app just plain sucks (and not in a way that a guy needs things to suck if you get my meaning).
Well, what should be simple has turned into a crap assed convoluted way to upload and sync my files. Not that you give a rat’s ass about it. I don’t expect you to. I am just sayin’ it cause I missed doing my daily writers blog because I was so fucking wrapped up in my server/ftp shit that I plum ran out of energy when it came to actually posting shit here.
[Putting soap box away now]
Okay, so down to the other monster: the one in my Fae Wars saga. I had a vision last night as I was putting my weary head down. And it was monumental in the shift of my story (it’s a good thing that I am still in the early stages of writing the first book). This whole shit though is killer and it’s so gonna rock the story even better. Movie option time better. My Fae baddies just got a whole lotta bad ass-ier…(I know that’s not really a word – but that’s the beauty of a living language: say it often enough and it will be a part of the vernacular. It just happens. Something the hubby rails against cause he comes from a looooooooong line of educational professionals). School runs knee deep with his brood. I’m good with that. He’s definitely my Marco Sforza (and if you don’t know who that is – mosey on over to Angels of Mercy free read in the Works section and find out).
But here’s the dealio with my new and improved super baddy Fae (actually, I need to stop calling them Fae cause they are what started the whole Fae thing – they are the Feigr). They hark back to their Viking roots rather than the Celtic variety. And as such they are a whole lot vicious and vile when they want to be. The Feigr in my story are bringers of life and death. There are two sides and they are at war. This war has spilled over into our world for a very specific reason. I won’t say what it is just yet, but suffice to say that it is a real switch up from the original Viking Feigr. You could say they are the gay version of the Feigr but that’d be such a human way of looking at it. No, my guys are way more scarier than that. Think fundamentally as in the foundation of life scarier. And the people of Earth are nothing but pawns in this war. They don’t stand a chance. They are merely fodder for my Feigr (hence the title of the first book: Fear the Feigr). There’s a very good reason for humans to think that. But as I said, there are two sides to this tale. Two parts to this war. Bringers of life and the bringers of death. The ultimate clash of what is good and evil if you really think upon it.
As a kid I’ve always had a thing for monsters. Perhaps being gay I knew that I was different too and would be persecuted, belittled, followed, chased even. So I identified with their ‘outsider-ness’, their removal from the mainstream but being complex creatures all on their own. Dracula wasn’t evil. Not by a long shot. He was a man in great pain. I got that. I got the pathos. Something that I was so super grateful when my granddaughter (at the tender age of 3) watched the Frank Langella Dracula with me one Saturday afternoon. After we got through the whole thing – she was super still through it all. Never once shirked from any of the vampiric stuff. Didn’t hide her eyes once (granted the Badham/Langella version is a bit overly romantic). Even for a three year old – my girl was on tough cookie. So we got through to the end. I turned off the movie and the TV so she could talk about it.
I asked her – “So, what did you think?”
She’s a wise old soul of a little girl, “It was sad.” (Pathos – I LOVE this girl! No really, even if she weren’t mine, I’d still be rockin’ the whole Keely-monster thing!)
“What do you mean sad?”
“Well, he just wanted to be loved and they wouldn’t let that lady love him. It was sad.” That’ssa my girl!
Pathos – at the age of three. Fucking bloody brilliant moment in my life: given to me by a three year old. So yeah, Keely and I are good with monsters.
So when I started to form the Feigr storyline, I knew who my protagonists were. It’s a love quadrangle (if you can believe it – full of deceit and malice on Seth’s part and love and healing on Sylas’). And the story is very sexual in nature – very liquid in how they use their bodies to augment what they can do.
Without a doubt, Antonio Biaggi one of the sexiest gay porn actors out there.
Doesn’t take away from the hubby, but Antonio’s definitely got it goin’ on…
For the Life Bearers – Sylas (I used porn actor Antonio Biaggi (above and below) as the basis for this character – as his public persona just embodied the part – the man knows how to seed, that’s for fucking sure)) – the reigning King of my Feigr Life Bringers. His first husband (Sylas’ not Antonio’s – just to be clear here) – Thorn, who was the Captain of his personal guard before they were married. Sylas is the ultimate life bringer but also a voracious lover. So much so that Thorn is not the only husband to share his bed.
For the Death Bringers – Seth Stormbringer (porn actor Gavin Waters fits that bill just fine but with all the snarky-ness of a Tom Hiddleson).
These two brother’s carry quite a bit of pain between them. And Thorn and Sebastian are in the middle.
I particularly like how Gavin looks in this picture – and i am not normally attracted to blonds.
But he just does it for me on some level. Maybe it’s just the way he fucks.
Then there’s the golden one – I can’t just say what he is because the entire saga hinges upon it – Sebastian Alexander Collins (where I get my nom de plume). Sebastian is the one that all three men are after – for good reason. Sylas and Thorn because Sebastian came to them for help only to be pulled from any safety they could provide and whisked away.
Out of reach – and into our world. With no memory of who or what he is. But that (as they say) is just the beginning…
My Feigr are fucking dangerous motherfuckers (good and bad). And there is very little that separate them. And the humans of this world can precious little about it. There’s no ‘evil loses because we all prayed it away’ or ‘an infection that they can’t cure takes them out’ or the Hollywood go to – ‘let’s just nuke ‘em.’ None of that will help the human’s involved in this story. It’s gonna be brutal, apocalyptic in scope and scale.
But all is not lost…
Sebastian can turn it all around. If only he can remember who and what he is. But it’s not as simple as just walking up and to him and tell him. There’s a twist in why no one can do that – and the drama is born out of that little twist.
Sebastian is just a senior in high school, got a rockin’ ballet dancing girlfriend and is just trying to figure shit out before he graduates. ‘Cept his eye keeps roving over to his bestest buddy in the whole world: Thorn. Thorn means the world to Sebastian (maybe even more than his girlfriend). And that’s starting to scare him a bit. And a little bit, not.
When you are the beings that live on the cusp between creation and devastation (in equal measures), some bad assed shit his bound to happen. I can’t wait to get it rolling either.
Free Fear the Feigr read to be posted this weekend (5/26) so keep an eye out for it.
Yeah, monsters can definitely kick your ass. But they can also be the best fucking gift around.