Today’s snippet comes from a WIP I started earlier this month, and if I’m being honest, in my mind it’s fan fiction. Hopefully you can’t tell, as I almost immediately changed the names of the characters and, in doing so, they began to take on lives of their own.

I knew from the start that this wouldn’t be a short story, but I originally thought it might be novella length, around 20k or so. But I’m now 10k into it and story’s love interest hasn’t yet made an appearance. I know I write slower paced stories than some, but still! Chances are this is now shaping up to be a novel instead.

I don’t really have a title for it yet. I’m thinking something with omega in it (why lie — omegas are hot right now) but I don’t know for sure if my POV character really is an omega or not. I won’t be able to know that until the alpha makes his appearance onscreen. Until then, I’m just calling it my “untitled shifter novel.”

And here’s a sneak peek at it, if you’re interested. Jeremy is late for work after waking up hungover on Monday morning (he got drunk Sunday but doesn’t remember why), and Darla is his boss.

Continue reading #WIPWednesday — Untitled Shifter Novel →

I’m going to try to post a snippet from a work in progress every Wednesday (making this, as it says in the title of this post, WIP Wednesday).

I’ll admit upfront that I’m always writing, working on something, and because of that, I usually have several stories in various stages of completion. Problem is, none of them have titles at the moment. That’s usually the last thing I come up with (and then only with the help of my beta reader). For convenience’s sake, I usually call a WIP by one or both of the characters’ names, the way you would call a fanfic story by its pairing.

Also — fair warning — some of the snippets I post here may not be from the story I’m actively working on at any given time.

Take this one, for example. I started it in August 2015 and wrote on it pretty steadily for a few weeks, then kind of lost the plot. Or, rather, the characters wanted to take it somewhere I wasn’t prepared to go. I’m still hoping to pick it back up eventually, but it doesn’t seem to want to be the short story I had originally intended. So once I come to terms with that and let the characters go where they want to, then I can get out of the way and let them take over.

Continue reading #WIPWednesday — Derek and Ty →

You might be surprised to know I have quite a few stories in various stages of being written. I don’t like to do that ~ I prefer to start something and see it all the way to the end, because when I was younger, I could never seem to finish anything. But sometimes when I’m working on a longer novel, a short story will come to me that begs to be written. That happened with my latest piece ~ I planned on getting back to what I’m calling my Court and Ronnie novel when I got the idea for a short story I wrote in less than a week, called Quintessential.

The problem with setting aside something for any length of time is that I grow afraid of getting back to it. Part of me is scared I won’t be able to strike the same tone or voice with which I started the story, and sometimes I simply don’t know where the story will go.

My current list of works-in-progress is almost embarrassing. They include active stories (ones I’m hoping to wrap up in the next few months) and inactive stories (ones I hope to finish before I die).

In my active pile:

• Court and Ronnie ~ An as-yet-untitled post-apocalyptic novel in which 95% of the world’s population has died due to a virus. More bromance than gay erotica, at least at this point. I’m about 30k into it, which is about a third of what I have planned. This is the story I’m currently working on.
• Sam and Alan ~ A futuristic novel I started for NaNoWriMo in 2010 and never finished. It’s about a video game designer whose soul gets sucked into a prototype gaming environment, and contains scenes of heterosexual intercourse (surprise, surprise). I have about 30k done and stopped before starting Part 2.
• The Magician’s Apprentice ~ I didn’t get too far into this, just about 2k, but I know exactly where it’s going. I just have to force myself to sit down and finish it.
• Jimmy and Aaron ~ I wrote about 4k of this one before setting it aside. At the time I didn’t think it was turning out the way I wanted, but when I reread it recently, I decided it wasn’t bad. I’ll finish it one day.
• The Cola Connection ~ Not my title, BTW. Another 4k of a short story that seemed to be getting away from me. I want to revisit it and rein it in, see if I can’t finish it up. It’s basically just sex, so there’s no reason for it to be longer than 7k when it’s finished.

When you take into consideration the stories I’ve started writing under my two pseudonyms, it gets more embarrassing:

• The Devil You Know ~ A gay YA romance I did for a writing class. It was only 800 words but I want to flesh it out. There’s so much more to say there.
• The Test ~ Another YA story, written for the same class. It’s under a thousand words and is nothing more than an outline for a full story. One day I’ll fill in the blanks.
• On the Skids ~ A lesbian YA superhero novel that started life as fan fic long ago (like, when I was in college). I wrote just over 50k but it needs to be edited to pull out the licensed characters. Funny thing is, I have journals full of notes on this story, which I originally envisioned as a comic book series.

So the next time I bitch and moan and complain that I have nothing to do, someone remind me I have to get cracking on these stories!