Edited May 12th: My Sister’s Shoes was removed. You can find it in the collection Nothing But Seaweed & Other Stories, coming May 29th, 2015.

My Sister’s Shoes has been published, a mini piece of about 1500 words featuring an M/F pair.

This was another prompt piece. Nothing really worth revisiting here, but it was fun to bring two hurt people together where they ought to be.

Next Sunday, Aug 17: Wounds of the Warrior – Part 1 of 3 (fantasy, serial, m/f) – Death is not to be shamed. But for the how of it.

For Want of a Man has been published, a fantasy short story of about 4200 words featuring a M/F pair.

The idea behind this story had probably been rolling around in my mind for years before I finally wrote even a single word. Even then, I ended up getting bogged down instantly because I know almost zero about cars. Really. To the point where I’m asking just about a million questions of my SO for simple things. Once I got a couple of basic things down I was able to get the story onto more familiar fantasy ground so that the story flowed out a little better…and then it got bogged down a second time and sat for months…

…Until I finally went back and erased the last two paragraphs I’d written where a character had started acting out of character. I don’t remember exactly why I even picked the story back up (since there’d been some serious consideration for trunking the thing) but I’m glad I did.

As a random side note, this was the first time I had to worry about trademarks since I don’t normally write in modern settings.

Next Sunday, Aug 10: My Sister’s Shoes (fantasy, mini, m/f) – She only meant to borrow them.

The second half of Only One Worth Kissing has been published, a novelette-length piece featuring a m/f pairing. The first part can be found here.

The setting for this story is linked to a few other stories I’ve written, but they aren’t close enough to see the connection. However, all the Bradd & Cerci stories take place on the same continent within the Empire that is mentioned in this story and the Lianal & Samouru stories take place farther south.

Next Sunday, August 3rd: For Want of a Man (fantasy, short story, m/f) – She didn’t think she’d ever rev for anyone again.

Only One Worth Kissing – Part 1 (of 2) has been published. This story is fantasy featuring a m/f pair.

I don’t normally dream stories. Sometimes when I’m in a half-awake state between falling asleep and waking up I will come up with a scene or two, but normally they seem horrible the moment I’m aware enough to realize what I’ve written down. Only One Worth Kissing started as one of those horrible scribbles. I didn’t use that first idea, but it spawned a different story using a frog pond.

For a long time, I had the outline written and waiting patiently to be used. In fact, I only ended up actually writing the story because I thought it would only take me a few hours to write (silly me) and end up being something…a lot shorter. I also thought it was going to be more comedic and while it did start out that way, as I went from start to finish the story became darker.

Next Sunday, July 27th: Only One Worth Kissing – Part 2 of 2 (fantasy, serial, m/f)

To the Sound of the Ocean has been published. It’s a m/f story of about 1100 words that has no fantasy element, something that rarely happens with me. I still thought it had merit, even if it isn’t my normal style.

I’ve been trying to practice how to control and contain story ideas, something that I still haven’t mastered. Mostly it’s about understanding how much space a subplot will take up once it sneaks into my story and knowing when to allow it to happen and when it needs to be tossed in order to make the story feasible and manageable.

For this story, I just couldn’t find a way to enter a magical element without exploding the story by thousands of words. Had I come up with a good fantastical idea, I would have shrugged and gone with it anyway because I believe that a story is as long as the story needs to be, but nothing seemed right in this case. In the end, trying to force something magical into this story would have just drastically hurt it, so I decided against trying to turn it into something it wasn’t.

Next Sunday, July 20th: Only One Worth Kissing – Part 1 of 2 (fantasy, serial, m/f) – A hundred frogs in the pond, a hundred kisses gone astray.

Purest of Intentions, a short piece of about 700 words, has been published. The protagonist is male and the couple is female so I filed it under M/F even though that’s not exactly right.

I know a lot of people don’t like prompts, but I happen to love them. This story came from one. A very strange prompt. I asked someone for a thing I could turn magical. I got back…”a doorknob.” Yeah. How exactly do I make that sexual? So I’m thinking all about opening doors or magical doors when I got another response…”keyhole.” I guess the thought process was that the keyhole was on the doorknob.

So I figured, if you’re looking through a keyhole at whatever’s beyond then technically you’re spying. It was only a short jump from that using scrying in order to spy on someone else and that could easily be made sexual. So you get…Purest of Intentions.

Next Sunday, July 13th: To the Sound of the Ocean (contemporary, mini, m/f) – Only the seagulls bear witness.