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Teenage Wasteland Chap. 2 Snippet

Sunlight streamed into Samantha’s cavernous garage, illuminating a lone scarlet-colored toolbox and stacks of cardboard boxes which smelled faintly of dust and old newspapers. Yet more pervasive of all was that stench of motor oil which clung to the air, a thick, greasy perfume even the strong breeze couldn’t quite shift. This emptiness came with a strange comfort, the perfect canvas for Sam and Tegan’s rehearsal space; the quiet hum of the neighborhood traffic added a low background thrum to their afternoon. Samantha’s parents’ absence, a welcoming situation, stretched out before them like a long, open road.

“Yeah, we both should sing, right? Like, If’n it makes you feel better. I can be the lead, but you got to be my back up.” Samantha offered the well-used can turned weed-bowl towards Tegan. “I can’t be singing alone, ya know?”

The metallic clang of the can against the lighter echoed as Tegan inhaled deep of the weed’s smoke, the butane’s sharp scent stinging her nostrils. She sat the can down on a rough, large cardboard box, its texture a sharp contrast to the smooth metal. “I can’t sing for shit,” she mumbled, her voice husky from the smoke. “You are the one with the beautiful voice.”

“Hah! No! I’m going to go all punk with this shit. Because this isn’t ‘bout beauty. We’re going to make music and say, ‘fuck the man,’ all at the same time.” Samantha’s passion took over as she strummed the V-shaped guitar strapped around her. “Now let’s make some music!”

With a snorting laughter, Tegan nodded. “Fuck yeah! We’ll be the next Bratmobile or Bikini Kill. But before we get to that point, co-band leader, what’cha playing?”

“I don’t know! Fuck it! Let’s jam!”

Not saying a word, Tegan moved over to Samantha, the soft brush of her cheek against Sam’s a fleeting whisper. An almost secret smiled played on their lips; they both smelled of Teen Spirit, the Romantic Rose scent, that is. They’d tried to conceal their affections from the older generations—a hushed giggle, a furtive glance, but here they could do what they wanted. Being so far back from the road, no one could see them.

****

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@dyrewrites

"You don't know me. I'm not the same person anymore."

"That's okay. I'll get to know you again."

Hi peeps! As I work on Every Hero Needs a Villain, do y'all want me to make the community for it so you can see some funny behind the scenes stuff and potentially certain bios as I make them? You can also make suggestions for stuff there if you want. Trying to encourage myself to complete them.

Tag list: @aweirdshipp, @floofyboi57, @aralithmenathere

Call For Alpha Readers

The time has come to send my baby into the unknown and let it be perceived.

I am in search of ALPHA READERS to read and give feedback on the second draft of my manuscript.

The Tomb’s Whisper is a new adult fantasy that you can read about here.

The Details

You will be given access to my complete manuscript and a list of questions to guide your feedback.

I am looking for a one month turnaround for a 70k manuscript, but I can be flexible on deadlines as long as there is open communication.

In return, I am willing to offer my services as alpha or beta reader, or read and comment on a piece of your choosing.

What I Need

Detailed feedback on pacing, plot, character development, character dynamics, and overall impressions.

What I Am Not Looking For

An editor. This is a second draft, grammar and structure will be iffy in places and we all have to live with that.

Reviewers. This is a second draft and my first ever novel-length work. I am not claiming to be Brandon Sanderson.

If you are interested, please fill out this Google Form to sign up! I will reach out to everyone personally to confirm details.

Throwing the tag list on here in case you want to spread the word: @outpost51 @writernopal @avrablake @writingrosesonneptune @theroseempress (please ask to be +/-)

Set of characters: Exists

Me: I am making so many of you plural, idc.

Oooo this was beautiful!

Here is the first lesson we can learn from the wandering druids: every grove is a sacred grove.

It does not matter if it is an ancient copse nestled in the heart of the forest, or a handful of shrubs sprouting anaemic from the oil-clogged veins of a city.

A garden that springs up on the rooftop of a building by mistake is still needful and worthy of our veneration. It will also need a little more help, since its connection to wider nature is much more tenuous.

An ecosystem cannot exist in isolation after all, so it is the work of those mortals who fractured it to kintsugi the fragments together. It is the work of the leafwalker to *show* the grove how to be sacred.

We see this in the roadside orchards planted by the druid Richmond Crabapple. Turning the highways into snaking green creatures, her trees offer shade to travellers and fruit to the needy. It is easy to remember a thing is sacred, after all, when it so obviously gives you life.

Here is the second lesson: everyone and everything is nature.

We are animals. Our towns and cities are animal habitats. The separation of the urban and the rural is as much a mental one as a physical. It is a mind game we play to give us the illusion of mastery, and to excuse the damage we do.

A good earthspeaker will tell you to listen to those who have stayed in conversation with the world. Those people who know the give and take of blood and bough and mulch. Those peoples who, so often, we have called savage. Those who we looked down on from our towers made of bones.

Listen. Listen and follow, if they will have you and if they will teach you.

We see this in the truce the druid Cambridge Ironweed made with the Skullcluster. This spirit takes the form of a pack of skeletal cats, and was thought to be a genus of demon predator. When Ironweed planted his feet in the dirt offered them his throat, he made himself a conversation between two worlds that should always have been one.

Now everyone in its domain lives with a skeletal cat. They know that, one day, they will die and it will eat the flesh from their bones. This is how their flesh and spirit will return to the earth.

Remember Ironwood's dying words: “Oh, you think we are special because we have souls? Here, let me show you how widely the river of the anima flows…”

Here is the third lesson: we tend that which we would see flourish.

If you would see people fed, grow food. If you would see forests thrive, tend trees. If you would see the a community safe from predators, grow thorns.

But never forget that anything that cures can also kill. Crops can choke a landscape and a sick landscape kills its creatures. A forest grown thick is fuel for wildfires. A town that is safe can forget it is part of a wider world and turn thorns into spears.

We see this in the work of the druid and rootweaver Devonport Blackwood.

The many buildings created by Blackwood are things of beauty not because of their aesthetic, but due to their function. In the towns and cities Blackwood traveled, they planted webs of needroot beneath the foundations. Needroot is weed-like in its dormant form, a wispy white root happy to live in pavement cracks and kiss the boots of commuters.

But if you need shelter? If you are desperate and vulnerable and cry your needs out like burnt offerings to the heavens? Well, if the heavens don't need you, the needroot will.

The structures it builds are strange things, bulbous and pale. They use whatever materials are to hand. They claim whatever space is unused (though not necessarily unowned). They look like nests built out of discarded tarmac, copper and mycelial strands - a mix of turnip-pale rubbery organic matter and urban detritus. As if someone had reconstructed the mythic roc from mushrooms and given it a building permit.

Everyone who needs a home in these places has one. This is the need Blackwood sought to tend.

But, because local landlords were rarely happy about this, they also left a twist in the tale.

So the needroot also provides every settlement with a communal poison garden. They are lush, lovely and deadly.

After all, many natural things need teeth to flourish.

---

This particular story was inspired by this post about druids, which y'all should read.

Enjoy my stories and want to support my work? I'm currently fundraising for my live show. Check it out here: https://igg.me/at/poorlifechoices/x/8175219

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that. I just meant focus wise.

Happy storyteller saturday! What are you most looking forward to writing in your current WIP?

Honestly? No idea. I don't think like that. I don't (usually) have a scene, a specific character, or even a theme when I start a story. I have the seed of an idea and just write. Thanks for the ask.

Infernal Serenade Snippet - Mother's Day Edition

You know what? For Mother's day, shout out to Quentin's mom Iris. She was such a loving, queer friendly, and all around wonderful person. She helped Quentin become the wonderfully kind and tolerant person he is at the start of Infernal Serenade. Here's a little snippet of her from the first book, a memory of her sticking up for Quentin after he got into a fight with an ableist and homophobic peer in high school:

I still remember how my mother looked back then, hair cut though she was letting it grow out, with a business top and slacks. At the time, I had grown used to the sight, not realizing she would quit that job in only a month’s time.... ...I would have laughed at the loud, whiny voice coming from the other line if it wasn’t directed at her. From the entryway, I could only hear a few choice words and they certainly weren’t pretty. Still, she nodded along, looking as intimidated by it as a dog was to a tiny grasshopper. That is to say, not in the slightest... “With all due respect, Mrs. Bria, if your child wasn’t calling mine…let’s see, what did he say again? Right, he called him a loony and a faggot, [Quentin] probably wouldn’t feel the need to retaliate...But, if I’m going to talk to my son about it, the least you can do is talk to your son about the language he is deciding to use with his classmates...No Mrs. Bria, I don’t think it has anything to do with them being boys. Could you please just talk to him?”

Binding A Page In Print!!!

It took a month to work out all the kinks (lol) but our steamy vampire romance novella Binding a Page is finally available for print on demand! (Meaning you won't find it on the shelf in a physical store: they only print a copy when you order it.) I know it's at Amazon and Barnes & Noble's site, and it should be at most other online retailers.

There's the front and back covers and first page of my author's proof copy, looking good!

Binding a Page: Chris is a small-town high school drop-out from West Virginia, still trying to find his feet in the deadly currents of vampire high society after being turned into one of their Rulers by accident. Gabe is a disgraced Page, stripped of his bond and left starving and alone in Chris's guest bed by a man who wishes neither of them well. An unlikely match, nonetheless Chris and Gabe find themselves drawn together against a world they're desperate to escape… and find in one another a chance for true freedom.

Content warnings: Mention of: domestic, emotional and sexual abuse, drug use, captivity, violence, non-consensual bondage.

“Bought it and read it all the way through in one go, I couldn't put it down—sweet, hot, and great worldbuilding!” —ValencePositive

“Highly enjoyable for fans of complicated vampire politics, emotionally-sensitive men who want to do the right thing, and sex that’s full of feelings.” —thinofsubstance

I'm extremely excited about getting a book into print, and I hope our readers are too. Go forth and order if you want to hold this book in your hands!