Now Available: The Water-Irises

And here’s the last short story of this collection, finally available. :) “The Water-Irises” is a French fairy tale, which I wrote about five or so years ago. Hugh LaCaille is also the prototype of Garrick Mortimer from the Desmond and Garrick series.

Hugh LaCaille’s quiet, scholarly life is interrupted one day by a wealthy but obnoxious businessman who hires Hugh as a tutor to his young son. Ignace Fournier is incensed Aubin’s passion for nature and poetry is a threat to his dream of seeing the boy grow up to be just as successful as his father in commerce. When Hugh finally meets Aubin, he realizes there’s a great deal more than what meets the eye as far as the boy’s concerned … particularly his curious and outlandish stories involving a strange kingdom found at the bottom of a pond filled with water-irises.

The most alarming claim Aubin makes touches on a special friendship he’s nurtured with the young ruler of that mysterious kingdom. Forced under time pressure to instill discipline into the boy, Hugh grapples with questions he’s never before faced, and he finds himself looking deeper into his heart for difficult answers … and even more difficult choices.

You can purchase the story and read an excerpt over here.

And here’s a bonus for you – while Queerteen Press usually offers a 20% for all new releases, they’re offering a site-wide special for the Memorial Day weekend, and all books purchased from the site are offered at a 30% discount through Monday. :)

Passages

It looks like 2012 is shaping up to be a pretty intense year for me. So many changes have been happening on all sides, and it’s been pretty hard keeping up with everything. To an extent, I find it difficult to cope with some of these changes, but when I sit down and really think about it, all of them are really for the good. I’m not going to elaborate on all of them, of course, but let’s just say the end result was of me quietly setting my work-in-progress aside and working on something that was completely unplanned but now has given me a very specific goal to shoot for.

I blame my ex-coworker, Herbert, who recently retired to focus on his art, for giving me a major kick in the (non-existent) ‘nads and forcing me to get off my whiny, sluggish butt and go for what I’ve always been pining for the past couple of years. On the publishing front, all of my usual go-to places for book reviews no longer review and/or have gone off to pursue other things. Which leaves me kind of stuck – a nasty place to be in if you’re a small press author who’s constantly struggling against the status quo in your market as well as your niche.

What I’m taking away from all of these is the necessity of adapting, and while it took me a while to come to terms with certain possibilities, I find that things really aren’t that scary.

I’ve been writing and publishing LGBT YA fiction since 2008, and now that I’m at a crossroads – or more like have taken a step down a path that I never thought I’d ever take in a million years – I wonder if this means I’m at the twilight of my career writing as Hayden Thorne. Mind you, I still have Helleville to complete as well as the next Masks sequel, and it’s very likely that my output under this pseudonym will be limited to novel-length fiction, though for how much longer I’ll be doing this remains uncertain, and I don’t want to jinx myself by making guesses. It’ll certainly be a while before I give up the ghost on LGBT YA fiction; however, my output will go back to the way it was when I first started publishing, which means two novels a year.

My new goal is to supplement what I currently write with fiction outside what I currently produce (hopefully cure me of my burnout this way), and I hope to self-publish those stories under a new pseudonym. Or maybe I’ll use my real name for a change. Who knows? I tried writing those stories in the past, and every time I did, things fell apart on me, and I couldn’t find it in myself to continue. I’ve blogged about my experiences before. If anything, I convinced myself that it was useless, and it was a sign that I was “meant” to write what I write and nothing else.

But with my experimental story, which I’ve titled “The Nightingale of St. Barthélémy”, I managed to prove myself wrong. Happily, in fact. Today I finished the first draft of the novelette, and it requires several revisions and edits. Then comes the usual kind of nightmarish process of hiring an artist for the cover as well as the formatting for upload at Smashwords and Amazon. Oh, yeah, there’s also the inevitable marketing horror, but since it’s not LGBT, I’ve got a broader arena to play in, and it’ll be interesting to see what’s out there.

I honestly have no idea where this’ll take me, but seeing as how I’ve been wishing for this kind of change for some time now, it’s a great feeling, getting over that first (psychological) hurdle.

Now Available: The Bridge

Short story number eight is now available! “The Bridge” is the only non-fantasy story that I’m releasing in this group, though it does have a very, very slight hint of the supernatural toward the end, and I wrote that in for a bit of humor. Anyway, here’s the blurb:

Remy Pépin’s been dealt too many harsh blows in his young life. Orphaned, miserably poor, and subjected to occasional bullying from his employer, Remy’s only source of joy and hope is in a superstition shared by a dear friend, Mathilde Jolicoeur. It’s a superstition involving a lit candle sitting by a window, which Mathilde claims attracts luck.

Day after day, Remy lights his candle and waits, convincing himself not to hope for good fortune to come his way — until one snowy evening, when another boy appears at his doorstep, seeking shelter.

The book page at the publisher contains an excerpt, and you can check it out here. As is the usual deal, you’re also entitled to a 20% new release discount if you purchase the story directly from Queerteen Press, and that discount will be good for a week from the release date.

End-of-the-Month Thingamabobs

I survived April, woohoo! :D Actually, I was supposed to post a Wobbly Noob Diaries entry regarding an epic bike ride I did yesterday with Andy, but I’m really too worn out to do anything remotely thoughtful. Forget it. I’ll post it whenever, I guess.

I just got the cover art for the upcoming single author anthology that’ll be released by Queerteen Press at the end of May. It’s pretty much all of the short stories that’ve been published since the beginning of the year (a total of nine) compiled into one volume.

In somewhat related news, I received some pretty nice reviews of a couple of short stories, which I’ll be adding to my Fantasy Fiction Page. The Novel Approach just posted one for “Clouds’ Illusions”, and QMO Books tackled “Erl-King”. As for future historical fantasy stories and how I should best publish them, I’m trying to sit on that for now as I’m waiting for some important publisher info that’ll help me make my final decision. Once I have it, I’ll definitely post my thoughts here.

Though some doubts remain, I am getting my writing mojo back, and I was able to set aside Rose and Spindle and go back to focusing on Helleville. The story still feels like I’m fumbling my way through the dark, i.e., I still feel like I’m outside my element, writing something contemporary that’s not about Eric and the superhero gang, but the story is progressing nicely. Since I’m still feeling my way forward, I can’t provide a more accurate description of the story’s quirks and so on, but on the whole, it’s like taking all the gothic elements in Desmond and Garrick and modernizing them. No torture chambers, though, but each household does have its “pet” ghost.

I don’t see my confidence growing till after I pass the 20,000-word mark, I suppose, and that’s being generous. :D Maybe 25K to 30K.

Now Available: Clouds’ Illusions

Here’s short story number seven from me! :) “Clouds’ Illusions” is a modern fairy tale-y thing that, frankly, I really can’t describe more accurately as it’s a story that you shouldn’t read literally. Yeah, it’s an extended metaphor about a gay kid’s process of maturation.

Five-year-old Simon, along with his parents and older sister Amy, go to a carnival one day. When a sudden deluge separates the family and leaves Simon alone and frightened, the child undergoes a journey of maturation as he searches for his parents and sister.

Wandering through the ruined carnival, Simon encounters rain-soaked clowns, muddied carnival-goers, and a special young boy named Brian, who’s also lost. The longer Simon stays in the carnival and the rain that continues to threaten everyone’s fun, the more he learns about life, and he leaves the carnival a man with hopeful prospects ahead of him.

“Clouds’ Illusions” is a modern fairy tale, a metaphor for a young gay man’s coming-of-age with all its illusions and truths, and the wisdom that comes from the marriage of rain and sun.

An excerpt can be read at the book page, and you’re also entitled to a new release discount of 20%, which will be good for a week. :)

Trivia bit: this story was inspired by this song (rather sentimental, I know):