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rambling.effluvium
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You could call this my "professional" blog - where I write about being a journalist, struggling to become a novelist, and at times the issues of being a gay author writing (sometimes) gay-themed fiction. I can't promise I'll always sta
Recent Posts Tagged With 'daily snippet'
0072. Shadowmeld.
I really should stop spending so much time on Twitter, but it’s a fun way to avoid work. (Hi, Kaine.) Been posting random little bitlets of brainstorming ideas all morning, rather than working on the project due in…oh…30 minutes. ...
0071. Prologue - Twists of Blood and Fate
“I killed my first man when I was twelve years old.” Colin stared across the table as the woman poured herself another drink - three fingers of scotch, no rocks. Her right hand was clumsy with the bottle, fingers heavily bandaged and hal...
0070. Cinders.
We tried to save the world for humankind. We failed. “Light me.” Cin leaned closer to Gene and held the tip of her cigarette in the flame of his lighter, breathing in. Smoke poured into her lungs, thick and vaguely aromatic but not nea...
0069. Burst.
“Don’t.” He stepped back sharply, jerking away from her touch; a hint of flame flickered in the black expanses of alien eyes. For the brief, aching moment when she’d felt his hand, it had burned as if lava roiled beneath the...
0068. Emo.
Rule #5: No One Cares About Your Angsty, Guilt-Ridden Past “Everyone you loved is dead. You cut yourself to feel alive. Black is the only color that expresses the true torment of your soul. You’ll never forget the one true love who die...
0067. Drop.
It could be so easy. He stood on the edge and felt the lurching pull of vertigo. Gravity and wind grappled over his hair, whipping it around him, tearing at the silvery strands with cold and grasping fingers that lifted the heavy mass to hang over t...
0066. Blues.
Remi drummed his nails on the Jenny’s dashboard, staring out blankly at the eternal night of space. Three more days until Saturn, he thought. Three more days until they found out what Sujit wanted of them. At his side Akhilesh sat ramrod-str...
0065. Dreaming.
So I wasn’t going to post this as it’s a little spoilery and I’m still uncertain of it, but…I need a snippet for today, and this is what’s on my mind. So…here you go. The rough draft of the brief introduction to ...
0064. Fishnets.
Um. Whoops. Sorry. I kind of got wrapped up in something, and you guys know how I am. One-track mind. I’ve been working on this for days: Hikaru had to nearly pry me away from the computer, most of the time. I’ll explain more later...
0063. Crank.
“Um…hello?” The woman peered around the interior of the grimy little shop, then grimaced and scratched at one of her ears. What a mess; metal scraps everywhere, tables piled high with tools, strange contraptions slumped in corners,...
0062. Necrotic.
Leiasandra’s mother had always told her that her curiosity would get her in trouble. Just this once, she wished she’d listened. When the young man had left the inn, she’d taken the light touch of his rough, ink-stained fingertips ag...
0061. Drive.
What is it? It’s a man. Alive? Impossible. He’s breathing… Who is he? It only says “seven”. “Seven”? “Seven”… It’s time to wake up, Number Seven. It’s said that the four stages of dealing with death are shock, denial, ange...
0060. Spark.
In honor of Valentine’s tomorrow (and because I’m not in the mood to write anything new right now), you get another horrific snippet of that cliched romance novel thing. —————————̵...
0059. Need.
“Need.” Vin settled his back against the wall of the balcony and gazed out across the sea. The land below tumbled down in rocky spurts that bled into a green-blue sea, where across the water his beloved Venice shone like a golden coin t...
0058. Divinity.
The silhouette loomed stark over the cracked and arid land, framed in the hot, shimmering disc of a sinking crimson-orange sun. Its shadow was a spidered twin that stretched long across the landscape, reaching for somewhere miles distant. Its head ...
0057. Placement.
Jenna tapped her pen against her printouts and offered a bland, non-threatening smile to the man who sat across her desk and watched her with an odd mixture of nervousness and sullen hostility. She practiced that smile every morning in the mirror. ...
0056. Fallen.
The fallen raven priest looked up at his vanquisher, silhouetted against flames of necrotic violet; a cold wind caught the elf’s hair and robes, lifting them around him in eddying swirls. So slender, he thought. So small. How could such a th...
0055. Nightmare.
He stood amidst carnage, amidst chaos. Flames writhed around him in a transport of agony and ecstasy, hungry to consume flesh, consume life. They licked at his skin; their heat lifted his hair and wafted it around him, silvered strands that splayed...
0054. Phase.
“Graham?” Janine’s voice was a far-away thing, lost in a smoky darkness so thick he could practically feel it closing around him in choking layers; scouring winds, frigid and laced with stinging grit, caught her words and slammed th...
0053. Lunch.
Rule #3: Make Friends at Your Local Hospital “Like I said before, biting into a human’s neck is messy, difficult, and disgusting. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have any mind-numbing powers of seduction to make bevies of bea...
0052. Blame.
“You did this,” she snarled, and shook him roughly with an inhuman strength that made his head snap on his neck. “Look at Aysh! Look at her!” “I’m…I’m sorry, I didn’t…” “You...
0051. Stone.
Today, because I’m exhausted and burned-out after last night’s frazzled rush to write a description and pitch for ABNA (submitted successfully, btw, and thanks to everyone for the feedback), you get a copypasta snippet…but not just ...
0049. Raw.
“Get off me!” Matthew snarled, golden eyes flashing, liquid with fear and a deep, aching need; Vin saw his own reflection in them, saw his own slow, lazy smile. Matthew trembled, pinned between Vin’s body and the wall, luring Vin t...
0048. Unknown.
Vin trudged up the rocky slope to join Mendoza. Together they looked out over the ruins of Greenwich. The air boiled with grey smoke; char and ash washed the world in the monotone shades of a silent film. This far away the explosions were little m...
0047. Doll.
“Dad wanted me to be a teen model, but…I don’t know.” “Why not? You’re pretty enough for it.” “I don’t have the right look. You know…” Maddy stuck her nose in the air and pulled a b...
0047. Ostracized.
…why do I like being so mean to my characters? “But I have to help him!” Madison squeezed Ken’s shoulder, but shook her head and looked away. “You don’t have to do anything, Ken. This is between us.” Letti...
0046. Ninja, vanish!
Rule #6: You’re Not an Invincible Ninja, So Stop Trying “First, the good news: you can survive just about any mortal wound and heal within a matter of hours. “Now, the bad news: getting said wounds will still hurt like a screaming...
0045. E.T.
“Tell me that doesn’t say what I think it says.” Holly stared at the resume in her hand, rereading the objective statement in disbelief. Frank glanced across their shared office, arching a bushy brow that looked like a caterpillar ...
0044. Shades of Grey.
He flipped through the pages, so dry and flaky they felt as if they’d crumble beneath his fingertips if he bent them too far. The photographs on each page were heavy, the paper so stiff that they made turning them difficult. Each one was blac...
0043. Methane.
“Hey, Brian?” “Yeah, Warren?” “Do you think Madison farts glitter?” “I don’t think that’s something I’d want to know, Warren.” “I’d want to know. It’d be kind of nea...
