Renee Stevens

Well, I've kind of slacked this week (read as completely forgot), and there was no Wednesday post. I had a plan, but the good news is that the current Q & A has been extended, so you have until the end of this month to get your answers to me! Also, there were no prompts last week since we had a promotion announcement, so this week I'm making up for it with 4 new prompts for you to contemplate and perhaps use to pen your next story! Happy Writing! Prompt 740 – Creative Tag – Elf You needed a vacation, away from all the noise, people, and technology. You dug out your hiking boots, tent, knapsack, and packed up. You took the bare necessities and go deep into the forest to relax. Your first night was great, but after your second day you feel like you are being watched, and by the third you know so. When you decide to find out who is tracking you, you find yourself face to face with an elf. Now what? Prompt 741 – Creative Tag – Vampire In this day and age, he was a rarity. He was twenty four, handsome, intelligent, healthy, and crushingly shy. He worked on a computer from his apartment and barely had any face to face contact. When he spotted the odd man one night outside his apartment, he was sure he had to be mistaken. He was tall, dark, with red eyes, and sharp white teeth. Being the nerd he was, he raced home and began to research on his computer. What he wasn’t ready for was opening his door and finding him standing there. He sniffed once, smiled widely, and simply said, “A Virgin!” What happened next? Prompt 742 – Creative Tag – First Line Smell of fresh dirt and rotting flesh filled the small bedroom as he crawled away from the nightmare that slowly shuffled through the doorway. Prompt 743 – Creative Tag – Spring The first buds of spring had broken through the ground. Demeter smiled as her daughter slowly made her way into her embrace. This time Demeter decided she would create something special for her daughter, Persephone. What does Demeter do to celebrate her daughter’s homecoming? So, have you written a new prompt response over the last couple of weeks? Share a link in the comments!

Welcome to another Monday! Did you remember to set your clocks forward an hour? It's time for a new story review, and this one is brought to you by Cole Matthews! Enjoy! Lighthouses: Volume One ValentineDavis 21 Reviewer: Cole Matthews Status: Complete Word Count: 67,960 Gayauthors is a great place for writers and readers for many reasons. There are lots of new characters, topics, engagements, love, folly, and fictional conflict providing us with a venue to communicate with one another. We can explore relationships between people who are gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and many other points on the spectrum or rainbow of human affection. We can delve into what it means to define ourselves and to show our many perspectives. I think the best thing about Gayauthors is we love to experiment with different kinds of writing. While we enjoy our coming of age and coming out stories, we also try new avenues of fiction. There is a vibrant poetry-writing community here and lots of exciting genres from mysteries to fanfic to fantasy and sci fi, yet we aren’t limited by these choices, which leads me to a book by Valentine Davis21. His experiment has made me think and wonder about what lies beyond. Lighthouses’ Volume One tells the story of three couples who over time find a lighthouse that acts as a lodestone or magnet in their lives. These three couples have very different stories, but they occur in different eras and so we begin to see patterns even as the times change so radically. We start with Judas and Duane in the present day. They are traveling to an island. Judas is a bit needy and Duane is happy to take care of him. Their back story begins to come out as Judas remembers: Something else is going. We’re not sure what is happening, but we get a glimpse when Judas has a visitor. This guest isn’t a flesh and blood one, but not really a ghost either. Here is how Judas introduces Johnny and Thomas. Judas and Duane’s story pauses in a bit, and we are then introduced to Johnny, and the setting in 1959. The young man was found with another boy and in those days, it was believed that something needed to be done. Johnny is being ‘treated’ and ‘helped’ to cure his ‘illness’. Johnny’s predicament is handled delicately. It’s obvious his aunt and uncle are trying to help, but it’s not working. That’s when we get a glimpse of the lighthouse again, and we meet Phillip Russo. There is something haunting and familiar about their meeting. It slides inside your brain and makes you squirm. So much is going on, but we don’t know what. And then we meet Thomas. In 1929, Thomas was invited to the island to ghostwrite a biography for an accomplished man. He meets Agamemnon Angelopoulos, and something passes between them, and here is a taste of it: The story has interwoven links and themes that suggest things, hint, and let the reader wonder. What is the main story? Are all three couples the same people or are they drawn to an object that warns of danger? What is the peril that binds these men? Certainly, Thomas, Judas, and Johnny are connected but how? Valentine Davis finished the story, but it’s not complete. He promises to revisit it in another volume, but what I love about this book are the questions it raises. I adore the characters who are fresh and flawed, open and yet bound to each other. They are struggling to cope, yet there is happiness and promise. You can feel hope right around the corner, even as you realize you just passed the corner filled with despair. Read and savor the ideas and see where it takes you. This lighthouse is the calm within the storm of these men’s lives. Category: Fiction Genres: Thriller/Suspense, Historical, Mystery, Paranormal Tags: mature adult, depression, abuse Rating: Mature

❤️ I think this is my favorite set of stories by you, and Hypnotic remains my absolute favorite story of yours!

It's Friday again, and you know what that means! New prompts!!!! Enjoy, and happy writing!!! Prompt 738 – Creative Tag – Hades You knew you should have read all the contracts before you signed, but who expected to be hired to walk a hell hound? Never mind one of the most famous in all of history. When the dark, sexy, brooding man told you he needed his dog, “Spot” walked and exercised, you figured it was easy cash. Now that you know “Spot” is better known as Cerberus, and the stranger is Hades, what is it that you signed up for? Prompt 739 – Creative Tag – First Line The waves lapped at the shore, gently washing away all traces of the battle recently fought on the shore front. Did you write a prompt response last week? Feel free to share a link in the comments!

Sounds good! I think the one from you will officially end this feature, and then the Author Guess Who will post monthly (theoretically).

Hope everyone has had a good month so far. We're getting closer to wrapping up the Improve & Encourage feature. This month we have a critique on Carlos Hazday's story Solcar. Let's take a look at Parker Owen's critique! Solcar Carlos Hazday Critiqued by: Parker Owens Please give us a short summary of the story you chose. Solcar, once a High Lord of Star Clusters and a member of the Council engaged in a proscribed act. He made love to a human. He is sentenced to suffer for five thousand years; the story tells us of them. What do you see as the strengths of the story/poem? What makes this story so good to me is the depth and variety of the many kinds of love described in the story. A broad picture of love and relationship is described; some wonderfully innocent and happy, some painfully poignant, some delightfully quirky. Carlos is excellent at putting this reader right into a scene. There is an immediate idea of place in almost every phase of the story. One can see, hear and sense what the characters experience so much of the text. What do you see as the weaknesses of the story/poem? Carlos is such a strong and compelling writer, and this was his first posted story. That was enough to hook me. On the other hand, as this is a sci fi/fantasy story, I found myself wanting a more concrete look at the world and universe he had built for it. Because Carlos is so good at giving us visual and sensory descriptions to bring the reader fully into a scene, those sections dealing with worlds beyond earth lacked the usual color and taste of those taking place on Earth. Of course, that may have been intentional. For me, another difficulty I encountered was tracking the many swift changes of scene. These were necessary to the plotline, and I understood them better after a second and third reading. However, a casual reader might get confused. How do you think the story/poem could be improved? The one thing I’d suggest would be to consider helping the readers understand – see, taste, touch and experience – the universe as the High Lords do. This is a very tall order. These beings do not think or sense as we do, and believe themselves to be on a much higher plane. Yet building their world a little more vividly would make these creatures more dimensional and comprehensible. What was your favorite part? (scene/sentence/etc) This is like asking which of the jackpot dollars you like best. So much of this story is about love and loss, yet Carlos paints each portrait in ways to make the reader smile. I particularly liked the chapter devoted to the man who followed his dream into Major League Baseball. Here Carlos deftly crafts a picture of a simple, uncomplicated love, and the tears that flow when it must end.

And hey, they're even on time again! Go me!

Welcome to another edition of "Writing Prompts". There are a lot of great prompts for you to choose from, just check out the prompt forum! And today, we're going to add two more to the list. We owe a huge thank you to @comicfan for continuing to provide us with these great prompts. Now, let's see what he has for us this week! Prompt 736 – Creative Tag – List of Words Use the following words in a story – A laser, a police officer, a queen, a silver bell, and book. Prompt 737 – Creative Tag – First Line The pale moonlight barely illuminated the gravestones as he rushed from one to the next, desperately searching for the right one. Did you do any prompt writing last week? Share a link in the comments!