TheZot

Right now I'm mostly concerned with the "Wait, that makes no sense" things, where something's been clearly left out or just doesn't work. (Factual or proceedural stuff'd be cool too. I'm half tempted to take my daughter shooting just to get the feel for a range)

[i didn't know Joe was a mime, I swear!] Chris woke up, feeling more rested than he had in months. For once his sleep had been undisturbed by the raw dreams that always heralded Alex's appearance, or the erotic dreams of his own that had been as bad in their own way. There wasn't any trace of the fatigue that Alex brought either. His first alarm went off then. He hadn't been up before his alarm in a very long time. It was nice. He gave the pillow he'd grabbed one last hug, then rolled over and turned off the alarm. He turned the other three off. No point in having them go off when he was already awake. There was something subtly different that morning. It was more than just him getting up, more than just a good night's sleep. He shrugged and stretched as he got out of bed. He padded over to the dresser, the floor under his feet cool and comfortable. He grabbed a clean t-shirt and boxers, then stripped off the shirt he'd worn to bed and threw it at the dirty clothes in the hamper. He froze. There was a rich green shirt on top of the pile. He didn't own any green shirts. Chris picked it off the top of the pile. It was still a little damp, and had a smell to it that was intense but not unpleasant. Three things registered on his brain. The shirt was Joe's. He was smelling it. He had an erection that almost hurt. Chris threw the shirt back as if he'd been burned. This wasn't right. He wasn't supposed to be feeling this. Megan had shown him that. He didn't need anyone. He was fine with just Toby. He certainly didn't need Joe. Except he had last night. Maybe need was too strong a word, but he'd been miserable and Joe had made him feel better. Dragged him out and made him have fun. Hell, he'd even made Chris dance, something he'd not done in a long time. And he'd even enjoyed it. Afterwards, once they'd gotten home, he'd been so

Well, all is revealed (or at least most is) before this is all done. There are hints dropped through the story too, as to what's going on with Alex and Chris. Not necessarily clear ones, I'll admit -- they've not been unclear on purpose, more a first draft kind of unclear. I'll probably go back and gather them up in a list when this is done. Which does remind me. I'm glad folks are enjoying this, and I really appreciate the comments, but when I hit the end it'd be great if everyone could weigh in with a technical analysis of sorts. What bits worked, what didn't, places things were unclear, material that was missing and should've been in -- stuff like that. Y'know, indulge that voice in the back of your brain that says "This was okay, but that thing there really bugged me".

[Aren't mornings after great?] Joe woke up to the sound of twittering birds and the morning sun shining on his face. There was something not quite right about that, but he couldn't put his finger on it. It was early, well before coffee, and he wasn't thinking too clearly. Alex had slept in, something that was unusual for him. Unless Joe was staying over his apartment, which he'd only done a few times, Alex was usually up first and off to work, doing whatever it was. Joe gave a sleepy smile and kissed Alex. He was buried under his blanket, so Joe had to make do with his forehead. Alex mumbled something and rolled over. He took the comforter with him, leaving Joe exposed and chilly. He grabbed clumsily for it a few times then gave up. It was bright and he felt like he was waking up. "Lousy thieving boyfriend," he grumbled as he slid out of bed. When his feet hit the floor the first impression he had was cold. There was wood under his feet. That wasn't right. His bedroom had carpet. So did Alex's. Chris' didn't. He was in Chris' bedroom. He'd slept with Chris. Not slept slept, but still he slept with Chris. That would've been okay except he liked it. God, he'd even kissed Chris good morning. This was bad. Very bad. He had a boyfriend. He loved his boyfriend. And he just slept with his boyfriend's brother and liked it better. Even with the no sex part, he'd liked it better. Chris was probably a better lover, too. He really, really had to not go there. He wasn't sure it was a good idea to be on the same planet as there. There was an overstuffed old armchair in the corner of the room. Joe slumped down in it. He wanted to bolt. He needed to think. He wondered if it was still considered straight panic if it was the gay guy panicking in the morning. He desperately needed coffee. And his boyfriend. He just wasn't sure if he wanted his boyfriend right then. Joe sat there and watched Chris as he let his brain settle. He watched Chris roll over again. Saw an arm wave awkwardly where he'd been asleep just a few minutes before, hands grabbing the pillow Joe had used and pull it in. He even heard the contented sigh. This was so not right. Joe was tempted to gather his things and just go. Get dressed, get the hell out, and never ever go back. That'd probably be best all around. Chris might not be straight but he was as good as. He'd been married, he had a kid, he had a gay twin he hadn't talked to in god knows how long. Alex was a good guy. There wasn't any other reason Joe could think of to abandon him. Maybe that was in the past, or would be some day. Chris had talked about Alex to Toby. But still. Though being honest, it was a good thing for Joe that Chris and Alex weren't close. He wasn't sure how he'd handle it if they were. That wouldn't be good. Still, Joe couldn't run away. He might be seven kinds of scum, lusting after his boyfriend's brother, but he remembered how Chris had been last night, how much he needed someone. He couldn't just run. Chris deserved better than that. Sighing, Joe got up and grabbed his clothes from the night before. The shirt was still grimy, but his pants were okay. He slipped them on. By reflex he tossed the shirt and socks into the hamper. He caught himself right after he'd let fly. He almost went and got them. That might be dangerous. There were things that smelled like Chris in the hamper. Instead he grabbed his shoes and padded downstairs. He just hoped there would be coffee.

I'm not entirely sure which way. Real empathy, I think, though only a little. We've alredy established that Joe can tell when people are lying. Chris too, though it bothers Chris more.

[in which we find out exactly why Chris' day was such a crap one. And the fact that Joe uses the same nickname for Toby as Chris does is entirely coincidental. Really] The drive back to his house was long enough that the good feelings Chris gotten from the club had time to fade away. He was back to brooding again, and staring out the window without actually looking at anything. Joe could tell he'd faded. Something was seriously bothering Chris, and it worried him. He'd hoped that time in the club would help, and while it did it wasn't enough. He could feel the pain Chris was in. He pulled into Chris' driveway and set the brake. The cranking noise roused Chris. He started, and it took a moment for it to register that they'd gotten to his house. He started to fumble with his seatbelt. Joe had been debating what to do the entire drive. He was sure that Chris wasn't going to volunteer anything, and equally sure that he'd do his best to get by. He needed to talk, though, or something. Rant maybe, or cry. Joe didn't know what, but it was eating Chris up. He put his hand on Chris', stopping him from undoing the seatbelt. "Tell me what happened today," Joe said. He was putting on his best HR guy voice. People who were quietly upset tended to do what you told them, especially if you told them to do something they really needed to. Chris looked over at Joe. Part of him just wanted to dump it all out, let it go. Part wanted to go out and hurt something. Part of him wanted to curl up and cry. He looked away from Joe, staring out the windshield. "You don't

Yeah. "Gayness as major angst point" has been done to death. Doesn't mean it's not a problem for people, but at this point I find it uninteresting to write about, so I don't. That it's been entirely an intellectual issue for me personally does make it tougher to really get into as a subject to write about. Which is nice, because then it gives me some other things to explore that it'd otherwise get in the way with. (Which, granted, I could mostly do with a hetero couple, but I'm not all that interested in writing about that at the moment. Maybe another book) It does make keeping things realistic a little tough in some situations, but since we're not in them it isn't a big deal. Dunno how things will work if Chris ends up visiting his mom's side of the family, but that's a story for a different time. Chris and Steve are both a touch over 6 foot tall. They're both big guys, pretty muscular, though Steve has more padding than Chris does. (Which his wife sometimes gives him a hard time about) They both lifted weights and suchlike things, and are built accordingly. Joe is smaller, somewhere in the 5'9" or 5'10" range. He's slender and tends towards jogging as an exercise, and it shows.

Right, some notes. This is, of course, on the psychopath branch of the story. It definitely needs some backing story to have been done earlier -- I must add in more of the psychopath bits in earlier in time when I do the edits. A lot of the info they churn over here should've been brought to the reader's attention already. Also, while Chris has forgotten, the boy that Alex kissed when he was 9 was named Ramirez. I think. He was supposed to have been, at least.

And what the hell's up with Chris anyway? (I didn't realize Joe was up in the air, but I guess he has revealed some of his past that you might not necessarily have guessed from his present) This is actually a big issue that I really need to rework in the first draft. While Chris does have some issues with being gay, his bigger problem is one of intimacy. His early family life, as we've already kind of established, wasn't a stellar example of how couples work, and he was burned viciously by his ex. As such he's very twitchy about relationships. I'm sure this hasn't come across well. His two issues with Joe are the fact that Joe's involved with Alex (old issues) and he's very hurt still because of his divorce. Joe's got his own issues, of course. We've already seen he very much doesn't want to be his family and has worked hard to distance himself from his past. He's feeling really conflicted with Chris in part because of how he feels about Chris and his own expectations of how he should feel. The fact that they both get kind of combative when dealing with stuff they don't like to acknowledge is very much getting in the way. Also very guy-like, and they're both definitely guys. It's not bad, actually. Coke is a spicy cola, and it works well with citrus fruits. Coke with a squeeze of lime is quite good.

[Chris definitely needs to loosen up some. But, then, he's had a really bad day...] Chris hadn't been paying much attention while Joe drove. He was too caught up in his own thoughts. It had been an exceptionally bad day, one he was trying to forget, though he couldn't. He'd thought maybe some target practice would have helped, but it hadn't, no matter how many times he imagined the target at the end was someone real. He'd actually been relieved when Joe had decided to drag him along somewhere. Chris wasn't sure where they were going, but anywhere had to be better than the empty house that waited for him. "We're here," Joe announced, rousing Chris out of his reverie. He looked around. They were parked on the side of a nondescript cinderblock building. There were a few other cars in the parking lot, but it was otherwise pretty empty. "Where's here?" Chris asked. "Here," Joe said, "is a place to relax. C'mon, you'll enjoy it. Drinks are on me tonight." Chris flashed back to the previous weekend. He was still embarrassed about that. "I'm not sure that's a good idea

Yeah, now I just need to figure out what to do with the psychopath. Hopefully it won't be too tough to come to some sort of satisfying conclusion with it. I've never actually been on a firing range, nor shot a gun. It seemed like the sort of thing Steve would grab for to try and get Chris and Joe connected, so I went with it. Seems to be working out OK.

We'll see tomorrow! There is, after all, that pesky lurking B story...

[And it's the end of a very bad Tuesday, and the start of three parts of it getting better. I really need to go see what the gun laws in Connecticut are -- I'm not even sure if some of this is possible here.] Thursday evening Joe was in the parking lot of the firing range when his cell phone rang. The call came through with no phone number attached. Joe smiled

Well, it's the "B" plot in that it wasn't the plot I had in mind when I started writing this. But, then, I'm in the middle of chapter 42 and I finally realized what Chris' big problem with all this is. (Alex is part of it, but not actually all that big a part of it, and I have a bunch of stuff from earlier to rewrite because of it) Ah, well, the romance isn't too far from being resolved, Alex gets resolved a bit earlier, and that only leaves the psychopath with a knife to end the story with a flourish. Woohoo!

I've never read Michael Nava -- I'll have to go poke around the stacks and see if there's anything lurking at Borders or Barnes and Noble. They're mysteries, right? Hrm, there's supposed to be a really good mystery bookstore in the village. May have to wander down there after work one of these days and see what there is to see. Gotta agree about the generic legos. The specialty sets are okay as a bit of extra, something to build spaceships or whatever with, but you need a good foundation to build with. I've got about a cubic foot of brick, so I think I'm good for a while.

[Apparently the B story will not be denied...] Tuesday evening Joe tried to knock off work early. He was supposed to meet Steve at the firing range. It was his third time there and Steve was right

The legos were for the kids -- my apartment's a bit lacking in interesting stuff to do. A couple of buckets of generic brick pieces can be awfully fun, and most of the sets these days are all special-purpose, and you can't do all that much with them. I'm hoping the story stays under 110K when it's all done. That'd be good. Who knows, maybe I'll take out the sex scenes and shop around for rejection letters...

Yeah, everyone's got a surprise of sorts in them. You'd not expect, from first impressions, that Joe came from a lower-class background, nor that his family's as pickled as they've turned out to be. There's a reason for it, and it's the same reason that Chris' parents both drank, and I just realized that's more stuff that I haven't actually gotten out in text. Dammit! And I've left out all the stuff about both of Chris' grandfathers. Joe tries really hard not to slip into his past. He's got a good job, nice apartment, good clothes, a nice car, and besides being desperately lonely in waves until he met Alex, doing well. Yeah, it's clocking in at ~46K words (Nearly 7K this weekend, and I still bought legos, went grocery shopping, cleaned, and did laundry. Woo! ) and will probably hit 60K by the time the first draft is done. It may well double after the full first draft editing pass. I'm looking forward to it being done, if for no other reason than I've been listening to Carbon Leaf a lot lately and "Life less ordinary" has been knocking on the side of my brain demanding another romantic short get written. That and some day soon I really need to do the final polish pass on Dirty Basement done, then there are sand pirates and evil serpent queens, and... I don't suppose anyone's got a can of Plot Bunny Be-Gone handy? The damn things are breeding...

Lesse here: 1) Mom's dialog was modeled after a couple I had the dubious pleasure of sitting near on the bus a few months back. It needs work, I'm sure -- it's a way of treating people, especially your own kids, I just can't wrap my head around well. I'm not sure what's going to hapen to Billy yet. I'd kill him off in prison, but that's kind of cliche. 2) 3) The connection is entirely after the fact. He didn't when I killed off Stephanie's family. Heck, she wasn't even Joe's niece at that point. I needed a thread to tie all the murders together with, and he was convenient. Poor Billy. (Which reminds me, I need to get more info in about the original set of murders that started this all off, as well as on the hiker that got killed) 4) I need to choose another euphemism, then. Joe's Nan told him old stories of the Fae -- selkie and changelings and elfshot, and all that goes with them -- and one thing they're not is precious. Arrogant, nasty, vicious, amoral, powerful, and capricious, sure, but not precious.

[since you can post comments to draft entries, I think I'm gonna leave my notes until the end for this one. I posted 35 and 36 together, since I've a backlog, and a bit faster than normal. If you missed it, here's 34, and here's 35] The last place Joe thought he'd ever go back to was the Peddler's Pony. It was a dive, a run down neighborhood bar whose sole claim to fame was it was established before indoor plumbing was common. A hundred years later they still hadn't gotten around to putting any in that actually worked. Joe cursed non-stop from the time he left the office to the time he got to the bar. He was on his fourth go-round for most of it. He'd stopped at home first. He knew he could get away with driving his car there

[isn't family swell?] Joe had been staring at his phone for the better part of an hour. The Chinese food he'd ordered for lunch had gotten cold and congealed while he stared at it. He didn't care. He didn't have much of an appetite. He shook his head. Putting it off wouldn't help any. It would make things worse, really. The later it got the more likely someone would be drunk. He didn't need to deal with that. Sighing, Joe picked up the phone and dialed a number he knew by heart. He hadn't called his parents in more than fourteen years. He'd honestly planned on never calling again. Plans change. He prayed that his father would pick up. He half-hoped that nobody would and he'd get an answering machine. He wasn't that lucky. At least it only rang three times before someone picked up. "Yeah, what?" Joe winced. It was his mother, her voice as sharp as it had ever been. At least she sounded coherent. That was something. "Hi Ma," he said. He had to catch himself from calling her Mrs. O'Malley. "What? Who is this? Ya got the wrong number." "No I don't," he said, wishing he really had. "It's Joey, Ma." "Joey? Joey! You little shit, are you in trouble again?" "I was never in trouble, Ma, and I'm not now." "Then what the hell do you want? You haven't called in what, two years?" "Something like that," he said wryly. Give or take a dozen. He'd sent a card every year for Christmas and for each of his parent's birthdays. With no return address, and he drove to Boston to do it, so the postmark would be out of state. He felt a vague obligation, but not enough to let them have any idea where he lived. Not until now, at least. He'd forgotten to block the call. He just hoped nobody had put caller ID on the line. Probably not

If you're looking to get your story published in some venue that has some editorial control -- not necessarily for money, small press things often pay in copies rather than cash -- then don't put reviews or blurbs or the nice things people say about you in the cover letter. They don't help, and probably hurt. (Not that having, say, Stephen King like your stuff is a bad thing, but unless he's going to do an actual introduction to an agent, editor, or publisher it's not gonna help) As Miss Snark says, "Write well". And "don't be a nitwit" but that one's harder. Reading her blog is probably one of the more useful things you can do, actually. http://missnark.blogspot.com. I particularly liked the commentary on the two rounds of the crap-o-meter. They're worth reading for snarky, biting, useful comments on hooks and first pages.

Blog entries look like they get their timestamps updated when they get released, and you can comment on draft entries. (Which was a nice surprise, actually) I had the blog entry in and queued up to go a couple of days ago. As soon as I finish one I dump it into the system as a draft entry to help keep the urge to fiddle under control. I've been trying to make sure there's at least one pending in case of a dry spell or something going bang at work. Currently everything through chapter 38 is written and in the system. (Yesterday was productive) It's fun writing all the misunderstandings. Chris and Steve agree completely that Alex isn't real. They just don't realize they don't agree on what he is. Have to get that cleared up pretty soon, I think. Week or so in story time, probably, as I've got some deadlines to meet in there...

Sorry, nope. The official state motto is "We don't do that here"

[The first of three parts for this particular monday in the story. I'm tempted to group them all together and title it 'Dodging the Bullet'] "So, had a fun weekend?" Steve was munching on the last chocolate chocolate chip muffin as he watched the steam rise off his coffee. At least he presumed it was steam. There was always the possibility that it was smoke from the Styrofoam being eaten away by the coffee. "Don't even start," Chris growled. He still felt like hell. Toby hadn't made it any better