I doubt any gay, bi, lesbian, or transgendered person hasn’t encountered homophobia in one way or another.  It’s something we deal with – most of us in silence – while we go about our lives.

In 1999 I bit the bullet and came out to family and friends.  Reaction from friends was mixed and, yes, a few walked away.  The reaction from my family was worse than I expected.  They all walked away.  My mother, my brother, aunts, uncles, cousins… all of them disowned me.  For two years I had no contact with any of them, until finally my mother left a note on my car asking if we could meet up to talk.  I phoned her and, although it took her a while, she now deals with my sexuality and even adores my husband, Sam.  It hasn’t been the same way with the rest of my family.  Since 1999 I’ve been well and truly cast out.  My brother has three children; none of them know they have an uncle.  As far as he’s concerned, I don’t exist anymore. My name literally cannot be said in his presence.

In spite of the fact my mother held out an olive branch, she still doesn’t believe the rest of my family are acting unreasonably.  That hurts.  It would be nice if, rather than accept my brother’s homophobia, she tried to talk to him about it.  She won’t and never will.  In many ways I know my mother isn’t okay with my sexuality, but I’m her son and for that reason she dealt with it.  It doesn’t mean I don’t still feel the brunt of it, though.  The irony of all this is that my sexuality shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone, least of all my family.  It doesn’t take a degree in homosexuality to assume I’m probably not straight.

A year or so after my mother walked back into my life, she asked if I could drive her to her friend’s place so she could drop off a birthday gift.  This friend of hers used to be our neighbour.  I’d known her since I was eleven years old.  I agreed to drive Mum there and, when I parked outside the house, Mum turned to me and said, ‘I shouldn’t be more than about half an hour.’  It was then I realised I was expected to wait in the car and I – rather huffily – questioned why.  The reason?  Because her friend didn’t like gays and I was no longer permitted inside her home.

This type of bigotry toward the GLBT community happens around the world on a daily basis.  Sadly, I don’t see it being wiped out in my lifetime.  However, the more people we educate away from homophobia the closer we get to a world where it no longer exists.

Thanks for taking to time to stop off at my Blog for this Hop Against Homophobia.  If you’d like to leave a comment, you’ll go into the draw to win a copy of my new release, The Statue.  I’m going to say upfront, so there is no misunderstanding, The Statue is a Gay Lit novella and not erotica. If your name is picked as the winner you’ll receive both the standard text .pdf and the graphic (Illustrated) .pdf.

I’m going to use Alec (Tyler Curtis) from The Curtis Reincarnation for this demo.  He posed the biggest challenge for me.  Quite a few have read his story and I felt if I didn’t get the graphic version right there could be a good chance I’d be lynched.  So, I’m going to set up a scene and show the steps it takes to get a character from a static, lifeless model in a 3D program to a book ready illustration.  You’ll see it’s not a quick process with many stages from start to finished product.  The version of Alec I’m using is the one for the sequel I’m working on, hence his hair is longer than it was in the first story.

Let’s pretend – for the sake of this demo – the illustration I need to create is an image of a young fan girl who happens upon her idol as he walks out of a room in a swanky hotel.

Let’s Go!

No, relax, that’s not him.  A character’s facial features and body structure need to be sculpted.  The image above is the basic M4 3D male model most of my boys are built from.  The sculpting process is done by moving dials on a computer screen rather than, say, using your fingers on clay.  Nothing about the basic model holds any resemblance to Alec, except for the fact he’s male.  Everything has to be altered, including skin tone, eye colour, hair, and age.  This process can take two or three days and sometimes longer.  Before I even start sculpting, though, I have to make the model’s skin texture map.  The skin is the model’s uniqueness and no amount of work on their features is going to look any good if the skin is wrong.

That IS Alec.  He’s not looking anything like he should look with that default skin, despite the fact the facial and body morph is the final product.  He’s too old, he’s too hairy, his eyes are the wrong colour, the eyebrows are wrong, and the skin tone is incorrect.  I always create the skin map first in Photoshop and then sculpt.  Skin maps are created from a merchant resource.  The problem with these is that everyone uses them.  To make them look unique takes a bit of Photoshop work and this is where I make changes like removing hair, adding freckles or beauty spots, adding scars, changing lips, adding new eyebrows, all that type of thing.  Skin tone usually has to be changed, as does sharpness to add realism, and shading to add depth.  Once the skin map is done, I need to create something called a Bump Map, which is a high contrast black and white version of the skin.  Bump Maps aren’t absolutely necessary, but they do add definition to things like wrinkles and skin texture.  This whole process can take a couple of days and longer if a character requires several makeup options.

This is exactly the same morph as the previous image, only this time with his new skin map. It makes a huge difference to how a character looks. I’ve also applied a Sub-Surface Scatter shader, which will give his skin extra realism when I render the scene.  Those of you who know the character of Alec Tyler may notice the colour of his skin looks, at the moment, too pale.  Alec has an olive complexion.  The Sub-Surface Scatter Shader will take care of that later on in the render, as will Photoshop postwork.  Custom amber/gold eyes have been made and applied.  Now we’re getting somewhere!  Of course, he still looks like a deer caught in headlights, but we have to overlook that stunned expression for the moment.  We also need to give the poor lad some hair.  As I said, this is the sequel model so gone is the short black spiky hair he used to have.  Let’s give him his new longer, dark brown hairdo…

Yeah, sure, it looks like a mop has been turned upside and plonked on his head.  Like the stunned expression, we overlook that for the moment.  In the sequel Alec likes to take the Goth image into his everyday life rather than leave it onstage.  This means he needs some makeup.  For this I need to take his face skin map back into Photoshop to make a new one with makeup applied.  Why didn’t I do that in the beginning?  He can’t always wear makeup and needs both a clean face and a made up one.  Applying the makeup in Photoshop, depending on how detailed it is, can take anywhere from an hour to many hours.  Of course, I don’t need to go through this process each time I create an image using a certain character.  Once a model is made, they’re saved and any minor changes can be dealt without consuming too much time.  And, as much as I enjoy looking at him semi-naked, he needs clothes.  This is where it’s a bit like playing Barbie’s for grownups.  Let’s dress him up in something to match the richness of the hotel he’s in and apply his new makeup.

Well, the pants are perfect but the shirt and waistcoat are definitely wrong.  I like the shape of the waistcoat, but it needs retexturing.  I also want to retexture the shirt and get rid of the frill on the front.  New textures for some 3D clothes models are available to buy from Daz 3D, Renderosity, or RuntimeDNA.  The problem with using these, especially for males, is the lack of different textures available.  This runs a risk of creating a finished image with a character wearing an outfit seen in other people’s artwork.  Not an ideal situation when illustrating a book.  Off I go back into Photoshop to overhaul the shirt and waistcoat.

The image on the left is a jacket template.  It’s not the template for the Regency outfit Alec’s wearing because I can’t find that one.  Sorry!  But, it gives you an idea.  It’s kind of like a paper sewing pattern.  The template is as a map and used as a guide for your ‘fabric’ which is applied in layers over the template.  The image on the right is the new waistcoat texture.  As it’s a plain waistcoat jacket without many embellishments, aside from the new baroque style silver button, this took about thirty minutes in photoshop.  A more detailed texture can take several hours.  Once again a Bump Map needs to be made to add depth to the jacket fabric texture.  I went through the same process with the shirt, which also required an opacity map to be made to get rid of the frill at the front.  The new texture maps are applied to the shirt and waistcoat in Daz Studio.

Now he’s dressed, he’s got his makeup on, I’ve added a few piercings to his ears and brow.  He’s all set for.. hmm… maybe meeting Jordan for dinner in the hotel restaurant.  This is where I start setting up the actual scene now the preparation is complete.  Usually I’ll pose the models first and then add the set.

I’ve loaded the young fangirl into the scene and selected a pre-made pose, which quite obviously needs a lot of work.   For a start, their heads are merged together, the arms are in the wrong position with Alec looking like he’s going in for a grope – in fact, it’s pretty much all wrong except for the basic stance.   Next thing to do is correct all the posing issues and get it looking as natural as I can.  Once I have them standing correctly, I need to work on their facial expressions.  Fangirl has to look up at her idol in awe.  Alec has to look friendly and charming.  After all, he’s the type of guy who’ll have a coversation with anyone and talk the leg off a chair.  At the moment he’s gazing off in one direction and fangirl is gazing in the other direction.  I also want to make fangirl a little smaller, to give the illusion she is in her early teens.

Making Alec look friendly and charming means putting a smile on his face.  All characters have different traits and they have to be consistent.  Alec’s genuine smile – as opposed to a fake or strained smile – is wide, toothy, and slightly crooked.  His bottom lip drops further on one side.   These nuances have to flow through images or else people will notice the differences.  When people smile in real life their eyes squint a little, the lower jaw pushes back, and the top lip reduces in depth.  It’s important to try and recreate how a real face moves when expressing different emotions.

They’re posed together nicely now and it took over an hour to get to this stage from the pre-made pose, with the expressions taking the longest time.  I’ve swept Alec’s hair away from his face rather than have it covering his eye and cheek. Now I’m going to take two wall sections from a large ballroom set and use them to create more of a hallway effect.  I don’t want to use the entire set because it will compromise the end lighting result.  A lot of digital art is about creating an illusion of something that may or may not really be there.

I’ve added the two wall sectionals and a floor.  I also changed fangirl’s skin map because I wasn’t happy with it.  I’m going to add a distant light into the scene now in a similar way a photographer makes sure lighting is correct on their models.  The light needs to cast subtle shadowing on both of them.  In real life there are always shadows, unless you’re nowhere near a light source.  To get the lighting and shadows perfect in the final illustration, I generally do anywhere from two to five seperate renders. Most 3D artists will only do one render with several lights instead.  I find the more lights added, the more realism you compromise.  Hence, I use as few as possible, and only one if I can get away with it.  This particular scene is going to take five renders.  Rendering the scene is kinda like processing a photograph.  I then take the different renders into Photoshop, merge them together, and take the best sections from each image.

There’s an example of one render.  You can see the difference already.  The work in Daz Studio is now done and I have to move all five of these renders into Photoshop for postwork.  My main goal in postwork is to adjust shading and tweak the skin tones.  I also want to get the background set looking more lush, bring out the colours and make the wood on the doors a better colour.  There are a couple of little things that also need to be cleaned up, like the odd way Alec’s waistcoat looks too thick on his shoulder, and the ordinary way the doorknob looks. These things are taken care of in postwork to create the final illustration.

And there’s the final image after approximately one and a half hours in postwork.  Alec’s olive skintone is now how it should be, corrected by adjusting tone in Photoshop.  I’ve enhanced the colour of his waistcoat, along with enhancing his hair so it doesn’t look dull.  I’ve corrected the odd way his waistcoat sat on his shoulder and changed the tone/colour for the background set.  There was a little too much shine on his face, so I’ve used a Photoshop skin brush to bring that glow down a little.

From start to finish this image took approximately 7-8 hours to complete.   For a short story like Left of Centre, I think I illustrated about 15 images.  That adds up to quite a few hours spent on illustrations alone, especially when some images don’t comply in 8 hours and can take two or three days.  It’s a time consuming process… it’s a good thing I love doing it!

I’ll take this opportunity to clearly point out The Statue is not erotic fiction in the same way The Slayer’s Apprentice is not erotic fiction.  I don’t want anyone buying the book only to be disappointed when they realise this.  However, those of you who read my books probably already know erotic content is not a high priority for me.  Plot has always been my number one concern.

Thank you to everyone who’s patiently waited for me to release something new and thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support throughout the two year dry spell.

The Statue – Novella – $3.99
Available in both plain text version and graphic version.
Genre: Contemporary Gay Lit
Release Date: May 24th 2012

BLURB

Freelance journalist, Tristan Church, wants to expose Galloway Mental Hospital’s dirty secrets. Teaming up with broody photographer, Mark, promises other perks.  A ten year relationship with high school sweetheart, Eli, no longer offers Tristan the excitement he craves.  Mark made his intentions clear and Tristan is close to giving in to his advances.

One morning at ‘The Gallows’ leaves Tristan reeling.  He wasn’t prepared for the hell he witnessed and certainly wasn’t prepared to meet Zane.  Disarmed by Zane’s angelic manner, Tristan can’t believe anyone would stand him up.  He soon realises the tardy boyfriend only exists in Zane’s mind and the beautiful young man is not a visitor to The Gallows but a patient.

Eli walks out and Tristan’s life falls apart.  A decision to meet with Mark almost ends in tragedy and Tristan finds solace in Zane’s company.  Before long Zane’s delusions begin terrorising him again.  While Tristan fights to save his own sanity and get Eli back, he knows someone must fight for Zane’s right to love a man no one else can see.  A man who scares away violent hallucinations, takes away Zane’s fear, keeps him safe, and is trapped inside a stone statue.

Although the Beck Valley Culvert is by no means the largest of its type in the UK, it is still approximately one and a half miles from the Trent River outfall to St Mary’s Rest Garden.  Smaller drains ran into the main culvert, meaning there were places in which rogues could hide children or adults.  It would be risky business for Amdis to leave them there.  The drains and main culvert were subject to rising water levels depending on rainfall.  One large deluge and children hidden inside the smaller drains would almost certainly drown.  For this reason we had to assume the culvert was a means to the end.  It had to be a storage place.  A type of quick fix for the swift removal of kidnapped children from St Mary’s Rest Garden out of the view of teachers.   Watercourses throughout the United Kingdom were not popular tourist attractions.  At times, however, they did attract attention from individuals obsessed with walking through these historical culverts.

I started thinking we’d lost the battle before we’d set foot out the door.  The only clues we had were a river, a drain, sewers, and a condemned building.  Those clues didn’t lead us to a central location and I had a sinking feeling we’d be chasing our tails.  Then there stood the very real possibility the stolen children had already met their fate if Emrys was right.  If that were the case, if seven little girls were now seven little wolves, what the hell were we going to do with them?

Shaking that dreadful thought from my mind, I took my gaze off the culvert maps and watched my father buckle a utility belt around Emrys’ waist.  I didn’t think my imagination played tricks on me when I saw bonding going on between them.  Dad liked him.  He truly liked Emrys to the point where it seemed I watched Dad interacting with another son.  It went both ways, with Emrys keen to remain in my father’s company.  It could see it in the way Emrys’ brown eyes glistened with adoration when he spoke to Dad.

Emrys eyed his new utility belt, chatting as he checked out pockets.  “I saw this movie once where the man was cornered by an alien, and he thought he was going to die, and just as the alien was about to spit burning acid in his eyes, this other man jumps over the fence and grabs his gun like this and…”

“Oi, oi, oi!”  Dad pushed Emrys’ arm away when he drew the pistol from its holster to demonstrate.  “How do you know that’s not loaded?”

“You told me it wasn’t loaded,” Emrys replied.

“How do you know whether I know for certain it’s not loaded?”

“Why would you say it wasn’t loaded if you didn’t know for certain?”

“Maybe I’m having an off day.  Maybe I thought I checked it and I didn’t.”  With a stern face, Dad gave Emrys the same speech he’d given me several times in regards to weapons.  “What if you drew that gun, it was loaded, and you accidentally blew my head off?”

Emrys thought about this conundrum for a second while I watched on with a smile.  “Well.” He shrugged. “I guess brain splatter on that antique chair would considerably lower its value.”

Dad stared for a second, raised an eyebrow when Emrys grinned, and cocked his head.  “Don’t be a smartarse.  A gun isn’t a toy.  Always, always assume a weapon is loaded.  Never go waving a pistol around in people’s faces.  Who do you think you are?  John Wayne?”

“Clint Eastwood.”

Dad took gun safety seriously.  If he heard me laughing I’d be next one in line for a lecture.

“I can tell you one thing,” Dad continued.  “You won’t be feeling lucky, punk, if you ever pull a gun on me again.”

Emrys fought to keep a straight face.  “I don’t feel lucky now.  Look what you did to my hair.”

“I’m a slayer, son, not a hairdresser.  It’s a damn side better than what you did to Matthew.”  He jabbed Emrys in the stomach with his index finger.  “Don’t change the bloody subject.”

“Okay!”  Rolling his eyes, Emrys slipped the gun into its holster and fastened the latch.  “Happy?”

“I will be as soon as I…”  Springing out of the chair, Dad snatched Emrys in a headlock, clenching his hand into a fist.  “Beat some sense into you.”

If it had been a real threat, Emrys would have dodged Dad in a millisecond.  He remained in the headlock, laughing as my father feigned several punches close to his face.  I’d stopped trying to cover my own laughter by then.  No matter how old I got, there were times Dad still ended our father/son arguments by gripping me in a headlock while pretending to beat my head in.  The fact he did it with Emrys showed, without a doubt, how he’d fast formed an emotional attachment to my mate.  While I watched them tussling beside the armchair it dawned on me just how strange this was.  Dad was a nice man, he gave people an equal chance, but he wasn’t the type of person to let another into his heart easily.  For some reason Emrys broke through Dad’s reserve with an effortlessness I’d never witnessed anyone do before.  Dean never received this type of interaction from my father.  Not even close.

A loud crack of thunder stole my attention off Emrys and Dad.  Their play fighting ended and we all stared at heavy drapes as though our combined glares could halt what sounded like a fierce storm brewing.  Before any of us had a chance to speak the heaven’s opened, pounding the cottage roof with heavy rain mixed with hail.

Dad threw his arms in the air.  “This is going to stuff us up, isn’t it?”

“Pretty much.” Disillusionment could be heard in my tone.  “It’ll wash away rogue scents and drive them out of the culvert.  If the kids were there, they won’t be there for long.”

“The kids are dead.”  Dean leaned against the doorway, arms folded, not stepping into the living room but rather staying close to the hall.  “You think two slayers and two vampires are going to bring Amdis and his flock down?”  He scoffed.  “You saw what happened the other day.  If Amdis hadn’t pissed off and taken Leo with him, we’d be dead.  That was the only reason the rogues turned tail and ran.”

“Maybe the girls are dead, Dean.”  I tossed the map aside and stood, walking toward the door.  “Maybe Leo’s dead, too.  Point is we don’t know either way.  We can’t ignore any possibility they’re alive.  No matter how slim the chances, we’re going in after them.”

“I’m also forced to wonder if any of you have stopped to consider something else.”  With narrowed eyes, Dean and I competed in a staring competition.  “St Mary’s Rest Garden will be crawling with police today.  We won’t get near the Curious Tower and, even if we did, we’re going to look suspicious lurking around the park armed and dressed in camouflage.”

“Police will search the culvert, too, Matthew,” Emrys said, walking over to stand at my side.  “It would be an obvious place to dump bodies.”

Dean dismissed Emrys like he weren’t in the room.  “We need to work backwards and enter the drain from the Trent River end.  Cops will start from St Mary’s rest and work their way down.”  He gave me a one shoulder shrug.  “This storm could work in our favour after all.  If the rain is heavy enough it’ll make searching the culvert difficult for police.”

Emrys slipped his hand into mine.  “It makes sense they’d start their search for the missing girls in two places; the park where they were stolen and the city where Melissa was found.”

“It also makes sense they wouldn’t go into the culvert if they think they’d be in danger of drowning.”  Arching an eyebrow, Dean leered at me.  “Of course, that type of concern for your team mates doesn’t seem to be a priority for vampires.  You and red will be okay.  What about me and Vic?  If that culvert flash floods, we could die.”

“Don’t be a drama queen,” I snapped.  “Em and I can move fast enough to save you and Dad.”

“What happens if we go in there and end up face to face with a police search party?”

“You think vampires won’t smell cops long before we see them?”  I turned away, leading Emrys beside me, talking over my shoulder.  “Nothing you say is going to stop us going into that Culvert today.  Quit whining, it’s not getting you anywhere.”

***

An hour later we were in Lenton on the outskirts of Nottingham City.  I watched Dad through a windscreen sheeted with water as he passed over an envelope of cash in exchange for a small box.  I felt the reflection of Dean’s eyes burn into me via the rear view mirror.  He knew Emrys and I were privy to a secretive exchange going on outside the car.  By not telling Dean of the Silver Bullet theory we put him in a dangerous situation.  He would be the only one in a group of four not armed with a bullet that could, theoretically, save his life at any point of the mission.

Dad jogged through rain, jumping into the backseat.  All we had to do now was distract Dean long enough to load the bullets.  Something we wouldn’t be able to do whilst in a car. Water already swamped roadside gutters as I pulled away from the curb and headed toward the Trent River outfall, creeping higher in depth.  Radio weather alerts suggested people stay indoors and warned of flash flooding in Nottingham city.

“I have a bad feeling about this.”

Emrys turned, the only one able to hear my barely audible whisper.  “We don’t know where to look and we don’t know where the rogues are,” he whispered in reply. “Amdis is going to be prepared this time.”

“I’ve resigned myself to not finding Amdis or the girls today.  I say we look around the culvert, see if anything looks amiss, see if we can pick up any scent at all, and then head back home.”  I glanced left.  “Any information we get today is better than nothing.  We can try and come up with a better game plan before heading out tomorrow.”

Emrys nodded, ginger eyebrows knitting together.  “What are we going to do with them, darling?” he asked.  “If they’re wolves… what are we going to do with them?”

“I honestly don’t know, Em.”

If Amdis was breeding werewolves there had to be wolf source.  A lot of myth surrounds the werewolf and most of it isn’t true.  For a start they are not a Lycan.  Lycans and Werewolves are two different creatures.  A Lycan is stronger, larger, smarter, can transform at will, and is impervious to a Silver Bullet.  They walk upright on hind legs, can stand over eight foot tall, and have muscular fur covered bodies.  It’s quite possible the Yeti legend was born by those who had glimpsed a Lycan.  The werewolf, one transformed, looks like a large wolf.  This gives the werewolf an edge over the Lycan in regards to camouflage.  However, what the Lycan lacks in camouflage it makes up for in intelligence.  In countries like the U.S.A, where wild wolves are common, the werewolf can still exist in small numbers.  In England, where wolves were hunted into extinction hundreds of years ago, werewolves have nowhere left to blend in.  It made them easy targets for vampires.

Whereas only a Lycan can create another Lycan, and only a vampire can create another vampire, a werewolf can be created by anyone with access to their venom.  No one survives a werewolf attack.  Therefore they don’t hobble away with a bite and transform under the next full moon.  Like vampires the wolf chooses a mate and will turn the chosen human.  They do not mate for life.  They’re fickle, will change their minds, and will discard one mate in preference of another.  Hence numbers would multiply due to their promiscuous nature.  In an exchange of body fluids – blood – a vampire turns a human.  In an injection of body fluid – venomous saliva – a werewolf turns a human.  The venom must be injected into a main artery, another reason why a simple bite cannot pass on werewolf genes.  Like a snake, this venom can be milked, stored, and used by anyone in possession of it.  Of course this isn’t an easy process and, generally speaking, the wolf would be killed first and milked once dead.  If this is what Amdis had done – and it was the only semi-plausible theory – where the hell did he get the source wolf from?

“Why has it taken Amdis this long to make any type of clan impact?” I gripped the steering wheel, my lips barely moving as I whispered.  “He’s been around since 1945.  Why suddenly decide to breed werewolves?”

“Maybe he’s been scared of me.  Amdis never met me personally.  Mihangel dealt with him alone.  Maybe Amdis has honestly been scared I would kill him and so kept a low profile.”

“That brings me back to the same point, Em.  Why now?  Okay, so he figured out how you tolerate sunlight and realised he can never do it.  That alone is not a reason to decide to breed a wolf pack.”

“Why do puppy farms exist?” Emrys said, waiting for me to return his penetrating stare with a glance before answering his own question.  “To quickly breed purebreds, darling, and sell them cheap to unscrupulous pet stores.”

Rain eased to a drizzle by the time we reached the Trent River outfall.  Dark, angry clouds warned the temporary reprieve wouldn’t last long.  Many culvert outfalls were little more than a storm water pipe emptying into a river.  Beck Valley Culvert has a bridge style outfall with a red brick facade, stone trim around its arch, and a keystone marking its completion date.  Murky water and poor light made it difficult to estimate how deep levels had risen inside the drain.  I broke a thin branch from a nearby tree, leaning over to submerge it into the water while Emrys began sniffing our surroundings.  I couldn’t be much help to him as I didn’t know what rogues smelled like, apart from stinking of raw sewage.

“Looks about knee deep,” Dad said, kneeling beside me.  “From what I know of this culvert it should incline on the way to St Mary’s Rest.”

Dad slipped the tiny box into my hand.

I glanced up, noticed Dean paying little attention, and spoke in hush to my father.  “Stay still.”

To move faster than the human eye can see felt no different to me than moving at normal speed.  In a way it can be likened to giving one’s legs an order to sprint.  I unlatched Dad’s revolver from its holster, loaded it with a Silver Bullet, and returned it to the utility belt before Dad knew what happened.

“Done,” I muttered.

“Holy hell,” Dad mumbled.  “You’d give a whole new meaning to the term have a quickie.”

I sniggered and Dean looked over, scowling.  Before he could say anything, Emrys knelt beside me.  He’d seen me load Dad’s gun and moved close enough for me to load his revolver, too.  Once all weapons were set to go, with Dean none the wiser, I jumped into freezing cold water.  Emrys jumped in next and held out a hand to help Dad.  I offered a hand to Dean and was rebuffed.  Consequently, he slid down the embankment with far less grace, losing his footing on the slippery drain floor and grabbing my arm to stop from falling.

Torchlight lit up a drain wide enough for the four of us to walk through.  These culverts were built by man and therefore had to be big enough for construction workers.  So far neither Emrys nor I could smell human scent.  This meant no police searchers were close by.  It also meant, if children had been taken through the outfall, their scent had washed away.  It didn’t make sense for Amdis to lead the girls the length of the culvert to an outfall taking them nowhere.  More likely the girls were taken into one of the sewer drains within the culvert system.

Nothing looked amiss and we continued walking in knee deep water, shining torches along the walls and ceiling.   It seemed we’d walked miles before the culvert inclined.  Water levels dropped, making the journey forward easier and far more comfortable.  Dean kept quiet, listening in to our conversations but not offering a word.  His furious sideways glares at Emrys confirmed we’d made the right choice by not arming him with silver.

“Can you smell that?” Emrys asked, nostrils twitching and nose crunching up.  “Smells like…”

“Shit,” Dad replied before me.  “We must be getting close to sewer pipes.”

Dean broke his silence.  “What an incredible deduction, Victor.”

“I just thought of something.”  Emrys stopped walking, turning around to face me and Dad.  “Let’s say the girls were taken for some kind of wolf breeding program.  The logical thing to do with recruits before you built up an army would be to sift out the strongest from the weakest.”

“If that’s the case, we can assume Amdis plans on taking more than seven girls.”

“Yes, Mr Mitchell,” Emrys confirmed with a nod.  “It might also mean there’s a better chance the girls haven’t been turned yet.  Amdis may want to watch them for a while.  See which ones show the killer instinct to not give up and which ones resign themselves to their fate.”

Dean snorted.  “The kids were stolen because they were close enough to steal at the time.  It’s got nothing to do with this ridiculous werewolf thing you’re all pissing on about.”  He rolled his eyes.  “The kids are dead.  Leo is dead.  There are no werewolves in Nottingham.  Here we are trudging through a fucking drain because the ugly redheaded husband stealing whore told fairytales about ancient vampires and wolf fights.”

I gripped Dean’s neck.  “Disrespect my mate one more time and I’ll empty your veins.”

Dad squeezed the bridge of his nose.  “When this mission is done and dusted, Dean, I suggest you see a shrink.”  He slapped Dean in the stomach with the back of his hand.  “Seriously… you’re a few screws short of a full toolbox.”  He then slapped me in the stomach.  “Let him go, Matty.  It isn’t nice to pick on mentally challenged individuals.”

Emrys’ laughter echoed off culvert walls.  “Mentally challenged,” he giggled through fingers.  “Screws short of a toolbox.”

“I have a theory about you, lad.”  Walking onward, Dad circled Emrys’ neck with his arm.  “You aren’t related to an angel at all.  You’re related to parakeets.  That’s why you keep repeating things I say.”  He tightened his arm, ruffling orange hair.  “Emrys want a cracker?”

I smelled the acrid tang of Dean’s blood and knew his anger boiled.  Watching my father with Emrys infuriated him.  It was interesting to discover knew scents and be able to gauge someone’s mood by the smell of their blood and sweat.  My father had a soft, musky scent when relaxed.  I noted how his scent became sweeter when his mood elevated and how it changed to a denser, muskier scent when annoyed.  I wondered if that’s how I smelled to Emrys before he turned me.  I hoped so as, unlike Dean, Dad’s scent was always pleasant and never objectionable.

At precisely the same time, Emrys and I slammed hands over our mouths and noses.  The stench sickened me, though it wasn’t something Dad or Dean noticed.  I retched, unused to dealing with overpowering odours.  If I took a breath through my mouth I tasted the stink settle on my tongue, coating my throat.  Emrys rushed to my side, his arm around my waist while I gagged.

“It’s death,” Emrys spluttered.

“Is it human?” When Dad asked the question he scrunched up his face.  “I smell it.  It’s got to be close.”

“It’s human,” Emrys confirmed.

“Fucking hell!”  Dean pressed both hands over his mouth and nose.  “That’s rank!”

Coping far better than I with the smell, Emrys shone a torch along culvert walls.  “Can you see those pipes up ahead?  Dad, you stay with Matthew while I…”

“What did I tell you about splitting up from the group?”  Dad grabbed Emrys’ wrist.  “We stay together as a team.”  It was then he realised what Emrys said.  “What did you call me?”

“Sorry, Mr Mitchell.”  A pink blush covered Emrys’ cheeks.  “It just slipped out.”

In spite of his shock, I could see my father was genuinely touched and it showed in his off centre smile.  “I don’t mind.” He squeezed Emrys’ shoulder.  “If you want to call me Dad, it’s fine by me, Emrys.”

My burbling nausea wasn’t enough to stop me smiling then.  Dad didn’t believe in in-laws taking the mum and dad title.  He’d insisted Dean call him Victor or Vic.  Emrys beamed my father a wide smile while Dean looked ready to fly into a rage.

Pulling myself together as best I could, I held tight to Emrys’ hand and we walked onward.  Water lapped above our ankles, flowing faster in response to what must have been another stormy downpour.  We reached the first in a series of pipes along the culvert walls, each one big enough for a man to stand inside.  The smell was obscene.  Emrys and I pinpointed its origin, placing ourselves in front of Dean and Dad as we approached a side drain.  It differed from the others, with a large chamber housing stairs to a higher point and much smaller drain.  Rancid water flowed down ten wide stone steps, putrefied by the rotting flesh it moved over to reach the exit point we stood at.  I couldn’t take it any longer.  The stench overtook everything; it was all I could smell.  My breakfast made a reappearance, splattering at Dean’s feet.

“Eww… for fuck sake!”  Dean growled, shaking vomit off his shoes.

Emrys and Dad stood either side of me, keeping me upright while I struggled to stop from passing out.  As a juvenile Amara, I was ill-equipped to cope with a stench onslaught like the one we’d encountered.  Until then my vampire senses felt comfortably within my control.  I retched until I thought my stomach would turn inside out.  Drinking tall glasses of raw sewage couldn’t have been any more disgusting than the sensation of this horrid smell filling my nose and throat, choking me.

“We need to get him away from here.”  Emrys stroked my face, worried for my welfare.  “He’s too young.  It’s too much for him.”

Dad held me close against his side.  “Try and relax, Matty, and we’ll help you down the stairs.”

I didn’t think I could walk without movement making me throw up again.  “Sorry,” I mumbled.

“No need to be.”  He removed folded sheet of paper and a pen from his pocket, passing it over to Emrys.  “Mark this drain on the map and we’ll take a closer look later.”

You know when you’re a kid, and you are really ill with something or other, and the most comforting thing in the world is your mother or father’s attention?  I wanted Emrys with me, but Dad’s arms seemed more able to save me.

“I love you,” I muttered to my father, as though I were preparing to die from stench suffocation.

“I love you, too,” he replied, unfazed by my pathetic childlike need for Daddy to rescue me from the evil stink monster.  “You’ll be okay, son.”

“No, fuck that!”  Dean stood his ground in front of us.  “We’ve come this far and now we’re gonna turn back?  Pull yourself together, Matthew, and deal with it.  Whatever’s in that drain could be the answer we’re looking for and you want to turn around because it stinks?”

“Get out the way, Sutton, before I throw you down the stairs,” Emrys snarled.

“Fuck off with the threats, red!  Considering how strong I can smell whatever’s in that drain, it can’t be far away.  Fifty metres max.  If none of you have the balls to go look, I’ll do it myself.”

“We don’t split up,” Dad replied.  “I can see your point, but…”

“I can see it, too.”  I coughed the words rather than spoke them.  “I can do this.  I have to do this.”

My stomach, nose, and throat burned.  It ceased being a gaseous odour and turned into something physical, like searing liquid pouring into my body.  I relied entirely on my father and Emrys to assist me in walking forward.

“There’s more than one body.”  Emrys’ voice sounded tight and I knew the smell became unbearable for him, too.  “There are at least three.  I see them in that wider section up ahead.”

Filthy water gushed through the drain.  If it continued, and if we didn’t get out soon, the culvert would surely flood.  So far we’d seen and smelled no sign of police.  For that I was grateful for the storm raging above us as it more than likely kept them away from St Mary’s Rest Garden as well.

Approximately sixty metres from the drain entrance, piled in a heap, four bodies were on top of one another.  Although we expected human corpses, nothing prepared us for what we found.  Tears through the bodies were deep slash wounds.  Considering the amount of decomposition and writhing maggots, the humans had been dead weeks.  England didn’t have wildlife that could rip people apart in the way these people had been shredded.  On one of the bodies only its head, shoulders, and one arm remained.  Needless to say, standing close to four decomposed corpses made me feel as though the smell would execute me.

“Guess their families can cross them off their Christmas card list.”  Dean’s voice muffled through the hand he held over his mouth.  He pushed one of the body’s head with the toe of his shoe to reveal its face.  “You reek, dude,” he said to it.

“Show a bit of respect for the poor bastard.” Dad choked as he spoke.

“Why?  It’s not like he knows I’m talking to him.”

Emrys shoved Dean hard, causing him to stumble backward.  “Because he has family somewhere,” he shouted, shoving him again.  “Maybe children.  A wife.  Friends.”  Each time Dean recovered from another stumbled, Emrys hit him in the chest again.  “You are despicable, Sutton.  A pathetic, poor, despicable excuse for a man.  What if one of those bodies was your mother or father?  What if it was your mum or dad who had been thrown to a werewolf?  Would you care then or would you still show no empathy?”

Dean deserved the dressing down and neither me, nor my father, did anything to stop it.  Dad was far more concerned with my welfare when I projectile vomited again.  My legs folded beneath me.  I couldn’t take the stench a moment longer.

Dad stopped me from hitting the drain floor.  I was a dead weight and he struggled to hold me upright.  He opened his mouth to call out to Emrys for help, knowing they had to get me away from the corpses quickly.  By this stage Emrys stalked and shoved Dean a fair distance from the corpse pile.

“Emrys,” Dad yelled.  “Leave Dean and help me get Matthew out of here!”

In my peripheral vision I saw Emrys catch Dean’s wrist and hurl him in our direction.  Dean was airborne, his feet torn from the drain floor by the force in which Emrys pitched him.  What happened next occurred in a dissected second.  A massive explosion ripped through the drain, battering my body with large chunks of concrete.  I simply cannot recall how I managed to throw myself over Dad, but I became aware of my father beneath me.  An avalanche of rubble collapsed around us, trapping Dad, Dean, and myself in a confined area beside rotting corpses and in knee deep water.  Emrys was not with us.  In my terror and confusion, I realised he had been trapped on the other side of debris.   Everything around us fell into deathly silence.

Dean lay limp on top of rubble, unresponsive with a gash across his brow.  My father had been spared most of impact’s full force.  My own injuries healed but, even if they hadn’t, nothing could have stopped me hurling myself against the concrete rubble barrier separating me from Emrys.  It was impossible for me to estimate how much rubble blocked us.  All I knew was that I couldn’t hear my mate and I doubted he could hear me.  No matter how hard my body made impact with debris, I simply wasn’t strong enough to penetrate it.  My howls of distress seemed louder to me than the explosion.  Was Emrys trapped somewhere else?  Was he able to exit the drain and escape?  And even if he could, would he think clearly enough through his own distress to get out before we were ambushed?  For I knew, without a shadow of doubt, we had been lured into this drain by the smell of corpses.  Corpses that had not been dumped but placed strategically as bait.

They’re accessing the streets and that condemned building from the sewers, but I heard a rogue mention Beck Valley Culvert.

They were Dean’s words.  What he’d said to me after his rescue and while Emrys slept.

Do you think Amdis knows you overheard the rogues say Beck Valley Culvert?  I’d asked him.

I doubt it.  He wasn’t there at the time.

Of course Amdis had been there.  How could I have been so stupid as to trust anything Dean said when I already knew his raging jealousy for Emrys must have been eating him alive?  He’d set us up.  Played his role perfectly, with enough angst to make us trust he didn’t want to accompany us on the mission while all the time knowing his duty to Amdis was to accompany us.  To lead us to this point, to this culvert, to this section of the drain laden with explosives, and make sure we became trapped like rats.  The stench of corpses ensured neither Emrys nor myself could smell anything else.  With Dean’s help, Amdis outsmarted us.

Over and over again I threw myself against debris, screaming Emrys’ name, receiving nothing in reply.  I heard Dad try his CB radio and his attempts to contact Emrys were as hopeless as mine.  When Dean’s CB failed to work, Dad conceded defeat and knew it was Emrys’ radio broken.  At that point I didn’t know if Dean were alive or dead.  Neither Dad nor I bothered to check his vitals.  Suddenly it all made sense to me in appalling clarity.  Dean had his own agenda, planning all along to follow through with a deal he made with Amdis if his attempts to seduce me away from Emrys and back into his bed hadn’t worked.  Dean would not have predicted my father’s acceptance of Emrys.  An insult to add salt to already inflamed wounds.  He’d cried, ranted, professed his love, fooled me into thinking he perhaps did have a heart, even if it were blackened and jaded.  I should have known.  How could I have fallen for it?  This was the man who based an entire selfish existence on what he gained for himself.  All Amdis need do was wave a promise of monetary reward and any loyalty Dean may still have had toward me would have disintegrated into ash.

“Stop it, Matty, stop it!”  Dad screamed, pleading for me to end the assault I put my body through.

“Emrys!”  I cried.  “I need to get to Emrys!”

“You can’t.”  He put himself between me and the debris wall before I could throw myself at it again.  “Matthew…” he held his hands up.  “You can’t, son.  You can’t.”

I dropped to my knees, dropping my face into dust covered hands.  Dad’s arms wrapped around me and he held me while hopelessness escaped my soul in rasping sobs.  Our concrete cell held us captive in an area no bigger than six by twelve feet.

Dad sat beside me, holding me against his chest, stroking my head in an attempt to ease my grief.  “He’ll be okay, Matty,” he whispered into my ear.  “Emrys is a smart boy.  A survivor.  We need to put our faith in him.”

“He could be trapped somewhere else in the drain!”

“He could also be the only one of us who isn’t trapped.  If that’s the case, son…”  Dad kissed my temple.  “Emrys will move heaven and earth to be reunited with you.  He’s a master vampire.  You’re his vampire mate, his family, and his blood.  Nothing could stop him getting back to your side and defending his clan.”

I shook.  Shook and shivered in shock and distress.  “Em isn’t a natural leader.  He’s not a natural master vampire.  He’s too young.  He won’t know what to do if I’m not with him.”

“Don’t underestimate him.  I bet the reason you can’t hear him is because he’s already out of the culvert.  Already putting a rescue plan into action.”  A silent break fell around us before Dad spoke again.  “God Himself couldn’t stop Emrys now.”

***

{END OF PART ELEVEN}
PART TWELVE SOON!

Emrys Amara © Zathyn Priest 2011/2012
All images are original artworks by Zathyn Priest © 2011/2012
Neither the text nor the images may be copied or reproduced without consent from the author/artist.

I used to catch a bus to and from school.  The bus picked up kids from three different schools, two private and one public.  Cool kids always sat at the back.  The kids who weren’t part of the in crowd knew their place and sat at the front of the bus.  There was one group of boys from the other private school who were ultra cool and, together with a few kids from my private school, they were like rockstars.  All the girls drooled over them, all wanted to date them, all wanted to be invited to sit at the back of the bus with them.  The leader of this group of rockstar cool boys was a kid called Lachlan – who looked as bad-boy as a private school dress code would allow – and his second in charge was his best friend, Ethan.

Every day I’d get on the bus, taking my seat near the front where I belonged, and sat quietly while I listened to laughter and chatter coming from the cool group.  I never knew these kids to ever cause trouble on the bus, apart from being noisy.  But, I’d heard they were not scared to get into a fight if someone else initiated it.  They were an intimidating group of gorgeous looking kids with a posse of followers.  They never acknowledged me and they never bullied me.  To them I simply didn’t exist.

A kid from the public school started to catch the same bus.  By the time he boarded the bus it was nearing the end of its route and was practically empty.  All the cool kids were gone, except for Ethan.  It didn’t take long before this new kid targeted me and started making the last 15 mins of my journey home a pure hell.  Ryan called me names, threatened to beat me up, etc.  I’d break into a nervous sweat the closer we got to that school, knowing he’d get on and humiliate me in front of the few kids who were still on the bus.

After about a week of this, Ryan was particularly abusive one afternoon and told me I’d better not be on the bus the next day because he was going to beat my faggot head in if I was.  Of course, I had no other way to get home from school.  The following day I was nervous wreck.  The bus stopped to let a kid off one stop before Ryan got on.  When I thought things couldn’t get any worse, I noticed Ethan pick up his school bag and walk from the back of the bus over to me.  Maybe he and Ryan were teaming up to smash my head in.  Ethan dropped his school bag and sat beside me.  Did I dare make eye contact with him?  I glanced sideways, met with Ethan’s stunning golden eyes, and waited for the insults to begin.

“Hi.”  He smiled.  “Let’s see how tough he is when there’s two of us.”

Knock me over with a feather!  Ethan reassured me nothing would happen to me while he was there and not to worry.  Ryan got on the bus, stopping in his tracks when he saw Ethan at my side.  He said nothing, looked away and sat down.  In the next instant Ethan started singing.  Loudly!

You ain’t nothing but a hound dog… la la la la.  You ain’t nothing but a hound dog… la la la laaaaa.  

Ryan turned his head to glare, eyes burning with fury.  Ethan fearlessly met his gaze and sang even louder.  The fact it was such a dumb song choice made me smile.

When they said you were high class, well that was just a lie.  You ain’t never caught a rabbit and you ain’t no friend of mine.

With a sneer on his lips, Ryan snarled, “Are you having a go at me, dude?”

Ethan widened his eyes and nodded.  “Well, yeah!  I’m looking at you, aren’t I?  Not for long, though, cos you’re so ugly you’re making me sick.”

That was the end of it.  Ryan didn’t push the issue and slunk into his seat to stare out the window.  Ethan turned to me and winked.  From that moment onwards my respect for Ethan never wavered.  Every single day, without fail, he sat beside me on the bus to make sure Ryan wouldn’t bully me.  Ethan’s beautiful personality shone bright.  He was a smart boy, easy to talk to, talented, friendly, and fought for the underdog.  I remember his lovely smile and the way he treated everyone – except bullies – with the same respect he showed me.  Ethan’s amazing golden eyes were a colour I’d never seen before.  I’d seen cats and wolves with gold eyes, sure, but never a person.  Those stunning gold eyes have since been immortalised in one of my book characters.  Tyler Curtis (The Curtis Reincarnation) has Ethan’s eyes.

Our two schools were linked due to certain classes available in one school but not the other.  Older students would either swap schools depending on what they wanted to study.  This meant our schools also combined for sporting and social events.  I hated going to school dances.  I felt like such an outcast but it wasn’t negotiable.  You had to attend the dances.   Not long after Ethan swept to my rescue on the bus our schools had another one of these nightmare dances.  I went and stuck to the shadows where I’d less likely be seen.  From the corner of my eye I saw Ethan wandering away from his rockstar popular friends and toward me.

“You look like you’re having fun,” he said, a wry smile on his face.  “Come sit with us.”

What?  No!  No, I’m not sitting with the rockstar group.  Maybe you’re nice, but I doubt they are!  Besides, Lachlan scares me.  He’s way too cool and bad boy looking.

I politely said no.  Ethan ignored my refusal, grabbed my sleeve and the next thing I know I’m standing with the rockstars and their stupid, giggling, bimbo female fans.  I remember Lachlan’s piercing blue eyes spearing into me when Ethan introduced us.  He had an uncanny resemblance to 80’s icon Billy Idol.  A very uncanny resemblance, complete with the sneer, bleach blond hair, and attitude.  Of course it was a dance, we weren’t in uniform, so he was dressed the rocker part as well.  Lachlan knew he looked like Billy Idol and I’m sure he played on it.  Probably practiced the sneer in the mirror at home while he sang White Wedding into a pretend microphone.  Good Lord… the boy was hot!  Hot with a bad reputation for smoking, drinking, getting into trouble, and everything else fifteen year old bad boys did.  He had a different girlfriend every week.

“Hello,” he drawled, smirking at me with a well practiced sneer.

That was the end of my conversation with Lachlan.  I stood around with them for a little while, spending most of the time talking to Ethan.  I didn’t know at that stage that it wouldn’t be the last I saw of Lachlan.  But that’s for another Blog post.

Skipping ahead… I left school and occasionally would see Ethan at a shopping centre or somewhere else.  He always came over, we’d talk for a while, catch up, and then wave each other goodbye.  There was a light around Ethan and you couldn’t help noticing it.  An aura that followed him wherever he went.  You could almost imagine a pair of wings unfolding from his back when you spoke to him.  He was one of those people who, when he talked to you, made it seem as if you were the only one in his life at that time.  If there was anyone in the world who deserved all his dreams to come true, it was Ethan.  Anything less than that wouldn’t be good enough for a young man with a heart as golden as his eyes.  He wanted to be an actor.  Wanted to be in the movies and dedicated his time to acting classes and studying to reach his goal.  I could imagine him setting Hollywood on fire.

One night I received a phone call from a friend.  Ethan had been in a car accident with two friends.  They were hit by a drunk driver.  His friends escaped with broken bones and bruises.  Ethan was dead.  He was only seventeen.

I can’t describe the grief that hit me when told the news.  Why him?  Why did the drunk driver survive and a beautiful soul like Ethan was taken from the world?  I remember Lachlan’s notice in the deaths column of the newspaper.  ‘If any of us would have made it in this world, it would have been you.  How can you be gone?  I can’t stop crying and I never will.  You’re my best friend.  I love you.  I miss you.  Rest in peace, Ethan.  Don’t forget me.  I’ll never forget you.’

It tore my heart out.  By the time Ethan died, I actually did know Lachlan quite well.  I knew he adored Ethan and much as Ethan adored him.  I never saw Lachlan again after Ethan’s death.  A horrible gut feeling told me it may have been the end for Lachlan as well.  I hope I’m wrong.

Ethan gave me faith in human nature at a time of my life when I’d lost faith in humanity.  He showed me being one of the cool kids didn’t automatically mean they were heartless.  He taught me an important lesson on judging others on face value.  He took away my fear and made sure my journey home from school was a safe one.  He cared about me, he cared about his friends… he cared about everyone.  He sure as hell didn’t deserve to die before he had the chance to live his life.  And that taught me another very important lesson.  I’ve never got behind the wheel while drunk.  I will only drive if I know I’m stone cold sober.  I’ll take this opportunity to say please, please do not drink and drive.

To the beautiful boy with the beautiful golden eyes… thank you for your kindness.  Thank you for taking me under your angel wings and making my school years a safer, less frightening place to be.  Thank you for being you.  Heaven certainly got one of the best when you left us to go there.  When it’s my turn to walk through Heaven’s gates, I pray your face is one of the first I’m reunited with.  Until then, Rest in Peace, sweetheart.

***

Thank you to everyone who took part in this Blog Hop and hope you all had a great Easter

 
Happy Easter!

There are a LOT of Blogs to visit on this hop, so I’ll keep it short and not take up much of your time.  If you’d like to win a copy of my  short story, Left of Centre, simply leave me a comment on this post.  It’s as simple as that!   I’ll choose one winner from the comments left and notify them via email.

Left of Centre is graphic fiction, meaning it’s illustrated with digital art.  You will receive a zipped file with two versions of the story.  One plain text .pdf and the graphic version .pdf.

LEFT OF CENTRE

Short Fiction
Winner of Book of the  Month
Cover Art by Zathyn Priest
$2.99 USD

When self-confessed player Brandon Faulkner arranges to meet three different Goth guys over the course of one weekend, he isn’t expecting to meet someone like ‘Enigma’. Enigma isn’t like anyone Brandon’s met before. He’s unpredictable, volatile and… well, downright weird! To make matters worse, the gorgeous Enigma isn’t at all impressed with Brandon and is unafraid to crush the man’s ego at every opportunity. For the first time in his life, Brandon has to work hard to win the guy. Will Brandon agree to Enigma’s left of center, bizarre requests, or is the player about to get played?

Purchase Link on THIS page

I began reading through it, fixing up a few editorial and format errors, and I started to realise this was a story with two characters who have a whole lot more to tell.  There’s more to Alex and Ric’s pasts, to their future, and far more to their personalities.  This is especially true for Ric Saunders, who has decided to divulge much more than he did when I first wrote One of Those Days.

What to do about this?  I’ve spent the last few days thinking over the dilemma.  One of Those Days, as it stands now, has been read by quite a few and recently was book of the week on Hearts on Fire Review’s site.  Part of me says to ignore the characters speaking to me and just put the story back out for free download as is but with illustrations.  However, if I do that, it’ll basically erase the angle I’d like to move the sequel/s in.  Another part of me is saying to run with the changes and set the first story up for more to come.

My decision is this.  I’ve already removed the download links of the original and it is currently unavailable.  The version I’ll replace it with is going to be a little longer, slightly different, and be the first in what I hope to be a series of graphic shorts stories featuring these two boys.  It started out as a freebie and will remain so, no matter how many instalments of their story I write.  Alex and Ric have far too much to say for me to push them aside as unimportant to me, even though they were originally invented as – and I hate to say it – throw away characters.

I’m sorry if this messes up reviews that have been done of the original story.  As it stands now, I can’t bring myself to simply re-release it and forget about it again.  I like the lads too much and I feel I owe them the chance to tell their stories properly.   I’m going to be perfectly honest here.  Alex Bell and Ric Saunders are my boys.  They were never ever invented with the intent of me submitting the story to a publisher.  Therefore they were never really invented for the purpose of review either.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the positive reviews and feedback, and super surprised it was a book of the week.  Their story is something I want to tell to myself.  I want to see where their lives go and what they tell me.  So I guess what I’m saying is this a project primarily for my own enjoyment and something I’ll offer to readers if they want to take that ride with me.

Unlike the work in progress novel ‘Emrys Amara’, which is free serial fiction currently running on this Blog and intended for publication once its done, the One of Those Days series will be separate illustrated eBook short stories.  It won’t be in chapter instalments.  It won’t be written on a personal deadline.  It will always be offered free.

One of Those Days will be back on my site – with the changes – within a month.

***