Submitting “Laser Visions”

As the clock ticks over to one AM on May 3rd, the intrepid writer finally works up the nerve to hit the “send” button… winging her words across cyberspace, only two days overdue.

I’ve finally submitted my story for this summer’s free story writing event, Love’s Landscapes – Don’t Read in the Closet 2014 from the Goodreads M/M Romance group. This is the event that in past years inspired my stories “Like the Taste of Summer”, “Into Deep Waters”, “Show Me Yours”, and “Nor Iron Bars a Cage”. This year I was determined not to write the 103,000 word novel I did last year. I was determined to go back to a short story like Taste of Summer, I was… ah, hell, I was deluded. Right?

Well, it’s not 103,000 words. But what I did just send in was about 79,000 words of Paranormal/Near-future SciFi/Thriller/Romance. Why stick to one genre when four will do?

The amazing Enny Kraft has created a cover that fits my story perfectly, since the prompt has a figure of a naked guy, walking away into the blue light… Add some DNA-typing, an old house with a circle stair, lasers… and you have:

Roman Janz was minding his own business, walking across campus at the end of term and planning his next plant-collecting trip to Brazil, when something stung him on the neck. And now… now he’s wandering, floating, disembodied and confused. There has to be a good explanation, if he can just find someone, anyone he can actually talk to about it.

Xavier Faulkner is intelligent, creative, and made millions when he sold his tech-security company. But all his wealth and skills couldn’t keep his sister Tam from being poisoned by food contamination. She lived, but her health was damaged, and her job as a cop is gone. In the antebellum house he moved them to, Xavier hopes to find both a distraction and maybe a purpose for their lives. But the old house seems to come with strange noises, and odd lights, and maybe – if Xavier isn’t just going crazy – a naked guy, walking away into the blue…

So that’s my story. The releases of all the 211 stories planned for this event will happen in June, July and August, usually 2-3 stories a day, depending on length. To keep up interest and suspense, the specific release dates are not announced in advance. But when my story does come out, and is available for either download or reading on the group, I’ll be right here to let you know about it.

If you’re an M/M Romance Group member, check out all the participating authors and the prompts for the stories (complete with sometimes Not Safe For Work pictures) in the Love’s Landscapes folder. The list of “Prompt Links” is alphabetical by prompter, and has all the author names after the prompts. Mine was written for “Kyle” (author Kyle Adams, actually, who writes sexy and funny short stories, which this is sooo not.) Some stories, including mine, have little teasers posted. I wrote a prompt for someone else too. Part of the fun is seeing what people do with the original ideas. I can’t wait for June.