Official writingness stuff
Mar. 17th, 2006 06:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltdI'm a Semi-finalist for a Darrell Award. This is, and I quote, " The purpose of the Awards is to promote literacy in the Mid-South by recognizing the best published regional science fiction, fantasy, and horror.
To qualify, an author must live in the MidSouth region -- an expanded "Greater Memphis" area OR the work in question must feature Memphis and/or the area in a prominent way. Additionally, the Darrell Awards are currently intended to recognize Science Fiction or Fantasy (including Horror), so general fiction and non-fiction do not qualify at this time."
And I just realized, last night, that "Cake Under the Mistletoe" abbreviates to CuM. *snerk* (I'm 12 sometimes. Bun rolls her eyes at my immaturity)
If I get to the finals, I'll have to read from it. The first few pages are innocuous enough, and I have altered the line about college getting him his first blowjob.
This is actually for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
charlesks, dakiwiboid, jaewalker and firefly67, in memory of the Vampyres@guvm list.
(The whole thing is available here for $2)
On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. Old joke. It wasn’t that funny fifteen years ago. But, on the internet, nobody knows you’re a werewolf. New joke. And it still isn’t that funny.
Legend has it that children born on Christmas Day become werewolves. That’s just silliness, of course, given the millions born on that day, and the relative scarcity of lycanthropes in the population. But at the stroke of midnight between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, at the magic hour when animals are supposed to talk? That’s a different tale altogether.
My mother was no superstitious peasant woman that Christmas Eve in 1967. The indigestion from her mother’s eggnog turned out to be labor. I understand she spent much of it cursing my father for being frisky in March and making her miss Midnight Mass.
Childhood was easy enough. There was no sign of anything abnormal. Then, puberty hit me like a freight train of hormones and hair. One day, cracking voice. The next, a full-fledged loup-garou in the dining room. Thoroughly modern suburbanites do not take well to a werewolf in the family. My father, ever the shrink, blamed my mother for too early toilet training. Mother just sniffed and said I had to have gotten it from his side of the family.
We adjusted. The eighties were a time of odd enough music that if I decided to put Warren Zevon on repeat a time or two, nobody noticed. Dad called it my hebephrenia and consulted experts about hysterical hair growth. And I just got used to locking myself in the basement three nights a month.
I made it through school, and college. I couldn’t take night classes or live in the dorm. I had a social life, and a place off-campus with a sturdy basement. College expanded my mind, enhanced my self-perception and brought me my first lover.
Most gay kids figure it out early, but my condition made me decide to wait on sex. Who knew what effects it could have? I had read enough horror stories to have a healthy fear of changing in mid-sex, and waking up to newspaper headlines of mangled college boys. My fears were all out of proportion. No change, no mangling, but no telephone call the next day either. It was so nice to have something normal happen for a change.
After graduation, I got myself a little house, a nice job as a draftsman and settled into domesticity. My lycanthropy left me with a keen interest in folklore and the occult, and as the nineties drew to a close, I found myself running several mailing lists. CreatureoftheNight was the most heavily trafficked. We weren’t a role-playing game, but several people, myself included, had online personae.
If I didn’t post during the full moon, well, it was taken as a quirk akin to VanHel’s referring to stake-sharpening or Erzabet’s virgin fetish. I’d come to grips with my disorder, and knew it was just something I would live with the rest of my life.
I wasn’t uncomfortable. The house had a finished basement, and I’d reinforced the door and added several locks. I had a big dog bed, a water bowl and knew how to keep the beast quietest.
CreatureoftheNight decided to have a real holiday party to celebrate our fifth anniversary. As listdad, I offered to host the party at my place. It was scheduled for the week before the full mon, which should be just fine.
I finished checking my e-mail, doing list mod sort of things, and checked the October evening. It was still early, so I got my shoes on to go out for dinner at the local all-you-can-stomach steak house. The computer announced “A missive, o my lord and master.”
It was from Furball, one of the other “weres” on the list. He wanted to come for the party but needed a place to stay. He knew he was imposing when he asked.
I fired back a note saying that of course he could crash at my place, if he felt safe with an old alpha wolf like me. I liked Furball. He was younger than I was, very smart and funny, and a complete sweetheart on-line. One of the list members had tried to bait him into a flamewar once, and he had steadfastly refused, his sweetly worded gentle tone never wavering. I’d banned the idiot as a disruption.
When I waddled home from the buffet, fuller than was comfortable, I was greeted by another message from Furball informing me of his arrival time and asking for a chat session tomorrow. I was out of time, so I filled my waterbowl and headed to the basement.
When my belly is full, the wolf does not need to hunt. I slept the night away on the big soft bed, waking now and then to drink water and go back to sleep.
At sunrise, I climbed the stairs, grabbed a bagel on the way to the shower and then made a proper breakfast after I was dressed. My food bill is ridiculous for a bachelor during that week.
I never remember my dreams when I’m changed. This morning, I seemed to recall dreaming of hunting, but not alone. A smaller male wolf hunted with me. I wrote it to wishful thinking and checked my e-mail. Then I puttered. I chatted with Furball. He was as sweet in chat as on the list. I called mom and let her know I was fine again this month.
I had far too much Chinese for dinner, and locked myself in. The dreams were clearer this time, not just hunting, but of playing as well. At one point, I closed my jaws on the smaller wolf’s ruff. He rolled over and showed me belly. When he rolled back over, I mounted him to show dominance, but he didn’t yelp like a beta male, but rather whimpered like a female. I nipped at him as if my intention was mating and not domination.
I woke in my right mind. Another chat with Furball, more weekend puttering, and then a final night in the basement.
I looked like hell Monday--I always do after 3 nights--and it took two brand-new razors to make me presentable for work. Things were quiet. I worked, planned the party, and chatted often with Furball. I gave him my real name and phone number, he did the same, and before Thanksgiving we were chatting on the phone as often as on the computer.
On Black Friday, another full moon, I was talking to him and decided to come out. “Furball, you need to know a couple things. I am a werewolf.”
“Oh really?” He laughed. “Here I thought I was the only one on a list of wannabes. A nick like ‘BigBadWolf,’ and encouraging them to call you BB doesn’t exactly lead anyone to take you seriously.”
“And I’m gay.”
“I knew that. Sweetie, why do you think I’ve been putting all this effort into you? You think I call just anyone? Chat at all hours with every well-spoken were that crosses my screen? Of course not. Maybe I won’t have to sleep on the spare bed when I’m up, hunh?”
“I’ll see you in about three weeks. I need to get to the basement.”
“Yeah, me too. I hate short winter days See you.”
I still wasn’t sure if he thought it was all a big role-playing session. Didn’t matter. He wanted me as much as I was wanting him.
Over the next three weeks, I caught myself getting positively silly. I was practicing pick up lines, fantasizing about having him and planning all the places I’d show him during the couple of days he was here on either side of the party. That was assuming I even let him out of bed.
The day Furball was to arrive, I found myself sillier than ever. I couldn’t pass a mirror without checking myself. And I changed clothes three times before deciding on a seasonal sweatshirt showing Santa and the reindeer getting hammered on eggnog.
I drove out to the airport, and checked for flight 349 from Memphis. I’d even packed a spare coat, since he’d said it was in the fifties and rainy there. We had snow on the ground, making it proper holiday weather.
The slim, dark bearded man that stepped out of the tunnel was not quite what I had expected. He was wearing the Cthulhu in a Santa Hat sweatshirt that he had told me he’d be wearing. I walked up to him and steered him out of the general traffic before hugging him.
“Welcome to the Great White North, Furball.”
“Hello yourself, BB.” He winked and wrapped an arm around my waist. “ I didn’t check anything, so we can just go.”
“Great.” I could feel the sexual tension building already. He smelled good. Clean, but without heavy aftershave or cologne. Mostly it was just the smell of him. I caught his nose twitching too. “Pup, you thinking what I’m thinking?”
A slow sexy smile crossed his face. “I bet I am. But I think we should go home. Homeland Security really frowns on people sitting in their cars even if they’re making out.”
“Just making sure we’re not going to end up in that scene from Random Hearts.”
“Hate to break it to you, but you’re not exactly Harrison Ford.” He patted me where I was getting thick in the middle from too much time in my drafting chair and too little at the gym.
“You aren’t Kristin Scott Thomas either.” I cuffed him lightly and we laughed rest of the way to the car.
I kept one eye on the road the whole way back to my place. The other was on Furball. He was really pretty, in a Mediterranean sort of way: liquid dark eyes, olive skin, long curly black hair. I couldn’t stop looking at him, wondering what a kiss was going to taste like. Would it be all cinnamon and incense and wild wind as he looked? Or, as was more likely, would he taste of nothing but airplane pretzels and bottled water?
My nose found him quite interesting too. He didn’t smell quite right. Male, definitely. Gay, of course. But there was something underneath it all, a hint of musk, of woods and feralness. I wondered if I was quite sure I was the only real were on the list.
Anyway, Mudd is off today for the start of his Spring Break. I've found all my missing library books. And I want to get my paycheck from CBU.
To qualify, an author must live in the MidSouth region -- an expanded "Greater Memphis" area OR the work in question must feature Memphis and/or the area in a prominent way. Additionally, the Darrell Awards are currently intended to recognize Science Fiction or Fantasy (including Horror), so general fiction and non-fiction do not qualify at this time."
And I just realized, last night, that "Cake Under the Mistletoe" abbreviates to CuM. *snerk* (I'm 12 sometimes. Bun rolls her eyes at my immaturity)
If I get to the finals, I'll have to read from it. The first few pages are innocuous enough, and I have altered the line about college getting him his first blowjob.
This is actually for
charlesks, dakiwiboid, jaewalker and firefly67, in memory of the Vampyres@guvm list.(The whole thing is available here for $2)
On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. Old joke. It wasn’t that funny fifteen years ago. But, on the internet, nobody knows you’re a werewolf. New joke. And it still isn’t that funny.
Legend has it that children born on Christmas Day become werewolves. That’s just silliness, of course, given the millions born on that day, and the relative scarcity of lycanthropes in the population. But at the stroke of midnight between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, at the magic hour when animals are supposed to talk? That’s a different tale altogether.
My mother was no superstitious peasant woman that Christmas Eve in 1967. The indigestion from her mother’s eggnog turned out to be labor. I understand she spent much of it cursing my father for being frisky in March and making her miss Midnight Mass.
Childhood was easy enough. There was no sign of anything abnormal. Then, puberty hit me like a freight train of hormones and hair. One day, cracking voice. The next, a full-fledged loup-garou in the dining room. Thoroughly modern suburbanites do not take well to a werewolf in the family. My father, ever the shrink, blamed my mother for too early toilet training. Mother just sniffed and said I had to have gotten it from his side of the family.
We adjusted. The eighties were a time of odd enough music that if I decided to put Warren Zevon on repeat a time or two, nobody noticed. Dad called it my hebephrenia and consulted experts about hysterical hair growth. And I just got used to locking myself in the basement three nights a month.
I made it through school, and college. I couldn’t take night classes or live in the dorm. I had a social life, and a place off-campus with a sturdy basement. College expanded my mind, enhanced my self-perception and brought me my first lover.
Most gay kids figure it out early, but my condition made me decide to wait on sex. Who knew what effects it could have? I had read enough horror stories to have a healthy fear of changing in mid-sex, and waking up to newspaper headlines of mangled college boys. My fears were all out of proportion. No change, no mangling, but no telephone call the next day either. It was so nice to have something normal happen for a change.
After graduation, I got myself a little house, a nice job as a draftsman and settled into domesticity. My lycanthropy left me with a keen interest in folklore and the occult, and as the nineties drew to a close, I found myself running several mailing lists. CreatureoftheNight was the most heavily trafficked. We weren’t a role-playing game, but several people, myself included, had online personae.
If I didn’t post during the full moon, well, it was taken as a quirk akin to VanHel’s referring to stake-sharpening or Erzabet’s virgin fetish. I’d come to grips with my disorder, and knew it was just something I would live with the rest of my life.
I wasn’t uncomfortable. The house had a finished basement, and I’d reinforced the door and added several locks. I had a big dog bed, a water bowl and knew how to keep the beast quietest.
CreatureoftheNight decided to have a real holiday party to celebrate our fifth anniversary. As listdad, I offered to host the party at my place. It was scheduled for the week before the full mon, which should be just fine.
I finished checking my e-mail, doing list mod sort of things, and checked the October evening. It was still early, so I got my shoes on to go out for dinner at the local all-you-can-stomach steak house. The computer announced “A missive, o my lord and master.”
It was from Furball, one of the other “weres” on the list. He wanted to come for the party but needed a place to stay. He knew he was imposing when he asked.
I fired back a note saying that of course he could crash at my place, if he felt safe with an old alpha wolf like me. I liked Furball. He was younger than I was, very smart and funny, and a complete sweetheart on-line. One of the list members had tried to bait him into a flamewar once, and he had steadfastly refused, his sweetly worded gentle tone never wavering. I’d banned the idiot as a disruption.
When I waddled home from the buffet, fuller than was comfortable, I was greeted by another message from Furball informing me of his arrival time and asking for a chat session tomorrow. I was out of time, so I filled my waterbowl and headed to the basement.
When my belly is full, the wolf does not need to hunt. I slept the night away on the big soft bed, waking now and then to drink water and go back to sleep.
At sunrise, I climbed the stairs, grabbed a bagel on the way to the shower and then made a proper breakfast after I was dressed. My food bill is ridiculous for a bachelor during that week.
I never remember my dreams when I’m changed. This morning, I seemed to recall dreaming of hunting, but not alone. A smaller male wolf hunted with me. I wrote it to wishful thinking and checked my e-mail. Then I puttered. I chatted with Furball. He was as sweet in chat as on the list. I called mom and let her know I was fine again this month.
I had far too much Chinese for dinner, and locked myself in. The dreams were clearer this time, not just hunting, but of playing as well. At one point, I closed my jaws on the smaller wolf’s ruff. He rolled over and showed me belly. When he rolled back over, I mounted him to show dominance, but he didn’t yelp like a beta male, but rather whimpered like a female. I nipped at him as if my intention was mating and not domination.
I woke in my right mind. Another chat with Furball, more weekend puttering, and then a final night in the basement.
I looked like hell Monday--I always do after 3 nights--and it took two brand-new razors to make me presentable for work. Things were quiet. I worked, planned the party, and chatted often with Furball. I gave him my real name and phone number, he did the same, and before Thanksgiving we were chatting on the phone as often as on the computer.
On Black Friday, another full moon, I was talking to him and decided to come out. “Furball, you need to know a couple things. I am a werewolf.”
“Oh really?” He laughed. “Here I thought I was the only one on a list of wannabes. A nick like ‘BigBadWolf,’ and encouraging them to call you BB doesn’t exactly lead anyone to take you seriously.”
“And I’m gay.”
“I knew that. Sweetie, why do you think I’ve been putting all this effort into you? You think I call just anyone? Chat at all hours with every well-spoken were that crosses my screen? Of course not. Maybe I won’t have to sleep on the spare bed when I’m up, hunh?”
“I’ll see you in about three weeks. I need to get to the basement.”
“Yeah, me too. I hate short winter days See you.”
I still wasn’t sure if he thought it was all a big role-playing session. Didn’t matter. He wanted me as much as I was wanting him.
Over the next three weeks, I caught myself getting positively silly. I was practicing pick up lines, fantasizing about having him and planning all the places I’d show him during the couple of days he was here on either side of the party. That was assuming I even let him out of bed.
The day Furball was to arrive, I found myself sillier than ever. I couldn’t pass a mirror without checking myself. And I changed clothes three times before deciding on a seasonal sweatshirt showing Santa and the reindeer getting hammered on eggnog.
I drove out to the airport, and checked for flight 349 from Memphis. I’d even packed a spare coat, since he’d said it was in the fifties and rainy there. We had snow on the ground, making it proper holiday weather.
The slim, dark bearded man that stepped out of the tunnel was not quite what I had expected. He was wearing the Cthulhu in a Santa Hat sweatshirt that he had told me he’d be wearing. I walked up to him and steered him out of the general traffic before hugging him.
“Welcome to the Great White North, Furball.”
“Hello yourself, BB.” He winked and wrapped an arm around my waist. “ I didn’t check anything, so we can just go.”
“Great.” I could feel the sexual tension building already. He smelled good. Clean, but without heavy aftershave or cologne. Mostly it was just the smell of him. I caught his nose twitching too. “Pup, you thinking what I’m thinking?”
A slow sexy smile crossed his face. “I bet I am. But I think we should go home. Homeland Security really frowns on people sitting in their cars even if they’re making out.”
“Just making sure we’re not going to end up in that scene from Random Hearts.”
“Hate to break it to you, but you’re not exactly Harrison Ford.” He patted me where I was getting thick in the middle from too much time in my drafting chair and too little at the gym.
“You aren’t Kristin Scott Thomas either.” I cuffed him lightly and we laughed rest of the way to the car.
I kept one eye on the road the whole way back to my place. The other was on Furball. He was really pretty, in a Mediterranean sort of way: liquid dark eyes, olive skin, long curly black hair. I couldn’t stop looking at him, wondering what a kiss was going to taste like. Would it be all cinnamon and incense and wild wind as he looked? Or, as was more likely, would he taste of nothing but airplane pretzels and bottled water?
My nose found him quite interesting too. He didn’t smell quite right. Male, definitely. Gay, of course. But there was something underneath it all, a hint of musk, of woods and feralness. I wondered if I was quite sure I was the only real were on the list.
Anyway, Mudd is off today for the start of his Spring Break. I've found all my missing library books. And I want to get my paycheck from CBU.
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Date: 2006-03-17 04:15 pm (UTC)