The Chickens Come Home

So I, like many of you, watched the World Cup and therefore came to know the phenomenon that is Sergio Ramos In a Suit. After I was done fanning myself and wondering how I never noticed him before, I was struck by how much he looked like every mafia protagonist I've ever read about. Right down to the tattoos. 

It was too much temptation for me and I found that I was inspired to write fanfic about him. Given how rare inspiration is these days, I took it as A Sign. 

And so...we have the following ficlet as the result. 

Just a disclaimer; I know nothing about Sergio Ramos or Luka Modric or even Rene Ramos. They're just pretty faces I coopted for my own entertainment. 

As The Roaming Chef would say after wrangling a crocodile and cooking it...Enjoy.

"It's time for you to come home."

Sergio looked up to see his big brother Rene standing at the door to his gym. He expelled a breath, turning back to the weights he was lifting.

"Says who?" he asked.

Rene stepped in the room, looking impeccable in his black bespoke Tom Ford suit. He stared at Sergio, his gaze uncompromising. "You've had your fun. You wanted to play football. We let you. But Padre is dead now. I need my underboss back."

Sergio put down his weights, straightened up and looked at his brother. "Rene-"

"No. I don't want to hear it Serg. Pack your things. You're coming home."

Sergio sighed. "I can't."

Rene narrowed his eyes at his brother. "Why not?"

Sergio didn't want to say. His brother loved him. He knew that. But he couldn't exactly tell him that he didn't want to leave Luka. 

"Is it Luka?" Rene asked.

Sergio jerked in surprise. "How did...?"

Rene smirked. "You think there's anything about you I don't know?"

"Serg are you do-" Luka burst into the room and then came to a freezing stop when he caught sight of Rene. His eyes widened. "What are you doing here?"

Sergio looked from Rene to Luka. "You two know each other?"

Rene and Luka continued to stare at each other. Sergio narrowed his eyes at Luka who seemed to be apprehensive. 

"Of course we don't." Luka squeaked.

Sergio glared at his brother. "What is this?" he demanded.

Rene shrugged. "You think I'd let someone get close to you and not know everything about them?"

Luka turned to look at Sergio, his eyes apologetic. "I didn't want you to know. 

Sergio glared at him. "Know what exactly?"

Luka sighed, drifting over to Sergio and placing his hand gently against Sergio's waist. He looked him in the eye. "I didn't want you to think that it was the only reason I was with you."

"What was the only reason?" Sergio growled.

Rene huffed. "What he's trying to say is that when I saw how you looked at him, I had a background check done. When it came back clean, I...encouraged him to seduce you."

Sergio stared at his brother in disbelief. "Why would you do that?" he asked, taking a step away from Luka.

"Because I wanted you to be happy." Rene said with exasperation. 

Sergio narrowed his eyes at his brother, "So you...what? Pimped Luka out to me?" he stepped towards his brother, looming over him menacingly.

"Serg!" Luka said in a scandalized tone.

Rene rolled his eyes. "Of course not. You're going to tell me that you wouldn't have known if the feelings weren't real?"

Sergio blinked at his brother, brought up short by that. The feelings of betrayal that had been rising up in him subsided. He looked at Luka, who was watching him with a hurt expression. He stepped towards the other man, who took a step back, lips pursing, arms crossed. His lashes swept down, covering his eyes, hiding his expression from Sergio.

"Luka, I'm sorry. I didn't mean..." he gave an exasperated sigh. "You lied to me!"

Luka nodded. "I guess I did."

Sergio reached out and wrapped his hand around Luka's arm pulling him closer. "I love you." he said, almost pleading.

Luka raised his eyes, misty with tears. "I love you too. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about meeting your brother before but I was scared that it might put you off."

Sergio gave a half smirk his lip rising on one side. "Nothing could put me off you." he declared.

Luka flushed, falling into Sergio's arms. "That's a relief."

Sergio turned to look at Rene, Luka still firmly encased in his arms. "You see why I can't leave?"

Rene gave him a look. "I didn't say that you had to leave Luka, now did I?"

Sergio stared at him, blinking in disbelief and then looked down at Luka. "Would you...?"

Luka smiled, "Come with you? Be your mafia wife? Ask me and see." 

Sergio let out an exasperated huff. "Luka Modric, would you come home with me, be my partner and take the oath?"

Luka lifted his chin, his lips pursing. "Kiss me Sergio." he whispered. 

Sergio leaned down and pressed his lips to Luka's. 

"Yes." Luka said against his lips before taking control of the kiss, tongue thrusting into Sergio's mouth, their tongues tangling as Luka did his best to devour him. 

"I take it that means you're coming home Sergio?" Rene's voice butted in much to Sergio's annoyance.

He grunted, lifting his head briefly to nod at his brother before resuming the searing kiss he'd been sharing with Luka. Something in his chest loosened. He'd always dreaded this day.

The day he'd have to choose between his Family and his Love. But now it looked like he wouldn't  have to.

The Power of Words

Hello. How was your weekend? Mine was...eventful. I'm still recovering. I'm sleepy and tired and behind in my work. Also, I haven't been paying any attention to you because I haven't had the energy to spare.
Does that happen to you too?

Sometimes you have just about enough energy to keep breathing and that's it. Ugh, speaking of breathing...I'm not doing that so well either.
Anyways, so I want to talk about words today. Words have power. They can cause revolutions, break hearts, change minds, elevate the spirit, or depress it. Kill. Hurt. Heal.
And yet we use them so carelessly every day, don't we? We fling them about like confetti, letting them land as they will without thought to consequences or impact. We're just talking, just joking, just being honest...

On Sunday my son and I went for dinner at a nearby hotel because we were too lacking in energy to cook. When we got back home, it turned out that my son had left the house keys at the restaurant. I'm sure many of you are familiar with that surge of irritation that happens when someone else is careless with our stuff. What do we tend to do about it?
Berate.
Belittle.
I was reminded of (spoiler alert) Jamie Fraser when Claire got lost on her way from a birthing. Her horse threw her and then disappeared so she was alone in the forest in a major downpour and with no way to get home. Anyways, bish bam boom, Jamie, and Ian found her and took her home. And as he was giving her a bath, he tells her that while he's aware that it wasn't her fault, he still feels like giving her a scolding to relieve his feelings. So Claire tells him to scold her in Gaelic because she'll only understand about half the words anyway. And that's what he does.

Back to my son.
So he says he left the keys, and I feel that surge of irritation. But just as I'm opening my mouth to tell him what a careless buffoon he is I pause. And I ask myself, who would you be helping by shouting at him? The deed is done. You can see by his face that he's expecting the word vomit you were about to pour on him. So instead I just held up the 100 bob I had in my hand and said: "Well go and get it."
I was still irritated so I called him a whole bunch of names in my head. Then I settled down and waited for him to come back. Just by his posture, and the way he moved fast to do anything I asked of him that evening and the next day, I could tell he was...relieved? that he hadn't gotten The Lecture. And it took me back to my own childhood and the endless lectures about every little wrong thing I ever did. And I resolved to always think before I opened my mouth, to anyone. Because what could be relieving feelings to one person might be a lifetime of trauma for somebody else.

Do you think Kevin Spacey thought about the impact of his words when he wrote that struggle apology? I think that he did. I think that he was thinking that if he said he was gay people would hesitate to come for him about Anthony Rapp because they would be scared to be labeled homophobic. And for sure, most news outlets led with the "Kevin Spacey comes out" part of the story and not the "Kevin Spacey molested a 14-year-old boy."
I have been Anthony Rapp and the way he says he feels even now was so familiar, I was like yeah, that is exactly how I would feel if I came face to face with that guy again. You're transported right back to that age, that level of fear, that level of helplessness. I'm glad I haven't seen him again. I can't imagine how it must be to see someone's face on TV every day. But back to the power of words; Kevin knew just what his words would do; he was trying to take the wind out the sails of Anthony's words. I'm glad people didn't let him succeed.

My son told me that three boys in his school were expelled for homosexual behavior. So I asked him "if they were caught having sex with girls would they have been expelled?" Because seriously, people being denied their education over their sexual orientation seems a bit harsh to me. And to think that gay people already have all these problems and Kevin Spacey is adding to them by saying, "Oh by the way, when you're drunk and you're gay sometimes you molest small boys" is just not helping.
So watch your words. Think before you speak and all that jazz.

Speaking of using my words, the National Gay and Lesbian Human rights commission could use your help. Whether you subscribe to the idea that gayness is wrong or right, surely you can see that to suppress someone's human rights because of their perceived immorality is not only hypocritical but just plain wrong. Hopefully reading In Search of Paradise will make you see that people are just people, regardless of who they love. Pre-order period is winding down. Three days and it's awverr. See you on the other side.

Evolving In Your Craft

"You're just another brick and I'm a sledgehammer"
- Rihanna
It's the way she says it. There is some contempt there, tiredness, warning, matter of factness...It tells me a story; or causes me to superimpose my own story on the words. And in my mind, she's telling some guy (okay +Chris Brown ) who thinks he's the shit that he's actually not. He's just a brick and she's the sledgehammer.
SMASH! BURN!
GirlPower!Rihanna rocks.

Believe it or not, that extract actually does have something to do with evolving in your craft. Rihanna's just happens to be singing rather than writing. The point is, her way of singing has evolved to the point where you can pick up nuances without having them spelt out for you.
As a writer, I'm a great admirer of writers who can do that. I'm not sure I'm one of them yet. I do hope that there is visible evolution in my writing. I can see it in my fanfic on the Winchesters. The way I wrote it when I started out is definitely not how I write now. I'm not sure if it's because of greater understanding about how the Winchesters work or just me getting better. And for the record, writing about characters developed by someone else or even real person fan fiction is a whole different kettle of fish than writing original characters. It's a good way to get one's feet wet though. My first ever story I wrote for public consumption was a real person fanfic featuring +Rihanna and Chris Brown. It was immensely popular on tumblr I must say; even people who didn't like me personally stopped by to read it. And by not like me personally I mean they used to talk about me on other tumblr pages about how they REALLY don't like me but they just visit my page to read my fanfic. It gave me confidence. Let me know that my writing abilities weren't all just in my head.
Maybe.

sidebar; I'm at this hotel near my house and they're straight up playing +Dolly Parton...Like, I don't even know.

The most challenging thing to write, in fan fic or fiction is the 'sex scene'. People take for granted that since everyone (or close enough) does it, then it must be the simplest thing to write.
Right?
Wrong.
Most people write sex scenes where:
1. The foreplay is like interminable. IRL nobody has that kind of time. You're afraid one of your kids will wake up any minute, or you have to get up and go to work or +Empire is coming on any minute now. Ain't nobody got time to 'tease her nipple for hours'. And really, hands up if you want your nipple teased for hours. No seriously. hands up.
2. There is all this explanation of whose limbs go where in a very mechanical way that loses me about three limbs in; I can't keep all that in my head at the same time. In fact a lot of people write very mechanical sex; he inserted his member into her hot leaking mount of venus and thrust hurriedly/leisurely/forcefully/desperately in and out until his vision whited out...if I had a nickel.
Thank you. Very much, for reminding us how sex works.
My sister's friend and I were chatting at my nephew's birthday party and she told me that she doesn't read novels anymore because she's unable to can with all the descriptive passages. An example of one would be the one I read last night where 'Jared' had been asked by 'Sandy' to take her to town and he didn't want to because it was a busy time on the ranch and he had a lot of work. See how I summarised that in one sentence? It was in three. bloody. paragraphs. I call them the 'who cares' sections of the story. Talking to my sister's friend caused me to have an epiphany.
Imagine you don't have to read through that crap.
Just go straight to the next pertinent part of the story.
I do that a lot even if I never realised it before it was verbalised by someone else. Especially with the so-called saucy parts. In my head, as I skim I'm thinking 'sex sex sex sex, uh huh, more sex, the end'.
Diana Gabaldon writes a mean sex scene though. I read through every word. There was this one thing Jamie did to Claire called 'girdling' where he was literally seducing her ass. It was epic. I wrote a whole piece about it on +EzineArticles. It's still one of my most popular articles. I'm grateful that at least one thing the Outlander Series gets right is the sex scenes. Because they've taken my Jamie and made him into this foolish typical male that he absolutely isn't. I had to stop watching. End of rant. Plus they made Claire bitchy. No really, end of rant.

Another writer who has absolutely impressed me, is compo67 on Archive on Our Own. This one sex scene she wrote was written as if they were composing music. I died with admiration, jealousy and envy.
In my own writing, the sex scene I'm really so proud of that I wrote it twice was the dub con at the beginning of Child of Destiny. That was some crazy shit that just wrote itself. My editor said it was too much. I said fuck you very much, it stays as is. It was raw, sometimes painful; but it was honest. And that's what I was going for.
Anyway, I need to get back to my day job. I had another breakthrough on the loo this morning and I'm yet to implement it in the story. Get Child of Destiny here and let me know if I should have listened to my editor.

Gettin' Those Reviews

Hi.

How are you today?

I'm...I don't know. 

Sad maybe?

I gotta get up really early in the morning and that always depresses me to no end. I wasn't built to see the sunrise people! Has anyone ever thought how much money they'd save if they had their weddin' at four in the afternoon? I mean seriously; no having to cater for lunch, no stressin' about waking up in the middle of the night for the bride to get made up on time. Y'all have the whole. fucking. day. To do that shit. On top of that, your guests don't have to wake up at the ass crack of dawn to be on time. Win. win. win. 

Just a thought.

I went to have my hair and nails did yesterday, after a loooonnng period of neglect. So I'm telling my nail lady about how I can never find anyone to do my hair satisfactorily and I whip off my scrunchy to show her my split ends. And then she gasps! like, 'Is that your hair?'

seriously?

Inside, I was like deadpan, "Nope, it's not my hair, it's just this...stuff...that grows out of my head. I have no idea..."

Nobody would be friends with me if they could see my inner dialogue. It's super rude.

Yes yes, this post is about reviews. I'm getting to it. Give me a sec.

If you're a writer, I'm pretty sure you've solicited for reviews; be it from your relatives, your friends, professional reviewers, other authors, your followers on various social media...amiright?

I know I have.

Thee irony is that of all the reviews I've ever requested, only one person, who is a fellow +Supernatural blogger, actually took my book, read it, and wrote a review for me. One person. I can't even tell you how many I've asked. All my other reviews happened spontaneously, when some totally random individual decided to read the book, and then write a review. 

Those are the best actually. Because you don't feel like you had any influence on the contents. So when they give you five stars, you know it came from the heart. 

So the question arises; is there really any use in soliciting reviews? I've spoken to other authors who experience the same thing with solicited reviews. Even on +Goodreads; where they are very pretentiously serious about their book reading. Someone commits to reviewing you and then that's the last you hear of them. It's exhausting.

On the other hand, there are too many advantages to having good reviews to totally give up on getting them. What are you gonna do? Sit back and wait for them to happen organically? 

Keep trying and hope that you'll meet that special group of people who tell you they'll review and then actually review?

I don't know what the answer is.

However, if you are an entity of your word, and would like to review a book of mine, do drop me a line. You can inbox me from my facebook page.

Meanwhile this book is free on smashwords. Read it. Review it.

Aaand as a bonus, get a load of this mural:

Love Yourself or Fuck Yourself

I spend a lot of time gnashing my teeth.
Not even on my own behalf, just on the various ways that people insist on not looking after themselves.
It annoys the fuck outta me.
Classic case in point.
My son just came home for exeat and he was telling me (once he was through communing with his phone - did I see a porn site on there? nope) about the Kenya Music Festivals that he's participating in. Now his voice is still going up and down so I was wondering how he can even sing, but apparently he and his crew were reciting a poem. The school they were staying at, because the regionals are out of town, was one of those nobody's heard of. I forgot the name as soon as he said it.
Anyway.
So he tells me that they hadn't been able to go to the loo the entire time they were there because the loos were a hole in the ground. And not even a deep hole; shallow ones where you can see generations of poop floating around stinking up the place.
Mind. Explodes.

They were there for three days.
Three. Days.
My son held his poop the entire time.
Bad as that may be, and I impressed upon him the dangers of holding in poop that long; I am more in bogglement over the pupils and teachers who day in day out, use these facilities on their daily ablutions. Putting aside the risk of disease...
shudder...

Pooping is a very cathartic experience which one should be able to do in a way that doesn't compromise your mental and physical health and the rules of hygiene. At the very least, can they not cover up the hole and dig a proper latrine or five? It's self-neglect. It's an attitude wherein someone, somewhere doesn't feel like it is necessary for an entire school to have a place to relieve themselves with dignity. It's a violation of human rights people!
I saw on +Instagram that some reality star named, Aysia or something was asking for donations to pay her medical bills.
Why?
Because she had a car accident and she wasn't wearing a seatbelt.

The girl is lucky she just broke the bones in her face. I know people who have died from that. What does it take away from you to grab the leather strap and click it into that little holder put there for the purpose? It takes like one second. And it saves so much heart ache. Come on people! Do better.
But the thing that really makes me gnash my teeth and rent my garments (or whatever the expression is, I haven't read the bible in a minute) is people not paying attention to what they put in their mouths. Girls in clubs taking drugs from strangers because 'It'll give you a whole new high' or whatever. What is it you're escaping from which causes you to be that reckless? Maybe, whatever it is, you just need to face it and move on.

Worse than that, a doctor or a chemist gives you some drugs, and you don't even enquire what they're for. You don't even remember the name of the drug; have no idea how it works. Some 'medical practitioner' gave it to you, so you're just gonna take it. No questions.
What's the worst that can happen?
One word.
Prince.
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person I know who is interested in long term survival. Like people laugh at me for being so careful and conscientious about things. For wanting a plan, for thinking ahead. To me, it's just basic self care.
Loving myself.
Why don't y'all love yourselves?

Speaking of loving yourself, +Google is celebrating world emoji day or something. And they are asking TEEN GIRLS to code an emoji unique to them. I feel like that's an oxymoron. You've already grouped them as 'teen girls'.Hardly unique. I thought these days we were all about 'identifying as' whatever the fuck we want. So what about 'teen boys'? what about older people who 'identify as' teenagers? I don't understand the exclusivity. I really side eye Google these days. What with searches for 'nigga house' showing the white house and the whole mess with "Professional Hair" vs. "Non-professional Hair".

I cannot conclude this post without mentioning +Taylor Swift 's take down by +Calvin Harris. That was just about the most epic thing that happened this week. It makes me feel good to know I saw through that hypocrite years ago. It also makes me feel good that before I saw the video, I did not like This Is What You Came For. It sounded more like something Taylor would sing than Rihanna.
huh
Turns out she wrote it.
No wonder.
The #TaylorIsOverParty is ongoing over here if you're late so come on down.

Leo Won An Oscar

I feel like my work here is done... Okay, no I don't but it's like a major achievement of mine personally that this has happened. I haven't even seen the +Oscars yet. Just scrolling through my twitter feed and facebook page and every single post about the Oscars is either about Leo winning or...Leo winning. It's kind of an anticlimax though. Like we just wore the Oscars down with our perpetual disapproval and they wanted to appease us seeing as they are doing so badly at everything lately. Still.
Congratulations!

I'm still salty though. He totally should have had one ten years ago.
Meanwhile +KanyeWestVEVO went from letting +Kim Kardashian make all his pronouncements on social media to bombarding us with his presence. It's not an improvement. Nobody needs that much Kanye in their lives. Like seriously, can +Twitter please just listen to Kim and suspend his account? He's made me rethink my posting habits too. I think something that's even a little funny and I feel the need to post it for the world to see. Now, I'm like What Would Kanye Do? Then I pause. And think. Does anyone need to know about how I'm dancing around in my super short shorts and inventing a new dance to Desperado on +Rihanna's Anti while I find the fastest way to rustle up some cooked food? I mean...does anyone except potential stalkers really need to know that? Ain't nobody interested bih...

Also this week, the site where I publish my books, sent me a lovely promo pic for Child of Destiny. It tells you where my books are available and shit. I was stoked because I've been trying to think how to get all the sites in one place and failing. Yay Pronoun.

And finally...it's the 29th of February which only comes around every four years. If you're a Celt, you can ask your man to marry you today and he can't say no. Good luck with that. I've been bombarded lately with examples of just how far women will go to get that Mrs. in front of their name. I've been pondering why that would be because I likely wouldn't be able to parade around in my short shorts doing choreo for Desperado if I was under some man's disapproving stare. It always puzzles me why men feel threatened when a woman is a free spirit. Anyone have the answer? Free copy of Child of Destiny to the first person with an answer.

The Evolution Of A Series

I dreamed a dream one night about a guy and a girl. The guy was white and the girl was black and they absolutely hated each other. There was magic. There was a series of 'coincidences' which snowballed into a series of consequences. Leo, who never expected more from life than to be rich and famous, and Mya, who didn't want anything other than to get out...Well, let's just say that fate had other plans.

What do we think about this cover?

I woke up from my dream and put the story down on paper. Okay not paper; word document. Then I sent it out to everyone I could think of or extract from the Internet. While I was waiting for someone to notice me, I began to write again. What happened after...we'll call it. While I was writing this increasingly complicated book (still writing it) because its not easy to write in an authentic voice of a baby without exploding anyone's mind...I came across two minor characters who seemed like they were asking me to write them into their own story. So I did. And Between Death and Heaven was born. Ironically, since Child of Destiny was in a competition, this story was published first. I call it fate working on its own behalf to tell its story the way it wanted.

Excerpt from Between Death and Heaven

But now, we have all these stories and we need to know how they tie together yeah? Well while Child of Destiny - Marcus Devereux (still writing) did provide a lot of answers, there was still room for one more book squeezed in between Between Death and Heaven and Child of Destiny...The Swamp is Full of Mystery. I must say, how it turned out surprised even me, the conduit for fate to tell the story. I did not know it happened like that. Don't even look at me; I'm as surprised as you. Well anyway, here it is, only 99c or free if you bought Between Death and Heaven. Seriously, Enjoy.