Jeffrey Ricker's Blog, page 11

August Flash Fiction: The Drag Queen with the Emerald Earring

Every month on the first Monday of the month, ’Nathan posts a series of prompts for a flash fiction story due the following Monday. (Well, I say “due” but it’s not as if it’s a homework assignment; it’s completely no-pressure and I’ve saved up prompts and done them weeks or months later. Prompts never expire, and you can reuse them again and again. Just saying.) Anyway, he draws a card each for genre, item, and location. This month’s draw was a ghost story, involving an earring, set in a tobacconist shop. Now, I don’t smoke, and I’ve never seen a ghost, but I do wear earrings. Let’s just say I took… liberties with the prompt.

See, kids? “Write what you know” is bogus advice.

Anyway, I decided a play on words of a different title might do the trick and, well, here we go.

The Drag Queen with the Emerald Earring

The earring appeared out of thin air. Literally.

Jake was reading and when he looked up to reach for his coffee, an emerald glint in the air caught his eye. The light streaming in through the cafe’s front window caught the facet of a large, green something that hung in the air momentarily and then plummeted to the floor with a tinkling sound. It lay just next to the pickup window where the counter staff set out customer orders. It was early, Sunday morning, he was one of maybe three other people in the cafe, and on a normal day someone else would have seen it or already trampled it.

Jake set down his book—The Swimming-Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst; it made him feel somewhat scandalous to be reading a novel riddled with gay sex in the middle of a public place—and walked over to the trinket. It was an earring, clip-on style, heavy when he picked it up, and positively dripping with emeralds, a halo of tiny ones surrounding an obscenely large oval stone. The metal was silver, intricately carved into spirals and paisleys.

“Darling, oh you found it.”

He stepped back in alarm. A gloved hand had entered his field of vision. Again, literally. All he saw was an elbow length, velvet, viridian-colored glove, hovering at about chest height, the edge of it fuzzy toward the elbow.

Jake looked back at his coffee mug on the low table by his seat. What had they put in his latte?

He heard the sound of a throat clearing—”ahem”—and the voice spoke again. “Do you think I could have it back now, if you wouldn’t mind terribly?”

Jake had never hallucinated before. He’d never taken psychedelics, he’d had a good night’s sleep the night before, and—

Well. He placed the earring in the outstretched hand.

“Thank you so much.” The elbow bent, and the rest of the figure emerged as if stepping through a slit in the air. A woman, taller than Jake, in a green velvet dress to match the glove, a mass of red hair piled beneath a saucer-like hat festooned with a veritable jungle of flora. She clipped the earring to her right ear and then smiled at Jake, thin cracks appearing in the concealer around her eyes.

“I have no idea what I would have done if I’d lost this. Herbert would have been so—”

She cut off with a little hiccup, gloved hand flying to the shelf of her bosom. Whirling around, she took in the cafe. “Wh—what happened to the tobacconists?”

“Pardon?” Jake asked.

“The tobacconists.” She unhooked a parasol from the crook of her arm and waved it about her, nearly hitting Jake with it in the process. “I stopped in to get Herbert some tobacco for his pipe before—”

“This used to be a tobacco shop?” Jake asked.

“Used to be?”

“I don’t know, that’s what I’m asking.” Although, now that Jake thought of it, that did explain the rich, earthy smell of the place that even the perpetually running espresso machine never completely overpowered.

“I was in Fields’s Tobacconist not five seconds ago.” She looked around again, and something in her expression changed. She tilted her head upward, toward the light fixtures. She stared Jake up and down, leaving him feeling x-rayed. At the same time, there was something about her that seemed out of the ordinary to him, besides the fact that she was dressed for Halloween.

“Young man,” she said, her voice turning authoritarian, “what is today’s date?”

“The date?” She glared. “It’s October 3rd.”

She waved the parasol again. “Yes yes, I know what day it is, but the year. Eighteen…?”

Jake nodded. “Yeah, 2018.”

She gasped again, then clapped her hands together, her face lighting up. “Herbert, you genius. You did it!”

Jake tilted his head at her. “Are you a ghost?”

Her smile faltered and she raised an eyebrow at him. “Would a spirit have earrings the living could pick up?”

“I guess not.”

“No.” She touched a finger to her chin. “Although I suppose I am a bit of a ghost out of time, aren’t I? Now if only Herbert can do it all in reverse.”

She scrutinized the air now as if looking for something. She waved the tip of the parasol up and down, side to side, in what looked to Jake like a grid. He faced her profile, and at the edge of her jaw he thought he saw a subtle shadow…

He wasn’t sure how to ask this. “Um, are you—”

She turned back to him, her parasol hovering midair. Again she raised an eyebrow. “Am I…?” She drew herself up to her full height and looked down at him. “Am I Miss Vida Greenleaf, headliner of the world-famous Greenleaf Girls Revue?” She extended her hand to him again. “The very same.”

Jake took her hand, sure that she wasn’t about to withdraw it until he kissed it. “And my darling fiancé Herbert has clearly perfected his temporal accelerator and sent me foward in time approximately—what year did you say it was?”

“2018.”

“One hundred fourteen years.” She returned her attention to the air. “And I’m hoping he has the presence of mind to keep the accelerator activated once he realizes his success. And my absence. I don’t suppose you would be so kind as to assist me, Mister…?”

She trailed off, an expectant look on her face. “Jake,” he said.

“Mister Jake. Do you happen to recall where precisely I entered this time?”

Jake turned toward the pickup counter. “It was right over there.”

Miss Vida turned toward the front windows. “That makes sense. I was following Mister Fields past the cigar cabinet to the humidors, which would have been right about there.” She approached, parasol outstretched like a weapon. “I tripped over one of the floorboards, and that must have been when I lost my earring, which you so kindly found for me.”

She gave him a quick smile and then returned her attention to scanning the air. Jake joined in the search, holding out his phone and looking for any telltale wobbles in the atmosphere. They kept at it for several minutes, but there was only so long they could peer at the same square of air. Miss Vida sighed.

“He must have turned off the accelerator. It does take a frightful amount of power. The first time Herbert turned it on, it nearly made the Union Electric plant explode. Mayor Wells was not happy, to say the least. Unfortunately, that put paid to Herbert’s dreams of having his invention featured in the Great Exhibition, but c’est la vie.”

“So what do we do now?” Jake asked.

“Young man, I have no idea.” Sighing, Miss Vida lowered herself into one of the plush wingback chairs tucked into the corner of the cafe near the fireplace. Once it got cold enough, in a few weeks, they’d start lighting fires during the day, and Jake always enjoyed that. Miss Vida looked like she could use the warmth of the fire right now. Her face had gone ashen, even with all the foundation and concealer. “I know this isn’t a tavern, but do they perhaps serve something here a bit sturdier than coffee?”

Jake went to the front counter and returned with her requested brandy. As he handed her the snifter, he said, “The girl at the counter said they don’t use the brandy a lot so it might not be all that fresh.”

“As long as it’s brandy.” As Jake sat down in the wingback opposite her, Miss Vida raised the glass to her lips and sipped delicately, then tossed it back. She grimaced before reaching for a napkin to blot her heavily rouged lips. “I will not say that I haven’t had better. But thank you, young man.”

She set the glass down on the table and folded her hands in her lap. They looked at each other across the table. Jake felt as if he should say something to this visitor out of time, something to make her feel welcome.

“I suppose you have a lot of questions,” he said, “about how things are now.”

“Young man, I cannot begin to imagine.” A look came over her face, as if she had just then made a decision. “But considering that it may be some time before Herbert realizes what has happened—”

She stood and held out her hand toward Jake.

“Perhaps you could show a lady the sights.”

The post August Flash Fiction: The Drag Queen with the Emerald Earring appeared first on Jeffrey Ricker.

Friday Flash Fiction: The Sketch Artist

When ’Nathan posted this picture last week for his Friday Flash Fiction piece (which you should go read), it brought to mind something I wrote about four years ago. At least, I think it was four years. My memory is not what it was.

(Narrator: his memory was never good.)

I wrote a half-finished draft of a novel based on some conversations and some letters with a wonderful woman I met while in graduate school, a retired lady who had this antique desk with a secret drawer full of letters. She showed me the letters and let me make copies of them and said, “Maybe you can find a story in them.”

How often does someone just give you a story like that? Her generosity is still humbling to me. And makes me a little ashamed that I haven’t picked up that manuscript since 2016.

But that’s another story. There’s a scene in the manuscript about one of the main characters, Evan, whose mother has recently died (what is it with me and dying mothers? I have no idea) and who is trying to reconcile with his estranged sister. Evan’s a painter, but he works in an art supply store to get by and sucks at dating. A friend of his makes him sign up for a dating app and, well, here’s how one encounter ends.

The Sketch Artist

“So,” Jason said after they were lying in Evan’s bed again, “what do people usually say when you tell them you’re a painter?”

“Sometimes they’ll ask if I paint houses or pictures, and my answer is usually it depends on how much they’re paying. Every once in a while I get someone who says ‘draw me like one of your French girls’ and I’ll know our taste in movies has no common ground.”

“Not a fan of Titanic?”

“No. You?”

“It was okay, but my little sister was borderline obsessed when it came out, and that pretty much soured me on it.”

“What do people usually say when you tell them you’re a lawyer?”

“They ask me if I’m a do-gooder, save-the-world type or the sell-my-soul corporate type. Then I tell them I do contracts and estate planning and their eyes glaze over as if I’ve told them I was an accountant. Then I tell them I do community theater on the side and they’re really afraid I’m going to try to sell them tickets to the next show I’m in or something.”

“Was this all a ploy to try and sell me tickets to the next show you’re in?”

Jason rolled over and propped himself up on Evan’s chest. “What if I told you the next show I’m in is The Full Monty?”

“I’d say I’ve already seen that show, but it was good so I’d be willing to see it again.”

Jason smiled. “I hope you mean that for real.”

Evan did mean it. So why was he surprised that Jason was interested in seeing him again? He kept that surprise to himself—he was smart enough to at least recognize the dividing line between charming self-deprecation and awkward insecurity.

It was close to seven when Jason finally had to leave. (“Dinner with my mother,” he said. “Yes, I know that is probably the lamest thing someone could be doing on a Saturday night, but she’d kill me if I bailed on her—and yes, it did also cross my mind to try and bail on her and stay here, but I don’t want to wear out my welcome.”)

He sat on the edge of Evan’s bed and pulled on his shoes—he still hadn’t put on his shirt, and as he looked up toward the window again, the streetlight that usually kept Evan awake blinked on, sending a yellowish beam slanting across Jason’s face and the slope of his shoulders as he tied a shoelace. Evan, still naked, hopped off the bed.

“Hang on, don’t move for a second.”

He returned a moment later with his sketchbook and a hastily grabbed pencil. Jason grinned.

“Does this mean you want to draw me like one of your French girls?”

“Maybe. Hold still.” He quickly blocked in the composition and hoped he’d remember the particular arrangement of colors. He spent maybe five minutes on it, then closed the sketchbook.

“Sorry. I know you have to go.”

“Are you kidding? No one’s ever wanted to draw me before.”

He kept working on the drawing long after Jason had left, working on shadows, highlights, the curve of Jason’s fingers as they gripped the shoelace matching the angle of his shoulder catching the light. It was beautiful, that shoulder, the swell of muscle narrowing to a teardrop where it met his bicep, the dusting of freckles there. Those didn’t make it into the drawing, fading to invsisibility in the streetlight, but Evan could see them clearly as if they were still beneath his fingertips.

It was nine o’clock before he set the sketchbook down again. His stomach grumbled. He hadn’t worked for an uninterrupted stretch as long as that in years.

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A Simpler Plan (Friday Flash Fiction)

One of the things I like about short stories—or any fiction, really—is imagining the lives of the characters beyond the last page. If the story continued, what would they do next?

When it’s my own story, I can answer that question fairly easily: write more!

And that’s what this bit of flash fiction is. Back in 2012 I wrote a story called “Scorned,” which appeared in an anthology called The Lavender Menace: Tales of Queer Villainy.It ended with a new beginning of sorts for the main character, Marcus, who goes by the name Megawatt because he has a (deadly) way with electricity.

So when ’Nathan posted the photo below for a recent Friday Flash Fiction, it led him to revisit his story in that anthology as well. In my case, flames are not the same as electricity, but close enough.

This story also contains a passing nod to a character in an unpublished story, one that I never sent out because I wasn’t sure where to send it. In the same way that villains are fun to write, sidekicks frequently deserve more exploration, and combining worlds from different stories and books is so much fun for me as a writer, and as a reader.

I might send that story out to my mailing list, so go sign up, yo. Meanwhile, read on and enjoy.

A Simpler Plan

“This isn’t going to work.”

Across the table, Evan stared with deep concentration at the half-transparent building hovering above the surface. When Evan got that look, Marcus had learned, he was digging either deep into the past or into multiple future possibilities, looking for scenarios where the outcome would be what they wanted. So when he said their plan would fail, Marcus listened.

Lochley was not so patient. She got that smirk on her face that reminded Marcus of the gymnast who never looked impressed by anything. “Why not just—“ She flicked a finger toward the diagram, which splintered into pixelated fragments. Dale yelped. “—clean house? Well, House and Senate.”

Dale summoned the scattered photons of the schematic back into place above the table. “I spent a lot of time programming this, thank you very much.”

“Plus, that high a level of collateral damage would… displease Mr. Smith,” Evan said. No one had to look into the future to know that was true. Besides, Mr. Smith hadn’t officially sanctioned this operation. It was a strictly a side gig. And since they weren’t getting paid… more like hobby work.

“Besides,” Evan continued, “not everyone has allied themselves with that man.”

There had been an almost tacit agreement never to mention the madman by name, Marcus noticed.

“Pfft.” Again, Lochley flicked a wrist. “Better to start from scratch and let the early retirements of their predecessors send a message to those who’d succeed them.”

“Do that,” Evan said, “and you’ll bring every branch of law enforcement and the military down on us. Don’t be stupid.”

Marcus had to admit that Lochley’s approach had a certain appeal, but Evan was not wrong, either. They’d be one and done. And dead.

Marcus should have left the country when he had the chance, before the borders closed. Yes, he could probably have blasted his way out, and still could. But that would attract attention, and attention was not what an escaped felon with metahuman powers necessarily wanted.

On the other hand, everyone would know he was involved when the alleged leader of the alleged free world was abducted during a major speech and his corpse deposited at The Hague where he was wanted on human rights violations.

C’est dommage.

“This is too public,” Marcus said. He circled the schematic counterclockwise, passing behind each of the other metas, watching how they each reacted. He was the oldest—not a distinction he necessarily enjoyed, but age did have its benefits. They listened to him, even if only to dismiss him as a conservative old man. “I know you want to make a statement, but this statement will get most of you killed, without a high probability of success.” Marcus caught Evan’s eye. “I think you can back me up on that, yes?”

Evan nodded, then looked away. His eyes were the loveliest shade of blue, pale enough to almost be violet, like Liz Taylor’s.

“‘Get you killed,’” Lochley repeated. “Are you saying you’re not going to be part of this?”

Around him, Marcus felt the air shift. Lochley’s fingers twitched. Smiling, he raised a finger. “Patience, my dear,” he said, and for punctuation he sent an arc of electricity through his fingertip and curled it around his fist. He kept it playing as he continued, enjoying more than a little bit the way everyone’s hair frizzed a little as he did so. “I’m fully on board with this, as long as we are sensible about it. We need to rethink our tactics.”

“Come at the target a different way?” Evan asked.

“Different way, different time, different methods, but just as effective. And better yet, we all live.”

He gestured toward the simulation and Dale closed it down. Grabbing a pen and a sheet of paper, Marcus leaned over the table and began to draw. He liked doing things the old-fashioned way.

“Now, tell me what all of you know about playing golf….”

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June Flash Fiction Draw: Found Objects

So, this entry in ’Nathan Burgoine’s June Flash Fiction Draw is a bit of a cheat in two ways.

First off, it’s Tuesday, and these are supposed to go up on Monday. Hey, I’m slow. Sue me.

Second, the prompt for this month’s flash fiction is:

Well, I’ve got the hot chocolate and the scrapyard, but the fantasy is probably more science fiction, although something sorta magical does happen.

Like I said, sue me.

OK, there’s a third reason this breaks the rules: it’s not a standalone flash piece. This is a trend: I have a problem starting and ending something in these flash pieces. This piece continues a story started in a Friday Flash Fiction piece from a while back, “How to Get Off This Rock.” Check that out first if you want to understand what’s going on here, although I do skip forward a bit from the end of that piece, too.

And be sure to check out the other entries written for ’Nathan’s flash prompt.

Found Objects

The scrapyard is adjacent to the spaceport. Periodically, autoskimmers scoop up the waste from repair bays along with random bits lining the launchpads and landing strips that have fallen off ships, which happens more often than people like to think about. Daniel follows the man from the diner, trailing far enough behind that he can duck into doorways and between buildings when the man glances behind him, which is often. Although the man’s wearing gloves now, the memory of the ring on his left hand blazes in Daniel’s memory. It’s the same ring his mother wore, and it was on her hand when she left.

The man stands outside the gate for a moment, pulling the collar of his black coat close around his neck. He looks left and right, then glances over his shoulder again. Daniel ducks into the shadow of a warehouse doorway, trying not to jostle the cup of hot chocolate that’s long gone cold now. Hermione had handed it to him just before she left—”cold out there today”—and it had warmed his hands along the way. Now he’s shivering as he sets it down on the stone steps. When he risks a glance toward the scrapyard again, the man isn’t there, but the gate stands slightly ajar.

The gate attendant is out of order, so Daniel has no problem slipping in. The scrap is arranged in orderly piles that tower above him, and every so often an autopicker scrambles up the side of one, scanning and sorting, looking for salvage. Sometimes, they’re accompanied by ragged-looking humans or other species. Competition.

Daniel lets his guard relax as he makes his way along the paths between the scrap mountains, scanning the scavengers for the man from the diner. He figures there are two possible explanations for the ring: one, which he hopes is wrong, is that the man stole it from his mother. The other is that she didn’t have the only ring like that, and hopefully it’s significant and not just coincidence.

The one thing he hasn’t figured out is how he’ll approach the man, which might not be a good idea anyway, if the ring is his mother’s and the man stole it. Pausing, Daniel scans the nearest junkpile and finds a length of conduit, one end broken and jagged looking. He picks it up. It’s got heft, but not unmanageably so. Grasping it two handed, like a sword, he advances to the next corner and turns.

The man is right in front of him.

Somehow, Daniel manages not to yelp or stumble. The man’s back is turned as he crouches near the edge of a junkpile to the right of the path, sifting through the debris scattered at its base. He tosses aside scraps of plastic, metal, bits of fabric—it’s almost as if he’s looking for something in particular. Something small. Daniel again looks upward toward the peaks of the mountains of junk, wondering how anyone could expect to find anything in this place.

Daniel tightens his grip on his make-do club and moves toward the man, still not sure what he’s going to do: whack him in the head? Poke him in the back and threaten him?

He ends up doing neither. The choice is made for him when a cascade of debris tumbles down the side of the junkpile between them. It’s not even enough to be dangerous, but it’s startling, and both he and the man jump back at the same time. The man turns and faces him.

Only, it’s not a man. It’s his mother.

She gasps. Or he gasps, he’s not sure which. In an instant, she yanks her glove off—there’s the ring, and she twists it.

And disappears.

Daniel drops the pipe. From somewhere up the side of the junkpile, an autopicker, probably the cause of the tiny avalanche, gingerly makes its way down to the ground. It pauses, flexing on its six legs, the red beam of its scanner passing over the conduit. It picks it up and tucks it in its storage compartment, then skitters toward the next pile, oblivious to the boy standing dumbstruck staring at the spot where his mother, whom he hasn’t seen for going on two years now, stood just a moment ago.

 

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Friday Flash Fic: The Passenger

So last Friday my friend ’Nathan posted a flash fic piece in response to the photo below. I thought it was adorable, both his story and the photo. See for yourself:

And I figured I’d see if I could come up with something by today to post, and what do you know, I did. It’s rough, but I hope you enjoy it just the same.

Friday Flash Fic: Passenger

At first, Doyle didn’t recognize the man carrying him down the street, but somewhere between the thoughts oh crap am I being kidnapped and how did I get here was the realization that the guy carrying him was built like a tank. A really hot tank.

Doyle’s right arm flopped from around the man’s neck and he couldn’t seem to muster the strength to raise it again. Without breaking stride, the man (who was he?) lifted Doyle’s arm and draped it over his shoulder. That’s when Doyle noticed the band taped around his own wrist, the kind they give you when you’re in the hospital.

When he tried to talk, Doyle’s tongue refused to cooperate and all that came out was a raspy “unnh.” The man shushed him.

“Don’t try to talk. They said it might be tricky for a while.”

Nevertheless, Doyle tried again. “What—”

“Happened? You passed out at the rehearsal dinner. That was yesterday. Do you remember any of that?”

Rehearsal dinner? Rehearsal for what? A random synapse fired off the word wedding somewhere in a random corner of Doyle’s brain, but then fizzled before it could connect with anything else that might have been helpful.

“Who—” Doyle had intended to ask who the man was, but he picked up the thread and ran in a different direction with it.

“Is getting married? Wow, you really are out of it. They said the painkillers would make you a little woozy, but… Anyway, Dana. Your sister. You remember her, right?”

“Dana.” Another synapse fired, then another, followed by a flood of connections. The wedding. The flight to Chicago and the nearly missed connection. The downtown hotel where he was staying that was more opulent than any other place he’d stayed or lived. The endless stream of new faces from the groom’s side of the family…

And that was where his synaptic train of thought ran out of steam. The man carrying him must have been among that endless stream of faces, but Doyle couldn’t fish it out.

“You—”

“Connor. Jake’s cousin.”

“Jake—”

“Your sister’s fiancé. And I’ll try not to take it personally that you don’t remember me.”

Doyle darted his tongue around his mouth, searching for one spot that wasn’t dry as sand. Taking a deep breath, he managed to get out, “Think I’d remember you,” before the raw feeling of his throat got to be too much.

“Yeah.” He paused. “Especially after the kiss.”

Doyle flinched so fast, and so hard, it was almost painful. And it almost made Connor drop him. As it was, he had to set Doyle down to avoid dumping him on the sidewalk. Doyle’s knees buckled almost at once, but Connor steered him over to a bus stop bench and they sat.

“So, you kissed me?”

“It was more the other way around, really.”

“I kissed you?” The instant it was out of his mouth, Doyle wanted to reel the words back in. Connor frowned. “No, I mean, you’re just way out of my league.”

“Trust me, I’m really not.”

“Okay.” There was a weight behind Connor’s statement that made Doyle think it wasn’t just a compliment meant to reassure him, but Doyle’s head was in such a fog that he couldn’t muster the focus to chase it down. Besides which, something else had pushed through the fog to claim his attention.

“Why did I pass out?”

Connor ticked off the reasons on his fingers. “Exhaustion, combined with severe dehydration and low blood pressure, and standing up way too quickly after giving me what was possibly the best kiss of my life. Which reminds me.” From the pocket of his cargo shorts he pulled out a small plastic bottle of water and handed it to Doyle. “Have some of this.”

It wasn’t until Doyle took the first gulp that he realized how thirsty he was. He pulled at it greedily until Connor gently tilted the bottle down.

“Hey now, don’t make yourself sick.”

Doyle wiped his lips. He needed to get his head on straight. He would have shaken it, tried to dislodge the cobwebs, but he had a feeling that would only lead to a pounding headache. “So, um, where are we going?”

“My place.” Doyle could only imagine the deer-in-headlights look on his own face, because Connor held up his hands and said, “Whoa, not like that. Your suit is there. I’m the one who lives closest to the hospital. We have about,” he checked his watch, “two hours before we need to be at the banquet hall. If you feel up for it.”

Doyle braced his hands against the bench seat. Did he feel up for it? He thought so. Besides, he had only one sister, and hopefully, Dana was only going to get married once.

“Only one way to find out,” he said to Connor, who helped him get to his feet. After making sure of his balance and his footing, they started down the sidewalk again, Connor’s arm draped across Doyle’s shoulders, holding him close.

“So far so good?” Connor asked once they reached the end of the block.

“Yeah.” He paused. The light was red. “You know, there’s one thing I feel bad about.”

“What’s that?”

“I missed our first kiss. I mean, assuming there will be more? Not that there have to be more if you don’t want to. I mean, I know we barely know each other, but it’s not every man who will carry you down the sidewalk.”

Connor stared at the crosswalk signal a moment longer before turning to Doyle. “Just to make sure, you’re fully conscious and coherent right now, right?”

“I think so.”

“In that case,” Connor said, cupping Doyle’s face in his hands, “let me fill you in on what you missed.”

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Jet lag is a small price to pay for a creative jolt

I was running on fumes all last week. When I went to bed on Monday, around half past eleven, I stared at the ceiling and thought, I’ve been awake for almost twenty-four hours straight. Now why can’t I fall asleep? The jet lag finally wore off sometime around Thursday. Unfortunately, its place was quickly taken by anxiety over something I won’t bore you with here. Besides, it had nothing to do with writing, so why would you care? Well, apart from the fact that exhausted and anxious = not too much writing getting done. And I’m not all that enjoyable to be around when that’s the case.

But like I said, that’s not the subject of this. (“Oh great, Jeff’s whingeing again about being tired and stressed out. Must be a day that ends in -y.”) The reason I was jetlagged is that last Monday night I got back from the Bold Strokes Books Writing Retreat and the BSB UK Book Festival in Nottingham, England. I got to spend a week surrounded by fellow queer authors discussing our work, aspects of craft, the writing business, and meeting readers and even signing a couple books. Which is kind of amazing considering the book I was signing came out four years ago.

(Those are the aforementioned writers I got to hang out with, above.)

Yes, I know. I need to get on the stick and just finish something. More than one person nodded knowingly (lookin’ at you, Stacia and ’Nathan) when I voiced this aloud. I think people might be getting impatient for the next book. Not without reason, though. I’m impatient, too.

But one thing at a time.

You’d think spending an entire week interacting with people would be exhausting for an introvert, and you’d be right. That’s not to say I don’t like hanging around other people. Not at all! In fact, I think people can be pretty awesome. Some of my best friends are people.

(Most of my best friends are dogs and cats, but that’s a story for another time.)

ANYWAY. There’s something uniquely wonderful about spending a week surrounded by people who “get” a) being queer and b) being a writer without my having to explain myself. Granted, no one’s experiences are identical, but there’s a shorthand to those shared experiences that allows us to get past the introductory-level topics and get below the surface.

And they’re also just a darn fun group of people to be around. It was fantastic to reconnect with writers I’ve known for a while and meet a lot of new (to me) faces. And it would be no exaggeration to say that my to-read stack pretty much doubled after talking about their books with them and hearing them give readings.

So while events such as this may leave me running on fumes, energy-wise, they are a megawatt jolt to my creativity. I came away from the event with renewed resolve to finish my current revision… and I also came away from it with an idea for another novel.

And that makes the jet lag more than worth it.

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‘Nathan’s Monday Flash Fiction Draw, drawn by me!

…yes, I know it’s already Wednesday. I’ll blame jet lag as I’ve just gotten back from a writing retreat and book festival in Nottingham, England for Bold Strokes Books. In a word, wonderful. In another word, exhausted. More on that later.

Be that as it may, the last day I was there, my friend ‘Nathan Burgoine (go buy his books, by the way) had me draw cards for his latest May Flash Fiction Draw. Go check it out here. Stories are supposed to be done by next Monday, but rules? Pfft. ‘Nathan would be the first to tell you forget the rules and do what works. So I’ll say the same.

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Friday Flash Fiction: A Beautiful Disguise

So, I deleted my Facebook account this week.

Not my Facebook page, where I talk about all things writing related,  but rather my personal account. The news about the social network’s data (mis)management didn’t make me want to trust them with any more of my personal information than I have to.  But, that also means I no longer have access to the Friday Flash Fics group where I was getting all these photo prompts. (To be honest, that group was one of the few reasons I’d remained for as long as I did.) I’ll try to keep up with them all the same, though I might wind up being a week behind.

Details, details.

That being said, here’s the last photo prompt I was privy to:

And what a photo it is!

This took my thoughts back to “The Digital Corpse,” the last installment of which was posted here.  At some point, I’ll have to gather the various fragments I’ve written and try to piece them together and see where it might be going.

But that’s a project for another day. Without further ado…

A Beautiful Disguise

“I don’t know about this.”

Andrews and Bradford stood in a white room that wasn’t a room, but rather a compartment in the Upload that Bradford had created where he could get Andrews ready. Andrews couldn’t make out the corners or the walls of the chamber, and he wondered whether it extended indefinitely. That was until an oval mirror popped into existence in front of him, reflecting back his appearance.

And that appearance was… different.

Andrews started to button the shirt that was open halfway down a torso that wasn’t his. At least twice as hairy and three times as broad, the avatar that Bradford had created for him looked as if it had walked out of a romance novel cover.

Bradford brushed Andrews’ hands aside and straightened his collar. If Andrews wasn’t mistaken, he deliberately let his fingers graze his chest, too. “Trust me, this is a very convincing disguise for where we’re going.”

Where they were going was a nightclub in the Upload called Fallout Shelter. Despite a name that conjured images of dank underground bunkers, Bradford assured him it was very high-end. It was also where Gamal had met with Alexa Grayson along with all four of his other private contract sim clients at one time or another. Two of whom had returned to the club a total of five times since Gamal had been murdered, and would hopefully be there tonight.

“You’ve got to be kidding with this.” Andrews resisted the urge to rub his lip. The full, dropping mustache and the bushy beard itches like a thousand gnats. “Can you make this,” he waved at his facial hair,” a little less irritating?”

Bradford smiled. Annoyingly, he wore an avatar almost identical to his real appearance. His hair was a little longer, maybe, his skin a little more tan. And, if Andrews wasn’t mistaken, his eyes were a different color. “You’re really not used to this, are you? You can make that facial hair feel as if it’s not there. Just think it.”

Andrews frowned, which only made Bradford smile wider. He held out a hand and a tablet appeared. As he began tapping the surface, aspects of Andrews’ appearance shifted slightly. The sensation was unnerving: his hair lengthening, his arms swelling and, if he wasn’t mistaken, his pants getting a little tighter.

“You really haven’t spent much time in the Upload, I assume,” Bradford said, not looking up.

“Before this week, no.”

“People can be anything they want in here, including things they can’t be in the analog world.”

“Like being a murderer, for instance.”

Bradford stopped tapping and looked up. “Like being a murderer, yes.” He tossed the tablet into the air and it vanished.

“If anyone can be anything they want in here,” Andrews asked, “why do you still look like yourself?”

Bradford tilted his head, as if he hadn’t even considered that and was trying to figure it out right then. He shrugged. “I guess I just like being me.”

Andrews thumped a hand against the chest that wasn’t his. “Maybe I like being me, too.”

“Yes, but you don’t want to be recognized, right? Hence the disguise.”

Andrews sighed and gestured at his body–or rather, the body that was not his. “So, is this your type of guy?”

“Nah.” A pause. “Although I wouldn’t throw him out of bed for eating crackers.”

Andrews laughed. “I think someone this size would be more likely to throw you around.”

“Want to put that to the test?” Bradford raised an eyebrow and, with clearly practiced slowness, bit the side of his lip.

Damn, he just wasn’t going to stop. “Can we get going, please?” Andrews asked. “I’m still investigating two murders, in case that slipped your mind.”

Bradford feigned a little pout. “If you insist. But don’t think it escaped my notice that you didn’t say you didn’t want to put that to the test.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“What can I say? Some people get turned on by danger.”

“Not me.”

“Maybe, but I’m sure eventually I can figure out what does turn you on.”

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Don’t measure success using someone else’s yardstick

Four years is not such a long time when you think about it. On the other hand, in such a short time a lot can happen. Leaders change, geniuses die, Kate Bush stubbornly does not come out with a new album.

Did you know that in the last four years you’ve traveled 3.76 billion kilometers at approximately 8,800 km per hour? That’s how far the Earth has traveled around the sun in four years. And yet, give or take a few thousand kilometers, here we are, back where we were then.

What’s my point, you ask? (Bless you for assuming I have one.) This: it’s been four years almost to the day since my last novel, The Unwanted, was published. Time flies, right? And just like the example above, more often than not I feel as if I’m right back where I started.

What’s the source of this perception? My lack of a third published book. The way I saw it, after my first book took eight years to write and my second took four, I figured book number three was maybe two years away.

How wrong I was.

What happened instead, you may ask? I’m glad you asked, because I’ll tell you: some economic anxiety, a little poverty—ask me sometime about the year when my net income was zero—a big dog bite (I’ll show you the scar if you ask), and a little depression, and that last one might have been connected more or less to all the earlier things in the list.

From the perspective of publication, the last four years might look a little fallow. Five stories have been published, no books, and nothing at the moment lined up for publication. It’s easy to get discouraged.

But then, I try to change my perspective and end up thinking, hey, not so fast. What have I written in the past four years? Three novels. Eighteen short stories. This newsletter, more or less faithfully for the past couple years. I haven’t counted up the words, but it’s a lot. And this is the part of the writing journey that I have the most control over: how much I produce. Whether it gets published is not.

On Sunday, the fourth anniversary of the official publication date of The Unwanted, I got another rejection letter. It was a form rejection, so I filed it away and updated the spreadsheet where I keep track of what’s out on submission. That same story is already at three other magazines, and there are three more lined up that I can send it to. I’ve got a number of short stories in progress, and I’m still doggedly revising a novel. These are the things I can control.

It’s easy for me to get tangled up in the comparison game, too. To see my friends doing so much great work, getting stories and novels published, and then looking at my own somewhat meager list of publications by comparison, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that I wrote two novels and got them out into the world, and did the same thing with over two dozen stories and essays. So what if it took me a little longer? So what if I haven’t gotten as much as someone else. And so what if someone hasn’t published as much as me? Unless we get hit by a bus tomorrow, there’s still time.

Write, rewrite, submit.

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Friday Flash Fiction: A Room with a View

For this week’s installment of Friday Flash Fics, we’re back to the story that I revisited most recently in the post titled An Unlikely Suspect.

Anyway, the photo prompt is certainly… interesting.

Granted, I don’t mean “interesting” in the same way as (ahem) some other photo prompts (if you scroll through the previous posts you’ll see what I mean). But it’s definitely an odd one, huh? It got me thinking about the character we met in the last installment, who was also kind of odd. Without further ado…

A Room with a View

“I’ll confess, I thought we were going to meet in a restaurant.”

“I invited you to lunch. The location was not stipulated.”

Bradford Anders settled his napkin across his lap and smiled across the table at Andrews. It was, as far as Andrews could tell, a genuine smile, the lines crinkling around the man’s eyes. It was at odds, then, with their surreal surroundings: an intimate table for four set in a glass-walled dining room at the bottom of what used to be—well…

“So, what was this place before you turned it into your house?”

“Water treatment plant.”

“You like off-the-beaten-path.”

“I like lots of offbeat things.”

Bradford picked up his fork and let the comment hang there. When Andrews arrived, salads had already been set out on the table. At first he hadn’t been sure he was in the right place—a long driveway off a barely visible access road ten miles outside of town led to what looked at first like an empty gravel lot with a wedge-shaped shed, but then the garage-type door had rolled open and Andrews drove down into a brightly lit tunnel that led to an underground garage, where Bradford had been waiting to lead him… here.

Andrews hoped the signal from his car and his phone’s GPS were both accessible from here. He didn’t think Bradford was out to kill him, but it only took being wrong one time.

He should have made Bradford come to the station for this interview. Doyle would have made him, but Andrews didn’t think Bradford would have offered Doyle a lunch… he almost thought the word “date,” but quickly shifted gears to “meeting.”

Andrews pulled a notebook from his jacket pocket, which made Bradford grin.

“Now that’s quaint.”

“Tech runs out of charge.”

“Pens run out of ink.”

“Tech can be hacked.”

“Paper can be stolen. Or burned.”

Andrews tried not to let the irritation show on his face. “As much as I enjoy a verbal tennis match—“

Bradford cut him off. “I enjoy oral sports, too.”

The blush flaming across his face was one thing Andrews knew he couldn’t conceal. Damn his overactive capillaries. He set down his pen.

“Look, as much as I’m flattered, I have two murders to solve. And I’m on duty.”

Bradford paused a moment. A brief sigh, and his demeanor changed. “Right. Of course. I’ll be honest, I don’t often get to meet eligible people outside of my field who aren’t just interested in the fact that I’m a billionaire.”

“No, I’m interested in the fact that—what makes you think I’m eligible?”

Bradford lifted an eyebrow. “No ring.”

Andrews followed Bradford’s gaze to the ring finger on his left hand. “It’s good to know you’re observant and that you pick up on clues. So what clues might Gamal have left to indicate what his association with Miss Grayson?”

“Not much, I’m afraid.” Bradford pushed back his chair and walked over to the windows. Pressing a hand against the glass, the windows darkened slightly and several holoscreens popped up. Suddenly all business, he began flipping through the displays.

“We’ve reviewed all his session logs for the past two weeks and found no instances where he was in contact with Miss Grayson. We found no unexplained contacts with anyone else either, clients or otherwise.” He swept the displays aside. “Which would indicate that whatever he was doing was off company time and off official records. I’m making all of this accessible to the SLPD, of course.”

Andrews leaned back in his chair. “Too bad it’s a dead end, but I appreciate it.”

Bradford grinned before tapping the glass again. Another set of holoscreens appeared. He nudged one in Andrews’ direction. “Which is why I decided to have a look in all of his private logons and nonbusiness-related accounts.” He dragged the rest of them toward Andrews before moving toward the kitchen on the opposite side of the room from the windows.

“Um, I probably shouldn’t ask how you managed to access this information, should I?” Andrews asked.

“Probably not. Let’s just say he logged in using company equipment and forgot to clear his caches. That sounds plausible.”

The room fell silent as Andrews read through a chat log between Gamal and Alexa, then a readout of his bank account. “I’m assuming you weren’t paying him as much as his savings balance would indicate.”

“No.” Andrews looked up. Bradford’s voice was closer than he’d expected. As he was reading, Bradford had returned to his seat and there were now plates of grilled salmon and asparagus in front of them. “And that resort simulation? Not one of ours. He did that for her custom, and it wasn’t loaded in an officially registered directory.”

“So he was doing that under the table?”

“It would seem so. All our work in the Upload is custom, but it’s not invisible. We get more customers by letting them see our work. What Gamal did here, he tried to hide it away.”

Andrews stared at the holo for a long time, trying to find some way to connect the dots that tied Gamal to Grayson and them to… someone else. “Did it look like he’d done any other custom work?”

Bradford, mid-chew, nodded. After he swallowed, he said, “Four other clients, none of them related, as far as I could tell. If I had to guess, he wanted to go solo and set up his own sim shop. He would have made more money that way, as you can tell, and he wouldn’t have been constrained by our corporate responsibility clauses.”

Maybe he was approaching this from the wrong angle. Killing Gamal might have been cleanup work for whoever had killed Grayson. Just another loose end to tie up.

Or cut off.

“Any logs of who entered the sim with Miss Grayson?” Andrews asked.

“Apart from you and Gamal himself, any other access records have been scrubbed. And pretty thoroughly, too. Anyone else might not even have noticed that they’d been overwritten.”

“But not you.”

Another smile from Bradford. “Like I said, I notice things. Such as the fact that you haven’t touched any of your food.”

Andrews looked down at his plate. “You’ll probably be even less pleased that I’m going to dine and dash.”

“More like just dash, since you haven’t even eaten.” Bradford’s smile widened, and if Andrews wasn’t mistaken, a little bit of that wickedness returned to it. “In that case, you owe me a dinner.”

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