Daily Adventures

There's a pen, made by Pilot, where the ink is "erasable". You can buy it here at Jet Pens.

The funny thing is that the ink is actually erased by the heat of friction, and it reappears if you cool the paper down below 14° F (-10° C), which is pretty easily done in most freezers (or outside today... whew it's cold). So it kind of works as a disappearing ink that's the opposite of the usual kind of disappearing ink (most of which appear with heat or UV rays or... ).

Speaking of the Cold. It's been -10° F (-23° C) outside at night or in the early morning. Jet and I have been blowing bubbles outside, catching them on the blowing ring, and watching them freeze. It takes a little while, and you can also blow them onto a pan of water (so long as the water doesn't solidify on you). You can see the crystallization of the soap solution and then the whole bubble shrinks just a little before the film goes solid. Usually they just collapse, but occasionally you'll get a really strong bubble in which holes will appear and just stay and the rest of the structure remains stable. Jet's even poked his finger through the ring of the blower and held it there with the rest of the bubble all around it. It's really... cool. (or so she says as she's freezing her BUTT OFF... ahem)

Hope you're all doing well! Hope Thanksgiving was fun and that the shortening days are inspiring you instead of bringing you down. I managed to do Nanowrimo before I left for San Diego, but I'm sitting here with half a novel of my David finally finding his true love (and Afghanistani fissionables, Ukrainian nuclear power, and Russian politicians who were once Russian Bratva) and wondering if it's even what I really want to do to finish it, but I might as well just finish it so that it's done and David is finally settled down with the love of his life, and then get on with the 'real' one. *laughs* I may just finish it so that I can publish it as a weekly somewhere (including here, since I'll likely do it for free). Nanowrimo certainly made me realize that there's lots of ways to publish on-line content.

Title: Chapter 37: Not Alone
Arc: Twin Souls
Characters: Kyouraku/Ukitake
Rating: PG-13 for violence
Summary: In which the boys figure out what it is that they could and really should be doing, and Daisuke figures out the boys might well be the death of him.
Author's Notes: Whew! Thank you all for sticking with me on this very very long ride. Many thanks to incandescens's unceasing support, betaing skills, and knowledge of the Bleach Universe.
Standard Disclaimers: I do not own Bleach or its characters, nor do I make any money from these writings.

The first chapter.
<< The Previous Chapter: Ch. 36 -- Reflections

( Now, how the hell do we hit him?  )
Next Chapter >>

Title: Chapter 36: Reflections
Arc: Twin Souls
Characters: Kyouraku/Ukitake
Rating: PG-13 for violence
Summary: Shunsui and Jyuushiro go up against the adjucha and find themselves overmatched and in need of help.
Author's Notes: It's been a really long ride, and I'm grateful for everyone who has kept with this and supported this story. In many ways, this chapter is for all those people that reread the rest of the story while waiting for the next chapter to come. I hope that I've fulfilled many of the promises I made. Many thanks to incandescens's unceasing support, betaing skills, editing chops, and knowledge of the Bleach Universe.
Standard Disclaimers: I do not own Bleach or its characters, nor do I make any money from these writings.

The first chapter.
<< The Previous Chapter: Ch. 35 -- Fight to Protect

( Shunsui charged forward... )

Title: Chapter 35: Fight to Protect
Arc: Twin Souls
Characters: Kyouraku/Ukitake
Rating: PG-13 for violence
Summary: In which everyone gets hip-deep into the fights they have to face. Fong and Daisuke take on the Hollows with the nobles, Kaoru and Hayato help with the villagers, and Jyuushiro and Shunsui go into the deeps.
Author's Notes: I apologize for it being forever since I've been able to really concentrate on this. Many thanks to incandescens's unceasing support, betaing skills, and knowledge of the Bleach Universe.
Standard Disclaimers: I do not own Bleach or its characters, nor do I make any money from these writings.

The first chapter.
<< The Previous Chapter: Ch. 34 -- Left Behind

( The road to the Shiba Estate was long, possibly too long... )

I had the privilege of going to go see Jason Statham in Parker yesterday.

It was a real treat. I've been reading the Richard Stark Parker novels because of a recommendation from Carl. Richard Stark was a pen name for Donald Westlake, and got through the first three, so was completely unspoiled for the movie, which was based on the fourth book Flashfire. The movie-Parker is softer and more sympathetic than the book one, but I can see why that was so. Smart adapters. The early Stark novels went out of print pretty quickly, but the later ones, after Parker's 1990 Comeback were much more popular.

( No spoilers, just more thoughts about what appealed to me about Parker. )

Rainbow Book Reviews is holding a Blog Hop with a number of LGBTQ authors' blogs. They have a ton of cool prizes, and they'll have a drawing of anyone and everyone that comments on their entry. The subject they asked everyone to write about was "What does writing LGBTQ literature means to me?"

I wrote Stories: The Key to Hidden Societies, as a conglomeration of what I've learned from my own experiences with soc.motss and fanfiction and my research into the works of Diego Gambatten and Robert McKee's treatise on Story.

I'm giving away a copy of my short story "Swing Shift" to a randomly drawn person that comments on my blog entry. The drawing will be Monday morning. Hope you enjoy it and good luck!

demented_dee has been taking donations on her site. The beauty is that if you donate $2 or more, you can have your choice of a number of different short stories involving our characters. And we're set on putting a new short story out just for this purpose at the beginning of every month.

This month's story involves Kris and Skylar, who are likely involved in the fourth book of the New Amsterdam series. *laughs* It's one of our exploratory stories, getting a better feel for them as characters before launching into the book. Hope it intrigues you enough to help us out! Thanks.

I've been watching the first two seasons of Justified and the first three seasons of Leverage and have realized something that may well have been obvious to everyone else. *laughs* That the first seasons of both series (and looking back on it Buffy, Serenity, Dr. Who, Mushishi, Bleach, One Piece and other series I've loved as well) starts with one episode stories, complete in and of themselves, but by the second or third season, the stories get more involved, spanning multiple episodes.

Characterizations get deeper with time and with both actors and writers getting to know them better.

The thing that strikes me, though, is that it works that way with my writing, too. That I do far better when I do a lot of short pieces with a character, getting to know them, per se, and then getting on with their bigger stories when I get to know them. I like realizing that they're much stronger if I do write the shorts, first.

The two books that demented_dee and I wrote are now out in paperback, through Torquere's print services, so the paperbacks are available at both Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Here's the Amazon listings for the books: Hearts Under Fire and Winter's Knight. Neither of them have the cover art on the Amazon listing for the print book (though they are on the Kindle versions), so I thought I'd just put the cover art here, so you can see how pretty they'll be when you actually get them.

Torquere was really cool and when they accepted the second book in the series, they put us on their series contract, so that we actually get to get a better percentage and actually have a print book contract with them.

And just as a caveat for those new to these publications, these books are both Male/Male erotic romances. The characterizations and plot are key to the erotic scenes, but they do get pretty explicit, and they both involve BDSM Scene elements. Just so you can judge if they're to your taste.