Rainbow Snippets

Happy Saturday! My sweet girl is 11 years old today. She got her first phone, and she’s been having fun calling us—even though we’re all inside the house. Meanwhile, my other kid showed what a great big brother he is by posting the nicest message for her on his brand-new Facebook page (he just turned 13 last Monday).

Here’s this week’s snippet, still from Nightsong. I missed last week because we were on vacation. This is the last bit of snark between Nate and Del; I’ll move on next week. This is a bit longer than 6 sentences—instead, it’s 6 exchanges of dialog.

“First of all,” Nate said, turning around again, “don’t call me bitchy. You know how I feel about that word. Second, my stress has nothing to do with my lack of sex, thank you very much.”

Del huffed. “I get that you’re a tortured artist and all, but I really do think you need to relieve all that pent-up tension.”

“Why? Are you offering?” Nate sneered at him.

“Oh, honey, you could not handle me,” Del replied, his voice smooth as butter. “I’m so not your type. Take it from me, though. You’ll feel a lot better once you blow off some steam. No one can go this long without it building up.”

“Not all of us are like you,” Nate snapped. At Del’s hurt expression, he relented. “I’m sorry. Listen, I know you mean well, but I don’t need a man to make my life better. What I need is to get my own shit together and focus on work. After the holiday production, I’ll have a break to deal with my personal relationship crises. Okay?”

“Okay, okay. I’ll leave you to it.” Del stretched, scratched his stomach, and flounced out of the room.

Rainbow Snippets is a safe and welcoming space for LGBTQIA+ authors, readers, and bloggers to share 6 sentences each week from a work of fiction—published or in-progress—or a book recommendation. Feel free to join in!

Happy Saturday! Summer camp wrapped up for the kids. This was my older one’s last year as a camper, and he managed to break a record at the track meet which has been around since the camp started 30 years ago. I’m a pretty proud mama bear!

Here’s this week’s snippet, still from Nightsong. I will be sending chapters to my beta readers on Monday, so I’m pretty excited. Technically this is 9 sentences, but they’re short. I included the final one from last week, followed by Del’s response. Context: A conversation about getting involved with the wrong man. Warning for swears and Del being…well, Del.

“You could have said no,” he pointed out.

Del rolled his eyes. “Where’s the fun in that? I had three months of getting fucked by the hottest man I’ve ever met. I can die happy, even if I’m disappointed it’s over.”

“You have a one-track mind,” Nate told him. He crossed the room and began picking up trash left by the previous occupants.

“And you haven’t gotten laid in…how long now? I’ve lost count.”

Rainbow Snippets is a safe and welcoming space for LGBTQIA+ authors, readers, and bloggers to share 6 sentences each week from a work of fiction—published or in-progress—or a book recommendation. Feel free to join in!

Happy Saturday! What a long, disgustingly hot week. Our house is not air conditioned, plus we were having some work done on it, so I was stuck here wilting and trying to write. The goal is to have the first draft done by Friday, which is looking pretty likely.

Now for the snippet. I’ve been posting from my current WIP, Nightsong. I also post bits of it on Wednesdays for the WIPpet blog hop, which anyone is welcome to join—authors there write in many genres. Today’s bit follows immediately from last week’s, as I’ve been doing.

Not that Nate should be talking. He’d wasted a lot of years on the wrong people himself. If he were making a list, he might as well start with his first boyfriend and end with the unrequited crush he’d had on his best friend, Trevor. The result of his own bad decisions had been losing one of them and nearly losing the other. Del didn’t know any of that, however, and it left Nate free to needle him a little.

“You could have said no,” he pointed out.

Rainbow Snippets is a safe and welcoming space for LGBTQIA+ authors, readers, and bloggers to share 6 sentences each week from a work of fiction—published or in-progress—or a book recommendation. Feel free to join in!

Happy Saturday! Both my kids had an excellent time at camp last week, and they’ve got another 2-week camp coming up starting Monday. I could get spoiled by all this “me time.” Hahaha! (Which will be spent hard at work finishing a novel and doing some beta reading, not to mention lots of driving.)

Now for the snippet. I’ve been posting from my current WIP, Nightsong. I also post bits of it on Wednesdays for the WIPpet blog hop, which anyone is welcome to join—authors there write in many genres. Today’s bit follows immediately from last week’s.

“Learned your lesson the hard way, eh?” Nate asked, drying his hands.

Del flung his arm out. “Guess it wasn’t meant to be a fairy tale ending.”

Nate snorted and turned away. He would have felt sorry for him, but Del knew the man was married, knew he was closeted, and knew he had no plans to leave his wife or come out; eyes wide open and all that.

Rainbow Snippets is a safe and welcoming space for LGBTQIA+ authors, readers, and bloggers to share 6 sentences each week from a work of fiction—published or in-progress—or a book recommendation. Feel free to join in!

Happy Sunday! I’m relaxing for a bit before taking my favorite girl out to her favorite restaurant. It’s just the two of us, since big brother is off at Lutheran camp and Dad’s away for work until tomorrow. Some yummy food and a bit of window shopping are in our future.

Meanwhile, here’s my snippet for the week. Last time, I posted the opening to my new WIP. Today is the follow-up. I also post bits of it on Wednesdays for the WIPpet blog hop (feel free to jump in if you like; rules are in my blog post, and we don’t bite…much).

Once Nate turned around to look, Del cleared his throat. “Never get involved with a married man,” he declared. With that sage advice, he flopped onto the couch in the lounge and swung his feet up, heaving a dramatic sigh.

Nate raised his eyebrows, trying to decide if Del was serious or not. He half suspected most of what Del said was exaggeration, but in this case, he didn’t doubt there was some truth to it. Del had been on about this particular nameless man for several weeks.

Rainbow Snippets is a safe and welcoming space for LGBTQIA+ authors, readers, and bloggers to share 6 sentences each week from a work of fiction—published or in-progress—or a book recommendation. Feel free to join in!

It’s nice to be back! We had a great vacation at Cedar Point in Ohio. My 12yo is a roller coaster enthusiast, and he has literally been researching them for years to know all the relevant info (speed, length of track, height, drops, inversions…the whole thing). The first day we were there, he saw this t-shirt and declared he would “earn” it by riding all the coasters on it. He made it to all 6 (plus a couple more and two repeat rides); I only made it on 4. There wasn’t time for all of them, plus Top Thrill Dragster was a big, fat hell no for me.

Anyway, on to this week’s snippet. I’m beyond excited to be posting from a new WIP. Well, sort of new. I’ve had a few scenes written for a while, but I’m now working on it in earnest. This is from Nightsong, the sequel to Anthem. My MC is an opera singer, and these are the first six sentences of the novel.

Nate Kingsley was on the theater’s third floor in the classroom wing, washing dishes in the lounge. While he was busy with his task, a young man with light brown hair and eyes to match bounced in. He grabbed a peach from the fridge and stood in the middle of the room, waiting for Nate to acknowledge him. Del was nothing if not attention-grabbing, still in costume from the rehearsal going on downstairs. He’d initially been hired because Nate had seen him in a performance of The Magic Flute—it was no surprise he’d played Tamino, and Nate’s company had been casting for their version of the same opera. When Del auditioned, Nate had pushed hard for him.

Rainbow Snippets is a safe and welcoming space for LGBTQIA+ authors, readers, and bloggers to share 6 sentences each week from a work of fiction—published or in-progress—or a book recommendation. Feel free to join in!