I’ve been working on a non-Emma story the past couple of months. Nothing remotely supernatural about this one, just two flawed guys doing their thing (each other). đ It’s taken longer than I thought it would to finish because November was not kind to me. Was it kind to many of us, really?
On a related note, I totally bombed NaNoWriMo. This is not shocking news.
After I finish this story, I’m going to take a break until sometime in January. If I don’t get back before then, have a safe, happy, merry, jolly, fun-filled, other adjectives Holiday/Christmas/Etc. and a wonderful New Year! â¤
Sorry I’ve been quiet this month. I’ve been working on a new story and my already pitifully lacking social media presence just disappeared completely. I would say that that would change but in a few days I’m leaving for Florida for a couple of weeks so I still won’t be around much. But I’ll be writing so at least there’s that.
I signed into my old AOL account for the first time in ages the other day and came across all these old saved emails from my former manga partner back when he was applying for the job in the first place. Those made me a little sad. I also saw some emails from my former comic book partner, the one I had before I made the switch to manga. Those made me even sadder. BUT I also found a  bunch of old story ideas and outlines, some I don’t even remember writing. That angel-verse story I mentioned here a while back along with an excerpt? I found all my original notes for that. Apparently I changed a LOT of stuff.
So anyway, at least some good came from that bittersweet trip down memory lane. I haven’t gone through everything yet; I’m looking forward to seeing what other long lost treasures await.
I decided to take a “vampire vacation” during the month of August, meaning I stepped away from Harborview Immortals to focus on other stuff like the original short stories I mentioned previously and fandom and other general geekery. I read a bunch of manga and finally finished A Game of Thronesâthe book, not the showâand watched a lot of movies and anime. I also managed to destroy my laptop by spilling soda all over it. RIP Izumi the Laptop, First of Her Name. (I haven’t decided on a name for the new one yet, but I feel like he might be a boy this time around.)
Now that we’re into September, I’ll be getting started on a new HI story. This one will be… well I’ll just say a massive amount of shit is about to go down. Decisions will be made, lives will be changed, new threats will arise, all that fun stuff. I can’t wait to get to it. I’m also going to wrap up Scars from the Past, which will delve into the ugliness of Jacob’s past as a slave and how he ended up with a scarred back. It’s not a pretty story, but I hope it’s a good one.
Once you get to a certain age, you look back at some of the choices you made in your life and wonder what in the hell you were thinking. What you see here is pretty much all I wore for most of the mid 80s. The black Michael Jackson “Beat It” jacket with removable sleeves, parachute pants (I had pretty much every color imaginable), and jellies. Tell you what, I rocked the hell out of this ensemble. In 90° Florida weather, no less. You probably couldn’t pay me to wear any of this stuff today, and any photos of me from back then are hidden away and will never see the light of day, but I have very fond memories of sweating my ass off in a fashionable manner. đ
I think I might write a story set in the 80s one of these days since that seems to be a thing now (like Stranger Things on Netflixâwatch it!). It was a great decade to be a kid, wardrobe notwithstanding.
It was also a great decade for music, although I was just young enough for the meanings behind a lot of songs to fly right over my head (like “She Bop” by Cyndi Lauper, a song about masturbation that my friends and I gleefully sang in elementary school, lol). This was my favorite song for a good chunk of 1986 and most of 1987:
Ahhh. Good stuff.
Pics courtesy of SlimFitJackets, Retroland, and MentalFloss.
I’ve added links for B&N, Apple, and Kobo to The Rising Son entry for those who prefer to download from there vs. Smashwords. (I’ll add a Goodreads link once they get the listing properly sorted.) Sorry I didn’t have it done sooner. It’s been a busy past week with weddings and family reunions and my regularly scheduled slacking. I’m taking the rest of the month off from vampires to play around with fandom. I’m also putting the finishing touches on a standalone short story that will maybe probably be my first Amazon release just so I can finally get my feet wet with going that route.
That’s all for now. I might even remember to do a Throwback Thursday post tomorrow…
Xan Dawson is finally growing up. Oh, he still loves his video games and comic books, but gone are the days when he would skip work for long stretches of time and screw as many guys as humanly possible. Two reasons for his newfound maturity are a new boyfriend and almost being killed by his vampire father’s maker. Although the latter has recently made the simple act of sleeping a frightening ordeal, he is determined to press forward and make his parents proud by excelling in the responsibilities of his new job. One of those responsibilities is welcoming an acquaintance to the Rising Sun for the weekend. All goes well after some initial flirtatious awkwardness… until the vampire makes a revelation that forces Xan to confront the pros and cons of a life choice that he would rather not contemplate at all.
This is Book #2 in the Harborview Immortals series.
The Rising Son will be published this Friday, 7/29. I’m just waiting for the cover to be lettered and trying to resist the urge to continue tweaking the story because I’m a chronic tweaker. If there’s a story in front of me, I will find a way to edit it forever. đ
Also, last call on Smashwords’ July Summer/Winter Sale. Go forth and grab all the free and highly discounted ebooks you can before the end of the month.
It’s summertime in Harborview and seventeen-year-old Xan Dawson plans to spend most of it creating memories with a very special friend. This short story takes place one year after Like Fathers, Like Son and contains mild adult content.
Emma Peterson Writes 