Author: M. Raiya

And the Charity Sips are officially out! It’s always fun to be part of a big project like this; one of twenty-seven stories being released today to benefit a good cause.

The theme for this year’s Charity Sip Blitz is “leather.” This was chosen because it’s Torquere’s ninth anniversary, which is the leather anniversary. Of course BDSM came to mind when we writers were informed, but we were assured we could explore anything to do with leather in our stories.

I, however, saw leather, thought BDSM, and wrote BDSM. Readers who are used to my Notice series are going to think, “Wow.” But if you remember all the way back to my first Torquere story, The Glass Man, readers are going to think, “Oh, yeah.” On the Torquere heat scale of Bell Pepper, Chile Pepper, Jalapeno, and Habanero, this is a Habanero. I’m not sure what got into me, but it sure was fun!

There were two covers designed for the Charity Sips this year. One has certain — ahem — equipment shown, and the other does not. When my editor sent me my copy of the story a little while ago, it had the “equipment” cover. I might have blushed. Just a little.

Here’s the official blurb:

In the hills above the castle are caves where, rumor has it, “things” are done to men that leave common soldiers glazed with pleasure. A good king should not even think about such things. If he was caught in the caves, he could lose his crown, if not his life. But to deny forever what he is could cost him his sanity. The night the king visits the caves will either be a night of ecstasy, or a night of doom. It might also be the night he finds the other half of his soul.  

Here’s the official excerpt:

And here’s my cover:

I can’t believe it’s that time already, but tomorrow, the Charity Sips will be released! This will be my third year to participate. My first story was The Rosebud, my second story was My Boyfriend Has a Scar, and this year my offering is called Slow Awakening. I won’t say much yet about it, except that it is a bit of a departure for me. In fact, I’m not sure what got into me, except that it was a lot of fun.

Tomorrow, I’ll post the cover and an excerpt.

For now, this is the official scoop from Torquere Press:

For 2012-2013, Torquere’s authors have chosen the theme “Leather Bound” in honor of Torquere’s ninth anniversary. The ninth is traditionally the leather anniversary, what better theme to let GLBTQ writers go wild. The charity which will benefit from this year’s Charity Blitz is NOH8, whose mission is to promote marriage, gender and human equality through education, advocacy, social media, and visual protest. More than twenty five authors have written short fiction pieces and have agreed to donate all proceeds of the sales of these stories to this year’s charitable organization. Torquere Press Inc. will match the authors’ donations completely.

This year, we’re also pleased to announce that our distribution partner, Rainbow eBooks, has agreed to once again be the title sponsor of our Sip collection, and will be our sole distributor outside of the Torquere Books website. Please support our sponsor by visiting them at www.rainbowebooks.com

There is a beautiful blue moon rising over the tree outside my window tonight, filling my whole yard with beautiful blueness! My window is wide open and full of the sounds of crickets. It will be a great night for owls and coyotes, and yes, dragons!

I am most excited. Last summer, a good friend of mine went to England and came back with a pair of divining rods. This summer, she returned to England, and I asked her to pick me out a pair. I figured that maybe ones that came from the Old World where my ancestors are from would be more sensitive than ones made here. Last night she gave me the pair she had picked out, and I am most excited. I just spent an hour walking around outside with them, and they are so much more sensitive than the pair of bent coat hangers I had been using.

 First I went over places where I know I’ve gotten reactions before, like where the buried electrical cable runs from the pole to the corner of our house and over the septic system (proof that magic is practical). Then I started getting strange reactions in the side yard that I couldn’t figure out until I remembered that several years ago, we had our internet service provider bury a cable up to the house. Now I know exactly where that is.

With my coat hangers, I was only able to find electrical cables and metal, but my news rods reacted to water as well. I picked up a hose lying on the grass, and they went quite wild when I held them over the swimming pool. But the strongest reaction I got was when I held them over the electrical box where the power comes into the house. They started swinging really wildly and I began to get that unpleasant, painful feeling I get when I put jumper cables onto the battery of a car. (I avoid doing that at all costs after my hands ached for hours the last time.) So I went back and held the rods over the pool for a while to calm down, but I’m still feeling a little queasy as I write this and my hands are tingling. I shall stay away from electrical boxes after this.

I don’t claim to understand or explain how this works, but right now my stomach is giving me no doubt that it does.

Josh insisted that I post these. The reason, he says, that the horizon line is crooked is because he took this shot from Varian’s back and Varian banked a little just when he pressed the shutter. Naturally. But how often do you get to see a rainbow coming down into water?

Afterward, he got this shot. Obviously taken from a dragon’s back — how else would you get so close to the clouds?

The view from Ferry Beach State Park in Saco, Maine, just as the fog started to roll in. The water was chilly but nice. Refreshing for the soul.

We are heading to the coast for two days with the intention of visiting a college with my daughter but with the real purpose of letting me put myself into salt water to keep me from shifting into mermaid form. Fresh water only works for so long, and then I need to immerse myself in the real stuff. And if a fried clam gets in my way, its odds for survival are not good.

I need a break from reality in the worst way right now. My summer of writing turned into a summer of doctor’s offices and very long needles, but all is well now and I am going to be producing prose like mad for the rest of it.

Josh is such a hopeless romantic! He loves sunsets almost as much as he loves rainbows. He wants to fly off into this one with Varian. I don’t blame him.

This is a bit of silliness I wrote last winter from a writing prompt when I was hosting Torquere Press’s Live Journal page. I posted it earlier with my other responses, but I thought I would re-repost it here with a sidebar link to it. This little story has stuck with me — it’s the only thing I’ve ever written from Josh’s point of view. It takes place around the time of “The Dragon and the Mistletoe.”

These are the words I was given to use were:

This is one of those sticky, steamy summer evenings with thunder in the distance and a gentle rain falling that makes me think about winter and driving snow and temperatures below zero. On a night like that, I would have been tucked up in my jammies with a mug of hot chocolate and settled down for an evening of writing hours ago.  Now I’m trying to spend an evening writing, but I’m thinking how I should go pull a few weeds or take the dog for a walk or go hang out with my neighbors for a little while, and…

Yeah, summer days are great, but they’re also long, hot, and tiring. I feel as though I should use every precious moment of them, and I feel so guilty that all I want to do is lie down and read something that I don’t have to think about revising!