Checking In

I haven't updated for awhile. The April Camp NaNo didn't end so well--I barely made it over 10K for the month. I had hoped, even with vacation, that I could do twice that, but Cut Shot is giving me a little trouble. I see the story in my head, but it's not hitting the page very quickly. But I'll keep working on it. I think with planning vacation, being on vacation, and then simply dealing with everything when we got back cut into my time. It seems I've been working in15-minute segments for the entire month. It's definitely been a paragraph by paragraph book so far!

Still, there are some things I like about it. My boys are starting to take on more personality in my head and hopefully I'll be able to get that where it needs to go. Ian, especially. Since Jeb came from another story, I knew him a little better. But I'm finally getting to know Ian!

First draft exerpt from Chapter 5:

Ian couldn’t decide if he was uncomfortable or amused, but ever since Jeb’s comment about the patients flirting with him, he’d become hyper-aware of the subtle comments and looks that was thrown his way. But, as it turned out, Jeb hadn’t taken the thought far enough--it wasn’t just young married women and middle aged widows. Over the last three days there’d been half-a-dozen men he’d made eye-contact with as he filled a tooth or fixed a broken crown and found an open invitation being silently offered with the lift of an eyebrow. There had even been one man who had unfolding his hands from where they lay across his lap, a brief show-and-tell of his tented slacks and a quick uplift of his hip. And then a lingering handshake as he thanked Ian before he left, and God, he only hoped his assistant hadn’t noticed any of it.

Maybe Jeb was right; maybe being so open hadn’t been the best thing to do, although not for the reasons that he meant. He hadn’t come here hoping for a relationship or even a quick hookup; Ian simply didn’t want to live as less than himself. He didn’t really care what people thought. Jeb feared prejudice, but that wasn’t something Ian had grown up with and it was possibly so far out of his experience that he’d never really considered it. And yet, he began to feel like he was being treated as a novelty item, something new and shiny, and he wasn’t sure if it was because of his openness or simply because he was new and shiny to the local citizens, the slick new dentist to discuss and gossip about over coffee. Give it another month, he supposed, and he’d be old news, replaced by some local scandal.

But each time he got a flirty look or some woman tried to make a dick joke, something perceived as slightly naughty when saying it to a man (“but he’s gay, so it’s safe to say it”), each and every incident, brought Jeb to the forefront of his thoughts. He couldn’t get Monday evening out of his head. He replayed the way Jeb had taken control over and over, wondering where it would have gone to if they hadn’t been interrupted. In his dreams, there was no headlights or ringing phone. There was heat and panted breaths and a wall or a bed against his back instead of hard metal. He’d wake, sometimes slowly, sometimes with a sudden jerk, but always with an image of Jeb looming over him and an ache at the crux of his thighs.