“Off he goes,” Planus observes Scipio as he stalks into the forest. “Off to sew the ground with his seed,”
“We must speak to Caesar,” whispers Titus.
Planus shakes his head. “You know that he’s allowed Scipio his leave because it’s kept the nuisance raids in check.”
“I’m aware,” says Titus. “His method is effective, the locals are terrified,”
“Wouldn’t you be if some marauding monster roamed your land, raping every mouth and hole with a man attached?” Planus asks. “I brought this before my Tribune, and do you know what he said?”
“He’s only buggering the druids,” Titus replies.
Planus gives a start. “You spoke to my Tribune?”
“No, I spoke to mine,” Titus clarifies. “It seems that they’ve all conspired to formulate the same response,”
Chapter X – THE PRICE OF PAIN
Planus and Titus express concern for Scipio's depraved tactics after his father's death, while Castor realizes keeping him away from The Owl is in everyone's best interests.
Last of the three main characters in ‘The List’ – a limited series about a young Polish man in 1960 Poland whose been killing former Germans and Poles that abused him in the Lebensraum system during the war. He forges a relationship with a younger man, but his homicidal need for revenge doesn’t wane and this puts him in the crosshairs of a young detective who understands his crimes and why they’re bing committed—as he to was in the Lebensraum system for a time.
TW – child death; domestic abuse, antisemitism, ww2, physical and emotional trauma.
Character Notes: “Natan/Natek”
The Germans invade Danzig, where 7-year-old NATAN BYTNER lives with his German-Polish father, Joachim, and his Polish mother, Erzbet. Life improves for his father, an antisemitic administrator who has helped the elected conservative government persecute Jewish locals for years. At the same time, his young, blue-eyed blond wife covertly smuggles Jewish children out of the city with her brother, Viktor.
Limited Series, Mini Series – call it what you will, either way I’m definitely going tap this one out. I’ve renamed it ‘The List‘ instead of ‘Kill List’ – which is the name of a very good UK folk horror film.
[Some rehash] I write my notes longhand and then dictate them to the computer. Since Microsoft acquired Nuance, the maker of Dragon Naturally Speaking, I’ve found the Word ‘dictate’ tool much improved. Also, I must disable Grammarly and Word-editor to use it because if I don’t, it freezes up, noting errors as I speak.
Character notes for me is a complete bio – everything that happens to a character up to their first scene. These details reveal themselves as motivators or reasons why, and can be shown in flashbacks or through dialogue; so it’s never a waste of time to completely flesh out your character’s life.
CHARACTER NOTES:
I met all my writing goals for this summer.
Yes, abandoning the ‘4 Kings’ novel nags at me, but the outline is complete—as is the dialogue and the first five chapters—I can return to it anytime.
Technically, The Lion & The Owl is a gay comedic serial, so it qualifies under the accomplishments umbrella for what I set out to do this summer. Sometimes, a new project keeps my momentum from stalling, and TL&TO did when the motivation to continue 4 Kings began fading.
My writer’s group meets at the end of September, and I got ZERO done on The Kill List. Other than that initial first-person chapter, NOTHING. We’ll see where my muse takes me next month.
August started the revisions period for We’re Not Brothers, my actual ‘first screenplay.’ After years of cobbling together writer’s room ideas and forming stories around someone else’s characters, working on your original story just hits different. I’m resisting the urge to storyboard. I’ll never direct on my own, and handing over a boarded story to an interested director is like telling them, I don’t trust your vision.
I completed chapter outlines for the final three episodes of TL&TO’s invasion arc. It’s a sombre arc filled with fight scenes, murder, and grit. The second arc has way too much unintentional comedy, most of it physical, and I hope that doesn’t alter the expectations of those reading for battle scenes or sexual tension.
Today, I return to jogging the rails to trails, as the indoor lap pool and gym at my Y won’t re-open until September 3rd. I’ve been feeling the drag on my metabolism these past two weeks, and it’s unpleasant.
First drafts are my embarrassment mainly due to info dumps.
For example:
EXT. BASECAMP/INNER YARD – CONTINUOUS
KOSTEK, 26, tall, narrow, and baby-faced, strides atop a large cinder block wall with a bow in hand and a gimme cap pulled tight over his head.
Tomko and the Colonel enter through the large metal door and into a MURDER TRAP, an enclosure big enough to pull their kayaks in and close the outer door.
The interior contains survivalist essentials: A METAL WHEEL-LOCK DOOR to an underground bunker centres the base camp’s interior layout. TWO SOLAR PANEL TOWERS stand like trees near the front wall, with AN OUTDOOR SHOWER, TWO MEAT AND FISH SMOKERS, and a TILED BUTCHERING AREA with a floor drain.
There is a cooking area containing a KILN/OVEN and buried FIRE PIT, along with TWO HAY BALE TARGETS with plenty of room for archery practice. The rest of the yard contains a CHICKEN COUP, BEEHIVE TOWER, a CANNING SHED, a GLASS HOT HOUSE, and RAISED GARDEN BEDS.
Kostek drops down and opens the second door, allowing the Colonel and Tomko to drag in their kayaks.
This massive block of information is what we call front-loading – DON’T DO IT.
For real, just – spread that shit out with dialogue or reveal in other scenes – don’t load it all in their at once. I did it in first-drafts because my mind constantly writes with story boarding in mind and even taking that into consideration—no director will pan through the whole yard to see everything in it as the Colonel and Tomko enter.
Not when this story relies heavily on the tension and body language of the characters.
0__0
Back in May, my first horror novel credit, Gadarene, turned 15.
Fifteen years, wow. I scripted the story, set in 1870s Five Points but couldn't sell it to comic publishers, so I handed it over to writer c.b. Potts. Together, we novelized it. It's definitely more on the paranormal side than the gay romance side, but I'm proud of it nonetheless.
[Horror/Novella] Gadarene: In the notorious Five Points slum of 1870s Manhattan, Galen ‘the Mongoose’ Driscol steps out of jail and back into the arms of his lover, Wira Boruta. When Galen tells Wira that he’s tracked down the man who tried to kill them as children, Wira pleads with Galen to forget the past. Only Galen doesn’t forget, nor does he forgive.
- Script: Tina Anderson
Novelization: c.b. Potts
Edition Editor: Jo Rainor
Publisher: Bear House
ISBN: 978-0974419527 Re-Issue
Horror (GLBT/Historical) | English | 05/2023
Where to Buy:
[Print]: TBD
[Digital] Kindle | BN.com | iBooks | Kobo
TAGS: War Violence, profanity, druids, ancient rome, celtic britain, the roman invasion of britain, serial fiction, present tense.
IX – The Slaughter Arena
This violent summer is the hottest in memory. A dead farmer and her children bake in the sun until a decurion with a womanly visage covers their corpses with a blanket.
Aedan the Ancalite grins upon seeing Bitch-Face, whose rage over a slaughtered lover still burns. He squats low on a high branch, his bare foot rising to scratch an ear with his toe. His warriors sit among the trees, awaiting his next move as he watches the invaders hack barleycorn.
The harvesting legion’s commander, known on the wind as Gaius Trebonius, grows impatient and commits more to the reaping, an anticipated mistake Aedan’s been waiting for.
Aedan drops from his perch, the feather cape on his shoulders flapping around his head. His warriors rise as his long feet strike dirt. An army of countless blue hues moves out of the trees, and the horse-drawn chariots flanking them roll softly over the grass.
Fierce charges and hearty battle cries do not affect these invaders.
The first to die are those eight Romans on watch; their isolated positions ensure such violence goes unseen.
TAGS: Ritual Violence, molestation, murder, druids, ancient rome, celtic britain, the roman invasion of britain, serial fiction, present tense.
VIII – The Sacrifice
Every man burns hot when he sleeps, the Roman is no exception. His skin carries the scent of a cooking fire, and his nipples taste of roasted rabbit.
Aedan studies the sleeping man’s rugged face and finds the beauty from the falls is the lion from his vision; what games Gods play. The elixir given to the rabbits keeps the man unawares, no matter how indelicate a druid’s touch.
Sitting bare-assed on the slumbering man’s stomach, he relishes the hardness against his crack. His thumb forces open an eyelid, revealing a deep mossy green. A hungry hand slips under the prisoner’s loincloth and discovers flesh thicker and longer than his.
Aedan drags the moist tip of his cock over the sleeping man’s swollen lips. “You’re mine.” He draws a glistening line across the man’s cheek, his forehead, and down that gorgeous nose. “Every inch of you belongs to me.”
“What are you doing?” Anger reddens Kelr’s face.
Aedan lazily tips his head back. “Marking what’s mine.”
TAGS: Present Tense, Celtic Britain, Roman Republic, Roman Invasion of Britain, Druids, Masturbation, Serial Fiction, Re-Post
VII (II) The Lost and Found
The storm takes many ships, and Caesar’s legions rebuild them.
Infantryman labor under gray skies and humid, heavy air. They butcher forests, coppicing so the timber will serve future colonists. Trees in this land stand narrow but full-headed, ensuring no one loses themselves when walking alone.
Scipio aches for the alpine forests of home, their massive ground roots a throne for his one-handed pleasures.
Though decurion, he and Planus join the lessor ranks in rolling long-cut trunks over an assembly of smaller logs. The ribbed path leads to a roping station, where the horses drag coupled bundles to the building yards near shore.
In line at the water station, neither man drinks before anyone else; they all work equally hard and thus rest in the same.
Other decurions view the work from afar, under canopies or on horseback.
“Most of those bastards learned to piss in the pot just a few years before us,” Scipio complains. “Yet they sit up there, afraid of sweating,”
Planus nods. “Given our enemy’s habit of targeting the upper ranks on the sidelines, I doubt any of them will be with us much longer.”
“Why do they do that?” Actus wipes his face with the hem of his shirt, revealing a chiseled stomach and protruding navel.
Scipio’s duplicarius, Actus, is a son of Actus Strolo Ursius, a merchant renowned for his travels beyond Parthia, and his angular face and line-thin eyes go undiscussed, like his mother’s ancestry if one wishes to keep his jaw intact.
“Trophy count?” he ponders.
“Gauls haven’t advanced much since the Gods made us,” Planus speaks with scholarly skill. “Back when we fought over caves, if an army’s leader fell, his men left the battlefield.”
“They’re cavemen?” Scipio asks, leading them to the water barrels.
Planus shrugs. “These island Gauls seem to believe that removing a decorated superior on the sidelines will lead battalions to depart.”
At one barrel, Scipio grabs the wooden bowl floating inside.
“I think they’re watching us,” he says, bringing it to his lips. “Counting every tree we cut with plans to add our heads for each.” He tips another bowl over his shorn head and appreciates the coolness sluicing behind his ears.