It's warm outside.

Hello all, beautiful day out today. This weekend North Jersey was FREEZING! I think the highest we've reached over the last week had to be about 30 and that's me being generous. Thanks to global warming we are going to reach around 70. I think I'm going to throw on a hoodie and take my laptop to the park and get some writing done. I don't know how much longer I'm going to have to just sit around on my ass which is what I've been doing for the last two weeks since quitting that horrible, horrible place known as Ann Taylor. Hopefully I'll get a start date with the new job soon because frankly, I'm growing bored as hell being home.

And I wrote something this morning. I shall share here too.

[True, not true. Maybe both.'

A Home Where You Can Turn The Television On.

We used to watch each other. Back then we were into round ballets and found the chase of Not Knowing thrilling. Nine long summers I spent at my grandmother’s house, the one near the shore, the one with the broken porch and the cracked glass windows. The one I was always ashamed to let you in because of the crawling insects, but the one you would always run up to, red and weathered Chuck Taylor’s thundering up the porch steps, fist balled crashing against splintered wood and metal framing, ordering me to come out and play.


I went to play with you and we built castles in the beach grass because we weren‘t allowed to go near the ocean alone. Our hands gathered silts of silica and I grew angrier and angrier as the sun turned over in the sky and our skin burnt under the rays because our homes kept collapsing. You’d tell me that sand monsters were hungry and that‘s why our dwellings were devoured and we should dig for land crabs to offer the beach trolls as penance, so that maybe we could keep our homes intact. You used to make up fabled tales, even at that age your language left me with a sense of wonderment, made my stomach clench and seized my breath because your words were just so beautifully painted across your tongue that it hurt to not listen. You told me of times I had never seen, of the prince and his fair maiden. Of the knight who drunk too much whiskey and could never hop on his horse the right way. Of the damsel whom the Knight was supposed to rescue who grew tired of waiting and tried to save herself only The villainous lothario wouldn’t allow his bed to be emptied so he slaughtered her with a bayonet, and for a fortnight slept beside her bloodied carcass until the maggots made him sick. Then you confessed to me that you had never kissed a girl before, but you knew what your uncle‘s mouth tasted like. The uncle who drove a police car and always told me that in Portuguese my name meant something shy. You, the boy up the road with the shaggy brown hair and the skin like whole milk and the freckles that you wished you could wash away. And you were always such a small thing, so tender with delicate bones and the kind of face that made the other boys ridicule your hips for being so sharp. And you told me about the night before the day when the ocean rose above the earth . The water ran so high that all the windows in your bedroom burst from the force and your blanket got soaked as The Shark wiggled against your sheets and made you swim into a black abyss. You asked me if I knew what drowning felt like and when I told you that I didn’t you told me not to tell your mother about August and all the summers that would come to follow. I was silent. And then you wordlessly showed me how to keep the walls of my house from caving in.

Edgar.

It's Christmas. And I dont want diamonds.

First, thank you all! I still can't believe there's over 2,900 of ya'll -I'm tempted to ask if you're sure that I'm the writer you're looking for because, hello, I've been horrible lately. Two years, wow, can't believe the yahoo group has been up for that long. I feel old. I'm only 24, but I feel 74. Don't worry, I won't gripe about arthritis or even complain about how my knees act up when it rains.

However, if you're feeling so inclined....




*just so you know, I ADORE used books The feel of bent spines, the smell of aged paper and curled edges make me happy for some reason. And I really want to read THIS, THIS, & THIS

THIS and THIS would make the Finland lover in me dance.

:)

And this week I SWEAR I'm updating 'Chase After Me'. It's been done for a few weeks now, but while I am not a perfectionist, I do bite my nails sometimes worrying about if I'm dragging a story out or having the climax come too soon -and not in that 'feel good orgasmic kind of way'.

Oh man, I really shouldn't talk dirty on here. My MOTHER probably reads this from work. Hi mommy, I love you. Bring home Boston Market for dinner.

Stuffed like a Christmas ham (ewe, can you actually stuff a ham? In which what would you stuff in said pig?)

God, Thanksgiving...or shall I say the day after is going to be a memorable one for my bathroom this weekend -I HAVE HAD ENTIRELY WAY TOO MUCH MAC AND CHEESE! I seriously don't know if I want to hurl or just sleep. Good thing though is I have a four day weekend. My boss had to cut hours so she told me Wednesday that I was NOT needed to come to work on Black Friday. As anyone who works in retail, you all pretty much know just how GODDAMN AWFUL it would have been, especially where I work. We sell clothes to the 'higher end baby boomer / sophisticated young woman' (rolls eyes) which just translates to:' every self entitled uppermiddle class bitch please come into our store, throw clothes on the floor of our wardrobe room and forget the name of the sales associate who spent the better part of an hour picking out a wardrobe for you just to have you pick up a 60 dollar sweater and say 'I think this is all I'm going to take -but thank you for going out your way, breaking your fingernail and busting out a sweat running back and forth between the stock room and searching through piles and piles of pants to bring me every single size 6 you could find plus coordinating shirts and jackets'.

So yes. Thank GOD I have the day off today. I don't go back to work until Monday so I think I'm going to use this day to actually get some writing in. You're gonna think this is disgusting -because I do, but I seriously have about a good 10 either unfinished/halfway finished / already finished stories / chapters that just need to be edited ' laying around in my D: Hardrive. Why yes, you CAN chop this down to me being lazy and just not having the energy to complete something, but seeing as how I have the weekend off, I'm gonna crack my knuckles, turn off my cell phone, lock my bedroom door, burn a few drops of tea mint oil and focus on getting some work down.

....right after I watch 'The Princess Bride'......

Everyone knows 'as you wish' just means 'I love you'. And if you don't get that reference, you're really slacking with your movie knowledge. Oh man, DON'T get me started about 'The Labyrinth' because David Bowie as the Goblin king? F'ing priceless. I think I'll watch that movie tomorrow.

First post because I needed to change things.

Hi, I'm Maddy and sometimes I write gay fiction/porn on nifty.org.

I've decided to actually start 'blogging'. I've had a live journal for a number of years, but when I first created that damn thing, it was solely for fannish purposes. I was heavily addicted to watching Jackass, Viva La Bam and more recently Supernatural (ie, Supernatural is probably the greatest show that we have on television at the moment. I'll admit, I started watching because of the eyecandy and I stayed for the plot. It's such a shame that it doesn't get much notice, I mean HELLO, have we seen the acting? STELLAR. Damn Jensen and Jared making a girl cry!)

Where was I going with this intro post again? Ah, yes. I've just finished up a book that I am currently still tweaking to hopefully get published. It's the story of a gay man from a small southern town who as a child is sent to a 'Christian treatment' camp after being caught kissing one of his male friends. The story is about how as an adult he tries to 'heal' himself and come to terms with his homosexuality while trying to fight the feelings he has for a pupil (oh relax, they're in college and only three years apart). Overall it's a love story and the first book I've written in a while that I feel is actually 'good' so the purpose of this blog is to chronicle the trials and tribulations I expect to stumble upon as I struggle to finish the book, find an agent and get it published. That, and complete three other books I've been writing for the last three years. I want to do all of this before my twenty fifth birthday which is eleven months away. Clearly, I expect my brain to explode.

Here is an excerpt from the novel I'm trying to get published. If you know a publisher or a literary agent...give a girl a hookup!

Sounds Of August
By Madison Dante

The Story Before The Story
Revelation 14:3 And they sang a new song before the throne . . .

Mama’s voice slips with something tender. She’s trying to wake you, the smell of a Georgian middle-summer sunrise is rich and sweet whispering from her wheat spun hair. Her fingers feel ticklish, playfully pinching your side as she laughs that sweet sound, telling you that Jesus was an early riser. Sometimes you think she must think of you as she thinks of the Lord because your name always chases his. The Lord says love thy fellow man Emory...Christ died for our sins so the least you can do is get up and brush your teeth darling...

Mama fears God and on church every Sunday morning and Wednesday evening she tells you that you are made of his creation, you are one of his children. When you were little -younger than six, this used to confuse you, trouble your mind because you thought you were mama and daddy’s little boy, not a child of God. Then you aged a bit and realized that only meant you were supposed to be a reflection of his image, and not him. Only you’re not very godlike, you’re just twelve-years-old with a charming face that people love to take pictures of when you’re dressed in clothes you think look silly. You would never wear some of the ugly pants they fit you in and you really don’t see what they find so appealing about you anyway. Your eyes are too round, not quite hazel, and never ready for green, your body too skinny and your lips too plump so they stick out sore and pink like you‘ve been sucking on raspberries. The people that take your photos say that you’re a nice kid with a good, Christian look so they take your pictures and stick them inside pamphlets to promote clean and right kind of living. You hate having your picture taken because it comes with miles and miles of fuss, but mama loves the attention you get and you never have the strength to argue with her. Grandma Wilkes says you’re just a pinch of passive and a dash of docile so you keep your thoughts inside like grandpa Wilkes.

Your limbs are stretching out now, hanging awkwardly from your body like gangly branches all full of pale, freckled skin and bone. You still haven’t figured out how to walk yet without tripping over your big feet and how to rise without knocking your head on something, usually the light fixtures in the dining room because they hang so low. Mama says you take after your daddy’s side of the family, just like your big brother Will who is only sixteen and stands at almost six feet. You aren’t quite there yet and don’t think you ever will be that tall, but mama says different. Your baby sister is in fact still a baby at only six, but you’re sure she won’t grow as big as you and William. Julia mostly looks like your mama with the blue opal eyes, the curly fair hair and mama is a small, tender kind of lady and you’re sure Julia will grow up like that too.

Today is Sunday, the day for the Lord and as you turn and smile at your mama, you dread having to get up. It’s already near a hundred degrees outside, those summer mornings blaze like fire, a sweltering heat that causes vertigo, but that’s not the reason why you don’t want to go. Tyler is going to be at Sunday worship, stretching his long frame right in the front pew and you fear seeing him because he’s going to give you that funny look again. That funny look that makes your stomach drop down to your knees and stains your cheeks cherry pie red. He used to be your friend; a good friend until he started touching you too much and smiling at you, not with his mouth, but with his slight blue eyes and this unsettles you.

Mama asks you after every service whey you refuse to sit up front with Tyler and his mother, like you used to, while Tyler’s father gives his sermon. You never give her a good reason, you shrug your shoulders and look down at the earth praying to this Lord that you’ve spent the better part of the morning singing: Jesus walked this lonesome valley; he had to walk it by himself. Oh, nobody else could walk it for him; he had to walk it by himself, that one of the old women with too much makeup on will come and start talking to your mother about Pearl the widow with a million dollars that never leaves her house. You live in a small town, Bethlehem is just a few miles outside of Atlanta so Pearl and her recluse ways are more entertaining than riding dune buggies through dirt and gravel backcountry roads.

You get up, take your shower, dress and go through the motions while you listen to your parents argue downstairs about which car to drive. Daddy likes driving the blue car, but that’s too small and you all have to cramp in the backseats. Mama wants to drive the van and you hope she gets her way because you hate having to squeeze in the backseat next to Julia. While you love your baby sister, you hate the way she kicks at you, playing games when you don’t want to.

It doesn’t surprise you that you, your brother and your baby sister are crammed in the backseats of the small blue car now. Daddy and mama argue all of the time, but mama never wins. Daddy’s a nice man, real good to you guys, but your grandma –the one that doesn’t live in Georgia, tells you that her son-in-law is a stubborn bastard and you laugh in secret, sharing this knowledge passing it between the two of you, just nana and her youngest grandson.

Your face feels tired and everything that the pastor is saying seems to flutter around your head. You feel a pinch of sleep crinkling the corners of your eyes, but then a voice in the back of the church booms like crackling thunder whipping the sky and lashing you awake. Before you look back, you look ahead to where Tyler sits and he is looking back at you, just staring, making you feel uncomfortable just like always. You look away.

In one of the back rows, a black man has fallen out of the pew, there are tears in his eyes and if this would have happened to someone you weren’t raised knowing as the old man down Beasley Road who caught the Holy Ghost like a sheepdog catches the flu in November, then you’d be scared. However, it is just Mr. Jones and he’s feeling Jesus run through him, overpowering his body with ‘the spirit’. A part of you wants to laugh because he looks silly crying, screaming, kicking his legs out and punching his fists down onto the hardwood floor of the church like a child. You don’t laugh though, daddy would take a switch to your backside with a fierce quickness if you did and mama wouldn’t let you go out to ride your motorbike on the trails like you do every Sunday afternoon when service ends.

“There’s Tyler, I’m going to say hello to his parents, you go on and make nice with that boy. You two have been fighting long enough,” Mama says smiling down at you. For a moment, you see a bit of yourself in her. The same wheat colored hair, the same almond shaped eyes and you even have her rounded, simple curved ears that stick out just a little.

“I’ll go wait in the car,” you say quickly looking around watching the people flood outside of the small church, all gathering on the greenery in their Sunday best. Your daddy, Will and Julia are already walking towards the car and you prepare yourself to walk in step with them.

“What? Where are your manners child?” Mama laughs. “Come on, be proper. I don’t know what kind of falling out you and Ty had, but you need to put it past you.”

“Mom…can we go home?” You plead softly. Your blue suit hangs off your body gracelessly, itching your skin and you know that Ty’s looking at you again, staring at you because he knows your big secret. You know his big secret too because he told you his first right before he kissed you behind the shed of your house the first week of June after school let out. This is why you avoid him. He makes you nervous because you want to kiss him again, but your gut tells you this is wrong. The pastor tells you that this is wrong, verses of Leviticus spills from his lips with a Georgian drawl. You don’t want to lay with your friend, you want to kiss his face, taste his mouth and the very thought of this makes your tummy ache with three different kinds of emotions, none of which you are capable of deciphering because you’re much too young and inexperienced to define them............