Let's Talk About Mermaids !

This is an alternate cover. You all know how bad I am at titles and names (the other mermaid story still has some placeholder names) so don't think too much about the title. This short story is really more of an experimentation and plays on some similar themes of other things I've done.

Yes. Yes, I"m going to be sprinkling in some of my favorite mermaid pins along the way.

It's interesting, I've been extremely haphazard lately. I will go from kicking around and messing with an idea for months, slowly writing and deleting. The one day, in the span of three hours I'll edit it up, make a cover and post it. I say that to say what I'll post and when has gotten really unpredictable.

FZA
I am actually in a good place with FZA. I've got 8,000 words down and that doesn't include the NaNoWriMo stuff I did last year (!) that I need to edit up. I'm afraid my UL short story might end up DOA, I'm not sure quite how to finish it. But, let's save those for another day....

Follow The Unicorn Fish

Let's try this thing...

Playlist
-1- Silent Whispers by Carter Burwell
-2- Anyone Who Knows What Love is by Irma Thomas
-3- idk by lan.skey
-4- Afterthought by Dane Hyde
-5- In The Sun by Aron Wright
-6- Jurrasic World II: Anyone Who Knows What Love is by Norman Duck

Built for Sin II

CPShawna: Okay, girl time to write something !
Me: Okay ! Let me just do a quick Pinterest scroll

2 hours later on Pinterest:

 

I don't know what it is that makes me late to the game on everything but Pinterest has been giving me so much inspo  lately, particularly for FZA and Fishtales, and it has been a big time suck

I have also oddly found that a lot of fanart is relevant to my interests, particularly when thinking about the physicality of Haley and Luce's height difference. There is so few romantic themed photography with two men. There two are particularly relevant , captions aside.

I've also found a lot of Attack on Titan fanart gives me some serious Bright Lines vibes. I think a lot of this is art commissions of Wattpad fanfiction and have nothing to do with the actual show plot.

Built For Sin 

Recap: Haley and Luce have spent a little over a year experimenting in a D/s relationship. They're fooling around in Luce's car and Luce gets angry when he sees Haley's back has been bruised by a drunk client. But before anything can happen they are attacked by Covalcotti riders on motorcycles with machine guns. After leading the riders into the Sprawl, Luce blows up his car and they run away on foot... 

Built for Sin 2

Playlist

- 1 - Waves Crashing on a Distant Shores of Time by Clint Mansell

- 2- All I Want by Daniella Mason

- 3- Make Me Feel by Janelle Monae

- 4- Go Outside by Cults

Meme me up, Scotty !

2009 Shawna: I know, I know selling meth is obviously a bad thing for our protagonist to do, but Sawyer is only doing it because he is desperate and he is going to be punished and held accountable for breaking the law. .

2009Shawna: Yes, Juliana works in a strip club but she's only a waitress and she's doing it for the money. She'll come out the other side and turn her life around.

2018SHV: Here's that BDSM short story about a cartel hitman and a prostitute I was telling you about.

BFS
It is so weird to have spent months working on all these different novellas and then to just pop this story out in a few weeks and throw it out into the world. But it's the most finished of everything I'm working on and I can't look at it anymore.

This short story takes place after Sweet Prince and I tried to keep it compact but here are some fact to remember:

* After being released from Ft. Pride and spending time in rehab Haley goes to the cartel to take a hit out on Maxwell. Luce wants to take the hit once Haley has saved up the money and they form a friendship

* Haley works first at a factory then at Control, Jean Dory's secret brothel within the brothel , to earn the money

* One Federation Day he gets tired of waiting, goes rouge and decides to kill Maxwell himself. It fails. Twyla Banner, Luce's sister, gets involved but they manage to escape to a safehouse. 

* The cartel gives Maxwell a donation to look the other way on the assassination. Now Haley works at Control to pay for his hit and the money the cartel had to give Maxwell.

This story is like 10,000 words but I'm going to make it a two-parter

Part 1

Playlist

-1- Delicate by Taylor Swift

-2- Choose Me by James Blake

-3- Satisfaction by Benny Bennasi

Fishtales, woohoo ! (Burn 7)

#MermaidAesthetic

I know this is such a tease for what is to come since I don't super have a timeline for finishing anything. I'm really not sure in what order I'll share any of the stuff I'm currently working on (...can I call them WIPs ?) but I wanted to share a little something. These images aren't literal to the story  but more inspiration for the series.

Also...if you have any recs for places I can get names for a male merman let me know...I literally have a character with the placeholder name Mermie.

Speaking of mermaids....Lile, did we ever figure out what your code name Blue Water project was ? 

R&J Fluff ?
So, like I said I have been working on my UL short story but...I may find some room to write short R&J PWP fluff...

Burn 7
Phoenix/Sky is finding life with his parents not what he expected. Maxwell has decided to run for president (since it got taken away from him when Sky/Phoenix was taken) and is dragging his family reluctantly with him. Sky starts school at a UAF Boys Academy and during their public service event in the Sprawl he sees Honeysuckle Street (did you guys get this was a LL ref ?) and remembers his guardian told him to go there if anything went wrong when he first came. In the middle of a school field trip he  decides to take off his syndicate and walk away....

Playlist
Burn 7
-1- Youth by Daughter
- 2 - Rhapsody by Black Violin
- 3 - The War by SYML
- 4 - The Light by Album Leaf

Six Burn !

I've been working on this Haley/ Luce short story and this is me every time I have to type 'Types of Guns' into Google. 

Like any good writer I've been spending 80% of my writing time creating serial aesthetics. Here is one I did for Haley.

 

Burn 6  

Sky/Phoenix  has been back home in Fort Perch for a few weeks. Now that his family is back together and the press is good Kenneth Maxwell has decided he is going to run for president again, much to the surprise of his family.

Also, keep in mind that in the first chapter Sky gets the help of the Atlas captain's daughter Zarina Jeffries and her best friend Faith Morgan, a foster child who had to work to earn her stay on the satellite. Their names come up, that is why I'm mentioning them.

Burn 6

Playlist

- 1 - Tracking Aeroplanes by The Echoelon Effect

- 2 - Pumped Up Kicks by Foster The People

 

Let's Do This Thing For Real: Burn Five, Look Alive !

So...it's been a while but.....

I'm back and so is my muse  !

I completely finished Burn a few weeks ago

And I've spent the last few months just writing and picking at  different things and trying things out. While there have been some setbacks it's mostly progress.

I've outlined two mermaid short stories that I'm tentatively calling Fishtales 

I've been getting more words done on FZA but it's been going like this

I'm 7,000 words into my UL thing and I'm looking at it like

 Also, um...

I'm  2,000 7,000 words into a BDSM erotic Vice short story with Luce and Haley

Well, it started out that way it's actually more romance-y now 

The Last Recap

Skylark Gray has grown up on The Atlas Star, a research satellite ship that rarely touches ground on Earth. He is a foster kid and raised by a guardian who is mostly ambivalent towards him except on his birthdays where they spend an hour in the Closet.

On his 16th birthday Sky goes looking for answers and discovers he is Phoenix Maxwell, the only son of the former president of the Republic who was famously kidnapped as a toddler and never found. His guardian had been sending the tapes of the Closet to Maxwell to make him think he kept Sky locked in a closet for 10 years.

He learns his guardian knew  Maxwell during the war and took Phoenix as payback with the help of his fiance Luce Grace, a hacker cyborg in the cartel. They'd hid him by lying about his age by a year and having his name removed from the manifest so he'd never be found.

Sky demands to go back to his real parents and they devise a plan to send him back without implicating Haley but things aren't how Sky imagined. He's never been on Earth before and the environment is foreign to him. He learns his parents have been secretly separated for years. Maxwell distrusts Sky's sudden reapperance and gets violent--believing Sky is working with Haley on something

Fed up, when he sees an opportunity Sky tries to make a run for it but Prescott stops him.

“Phoenix,  I know Maxwell scared you--,” Major Prescott says.

  

“It’s not Maxwell,” I explain and Major Prescott looks so hurt. “I  just want to go back--,”

“No you don’t, sweetheart,” he says softly kissing my forehead. 

“I--,”

 “This is normal. You have something called Stockholm Syndrome,” Major Prescott tells me. “I talked to some specialist about it today.  Max doesn’t understand that it’s a serious condition and he went too far with you. Don’t worry, we’ll get you help.”

I open my mouth to protest but he isn't hearing it as the car takes off down the street.

Burn 5 
Playlist
-1-  Anything You Synthesize by The American Dollar
-2- Your Tale by Hiroshi Yamazaki
-3- Tenuous Gears by Damiak

Back with Double Chapters

You: Shawna, where have you been and what have you been up to ?

Me:

well, that's enough work for one day pic.twitter.com/Wglrllz5d0

— kat (@katbamkapow) February 10, 2018

You guys, I really don't have a reason, I just lost the spark. I have so much I want to finish but it's been a struggle. I looked at a document and realized I had multiple parts of Burn I hadn't even posted and figured I'd get back on the horse.

 Anyway, let's get back into Burn, the story that takes place 27 years after the first serial I wrote in the rebooted Vice universe.

Burn

I saw this and it reminded me a little bit of Luce and Haley. Also, yes, I have a Tumblr I haven't updated in 4 years.

Burn Recap

Let's do this from Skylark Gray's POV. By the way I have no idea why these Vice serials always turn into such sausage fests.

16-year-old Skylark Gray has grown up on The Atlas Star, a research satellite ship that rarely touches ground on Earth. He is a foster kid and raised by his guardian who is mostly ambivalent towards him except on his birthdays where they spend an hour in the Closet.

On his 16th birthday Sky goes looking for answers and discovers he is Phoenix Maxwell, the only son of the former president of the Republic who was famously kidnapped as a toddler and never found. His guardian had been sending the tapes of the closet to Maxwell to make him think he kept Sky locked in a closet for 10 years.

He learns his guardian knew  Maxwell during the war and took Phoenix as payback with the help of his fiance Luce Grace, a hacker cyborg in the cartel. They'd hid him by lying about his age by a year and having his name removed from the manifest so he'd never be found.

Sky demands to go back to his real parents but he is also sympathetic to his guardian so when the ship lands they arrange for him to go home in a way that won't get anyone in trouble. They tell him try and cross the border to the West, wait until his DNA is tested and then when the match shows the authorities will take him to his parents. They tell him not say anything so he won't accidentally give something away. The plan works and he is taken to Fort Perch where he is examined by the surgeon general, Dr. Hayworth.

Dr. Hayworth takes my blood pressure and gives me a standard check up. She asks me if anything hurts and I say no. She asks me if I'm sexual active and I shake my head. She asks if I've been been sexually assaulted and I say no quickly, but wants to check anyway and I let her.  Then she leaves the room.

When the door opens a few minutes later my biological parents are standing in the doorway.

BTW, Burn got away from me. It's closing in on being NaNo length....

Burn 3  (This is a shortie)

Playlist

-1- Unsteady by VSQ

-2- All of Me by Elaine Courtois

Burn 4 (I am having some formatting issues so the font is different)

- 1- Candles by Jon Hopkins

-2- Find A Place by Iko