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Our BetterMost Community => Creative Writer's Corner => Topic started by: louisev on November 29, 2009, 03:20:38 am

Title: New Novelette: "In the Empire of Hermes"
Post by: louisev on November 29, 2009, 03:20:38 am
Prompted by a solicitation for private anthology of gay fiction, I have extrapolated a character from my novel series "Princes of the East" (which is my first actual finished book, I might add, which I began in 1997) which explores gay relationships in the freeform eastern tradition before Constantine's Christianity took definite hold among the pagan nations.

I am just starting it now, but I'll be posting it in community site #annaganthas for those who have friended me.  If you are interested in this story please ask to join annaganthas.livejournal.com.  I'll be posting something starting tomorrow.
Title: Re: New Novelette: "In the Empire of Hermes"
Post by: louisev on November 29, 2009, 09:26:36 am
Here is the opening chapter of "In the Empire of Hermes."

http://community.livejournal.com/annaganthas/498.html

For those who wish to read it, please add the community "Annaganthas."  This story will remain locked to readers as I am submitting it to an anthology for publication.

Anyone who wants to familiarize yourself with the universe and with the character of Isolt from "Princes of the East", that story is here on my site, and if you have an e-book reader or wish to have a PDF of it, please message me:

http://www.zebratta.com/Books/Princes/index.htm (http://www.zebratta.com/Books/Princes/index.htm)

Comments welcome!
Title: Re: New Novelette: "In the Empire of Hermes"
Post by: louisev on December 01, 2009, 11:43:51 pm
Remember if you want to read the story, please request to be added to the community!

chapter 2 is now posted

http://community.livejournal.com/annaganthas/618.html (http://community.livejournal.com/annaganthas/618.html)

don't mind the typos!!
Title: Re: New Novelette: "In the Empire of Hermes"
Post by: louisev on December 25, 2009, 04:57:52 am
Next chapter should be happening today or tomorrow.
Title: Re: New Novelette: "In the Empire of Hermes"
Post by: louisev on January 15, 2010, 12:38:36 pm
Okay so I lied.

I reviewed the story so far and am allocating some time to it this weekend now that I'm catching up.  Writing two books can be challenging, but now that I'm not a) travelling b) looking for a home c) trying to find my way around the nation's capitol and d) getting used to being in this new place and getting to know an entire new set of friends/acquaintances/colleagues, I should have some actual  - brain space!

Question for you readers: one thing I have struggled to define for myself"in these stories, now that I have gone all the way as it were, into explicit erotica, is "level of explicitness."   Which is part of the reason I paused where I did with this story.   

What I find for myself, writing, is that even if I am writing something completely original and different every time, when it comes to sex (unlike plot), there does come a moment in the story where there's only so much to write, and I solved that issue in the Tourmaline books by relegating much of the bedroom action to offstage, unless there was a reason for it.  I'm still puzzling it through, because - let's be honest, it is not fair to an audience for gay erotica to be censoring the sex that is on-screen, and I think for anyone who has read the first Greenlea County series, I don't censor it.  And I don't want to be perceived as censoring it.  However, it does make it less interesting for me, as a writer, to write the same or similar things, which is why I don't write the same stories with different characters with different names: I write different stories, in different time periods, with different people in radically different circumstances.   I have to do this, because I have a low tolerance for repetition and if anyone ever writes to me and tells me they can't tell the difference between a main character in one story and the main character of another one, then I'll know I've got a problem and should not have written one of those two stories.

So if anyone has any thoughts about explicitness, I have had a lot of feedback prior to the finalization and publication of the book which was original entitled "Taking Chances"and with regard to this new book,  I would definitely like to hear your thoughts on the level of explicitness in this book.
Title: Re: New Novelette: "In the Empire of Hermes"
Post by: louisev on January 16, 2010, 04:34:00 pm
I did it I did it!  I had a Saturday to myself and voiLA!

Chapter 3: Isolt's journal

http://community.livejournal.com/annaganthas/838.html
Title: Re: New Novelette: "In the Empire of Hermes"
Post by: louisev on January 28, 2010, 03:35:30 pm
While I was on a train back and forth to Boston I did some work on the next chapter so I'll be working on that in the next day or so!  Look for it!
Title: Re: New Novelette: "In the Empire of Hermes"
Post by: louisev on February 06, 2010, 10:42:23 am
Getting back to Chapter 4 now, I couldn't convert the file I wrote on the train!  d oh!
Title: Re: New Novelette: "In the Empire of Hermes"
Post by: louisev on February 06, 2010, 01:10:35 pm
and here it is:

"Morning regrets" chapter 4

http://community.livejournal.com/annaganthas/1249.html (http://community.livejournal.com/annaganthas/1249.html)
Title: Re: New Novelette: "In the Empire of Hermes"
Post by: louisev on February 13, 2010, 07:33:11 pm
Chapter 5!

http://community.livejournal.com/annaganthas/1456.html

"The Khan Inquires"
Title: Re: New Novelette: "In the Empire of Hermes"
Post by: louisev on February 21, 2010, 12:54:23 am
 
More lust-filled adventures on the Roman frontier!

http://community.livejournal.com/annaganthas/1711.html
Title: Re: New Novelette: "In the Empire of Hermes"
Post by: louisev on March 06, 2010, 10:39:05 am
For the brave few who are reading this story, I'm working on a new chapter today.  For those who haven't yet dared to read it, there isn't a single Roman in it.

I read somewhere that some folks are turned off by Roman empire stuff...
Title: Re: New Novelette: "In the Empire of Hermes"
Post by: louisev on March 06, 2010, 09:29:33 pm
And here is Chapter 7:  The Khan's Man

http://community.livejournal.com/annaganthas/2030.html
Title: Re: New Novelette: "In the Empire of Hermes"
Post by: louisev on March 17, 2010, 12:07:38 am
 Sorry I didn't get to this over the weekend:

but here it is!  chapter 8:

http://community.livejournal.com/annaganthas/2169.html
Title: Re: New Novelette: "In the Empire of Hermes"
Post by: louisev on March 21, 2010, 02:36:24 pm
Chapter 9!

http://community.livejournal.com/annaganthas/2343.html  "a Carrier of Tales