Warning! Gays Ahead!

Dark Light is an urban sci-fi thriller. It's not LGBT fiction.  It does, however, have a protagonist who is gay. That, apparently, is cause for flashing red lights.

The book got a nice 4-star review on both Amazon and Goodreads. Goodreads chose to hide the review behind a click saying the review contained spoilers. I expected to read dead give-aways, but no. The spoiler they hid was, well, read it below.

"This book was intriguing... It was kind of a cross between over zealous holy men attempting to take over the town in an invasion of the body snatchers sort of way...
Carter (main character) comes home to help his ill father and help his sister run the family business. He is met by strange occurrences and unexplained accidents/deaths with some of the town residents.
The ghost of the previous owner of the house he's renting helps to guide him and his family on the right path to save themselves, the town and possibly the world.
**Just a note for prospective readers-Carter is gay, there are no overt sex scenes-but it is implied. (Emphasis mine.)
Overall a good book that keeps you intrigued until the end!"

And there you have it. Carter is gay. And, by the way, so is his partner, Robert. I get it. I guess. Or maybe not. How disturbing to get a few chapters into a book, be caught up in it, enjoying it, only to realize that guy you were liking is, gasp, gay! Quelle horreur!

But guess what. That was my intent. A not-purely-gay novel, mainstream even, where a gay person would be simply the protagonist, as if, uhm, it were, like, normal.

So, let's lay cards out, face up, with an excerpt. Carter comes home to find Robert has finally arrived:

Robert walked in and stopped, looked at the foyer, window, living room, and back at Carter standing against the opened door. "Nice house," he said, took Carter's head in his hands and pushed him against the door, fingers buried in his hair. Robert tilted Carter's head, moved close enough to mingle warm breaths, and their mouths and bodies pressed together.

Carter let himself go. For one moment, he didn't have to hold the world together. Like the first time Robert kissed him, the knee-buckling feeling overtook him, and Carter hooked his arms around Robert's shoulders to keep from sliding down the door.

The Beauty of Damaged Things

How often we toss away broken, cracked treasures.

I inherited from my grandfather, brought home from his years as a missionary in Korea, a Korean celadon bowl. It had been cracked and chipped, but thought beautiful enough to have been mended. 

With gold.

I don't know its history. But in the veins of gold, I see the value someone placed on this lovely bowl with its clouds and cranes.

What a more beautiful world if we placed such value on damaged beautiful things. And people.

Ourselves, to start.

And everyone else. No one isn't cracked, chipped, injured, broken.

Instead of tossing, why not do what we can, if only with a smile, to mend them with gold. A smile, a hello, a nod of recognition, can be gold.

Let's don't toss away, pass by the damaged. We have gold to give.

Pre-Opening Jitters

Curtain up! Light the lights!

You'd think, having performed on stage many times, one would get over those jitters, but no. Ask any actor or musician. I'm a bundle of nerves. I could pull a Madonna. The sound of the big thud.

If there's anything I have a hard time with, it's self-promotion.

That said, here's a longer blurb about the show about to open next Saturday:

DARK LIGHT

A frantic phone call from his sister brings Hollywood actor Carter Collins home to Avebury, Ohio. Their father's had a stroke. Or was it? The quiet riverside town is falling under the sway of a new evangelist and his dark form of salvation. No one will stand in his way. Carter's father tried, and now Carter must step in and lead the resistance.

Avebury protects an ancient mystery, a secret Carter has only days to uncover before malicious forces not of this world take control. He finds allies to fight the invasion, but no one is to be trusted. The cost to secure what the town has guarded will be steep, might demand great sacrifice of those closest to him, but failure could plunge Earth itself into darkness.

As the Reverend's tabernacle nears completion, Carter must accept the unbelievable and the role he was destined for. Friends turn against him. Danger stalks family, friends, his life-partner, all dragged into his nightmare, their lives threatened.  The planet teeters on the edge. Carter holds the keys. Can he pay the price of using them?

Coming in One Week!

Actor Carter Collins returns to quiet Avebury, Ohio to find his father's stroke may not have been a stroke at all. A new evangelist is spreading a dark kind of salvation and silencing those who oppose him. The town holds an ancient secret, a power that nefarious forces not of this world want to control. Now Carter must find his place as leader of the resistance to this invasion. The cost may be steep and demand great sacrifice, but failure could plunge the whole earth into darkness.

Coming Out . . . of Hibernation

It's been another long, cold winter. I'm so ready to come out of hibernation. Today, though it won't, again, get above freezing, I went looking for signs of Spring.

What I found outside my door perfectly showed, to me, the essence of this season. Snow in retreat. Warming earth pushing back the white blanket. Abstract yin and yang. And in the center, emerging leaves of new life, damaged, burned by the cold, promise of blooms that will rise from the wreckage.

When all the snow has gone and Spring has come, with the leafing out of trees and shrubs, I will, no doubt, discover what more damage the bitter cold has wreaked. Last year, I lost limbs from two prized plantings: an azalea and a Japanese maple. Yet the plants survived, and the damage resulted in a reshaping, of new form. In the maple, more open spaces, the killed branches  pruned away, left a more spare and possibly more beautiful tree.

Somehow the damage done enhances the value, the beauty of what remains, of what survives. The golden daffodil that rises above burnt leaves.

If only we could remember, more often than we do: such is our lives.