Acceptance

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Today I’m taking part in the Hop against Homophobia. As we try and bring about more understanding in the world please share links with your friends and family to this blog and others on the hop. Help get the word out. Help us open more minds. Follow the link in the image below to the complete list of blogs participating in the hop.

Acceptance can be one of the hardest things to find, either in ourselves and or other people. I suppose I’m one of the lucky ones as most people I’ve known have accepted me warts, glitter and all. This is not to say that I haven’t faced my share of homophobia, but it’s not something that I face on a daily basis. As a very masculine man with a nice butch husband, most people don’t realize that I’m gay, unless I say something, or until I tell them. I like it that way.

Years ago, when I was just coming to terms with being gay, I had a very good friend who helped me through my self-acceptance and helped shape me into the well rounded person I am today. For several years, she was like a second mother to me. She explained something that she called the green monkey syndrome, which today I can think of other more appropriate terms for it, but we’ll stick with her terms. The green monkey syndrome is this. Monkeys will kill any of their own kind that they deem as different than themselves, but the catch is, monkeys are color blind. So, until a monkey comes out and says they’re a green monkey, all the monkeys will think everyone is brown. Unfortunately once the green monkey makes their presence known, the other monkeys jump on him and kill him.

Unlike racial differences, for the most part being gay is an invisible minority that is only noticed when we draw attention to ourselves. I use this to my advantage. Folks can’t spot me as gay either by my appearance or my actions. I mean things such as, I don’t like to do auto repair , but can get my hands greasy when I have to. But I make it work. Most folks get to know me before they find out that I’m gay. And by getting to know me they love me. I make a point to be the best person I can be. I avoid being stereotyped in any way. Although some of my friends like teasing me about “every so often the gay just shines through” This is fine.

As a writer, I like to carry this mentality over to the characters I write. I’ve had some “formula” writers tell me there’s not enough drama in my gay couples, that real people have more personal conflict than I portray. My reply there is that I’m trying to give a good example of what gay couples can be. I want to show stable, loving couples. I’ve received several reviews thanking me for showing men who are obviously gay, but not going overboard in the drama or sexuality, giving them a read closer to their own lives. That’s the point of my writing, and my life, quiet acceptance, one friend, or reader at a time. Slow quiet acceptance in the end gets better results than massive change forced on people. Spend more time showing people how you are the same as they are as opposed to how you are different. Build relationships on understanding and likeness, then your differences simply add spice to life and you’ll be surprised how people react. Over time, I’ve only lost a couple of so called friends when they found out I was gay. Because in the end they know me for who I am, and what I am doesn’t matter. Some people are surprised that my lover’s father, a hardcore cowboy/mountain man accepts us, but he knows who I am, and loves me like his own son. We’ve often discussed how if I were a stereotype flaming gay, that wouldn’t be the case. Blending in can be very important to finding acceptance. Don’t stand around screaming about how you’re different, join in and show how you are the same, and you’ll be surprised how quickly people’s minds change. Fight for acceptance one person at a time. If we all do this, pretty soon homophobia will a thing of the past. I hope everyone enjoys the blog hop and does their part to help bring about acceptance.

Leave a comment for a chance to win a set of the E.S. Peters Investigation E books. “Perfect Love” is out and “Perfect Trouble” will be out in June.

 

Zipity Do Da, Zipity Yeah

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My oh my what a wonderful day.

Today is one of those awesome springtime days here in the beautiful mountains of central Colorado. I had planned on writing something really cool for my final blog post in the A to Z blog challenge and today is just so pretty I can’t bring myself to stay inside another minute. So I encourage everyone, if the weather’s nice, get out and enjoy the day. The wildflowers here are beginning to bloom, if they’re doing it here then she should be doing it other places too. Get outside folks. Enjoy the nice weather, and smell the flowers.

Have fun and happy blogging. We’ll do a review of the challenge in a few days. Now its time to rest the tired brain and enjoy the great outdoors.

 

The Yellow Sky Coven

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So for Y today, I decided to give everyone a little bit of background on the interesting characters that make up the Yellow Sky Coven, at least those that show up in “Blood Moon, Yellow Sky.” I’ll save other folks from other books for later posts.

Geraldine, Geri, Beggay is the leader and teacher of the group. During her youth, spent as a teacher’s child out at a home for troubled youth, she met an old Cherokee shaman who, building on her natural aptitude, taught her magic. She found out about the Coalition for Magical Creatures when her teacher applied for membership. Unfortunately, he failed his test. Geri decided at that point, to go on with her life. During the ensuing years, she worked odd jobs, which occasionally included assisting the police with crimes that were outside the mundane realm. Over time, she became the magical sheriff of the Texas panhandle. She stayed active in the magical community and through that, eventually found her own students.

Alex Carlson was one of her first students. He found Geri in his early twenties. They quickly hit it off and she agreed to take him under her wing to teach him more types of magic than he could find in readily available books. Although he came from a magical family, most of which possed at least some psychic or magical skills, he was always looking to expand his knowledge. Alex owned the local independent bookstore, the Halfling’s Hideaway, and attracted a good number of young folk who had a natural aptitude for magic to the shop. Several other members of the coven were people pulled into the shop by the forces of fate.

Stan Belsario was one of the people that found their way into Halfling’s Hideaway. His military family traveled extensively when he was growing up. In each new place, he got out and explored everything he could of local culture. Over time, he was experienced many different types of magic, sometimes not the most savory of sorts. With a youth spent often running in the shadowed streets of third-world countries, he became an accomplished thief. By the time he reached Yellow Sky, the authorities kept watchful eyes on him. After meeting Alex and Geri, and coming under their calming influence, he turned his skills toward helping keep the magical peace that Geri demanded in her territory.

Charles Colfax met Alex in high school. Even though Alex was a couple years older than Charles, they became best friends. Soon after Alex began studying under Geri, Charles and his twin sister Bernadette managed to worm their way in to the group. Like Alex, they came by their magical talents naturally. Both having an affinity for fire, they adopted the magical nicknames of Char and Burn.

Terry and Larry Holloway are the sons of a police officer that Geri worked with on a regular basis. Their father actually recommended them to Geri. They had an interest in the occult and he didn’t want them wandering around on their own and getting into trouble. The Holloways aren’t as strong as some of the other members of the coven, but they bring their own unique flare to the group’s dynamic.

Finally there’s Janie Miller, like the Holloway brothers, she isn’t as strong magically as some of her friends, but she’s very close to Bernadette. The two went to school together and over time, fell in love. She is Burn’s shadow, often a balance to her fiery lover’s temper.

Other members of the coven came along over time, all drawn to the magic teachings that Geri had to offer and the general camaraderie that so many young folks need in their lives. Many things happen to them as a group and as individuals, some of these things are good, some not so good. As we see in “Blood Moon, Yellow Sky,” Geri follows in the footsteps of her magical teacher and applies for membership to the Coalition of Magical Creatures. This leads to the group’s meeting with Tal O’Duirwood that changes all of them forever.

To find out more about Geri and her crew, read the various Yellow Sky books, novellas, and short stories.

W is for Werebears

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I’ve done a couple of post the past few weeks, during this A to Z Blog Challenge about lycanthropes and shapeshiftes. With us winding down to a close, and being on W, I figured I’d do another wer post. The logical idea was werewolves, but like vampires there’s been so much written about them. I decided to go for a different species and look at werebears.

Historically, there are only a few cultures that had stories of werebears. In Europe, the Vikings had tales of berserkers, men who in battle would lose their humanity and become enraged beast that were deadly to any and all who came near them. There are folks that claim they would even take on an animal-like physical appearance. Some people view this transformation as a form of lycanthrope and claim, these were werebears. There is no evidence that the condition could be transferred to other people. Several Native American tribes had tales of the bear brothers, bears who could become human, even mate with human women, but were always bears at heart. Again there is no tale of transferring the condition to others, although some tales to speak of the children, of these men, becoming bears.

When I write, I like to look at things a little differently and try to put new twists on things. Werebears help me do that. In my Yellow Sky books, I use a lot of lycanthrope species, all a little different. One of the things that set the bears apart from the others, is that they have more control over their changes, even the ones who aren’t magic users. They have more control over their animal side. The reason this is, is that they submerge themselves in their bear form for a week at a time, once a year. I actually have my bears hibernate, just like real wild bears would. This total submersion into their bear for an extended time gives werebears greater control than any other wers in the Yellow Sky universe, except those who were magic users before they became wers, or those who were born to wereparents. I’m even going to tell the story of one of the hibernations in a future book. No, it won’t be a sleeper.

I think that one of the reasons some authors, particularly romance authors, shy away from using bears, is that they see bears as big and fat, not something you want to see in a romance. Although wild bears do use a layer of fat to survive their hibernation, most of the time, bears are anything but fat, they are lean, muscular creatures at the top of their form. They are physical power personified. I bring that to the werebears in my writing. In their human forms they may be large imposing people, but they are not fat, they are muscular and powerful. They are still totally capable of being sexy and don’t mind proving it.

So stop in sometime and catch some of my bears in action. The main bears we see are Suzzy Goodberries, matriarch of the Bittertooth Bear Clan, J.P. Montgomery, head of security for the Coalition of Magical Creatures, and Jamie Thatcher, partner of Charles Colfax, a vampire, and member of the Yellow Sky coven. Jamie gets a lot more action than Suzzy or J.P., but who knows, we might see more of them in the future if my readers want it.

Werebears might not get the same attention, either in classic mythology and legends, or modern culture, as werewolves, but they still make interesting characters and can be a lot of fun. So amble on over and share a roar instead of a howl once in a while.

V is for Versatility

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When someone says versatility what do you think of? Do you think about an all-in-one tool? Do you think of someone who can adapt to almost any situation? Do you think of sex? Versatility can be all of these.

By our very nature, humans should be versatile in all things. We live in a very dynamic environment. We never know if things are going to be the same from day to day, even though we try very hard to make things consistent from day to day. People get into their grooves and don’t like to change. They like to keep to the same patterns, eat the same things, drive the same way to work, watch the same things on TV and generally never change anything they don’t have to. But when you change things up a bit it’s amazing how much extra energy you can find and how much more interesting life becomes.

People should become more versatile, it helps keep stress down. If you’re not afraid to get off the beaten path…well your beaten path, it helps you relax. If you’re afraid to try new routes and say there’s an accident on your way to work, you’re stuck in traffic and might be late for work. If you can be versatile and try a different route several things occur, one you might find something new and unexpected, you don’t have to sit there waiting for things to clear and you can avoid the stress of not being in control of the situation. Take control and be versatile.

Life gets better when you can more easily adapt to a situation and when you adapt without stress, it shows a certain level of versatility. Stop and look at things and ask yourself how you can do something a little different each day. Be like our world, be dynamic and versatile.

UFOs

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Go back to before recorded times, man has seen things in the sky that he could not explain. Sometimes those things were just clouds, other times they were vastly more material.

Some of the earliest Hindu text recount great battles between their Gods, that occurred with flying cities and flying objects. Many of these had beams of light that danced around between the combatants. Over the past century, archeological sites have been located in Asia that suggest the remains found there may have been exposed to nuclear weapons thousands of years before the human race developed the technology. Could this be coincidence in an area that has legends of deities battling in flying cities over the Earth?

Around the Mediterranean Sea, there are many tales of Gods and angels appearing to people, often out of a light beam from the sky. When you look at many of the religious artworks from the area, they show strange objects in the sky. We are now beginning to wonder if these objects may be extraterrestrial in origin. Then we also have things like the white horse of Dover in England that was constructed in the ancient past that can only be fully appreciated from the sky. There is more evidence of visitation in the ancient world that we could ever imagine, and that evidence continues right through to modern day.

Events like Roswell back in 1947 have occurred all over the world. Recently there have been a large number of sightings captured on video thanks to the proliferation of person video recording devices such as cell phones. Although there are a lot of hoaxes, there are enough that cannot be explained that we need to be questioning.

If we are being visited by alien life forms other than Justin Beiber, what does it mean? Are they here to help us? Are they here to harm us? Are they here to mate with us? These and many other questions abound around the topic of UFOs. Could it be that the major governments of the world have known about them for years and are keeping it secret for fear of upsetting the populace?

Do a bit of research on your own. Hit youtube, check out the many videos that are posted there and draw your own conclusions. Then watch the sky, see what strange and unusual things you might see up there. The truth is out there.

T is for Tal O’Duirwood

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Character Study

To the general public, Tal O’Duirwood is somewhat of an enigma. Seldom seen, his name is whispered with fear throughout most corners of the metaphysical world. He is the boogie man that werewolf mothers tell their children of to make them behave. As an enforcer for the Coalition of Magical Creatures, he has earned their fear by keeping the magical world from creeping out of the shadows and into the light of the mundane world. Tal likes the fact that the metaphysical public doesn’t know who he really is, and that his name is the source of terror around the world.

Very few people actually know the real Tal O’Duirwood. He holds onto his privacy with both hands. Those that he accepts into his life and into his secrets, find a friend the likes of which they could never hope to find again. He is loyal to his close friends and family and doesn’t accept betrayal easily. For nearly two thousand years, the most important thing to him was knowledge, particularly magical knowledge. He comes by his thirst for knowledge naturally. He got it from his mother, the dragon Oleta, the last pure dragon of England.

Tal was raised by his father Taliesin, a druid and one of the Merlin’s of Brittan. Tal was trained as a druid from before he was born. He didn’t discover his dragon heritage until his twenty-first birthday, when, at his father’s urging, he finally changed into a dragon. With his first transformation into his other form, Tal stopped aging. So now, although he is nearly two thousand years old, he appears to be in his early twenties.

Over his long life, Tal explored most of the known world, even venturing into places lost or forgotten to most people. His never-ending thirst for knowledge, combined with his personal quest to find other dragon’s has kept him going. When the Spanish first explored the New World, Tal took the opportunity to get out of Europe and see what there was to find. On the voyage across the Atlantic, he fell for a young noble named Estaben de’Oro. They set off by themselves as Tal sought to find some of the native magic users before the main body of the Conquistadors could. This proved disastrous for Estaben as they were attacked by vampires deep in the Amazon Jungle. Tal knew how to save the young noble’s life, but the Spaniard became a vampire. Tal had known the company of vampires before. They were long lived, like he was and made adequate companions.

Over the course of their journeys, Tal and Estaben came to the Colorado Rockies, where Tal found a place that the magics sung to him and he decided to call home. In the mountains Tal could be freer than he could in towns, although Estaben still had to feed on humans to sustain his life. The vampire eventually betrayed Tal by creating a companion of his own and the two vampires went on a bloody rampage across several western states. Being unable to bring himself to hunt them down, Tal retreated into his newly-built library and immersed himself into his studies, coming out from time to time to work with some of the native shamans, learning new magics.

Around 1900, as America was growing ever westward, Tal was found by a werewolf, William Sheffield, who was part of a new organization called the Coalition of Magical Creatures. William had followed rumors of Tal across the west, hoping to recruit him for the group that was going to unite the many factions of magical creatures under one organization. Tal was reluctant at first, but finally went to see what the Coalition had to offer. Over time he became their chief enforcer in the western United States.

Nearly a hundred years later he is called to Yellow Sky Texas where a witch named Geraldine, Geri, Beggay is dealing with a vampire problem in her small town. Her problem is named Steven Goldson, a man formerly known as Estaben de’Oro. Amongst Geri’s students is a man named Alex Carlson. Within moments of meeting the handsome mage, Tal feels their lives intertwine. After nearly two thousand years, the lone dragon had found a man to call his own.

Personal statistics.

Height : Human form : five feet, ten inches

Dragon form : seven feet five inches at the shoulder, twenty feet long

Weight: Human form: one hundred seventy five pounds

Dragon form : two thousand six hundred and fifty pounds.

Wing Span: Twenty five feet two inches.

Hair color : Black

Scale color : Black, after bonding with Alex his top most neck ridge along his head is now red.

Eye Color : sapphire blue

Follow Tal’s adventure in my Yellow Sky series.

Highlights:

His meeting with William Sheffield “The Wolf’s Proposition”

His first meeting with Alex Carlson “Blood Moon, Yellow Sky”

His bonding to Alex “Hearts Blood Fusion”

Coming soon the short story of Tal’s first flight “First Flight” appearing in “Here There be Dragons” from Wicked East publishing.

Also coming soon, the second Yellow Sky novel.

Shapeshiters

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Shapeshifters, often just called shifters in today’s vernacular, have been elements of myth and legend for as long as mankind has told tales. Long ago, Gods like Zeus could change their shape into many different things animal, vegetable and mineral. Many of the Native American Gods were shapeshifters, most notably Coyote, the Trickster God. In the Middle Ages shape changing was something that a lot of witches were rumored to do thanks to their knowledge of magic.

Today, in popular culture, we have a large number of shifters ranging from long-forgotten Gods, to love sick werewolves and strange alien life forms. It is unclear which tales were the true sparks for the current popularity in shifters, but today there are entire genres in literature devoted to them. A large majority of the paranormal works out there have shapeshifters of one form or another (pun intended) gracing their pages. Werewolves abound as do dragons, seals, otters, bears and other types of beasties. Most of the lycanthrope shifters are said to be suffering a curse, either from a witch’s spell or another lycanthrope’s bite. For a lot of people this curse and the angst it brings is part of what makes the werewolf, or other wer attractive. It makes them an underdog and gives them something to overcome.

Thanks to Bram Stoker, a number of sexy vampires as change into other things while moving about on their nightly hunt for blood. Vampires are often seen changing into bats, wolves, ravens or mist depending on the needs of the story. With vampires, the shapeshifting is part of the power and allure of the blood drinker. It helps add another element of mystery to the creature.

Magical shapeshifting is a lot like vampire shape changing. The witch, wizard, shaman or sorcerer uses magic to leave their human form behind. Sometimes it’s through a spell, sometimes it’s with a magic item, you can even find it as a wish being granted. Magical shapeshifting has been used for everything from flying to carry a message to changing into an animal to communicate with other animals of the same kind. A wizard who changes himself into a kitten and invades a maiden’s bed chamber is less likely to be rebuked than one that just strolls in.

Over time, space aliens have even gotten in on the shapeshifter band wagon. It gives them the power to pass for human even if their real form might be a plant, a giant bear beast or maybe a pool of jelly. An unknown life form transforming into a human shape makes people more receptive to them and in pop culture, makes them sexier.

Nowadays, shapeshifters aren’t the scary monsters they used to be in the past. Thanks to good spin agents, they are seen as tormented souls, lost and lonely, in need of someone to love them. The beastly side of them makes them sexy. No matter what your flavor of shifter is, there’s something out there for you to try.

I enjoy writing about shifters and more than a few can be found in my Yellow Sky stories and my E.S. Peters Investigations books. Monday’s blog will be a character study of one of them, Tal O’Duirwood. Stop by and check it out.