" 🌈 Happy Non-Binary Parents Day! From navigating parenthood to challenging traditional norms, we're celebrating the unique experiences of non-binary folks who parent children. 💗 "
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Going to be on a panel about writing sapphic fiction as a trans and/or non-binary person, and trying to think up some questions for the moderator. Anyone got any ideas?
#TransWriters #SapphicFiction #NonbinaryWriters #trans #nonbinary
Starting soon! Other fun and free events going on all day.
#ScienceFiction #SciFiBooks #FantasyBooks #WomenWriters #NonbinaryWriters #AuthorEvent
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/holiday-extravaganza-tickets-748828435007
(A fairly spoilery moment in Milo's character development, but I feel like sharing it anyway. He's an Episcopal priest and a living saint according to all who know him, who falls in love with and tries to heal a traumatized, rough-around-the-edges ghost-whisperer, and accidentally uncovers his own trauma in the process. Here he's having a sort of flashback review of childhood family dinners growing up in a traditionalist Catholic household. It's worth noting that, to this day, Milo talks to God and hears God talk back. [This excerpt, I think, kind of works as a response to #PennedPossibilities 27—how does your MC self-soothe?])
They are screaming at each other again. I wish I could make them stop.
At least they are not screaming at me.
They hardly ever look at me at all.
Divine Mercy. The Lord looks at me always, from the painting on the kitchen wall, with his big, beautiful eyes. He is so quiet and kind. He listens. He never, ever screams.
Stay quiet. Don't draw their attention out of turn.
Stay kind, so they can’t bring themselves to hurt you.
When they speak to you, listen attentively. Eyes on them. Nod so they know you are a good boy and you are listening.
Eyes on them. Learn to notice the signs they are going to erupt. Submit. Appease. Make a joke. Disarm. Head off danger at the pass.
Getting tall…don’t stand too tall. Don’t give them a reason to fear you.
Stay their small, sweet, godly boy so they’ll never be angry at you.
Something wrong? Fix it. Hurry. Before they notice. You are smart and resourceful and can fix it before they notice.
You are getting older, wiser. Sometimes they listen now. Mediate. Support. Harmonize. Hold the moral high ground.
Keep the peace. Keep the peace. Keep the peace.
…And maybe, just maybe, if you are good enough and patient enough for long enough, and never ever ask anything for yourself, they will repent and heal and turn toward you and you will finally have a family.
You are strong. You can bear this burden.
...Too deprived. Too disappointed. Too little. Too much.
Surrender your desires to the Lord.
You are my beloved child, in whom I am well pleased. Your reward is in heaven and not of this world.
God is with me. Nothing hurts me anymore.
I can take on the pain of the world. I was born for it.
Milo wants nothing.
Milo needs nothing.
Milo is but a vessel of Divine Mercy.
Milo doesn’t exist.
#writing #WritingCommunity #GayRomance #MMRomance #mm #mmr #nonbinary #NonbinaryWriters #NonbinaryRomance #QueerRomance #LGBTQromance #LGBTQbooks #LGBTQwriters #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA #UrbanFantasy #AmWriting #cozy #plural #infj #hsp #ND #CPTSD #ReligiousTrauma #queer #WIP #romance #QueerJoy #mlm
(Reclusive ghost whisperer Seymour is crashing with his new colleague, recently ordained Episcopal priest and unconventional exorcist Milo, until the two of them can find a way to neutralize a demonic presence that's taken over Seymour's house. Despite Seymour's trademark misanthropy, an awkward little friendship is starting to bloom.)
I catch him looking at me again. Not at my eyes, for once. “Okay...do I, uh…have something on me or…?”
Milo’s eyes widen. “I’m so sorry, no…I keep looking at your hair.”
“My hair…?”
“I guess you could say I’m neurodivergent in some unspecified way and sometimes I become preoccupied with things.”
“…Like my hair?”
“It’s pretty. It’s very dark and shiny and I like the way the cut frames your face and kind of swoops over your eye and conforms to the shape of your head in the back.”
“Oh. Uh…thank you…?”
“I’m sorry if it makes you uncomfortable. I have to remind myself it’s unsettling for people if you stare at them. Because personally I never mind it. In fact I think it’s strange that most people seem afraid to look at each other. Anyway…I like your hair. But I’ll try harder not to stare at it.”
“It’s okay,” I hear myself saying.
He blinks. “…Is it?”
“I mean…it’s not a big deal or anything.”
“No, I know it’s weird. I was bad about it when I was younger and people really didn’t like it.”
“I don’t, uh…I don’t really mind.”
“…Really?”
“Yeah. It’s fine.”
We lapse into silence for a moment. He’s still stealing glances at me, but seems even shyer now, despite the permission—keeps looking away when our eyes meet.
“Do you…like having your hair brushed?” he asks out of the blue.
“Uh…I guess? Are you…you saying…you want to…?”
“I think it might get it out of my system. But I know that’s weird, so it’s completely okay if you’d rather I didn’t.”
“…You want to brush my hair.”
His fingers flutter against his knee. “I feel like it might resolve the fixation. But it’s totally okay if you don’t want me to. Actually, no—I’m sorry I asked. It puts you on the spot, doesn’t it? No, no—it’s okay.” He closes his eyes; lays his hand on his chest as it rises and falls in a soft, slow breath: “I can manage this myself…”
“Um…I guess you can brush it,” I hear myself say.
His eyes spring open, rounder than I’ve ever seen them. “Are you sure?”
“I mean…somebody’s gotta do it. If you don’t, I’ll just have to do it myself at some point.”
He giggles. “Um…okay. Thank you.”
“You’re…welcome?”
He pops up. “I have a really nice brush my hairstylist recommended. Let me go get it.”
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The answer to 19 is short, so throwing 2 in there also, on my quest to get caught up!
19. Fun fact: Milo played center for his Catholic high school boys' varsity hockey team. (Probably the whole extent of the physical violence he's committed in his life.) Seymour has never played sports but is addicted to video games, especially CRPGs.
2. Seymour hasn't done much in the way of taking meaningful risks yet in his life. He has a history of taking certain habitual risks to distract himself: excessive alcohol consumption, risky sex...taunting angry ghosts. (The latter's actually a bit more on the meaningful side, since he's doing it to help the ghosts, but still not a deeply radical risk for someone who habitually disregards his own physical safety as a way of dissociating.)
Milo is intimate with the reality of impermanence and takes meaningful risks as a way of life, including being radically emotionally honest, connecting empathically to traumatized people, and trying to rehabilitate demons instead of sending them to hell. That said, there are risks he hasn't yet considered taking—such as seeking fulfillment for personal desires he pushed out of mind a long time ago.
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(Might do one extra #PennedPossibilities each day till I've caught up on the ones I find most inspiring—because some of these are really good!)
I think when his story begins Seymour has a latent conviction that he's going to kill himself one day. It's his worst fear and the reason he keeps his life so closed off—so many things trigger him, and suicide's a very real possible consequence whenever he gets triggered. His best hope if he avoids that fate—so he believes—is growing old alone with the stray cats he feeds and his ghost pals who live in his house with him (between intermittent forays into toxic relationships).
Milo doesn't put a lot of stock in destiny; he's a mystic, and to him God represents a timeless present moment in which all things are possible, so in his mind the future's never fixed. That said, his belief in big dreams and fresh starts usually finds its application sparking hope in others who need it, and Milo's never imagined much for himself beyond a life of contemplation and social service.
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#PennedPossibilities 18 (Hi! I'm seeing this hashtag floating around...could someone please tell me where the prompts are coming from? 🙏 )
SEYMOUR: That's a personal fucking question. I...guess you could say I've let go of everything I ever loved or wanted. Not because I had to. Because I just don't have it in me to hold on. Good things never stay, right? So I get out ahead of the bullshit. As soon as they go hot, I go cold. (That's right, I'm a serial ghoster. And yes, as a professional ghost-whisperer, I get the irony.)
MILO: Something I had to let go of was the Catholic Church...and with it, all the moral high ground I had with my parents. They used to be so proud of me for following my calling to become a priest. Now I'm finally ordained, but because it's in the Episcopal Church and not the Catholic Church, to them I'm just a "lapsed Catholic." But for me it wasn't a choice. I wasn't going to stay part of any institution that wouldn't be welcoming to my trans sister.
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#WritingWonders Day 23!
The two most prominent secondary characters in #TakeOnMe (fuggit, going ahead and dropping the title just for y'all here on Mastodon 💛) are Seymour's stepsister Claire and God. (Yes, THE God...or I should say Milo's personal version of them.)
CLAIRE: Have I ever wanted to smack Seymour or Milo...? No! Jeez. What kind of friggin' question is that? You'd have to be a stone-cold sociopath to want to smack Milo. And Seymour—dude. No. I've never wanted to smack him either. ...Well. I mean. Okay...maybe just a /teensy/ bit that time he said he didn't like my baby. And also that one time when he...you know what, fine. Maybe there have been more than a few times I would've kinda liked to pop him one. But, jeez...he's such a friggin' sad boi. His dad dropped dead in front of him when he was just a kid, his mom abandoned him right after that...and then his grandma got cancer and he ended up out in the world on his own as a teenager. He's seriously been through a lot. I dunno...I just think he's actually a secret sweetie beneath those lil' hedgehog quills of his, you know what I mean? I'm gonna get him to roll over and show that soft underbelly someday...
GOD: Have I ever wanted to smack Milo or Seymour? [laughter that chimes like a zephyr and tickles like birdsong] Not at all. Have you ever seen them? They're just little human beans. So cute!
As for Milo and Seymour themselves, any smacking that may occur between them will be purely recreational, and likely confined to the posterior region. 😇
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Just a handful of quick #WritingWonders answers for this month to get caught up! (Hi, gang! 👋 I missed y'all and hope y'all are well. I'll probably participate only sporadically till this #WIP is finished.)
My new WIP is a #queer supernatural mystery #romance codenamed #SeymourAndMilo (because I haven't made an official title announcement yet). The image is a crop of the in-progress book cover I've been working on, just so you can see what the protagonists look like (left: Seymour, right: Milo).
Day 1: If one of the protags showed up on my doorstep? I'd squint warily through my peephole like a true Millennial, then think to myself: "Oh my God, what is this [hot goth guy/hot priest (depending which one it is)] doing at my door???"
Day 2: Most readers will probably adore Milo from the start. Seymour's a prickly burr, but if folks stick with him they'll quickly learn he's all squish underneath.
Day 5: Seymour has been involved in a pretty significant (meta)physical altercation in the past. (We don't talk about it.)
Day 6: MILO: [can't think of anything that makes him /angry/-angry...maybe the U.S. mental health care system?] SEYMOUR: "Are you looking for a fucking monologue?"
Day 10: Weapon of choice? SEYMOUR: "My hands. But...not in the way you think." MILO: "My height and extraordinary chill. And, of course, the power of luv 🥺"
Day 15: Intimacy scenes? It's a romance. In a word: Yes.
Day 16: I'm good at and enjoy writing intimacy scenes. They can be a little awkward to share, of course, depending on the audience.
Day 17: SEYMOUR: "My ex-girlfriend, Lottie." MILO: "I give a lot of hugs, so I'm really not sure who the last person I hugged was...but I've never kissed anyone."
Day 19: Support the status quo? Hell, no. Seymour and Milo are both rebels in their own ways. (Seymour go smash; Milo gently expose the uncomfortable emotional truth that make you That Way.)
Day 21: Seymour's only a few months sober and drinks way too much coffee. Milo favors chamomile tea.
Day 22: Seymour doesn't have a friend group. Milo...doesn't either? Milo has a parish (and maintains good relationships with others in helping professions in Beacon Bay Isle and the surrounding townships). And no, Milo never causes drama in his parish...aside from pissing off the senior rector, usually by "going off script" when it's his day to give the homily.
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Artun Faliro
🧙🏾♂️DJ Small🧙🏾♂️
Sarena Ulibarri
em writing queer myth ⛲️