I Have a BLOG???

Yes. I suck. And not in a good way. I’ve been on a bit of a social media hiatus. I’ve repossessed all my solo books except one category length ( if you haven’t read Light a Candle yet, WHY NOT? 😢), and two shorts, (C’mon. EVERYONE likes a porny Santa and a sexy drag queen!). I have stuff “in the works” (by which I mean I have a bunch of outlines, partial outlines, and grandiose ideas that are gathering dust), and I really haven’t felt much like an author.

And, God help me, I’ve been in school. Grad classes. Kill. Me. NOW.

But.

I’m starting to seriously tinker with my parts of Masks: Shadows & Kink, book 2, and I know Lex is looking at hers, too. And I’m seriously looking at a collaboration with a new partner; one I’m pretty excited about, when I’m not overwhelmed with school work. (Five assignments this week. FIVE. And that doesn’t count the three chapters and six articles worth of reading!)

Anyway.

I’m trying to get my author on, so just maybe I can manage to get something out before 2020!

In the meantime – I have this awesome picture of Gandalf with his fauxhawk, and #1 Sis says with the right caption, it could go viral. Clearly *I* have nada in the creativity department going on, so I thought I’d toss it out to the peanut gallery.

Send me your meme via email to vj.summers@yahoo.com. I’ll put my favorites  (I wanna say 5, but I’m not sure if 5 people will even read this 😢) and have a vote. The winner will get their choice of either an e-copy of my naughty December 26th story Santa Claus is Coming or a character named after them in my next book.

I’m on my way Up North to get my Bliss on, and I’ll be coming back to an avalanche of home work, so let’s say I’ll post the pics for voting Monday, and the winner next Friday.

And here he is… My bee-you-ti-full boy!

Do your worst!

F*L*A*S*H Sale on ARe!

Today only all eXtasy Books are 25% off on ARe!

Check out my eXtasy titles:

They are all available at eXtasy Books, of course, and you can find these – and all my other stuff – on ARe, B&N, and kindle at these links:

https://www.allromanceebooks.com/storeSearch.html?searchBy=author&qString=VJ+Summers

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_ebooks_1?ie=UTF8&text=VJ+Summers&search-alias=digital-text&field-author=VJ+Summers&sort=relevancerank

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/mobile/s/vj+summers?_requestid=297075

 

Three Degrees of Snark

So, this post is later than usual because I was determined to use snark from my antho with Stephanie Hecht and Jackie Nacht, Three Degrees of Heat. But, honestly, my contribution might just rival Amy Lane for Angst & Pain, and there wasn’t much snark to be found. So, instead I’m giving you a bit of my favorite scene in my novella – as a way to help Scotty, the badly abused Omega, begin to recover both physically and emotionally, Axe, Leash Beta, has him shift and takes him out to… play. This was fun to write, and I hope will be fun to read. It isn’t snark, but it’s got the seeds of joy that might just one day allow Scott to let loose his inner snark and give poor Axe a run for his money!

Axe was hard by nature, not cruel, but objective. He had to be, in his role as Enforcer. Axe, the man, was a hardass, but something about Scotty called to the gentleness he hadn’t known he possessed.

Axe, the fox, was another beast altogether. His fox wasn’t burdened with the responsibilities and duties that Axe shouldered as Leash Beta. Axe’s fox had the luxury to be playful, and he was.

Tonight, he turned the full force of that playfulness on the younger, smaller, more vulnerable fox who followed him gingerly as he wound through the trees.
Axe zigged. Then he zagged. He slunk around from behind and nipped the Omega lightly on his flank.
Scotty responded beautifully, giving a little yelp and practically levitating. Axe, having a fine old time, scuttled around him, catching the golden fox’s tail and giving it a tug.

Scotty’s amber-green eyes narrowed, and he cocked his head as he studied Axe as if he were an intriguing—and somewhat scary, as that tiny germ of fear was still in his pretty eyes—puzzle that he had no choice but to solve.

Axe crouched in front of the Omega, his own tail waving like a plume. He would swear he felt the moment the younger fox gave in like a physical touch. All at once, the red-gold fox bared his teeth in what was clearly a playful snarl, and leapt at Axe, barreling into his side in a lunge that would have flattened the Beta if Scotty had had any weight to him. As it was, Axe let himself tumble and roll, coming up facing Scotty and returning the movement. The Omega made a sharp noise, and the game began.

Remember, you can get Three Degrees of Heat at eXtasy Books, HERE.

And hear the terribly brave Wt Prater and Co interview Steph, Jackie and me on W.O.N.’s podcast from last Monday HERE.

Three Degrees of Heat Throwback

It’s been, unbelievably, a good two years since the Three Degrees anthology came out! I learned a ton working w Stephani Hecht and Jackie Nacht, and came to deeply love the world and characters. I like to imagine Axe and Scotty working through Scotty’s issues, and eventually arriving at a place where their Domination and submission is as much a joy for them both as a refuge. It might not happen “on the page”, but I know it will happen.

I’m throwing back to Three Degrees rather than continuing my passive aggressive campaign against 50 Shades of Domestic Violence*, is because Steph, Jackie and I had the great fun of guesting with WT Prater and Jennifer McFarland on Writers Online Network’s blogcast. Listen to it HERE:

It was a new experience for me, and lots of fun – to reconnect with WT, Steph and Jackie, and to get to know Jennifer… An honor and truly a pleasure!

 

You can find Three Degrees of Heat Here:  at eXtasy Books. Stay tuned Saturday for some Three Degrees snark!

* NOTE: Because when he rescues Scott, the Omega is in a precarious mental state due to his abus at the hands of his sociopathic former Alpha, Axe puts him under a pretty heavy submission 24/7, until Scott comes enough out of his fear to be functional on his own and begin to re-enter society… This is a contrast to Christian Grey, who systematically breaks Ana down, isolates her from everyone but him, and is inconsistent enough to give the most steady, calm person alive an anxiety disorder.

Saturday Snark – no really, there’s snark this time!

So, I’m going with a bit of a theme this week. New Years Day, many, many moons ago, Sierra and I signed the contract for Carrie’s Answer. Cue the confetti and champagne. Here is a bit of snark from Marcus (our sexy, Domly, NOT CHRISTIAN GRAY hero) and Daniel, his best friend, as they cruise the available… entertainment at Club Velvet Ice. Daniel, a VERY bad boy, encounters a blast from the past he’d prefer to forget…

“Heeey, Daniel.” A musical male voice spoke from a few feet away. “Long time no see.”

Marcus hid his smile as a perky couple approached the booth. Daniel slid closer to Marcus.

“I’ve been busy.” He didn’t look up from his drink.

Marcus held back his laughter. It was rare to see the smooth Daniel Ellis squirm, but this preppie-swinger-wannabe couple managed it easily.
This time the petite, redheaded female half of the couple spoke. “John and I were hoping to run into you again.”
Daniel looked relaxed. Only Marcus noticed the small lines of tension around his blue eyes.

“John, Susan, I told you the last time was really the last time.” Daniel was being cold and abrupt, entirely unlike his usual suave self.
Amusing as the situation was, he supposed it was time to come to his best friend’s aid. It would serve the arrogant bastard right if Marcus got up and left his ass alone.

Sending him a wicked smile, Marcus slid his hand across the table, covering Daniel’s fingers with his own. The couple, whom Marcus had privately dubbed “Bondage Barbie and Ken”, stared at Marcus for a brief moment before flicking their gazes back to Daniel.

Daniel grabbed the gesture–and Marcus’ hand–like the lifeline they were, flipping his own hand up to wrap around Marcus’ fingers.

“Besides,” Daniel added, finally looking up at the couple. “My schedule is pretty full.”

Only Marcus saw the relief in Daniel’s sultry smile.

The couple colored, murmured their goodbyes and turned, trying to hide their embarrassment. They left the room without looking back.

Marcus laughed at Daniel’s scowl. “What’s wrong, Danny-boy? Break another couple’s hearts?”

Daniel caught the bartender’s attention and signaled for another round.

“Broke their hearts? Let me tell you about John and Susan. She’s fucking the pool boy, and so is he. Neither of them bothered to inform the other. I found out and disengaged myself from the situation.”

Marcus barked out a laugh as Daniel continued. “I don’t know who was more broken-hearted, John, Sue or the pool boy. He hit on me too, and I let it slip when I informed them that I wasn’t going to see them again. It was a nice two weeks but, damn, it’s been over three years now. I am not traveling down that road again.”

“Well.” Marcus smirked. “You’ve gotta give them points for being persistent.”

Now, your snark doesn’t need to be nearly this long… Mine usually won’t be. It just needs to be fun and obnoxious.  And, because you waded through the snark, here’s another pretty man!

Saturday Snark – or, turning over a new leaf…

So, a couple weeks ago I mentioned that I wanted to start blogging regularly, and more effectively. So, I came up with a plan! Three days a week you should hear from me: On Mondays for MONDAY MANCANDY (oh, yeah, baby – I gots it by the fuck-ton!), Thursdays for THURSDAY THROWBACK, wherein I will share the history of Violet Summers/VJ Summers through books, haiku, and occasional song. I apologize in advance. And, maybe my favorite of all: SATURDAY SNARK. I got this idea from Marie Sexton, who did it for quite a while a couple of years ago, and pretty soon a bunch of us joined in via a linkety at the bottom of her posts. I have NO IDEA how to set a linkety, so I’ll just invite anyone with awesome snark to post it in the comments. Also, because I’m incredibly snarky in real life, but it doesn’t always translate into my writing, I’m going to invite author friends to contribute. So, while the first few might be all me, hopefully we’ll get some awesome snark from some awesome authors. (Mercy Celeste, in Crazy from the Heat, wrote some of the best I’ve ever read. As did K.A. Mitchell in Bad Boyfriend.)

So, here’s a sexy boy, then on to the snark!

The Fabulous Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia

First, a HUGE shout out to the folks at The Day Against Homophobia – you can find them HERE.

Another HUGE shout out to the organizers of the Annual Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia – this was a ginormous undertaking and you can find them HERE.

As a participant I’ll be giving away the winner’s choice of EITHER Santa Claus is Coming (available from eXtasy Books), OR the sequel (tentatively called) Toy Testing in Santa’s Workshop (slated to come from eXtasy in late July – hot off the presses to the winner – blurb to come this week!) To win, you must comment on today’s post HERE on the blog. (There are two more planned posts this week – if my guest posters get off their heineies -coff, AUBRY,coff- and send me stuff!) Winners will be chosen on the 24th from comments on today’s  post, though feel free to comment on anything related that finds its way onto my blog between now and then.)

I generally approach this Hop as a teacher – now a former teacher – and I believe with all my heart that the best and surest way we will ever eradicate both homophobia and transphobia is by educating our kids. In the past I’ve written about my students. This year I’m going to let parent speak for me. My very dear friend has a son who is roughly the size of a mountain, and who is gay. He’s grown now, and I HOPE living a fabulous life with people who love and accept him as he is, but high school for him? Not such a wonderful place. Here’s one family’s experience – it has a happy ending, in the “Shakespeare” definition of happy endings: No one died. But, God. We should want so much more than that for our kids.

My son is gay.

 

And I don’t mean happy. He’s seldom happy, but I think that’s standard issue for young people today.

 

In high school it was worse. My son is extremely strong-willed. He’s never been afraid to tell anyone the truth, and that included his sexual orientation. And high school kids are bastards on the whole. They will say or do anything, no matter how heinous, to hurt the kids who are different.

 

So my son became a target.

 

Now, my son isn’t a small guy. In the 8th grade, he could have picked me up and set me on the kitchen counter. By his freshman year he was 6’1″ and pushing 300 lbs.

 

You might think this would work in his favor, but it didn’t. It made his teachers less willing to help him.

 

“He’s a big boy,” they would say.

“He can take care of himself,” they would say.

 

Until he actually DID defend himself.

 

Then all I heard was, “He can’t fight in school; we’ll expel him.”

 

This went on for a couple of school years. The first half of the year, he was bullied because “he could take care of himself”.

 

We’d have meetings.

 

Then, the second half of the year, he’d defend himself.

 

And we’d have more meetings. Suspensions. Threats of expulsion.

 

By his junior year I was fed up. I told his Vice Principal that either they would protect my son, or he would protect himself and I would find a lawyer willing to destroy a school district.

 

All this helped. For a couple of months. Then it started back up.

 

“The teachers don’t have time to follow your son around.”

“If they didn’t see it, they can’t do anything about it.”

“We can’t be everywhere.”

“Can’t he deal with this himself?”

 

Things came to a head halfway through his junior year. We got a call from the school. My son had been to the school counselor, talking about suicide.

 

I guess that’s the magic word in a public school.

 

It’s okay when a student gets relentlessly picked on, teased, and bullied. That’s just “part of being a teen these days”. But a suicide threat? Oh, heaven forbid! That kind of thing could bring bad press to a school district.

 

Now everyone wanted to get involved, but by that point nothing they could do could help my son be comfortable or happy at that school.

 

So, he packed up his possessions and moved to Kentucky, thinking that with a new school and a new start, he could get through.

 

Not a chance.

 

As I mentioned earlier, kids can be bastards. And school officials often don’t care as long as it doesn’t affect them personally.

 

I thank God often that my son chose to drop out of high school and get his GED rather than commit suicide, but I find it so sad that it had to come to that. That our children can’t be kept safe in the schools that we all pay for, even as we’re told that “they are doing all they can”. [VJ’s addition: Yes. All they can. While Administration talks and talks and produces, in another Shakespeare moment, “sound and fury, signifying NOTHING” for these desperate kids.] I’m here to tell you that they aren’t. There are teachers who care, but they seem to be getting fewer and farther between by the year. [VJ’s addition: Yeah, it’s incredibly demoralizing to have your hands utterly tied in the face of the bullying we see but are allowed to do nothing but give warnings and write referrals that are never acted on…]

 

My son is happier these days, but his high school years still effect many things in his life.

 

Work.

Friends.

College.

 

He is always waiting for the next bully to show up, the next person to yell “fag”, or “homo”, or worse. Because it’s inevitable. Because so many parents can’t be bothered to teach their kids right ffrom wrong, and their kids grow up to be just as big of bastards as adults.

 

My son is a high school drop out, but he’s ALIVE, and working toward happiness and learning to deal with life as it comes.

WINNERS! But, yeah, I’m late again…

First – Happiness is a good review for your pervy Santa story! Check out what MM Good Book Reviews had to say about Santa Claus is Coming, HERE!

I haven’t finished my Top 10 New To Me Books/Authors of 2013 list – I stopped at #7 for a reason, though… And will finish it in the next blog post, which will hopefully be in the next couple of days…

Worse, I NEED to announce my Birthday Winner! Holy Crap! I can’t even make an excuse other than my laptop, circa 2005, keeps freezing, and I’m too lazy to crawl into the writing cave and use the big desktop… I suck.

So – Old Dude, in his totally OBJECTIVE way (::snorts::), did indeed choose a winner – JIM! Because, “Hey, that’s a guy’s name! You have a guy reading your blog!” (::snorts more::)

Okay, Jim, so better late than never?

It’s My Birthday!

And, cuz it’s SO much more fun to give than to receive, first, here’s an Instant Gratification present!

He’s pretty, but I think he got into my cake!

Now for the OTHER prezzy. So, when I was fifteen and was ordering my class ring, a boy I kinda liked told me I should definitely not get a silver ring because, “You were born to wear gold.” Yeah. I know. ::snort:: I, of course recounted this to my mom and, every year after that on my birthday – until the last several when she’s been unable to – she bought me a gold charm for a charm bracelet. Each charm had special meaning, and I cherish it with all my heart.

So, to win your choice of either Birthday Licks, my m/m BDSM birthday spanking Quickie, Santa Clause is Coming, my pervy Santa and the drag queen story OR Something to Talk About, the m/m/f menage Sierra and I have at Amazon and ARe (on sale for $1.49 at Amazon through the New Year!), leave me a comment telling me about your best OR worst birthday present or memory. Winner will be randomly chosen by Old Dude (who will likely close his eyes and point, cuz that’s how he rolls!). (Click on book titles for blurbs, excerpts and buy links!)

 

On The Twelfth Day of Christmas…

…my true love gave to me:

The Twelve Gays of Christmas

(The original…A true classic…I just wish I could find a better quality version of it…)

(Cute, in a very OneD, I wanna watch him make out with another pretty boy sort of way. And that is one DOCILE cat!)

(I can’t decide if this is filthy or funny or both… I think it’s the uniforms that does it for me!)

 

Eleven Sexy Santas!

   Ten Tighty-Whiteys

   

        Nine Naughty Nappers

Eight Edible Abs

 

Seven Leather Daddies

(Again, this bottom – heh, heh – pic? One of my FAVORITE EVER.)

Six Beautiful Boys into Bondage

  Five Guys with Chocolate

Four Oddly Disturbing Novelty Condoms

Three Cool Plot Devices

A Grumpy Santa, A Smokin’ Drag Queen, and a new definition of Relaxing Massage, all wrapped up in my new release!

Available HERE at eXtasy Books!

(And a bonus “3” BDSM Quickies: Birthday Licks, Hard Limits and Melting, which you can find at Ellora’s Cave by clicking on the titles).

Two more pretty boys kissing

And a Tequila Rose Fizzy (Which I already make, only minus the OJ, and with Cranberry Diet Ginger Ale – and it is YUM!!)