What next?

[Talo Segura]

My first novella, Milo, ends this week with the publication of the final chapter. If you have read it, let me know what you thought, email or comment here, feedback is always welcome if you can spare a moment. You might like to know that Milo is available as an ebook, you can download a free copy here: https://the-gay-fiction-library.site123.me/milo-ebook

What's next? My second novella titled Revealed is currently in the final edit and should be ready to post soon. This is a different story and here is a little extract:

Tom didn't say anything. It looked to Arran like he was weighing things up. He knew it was a good plan, he hoped Tom would agree.

"Okay, it sounds good."

"And you don't have a problem with being the life model?"

Tom hesitated a moment. "Why would I?"

"Because you'd be posing nude."

That's when the realisation struck. He'd been swept up by Arran’s description of his idea. But, of course, it was True Life, a nude. "You mean I should be naked in front of a room full of students? Girls and boys?" Tom looked aghast. 

Arran grinned. "Well, maybe not totally nude." 

"Oh what? I get a loin cloth?" 

"No, but you are perfect for the role." 

"Ah, wait a minute. You just said no. I don't get a loin cloth." 

"No. I mean, yes." Arran blushed. "I thought we could use a contrast of life portraits interposed with a stark industrial landscape. So you get some props, because it's the background introduced in the class sessions."

"No, no, I'm still naked, with or without props. Why don't you be the model?" Tom started pacing the room.

"Because it wouldn't work. I'm good at graphics. I'll sketch in the background. But you are the portrait genius and besides..."

"Besides what?" Tom grumbled.

"The contrast." Arran tried to explain.

"The contrast?" Tom repeated.

"The stark industrial background against which the beauty of the life figure emerges." 

Arran looked away.

There was another silence. 

"I don't know if I could do it," Tom finally said.

 

There are small secrets and big ones, those revealed by chance and those revealed on purpose, in part or in whole. Then there are the secrets you keep from yourself, the ones that surprise and threaten. The ones that may change or destroy you. 

Arran is studying art, he has a girlfriend and a best friend, his parents are separated, but life is fine. Until an art project pairs him with Tom. What is it that intrigues him and pushes him towards something that will change everything.

Revelations pile upon revelations until everything is revealed and the final realisation is a shock that might be difficult to admit and change irrevocably how you see the world.

 

I'm hoping you will stick around to read and comment on this second short book, I believe it is often said the second book is the hardest to write. I don't know if that is true, so I will really need to hear some feedback, good or bad. Now for the future, it's a little more cloudy, I have an unfinished book, one which is at least halfway through and has been received favourably by my beta reader, but I'm not sure his comments are enough to inspire me to finish it. Maybe, it's potentially a good story. Then there is another book I started as a sort of challenge, a fantasy, and inbetween those I wrote a short story for a picture based writing challenge which is due in September. 

I thought it a good idea to tell you what is happening on the writing front, because from the page view numbers it would seem I have some readers here, and that is very encouraging - even if you are a quiet lot...