Ah, today’s weather is fantastic and the Borking Potato was up with the birds this morning. Mind you, he went to the bathroom and then went right back to bed but… he was awake!
It’s been a busy morning here in The Cabin. Auntie Paige came by and the Potato went out for a MIGHTY bork. He told quite a few people what he thought of them and then… he came back to discover the landscapers had been next door….
And MOWED the freshly irrigated lawn.
Much rolling apparently happened and if you look closely at his at home picture, notice the Potato’s feet. It’ll come off pretty easily but… oh he was so smug and happy when he came home.
Tengu the Firebird has been towed down to the Automotive Spa for cleaning up and a new battery. His Uncle Bryan will be driving him around for a few days to get him all lubed up and road-happy again. I will be released from my tubal prison on Oct 4th so I’m looking forward to being behind the wheel again. Zoom Zoom.
From his Auntie Paige: Green Gus! I noticed his green paws weren’t as green by the time I left. So he won’t be as ready for St. Patrick’s Day as I thought. 🙂
If you are attending GayRomLit in October, please be sure to hunt me down and get a duck for the Decorate Your Rubber Duckie contest. Cashy Money for prizes… okay gift certificates and your own custom duckie! Limited amount of ducks will be brought so please be sure to hit me up for one early on!
I didn’t forget so much as I couldn’t remember to do it. HAH!
The Borking Potato went out on Wednesday and it’s always funny when he’s gearing up to go out. He hates being woken up. Hates getting dressed. Pouts for a bit and then when his Auntie gets here, he stares at her for a little bit. THEN needs to sort of be cajoled to her, because he loves that attention as if to say, I GUESS I’ll go for a bork with you because you obviously need it.
BUT if you talk to Auntie Paige and delay the bork, we get scolded. Very sharply. In no uncertain terms, we are told to shush and let him be about his business.
And then when he comes back, he’s like a puppy who fell into a pile of treats. And he’s very happy. And very tired.
But so so happy.
From his Auntie Paige I love this photo because Gus and I ate matchy matchy with our purples and blues. 🙂 Hopefully he doesn’t get sore today.
Have a good day! Thank you so much for having me as your Walker!
The Potato was eager to go out and probably overdid it because he’s got a slight limp to his front right paw. As soon as he lets me, I’ll investigate his pad to see if he has something in it. It might even just be a small mat of fur. Or he stepped on something wrong.
Apparently there were many people to bork at and he stopped at every lawn to roll in. Because of course he did. Now he’s home and asleep on the floor instead of on one of the trillion beds he has throughout the house.
From his Auntie Paige: I got a dramatic shot of Gus in front of the sun and barking to the world! 🙂 I am sorry though that he came back with a limp. He tried running most of the way to the stop sign and back and I tried to curb the running.
Well, I totally forgot to post Monday’s Borking Report, that’s on me. Totally on me. But I counter that with there was a lot going on what with surgeries and meds and then all of the other stuff but the Potato DID go borking.
He also went today.
The Cairn Terrorist is MUCH more bossy with Auntie Paige. Very very bossy. Borking has become even MORE serious and should be taken at a hard run… which he knows he should not be doing. But then how do you stop a furry tank when he’s got the power set to 11 and the stubborn set to 12?
There was MUCH borking and he came back home, happy and borked out, confident the street was safe now he’d done his round of protection spell casting.
From his Auntie Paige: Gus had a mighty Bork right after this picture was taken. He was staring down a dastardly crow who paid him no mind. 🙂 Otherwise he had a lovely roll in your neighbor’s grass.
I wanted to do something cool with these because you know, if you’re going to get 400 pages of short stories, it should have something fun about it… and so I’ve gone Classic with a “Flip Book Paperback” combining both works! AND as an extra bonus, I’ve included Cole and Jae’s Wedding Story as well!
Release Date is Sept 13th! And I will be bringing some to GRL so if you’re going, track me down at the convention!
WHOOOO HOOOO! I am so very happy to bring this to you!
‘Nother Sip of Gin For Crossroads Gin rock stars Miki, Damien, Rafe, and Forest, life is a Möbius strip of music, mayhem, and murder. Through it all, the sweet, hot moments between tours with lovers, friends, and family keep them sane, healthy, and happy. This Sinners collection features short stories spanning the entire series, from before the first note to after the lights go out.
Dirty Bites Danger. Desire. Loss. Love.
In every story, there are a thousand more bound up and waiting to be told; here are just a few from the Cole McGinnis Mysteries.
As a heartfelt thank you to the readers who fell in love with Cole McGinnis, Kim Jae-Min and the rest of the cast, Rhys Ford takes us on an adventure in this collection of stories and vignettes. In this ebook and audiobook set, Jae shares his heart as he learns to see, to love, and to accept Cole and the way life changes, sisters of the heart look on the boys they love, and key players in Cole’s life are interviewed about the man who brings mayhem and love into their world. This collection features special notes from Rhys Ford as well as Greg Tremblay, the narrator of the series, previously shared stories from blog tours, holiday posts, and spotlights, a story written exclusively for the celebratory collection, and an invitation to Cole and Jae’s wedding.
So, sit back and enjoy a taste of Cole, Jae and everyone else in Dirty Bites, a Cole McGinnis Special Collection.
It’s been a long week here with a variety of ups and downs. The biggest down is the weather because fucking hell, it’s like fucking hell. But we are staying cool and hydrated.
There’s a lot going on but I can’t share any of it yet so… I’m waiting until I have a couple of dates…
AND… I DO have a surgery date which will (if successful) heals me up in time for GRL! Which is awesome.
Lastly, Bound is in paperback and well, Xian and his complicated life has just gotten even more interesting. Grab a copy if you’re wanting that in your hot little hands!
A different place — another time— and where the city’s streets keep secrets, shadowy mysteries.
SFPD Inspector Spencer Ricci needs to dig through after he finds himself on a case involving a dismembered, mummified man in a restaurant’s locked storage room. Spencer drags around a lot of baggage, including an ongoing battle with the bottle and a long career as an LAPD detective he’d set fire to in a blaze of booze-soaked mistakes. San Francisco is supposed to be a new start but his old ghosts haunt him, beckoning him back into his self-destructive bad habits. Bad habits that include contemplating doing dirty things with the wrong kind of guy and this time, it’s a sleek, cold-tempered medical examiner named Xian Carter with a complicated reputation.
For a century-old demon, Xian Carter is content with his secretive life. Hiding his nature from the mundane world, he blends in with the city’s inhabitants as best he can but even the best of predators make mistakes. Delving into the mysteries of the dead provide a welcome distraction from endless nights and hiding in plain sight amuses him, until something supernaturally wicked comes knocking on his door with an extremely hot, broody Inspector close behind.
Murder makes for strange bedfellows and this one is no exception. The twists and turns of the case leaves Xian and Spencer on a wild goose chase after clues but Xian can only hope there’s a human at the end of the trail—because the last thing San Francisco needs is another predator.
Want Action and Adventure with hot, complicated guys falling in love with each other? Find ALL of those and more at Dreamspinner’s Rhys Ford $2.22 eBook Sale!
Grab what you’re missing in a series or find something new!
Miki St. John actually came into existence on the front stoop of an imaginary Victorian house in San Francisco. I had a love interest in mind for him, a maybe-detective or maybe-professor named Quinn Morgan and Miki had suffered a great tragedy with the loss of his bandmates. He also had an alley cat.
If you’ve read the books, the only thing that stayed the same was his name and the bandmates and well, the ending of Sinners’ Gin put that all to a lie.
So… Miki.
Miki is built off of a lot of my life experiences as well as my stint as a counselor for a juvie hall / halfway house for teens. I’m not going to say the world is a shitty place because honestly, it isn’t. There are people out there who love their kids and try to do their best by them. And there also is a large percentage of people who view their children as disposable meat, something to be used both sexually and sadistically in order to satisfy some craven itch they have. Their own kids. Other peoples’ kids. It doesn’t matter to those people. But they are there.
I didn’t want to focus on … the horrors of being caught in that nightmare but rather someone who survived it but was broken around the edges. Because no matter how much therapy one gets, they’re never going to achieve that baseline solid foundation someone gets when raised by someone who loves them.
Trust me on that.
Once that slab of faith is broken, it’s constantly in a state of crumble and there’s a lot of internal energy spent on trying to keep everything from falling apart.
Enter Miki St. John, abandoned in a city park then torn from the future he’d worked hard to achieve following the deaths of three young men he called brothers. His family. His foundation.
Of course losing Damien really dominated his loss. He’d found an anchor and a purpose but now, there was nothing there. Just pain and words and music he couldn’t stop from pouring out of him. There was no escaping who he’d become, who he’d grown into but there was no joy in it. Not wallowing per se but more of… it hurt to take his next breath and Miki seriously contemplated if that next breath was really worth it.
That’s where I started. A fractured, too-pretty young man who’d spent nearly all of his childhood as a victim of a horrific situation and then worked thru the struggles of becoming a damned good musician only for that to be lost. But he needed an anchor, not a person because that’s what the book would be about and he would have to go thru the trusting stages again but certainly an anchor that was as independent as he was.
Enter Dude.
The dog that Miki does NOT own. He just moved in and lives there now. Dude eventually became a friend but for Miki, the dog simply decided to be there. And in true Miki fashion, he accepted that and well, figured he might as well make sure the intruder got fed… and then possibly bathed once in a while. But it did take time for him to accept Dude as being a part of his life and a friend because… Mike has learned that once you love something, it will be taken from you and destroyed in front of your eyes. His heart couldn’t take much more of that. So Dude was an… eventual companion.
Dude felt otherwise. He spotted this broken human and said, Welp, that’s why I exist. And eventually slept next to Miki in bed, followed him on his rambles and more importantly, figured out the large, muscular Irish man who seemed to like playing with REALLY LARGE sticks, could fit into the emptiness Miki carried around with him.
But who is Miki as a person?
His behavior is shaped by circumstance and the gritty environment he was raised in but beneath the rough and snarling badger lies someone a bit different. Miki’s curious. About everything. In a lot of ways, he’s wary to show interest in something because that usually led to it being weaponized and used against him but now out in the world and essentially being free to do as he pleases, he can sink himself into his thirst for knowledge.
And music. Because honestly, Miki is pretty much drenched in a love for music. It takes him places. And he can take others with him by creating his own. Music is like an endless set of wings he can craft out of emotion and desire, allowing him to soar and weave through his emotions. The ultimate freedom no one can actually touch or steal from him.
He’s very protective of his inner self. To the point of being abrasive if someone gets too close. And of course Kane fully intended to get close. Miki fascinated him. A bit of a street rat with a heartbreakingly gorgeous face and sharp teeth / words skilled at keeping people at bay.
And there’s nothing Kane Morgan loves more than a challenge. He’s kind of like Brigid that way. He pursued Miki’s secretive tenderness. Opened Miki up to trusting him and then stroked at the raw, bleeding edges of Miki’s soul until Miki relaxed against him and learned it was okay too be held. That it was okay to be loved.
Especially since Kane proved he wasn’t going to go anywhere. Abandoning Miki never crossed Kane’s mind. Miki was a piece of his own soul, a tether to a glorious love he knew lurked beneath Miki’s diamond hard surface because once Miki loved someone, he loved fully.
And Kane wanted that love. Wanted to give back that love.
He also really loves the tender, gentle Miki he can unwrap out of the hard, foul-mouthed rock star the world saw.
Now without going too deeply into Miki’s soul, I wanted to create a very what you see is what you get kind of character. Yes, he has hidden depths but everything that he is or how he thinks actually is right on the surface. Miki’s a very much… Got a problem so finding the easiest, on-hand solution. Hungry? Uncooked ramen noodles chased with a can of root beer solves that problem so he can go back to gaming or writing music. He loves food. Loves eating different things but he’s not overly bothered to make sure he gets a meat and two veg on a plate.
Food focus is actually something imperative to Miki’s development because he was always food insecure. Meals were spotty while he was growing up and really the band couldn’t afford more than what was pretty much a college kid’s diet. He hoards things like ramen and other pantry items because it gives him security.
Just like buying a HUGE bag of dog food for Dude means he can provide for his furry best friend. Miki doesn’t trust that he has money and he acts accordingly. He’s not a big spender and will make do with what he’s got.
Then of course, he’s got a lot now… including, Kane, Damien, and of course, Dude….
And I’m going to actually do something different for this Of Characters and Things….
If you have a question about Miki, please leave it in the comments and I will try to answer them. It’s hard to write kind of blindly about Sinjun because well, it’s like describing a piece of your brain. But if there’s something specific you were wondering about, drop it in the comments so I can take a stab at it.
I shared this PDF I cobbled together with my Facebook group but I couldn’t remember if I shared it here. If not, well then… here’s a PDF of some of the local-style stuff that comes out of my kitchen.
Or will come again out of my kitchen once they’re done chopping me into different pieces. Man, I miss cooking.
Tengu the Firebird has been towed down to the Automotive Spa for cleaning up and a new battery. His Uncle Bryan will be driving him around for a few days to get him all lubed up and road-happy again. I will be released from my tubal prison on Oct 4th so I’m looking forward to being behind the wheel again. Zoom Zoom.
‘Nother Sip of Gin
Chinatown, San Francisco.
Of Characters and Things: Miki St. John
