The Story of Red….
So I made a silly and ridiculous mistake. I can’t believe it. It is not like me at all.
I totally messed up on a Call for Submissions. ::headdesk::
Whenever I see a Call for Submissions that I want to respond to, I always carefully follow every single instruction. I certainly don’t want to have my story rejected over something stupid!
And the importance of all this became quite clear when I edited my first anthology with Anne Regan—A Taste of Honey—a collection of stories about bears. We received nearly a hundred stories and I was shocked at how many people didn’t follow the “rules” at all. And I was doubly surprised how many of the stories didn’t even have a bear in them. Either writers didn’t know what a bear was, or didn’t pay attention to the guidelines. I don’t know.
So what do I do? Well I turn around and do the same thing! Aarrggh!
Dreamspinner Press was doing their annual Holiday Advent Calendar and I had gotten this idea that I couldn’t wait to write. It was partly inspired by the photography of an Englishman named Dave Suntown. He had taken pictures of this beautiful young man and quite suddenly the story of a rent boy was writing itself! I just saw him that way—and not the real man isn’t in that profession.
And the story would be a New Year’s Tale all based on the old saying or tradition that you should be doing on New Year’s night what you want to be doing the whole year.
My character Kirk has recently lost his mother. She was a product of the Great Depression and in fear, had saved every single penny she had for her whole life and then got to the end of it having never done anything with that money. You can’t take it with you, she saw and made her son promise to do something wild and crazy.
So what did he do? He hired a male escort. One Leslie “Red” Parks.
Red is leading a happy life as a male escort. He doesn’t take on many clients. He wants to have a good working relationship with them. He is also making more money in one night that he made in weeks in his “before” life. It is all quite powerful and seductive and exciting.
Then he meets Kirk—quite, chubby, naïve, innocent Kirk.
And something begins to happen…
Now! The problem? Why Dreamspinner loved the story! But all the stories—quite clearly pointed out in the guidelines for their Call for Submissions—said the stories should be set in countries besides the United States. An exploration on how other countries celebrated the holidays.
I was stunned! How could I have been so silly? They were even willing to let me rewrite it so that it did take place in another country. The problem was that Kansas City was practically a character in the story! There was just no way.
Now the Holiday Miracle! Dreamspinner Press wanted it anyway. Sadly it couldn’t be a part of their Advent Calendar. But it could be a story released during the New Year!
And that’s just what happened. I hope you will check out my story, “Red.” I love my rent boy and I think you will too. And Kirk is pretty sweet too!
And the novella is on sale right now! On sale at Dreamspinner and Amazon! So run, don’t walk! Check it out! I think you will be glad you did.
Peace and love and Happy New Year!
B.G. Thomas
Links:
Photograph by Dave Suntown. Find his website here: http://www.suntownphoto.co.uk/
His blog here: http://www.suntownphoto.co.uk/blog.html
And his Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/dave.suntown