Summary:
A past relationship has left Jared Winter broken. When Eric Healey runs into him, Jared finds a reason to learn to trust again. The two men begin to fall for one another, but the prejudice around them threatens to tear them apart. Can their love survive in the real world?
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Excerpt from Winter's Love:
Excerpt from Winter's Love:
“Hey! Jared! Yoo-hoo!”
I cringed once more and turned to my sister, forcing a smile. “Hey, Rose-Anne.”
“What are you doing here?” She giggled.
“Well, Rose-Anne, in general one attends Asda, or any other supermarket, when they’re doing their food shopping,” I sniggered.
Rose-Anne rolled her eyes and glowered at me. I knew what she meant and was trying to be subtle while avoiding her questions.
“Jared, stop playing dumb with me. You know what I mean. Curry powder, two types of meat, and prawns? You only cook this fancy when . . . Oh! You have a date tonight, don’t you?” she squealed.
Behind me, the cashier told me the check came to twenty-three pounds and some change. I handed her a twenty and a five and waited for her to hand me the difference. As she placed it in my hand, I took it and grabbed my already bagged shopping, thankful that it had been done while Rose-Anne had been interrogating me. Trouble was, she was still at it while I made my way back to the car.
“Rose-Anne! For the love of all alive, will you please drop the subject? I love you to pieces, but for just once, can I enjoy something without having to be interrogated by you?” I yelled.
I saw tears pool in her eyes and felt the guilt in an instant. Finding my car, I placed the shopping in the back and pulled her into a hug.
I sighed. “I’m sorry, sissy, but sometimes you are just too much.”
“Sorry, Jed.” I cringed at the nickname, “I know I’m too nosy for my own good. But it’s been so long since we’ve seen you with someone. We were beginning to think you had taken a life of celibacy, all because of . . .”
“No! I don’t want to hear his name, sissy! Yes, I’m having someone over for dinner tonight. It’ll only be the second time I have seen him, so yeah I’m playing my cards close to my chest. And yes, I’m a little dubious about where this will go, but I won’t allow . . . him . . . to ruin everything good in my life, okay? My friend’s name is Eric, seeing as you’re dancing around I’m sure that’s what you wanted to ask me. Now that you’ve achieved your mission, you may return to our beloved parents and tell them anything you want, but no phone calls tonight!”
How do you write a story? Does a moment of inspiration strike you and you just run with it; or do you get a little tickle and dive into research to make it grow? What do you have to go through to bring your tale to life?
It varies to tell the truth, sometimes I can be listening to a song, and a sort of movie will unfold in my mind. I have no idea where the images come from, but one minute I’m lost in the song, the next, a storyboard has appeared. Other times, I can be reading something, I’m either not happy with what’s happening or I just think that it could have gone differently and I’ll go do some research and see what I can do to make my own version possible.
Occasionally, something will niggle in the back of my head, so I’ll think on it, see what I can do with it, if anything, and make it into a story. Though it rarely ever does happen that way. It’s like being told you have one hour to write something down for part of a story and go! Your head will just go totally blank and nothing happens, I often find that writer’s block will hit me more often if I just try to come up with something almost out of the blue. Sometimes it’s best to leave that niggle alone and tell it to go away.
It does amuse me though, where some of my inspiration can come from. I remember once as a child, thinking back on a dream that I’d had and trying to write it into a story. The dream was that fantastical and brilliant that I had to get it down pen to paper. I think I was about six or seven when that happened. I can still remember the dream to this day and I believe I may still have that story somewhere, complete in child scrawl.
The inspiration for Winter’s Love came from a couple of things. Firstly, a good friend of mine was attacked a couple of years ago while out with his boyfriend. They hadn’t been doing anything untoward or rude, just walking home and when they passed through a ginnel (alley for any American’s reading this) and a bunch of lads attacked. Even now, there is a lot of stigma and hate for same sex relationships, and I wanted to write something that could show and prove that it’s a beautiful thing and not something that should be shunned or hated. The other part comes from my own past. I suffered a lot of abuse as a child, and a lot of the pain and fear was poured into one of my characters, I could write his pain and self loathing effortlessly, because I had felt those same things. When I decided to use my own past to create one of my characters, his persona flowed quickly.
All in all, it proves that inspiration can strike anywhere and in any shape or form.
About the Author:
N.L. Leeks lives in England with her fiancé, whom she has been with since the age of eighteen. She first began writing when she was a child. Her friends, Matt and Lou, helped her reignite that passion as an adult, and her journey into writing began once more.
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