A quick trawl around Twitter or Facebook will quickly convince anyone that there are many authors trying to fit both writing and RL into the same 24 hours. Most days, knowing this makes me feel better. On other days, I’m like any other reader and fangirl, and regret that a book I’m looking forward to will not land in my hands as fast as I would like to see it. Olivette Devaux faces the just that challenge, but while the next book in her Disorderly Elements series is still a little way away, she’s brought a Sig & David short story along to tide us over.
Greetings from the writing desk of Olivette Devaux! It is my pleasure to visit with Jackie again and offer a short read and an update on the next book in the Disorderly Elements series, “Like a Dervish.” Y’see, there is just too much going on in there. So much action, in fact, that I got stalled and had a hard time getting jump-started again as I tried to unravel my tangled skein.
This is not a “writer’s block” as much as a “project block,” and the cure for it is to jump onto an entirely unrelated project and let the subconscious sort it out on its own. I wrote a bunch of short stories, some of which got accepted to magazines. I started a crazy new project, the Great Challenge, where me and a few other writers will strive to write a brand new story every week for a year. Airborne was a warm-up to that effort, because the challenge had not begun yet and using “old” material would’ve been cheating.
But, this is good, right? Because now we not only have a Sig and David short story, but it comes smack from the middle of the very book that’s giving me trouble!
And I don’t have to add several more chapters that wouldn’t move the main plot – yet we still get to know what they did, and why, and how. In the upcoming “Like a Dervish” book, when the guys refer to “that thing Sig did in the desert,” it will be summarized in a simple conversation. Those of you who want to see the details, or who’d enjoy a preview to the book itself, read on! Enjoy the excerpt, and if you like it, there’s a buy link below. A gentle hint: the working title of “Airborne” was “The Buff Flying Witches of Lake Meade.”
Even though you can always buy my titles in major stores, if you want all 3 formats and a lower price, click on my PayHip store link instead!
For the die-hard Disorderly Element fans out there, Book 6, “Like a Freeze,” is now available in audio. You can find it at amazon.
Enjoy the lovely spring, and the hint of summer you’ll feel wafting in from the desert near Las Vegas.
Be well, Olivette
Airborne – Excerpt
The dune buggy was a steel roll cage powered by a lawn-mover engine. It had been painted more than once, but steel shone where the orange, green, and yellow layers of paint blistered off, helped along by the abrasive sand. It sat on four wheels cambered so the top rim of the tires was sticking out, and the bottom of the wheels edged closer to to the axis of the frame. To Sig, they looked pigeon-toed.
He turned the switch on the engine that sat behind the two seats. Then he swung in, feeling like a kid on a jungle gym even as he landed on the poorly padded metal seat. The five-point harness was already adjusted to his size. He clipped the metal buckle, picked up Zack’s helmet from the passenger’s seat and strapped the goggles over it.
Then the gloves, thin and just grippy enough not to let the steel steering wheel slip out of his grasp.
He turned the battery switch. Sorry, David. He pushed the start button.
A roar of an unshielded engine shattered the morning peace.
Sig grinned and stepped on the gas, hard. He used the road leading up to the ranger station to get used to the vibrations from the fist-sized rocks that protruded from the packed dirt of the road.
First, a cup of coffee and some gas.
Then he’d see if this thing could help him fly.
***
DAVID HAD EXPECTED Sig to use the chemical toilet which sat between the back of the tent and the rock that shielded them from the late-afternoon sun, then come back to snuggle.
He didn’t expect him to take off in that infernal death-trap.
“Sig!” As soon as he yelled his name, he realized how futile it was. Sig wouldn’t hear him over all that noise, and by now he’d be a good distance away. Feeling like an idiot, David clambered out of their warm sleeping nest, stretched out in the cool dawn breeze, and got ready for the day. After he shook the sand out the sleeping bags and zipped them back together, he turned to the little pantry inside the tent. Cereal, maybe. That long-lasting milk wouldn’t last all that long now that it was open, not even in the cooler.
Their box of cereal had a note stuck to it with one of Sig’s many knives:
I went to do some riding, be back in an hour or so.
xoxo, Sig
David pulled out Sig’s knife, folded it so it looked like a ball-point pen again, and nestled it into one of Sig’s sneakers.
Riding. He snorted. If the pile of burned brooms by the side of their encampment was any indication, Sig was likely going to do more than just ride. David was naturally curious. He wanted to see how Sig would make out with his grand experiment. He also wanted to be close by in case Sig exploded the gas tank.
That idea didn’t bear dwelling upon.
David tried to have another bite of his breakfast. The cereal and milk sat like a boulder in his stomach, rolling around and looking for a way out. David pushed his food away, took a mandatory sip of water, and sighed. There would be no breakfast for him, and no morning yoga either. He would round up all available fire extinguishers instead, and chase Sig down.
Hopefully before he tried it.
A fire elementalist, driving a gasoline-powered device while trying to separate his air and his fire abilities, would do more than just fly that dune buggy. David, ranger Joe, and the rest of the campers wouldn’t see a desert iteration of “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” They’d see something a lot more dramatic.
A fireball.
*****
BLURB: Sig wants to fly so bad he’ll try just about anything. Except his element is Fire – with only a bit of hot wind thrown in. But David, his lover and partner, can fly. And their friend Zack can separate his fire and air no problem. If they can do it, so can Sig – or die trying.
A riveting, humorous tale of daredevil adventure in the desert near Las Vegas, where David gets protective, Sig soars like Ikarus, and where no dune buggies were maimed in the writing of this short Disorderly Elements story. Takes place after Book 4 (“Like a Phoenix”) and in the quiet stolen moments of Book 7 (“Like a Dervish.”)
About Olivette Devaux
Multiple award winner and Amazon best-seller under a different pen name, Olivette Devaux is the author behind the Disorderly Elements series. In her Olivette Devaux incarnation, she writes hot, adventure plot driven romance, both LGBT and “straight.” Her books are available in mobi, ePub, paper, and audio. Her fictional fight scenes are informed by decades of martial arts training.
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