To stay with the theme of sleeping soldiers, here is another one, presumably American. I wish the photo had not been cropped where it was.

Copyright remains with its copyright owner. Without permission.

Friendly Fire is a 6K short story, set in the current war in Afghanistan. British Sergeant Major Phil Mason, and American Gunnery Sergeant Jon Rivera, take part in friendly fire, only to encounter enemy fire, that forces them to work together to survive in the Afghan mountains.

In true Marquesate style, those two soldiers are alpha men, fuelled by aggression that finds an outlet in more than fighting. But they are also men who learn to understand that being comrades in arms is above and beyond anything else.

Mmmmm he might look like a brat, but who cares? :-p

Copyright remains with copyright holder. Without permission.

I got this from a mate, a rather authentic (Infantry) mate. So … without further ado and without editing: enjoy!

MILITARY FRIENDS VS CIVILIAN FRIENDS

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Tell you not to do something stupid when drunk
Military FRIENDS: Will post 360 security so you don’t get caught

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Call your parents Mr. and Mrs
Military FRIENDS: Call your parents Drunk as hell and tell them about the fat chick you tried to pick up

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Bail you out of jail and tell you what you did was wrong.
Military FRIENDS: Will be sitting next to you saying, Damn…we fucked up…but hey, that shit was fun as fuck!”

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Cry with you.
Military FRIENDS: laugh at you and tell you to put some vagasil on your pussy.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Borrow your stuff for a few days then give it back.
Military FRIENDS: Keep your stuff until they PCS.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: know a few things about you.
Military FRIENDS: Could write a book with direct quotes from you.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will leave you behind if that’s what the crowd is doing.
Military FRIENDS: Will kick the whole crowds ass that left you.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Would knock on your door.
Military FRIENDS: Walk right in and say, “I’m home!”

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will take your drink away when they think you’ve had enough.
Military FRIENDS: Will look at you stumbling all over the place and say, “Bitch, you better drink the rest of that shit, you know we don’t waste.. That’s alcohol abuse!!!”

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will say “I can’t handle Tequila anymore”.
Military FRIENDS: Will say “okay just one more” 2 minutes later “okay just one more”.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will talk shit to the person who talks shit about you.
Military FRIENDS: Will knock them the fuck out!!

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will tell you “They’d take a bullet for you.”
Military FRIENDS: Will actually take a bullet for you.

I have been pondering this phenomenon a few times before, but it struck me particularly through this difficult period of destruction and divorce: I am not able to write, not even able to imagine stories, when I am emotionally overwhelmed. As if all creative energy were then taken up by the need to deal with situations and break down emotions into manageable parts. The creativity and the imagination are then dead and dry, hibernating so to speak.

It always comes back, my stories and characters will never leave me, but they do hibernate when life becomes emotionally challenging. I still write when I am stressed, when I have no time at all, but I can’t write (not even edit) when the capacity for emotion is being taken up by life events. It’s fascinating, really.

I wonder how much emotions have to do with creativity and imagination, and I do believe they must be one of the vehicles for stories that are capable of gripping and in return emotionally touching readers.

How do others deal with this? Other writers? Readers? How do emotionally challenging times in your lives affect your ability to create and your imagination?

Have some photos I took at the airshow on Saturday. It was an excellent day and the flight displays were magnificent.

The Red Arrows:

Red Arrows and Vulcan:

Vulcan:

All images copyright © Marquesate 2009

I got this one from a friend, isn’t it simply perfect?

Copyright remains with its copyright owner. Without permission.

I am off to the air show now and am very much looking forward to it. I should be back with picturs of … planes? Well, maybe, but definitely of men in uniform!

http://www.airshow.co.uk/

This summer has been the worst summer of my life – and I don’t mean the abysmal weather here in Scotland. I have been silent on here and almost all other places that I frequent as Marquesate the author, because I am getting divorced. Completely out of the blue, with greatest shock at the realisation that (soon to be EX) Mr M is a cheating, lying bastard who proved himself to be a “typical” squaddie. So, I am separated now and he is gone.

I needed some space and time and energy to a) survive and b) deal with the enormous changes, paperwork, and sheer stress of sorting my life. I am now  starting a new life, which will hopefully soon feel normal, so that I can throw myself back into what I love: writing military gay erotic love stories as Marquesate.

Enough of this peek into my RL (there is a life behind every writer’s name, after all …) and some good news, because in the course of the summer I also had my novel Basic Training accepted by MLR (and am behind with the editing, as one can imagine) and a 20K short story For Queen And Country accepted by Slash Books, a new Canadian publisher, who is bringing out an anthology of military stories.

More on this soon, but I am right now in a train (don’t you just love wireless and netbooks?) and shall return to this blog and my life and editing/writing in a week’s time.

Take care, all, and I hope I haven’t miffed anyone with my silence, but alas, life really kicked my butt this year.

Marq

This age-old question is right now at the forefront of my mind. There are those who say an author should write about what they know (wouldn’t that make literature boring?) and those who say the opposite. Certainly, fantasy fiction wouldn’t exist if everyone wrote about what they knew.

I am one for a mix of both: write about what you know if what you know is interesting, and go on wonderful flights of fancy just as well, but most of all, research research research.

I find nothing more grating than badly researched stories, and I cannot suspend disbelief when it becomes too obvious that the facts just aren’t correct.

However, when it comes to emotions, how can we writers get those right? We can’t experience all of the emotions we are writing about, so we have to try and get that far into our characters and their motivations, that we will get it right – the extremes as well as the subtleties.

There is nothing more rewarding than a story where the author got it right and the reader can feel with the characters, isn’t there?