Nephelokokkygia's Greatest Hits

I've never pushed my other blog, Nephelokokkygia, preferring to allow readers to find and explore it of their own volition. It has been going almost as long as this main blog, though, and even those who have been kind enough to take a look might not have gone back to its earlier stages, so, at the risk of seeming self-congratulatory, I'd like to point people in the direction of what I consider to be the better work I've managed to come up with. The stories I'm going to list are in reverse chronological order - and there is a good reason for this, or so I think, anyway!

Beached - my most autobiographical story, based on my relationship with R, the first boy I ever fell in love with, when I was 17 and still at school. It is fictionalised, but there's quite a lot of my real life here.

Revenant - my favourite very short story. Inspired by someone who has been mentioned myriad times in this blog, but based on a dream rather than anything that happened in reality.

Fiction - written in one sitting on a Sunday afternoon/evening, in reaction to an event that had huge repercussions for a little corner of the internet which had, up to that point, seemed to be happy and friendly, but which was never the same again afterwards.

Hallowed - another story produced in one take, after a good few months when I'd written almost nothing. I didn't think that much of it at the time, but I've grown fonder of it since.

Jamie - inspired by a chance encounter with a boy who very much reminded me of another boy.

Lucid/Lucent - actually my first two stories of any substance, but republished in a more user-friendly format six months or so later. Lucent, in particular, is close to being, in my opinion, the best thing I've ever written. That is just my opinion, though!

Quaesitum - something a bit different, a story that started as nothing more than a title, a word I found on a website dedicated to unusual words.

Bridges - a story of redemption, maybe.

Discrimination - a little counterfactual, tongue-in-cheek thing, but one which, I hope (at the risk of sounding pretentious), might make one or two people pause and examine their attitude to others.

Confluence - not autobiographical in any way in terms of actions, but there's really quite a lot of me in the protagonist, certainly in terms of attitude towards the objects of my attractions. Approach with caution, please, if you're offended by intergenerational relationships.

Perihelion - in the top three, in my assessment, of all the things I've written. A lot of emotion went into this, and it was pretty much all-consuming in the weeks I was writing it.

Londoner - something almost completely different from anything else I've produced, a sort of sci-fi thing.

Optimal & Diary - another pair of stories not for the easily offended. Optimal was so called for a reason, which will probably be evident to anyone who's read any amount of this blog.

Alexandrine - and last, but certainly not least, my magnum opus, to date, anyway (and hence the order I've presented these links). A love story, nothing more or less. And, without apology, I adore it, and its title character, however masturbatory that might seem.

There are a number of other stories I could have mentioned, but most of them are more erotic in nature, and undoubtedly not to everyone's taste, as well as a lot of thoroughly substandard poetry, and even one visual art piece (Assemblage). Nearly five years worth of what might loosely be described as 'creativity'. Very loosely.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B