My knight in shining armor... or a brown truck..

I almost kissed a perfect stranger today. 

He showed up on his white horse (well, I guess a brown horse - a big boxy brown horse) and stepped out onto the grassy plain. 

"For Heather?" His strong voice questioned.  He had kind eyes, and I melted as he turned them in my direction.  His brown sun hat matched the milk chocolately hue of brown of his jacket and pants.

"That's me!" I yelped with joy as I ran the final feet that divided us.

"Can you sign here?" He handed me a small box, and pointed to the box where I was to sign.

I hesitated for a moment.  Is he asking for my phone number?  Could he be interested?  No, I thought to myself, I must just sign my name and let him go back into the wiley desert from where he came.  "Thank you, Heather."  As he repeated my name, I felt the heat rise into my cheeks as I blushed.  "This is for you then.  Have a great day."

He paused for just a moment.  Just enough for my arms to flinch as they yearned to fling themselves around his neck.   Instead, I held the box to me closely.  I knew what the contents held and the immense change it would bring to my life.  Or well, the life it would bring.

He climbed back onto his iron steed and maneuvered back down the long driveway.  As he turned to continue his journey, he tipped his hat to me and waved.  I just nodded my head and watched him drive off into the distance. 

Then I hightailed it into the house and ripped the cardboard apart to get to the power adapter, frantically found an outlet, plugged that puppy into my laptop and squealed with joy as the lights jumped and frolicked back to life. 

Ahhh... I can write again!

Teaser Tuesday

From NORMAL:

"How could you do this to my family?" Jacob yelled at Aly as she walked down the hall towards him.  He stood in the doorway, blocking entry to her room, with a mix of anger and pain so visible on his face, that it hurt her to see.  In that moment she knew she loved him.  She knew because more than anything else, his believing that she could do this, ripped her heart out. 


"Jacob?" She asked in a voice too quiet to have been hers.  "You believe it too?  I don't know why I thought you couldn't shock me anymore."  She stood there in front of him searching his eyes for a hint that he might believe her.


He shook with anger.  "Shock you?  Shock you? I couldn't be more shocked by you Aly.  I never would have thought you do this.  What is it?  Was it for money?  No, it can't be that, you come from plenty of money.  Were you not happy with the level of celebrity we were providing you?"  He dropped his eyes from hers and his shoulders slumped just a little.  "How could you hurt us, how could you hurt Andrew like this?"


In any other circumstance seeing him like this, so raw, so vulnerable, she would have rushed at him and pulled him into her arms to try and make it better.  Now, it was unbearable.  Even though she could see in his eyes the pain and betrayal that was causing him to say such terrible things, she couldn't take another moment.  "Jacob, please move," she asked, that unfamiliar quiet voice returning.


He raised his eyes to hers again and parted his lips as if preparing to say something else.  Without a word, he dropped his arm and walked down the hall, away from her. 


She struggled to slide the card into the door, the tears lining up to fall were blocking her vision. "Come on, come on," she said to the lock.  Two more attempts and the heavy door swung open into her room.  She took a few steps into the room to clear the door, then pushed back on it with her full weight to close it.  As soon as she heard the click, she sunk to the floor in sobs.

Editing has always been one of my favorite parts about writing.   As my novel is on it's 7th draft, I'm realizing that each edit becomes a victim of my latest mood.  I could write this same story twenty times, each time with a different twist on a character or situation. 

Unfortunately, that's not a good thing if I'd ever like to finish this process.  I'm afraid that is the real problem at hand, I don't want to finish.  It's hard to set aside characters that have become so familiar to you that you remark upon them in daily life as you would a close friend or family member, "Tommy would have loved that joke."  In the case of NORMAL, these characters have been with  me for about 3 1/2 years now.  I don't believe that it has series or even sequel potential, so how do I just set them aside and say, "I'm done." 

When do I move them from characters that share their secrets with me, pressing me on to reveal their story to characters that become static in their story on a page? 

I am sure now that is why my other completed novel, the UNTITLED one, still sits on the shelf waiting. 

Santa rocks

Today I sat outside in nearly 70 degree weather and edited and edited and then... I actually wrote!  This was the best present Santa could have put under the tree for me.  I can't tell you how amazing it feels when I'm in the zone.  After an almost month long drought, the words are flowing.  My red pen is marking up my manuscript like my daughter writes all over the wall.  Lets just say - it's a lot. 

I'm loving my characters and I am firmly in the "I need a sequel" mood.  I know I'm not ready to say good-bye to these characters, but I'm not sure they have another story to tell - at least not right now. 

I'm itching to get back to it, and sad that things like making dinner for my family are harshing my mellow.

The Night Before Christmas....

Thanks to our kind friend who will be staying with our diabetic kitty, we are going away for Christmas this year.  That said, we had to ask Santa to come early to bring his gifts for the girls.  He kindly obliged when we saw him at the local mall.

Tonight for all intents and purposes is our Christmas Eve.  This means tonight we shall cuddle up in bed with the big down comforter (yes, they start out in our bed on Xmas Eve) and we read and read and read Christmas stories until the little ones can't keep their eyes open any longer. 

On our list:  The Night Before Christmas - Clement C Moore
Polar Express - Chris Van Allsburg
How the Grinch Stole Christmas - Dr. Seuss
Mooseltoe - Margie Palatini
Santa's Favorite Story - Hisako Aoki

We also read whatever else we have around that's age appropriate (Junie B Jones and Judy Moody are favorites right now).

The kids usually don't make it through all of them but they love it, due to the unfortunate timing of my husbands Christmas party, our "christmas eve" had to be cut short and when I asked them which part they wanted to keep... "Mom, we have to read the books!!"

Do you have special books that are part of your Christmas?





 

Revival

I'm apparently not very good at killing people off - the first person I killed just got up and walked away.  I guess that's one way to avoid the dilemma of what a bunch of teen/twenty something girls do with the bodies of the evil-doers they slayed.   LAME.

I made it to 13K.  I failed hard at NaNoWriMo.  I'm okay with that.  Life got in the way.  Flu, Family, Food...  it's all good though.  Really.

Here is where I stand.  I love BITE ME.  I love Leigh and I have fallen in love with Natalie.  Hard.  Sophia was supposed to be my darling, but Natalie clawed her way into my heart.  I'm not giving up on them - but I do need to let them go for a while. 

Jacob, Andrew and Aly are plagueing me.  "Edit us" they cry from the dark recesses of my dreams.  I kid you not.  They stalk me in my dreams.  Maybe it's because Nick Jonas is going out on his own on a solo project that I feel all emo about my little characters right now.   My little Andrew set off on his own too, well, until this last draft anyway.  I'm seriously stressing about how Nick J will be received by the world.  Am I still talking about a Jonas brother?   Maybe it was the 37 hours I spent in the past week, in a mini-van with 3 obsessed Jonas fans.  Can I say Jonas anymore times?  Jonas??!!!

Something else surprised me this month (this month of epic NaNo failure).  I'm ready to edit my first novel, the one fantastically titled "UNTITLED."   It hit me, this last week in particular, that I'm ready.  Maybe it was being back in my old stomping grounds where the book was originally conceived and outlined over a decade ago.  Maybe it was the copious amounts of Tryptophan - or it could have been the beers.

So, BITE ME is trunked temporarily.  NORMAL is back on the hacking block to get redded up for betas and UNTITLED will see the light of day again.  SOON.