Smashwords

I will (or to be more accurate, A Conspiracy of Authors will) be putting some of my stories on Smashwords.  When I have something to link to, I'll put a shortcut here.

I'm excited about it -- about joining ACOA and about finally doing something more with my work!

Still Alive & Kickin'....

Well, alive anyway.  Where does the time go?  I have had the distinct pleasure?! of going through two separate bosses in the past few months.  And, I've been busy in a nearby community church.  That has taken up a good deal of my time.

I'm thinking about posting bits and pieces of story again on Fridays.

So, with that in mind, here we go.

Rough draft, subject to change, please don't repost anywhere.  Thanks!

               Tiffany stared at the computer screen, wishing for a drink, anything to relieve the boredom.  She’d been half-heartedly playing solitaire for the past hour, a Diet Coke she really didn’t even want. 

               Someone stopped by the table where she sat, and she looked up.

                “Oh, it’s you,” she said with less than enthusiasm.

                “I’m glad to see you, too,” Fred Murray said with irony, and sat down in a nearby empty chair.

                “Adam isn’t here,” she muttered, and went back to playing solitaire.

                “That’s good, because I didn’t come here to see Adam, I came to see you,” Fred said.

                She stared at his thin, clever face, not handsome, but interesting, nonetheless.  “Why?”

                “Good question, if this is the greeting I get,” Fred said.

                “I’m surprised you’re chatting up your friend’s fiancé,” Tiffany said with irony of her own.   “Isn’t that against your code or something?”

                “Give it a rest, Tiffany.”

                “Give what a rest?”

                “You know as well as I do that you and Adam are not engaged, nor are you likely to be,” Fred said. 

                “You don’t know anything about it!” she said, voice shrill.

                “Are you telling me there is an understanding between you and Adam?”

                “Why don’t you ask him yourself?” Tiffany jibed.

                “Perhaps I will.”  He leaned back in his chair until it creaked, watching her broodingly.  “I’m not sure what your game is.  I suspect in your mind, you think you’re making Lorrie pay for something.”

                He was so uncannily near the mark that she gave him a quick sideways glance.  She opened her mouth to deny it, but he shook his head at her.

                “Don’t bother.  I wasn’t born yesterday.  What I want to know is, why are you trying to hang onto someone who doesn’t know you’re alive?”

                His words were like a shock of cold water.  To her horror, she felt tears well up in her eyes.  She turned her head away.

                “I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he said.  “I just wanted you to realize what you’re doing.  There are others who do know you exist.”

                “Like you?” she said viciously.  “Don’t make me laugh.”

                “Like me,” he said in an even voice. “It’s time you started living in reality, instead of in this fantasy you’ve created for yourself where the whole world revolves around Tiffany James and you have to punish those that don’t buy into the fantasy.”

                “Get out!” she spat at him.  “I hate you!  If you were the last man—“

                “Don’t say something you might regret,” he interrupted her, and stood up.  “When you’re ready to talk to me like an adult instead of a spoiled baby, give me a call.”

                He tossed a business card on the table in front of her.  She picked it up, tore it in two, and threw the pieces at him.

                Fred’s lips tightened, but he said nothing, only spun on his heel and left the room.  Tiffany glared at the door, her teeth clenched, too worked-up to even say all the things that trembled on the end of her tongue.  No one had dared to speak to her like that for years!  If he showed up again, she would blast him with some home truths herself.  He wasn’t even good-looking! 

                Tiffany got out of her chair and picked up the pieces of the card she had flung at him, intending to throw them in the garbage.  And yet, something inside her remembered the look in his eyes as he’d turned to leave.  No man had ever looked at her like that before. 

                She put the pieces of the card in her pocket.

Finally, after three long years, enlightenment....

I have myofascial pain syndrome.  It's a syndrome where your muscles knot up at night when you're sleeping.  The knotted muscles squeeze your nerve endings (simplified explanation) causing pain.  It can be triggered by an accident --- I was involved in a car accident in early 2010.  All this time, I thought it was swelling lymph nodes.  Go figure.

Just knowing what it is removes much of the mystery, and --- much of the fear.  It's usually not permanent, though it can last for years.  I'm a good example of that.  The doctor who finally diagnosed me is a rheumatologist.  He said the two main ways to combat the symptoms is to take a round of ibuprofen (which I had been doing, but only when it got so bad I couldn't stand it), and muscle relaxers.

After two weeks of muscle relaxers, I feel better than I have for a long time.  So good, in fact, that I'm not even taking the muscle relaxers at this present time.  I'm working up to exercising every day instead of just every other day, like before.  I can do things I haven't been able to do, and still sleep at night.  I thank God for this every day.

My vitamin D was something like 13 points when it should have been 30 or higher.  I'm also on a round of 50,000 units of D a week for two months.  Since taking a month of it, my carpal tunnel (which was really De Quervain's) has nearly disappeared.

I've even been writing a little, and it's not the slogging chore it's been in the past couple of years.

Whee!

Why do I feel like I have a big target painted on me....?

Carpal tunnel.  I can't believe it.  I go from slowly getting better from my IBS and lymph node swelling and go right to carpal tunnel.  Sometimes I feel like I can't catch a break.  Then I remember about all the people in the Boston bombing and the Moore, OK tornado and think, get over yourself.  There's lots of people who have it worse than you.

So I'll post a spring-like picture that fills me with hope that things will improve.

October is a Glorious Month!

The trees are absolutely fabulous this year!  October seems to distill every good thought and feeling into an elixir that it pumps back into the air, making the leaves more brilliant and the sky more blue.  And that's my homage to Ray Bradbury.

I'm working on a short story in amongst finishing the novel.  Here's a short snippet of that---a little late for Friday, but better late than never.

First draft, please don't quote or repost without permission.  Thanks!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

               

               The moon hovered, just above the left tower of Dragonkeep, just in the right spot.  Tia shifted her weight  as she sat on the stone wall that surrounded the church, waiting for the dragon to make his nightly flight.  The moon seemed to balance on the tower’s zenith, then broke away to ride the night sky, free and solitary.

                Tia frowned.  She waited until the moon had risen another handspan before she climbed down from the wall, a sense of foreboding descending on her.  Every night for the past ten years, she had sat upon the wall and watched the dragon rise with the moon.  Even at moon-dark, she could see his shape, a darker black against the night sky, hear the snap of his wings.  He had never failed her.  Until tonight.

                She slid back to her pallet at the rectory, disturbed.   The other acolytes slumbered on, used to her coming and going.  Only Alli stirred when Tia lay down, and whispered sleepily, “You’re back early tonight.”

                Tia grunted in reply, and turned her back to Alli.  Eventually, she heard the other girl’s breathing deepen and slow as she fell asleep again.  An icy dread clutched at Tia’s throat.  Something was wrong with the dragon.

Wake Me Up When September Ends....

Not quite summer, not quite fall.  September is a transition time, an in-between time, a month of endings and beginnings, perhaps.  It also has the reputation for dread in some parts of the country, hence the song, Wake Me Up When September Ends.

Here we are at the end of September, and it's been an odd month, in keeping with it's reputation.  I banged up the bumper of my car on the garage door, ending my perfect record of entering and exiting our small garage without incident, and the suite where my office is located has been taken over by a new dept.  The sooner I can move, the better.  It's the end of an era as far as my job--I'm now pretty much on my own in my office, but a new beginning as well, hopefully in a new location before the end of the year.

I'm also wending my way toward the end of the contemporary romance novel I'm writing.  It's been an interesting experience, since I tend to write science fiction and fantasy--about as far from contemporary romance, with no magic and no science, as you can get.  As I said, an interesting experience, and I don't know if I will be repeating it or not.

Here's a snippet of the novel.  First draft, please don't quote or repost.  Thanks!

“The chickens are housed at the back of the barn where they have access to a run,” Eve told Adam.  “But in this weather, I’m sure they’ll be roosting by now.”

They approached a wooden narrow door in a partition built in the rear of the barn.  Before Eve could open the door, Adam stopped her.

“Listen,” he said.  “They’re chuckling to each other.”

Eve stopped and listened for a moment.  The small, contented sounds the chickens made did sound a little like chuckles if one employed enough imagination.  She handed the chicken feed to Adam and opened the door.

Immediately, the small sounds of the chickens escalated, and several of the chickens flew off their roost, clucking urgently, and landed in a flurry of feathers to waddle in the direction of the humans. 

Eve slid inside the door and Adam handed her the pan of feed, then attempted to slide inside as well.  Even moving sideways, his chest and back were scraped by either side of the narrow opening.  Eve threw chicken feed in swathes at the oncoming chickens, whose attention immediately diverted to the feed, pecking at the ground in excited little groups, some struggling for supremacy over their perceived rivals.

“Greedy beggars, aren’t they?” Adam observed.

Smiling with mischief, Eve slung some feed to land on Adam’s boots.

“Hey!” he said in alarm as several chickens swooped to peck at his boots.  “You did that on purpose!”   He sounded surprised rather than accusatory, which wrung a laugh from her.

Eve finished throwing out the feed, then checked to make sure the chickens had water.  She handed the empty pan to Adam and stepped outside the door.  The chickens paced grandly toward Adam, looking up hopefully.

                “Wait, Livingston!” Adam said in a mock terrified voice.  “Don’t leave me behind in the darkest interior of Africa!  I might get eaten by these cannibal chickens!”

                Laughing, Eve reached back inside and took the pan from him.  Adam hurriedly tried to go through the opening and stopped halfway.

                “I think I’m stuck,” he said.

                “Uh, oh,” Eve said.  “The chickens will eat well for months.”

                “Very funny.  Now what do we do?”

                Eve set the pan down and surveyed his predicament for a moment.  “Try to go back in.”

                Grimacing, Adam jerked and pulled his way back into the chicken coop.

                “Now, turn sideways and give me your hand and I’ll help pull you out,” Eve said.

                Adam turned sideways and gave her his nearest hand.  Surprised at the warm tingle she felt, Eve resorted to briskness.

                “Ok, come on out, slowly and carefully.”

                He slid out of the chicken coop, wincing a little as his chest and back got scraped yet again.  He stood for a moment, staring down at her, his hand still in hers, the look in his eyes making Eve both excited and uncomfortable at the same time.

                “We’d better close the door,” Eve whispered.  “The chickens will get out.”

Sad news about K.D. Wentworth...

I just heard the news about K.D. Wentworth.  I met and talked with K.D. many times, and this news came as quite a shock. I didn't even know she had cancer.   I'll never forget her encouragement to me on my writing.  That was K.D.  She always tried to encourage other writers, and her influence will be felt long after her passing.