Two Sentence Tuesday -- Of Hares and Hauntings

Our current bedtime story, translated from Finnish, is about a fellow who wanders Finland with a bunny.  He hits it with his car, rescues it, and walks away from his life with the hare at his side.
It's wonderful and funny and a joy to read.
Two from The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna (Penguin 2010):
"Hannikainen had a knapsack on his back; a hare's head peeped out from under the flap.
Vatanen rushed over to them, grabbed the knapsack from Hannikainen's back, undid the cord, and welcomed the hare into his arms."
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I've spent the last few days or so trying to craft a query letter and synopsis for Dead Broke.
I've got the bare bones of both. It's going to be several more days before I have something I'm content to let sit for a while.
Here are two from the query:
"Eddie Corbett, shot dead over a gambling debt, wakes up on the wrong side of the afterlife. If he wants a new life he has to earn it by doing off-label jobs for God like hauntings and sending people to their deaths."
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Thanks for reading me.
For more or to get in on the fun, please see the Women of Mystery.

Two Sentence Tuesday - Sun Rises, Days Get Longer

The days are expanding into summer.

The clean up on Dead Broke is almost completed. I thought I'd be done by now, but other things, notably serial laziness, got in my way.
On the good side  it does not appear to need much actual rewriting. Not to say my prose is golden, I merely mean I can't find anything obvious that needs work.
I know I just called that good.
It may not be.
In between corrections I played with the world-building for Saintree and sorted a few things out. I'm getting antsy to get back at it, but I promised myself I'd finish the corrections first. 
On the reading end I finally finished The Sun Also Rises. I think I liked it, but I have to say I'm not sure.
It's one of those books that has to sit with me, mature a bit, let its flavours gather.
Hemingway's spare prose has its appeal. He did a fine job of it. And the lack of description most of the time worked.
But I still don't know my opinion of it save for the part where he's discussing the use of steers to keep the bulls calm before bullfighting. That was a brilliant metaphor for the impotent Jake Barnes among the other men, especially those interested in Lady Brett Ashley.
From the brief conversation about the steers in the corral:
" 'What do they have them in for?'
'To quiet down the bulls and keep them from breaking their horns against the stone walls, or goring each other.' "
-Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (Scribner Trade Paperback, 2006)
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My contribution to the cause this week:

" 'Relax, Eddie. Just relax.'
The whisper ran its hands up and down my body."

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Thanks for being here. It's good to know I'm being read.
For more or to get in on the fun please see the Women of Mystery.
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And speaking of the sun, Happy Solstice everyone.

Tuesday Twosomes -- Optimism Reigns

I've been optimistic lately for a number of reasons including, but not restricted to, the reminder that the common cold will run it's course no matter what.
Said course has kept me from doing too much reading beyond the daily and weekly newspapers, and cough syrup bottles. In another example of raging optimism one name brand I found on the shelf offers both a cough suppressant and an expectorant.
It got in the way of writing, too, so I've been editing a different manuscript than the one I was rewriting. I can still think well to find many mistakes and correct most of them.
This gives me hope.
Two non-contiguous lines I read concerning the ingredients of Nin Jion Herbal Cough and Throat Syrup.
Folium  Eriobotryae (Loquat) (Leaf)
Semen Aremeniacae Amarum (Bitter Apricot) (Seed)
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As for my error corrections, well, they're not exciting, but they must be done. I'll get back to the rewrite of Saintree as soon as I can. For now I've opened up Dead Broke. It's been sitting a few months now and the mistakes are easier to find.

Here's a sample.

" 'I thought we didn’t need cash in heaven.'

 'Your security deposit will be taken out in other ways.' "

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Thanks for coming by.

For more or to get in on the fun please see the Women of Mystery.

Two Sentence Tuesday --First Draft Done

It's done. The first draft of Dead Broke is currently fermenting in a dank back corner of the hard drive. In a few months I'll haul it out, clear away the mildew, and very carefully open the file lest it explode.
More likely it will whimper and fizzle, and that's fine, too.  As long as something is left to work with I'll be happy.
Once it was done I took a few days off from writing. I wandered around the house bumping into furniture I'd forgotten about while trying to decide which of the other three novel manuscripts needed my attention.
They all do.
I finally decided to go with the first one I'd written. It hadn't been touched in so long it screamed when the mouse clicked over it. I'm pleased to say it's calmed down and I'm able to work on it.

Before it's too far gone in the fermentation here's a bit from near the end of Dead Broke:
"He glided out of the room. His bare, brain-burdened head cocked to one side to avoid the lintel."
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Not writing means more time for reading. I just finished Pharaoh by Italian author Valerio Massimo Manfredi (first published in Italian in 1998. English translation by Christine Feddersen-Manfredi, published, in 2010 by McArthur and Company).
The author is many-times published and an archaeologist whose specialty is the ancient world.
The book is a thriller set in the middle east with plots to cripple the US and take over Israel while a tomb is discovered that could rip the faith from the three major religions.
It's a good page-turner, good for taking readers away, and bits of it read like a reasonable echo of  9/11 despite being put out three years earlier.

Two lines:
" 'Please allow us just a few minutes," said the man with the coat. 'You'll realize that we had no choice.' "
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Thanks for being here. It means a lot to me.
For more or to get in on the fun please see The Women of Mystery.

Twofer Tuesday -- A Grand Plan

As I wrote in this post last week I've commited myself to 1000 words a day. So far, so good. It all started early last week when I noted my word count one day was 932. Well, I thought, that's just a few ands, ifs,  and thats away from one thousand. Maybe I should make it a target.

As a bonus the story which was not moving is now crawling forward. One of my characters did not wish to grow, change, or do anything, despite taking some drastic action to get to where she  is.
On the good side she's not my main character. She was going to be a second MC, but if she insists on stagnating, then her role changes.

I have been reading over what I've put down so far with special focus on the first chapter. I introduced a few questions back then that it's high time I got around to addressing. I'm working on it.
I'm happy to say that during some sessions, like yesterday's, the words gushed out, like this:

 Old Faithful, Yellowstone

and I was happy.

But there are still days when the session is more like this:

Sulphur Caldron, Yellowstone

and I gnash my teeth as I write, but I am still happy.

I suspect Dead Broke will be one on those manuscripts. You know the type. The one that comes up in the queue and must be written to get at whatever's behind it. 

I could be wrong. But right now I don't think I am.

Two lines from the manuscript:

"A bullet-shaped beige lump with a peaked cap smiled up at me and twinkled  its deep brown eyes. This is what my afterlife had come to: a dildo with glasses and a wanton fringe of hair offering his services."

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What have I been reading?
Glad you asked.

I had the unqualified pleasure of reading Gregory Maguire's Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.

He did a magnificent job of bringing Elphaba to life and making us care about her. She may be wicked to some, but she loves fiercely, in the absolute, and on her own terms.

She who is perceived as wicked is frankly better and more honest than the good one who is corrupted by the perception of absolute good.

Maguire did a much better job of twisting around our sadly pedestrian notions of good and evil and of making us think than Salman Rushdie did in The Satanic Verses,  and he did it without Rushdie's self-important bloviation.

Two lines from Wicked (Harper, 1995)

"But Elphaba only nodded grimly. 'I couldn't agree with you more, ' she said.

'As for Shell-'continued Glinda, wondering what fresh pain she might tread upon."

Thanks for reading. For more Tuesday twos, please see The Women of Mystery.

Tuesday Offerings- Begin Again Edition

Cold and rigid, like my WIP.

It's Two Sentence Tuesday time and I'm back with a bit of work.
Last week I didn't play along, not even at home, because I was a bit played out from getting a manuscript ready for betas. A Fly on the Wall is in their tender hands now. All I can do is wait. And write something else, of course, to keep my mind off it.

I'd set aside my current WIP some time ago to concentrate on AFOTW. By the time I dusted off the file again Dead Broke was cold and rigid.
I re-arranged a few things and it helped. Then I decided I needed to start over so I killed off three of the four chapters one morning. Later than day I resurrected them. I realized my approach had been wrong all along and I needed to back up and change perspective. Some bits in the chapters could be made to fit.
I've done a bit of writing on it, but mostly I've been thinking and sometimes rubbing my hands together as I giggle maniacally over an idea.

Ahh, it's good to be creating again.

From Dead Broke:

"The last bit out loud was clearly for my benefit. The carp tipped his fedora to me and swam away."

I spent many an hour on my deck these last few days enjoying the sunshine and a good book. The book is Elizabeth Hay's Late Nights on Air. It's set in the mid-70s at a radio station in Yellowknife, NWT. Hay brings the station, the people, and the north alive in her book and I found it captivating.
Two sentences:
"But she discovered soon enough. The enmity of newsmen is no small thing."
- McClelland & Stewart, Emblem Edition (2009)
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Thanks so much for reading me. Two Sentence Tuesday is the brainchild of the Women of Mystery. Slip on over there for more.