Two Sentence Tuesday--A Bit More Than Two

I'm still working on two separate manuscripts. Perhaps one day soon I'll devote my energy to one while the other rests, but for now two works.
My husband has been away for two weeks so I do the bulk of my writing at night. He'll be back in a few days, rumour has it, so my rhythms will probably change. Until that day I will continue working after dark.
Last week I put in an excerpt from The Font.  This week it's The Reluctant Psychopomp. Said soul guide has arrived to the death scene early and watches as her new client arrives:

" 'Oh, there's Mavis.' She turned and started a determined walk toward the door just as the clown was coming over to get a glass of something purple.

She wasn't watching. Bungles wasn't watching. She tripped over one of Bungles' huge shoes and struck her head on the cement floor of the arena."

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I finished Lolita the other day. I hated to turn the last page because it meant Nabokov's delicious writing would end.
Here are two from Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, (Berkley Books, 1981):
'An invisible hag's claw slammed down an upper floor window.
In our hallway, ablaze with welcoming light,my Lolita peeled off her sweater, shook her gemmed hair, stretched towards me her two bare arms, raised one knee:
'Carry me upstairs, please. I feel sort of romantic to-night.' "
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Two Sentence Tuesday -- Two On The Go

I'm back in the flow.

 
After a bit of a break I'm back writing some original material. I have two works on the go right now, plus I'm  doing a hard-copy edit of BloodLovers.
I'm not sure what either WIP is really about yet. It's an odd thing to say as I am their creator,  but I mean they haven't clarified themselves to me yet.
A few days ago I finally got a proper idea for a story that first occurred to me last fall. I let it rest as I was busy with something else.
I started it twice and let it go. Last week I realized I'd started the story too early and my character names were all wrong.
I'm more than 1800 words in on The Font. Another reason for abandoning it was it was stepping over the line into horror. It's leaning that way again. Instead of resisting I'll go with it and see what comes out. It may not want to tread there at all.
The other is The Reluctant Psychopomp. A psychopomp is a being who escorts the dead to the afterworld.
The reluctant part hasn't made itself known yet. All I can do is write and see what happens.
I worked on The Font yesterday morning, edited BloodLovers in the afternoon, and added a bit to the psychopomp's story last night.
It was a good day of work and I still found time to read. I started Lolita on Sunday. I bought it 30 years ago and for whatever reason I didn't read it. I think I may have read the first page, then set it aside. I'm kind of glad I waited. I'm not sure I would have appreciated Nabokov's rich use of the language back in my twenties.
Here are two from Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, (Berkley Books, 1981):
"Last night we sat on the piazza, the Haze woman, Lolita and I. Warm dusk had deepened into amorous darkness."
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And from The Font:

"The Mother faced them holding up a long, thin object that reminded Brundel of the knife her father used for deboning meat and fish.

What were they doing? This was a casting ceremony."

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Two Sentence Tuesday -- Rewrite Rewritten

Wyoming. The Virginian is set there.

I finished rewriting BloodLovers Friday night. My husband had been away on a job for a few days so I spent a few nights all alone up late writing about vampires.

It was okay while I was doing the writing, but I did have the occasional anxious moment while getting ready for bed.

Said manuscript isn't really scary, but it sets one's thoughts on a particular path enhanced by a dark and lonely house.

I finished. His job was cut short due to rain and he was home Saturday. It all worked out.

Two sentences from BloodLovers:

" 'But those moments when the ache dancing inside me is about to be met… I take my prize, my blood lover in my arms… my body cries with need as I sink into the warm flesh. I feel the throbbing vein in my mouth as I hold the quivering body to me.' "

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I've been reading The Virginian.

I vaguely remember the television show that was loosely based on the novel and I'd always meant to read the book.

It's been on my TBR pile for a few months now. I am glad I finally got to it last week. The characters are interesting, the setting intrigues me, and it is well-written.

Author Owen Wister started western fiction. From what I've read so far I am glad he did.

Two from The Virginian, A Horseman of the Plains by Owen Wister  (Penguin Books, 1988):

" 'I wasn't right convinced till I kicked him off and you gave that shut to your eyes again,' said the Virginian.

Once more the door opened.' "

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Two Sentence Tuesday--Sinking My Teeth In It

I've gotten some work done on BloodLovers these last few days.  I've changed a character's name and am doing my best to kick up the heat a bit.
Here's a taste:
"He wanted to bite into the tender flesh of her thigh while she sank her sharp fangs into him. He wanted to fill himself with her pulsing, salt wine while she took his, hearts pounding, teeth ripping flesh, sucking and growling until they lost themselves in taking and giving life until neither remembered where they began or ended."

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I haven't done much reading lately. The nice Jehovah's Witness ladies came by yesterday to drop off their magazines. Included this month was a flyer for the upcoming JW conventions in Edmonton and Calgary.
Two attention -grabbing lines from it in reference to a prophetic dream in the Biblical Book of Daniel :
"Why should you be interested in that dream? Because its fulfillment will have a direct impact on the lives of everyone living on this planet, including you and your loved ones."
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Two Sentence Tuesday-- Back in the Fanged Saddle

It's been a few weeks since I trotted out something from a manuscript. I've had a few false starts with a new story. I want to tell it, but it does not yet want to be told. Best I leave it be.
Late last week I sent A Fly on the Wall out to a beta reader. I'm looking forward to what he has to say.
This geared me up to check over BloodLovers. It's been stewing for a few months now. I cranked open the file the other day and realized it was in dire need of my attention.
I'm doing what I can.
Dead Broke has been sent to a few agents. One has a partial. I am forcing myself to be patient.
Work on AFOTW should keep me occupied until I have my beta's insights and editing marks.
This leaves my first, The Legend of Shallal. I don't know if it can be saved, but I won't have it put down either.
Best if I set it aside and try to forget.
Two from BloodLovers:
"The corners of his thin mouth were turned down like he had a mouthful of soured milk. It kept conversation to a minimum."
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I have many, many books waiting to be read. This is a pleasant problem.
Right now I am enjoying Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories Volume 1, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.(Bantam Classics, 2003).
I read a few stories or a  novel in it then set it aside. I want to devour them all at once, but this way they'll last longer.
Two from The Five Orange Pips:
"We sat in silence for some minutes, Holmes more depressed and shaken than I had ever seen him.
'That hurts my pride, Watson,' he said at last."
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Two Sentence Tuesday -- How My TBR Pile Grows

The TBR pile and me.

Last week at the bookstore I hit a rich vein of luck. I bought a few children's books that I'd studiously ignored as a child and then found all the novels and stories featuring Sherlock Holmes.

My TBR pile now includes, but is not restricted to, Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne, A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers.

I was more than a little flummoxed to find both Uncle Tom's Cabin and Dracula in the children's section, but what the hey.  I'd  have read them as a child if I could have found them.
I've read several Sherlock Holmes stories, but finding Sherlock Holmes The Complete Novels and Stories Volume l and ll for a ridiculously good price was a gift from the reading gods that I had more sense than to ignore.
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From A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, (Bantam Classics, 2003)
"'If a herd of buffaloes had passed along, there could not be a greater mess. No doubt, however, you had drawn your own conclusions, Gregson, before you permitted this.' "
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A wee bit from Saintree:
She licked her lips and bared her teeth. A low growl escaped her throat.
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Tuesday Twos -- What I Got Up To

I'm currently rewriting the vampire western. I edited the hard copy and thought it really wouldn't take that much work to get it done. I've been getting antsy to get something published so I knew I needed to be careful. Antsy can lead to bad decisions.
Then one afternoon I awoke from a nap with an idea for another story. It was barely formed. I was left with the final scene of a dream, no idea what preceded it, and a vague notion. The scene stuck with me. The notion formed a bit more and it led to me consulting websites on world-building.
These sites got me worked up to form my new world and go back over all my manuscripts to see what else could be done.
I made notes on all of them.
I want to work on all of them at once.
This only sounds good.
I held myself to only going through the steps and making notes on all the others while I actually write the vampire western.
In the violent upheavals of rewriting I've changed the working title from Biting the Dust to Saintree.  I  think it's normally pronounced "Saint Ree," but in my manuscript the characters insist it's "Sane Tree." 

A little digital filter fun on a photo of Wyoming. It's kind of like putting a different working title on a manuscript. Both change how an object is viewed.

Two sentences fresh as blood from a neck bite:
"Since they'd moved to Saintree their children had embraced the life. Neither Eury nor Kid had taken their first human blood yet."
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Reading took me to Oz. I love this book. I didn't read children's books when I was a child so I've missed out in some respects, but at least I've read it now. I can appreciate it more today than I would have 40-45 years ago. 
In fact there were a few times I found myself saying out loud, "This isn't a children's book."
Baum had an unceasing imagination and a gift of spare prose to the point of underwriting. It works.
A few more than two from  the scarecrow in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum (Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. 2005). Dorothy has just told him she wants to go back to dreary, gray Kansas. 

" 'Of course I cannot understand it,' he said. 'If your heads were stuffed with straw, like mine, you would probably all live in the beautiful places, and then Kansas would have no people at all. It is fortunate for Kansas that you have brains."
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Two Sentence Tuesday -- A Glorious Mess

Writing has gone slowly this past few weeks. I'm in the midst of rewriting. I've added a character. I'll probably excuse a few other characters from the story somewhere down the line. What was chapter two is now that plus 2A and 2B.
Currently it is a glorious mess. I think that's good because mess can be cleaned. But for now, I'm going to go along and make more mess and worry about cleaning it up later.
Here are two fresh efforts from the WIP:
"She harnessed her mind and put it toward complete relaxation, to melting into the ground and the tree and becoming the earth until she and it had neither beginning nor end.
The earth whispered in her heart and set an arm around her soul."
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I finished Wally Lamb's I Know This Much Is True  (Harper, 2009) yesterday. There's a lot to absorb.
Here are two:
"Six months before, that remark would have pissed me off. Would have put me right on the defensive."
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Two Sentence Tuesday -- Words and Pictures Edition

Most of the past week has been devoted to playing. I've been experimenting with the various colour filters available on my cameras and am torn between my enduring love for black and white and a newfound crush on sepia.
The Pentax offers a few more things to play with like colour extraction and illustration than the Olympus does. There's a lot to learn, but that's good because it's fun.

Two sentences from the Pentax K20D Operating Manual (Pentax Corporation 2008) about the illustration setting:
"Creates an image that looks as though it was drawn with a pencil. The setting cannot be adjusted."

A waterfall in Yellowstone after some playing.

I've managed a bit of writing in between the pictures. I'm rewriting my first manuscript and it's coming along slowly as I want to give it some thought and do as adequate a job as I can muster.

It may not ever be send-out-worthy, but when someone finds it languishing on the hard drive after I'm famous and gone I want it to be as unembarrassing as I can manage.

Two recast lines and and extra from The Legend of Shallal:

"Her hand was tingling. High tones sent her thoughts dancing. She felt her exhaustion racing away like a wave headed back to the ocean. "

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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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Two Sentence Tuesday--More Words

 Where are my characters taking me?

I've added plenty of words to the manuscript lately. I'm starting to get an idea of where the characters want to go, but they're still being coy. I'd threaten to walk away and leave their stories untold, but we both know I can't do it.
They have me, at least for now, and they know it.

From Dead Broke:
"The being on my left twinkled his eyes toward me. He had a 20 year old's face framed by long white hair, and a gentle smile that took my troubles and threw them over a cliff."
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I've been blessed to have plenty of reading time lately. The smoke from hundreds of fires in B.C. settled over us. Much as I like the smell of woodsmoke, it got to be a bit much so I stayed indoors, writing or reading or even  housework when my eyes needed a rest.
It gave me time to lose myself even more in what I was reading. I'm reluctant to come up for anything when reading, but last week I read The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold  (Little, Brown, and Company, 2002) and I fought back every hint from my body that it was time to do something else. Whatever it wanted, I turned a page instead.
Two sentences:
"Every day he got up. Before sleep wore off, he was who he used to be."
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Twofer Tuesday -- What a Character

Another week and my WIP is starting to fall into place. I've made some progress although I've got a second character, a woman, who is tough to get to know. I wrote a 1400+ word back story on her the other day. I thought I had something to go on until this morning when she told me she was a liar. And borderline psychotic. Oh, goody. Of course, she might be lying about that last bit.

Here's a bit from Dead Broke:

"Samantha used to tell me she was fine. It took me a long time to get that it really wasn't fine, it hadn't been fine for a long time, and if I didn't pull up my socks it might not ever be fine again."
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I finally got around to giving The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger, Little, Brown and Company, copyright 1945) a second go.
I read it in school, Gr. 8 I think, and didn't care for it. I suspected I may  have been too young to truly get it them so I decided recently to try it again. After all I read The Great Gatsby and To Kill A Mockingbird in school and didn't like them.  They are faves now with TKAM my favourite book ever  'sides the dictionary.
I am confident I now get The Catcher in the Rye.  It's a fine book, a classic, and deservedly so. But to tell the brutal truth, I still don't like it.

The writing style didn't appeal to me, and frankly, Holden Caulfield is kind of annoying. There I said it. He's a great character, Salinger did a wonderful job with him, but he doesn't do it for me.
I'm glad I read it again. I can articulate my feelings on it from a fresh view instead of  vague memories floating around from the 1970s. And I'm glad I don't feel obligated to to like something just because it's good.

Here are two from it:
"She was about as kindhearted as a goddam wolf. You take somebody that cries their goddam eyes out over phony stuff in movies, and nine times out of ten they're mean bastards at heart."
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Twofer Tuesday --Book Report, and More Goats!

 For your goating pleasure.

If you'll recall a few months ago my husband and I were reading the sequel to Heidi called Heidi Grows Up  by Charles Tritten, Johanna Spyri's translator.
I believe I promised at least one of my faithful readers I'd let you know how it was when we were done. I've let the matter cool and gather for a while now.
I called it a dry read then, and I'll go so far as to call it egregious now. Some people can write out a grocery list and it's a soaring epic of pain and joy. Tritten took a good idea and made it read like a grocery list.
It was boring and dull. Description was not his gift so we don't have a clear picture of Maienfeld or Dorfli or the mountains or, well, anything. He does mention the Falknis on occasion as though everyone ought to know all about it.
Anyone who's read Spyri's wonderful work knows that Heidi and Peter will end up together. In the sequel it seems Heidi is clueless as to this outcome.  I understand what the author was trying to do, but he failed.
I know I sound harsh, but  it's how I see it. Others may disagree. For Tritten's sake I hope so. I hope he has fans who love his work and that he made a healthy living with his two (he also wrote Heidi's Children) sequels.
Good for him for doing this. I think everyone should pursue their dreams and I'm happy that he got to do it.  I wish it had been to my taste, but it wasn't and in all fairness, Heidi was a tough act to follow.

Meanwhile I've been reading at a reasonable pace and whittled my TBR main pile (we won't discuss the back up TBR pile) so dangerously low that I had to buy more books the other day.  One does as one can.

Last week I read  Equal Rites, by Terry Pratchett (Corgi Books, 1987)
Two lines:
"She found that life in the cottage wasn't entirely straightforward. There was the matter of the goats' names, for example."
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I've done a bit more work on Dead Broke. It's coming along slowly, but at least it's coming along. Part of the problem is there's alway something around here that needs attention be it food, house, husband, or garden. I get up early to get things done and have discovered the earlier I start the less I accomplish.
Despite all that I have written a bit. Here are recent lines:

"Eddie, this is Dr. Phinneas Mossheart. He wants to help. And yes, he does exist."
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Two Sentence Tuesday -- A Great Read

What a great read.
I've just finished reading Invisible Boy by Cornelia Read. It was witty, passionate, gripping, taut, and sad all at the same time.
I generally don't read murder mysteries although I do enjoy them. This one came to me through a contest held by the gracious and talented Women of Mystery. I am so tickled my name was drawn.
I'd been looking forward to it since I won several months ago, but there were books ahead of it so it waited patiently on the TBR pile.
I am so glad it's number came up.

Two sentences:
"I finally slept okay, considering.
Dean woke up at dawn, his circadian rhythm still governed by some lingering neurochemical trace of childhood heifers and cornfields."

-Invisible Boy, Cornelia Read (Grand Central Publishing 2010)

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As for me, well, yes I've been writing. I changed my approach on Dead Broke after realizing I needed another major character and that it required, at least for now, a prologue.
The problem is my new character doesn't want to do anything. She didn't do much alive and she is reluctant to change now that she's dead.


I am trying to forge ahead in hopes that she will blossom. I am sure she wants to.

Here are two from the prologue:

"The Guild Mother crossed the name off her list.
"We did as we could. Miracles are up to someone else."
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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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Twofer Tuesday -- Ducks In A Row?

A Common Goldeneye duck and her ducklings out for a late morning swim.

I'm still editing A Fly on the Wall. I had a particularly sticky problem in chapter eight that took a while to sort out. Or, to make the photo relevant, I had trouble getting all my ducks in a row.
I eventually sorted it out. The rest of the corrections in logic should be easier.
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Here's a freshly edited passage:
"Brelyan turned on his stomach and buried his face in the pillow. What was he missing?"
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Our current bedtime story is from The Complete Tales of Nikolai Gogol, Vol 1. (University of Chicago Press, 1985)
We decided to read Gogol after my husband found a reference to him in one of my cookbooks. Gogol's Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka sounded like our kind of stories.
A quick internet search sealed it. In the second picture Gogol looks quite a bit like my husband. I ordered both volumes and offered them as my husband's birthday present.

Here are two sentences, and two extras from The Fair at Sorochintsy:
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" ' Why it looks like two men: one on top, the other under. Which of them is the devil I can't make out yet!'
'Why, who is on top?'
'A woman!'
'Oh, well, then that's the devil!' "
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Twofer Tuesday -- The Write Hat for the Job

It was nagging at me for quite some time, but I was unsure what to do about it. I felt the need for a hat. Not just any hat either. It had to be a fedora. The question was, where does one go to get it?

The nagging grew more intense late last week as I got stronger pulls to work on all four of my novel mss. even the one that is unlikely to ever see the cold light of day.

Then we went to Red Deer last Friday ( a central Alberta city 50 mi. to the east) and as we approached the feeling intensified. I must have a fedora. Now.

I was walking through a mall when I passed a hat store that always seemed to be overfilled with ball caps. But this time as I walked by a shelf display teeming with fedoras threw itself at me.

I'm pleased to report the fedora and I are very happy together. I wear it as I take chapter notes on A Fly on the Wall. Stray scenes from other mss. flow into my mind with suggestions on just what I need to do to satisfy them.
The hat keeps them in check, corralling my thoughts and organizing them into a chute for later launching. It's a good hat, and it's helping me write.
I still have the chew toys as needed and pick out a tune or two on the guitar as needed, but the hat is helping me get it done.

As I said earlier I'm taking chapter notes. This is my way of finding all the times I was repetitive, or contradictory, or simply made no appreciable sense. I also see more mistakes and have the sense to fix them as I find them.

Here's a bit from A Fly on the Wall:

She moved her head in closer to his. "I think she's got a drop or two of the blood in her, that's what. I studied Cryptozoology, you know. Crosses and half-bloods and miscegenation, if you will. Happens all the time."

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I'm currently reading some Philip K. Dick. Why, oh why didn't I get to this man sooner? Science fiction is my first love and I'm just now getting back to it after years of straying.
We went to a bookstore during our trip to Red Deer and I bought two of his books: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? ( the inspiration for Blade Runner) and A Scanner Darkly.

I had a quick look at both before consigning them to the TBR pile, but the second one called me. I had to read it.
Here are two sentences :

" 'The receptor sites in his brain are what I've read usually goes first,' Donna said placidly. 'Someone's brain where he's gotten a bad hit or like that, like too heavy. ' "

-A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick (Vintage Books 1991, copyright 1977)

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Twofer Tuesday--A Real Ending

I'm happy to report I finally did it. I finally wrote a proper ending to A Fly on the Wall.
The final scene has been in my mind since before I finished the manuscript last summer. I knew how it had to end. The problem was getting there. I didn't have a logical reason to bring about the logical conclusion.
The other day I was winding up the second edit when I realized it had to be fixed. Now. No more waiting and hoping that I'd be inspired in the next pass.
If I kept my weak, happy, all -tightened-up conclusion in any longer I'd be tempted to give up and keep it. That would be wrong and stupid.

Action had to be taken. I had to fix the second -last chapter and rewrite most of the final chapter. This meant guitar playing and chew toys. I strummed for a bit and then bought some gelatinous fruit chewies that got me started and I finished with a toothpick stuck out at a jaunty angle from my mouth.
The ending's not perfect, but neither is it embarrassingly sewed-up and happy. It'll take some rest, and some strumming and chewing, but I'll one day have something to send out.

Here are two fresh lines from A Fly on the Wall:

"Just like the first time, it was over and done before Brelyan knew what happened. One moment he and Nick were about to say goodbye, the next they were in a small cage not sure what happened or who they were."

I'm reading Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits (Dial Press Trade Paperback, 2005.) I saw the movie years ago, sometime in the nineties I think, and loved it. It made me want to read the book. I found it a short while ago and am so happy that it made it to the top of my TBR pile.

Two sentences I read:

"The Jesuit's index finger, which was already raised to illustrate additional tortures, remained suspended like a lightning rod above his head. People stopped breathing, and those whose heads had been nodding suddenly woke up."

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Tuesday Twosomes - Cleaning Time

I'd have to say the editing I'm doing is more like cleaning. I have some extensive rewriting to do on the ending of A Fly on the Wall and yet I'm concentrating on fixing the typos and assorted other errors. I claim it is because it gives me a framework with which to think about what I might do.
Mostly, it lets me put it off a bit longer as I haven't decided the direction it would take.
The current ending is completely logical, but too pat, too feel-good, and much too convenient for my liking. It feels tacked on, and in many ways it was. I wanted to finish the story so it could simmer and then I could get to fixing it up.
I'd like it to be a reasonably happy conclusion with a wee dram of edge to keep readers from being too comfortable. All I have to do is sort out how to do it.

Here are two sentences from a chapter I edited a few days ago:

"He sat quietly as he had been directed. The mirror had been told to be quiet as well, but no one was willing to guarantee that would happen."

And from what I read about the habits of the American Goldfinch:

A goldfinch and a pine siskin contemplate sharing a bath.

"Though bathing is less frequent that preening, it is also an important part of feather maintenance. It provides an additional means of keeping the feathers clean and may also be important for skin care."
- Wild Bird Guides American Goldfinch, by Alex L.A. Middleton, (Stackpole Books 1998)

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

Twofer Tuesday - Think Days

I've taken a few think days this past week to sort out the WIP. It's coming along, albeit slowly. The downside of not writing one day is it is easier to not write again the next day. It's even easier the day after that even though I miss it. And the "think day" excuse runs thin after a time.

Two sentences I read this week are from my hotmail account's junk folder. It includes all the usual suspects such as meds for my erectile dysfunction and weight loss, but this week I have two favourites.

The subject lines are as follows:

"Augustine Dinga (ESQ) "Immediate transfer of $ 2.5 Million Dollars to you"
(Yay! I'll be rich! Wheee!)

and my personal top choice: "PayPal.com "Your PayPal account has been limited"

I give this second one the edge because it can be argued to be the absolute, undeniable truth. I do not have a Paypal account, therefore, it is, by its very nonexistence, limited.

And speaking of relative non-existence here are a few from Dead Broke:

"I craned a bit and saw that ankle again. Even dead I didn't dare look any higher. It was her and I had the spiritual boner to prove it."

Thanks so much for coming by.
For more or to get in on the game, please see the Women of Mystery.