Happy Wednesday! I haven’t been around for a few weeks for a bunch of reasons. My job took up a ton of time last month. We usually only have 1-2 releases with my publisher, which was true in July as well. But it was an anthology, which meant promoting each author/story separately and together. Lots of work!
Aside from that, I’m really struggling to write. I have a novella that just released a couple of days ago, Year of the Guilty Soul, and I’m working on the sequel. I’m also working on Minuet. Neither project is making me happy right now, and I struggle to put words on the page every time I try. Some of it is work, some is family stress, and some…well, I don’t know. I’m just not motivated.
But I’m here today, and I’m sharing from Minuet in hopes it will spark something. I miss sharing here and reading the other WIPs. And if anyone has a suggestion for a way to get myself organized and stay the heck off social media, I’m all ears.
This is a bit of Amelia’s POV. I love writing in her voice. This gives a bit of insight into who she is, but there’s another familiar name in here too.
WIPmath: 8/1/2018 = 18 – 1 = 17 paragraphs
“How did you and Mack meet? Was it through the band?” Jomari crossed his legs underneath himself.
Amelia didn’t answer right away. She didn’t know how soon it was appropriate to tell Jomari the truth. Eventually, she settled on saying, “We went to school together.”
It didn’t fool him. “You took a pretty long time to answer that,” he remarked. “I sense there’s a story there. I mean, you don’t have to tell me, but I’m curious.”
Drawing in a deep breath, Amelia braced herself. “Our parents were—are—all alcoholics. Mine, Mack’s, and Sage’s.”
“Sage,” Jomari said slowly. “Why do I know that name?”
“Jamie’s ex.”
“Oh, him.” The muscle in his jaw twitched, but he didn’t say anything else. He didn’t need to.
“The school counselor got this brilliant idea we should all be in a group together to ‘work through our issues.’ It was technically a social skills thing, since we were all pretty isolated. We figured out the truth pretty fast. The whole point of the group was to get to us before we took the same sorry routes our parents did.”
Amelia didn’t look at Jomari, but she felt him shift. She didn’t know whether what she’d said made him uncomfortable. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk about it. More like she didn’t know how. Those years were a strange time in her life, full of figuring things out. She’d blamed her father—and his beatings—for a lot of things, but she wasn’t sure he deserved all of them.
“Did it work?” Jomari’s hesitant question snapped her back to the present.
“Yes and no.” Amelia sighed. “I can’t tell you about Mack because I think it’s his place to give you details. For me? I put my energy into learning how to fight back.”
“So that’s how you became a personal trainer.”
“Sort of, yeah.” She wasn’t ready to tell Jomari about breaking her father’s nose. “Anyway, this group was the three of us and two other kids. I don’t know what happened to them.”
“Funny that three of you turned out to be queer,” Jomari remarked.
“Yeah. I thought for a long time maybe my father’s minister was right and it could be caused by having shitty parents.”
“Oh?” Jomari’s eyebrows rose.
“My father…” She took a deep breath and let it out bit by bit. “He was a former boxer, and let’s just say he had a well-practiced right hook. I declared myself a lesbian until well into high school. I hated even the thought of dating guys, despite the fact that I was fascinated with dicks. Mack said he was straight, but he was trading blow jobs for homework help by the time he was fourteen. We both confessed everything to each other right before the first time we had sex.” She snorted. “Only Sage was completely open. He flaunted it because his parents were such assholes, and he wanted their attention. Even bringing his boyfriends on their precious boat didn’t make them take notice.”
Like what you read? Be sure to check out the other entries and add your own. Just post a bit of your WIP, connect it to the date, and link up with us. Many thanks to Emily Wrayburn for giving us this space. Happy reading and writing!
That last paragraph made me feel at least a sliver of sympathy for Sage. Dang it. 😉
Great snippet, and it’s good to see you back. I hope you can figure out what will work for you.
LOL, don’t feel too sympathetic to Sage. He’s still horrible. I’m pretty sure I can make everyone hate him again by the end of the story.
I spent my morning organizing my files, both on my laptop and for this story. It was encouraging to see that I’m about 1/3 of the way done writing it, which shocked me. Also made me realize I for sure need to find a way to structure my time better, but I have some ideas.
Well! I don’t know what to say about that revelation. Yep, still an asshole, but…maybe…it’s understandable. Up to a point. I mean, it’s no excuse.
Sending you positive writerly vibes. It’s entirely for selfish reasons. 😉
Yeah, I wouldn’t say Sage learned good manners from his parents. But no, not an excuse.
I’m going to try getting some writing done while I’m on vacation. Which sounds like “work,” but since it’s not my day job, I don’t feel too bad about it.
Interesting bit of back story for these characters, which fleshes them all out a bit more, including Sage.
Wow, talk about it all coming out (or at least part of it). There’s a lot of backstory here, but I’m with the others about Sage. Little sympathy… emphasis on little.
I really appreciate getting some back story for these characters. I can’t feel too sorry for Sage but it is interesting reading something about what made him that way.
I hope you can find your writing groove again. I hate it when other life things impact on my motivation.