Anthem

It’s Wednesday again! A lot has happened since last week. I think we’re all finally feeling better again. My daughter’s asthma is now well-controlled, and we had her special education meeting last week. She prefers that I not share too many details, but the one big thing that she has given me consent to share is that she made a big decision. It was partly based on the results of the evaluations done by the school, but mostly it’s just what she wanted.

As of September, we will no longer be homeschooling.

A small part of me is sad. I’ll miss having her here, and I’ll miss doing schoolwork with her. On the other hand, I think we’re all ready for this. She wants to go to school, and I’m looking forward to writing and editing full-time. There were no down sides to either choice, which made it easier.

Moving on, here are my ROW80 goals:

1. Read 30 minutes/day—Yes, but not necessarily what I was supposed to be reading. Oops.
2. Write 1 hour/day—Finally!
3. Write 1 blog post/week that isn’t ROW80 or WIPpet—3 of ’em!
4. Write 1 flash fiction/month—Not yet
5. Walk on the treadmill 5 days/week—Nope, but I was still sick until the weekend, so I don’t feel too bad about that.

And last but not least, my WIPpet. This is a continuation of last week’s. In case you don’t recall or missed the last few posts, Trevor has moved in with his best friend, Nate, and two guys they met through a mutual friend. Trevor and Nate share a room. Hey, this is four musicians in Boston—they can’t afford something with more bedrooms. Anyway, Trevor and Nate have had a sort of friends-with-benefits relationship, and we last left them contemplating whether or not to…um…benefit (hint: they didn’t).

WIPmath: 3 + 2 + 5 + 1 + 5 – 2 – 0 = 14 dialog paragraphs.

Trevor pulled back. “I don’t think so.” He jerked his head in the direction of the other bedroom.

“Oh, please. We did this in a dorm room with the thinnest walls ever. Besides, Jamie’s all right, and I assume Mack wouldn’t care.”

“I mean it.” Trevor shook his head.

Nate huffed and withdrew his hand. He rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling; Trevor mimicked his actions. They were quiet for a few minutes.

Eventually, Nate said, “This isn’t about keeping secrets from our very obviously cool roommates. Wanna tell me what’s going on?”

“We need to stop.” He looked over at Nate. “I mean, with Marlie and all.”

“You’ve never been all that serious with her,” Nate countered. “If you were, you’d have asked her to marry you already.”

“I am serious!” Trevor insisted. “Besides, I just think…well, with my job and everything…” He trailed off.

“I see.” Nate scowled.

“I don’t think you do.” Trevor sat up and drew his knees to his chest. “Maybe this is part of my life I need to put behind me, you know? It’s time to settle down with Marlie. Gotta get things on track.”

Nate sat up too. “Put it behind you? It’s not a faucet, Trevor. You don’t just turn off your whole identity, and you definitely don’t do it for a damn job.”

“Who said anything about turning off my identity? I’m just saying maybe I need to try having a real relationship for once.”

“What do you mean by ‘real’?” Nate asked. “Real because it’s with a woman?”

Trevor looked down at his hands. “No. Real because it’s more than just messing with each other in bed now and again.” He glanced at Nate, whose face was stony. “I’ve always been with Marlie, and I thought it was understood she and I would eventually stay together. What you and I did was just a little fooling around between friends, right? It didn’t mean anything. ”

I have a feeling those words may come back to bite him in the rear.

If you want to read some other great WIPpets, just click on this handy link. Thanks to K. L. Schwengel for providing a place for us to gather. Happy writing!

Happy Wednesday! I’m finally back, but I got so derailed between work and illness and other changes that I didn’t manage to do much of anything with my goals the last couple weeks. I really hope I’m back on track.

It’s been a rough few weeks. My younger child was really sick last week, with croup and a horrible flare-up of her asthma. Now I have whatever-it-was (minus the asthma but with a side dish of fibromyalgia flare-up). Meanwhile, we have younger one’s special education meeting in a couple of days. There’s a lot going on with that, which I’ll share more about another time.

I pretty much failed all my ROW80 goals for the week, but hopefully that will change now that I’m done with a fairly big project and no one is sick but me.

1. Read 30 minutes/day—No, but I finished a book I was being pokey on.
2. Write 1 hour/day—Almost…ish
3. Write 1 blog post/week that isn’t ROW80 or WIPpet—Actually, this one I did
4. Write 1 flash fiction/month—Not yet
5. Walk on the treadmill 5 days/week—Nope

Anyway, on to my WIPpet. Just a bit of fair warning, there is no actual steamy content in this snippet or in the chapter it came from, but it’s on the edge, and it’s pretty clear what they could do if they choose to. For context (because this particular thing isn’t really a spoiler), there’s some history between these two during times neither of them has been with someone else. Also, Trevor is not gay and hiding behind Marlie (his sometimes-girlfriend). There are more than two options, folks.

WIPmath: From the 3rd scene, 8 (from the 18th) paragraphs.

Trevor lay on his mattress, a light from outside glowing yellow against the still-falling snow. He was glad to be wrapped in his thick, warm blanket. His thoughts drifted to Marlie, his on-and-off girlfriend of many years. They’d known each other since diapers, and they’d been together in one way or another since junior high school. Although they’d split up multiple times over the years and dated other people in between, they’d always come back to the familiarity of each other. They were currently on hiatus, mostly because Trevor needed to get his head straight about their relationship and where it was headed.

With a sigh he turned over, listening to the slushy whoosh of the late-night traffic and trying to relax enough to sleep. He felt the mattress dip next to him and turned his head to look at his oldest friend other than Marlie. Nate planted an intentionally slobbery, wet kiss on Trevor’s cheek.

“We did it! We’re finally all moved in.”

Breaking out of his melancholy, Trevor laughed and wiped his face then rolled so he was facing Nate. “Yeah. Ugh, I can’t wait until we get all the crap cleaned up.”

“Give us a few days before you start the lectures, okay?” Nate rolled his eyes, but he was grinning.

“Fine.” Trevor reached out and put his hand on Nate’s arm.

Nate hummed and leaned in to kiss Trevor lightly. They stayed with it for a few minutes then Nate slid his hand from Trevor’s hip around to the front and dipped his fingers in the waistband of his flannel pajama pants.

“We should christen the new apartment,” he murmured against Trevor’s lips.

Thanks to K. L. Schwengel, we have this fabulous playground here. Come join us—we only bite occasionally. Don’t forget to read and comment on the other entries. Happy writing!