Notes from Boston

Happy Wednesday! Since last week, auditions and callbacks happened, and both my kids are in their school show. They’re doing High School Musical Junior (shortened version of the full show, meant for kids in grade 9 and below). My 14yo is playing the announcer/narrator, which is perfect for him—the lines read exactly like how my kid sounds on his YouTube channel.

Aside from that, I have a new editing job, and I think I’m finally past my writing woes on this WIP. I still have a bit more to go, but the major issues have been sorted out, I think. Almost time to get beta readers on the job. I have a couple of highly trusted betas, but if anyone else wants in, let me know.

Today’s snippet is a bit more of Cian, and I’m leaving you hanging until next week. This is what I was working on yesterday, so it’s fairly fresh.

WIPmath: 9/27/2017 = 27/9 = 3 paragraphs (Today’s date is really cool because if you add up all the digits, you get 27!)

The whole entire mess at the reception was Cian’s fault. When he looked back on it later, he was never sure whether he should laugh, cry, or be grateful to his own stupidity. In any case, things might have ended up differently if he hadn’t had two shots of Red Bush neat—which he downed entirely too fast on an empty stomach—followed by champagne before and during dinner and the Sam Adams summer ale someone handed him during the father-daughter dance. If he hadn’t been bored while waiting for the wedding party to finish photographs, he never would’ve started. He wasn’t precisely drunk, but he’d lost a good deal of his usual filter in the process.

Cian mostly tuned everything out. Weddings, and wedding receptions, generally bored him. He half wished something exciting like a zombie apocalypse would occur so they could all go home. Consequently, he wasn’t paying enough attention to what or how much he was consuming in the alcohol department. As someone not prone to overdoing it, he missed the cues that he’d already passed that point.

The real trouble didn’t start until after dinner and the customary scheduled festivities.

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!

Happy Wednesday! We survived the first days of school, first dance classes, and first music lessons. Tonight we go back to handbells and choir at church, and this Friday is my very first Irish dance class. I’m a little nervous, though my 14-year-old assures me I’ll be just fine. Easy for him to say! He’s been dancing since he was 3.

In other big news, my kids have auditions for their school’s junior show (grades 6-9): High School Musical. They’re so excited! The main stage show (grades 6-12) in February will be Big Fish.

On to the WIPpet. I’m following up on last week’s uh-oh with Jamie and the flowers he didn’t really want. This is immediately after he discovers who sent them. FYI, Mack is definitely not Jamie’s boyfriend/partner/date. He’s Jamie’s best friend. Warnings for some swears and for a “spoiler” of sorts (Jamie’s ex was never named until the end of the second book of the series.)

WIPmath: 5 paragraphs because there have been 5 full days of school so far.

“Hey.” Mack’s voice sounded funny, and Jamie wished the ringing in his ears would quit so he could hear properly. “Hey, Jamie. Breathe.”

Mack’s hand was on his neck, massaging. Jamie shuddered, his whole body seizing up. He shoved at Mack. Before he could stop himself, Jamie hurled the second bouquet across the room. The glass vase it was in shattered on the hardwood floor, and the pieces went everywhere.

“Fuck him!” Jamie repeated it over and over until the words didn’t make sense anymore. He fell onto his knees.

“Let me see.” Mack’s fingers closed around the card Jamie was still clutching. He pried it away. A few seconds later, he muttered, “That absolute asshole. How long has this been going on?”

What Mack had said was true; Sage was an asshole, but he was one with a remarkable ability to know what would go straight to Jamie’s heart. He had all the right words, every I miss you, baby and I’m no good without you and I swear I can’t go on. What scared Jamie wasn’t the thought that Sage would make good on his threats to hurt himself. It was how tempted Jamie was to go back to him. How many nights he still ached for Sage. Still wanted the familiarity, even if it came with all the pain.

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!

Happy Wednesday! I’m posting this, and then I’ll read the others in between running around all day to get ready for vacation. So much to do, so little time!

Believe it or not, I’m near the end of writing Drumbeat. Just a few more chapters and some minor reworking of some scenes, and then it’s off to beta readers. At least the first part, anyway, while I clean up the second half. It’s hard not to let myself get distracted by Shiny New, which is now outlined and waiting patiently until I finish this one. For the handful of folks who read An Act of Devotion, the new project (Tree of Life) is about AJ’s friend Luke. But it’s 100% not a romance, not even if you squint. I do promise a happy ending, though.

Everyone wanted to know about Jamie’s piercings, so here it is. Fair warning, the snippet is long. Jamie’s body jewelry includes a few intimate places, which are obviously only visible to Cian because they’re…well. (For those who missed previous snippets, Cian is deaf but wears hearing aids. He’s not lip-reading here.)

WIPmath: 8/30/17 = 8 x (3 + 0) – (1 + 7) = 16 paragraphs

Tell me about all these, Cian signed, then touched the row of hoops in Jamie’s left ear and then the bar over his eyebrow. “What do you do with them when you’re at work?”

“I trade out my usual for ones that are less obvious. They let me keep them because I don’t work in the kitchen.”

It made sense. Cian leaned in and kissed each of Jamie’s angel bites and then his lips. “I love these. How did you decide to get them?”

Jamie didn’t answer for a moment. Eventually he sat up. “I have one piercing for every break-up.” He smiled and tugged one earlobe. “My first. Got them when my high school boyfriend broke my heart.” Jamie laughed. “He didn’t want me, but suddenly I had all these girls all over me.”

Cian laughed too. Lucky you!

Jamie nudged him with his toe, but he was still smiling. “Then this one.” He fiddled with the eyebrow bar. “I dated that guy for two weeks before we figured out it was never going to work.”

“Why not?” Cian wanted to know.

“We were on set together. He was a cameraman. The way he tells it, he was into me emotionally, but anything past kissing and he couldn’t do it. He was so upset, not wanting to hurt me. Last I knew, he’d gotten engaged to one of my costars.”

“Maybe you opened his mind,” Cian suggested.

“Maybe,” Jamie agreed. He shrugged and moved on to touching the hoops. “All the rest—” He wouldn’t meet Cian’s gaze for a moment, and Cian saw the way his eyes shimmered. “They’re all from the same guy, except this one.” He touched the daith. “It’s new, and I’m not sure it was really a break-up. We weren’t official.”

“The same guy?” Cian blinked. That was a lot of breaking up.

“He hated them. I would get one done and tell myself it was the last time. We’d be apart for a week, two at most, and then he’d grovel, or I’d call and beg.”

It clicked. “The one I saw you with at the engagement party.”

“Yes.” Jamie closed his eyes briefly when his finger came to rest on the pubic studs. “When he saw these, he stopped us mid-sex. Wouldn’t touch me for two weeks after that.” He swallowed visibly and flicked his PA. “He told me if I ever got this one, I’d never see him again. I waited a month after our last split, and then I got it. I had to be sure he was never coming back.”

“Did it work?”

Jamie took a while before he answered. He looked like there was a lot there, hiding just below the surface. At last he said, “I haven’t seen him in more than six months.”

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!