WIPpet Wednesday

WIPpet Wednesday: Kitchen chaos

Happy Wednesday! Eek, I missed a couple of these due to vacation and something weird from last week (can’t remember what). Anyway, I’m back for now.

My writing has been hit or miss, due to several editing jobs and my ongoing battles with chronic illness, condescending medical professionals, and my insurance company. But I’ve managed some progress, so there is that.

While I have written some, mostly I’ve done planning and some research. This novel is (for reasons) in four different POVs. The previous snippets have introduced two of them. Now we’ll meet the third. This is Robbie, a music teacher and mother of 4 (blended family with her partner; this is before marriage equality in NY).

WIPmath: 7/17/19 = 1 + 7 = 8 paragraphs.

Robbie and Jan’s kitchen was chaos, with all four kids plus Jan throwing lunches into reusable sacks and filling water bottles. Logan, the oldest, was helping the other three make sandwiches while Robbie sliced apples. Jan grabbed the pretzels and doled them out into baggies. Everyone was talking at the same time.

“Not pretzels again!”

“Mom, you have to peel those for my braces.”

“I wanted peanut butter toast for breakfast!”

“Grape jelly, Logan! I hate strawberry.”

Robbie tuned most of it out, since the kids could sort themselves over the sandwiches and the toast. She peeled the apple slices for Logan and Sierra, left peel on for Autumn, and put a whole apple in Brittany’s lunch. She lined up the water bottles and dropped ice cubes into them.

“We’re gonna be late for camp,” Brittany complained.

“No, you’re not.” Jan looked at the clock over the sink. “We still have fifteen minutes. I’ll get you there on time, don’t worry.”

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!

WIPpet Wednesday: A little TLC

Books, Writing

Happy Wednesday! My summer adventures with playing medical Nancy Drew have started. We’ll see what turns up. Fingers crossed!

Today is the last day of school. My younger kid is already home and off to hang out with friends after her half day. My older one is getting ready to go to a rehearsal for the graduation choir. No, he’s not graduating, but younger students are selected to sing for the ceremony. Afterward, he has another rehearsal for his final jazz concert of the year, performing at the International Jazz Festival here in town.

Meanwhile, I’m working on…work. Editing job plus a bit of tinkering with my WIP. Last week, I posted Colin’s mood board along with a snippet about his endless calm. Today, I’ll introduce you to Mary, his nurse. She’s cheerful and energetic where Colin is quiet and steady.

WIPmath: 6/26/2019 = 6 + 2 + 6 = 14 paragraphs, mostly dialog

“Hey, Dr. Schulman. How did it go today?”

He meant to tell her it had been fine, that he’d made it through to the other side. What came out was, “I got puked on first thing and then spent the next eight hours being compared to someone I’ve never even met. And then I snapped at my last patient because I couldn’t hold it in anymore.” He put his arms on the desk and dropped his head onto them.

“Oh, you poor thing. I’m sure your clothes are clean now. You want me to go see?”

“No. Yes.” Colin sat back with a groan. “I don’t even know. I think my brain is broken.”

“You’ll be fine. I have an idea. You want to come somewhere with me?”

“Where?” Colin eyed her, suspicious of what she had in mind.

“Casual little place by the lake. We go out there for drinks after work sometimes.”

“You don’t have something better to do than take me for a pity drink?”

Mary shrugged. “Nah. It’s summer, so my husband’s working later hours. The kids are with my parents, so they’re good too.”

“You have kids?” Colin asked, temporarily distracted. Mary was so tiny he couldn’t imagine her having given birth once, let alone multiple times.

“Two of ’em. I told my husband we weren’t gonna be like his family, not knowing when to quit.”

“I don’t blame you.” Colin wasn’t yet sure about kids, but that was mostly due to having spent more than ten years on his education.

“Go get your stuff, and I’ll grab your clothes from the linens room. I’ll meet you out front.”

She bustled off, and Colin wondered where in the world she got all that energy. Wherever it was, he wanted some. He was dead tired, to the point he was in danger of slithering off the chair and under the desk, asleep. He didn’t want to move. But move he must, so he took a deep breath and stood to go collect his belongings.

WIPpet Wednesday: Initiation

Books, Writing

Happy Wednesday! I’m so glad to be back in the writing game. I’m at the point in the story where I’m working on the intro to the two main POV characters, and then I’ll likely write out of order for a bit. I liked what I saw somewhere about cobbling together a frankendraft from all the random scenes. That’s about right for my half pantsing, half plotting style.

The picture at the top is my mood board for Colin. I’ll hopefully get a chance to create a few more of these over time. It’s summer vacation, I don’t have a current editing job, and I’m not really able to write for hours at a time. So I’m doing other creative projects.

Today’s snippet is Colin’s first patient at his new job. Don’t read this if you sympathy gag from reading about vomit. Also, although he isn’t named in this snippet, the child here appears as a minor character in one of the Faithfully Yours books. (This story begins in August 2007, if that helps connect the dots.)

WIPmath: 4/19/2019 = 4 + 1 + 9 = 14 sentences.

The frantic young mother to Colin’s left was panic-babbling about her toddler’s illness while Colin tried to wrangle the poor boy into a position to examine him. He was fussy, and his skin was warm to the touch.

“How long has he been sick?”

“Almost a week. I thought he was getting better, but then he started up again.” Her voice quavered.

At that exact moment, just as Colin was lifting the child’s shirt to listen to his chest, he projectile vomited. Colin didn’t step back in time to avoid having his plaid shirt and pressed khakis covered in what might’ve been undigested crackers. The boy began sobbing.

Despite the initial shock, Colin kept his tone calm and steady as he stepped closer again. “It’s okay,” he assured the boy—and his mother by extension. Peering at the child, Colin noticed what he hadn’t before being covered in bodily fluids. He turned to the mother. “When was the last time he had a wet diaper?”

WIPpet Wednesday: Starting over

Books, Writing

Well, our family has made it to June—and almost the end of the school year—relatively unscathed. We’ve had some bumps and bruises, but we’re hanging in there. Though with final exams around the corner, maybe I shouldn’t speak too soon. (Yep, that’s my two in the photo, messing around as usual.)

It’s been forever since I posted one of these, but I’m happily back in the game with a new WIP! It even has a title, courtesy of my friends (and kid-approved, even though it’s not a YA): Have a Little Faith.

While this story is not officially part of the Faithfully Yours series, and doesn’t center on the characters from those books, it is set in the same place. So expect a few familiar faces to pop up from time to time. I promise to share snippets when that happens.

This novel is about two very different people and the long-term friendship developing between them. It’s not a romance, although if I stick with my outline, both of the MCs will get their share of love. Today, I’m sharing from the very beginning, when our shy young doctor begins his new job in the tiny town of Concordia, NY.

Check out the two location photos. The first one is Geneva, NY, but I chose it for the look of the small town street of shops. (I tried to find stock images of Watkins Glen, but they were all of auto racing!) The second is Eagle Cliff Falls, which is not too far from where the story is set. The creek into which these falls empty is the main inlet for Seneca Lake.

WIPmath: none, as this is a brand-new novel. These are the first 4 paragraphs.

The family medicine center was adjacent to a strip mall consisting of a laundromat, an ice cream parlor, a tattoo artist, a bakery, and a used game trading store. It was one of those places designed in the 1970s to look like a modern home, only the maze-like interior contained doctors’ or dentists’ examination rooms.

Colin stared up at it, his bag in hand, as in awe now of its unattractiveness as he had been when he interviewed. It was a welcome distraction from his nerves. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t been a real doctor before. The diploma and the two letters after his name assured him he was very much real. But this was his first solo flight, newly finished with his residency.

Here he was, in a small town on Seneca Lake. Picturesque, quaint, with both holdovers from eras gone by—like the house/office building—and some modern structures, like the school and his apartment complex. There was older lakefront property, perhaps original to the town, and neighborhoods so new they lacked mature trees. The stores in the strip mall looked like they could be decades old, while the shopping center on the south end must’ve been built in the previous five years.

Colin took a deep breath in and closed his eyes. The air smelled fresh, like damp earth and late summer flowers. Overhead, several different birds chirped their wake-up calls. A bumblebee lumbered past Colin’s thigh with a slow, lazy buzz. After living with the constant noise and traffic in New York, this was like ridding himself of a permanent tension headache.

WIPpet Wednesday: Drumming and Strumming

Books, Writing

Happy Wednesday! Last week, I was too sick to post. Or rather, I was having a bad flare-up of my Mystery Condition. My remarkable doctor spent 45 minutes with me going over how we’re going to tackle getting a correct diagnosis and treatment that works. For now, I’m doing better after a round of prednisone, but I’m tapering it and already feeling my symptoms returning.

I am so close to having Minuet ready to send off to the publisher. I’m in the last section of edits, rewrites, and additions. Apparently, it’s gone over well so far with beta reading, but I could use another set of eyes on it. So if anyone is up for a beta read and can deal with a few of my sloppy mistakes, let me know.

Today, I’m snipping from something short and cute, a bit of dialog between Jamie and Jomari after a practice session.

WIPmath: 4/24/2019 = 2 + 4 = 6 short paragraphs of dialog.

Jomari returned to the seats to put his violin away. The hesitant tap on his shoulder startled him, and he turned to face Jamie. “Oh, hey.”

“Hey.”

“What’d you think?” Jomari asked. “You were doing a hell of a job on that bodhrán. Where’d you learn it?”

“YouTube.” Jamie grinned.

Jomari laughed. “Seriously?”

“No,” Jamie admitted. “Just messing with you. I took some lessons from a friend of Einin’s. She’s an amazing player. I think at least fifty percent of our time was spent on her explaining the different kinds of sticks and what makes a good drum. But at least I learned the basics, and she’ll give me another few lessons if I want.”

You really can learn to play the bodhrán on YouTube, in case you were wondering.

WIPpet Wednesday: A promise

Books, Writing

Happy Wednesday! I’m a little adrift this morning. I sent a novel I was proofreading back to its creator, and…I’m sad. I miss it. I miss the characters and long to be back with them. I don’t know if this is how other editors feel, but I experience this a lot.

Fortunately, I do have a new novella in my inbox to proofread, by yet another favorite client. So I’ll be doing that later, after I sneak in this blog post and some writing.

The first little over half of Minuet is with betas. They’ll have the rest before long. I’m so excited! And relieved, if I’m honest.

I’m posting something a little sweeter this week after last week’s snippet. It seemed to have induced a lot of Sage-directed anger in readers. Gee, I wonder why! Anyhow, this week, here’s a tender but sad moment between Amelia and Mack.

WIPmath: 4/10/2019 = 10 – 4 = 6 paragraphs

[Amelia] held her phone, favorite contacts list open, practicing in her head what she was going to say when Mack answered. With a deep, cleansing breath, she touched his number. She put it on speaker and set the phone in her lap; her hands were shaking too hard to hold it.

“Hey.” Mack sounded tired.

“Hi, you.” Amelia sniffled and then immediately lost it. Every last word she’d planned out left her brain. “I’m sorry I didn’t call,” she said through her tears.

“Oh, babe. No. I…” Mack sounded like he was crying too. “I’m so sorry. I fucked up, baby.”

For a while, they stayed on the line, crying together. She wasn’t ready to forgive him yet, but she was going to do the one thing for him she never had. She wiped her eyes and breathed slowly until she was under control.

“Yeah, you did,” she said. “But I could’ve done better too. I…” She swallowed and then forced herself to say it. “I’ll go with you on Christmas. You shouldn’t do it alone.”

WIPpet Wednesday: Kitchen chaos

WIPpet Wednesday: A little TLC

WIPpet Wednesday: Initiation

WIPpet Wednesday: Starting over

WIPpet Wednesday: Drumming and Strumming

WIPpet Wednesday: A promise

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