A Taste of What's to Come. . .

While I try to Push through to the end of Church Hill I started on the story of the young woman haunting me, imploring me to tell her story.  There's not much done on it yet, but it's a start.  

It's more a a traditional romance story:  heroine with a troubled past, hero trying to get her to open up, both learning a thing or two about themselves and each other in the process.  They will have their fair share of bridges to build and burn.

I will be honest in that I probably won't post this one on the blog.  However, I will post bits a pieces throughout the project.  I'm always up for suggestions, and will probably need readers' help at times.

I've also been extremely distracted by my gourd projects.  I love doing the gourds, and you can find some of my projects on my gardening blog, The Sheepish Gardener.  

One more shameless plug before I give you the first 400 words of Eleni's story.  My little man is a "model" on the VibraDyes website!  He's in the blue t-shirt on the home page.  The little guy with his head cocked and a big smile.  Stop by to see his cuteness, and check out the site.  They have great products that don't fade.

Okay, I'm finished.  Now here is the beginning of Eleni's story. . . 

Chilly water sloshed up Eleni’s chest and neck when the sharp rap sounded at her door.  She had fallen asleep trying to soak away the tension of the week’s work.  She wasn’t used to the manual labor that came with ranch work, but she was determined to stick it out.  She had to.

The know sounded again.  This time a voice pushed through the wood and drywall.  “Eleni?”  It was Ryan.  “Are you okay?”

She pulled the plug from the drain and stood to wrap a towel around her cold body.  “Coming,” she called, hoping he could hear her sleep-drugged voice.  Her hair was already drying, so she slipped into her slippers and went to answer the door.

“Come in, Ryan,” she said as she stepped aside to let him into the efficiency.  

He blushed when he saw her wrapped in the towel.  She didn’t think it was possible for this strong, no-nonsense man.  He ran Quarter Acres with a strong hand, taking no crap from workers, vendors, or clients.  

“I’m sorry.  I didn’t realize you were in the shower,” he said a bit timidly.

“Bath,” Eleni stated.  “No shower in here, remember?”  

“Right,” he replied, running a hand through the loose curls of his hair.

She smiled at him and gestured for him to sit on the worn couch.  “Just give me a minute to get dressed.”

Ryan sank into the faded cushions as Eleni disappeared through the only interior door in the apartment.  He glanced around the small space, realizing that Eleni hadn’t added much in the way of personal touches.  The furnished room was offered to her as an employee of his family’s ranch.  One of five such units built by his grandfather for the migrant workers he took on.  The rooms were built like a motel, connected in a line with a covered front porch running the length of the building.

Only three of the rooms were occupied now.  Eleni was staying in the unit to the far left, closest to the barn.  The two rooms at the other side housed Jake and Owen, two young hands that chose to stay on the property to get out of their parents’ houses.

Eleni had been on the ranch for about a month, and Ryan was noticing she seemed to have a gift with the horses.  She had taken to one gelding in particular.  A horse of mixed breeding with a past as turbulent as Eleni’s own.

Another Tact. . .

Today I have a trip to the library planned.  There are four books waiting for me there, all from Belle Books or their other imprint Bell Bridge Books.  I found this publisher through the blog post about writer's block.  (That post was written for the publisher's blog by Eve Gaddy, one of their authors.)

Here I must admit a couple things.  First I am only about halfway through Fifty Shades Darker after having it for almost four weeks.  I just can't get through it.  When I look at it, I cringe at the thought of picking it up again.  So, while I pushed through the first book in the trilogy, I'm giving up on this one.  Yes, the presence of a real story line makes it more compelling than the first, but I discovered that I just don't like Anastasia Steele.  So, back the book goes.

The second admission revolves around the act of reading--fiction in particular.  With all the reading on the publishing industry I've been doing, picking up a fiction book has been difficult these past few weeks.  When you add to that the gourd art research I've been doing, I haven't really been able to force the time for fiction.  (Perhaps that is part of the problem with Fifty Shades Darker, but I don't really think so.)

These issues only add to my writer's block with Church Hill.  If I can't even read fiction, why should I be able to write fiction?  (Although, that girl with the scar still waits, and she is very compelling.)  So, today I go to the library to pick up four books of fiction with the hope that the locked gates to my stream of creative writing will open of their own free will.  Either that, or I can force myself back into that stream.

A day at the spa and shopping should be helpful, too.  :)

Trying to Get Around the Block. . .

These past few weeks have been torturous when it comes to working on Church Hill.  I know where I want to go, where Ella needs to end up, but I'm kind of stuck as to how to get her there.

In looking back, it's only been about three to four days since Ella and Dominic took Allison and fled town.  Ella still needs to bury Michael.  And there's the question of what's going to happen between her and Dominic.

But there's a bigger issue I need to clear up, and I don't know how to do it.  I could do it the easy way, and wrap up everything nice and tidy-like using Officer Samantha Brecky.  Or I could have one last stand-off between good and evil.  I just don't know what to do about the fact that Luke Ritter is still "at large" and unaccounted for.

I think I know what to do.  I think I know what my readers would want.  But I just can't get past where I am right now.  Although. . . I just had an idea as I sit here whining to you about my problem.  I think I'll give it a try.

On another note, I recently read a blog post about writer's block and how one author overcame it.  She reverted to an art form she enjoyed before being published.  It helped her overcome her block by allowing her brain to use the creative energy trying to get out, but in a different way.

My mind has been on other projects these past weeks . . .

• There's a young woman who keeps haunting me, begging me to tell her story.  And I want to dive in . . . because her story fascinates me even though I don't know all of it yet, and because it involves horses in depth.  I need the horses.  They are like medicine for my soul.
• A box of gourds awaits my "artistic" abilities as well.  I look at these gourds and hear them telling me what they want to be.  Lately, they are refusing to be ignored like the young woman above.  My biggest setback is tools.  I need better than what I have, and my mom and I--who shares this obsession with me--have to share so many things between us.  By the time I get what I want or need I've lost either the time or the drive to get done what I want to get done.
• "Little Bug" is also demanding my mental attention, though I can't find my big box of crayons to start on the illustrations.  And that's what my brain wants to do . . . draw.

So I need to release some "physical" creativity.  That's not to say that writing isn't physical, but it's more mental.  I can get around bad typing days a heck of a lot easier than I can this mental road block.  Bare with me, readers.  I'm trying.

Flexing My Brain (part 2)

The foot was a swollen, a purplish-red from the blood flooding the vessels.  So swollen, in fact, that the toes were beginning to look like they were adhering to one another, becoming one giant toe appendage, aAnd eventually nothing more than a long pointed foot, with no without toes at all.  The laceration from the bite was clearly visible at the angle of the joint connecting the foot to the poor creature's leg.  It was a fairly deep slice--the result of a razor-edged jawbone with razors for teeth.  Above the site of the attack the lower leg was also beginning to swell. and mMovement of the entire limb was quickly rapidly being restricted.  Injectable antibiotics were necessary, and but it was clearly evident that the foot would eventually fall off even with treatment.  
The price would have to be marked down, naturally of course.  After all, who wants to would pay $175   for a dragon with a missing foot?  It truely was a shame.  It She was such a beautiful dragon, too.  Not that it isn't  she wasn't still, but then we come it circles back to the asthetic value of the animal.  Who wants a dragon with a missing foot?  I guess there are those people in the world who have a soft spot for such unfortunate creatures.  I myself am one of them.  But they are so few and far between.


I think it reads better this way.  There is less clutter of redundant and pointless words.  It just flows more smoothly than the original version.

I have plans for this passage.  It is destined to become something much bigger than its current 71 words.

While I was copying the original version, I remembered the inspiration for the writing.  The dragon in question is not, as can be inferred, a fantastical species.  It was a baby hatched in the pet shop I was working in at the time.  A Bearded Dragon, native to Australia.  The hatchlings had been kept together until I came in to find this little one's injury one morning.  It ended up going to a good home with another employee.

Young Bearded Dragon

The "beard"

Because of their animated personalities
I call them "living cartoons."