Last 200 Words - October

Okay, I'm totally cheating. As you know, I quit doing the WIP Marathon reports because of all the reasons I explained in this post. But I'll admit it, I'm still itching to post a tiny bit of progress, especially when...well...I'm actually making progress (now's a good time to mention that my idea of "progress" is moving up by a mere K or two a month, and that pitiful word counts are my modus operandi). So while I can't commit to writing full-fledged WIP Marathon reports once a month, I've decided that when all of the WIP Marathoners post their reports, I'm going to simply post my last 200 words. I'll also mention how many words I've added this month. Unless it's pathetic. Then I'll conveniently forget and leave that part off.

Word Count for October: Around 10K of Black Lilies. No, I didn't do that all in one month. This is my TOTAL word count since I started the novel LAST WINTER. I'm in bad shape here.

Last 200 Words:

“Don’t patronize me. I’m not a child. And I’ll tell you my name as soon as you tell me what’s going on.” I crossed my arms and stepped back in a show of defiance, accidentally dropping the assignment that was crumpled in my hand. Moving quickly, I reached down to pick it up.

“What’s that?” he asked, leaning forward to look at the paper.

“It’s my ‘lesson’, as you like to call it,” I bit out. “It’s what I’m supposed to be working on right now, but now I will get a zero because of your little impromptu performance of the Star Spangled Banner.”

He squinted his eyes, examining it closer. “Let me see that.”

Why would he want my paper? There was barely anything written on it. I shrugged. “Here.”

I tried to hand it to him, but he didn’t move to take it. Instead, he tilted his head, as if trying to get a better view. His already pale-face turned white, and his bright eyes grew wide. “I know this writing.”

He jerked back, his fists clenched at his side.

“Tell me your name, clever girl.” 

I stood silent. 

“It’s you, isn’t it? You’re Aviva.” 

My mouth fell open, and he disappeared.

Nothing Says Happy Birthday Like Tasty Crickets

My birthday was a little over a week ago, and I have to say that this one was pretty wonderful. That morning when my students were entering first period, they loaded me up with brownies and birthday cards, and they sang to me. Horribly of course, but it was so freakin' sweet. I was stumped, wondering how they figured out it was my birthday. I found out later that Mr. Moore (my mischievous retired-teacher-friend) was subbing on our campus that week and had spilled the beans. I gave him an earful when I found out. Except for it was more like an eye-full since it was via texting.

Later that morning, Teri swung by my work and had a large caramel iced coffee from Jack in the Box delivered to my classroom. I guess that doesn't sound like a big deal, but the caramel-flavored one is my favorite, and it's been discontinued. She had to drive all the way to the Jack in the Box by the freeway to find a place that still had a little bit of the caramel syrup left. She also bought me two additional large coffees--sans the ice--and poured them into a bottle for me, so I could luxuriate in my favorite iced coffee a little longer before I lost them forever. 

When I came home from work, Clint, who likes to torture me with the present-opening process, made me work to win my gifts. I was given thirty seconds to run through the backyard and shoot as many clay pigeons as I could. Each clay pigeon had a gift taped to the inside. The catch was I had to watch out for "whammies"--clay pigeons that had "unconventional" gifts taped to them. The game was a blast (no pun intended). My favorite gift I won was this:

I think I about hyperventilated. I've been wanting some kind of gumball machine for my classroom for awhile, but this far exceeded anything I had imagined. Since I can't keep gum or candy in it (against school rules), Clint stuffed it with pencil toppers and miniature erasers. My students LOVE this thing. Clint got the machine from a company in China that manufactures candy dispensers for businesses, and he got all of the pencil toppers and erasers from Oriental Trading Company. Since he stuck with bulk items that were being clearanced out, each eraser ended up costing about two cents. When students put a quarter in, they get anywhere from 4 to 10 erasers. I'm planning to use the "profit" to buy more erasers.

Unfortunately, I did hit two whammy gifts. Whammy gift #1 landed me with three boxes of dehydrated crickets. On the plus side they came in a nice assortment of flavors (sour cream and onion, bacon and cheddar, and salt and vinegar). I gave them to students as prizes. I made a super big deal about it. "Now whoever does the best job on today's presentation wins a highly coveted, amazing prize. It's.....drumroll please.....some delicious crickets! Never say I don't love you." By the time Monday rolled around, my students were wondering what else they could do to win crickets, and I had to give them the bad news that we had run out. Seventh graders are awesome. 

Here's whammy gift #2:

This is Amelia. She's a Brittany--a hunting dog (primarily bird hunting). Clint and Elijah got their hunting licenses last month, and Clint's been pestering me ever since that he wants a hunting dog. One of the groups he and Elijah joined, Quail Forever, basically requires a hunting dog for their outings. You can always group up with others who have a dog, but it's not quite the same as having your own. While I understood all this, we already had three dogs. There was NO WAY IN HELL I was signing up for a fourth. So I told Clint that he was going to have to wait until Cricket (our nearly-11-year-old Corgi) passed away before getting his dog. 

Then I hit that stupid whammy. Which was clearly marked with a 'W', by the way. If I had hit the other two whammies, I would have ended up with a McDonalds frappuchino and a hug. BUT NO. I scored some crispy crickets and a damn dog. Yay me.

To be fair, I don't really notice the difference between three dogs and four. I think by the time you reach three you're already so saturated with mammals that adding one more into the mix is barely noticeable. Plus Clint's doing all the work of training her, so it's not so bad. Amelia is playful and super affectionate, and she's making it difficult to not like her.

Still, if we don't reign this pet-thing in soon, this is going to be us by next year:

(Clint texted me this photo the other day and I couldn't stop giggling)

Seriously, our household is a zoo. If there was ever any doubt, this is what I was dealing with while trying to read in the backyard this morning:

Tipsy and Fable--our obtrusive geese who are still struggling with the concept of personal space.

Tumbleweed Days

So I ran a Chasing Echoes booth at our local Hesperia Tumbleweed Days this weekend! (I'm doing a great job of keeping my locations anonymous). This is my...third event now? My entire family hung out with me all day, helping me with my booth and giving me emotional support. Shannon was amazing. I think she single-handedly sold 80% of my books. My mom was pretty awesome too, pulling people in to watch the trailer. How am I this blessed? Anyway, here are a few pictures:

(This guy makes me feel tiny)

It was a great day (though by the end of it I was wiped out), and Tumbleweed Lakes is such a wonderful place to run a booth. There are so many trees that even at 95 degrees it never felt too hot. At least, not the kind of hot where you're seeing mirages out in the desert and stuff. Unlike my damn fever, where I was hallucinating that Voldemort from Harry Potter was trying to eat me in my sleep.

Okay, I need to let that whole fever thing go. But it was brutal, guys. B-R-U-T-A-L.

Chasing Echoes Trailer

Last week I asked Trinity, "What can I bribe you with to get you to make a trailer for Chasing Echoes?"

She immediately replied, "Sushi."

The girl is 15 years old, and she wants sushi. Whatever happened to pizza with extra cheese?

Anyway, I agreed to her terms, and here is the sweet little 90 second trailer Trinity created (be sure your volume is up):

On a related note, sushi ended up costing me $58, so I probably should have pushed for that pizza.

Summer Catch-Up

Look, I'm writing a post you guys. It's a post!

I went through a massive blog drought over summer. I can't explain why, since summer should be when I finally feel the freedom to write. But right from the onset I knew I didn't want to even look at my blog.

There's so much to talk about from this summer...it would make for a very long and boring post (and still might). So I'm just going to abbreviate the main things that happened:

• Grandma's Ashes: I flew to Cushing, Oklahoma to deliver my grandmother's ashes to her hometown. I made the trip with my half-sister Sarah. We stayed in a lovely hotel suite, swam at an awesome pool, enjoyed some nice dinners, had a little girl-time at the local bars, and met a lot of really cool people. Very memorably experience.
• My Niece Graduated! I guess this doesn't seem like a big deal, but it was for me. Not only am I close to my niece Cassidi, but she's the first of my and Shannon's kids to graduate. It makes me feel weepy--to think she's all grown up now, and sort of marks a new era. 
• Clint's Knee Surgery: Clint had knee surgery the first week of July and is out of work until October. The first week he couldn't walk and I learned what it feels like to do everything.
• Jamboree Days: I ran a Chasing Echoes booth in Crestline selling my books and some other related stuff (see here). It was fun! The only caveat was I was supposed to do the booth for two days, but I only lasted for one day before getting totally wiped out. In my defense, I was staying at my sister's house that weekend and her entire household (including my kids) were still up running around at 1:30 a.m., on a night that I was supposed to get up at 6:30 in the morning. Plus it was the 4th of July, so we were up watching fireworks and celebrating. And I had a crippled hubby who couldn't help me with the heavy-lifting.
• Comic-Con: Comic-Con was immensely fun--even better than last year (even with Clint on crutches--which he turned into assault rifles, by the way).
• Camping: This almost didn't happen due to Clint's parent's RV breaking down. But after spending over twelve hours fixing it, we ditched our original plans of camping in Oregon and, instead, found a beautiful campground outside of Lake Tahoe called "Snowflower." I could do an entire post just on that. It was gorgeous.
• Monopoly Tournament: Elijah participated in the Juniors Monopoly Tournament on the world's largest Monopoly board in San Jose. He didn't win, but the experience was awesome! We all stayed at the Hilton. Clint's parents were trapped in their room the morning of the tourney when their deadlock broke. Maintenance couldn't get them out, so they were forced to climb out the window onto the roof, down an emergency escape, and through a service door to get back to the lobby. I wish I was making this up.
• Dog Beach: I went to a dog beach for the first time with Shannon, Jeremy, my parents, and all the kids. A dog beach is just like a regular beach...with dogs.
• Ringworm: My whole family (except for Elijah) came home from camping with ringworm. I still have scars. 
• Writing: I didn't get a lick of writing done.
• Art: I drew with charcoal for the first time! And I dabbled with oil pastels too. I LOVE charcoal. My goodness where has this been my whole life? Here are my first two drawings: 

I have a ton of other pictures from summer but I'm too lazy to find/organize them.

That's about it. Now I'm back to work. We're in week 4, actually. It already feels like it's going so fast. And of course I've already slipped up in the classroom. Last week I told the class "In today's society you just don't see balls anymore." Of course we were talking about the setting for Cinderella, but it didn't matter--the class was howling (7th graders. *sigh*). Today I was tempted to play AC/DC's Big Balls to the class, since, like me, he's talking about parties and dances (ha!), but I thought that might be a little over the top.

Okay, a real song now. You've heard it before...it's pretty popular. When I focus too hard on the lyrics, it makes me sob like a baby.

Stars Across Time

Stars Across Time by Ruby Lionsdrake
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

About 3.5 stars.

This was a cute book, though I found the first half more exciting than the second half. I appreciated the strength and general kick-ass know-how of the protagonist, Andie. Her confidence and determination constantly kept me from feeling depressed or sorry for her, even when she was in predicaments that were truly bleak (such as being stripped down naked in a cave with a bunch of horny scumbags). Sometimes Andie struck me as a little too strong (unrealistically so), but overall she was likable, so no real complaints there.

The love interest, Theron, was adorable. I appreciated how the author chose to give him some sweet boy-like charm, instead of pigeoning him into the larger than life "bad boy" category the whole novel. Moments where Theron was nervous and wanting to impress Andie rang with a lot of sincerity.

One problem I had deals with the technicalities of time travel and a big contradiction that is present in this story. Near the beginning of the book, it is mentioned (I believe through Theron's narration) that kidnapping women from the past is illegal, because it can jack with the future's timeline. That is, a man might kidnap a woman from the past and return to his own timeline to discover that his best friend no longer exists...that whole conundrum. I agree with this premise 100%. This is one of time travel's more universal laws. Yet later in the book, one of Theron's lieutenants discovers that Andie, in her own timeline, (view spoiler)[has a son--one who invents something very important. For that reason Theron can not have Andie remain with him in the future. The mark she leaves in the past is far too important. (hide spoiler)] But how on earth could the lieutenant find this information about Andie's yet-to-occur past when she is STILL in the FUTURE with them? This was such a huge time travel violation that it was hard for me to overcome it enough to enjoy the rest of the story. Andie was stolen from her own time period. She disappeared from a campground at the age of thirty-something and was never found. Until she returns to her own timeline, any records concerning her should reflect that fact.

I did enjoy the dystopian world Lionsdrake created. It was an interesting mix of old and new, swaying from never before seen technology to horse drawn carriages. If a sequel to STARS ACROSS TIME were to come out, I'd give it a chance.

Fifteen Minutes to Live

 

Fifteen Minutes to Live by Phoef Sutton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I downloaded this book for free from Bookbub and it turned out to be one of the best (if not the best) freebies I've ever read. I couldn't put it down. The plot is downright fascinating...it's like a darker, more intense version of "50 First Dates."

The story begins when the protagonist, 36 year old Carl, is visited one fateful night by his high school sweetheart, Jesse, who is acting like no time has elapsed since high school and is behaving like she's seventeen years old (though her face and body reveal her true age). Carl, believing she is perhaps going through a midlife crisis and playing some kind of game with him, allows himself a night of frenzied passion with her. But when Carl discovers that Jesse supposedly died three months earlier in a boating accident, and realizes she is losing her memories of recent events every 15 minutes, Carl is forced to weed through a web of secrets to figure out the truth about Jesse.

I can't say anything beyond this without giving away juicy spoilers, so I'll just state that the novel continues to navigate the reader through all sorts of twists and turns, and every time you have that "a-ha" moment where you think you've learned the truth, another layer is peeled away.

I love the characters. Carl, the MC, isn't perfect, which I find refreshing. He's self-deprecating with amusing quirks like trying to befriend a raccoon...he just comes across as very human. And his love for Jesse, though not always noble or logical, is fierce and moving. And then you have Jesse, who manages to shine with strength and determination, despite the fact that her memory resets ever 15 minutes. Not to mention all of the supposed antagonists--whether it's Martin, Ryan, or even Frank, aren't your cookie cutter "bad guys." They're complex, with redeemable qualities that make it difficult to hate them outright. Frank's character is hands-down the most beautifully conceived/written.

The only reason I would even knick half a star from 15 Minutes to Live is because of a few spelling errors (i.e. spelling the word "hand" as "band," etc.), and because of dropping Kit. I realize Kit is a secondary character who didn't have a huge role to play in moving the plot forward, but I feel that Sutton spent a lot of time developing Kit's character into one that the reader falls in love with, and I wish there had been at least a short scene near the end reconciling him with Carl.

Otherwise, 4.5 stars to an intriguing and gripping read, and I look forward to seeing what else Sutton has out there.

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