My bike leaned against Jeff’s metal building, but I didn’t know he was there until I smelled the smoke. I froze, looking guilty, almost as if I were the one who’d been caught smoking. He looked back at me, removed the white stick from his mouth and blew a smoke ring. “Wanna smoke?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so.” He turned away from me.
I hesitated for a moment, looking curiously at the cylinder and thinking about Marleen’s remark that Jeff was smoking “something”. Curiosity got the best of me. “What is it?”
His mouth quirked. “Just a little weed.” I must have gasped because he laughed a little. “Cigarette, idiot. You want some or not?”
“No,” I said, but I sat down on the wall next to him. The weeds had died back a little, but the spot still felt secluded. I wasn’t sure why I was sitting there with Marleen’s greasemonkey brother, but I was uncertain about leaving until I knew Marleen had returned from her chat with Brian. And it felt rude to sit somewhere else when I knew Jeff was already sitting here.
Jeff made no comment, but continued to smoke his cigarette and blow smoke rings. I admired his ability in spite of myself. “You’re good at that.”
“Lots of practice.”
“Why do you sit back here all the time?” I looked at the rusted back of the metal building. I couldn’t imagine the draw.
Jeff shrugged and took a long draw off his cigarette before answering. “Because nobody else likes to sit back here.”
“Because of the weeds and bugs.”
“Yeah.”
“You like weeds and bugs?”
“No.”
“So why sit back here with them?”
“I don’t like people either.” Jeff glared at me.
I nodded. “That makes sense. If you don’t like people, the only place to go is where there aren’t any. The only place you can be sure there won’t be any people is where people don’t like to be.”
“You talk a lot,” Jeff said. Our eyes met and I realized for the first time that he had very nice eyes. Blue green with flecks of gold. They reminded me of a description I’d read once about the Mediterranean Sea.
Category Archives: Weeds and Flowers
Second edition of Weeds and Flowers: The perfect valentine?
Yay! I just checked Amazon and my “second edition”, including the beautiful new cover you see to your left, is now up and ready to be downloaded to your Kindle (or smartphone or computer with the Kindle app). Happy Valentine’s Day! It’s free!
If you like Weeds and Flowers, you might even like my two romances, and today’s all about romance, right? And hey, today really is your lucky day! Lyrical Press is having a sale. Everything in their store is 50% off! Here’s a good place to start: My Books.
I’m also scheduled to be interviewed on author John Peters’ blog today. Until that’s up, check out his other informative posts: Dark Scribblings. He’s written some great articles and you might even spot my name in there once or twice. 🙂
Book News!
If you look to the left, you’ll notice a lovely new cover for Weeds and Flowers. I’m kind of proud of this one. You see, I made it myself. The flower is one in my front yard. Anybody know what it is? I am not a flower expert, but I have lots of those that I inherited from the former owner of the house, who evidently was a flower expert. I also figured out how to convert a file from .doc to .pdf format, then realized, I would have to convert it again to a .jpg in order to share it on here. I found a lovely site online that does that kind of thing for you (Zamzar) and wa-laa!
If you can’t tell, I’m getting excited about the re-release of Weeds and Flowers on Tuesday, February 14. I’ve cleaned it up, and I think I’ve gotten all the typos out and fixed a couple of minor editorial mistakes. I’m also working on a preface for it. Is it worth re-reading if you’ve already read it? Maybe, if you really loved it, but the changes are very minor. Is it worth downloading a new copy if you already have one but haven’t read it? Definitely. Please do, and remember it’s totally free on February 14. Of course, if you love it, I’d love to have some more five star reviews on Amazon.
Now for the Carina Press news. I finally found out what the new title for The Sixth Fold will be. It has been re-christened WHERE THE HEART LIES. Isn’t that beautiful? It’s actually much, much better than either of my original titles, and much more expressive of the heroine’s journey in the novel. So, gotta go, but please check back on Tuesday for my re-release party for WEEDS AND FLOWERS!
Want my books?
If you do, February 14 is the day to get them. Not only will you be able to get your mitts on my re-release of WEEDS AND FLOWERS for FREE, Lyrical Press is offering a storewide 50% off sale. So you can get every book I currently have out there at a great deal. Be sure to check it out.
Where the heck have I been? (First breathing moment in two weeks!)
Holy cow. I think it’s been two weeks since I updated my blog. Actually, a little more than two weeks. That is sort of inexcusable. In spite of that, I have a good excuse.
You see, I got my first round of line edits on The Sixth Fold (working title) back from my Carina Press editor. And may I say I love my new editor almost (well, maybe as much) as my old editor? She’s fantastic. The changes she suggested, while nothing drastic, smoothed the storyline out tremendously. I’m really excited about it.
I didn’t expect it to be as hard to edit The Sixth Fold as it was, however. You see, I’ve never edited a manuscript as long as this one. It’s nearly 90,000 words and believe it or not, when you get past about 50,000, you start to wonder if what you’ve written in the second half of the manuscript matches up with what you wrote in the first half. I’m not a writer who often makes a lot of notes, but if I’m going to write longer works, I may have to! At one point, I even started wondering if I had made my heroes eyes blue or green at the beginning of the book. It’s these little details that get you.
Suffice it to say that every time I sat down at the computer over the past two weeks, I edited. I simply didn’t have enough energy for anything else. Last night I sent off the last of those edits back to my editor, who will now try to figure out if what I did was actually fix my poor manuscript or simply apply bandaids. And if I did fix it, what else can we work on to make this the best book I’ve ever written?
So now I’m back and conversely, I have more energy than ever. I guess all that steady work over the past couple of weeks sharpened me up a bit. I plan to pull out WEEDS AND FLOWERS and get to work on the “second edition”. Once that’s up, I’ll put it up on Amazon for you to download and enjoy at your leisure. I also plan another giveaway on February 14, so stay tuned to get your free copy, hopefully typo free!
Where did I go wrong? The musings of a frustrated author…
So I’ve been beating my head against a brick wall over my latest work-in-progress since November. I started it for NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month) got to the 42,000 word mark and realized I couldn’t make it any further. I kid you not, I could have written 8,000 more words of crap and finished the 50,000 word novel but I realized what I was writing would never be publishable. Ever.
So I started over.
It takes a lot to throw out almost 40,000 words of hard work, even if you know it’s crap. I did it. I started a rewrite. I made it almost to 50,000 words and hit the same roadblock. This time I threw out about half of it. Started again. A few days ago, I thought I’d figured out where it went wrong, cut out some of the scenes, rewrote some. It’s better now, and I think I can keep plugging along, but damn. It’s hard. I’m starting to wonder if I’m beating my head against a brick wall for no reason. My editor at Carina Press says I’ll have her line edits in a few days. Maybe I should just wait, get myself into editing mode. Maybe I should work on the second edition of WEEDS AND FLOWERS.
I decided to pull out a novel I finished a few months ago. I love this novel. I tentatively titled it DUCKS IN A ROW, and it’s about twin sisters, Cady and Cam, who are experiencing completely different problems in their lives but find the answers to them together. I read it. It’s got some problems and it needs a little TLC, but to be honest, I couldn’t actually believe that story came out of me after all the problems I’ve had with my current work-in-progress. It’s one of those stories where I’m pretty sure those characters actually came to life and told me their story.
Like my other novels, I feel like this one has magic in it.
So what to do? Put away my current w-i-p and all the blood, sweat and tears I’ve put in it? Start a new story? Get this old story ready to go and put it out there to be accepted or rejected as the publishing world sees fit? I think I’ve made up my mind. I’m happiest when I’m writing, but I’ve been through this before, too. Sometimes you just have to accept that the story you want to tell isn’t going to work no matter how much life you try to breathe into it. I’m hoping this one is just comatose and might wake up one day.
Excerpt from DUCKS IN A ROW:
“We’re not having an affair.” Cady glanced over her shoulder, keeping her voice low as her sister cleared the table.
“What would you call it?” When Cady didn’t answer, Cam set the plates she’d brought into the kitchen aside and faced her. “Did you kiss him?”
“It wasn’t like that.” Cady bit her lip. “I mean, yes, but—”
“But nothing.” Cam shook her head, turning on the water in the sink to rinse the dishes before handing them to Cady to put in the dishwasher. “Kissing’s more intimate than sex, if it’s done right. Did he do it right?”
Cady couldn’t help a little smile at the memory, and that was evidently all her sister needed. She shook her head. “See? You know what I mean then. Cady, you’re going to regret this.”
“I know.” Cady faced her sister and turned off the water Cam had absently left running. She glanced at the stairs her daughter had gone up a few moments before and the closed study door. She could hear Neil’s voice on the other side. Either he’d gotten the call he was waiting for or he’d grown too impatient to wait any longer. She sighed and looked back at Cam. “I already do. Not just for me or my family, either. For Will. He should have a family, somebody he could love.”
“So why the hell are you doing this?” Cam grabbed her sister’s arms and shook her. “Why are you taking this chance with your life and his?”
“I love him.” The words felt right in her mouth, even while she knew how wrong it was to say them.
Cam stared at her, then sank into a seat at the kitchen table. She stared at nothing while Cady finished the dishes and made two cups of coffee. When Cady sat across from her, Cam accepted the coffee automatically.
“Are you okay?” Cady peered at her sister anxiously. Cam looked so pale in the dim light.
“I just can’t believe this is happening.” Cam shook her head. “You’re really in love with him?”
Cady nodded. She took a sip of her coffee. “And you don’t have to tell me how wrong it is. We both know. We didn’t mean to—it just happened.” She reached over and touched the glittering diamond on her sister’s hand. “Like that, actually.”
Cam pulled her hand back, covering the ring as if it were too precious to be subjected to the current conversation. “That has nothing to do with it. What are you going to do?”
“What do you mean?” Cady raised her eyebrows, leaning back in her chair.
“You know damn well what I mean.” Cam made an impatient movement as if to push something out of her way. “Are you going to have sex with him?”
Cady winced. “Geez, Cam. Way to couch those words in gentle expressions.”
“It’s sex even if you call it making love. It’s giving something intimate to someone besides your husband.” Cam’s expression challenged her sister. “And you didn’t answer the question.”
Hit me when you see an opening…
Did anybody else ever play that game when they were kids? My brothers and I played it all the time, pretending we were boxers and yelling at each other, “Hit me when you see an opening!” Of course, we all got hit a few times, and it usually degenerated into a serious scuffle that prompted my mother to send us all outside to play.
Can you tell I was sort of a tomboy?
Anyway, that’s the way my schedule has been recently. If you want something from me, hit me when you see an opening. Unfortunately, I’ve let my blog fall by the wayside, too, and that’s no good. Anyway, to keep you up-to-date, here are a list of my activities so far this year:
1. Received and sent back a contract to Harlequin Enterprises. That was kind of a thrill. I’m now officially a Carina Press author!
2. Am working hard on my currently untitled work-in-progress. I recently started over for a third time! Ouch. That hurt. Couldn’t be helped, though. Every time I got to the sex scene between the hero and heroine, I just couldn’t make them do the deed. They haven’t fallen deeply enough in love. They like each other, but they’re not there yet. I’m really hoping the third time is the charm. I’m now 25,000 words into it and by rearranging and rewriting some existing scenes, I’ve salvaged some of the 50,000 plus words I’d already written. I do hate throwing hard work away!
3. Have gotten a few typos from readers of WEEDS AND FLOWERS. I have to say I’ve been sort of blown away (in a good way) by the reception my little novel received. I happen to love that story, but it was a gamble whether any of you would feel the same. I plan to give it a careful going through with a fine-tooth comb for the last of the editing mistakes and issue a “second edition” sometime in February. Be on the lookout since I’ll have another “free day” once that’s done.
And now I need to go buy a new vacuum cleaner, make a doctor’s appointment, call the bank, and draft a “room mom” letter for my son’s class. And any other of the myriad things that I put off because they get in the way of my writing.
Maybe if there’s an opening, a breathing moment will hit me!
New Year, New Book, Free Book! Send Me A Typo Offer.
Happy Free Book Day! Seriously. Well, free Kindle download, anyway. If you’d like to read WEEDS AND FLOWERS, today is the day to do it. It’s available today only at Amazon.com for free download. Go check it out: WEEDS AND FLOWERS.
I re-read it yesterday. At first I couldn’t put it down. I was blown away by my own literary awesomeness. No kidding. Then I got into a couple of rough spots and had to wince a little. I sort of wished I’d re-read it (again) before I jumped right on it and published it. So I decided to offer a deal to you guys who suffer through my rough self-editing. Send me a typo from WEEDS AND FLOWERS in the next week and I’ll send you a copy of one of my other (professionally edited) books free. Or you can choose to receive my as-yet-untitled romance due out from Carina Press sometime this summer. Just specify which book you prefer and what format you’d like it in (for Nook, Kindle, etc.).
And enjoy your New Year, by the way!
2011: The Year of Publishing, Self-Publishing and Fighting to Be Published
I posted a few days ago about self-publishing an ebook for the Kindle. I was overwhelmed by the amount of support I received from fellow authors. I had a lot of reasons for publishing WEEDS AND FLOWERS, not the least of which was nobody else was going to do it for me. Seriously, if I could have found a publisher for my little story, I would have.
For two reasons:
1. Publishing a book in any format is not easy. Maybe it gets easier, but I struggled with it for several hours. I had to format and reformat and even though the instructions told me to format it one way, I found another way worked better. And then, after I published it, I found that there are still some bugs. So yeah, publishing ain’t easy. Even e-publishing.
2. Self-publishing still carries a stigma. Even now. Especially now. After all, anybody with some computer know-how, a completed manuscript and a few hours to spare can publish their book to the Kindle. Many of those stories have not been edited, and some of the formatting is even buggier than mine. (Hard as that is to believe!) But they’re out there in a published form, available to be read.
So how is mine any different? It wasn’t professionally edited, although it was peer-reviewed and I’m slightly better at self-editing than your average person. But really, it’s not any different. I’ve got two professionally edited and published ebooks under my belt. I have another on the horizon. Why would I choose the self-publishing route now?
Answer: WEEDS AND FLOWERS was my first novel, written from a lot of what’s true in me. I write fiction. I make up stuff. And yet, I put a little bit of myself in everything I write. It’s necessary. In fact, I think when I can get to the point where I put a whole lot of myself into what I write, I’ll have gotten the elusive “it”. That’s when people will really start paying attention, and you know why I think that is? Because at our hearts, we’re all basically the same, and what we’re really, really looking for is somebody else to acknowledge that.
My son has a book called “The Hoppameleon” by Paul Geraghty. It starts out with a “very odd-looking creature” who calls out for anyone like him. The book follows the creature through a journey in which he finds several other critters with similar characteristics to him, finally ending up (happily) finding another one just like him. The Hoppameleon’s journey is very similar to what I think we’re all seeking: someone like us.
I always felt I achieved something with WEEDS AND FLOWERS that I never have with my other books. I wrote that novel out of some childhood feelings I’d almost forgotten about but that came to the surface in the process. I reached out in a way and let other people know I’m at least a little bit like them. It’s true fiction in every sense of the word. Almost none of it ever happened, but it’s based on a smidgeon of fact. Go figure.
With all that said, WEEDS AND FLOWERS is available tomorrow only for free download from Amazon. Get your copy here: WEEDS AND FLOWERS. If you like it, leave me a comment here, or even better, a review on Amazon. You might even want to try out one of my other books. Just for comparison’s sake.
What I Did in My Free Time Yesterday: Announcing Weeds and Flowers on Kindle!
So I had a few minutes yesterday. Okay, a few hours. The kids were playing with their Christmas presents and most (not all) of the mess was cleared away. I decided to try something I hadn’t had an opportunity to do, but that I’d heard was really easy.
I messed around and self-published a book.
WEEDS AND FLOWERS was a manuscript I wrote years and years ago. I tried submitting it to different people, but nobody really wanted it. It’s not quite 50,000 words long, it’s not a romance, it’s not horror, it’s kind of hard to define, really. What it truly is is a story about a girl growing up. A coming of age story, in a way. I could have changed it and made it into a true young adult story, but I didn’t want to do that. It deals with themes like racism and child pornography, gossip and small town life. Things I remember the adults whispered about when I was a kid, though I never had to deal with them head on like Charlie, the heroine of my novel, does.
In a way, this was my coming of age story as a writer. It was the first novel I ever wrote. At the time I was writing “flash fiction”, stories less than a thousand words. I got pretty good at those, but I was always being told that what I wrote wasn’t true flash fiction, it was a piece of a longer work. A few fellow writers on the online writing workshop Zoetrope even encouraged me to explore what the story might lead to, if I let it. Two of them that I remember even read my work as I wrote it, letting me know how I was doing. Kathy Fish and Steve Gullion, two incredibly talented writers (Google either one of them to read some great free fiction), read very early manuscripts of WEEDS AND FLOWERS, and their feedback was invaluable to me.
And so, even if nobody is all that interested, I decided to let my “trunk novel” (nod to Stephen King) see the light of day. I priced it at ninety-nine cents because that’s the lowest Amazon would allow if I used their Kindle Direct Publishing service, and I’m really just hoping a few people will read it and enjoy it, and maybe drop me a line to let me know they did.
You can find WEEDS AND FLOWERS here: WEEDS AND FLOWERS for Kindle.
BREATHE: Michelle Garren-Flye 