I just felt like sharing a picture of my garden.

Sleepless night. Yuck! So here I am trying to write something clever. Maybe a few words of wisdom about writing. All I could come up with is posting a short synopsis of my book. Five years in the making, and maybe a few more months of final edits.

Blow Forward

So why is Lizzie wedded to her profession as a long distance truck driver? Because she needs to put distance between herself and her memories and from a husband, whose act of betrayal crippled her life. But no matter how far she drives her truck, how hard she pushes herself to forget, she believes Ellie’s death is a penalty for failing to save her little girl.

Then one day, a malevolent force wrenches her away from the life of isolation. Two terrorists hijack her truck. Lizzie can’t help it if she feels an attraction to one of these dangerous men. Faced with the gulf between them, brought together only by their mutual experience with catastrophe, Lizzie realizes that Amid’s acceptance of death is not only out of a belief that killing infidels is a way of gaining a passage to the other world, but also out of sadness. The same pain she sees in herself.

Lizzie fights her growing attraction for Amid. Still, she has to reconcile herself to the idea that he holds her hostage. Tension builds between them as he attempts to sway her to submit to the glory of Allah. Everything Lizzie has ever believed in is in opposition of Amid’s ideology and what he is about to do in Las Vegas. She tries, but fails to convince him that he can learn to grow out of his fanaticism and develop sound judgment.

After Ellie’s death, Lizzie had thoughts of suicide. Perhaps because she now stands to lose her life, it forces her to recognize the existence of a different kind of death. One is real, the other abnormal. She turns her captivity around on Amid and foils an approaching catastrophe.

A Must Read

I came across a blog today that not only made me laugh, but also focused on what to watch for when we set out to construct our novel. Writing a novel has to do with the reality of our make believe world.

But let me stop here...because in the Paperback Writer blog, WorldBuilding No-Nos: Ten Things I Hate about Your WorldBuilding,  mistakes we make are listed succinctly.

http://pbackwriter.blogspot.com/2011/07/worldbuilding-no-nos.html

Please Tell Me There’s Hope for Me

According to the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual Volume 4(DSM 1V), "obsessions are persistent ideas, thoughts, impulses or images that are experienced as intrusive and inappropriate." To give you an example, it’s like having a song you recently heard go through your head continually even though you want it to stop.

I read recently that one of the driving forces of the compulsions is constant doubt. Which got me thinking, you know? I’m not a complainer. Not aloud, anyway. I complain to myself, which is bad enough. I guess it’s fine sometimes to have doubts about yourself. But I do it too often, and now I wonder if I suffer from this Obsessive Compulsive Disorder thing.

While agonizing on the last chapters of my second novel (and then the process of editing, of course), I tend to criticize and compare myself to other writers. I’m not as good. And to demonstrate it, I’m not published yet. I feel as if I’m frozen in place because it has taken me forever to finish my second book. And while cultivating the plagued-by-doubt-syndrome, I procrastinate, find excuses to do anything but write.


A recent publication on Mother Teresa titled, "Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light", is a compilation of letters written by her over a 60 year period. They show that for a few weeks in 1959, Mother Teresa never once felt the presence of Jesus and often plagued by doubt about the existence of God.


So maybe there’s still hope for me.

David

I remembered someone had once told me that death is lighter than a feather, and I will deny all knowledge of it.



At 3:45 in the morning, I awake from a dream. Suffering from sleeplessness, I see in the bathroom mirror, dark circles around my eyes brought on by the wrath of insomnia. The noise should have faded by now if only I could forget. I had stepped into a world where time stopped, and where joy ceased to exist.

I quietly slip under the covers again and move closer to my husband, which is how I like to remind myself that I am not alone, the curve of his body molding comfortably with mine. “The same dream?” His voice is soft in the night. He takes my scarred hand in his and brings it to his face. A silence between us grows warmer with each moment soon turns to whispers. I drift back to sleep. Later that night, I am again in my dream and again awakened by the loud bang.

I look up dazed and see that one of the balconies that had been over the toy store is lying smashed in the street. Glass windows are gone and all that remain is the metal grill which once held it up. Surrounded by the wall of terror the explosion induced, I realize death had spared me for the moment.

As in a dream, I move closer to the voice. He is young, perhaps in his early twenties. I kneel next to him trying to shake off my need for tears. Beads of sweat form on his forehead and his eyes glaze over with pain. He weeps. My heart fills with sorrow.

“What is your name?”

“David.”

I once read somewhere that our names contain our fates, and then wonder if David is a victim of his title. Blood trickls from his mouth, down to his throat and his legs are shredded above his knees. My heart begins to bulge, overfull with pity and sadness. He is shivering. I take his hand in mine and cover his body with mine. Our blood intermingles. It feels warm and sticky. My heart is beating frantically against his fading life and time ceases to exist until I feel a hand on my shoulder. “He is dead.”

I get up before dawn, sit in the living room with a blanket wrapped around myself, and feel emptiness, the kind that doesn’t stuff silence with words, the kind that looks at you straight in the face with a challenge.

“Let’s go for a walk.” I hear my husband’s voice.

Hands entwined, our moon shadows follow us side by side on the road.

Another Excerpt - Black Diamonds

After the lunchtime rush, Jamie almost had the Diner to herself, which suited her frame of mind. She needed time to reflect on all that had happened since she had started working at the Eats three weeks ago. Waitressing was more difficult than she had thought it would be. She had to learn a new language, shout orders into the kitchen as she hurried through swinging doors bearing heavy trays of plates heaped with food. She was constantly moving from one table to the next, into the kitchen and back, to wipe tables spilled with drink and littered with food, to the garbage can with leftovers and dirty napkins.

Jamie glanced at the clock over the counter. Soon the dinner crowd would be trickling in. At first, most of the locals made no eye contact with her. And for days, they continued to watch as she moved around the room.

She knew that the stares were out of curiosity because she looked so different from anyone else in her black lace-up boots, pink uniform, and a fringed vest over it. She thought she was prepared, especially when she remembered what Mike had told her about this town, but the comments were persistent: “What…you’re twenty six years old and still ain’t married? No? Why?” or, “I was seventeen when I got married. By now two kids. A third on the way.”

At times Jamie conceded that perhaps she had made a mistake in taking this job. But she liked the steady and physical monotony of waitressing, of dealing with people who were so different than her.

Then there the other comments: “Those pinko resisters, dodgers from California. Hate them Communists. We went to get our heads blown off; had no choice. No choice except by turning traitor.”

They directed these remarks toward her: “Every boy from my high school class of ’69 who got drafted went to ’Nam, every single one, I tell ya, not a dodger or card burner among ’em. I bet where you come from, the guys were too busy smoking dope.”

And, “Look at you . . . what’s this you wearing, a hippy outfit?”

More often she heard, “I don’t understand what the fuss is all about. Seems to me that all I hear lately is ‘feminism’ this and ‘feminism’ that. I don’t know what it all means and I don’t care. Every person on this good earth deserves his due. What’s wrong with being a traditional woman? My wife never talks about it, and she always seems happy to me. You women’s libbers are just trying to stir up trouble.”

In the midst of the din, Cook often screamed, “I need help in the kitchen,” as he slammed plates on the counter.

Jamie should have told them to go to hell; instead, she placed her hands on her hips and eyed them up and down, taking in their Stetsons, cowboy boots. “Is that the best you can do?” she said at one point. “You want to see which of us can score the most points against the other? Because if that’s what you’re after, I’m not interested in playing. Now, what can I get you to eat?”

Eventually, the questions dried out. By the beginning of the third week, everyone knew where she lived. They found out that she had lived in Hollywood for four years, that this job was only temporary, that, no, she didn’t know how long she would stay. The most amazing thing was that since she’d left Los Angeles, Jamie had no regrets about it.

Falling in Love with Your Fictional Character

Yes, you heard it right. I fell in love with one of my characters. What’s even more ridiculous is that this character is a bad guy. He plots to kill people. But he is also three dimensional and he is the kind of guy you’d hate to love.

I suppose it makes it easier for me to fall in love with him because Lizzie, a main character in my novel, falls in love with him. I had to justify to myself that there had to be some redeeming qualities she saw in him.

For one, they were stuck together for the duration of the kidnapping. That made it easier for them to get to know each other better. For two, they share something. They know what it feels like to lose something and the pain associated with it.

Of course it doesn’t hurt that Amid—the kidnapper—is handsome, in a foreign type of a way. But I don’t want to tell you too much, because hopefully you’d be interested in buying the book. Eventually. When published.

My question to you: Has it ever happen to you? Have you ever experienced an attraction for one of your characters? And if so, how did it help in formulating your story?