Friday, December 22, 2006
montageI have several things to mention...
Today is my baby girl's 18th birthday--so we'll be going (aaaaggghhh) to the mall.
Andshe's chosen her birthday dinner to be at this mexican restaurant called Los Portales. That bill will be $50 or more...if we can get out of taking our other kids. They make great fajitas, chimichangas, tamales and flan--imo. I'm not real adventurous in mexican restaurants that are old world. I'm not really into rice or potatoes. I just like meat and cheese, sour cream and guacamole.
Hm. Can you tell I haven't had breakfast? Not having it. Saving myself for the big birthday meal. I'm pretty sure that tradition of eating out on big events is not a good one for our mentality. What celebration do we ever have that doesn't have food? None. We're already talking about Christmas dinner. Are you?
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I have that novel I'm working on up over 86 thousand words. So, it's almost finished. That's the one I posted an excerpt of the other day. I'm pretty sure it will be called Raven's Mischief. It is a great drama, I think...and tricky because there are three girls and some obvious alpha types, and a whole lot of confusion of who is supposed to end up with whom. I like a little unpredictability and a whole lot of sexual frustration and tension, ya know.
It's the one I said deals with a girl (the oldest sister, Sandy/Sand) that suffers rape. I want to say...I would never write a book that doesn't help the woman, and reader, work through the anger of something like that. I believe THE BEST books should trigger all sorts of emotions and make you say, "Oh, she better SOOOOO get some revenge or something good when this is over." And then get it. If a book doesn't satisfy when it's all over...I throw it at the wall and scream, "I'm not reading your crap any more!!"
Okay. The screaming is usually in my head. But I make sure and tell my friends, "Don't bother with this writer's blecky blah blah blah."
The book is a lot about how we deal with things. So many bad things are swept under the rug. Some people wanna talk about it, and move through it that way. In this book, you can see the people around her struggling with their own reactions. Her father, an old grizzled werewolf alpha tells her to toughen up, and not show her weaknesses. For the first half of the book, she is furious at him because it seems like he isn't doing anything to get her revenge, and he doesn't appear sympathetic.
But, imagine a father who is supposed to be the leader of his pack...and his own guardians rape his daughter. Although you don't "feel" the man's pov, as the story unfolds, you'll see that he makes the plans to bring in men to fix the problem--searches the world over to find someone who can make his daughter's world right again. I think we're all frustrated in our own ways, and his detachment is the way he deals. Don't you know someone like that? Men aren't supposed to cry, ya know, or show that they're weak. Right?
Anyhow, Sand gets angrier and angrier, and hates men...which makes her hero Brandon all the more lovable because he puts up with a whole lot of crap--and shouldn't all men just...do that? Help us work through things?
You will love him from the minute he steps on the page, I think. And it's not all dark and drama. She's got two sisters who are trying to love her back to a happy place. They interact with some good back and forth jibes and outrage that makes me smile.
And then I bring in the two men they are supposed to hook up with...which is, um, well...men to die for. The heroes their father had to look the world over for. But they have a few issues of their own.
What do you do when your soul mate denies he should be with you and says politics are more important? Maya (Sandy's little sister) is fantastic. She's short, and spunky, and gonna make Trevyn sooooo sorry--by climbing all over his brother.
Poor Laney (the middle sister) is caught in the middle of it all. She took one look at a picture of Kieran and falls head over heels. But it is obvious her father, and Trevyn, think she should marry Trev. Since Kier seems to be, um, not resisting Maya's attentions...
It is a terrible tangle of...how the hell are they gonna make this right? It's a whole lot of he's kissing her, and somebody else sees it, and everybody's getting intense.
And Kier and Trev are sooooo gonna take those guardians out. I'm telling you, if you're looking for heroes and surprising endings, you'll have to hook into this series.
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Oh, yeah. And the last thing...Christmas is coming...as you know. Counting down. Three days of shopping left. When I was a kid, we never shopped on Christmas Eve. That was a holiday too.
Sigh. My Christmas spirit is lagging. We haven't even put up a tree. Surely, we'll find one today. I haven't wrapped a present yet, either. Or bought very many. I just HATE shopping in the crowds.
Throw up a prayer or meditation or whatever you do. Help me get into the mood of the season, would ya?
2 Comments:
Oh yeah, we're definitely already talking about Christmas dinner. My oldest neice has to be with her dad Christmas eve and Christmas Day, as does my step-nephew (that just doesn't sound right) with his mother, so we're having a Christmas dinner for them tonight. We're going to go out for Italian and then open gifts to and from them. Then the rest of the family will be together on Christmas Day, but I don't know what we'll be doing then. And that's not to mention my Grandma's get-together, which is the Saturday after Christmas. *s*
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You're already up to 86k words?? How long have you been working on that? That's just amazing! I have honestly never completed anything to that length. I don't know why. I get it figured out to that point, just don't get the actual writing done.
I know what you mean about books that end up being wall-bangers. I hate 'em! Undead and Unwed by Mary Janice Davidson hit the wall several times. Vampires and chick lit don't combine very well there. I'm sure someone can do it well, but, IMO, she can't. One day I almost bought a vampire novella anthology but when I saw she was one of the authors, it went back on the shelf like it was a hot potato.
Ummm.... I think I went off on a bit of a tangent there.
Hope you had a great dinner. And sounds like a good series. Hope you and yours have a safe and blessed holiday
Pamk
