First bit of advice. All major scenes lead to the end. Some authors say they don't know the end when they begin writing their story. Not necessarily so. The end is known, depending on the genre chosen. Romances end with either happily ever after or happy for now. mysteries end with the mystery, crime, murder being solved. The list could go on and on taking each genre. An author knows the ending of their book. They may not know the exact scene but they know how the book should end. But the ending scenes aren't what's under discussion at present.
These are the middle scenes -- Discoveries, crisis, and black moment.There may be a number of discovery scenes and a number of crises. As for the black moment, there is usually one belonging to the character who has the most to lose or who gains the most. There can be two or more if the story has a number of characters who have something to lose or gain.
When writing one of these scenes remember there is a beginning, a middle, an end and a pointing to the next major scene. Often these scenes lead from a discovery to a crisis to another discovery until the story builds to the black moment or moments if more than one character has one. There are, maybe not rules, but expectations when a major scene approaches.
The first is do not wimp out. The story is going to stand or fall on these scenes. Glossing over the scene cheats the reader. Sure it's easy to put this in a bit of narrative but to keep the reader engaged the writer needs to show the act of discovery, the crisis provoked by the discovery and the all important dark moment when the character believes they have lost. So wimping out is not allowed since this will lose readers.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Inspiration - Bird By Bird - Jealousy
Jealousy -- According to Ann Lamott, it's a natural part of being a writer. I agree and I've suffered it many times. Thses days I'm usually able to get over it quicker. Happens when one sees another writer have the success you crave. Also happens when this person throws their successes in your face. That is the worst and often one has to take a time out from that person and that friendship. Finding a sympathetic listener is also good.
She spends a lot of words talking about how she felt and I know I've shared her thoughts. "Get over it." that is the hard part but it is possible. Think of the pressure such success lands on the author's shoulders after a big success. Sure you want that too. Or do you. I'm not sure I do any more, yet there are those dreams of best selling, award winning that occur. I don't think any author can stop thinking about that but one can's put their whole career on aiming for that goal. One learns with time to do the best they can at the moment.
I do advise every author to read Bird by Bird and see how the book can inspire them. This finished the second segment of the book and next week I'll see if the third part inspires me. I'm sure it will.
She spends a lot of words talking about how she felt and I know I've shared her thoughts. "Get over it." that is the hard part but it is possible. Think of the pressure such success lands on the author's shoulders after a big success. Sure you want that too. Or do you. I'm not sure I do any more, yet there are those dreams of best selling, award winning that occur. I don't think any author can stop thinking about that but one can's put their whole career on aiming for that goal. One learns with time to do the best they can at the moment.
I do advise every author to read Bird by Bird and see how the book can inspire them. This finished the second segment of the book and next week I'll see if the third part inspires me. I'm sure it will.
Monday, May 2, 2011
2 May -- Week Behind - Week Ahead
Time seems to fly and work seems to crawl at a snail's pace. Have finished the fourth section of Confrontations and one more to ge. Unfortunately that took some re-writing, not really adding new scenes but to make the flow and the sense of the ones already written make sense. Several times in the hast to finish this book that seems to have taken over my life, I wimped out on a scene and had to expand. Not fun but it had to be done. Should finish the re-writes this week and be able to send this off. There will be loud shouts of joy. Had to put A Sudden Seduction aside for a short time. There are edits coming up that will be a new experience for me. Not sure I'm ready for an on-hands session since for me revisions mean re-writing. We shall see. Fortunately my hair is already gray.
Coming up in the week ahead. Tuesday - Still being inspired by Bird By Bird, Wednesday will be more on Plot, Thursday will find an interview with Helen Madden, a very talented writer and artist, Friday a Writer's tip. This one may be on reading. Saturday I'll start with chapters or sections of the Amber Chronicles and when those stories are done, I'll be looking at the books that may find a new home somewhere in the future. They were available until a publisher or two set them free. Sunday 3 more blog visits to share.
Coming up this week are two blog visits On the fifth I'll have an interview and I have an article up on Romancebooksrus on the 7th.
Coming up in the week ahead. Tuesday - Still being inspired by Bird By Bird, Wednesday will be more on Plot, Thursday will find an interview with Helen Madden, a very talented writer and artist, Friday a Writer's tip. This one may be on reading. Saturday I'll start with chapters or sections of the Amber Chronicles and when those stories are done, I'll be looking at the books that may find a new home somewhere in the future. They were available until a publisher or two set them free. Sunday 3 more blog visits to share.
Coming up this week are two blog visits On the fifth I'll have an interview and I have an article up on Romancebooksrus on the 7th.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
3 Blog Visit Sunday
http://mbyerly.blogspot.com/ Here are a list of interesting articles that can be read. Some to do with the business end of writing and some with the art of writing.
http://loconeal.com/2011/04/25/worldbuilding/ Interesting article on worldbuilding for those who create worlds.
http://brandyzbooks.blogspot.com/ Here one finds interviews, book reviews, author chats and more
http://loconeal.com/2011/04/25/worldbuilding/ Interesting article on worldbuilding for those who create worlds.
http://brandyzbooks.blogspot.com/ Here one finds interviews, book reviews, author chats and more
Saturday, April 30, 2011
1st Chapter Saturday -- A Minor Opposition
A Minor Opposition
by Janet Lane Walters
New Concepts Publishing
Chapter 1
The ceiling fan stirred the hot, humid air. Alien aromas, sweat, spices and perfumes, assaulted her. Laurel Richmond leaned against the examining table and wiped her forehead with a cotton bandanna. A babble of voices floated through the partially open door of the triage room. She looked for Chandra and remembered the tiny Indian nurse had left for the day.
Laurel’s eyes blurred. A sneeze exploded. Her throat ached and a dull pain settled above her eyes. She looked down at her wrinkled khakis, glad she wasn’t wearing whites the way she would have in a hospital in the States.
The chatter from the waiting room became the voices of Babel, dislocating her in time and space. For an instant, she wondered where she lived this week and what year headed the calendar. A dozen scenes from as many countries flashed in her thoughts. For the past four years, she had worked for International Health Rescue Missions as part of a team that followed disasters and dispensed medical care and trained native health personnel.
She opened her eyes. The moment of disorientation passed. India. The coastal plains where a cyclone had ripped through towns and villages leaving death and disease behind. She gripped the edge of the table.
Some days, she felt like a taper lit at both ends, melting beneath an alien sun to ooze into foreign soil. A wish to go home fluttered in her thoughts. Except, she’d never had a home.
After pulling her spinning emotions under control, she walked to the door of the triage room and motioned to the next group of patients.
A dark-skinned woman with pleading brown eyes spoke in a high-pitched voice, joining syllables with staccato rapidity. Three wide-eyed children clung to her sari. As if offering a gift, the woman held out a baby. Laurel took the child.
The infant’s swollen belly and thin limbs spoke of malnutrition. Fevered flesh heated Laurel’s hands. The weak mewling cries brought tears to her eyes. She bathed the baby in tepid water and then plunged a needle into the thin muscle of his buttock. With shaking hands, she handed the mother a bottle of sugar water. Then Laurel examined the three little girls.
Her knees felt weak. She leaned against the examining table and forced herself to focus on the task at hand.
The sing-song spate of chatter stopped. Laurel looked up. Neil Bourne stood in the doorway. Though the day had almost ended, his khakis looked neat. His dark hair, lightly sprinkled with gray, and the tiny lines of experience at the corners of his eyes revealed the ten years’ difference in their ages.
He smiled. In the past, his smiles had brought comfort and allowed her to speak of her dreams like a child talking to a trusted uncle. Today, his smile made her feel edgy.
“Dear girl, it’s nearly eight. Time to close shop for the day. You work too long, too hard.
“No more than you.” She studied his face. Something in his expression told her he had news. Was the team moving to the scene of some new disaster? She wanted to protest another dislocation.
“Let me help you finish?”
Unwilling to let her tiredness show, she nodded, stepped to the door and gestured to the next patient.
For an hour, she and Neil assessed the rest of the patients in the waiting room. When the last patient had been seen, she closed the door and slumped on a chair.
“Time to go.”
Neil’s deep voice lured her to her feet. She washed her hands and splashed water on her face. As they crossed the road to the house where the members of the team lived, only his hand at her elbow kept her from staggering.
“Dinner?” he asked.
“Let me change.”
He shook his head. “If I let you go, you’ll collapse on the bed and miss another meal.”
She followed him into the house. “It’s too hot.”
“It’s a far cry from London in May,” he said. “Here, there’s the hot wet season and the hot dry season.”
“It’s not like home either.” Where was home? A chill made her tremble. Her vision blurred and she sank on a dining room chair. Flies droned. The ceiling fan stirred the air.
A servant entered and bowed. Soon dishes of curried chicken, rice, vegetables and fruit arrived along with a pot of steaming tea. The mingled aromas made her swallow.
She poured a cup of tea and sighed. “What I’d give for a glass of iced tea.”
“Barbarian.” He reached across the table and covered her hand with his.
“Homesick?”
She shook her head. “Just weary.” Tired of living like a gypsy, though she’d never known another kind of life. Nannies, city apartments, country houses, boarding schools, summer camps.
“In two weeks, we’re for London and a week there while we re-equip.” He squeezed her fingers. “You feel warm.”
“The heat. I wonder if I’ll ever feel cool again.” She sipped the tea and toyed with the food on her plate.
Neal ate as though his next meal would arrive at some unspecified future date. He finished eating and walked around the table. “Let’s take tomorrow as an escape day.”
“Can we?” As his fingers lightly stroked the tight muscles of her shoulders and strayed to brush her neck, she tensed. “The patients?”
“Will be here long after we’re gone.” His fingers caressed her throat. “I know a place in the mountains with a pool fed by streams and breezes sweetened by the scent of flowers. “I’d like to take you there.”
“That’s not a day’s outing.”
“I know, but it would be a splendid place for a honeymoon.” His stroking fingers stilled. “Marry me.”
Shock waves rode her nerves. What could she say that wouldn’t hurt him? From deep inside came the knowledge she no longer wanted this roving life and that was all Neil could offer. She wanted the home she’d never known and for him to remain a friend, a mentor, not a lover and the keeper of her heart.
He pulled her to her feet and turned her to face him. “We’re a smashing team.” His deep voice spun webs of enticement. “Consider the miracles we’ve performed and how many more are possible if we marry.” His mouth covered hers.
He’s not the one. The inner warning stiffened her body and aborted her response to his kiss. “I can’t.”
She couldn’t decipher the look in his pale blue eyes. She wanted to explain, but anything she said would keep the situation rolling like a mud slide down a canyon wall. Months ago, she had told him about the secret love she held in her heart. He had dismissed the memories as a fantasy.
“I’m sorry.”
He cupped her chin. “You’re alone. So am I. The world is full of people crying for what we can give them.”
The look in his eyes belonged to a zealot. She would never come first with him. The sick would always claim his energy. “I...”
His fingers touched her lips. “Don’t decide in haste. Think of how much you can give to so many in the future. Then give me your answer.”
She backed away. Beneath the panic that gathered in her thoughts, she wondered why he had waited until tonight to ask her to marry him. Was it because yesterday, her birthday, she had told him about the money that would be hers next year? Why hadn’t he asked her last month, last year, or at some time during the two years she had been part of his team. Not once in that time had she sensed his caring went beyond friendship.
She walked to the bedroom she shared with another nurse. Without undressing, she lay on the hard mattress.
The long night of tossing and turning, of sleep interrupted by strange, frightening dreams, ended at dawn. She sat up. Her head and throat ached. She looked at her roommate.
“Tell Neil...tell Neil...I can’t...I have to...” She lay back and closed her eyes.
As soon as the house emptied, she packed, wrote a note to Neil declining his proposal and hitched a ride to Calcutta with the man who brought supplies to the clinic. Though she knew running away was wrong, she couldn’t think of any other action to keep Neil from stirring guilt over her leaving IHRM. At the airport, she booked the first flight west.
From Calcutta to Athens to Rome. When she boarded the plane for London, her memories of the number of airports had blurred. Aspirin washed down with tea or coffee had kept her body bathed with acrid perspiration. In Athens, she had begun to sniffle. A cough had developed in Rome. By the time she reached London and the flat she had rented four years before, she wanted to sleep for a week. Five minutes after entering, she collapsed on the bed.
Sixteen sleep-drugged hours later, she showered to wash away the stench of travel and of fever, Her decision had been made. Tired of constant relocation and living out of suitcases, she yearned for a place where she could build a stable life.
A frantic day of packing began. The dolls she had collected. Her clothes. Two boxes of books. She stopped long enough to have dinner with her landlady. After leaving shipping instructions, she wrote a check to cover the rent for the rest of the lease. Then she booked a flight to the States and called Megan Carter.
The next morning, she headed for the offices of IHRM. Within thirty minutes of her arrival, she had typed a letter of resignation and carried it to the director’s office.
The gray-haired woman looked up. “Laurel, you’re not due in for a week.”
A bout of coughing left Laurel weak. “Resigning. A family emergency.”
“You sound beastly. Let me ring up a doctor.” The director reached for the phone.
“Can’t. Have a flight. Have to go home.”
The woman shook her head. “You’re ill. How can you handle an emergency when you’re the one who needs care?”
“I’ll see a doctor as soon as I reach the States.”
The director walked Laurel to the door. “I’ll hold your resignation. When this emergency ends, come back.”
“I can’t.” In the distance, a clock chimed twelve times and brought a fear she wouldn’t reach Heathrow in time for her flight. She hoisted the duffel and waved down a cab. When the plane rose from the end of the runway, she fell into a fevered dream as scrambled as her thoughts.
*****
The annoying ring of the phone interrupted a strange, yet beautiful dream. Alex Carter groped for the receiver and mumbled a greeting. Instead of the husky drawl of his answering service, the sound of his sister’s voice confused him. She spewed a stream of sentences with the force of a flash flood. “Megan, slow down. Do you know what time it is?“
“Six AM and I have to work and Laurel arrives this morning and I was supposed to meet her, but I can’t so do me a favor and go to the airport. Her plane arrives at ten.”
Alex pushed into a sitting position. “It’s Wednesday.”
“Very good.”
The sarcasm in her voice made him clench his teeth. “Brat.”
“I know you’re off and since I can’t go and neither can Jen, you have to. Just think, you can do this favor for me without rearranging your office hours. Were you planning something special with Johnny?”
“Noooo” He dragged out his response. Who was Laurel?
“Please say you’ll go. The other day when she called, I was so excited about her coming home, I never thought about who would meet her.”
Alex interrupted her stream of words. “I’ll do it.”
“Great. See you.”
“Wait a minute!” He shouted to gain her attention. “How will I know her?”
“Brown hair, brown eyes, tall, slender. She was here the summer Mom got sick. She roomed with Jen and me at Grantley.”
“My memories are vague.”
“Alzheimer’s so soon.”
“I’ll remember that.” Alex stretched. “Once I have her, what will I do with her.” Megan’s giggle pressed a warning button. “No way, sister mine.”
“We’ll see.”
He imagined the cat in the cream smile on her face. “Megan!”
“I’ll leave my key under the mat. Have her call the minute you arrive. See you.”
Alex held the receiver until he heard a dial tone. Why did he have the feeling Megan had just orchestrated a crescendo in his life? His sister had a habit of trying to match every unmarried acquaintance, friend or relative with someone. He shook his head. Being involved in one of her schemes was the last thing he wanted.
Should he take Johnny or arrange for Sarah Rodgers to pick him up from kindergarten? He wasn’t sure.
After he finished dressing in jeans and a cream-colored knit shirt, he decided that while a five year old might find the airport fascinating, if the plane arrived late, his son would complain and fidget.
Alex remembered hours wasted at the airport waiting for his wife to return from one of her vacations in Europe with her “beautiful” friends. Though nearly three years had passed since the divorce and six months since her death, his anger remained strong.
Pushing thoughts of Rhonda aside, he ran down the stairs of the post-Revolutionary farmhouse. The aroma of fresh coffee made his stomach rumble.
While he breakfasted, he reviewed his memories of Laurel Richmond. Bit by bit, he built a picture of a tall, slender girl with a mass of brown hair, huge amber eyes and a propensity for popping into his presence as though she’d set an ambush.
His hand tightened on his coffee mug. “Poor little rich girl.” The comment had been his mother’s. Laurel Richmond was an heiress. Megan, he silently shouted. Not me. There was no room in his life for another spoiled rich woman.
He been there, done that. Money bread selfishness. His dead wife was proof of that. The moment her trust fund had been hers, she’d run to destruction. Parties, alcohol, drugs. She hadn’t had a thought for her son or the man she’d professed to love,
*****
The insistent wail of an infant penetrated Laurel’s chaotic dream and brought an automatic response. One hand searched for the stethoscope usually worn around her neck. The other reached for a bag of medical supplies. Finding neither confused her. She opened her eyes.
This wasn’t Guatemala, Ethiopia, India or one of the other countries where she had been sent by IHRM. A spate of coughing left her ribs aching. Maybe she should have stayed in London long enough to see a doctor, but her desperate need to find a place where she belonged had goaded her into flight.
She glanced at the watch on her too thin wrist. How many hours had she lost as she’d fled India and Neal? Memories of his proposal still shocked her.
“Would you like a beverage?” Her flight attendant asked.
“Cola with lots of ice.” Laurel sighed. Soon, she could drink gallons of iced tea and eat chili dogs on crusty rolls.
Would she find a home in Eastlake? A trickle of grief seeped beneath the barrier blocking the sad moments in her life. She thought about the lie she had written in her letter of resignation. “A family emergency.” She hadn’t had a family since she was three.
Her mouth twisted into a mocking smile. “My mother was a hired nanny and my father the Mellwood Bank.” As memories rose of the accident and the hours spent trapped in the shattered car with her unresponsive parents, she shivered. The long months of pain-filled rehabilitation belonged in the depths of her subconscious. Only the kind and caring nurses who had become models for her life deserved to be remembered.
The stewardess collected her untouched breakfast. The infant’s wails ceased. Laurel pulled her jacket close and wished for a blanket.
A short time later, an announcement of the expected arrival time in Pittsburgh blared from the loudspeaker. Her thoughts focused on the summer visits to the Carter’s house in Eastlake. A brief taste of being part of a family had been snatched away by Mrs. Carter’s illness. When Laurel had returned to attend college at Grantley, things hadn’t been the same.
The plane touched down and rolled to a halt. While the mass of passengers pushed to the exit like angry ants from a shattered hill, Laurel remained seated. The aisles cleared. A flight attendant paused beside Laurel’s seat. “Are you okay? Would you like a wheelchair?”
“No, but thanks.” Laurel rose and walked to the exit. Using the railing on the right hand side of the enclosed ramp, she soon reached the end. The long hours of travel, the fever and the cough that had plagued her since the flight from India had drained most of her reserve strength.
At the end of the ramp, she scanned the milling crowd for Megan. Without warning, a memory of being sixteen and in love rocked Laurel.
A tall, blond, athletic man scanned the area around the exit ramp. His glance slid past her. She walked toward him. “Alex Carter, what are you doing here?”
“Laurel Richmond. I’m here to take you to Eastlake.” He clasped her hand.
“I thought Megan was meeting me.”
“She had to work.” His gaze swept over her. “Rough trip? You look exhausted.”
“I’ve been living a hectic life. How did Megan trap you into meeting me? I could have rented a car.”
A lock of sun-bright hair fell across his forehead. “That’s a long story. I didn’t know you were coming until six AM when my scatterbrain sister called. ‘Alex, I have to work and Laurel’s arriving at ten thirty and would you meet her and I know you’re off, so say yes.’”
Laurel laughed. “And so you came.”
He took her arm. His touch, the overheated building, the noisy crowd combined to make her feel faint. She inhaled. A trickle of cigarette smoke triggered her cough reflex. She fought to catch her breath. “Let’s get my bag.”
“Are you home for good?”
How could she tell him she didn’t have a home, just two residences the bank had retained? Would he understand why she had returned to Eastlake?
“Why don’t you consider staying in Eastlake? The hospital needs nurses. Have you kept up your license?”
“Yes.” She noted the signs pointing to the baggage area and turned to the right.
“Lately, I haven’t been thinking beyond each day.”
His fingers lightly stroked her jacket sleeve. She wondered if he was aware of his action. The rush of heat she felt in response to his gentleness dissolved the wall holding back her pain. In silence, she walked beside him.
She pointed to the navy blue duffel circling the carousal with the suitcases. “The duffel’s mine.”
Alex snagged the strap. “Just one?”
She nodded. “I’ve learned to travel light. Not much room in a tent or a hut.”
“What were you doing in a tent?”
“Working for International Health Rescue Missions. Didn’t Megan tell you?”
“Probably. It’s hard finding facts in her chatter.”
They entered the bullet train and exited minutes later at the door leading to the parking lot. The air, redolent with exhaust fumes, made her choke and cough. Alex opened the car door and slung the duffel in the back.
“How’s your son?”
“Johnny’s five and a lot of fun.”
“And your wife?” As soon as she blurted the question, she remembered what Megan had said about her sister-in-law and how she had abandoned her husband and her son.
A muscle at the corner of Alex’s mouth twitched. “She died six months ago.”
“Does your son miss her?”
The tic increased in tempo. “He hadn’t seen her since the divorce.” He pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the Parkway. “What were your assignments like?’
“Primitive conditions. Needy people. Too little help often arriving too late. I saw a lot of apathy and anger.”
“But you helped?”
“Some.” Just now, she didn’t want to talk about IHRM and the reason she had left.
“How’s your father? So many of Megan’s letters were lost because of the number of times the team moved. All I have is bits and pieces of what’s been happening.”
He caught her eye. “I bet if you had them all, you’d still be confused. Dad’s become the heartthrob of the middle-age set.”
She watched his face lose it’s guarded look. Though sorrow lines remained deeply etched at the corners of his mouth, the tic had disappeared. Had his wife’s desertion soured him? Not knowing how to offer comfort, she closed her eyes and drifted to sleep.
*****
Alex glanced at his passenger. Though she had spoken about being a member of a medical team, he noted the expensive cut of her khaki slacks and jacket. Bet she had fun playing “Lady Bountiful.”
Her gauntness reminded him of his ex-wife’s physical condition the last time he had seen her. That afternoon, Rhonda had brazenly admitted using cocaine to enhance her playtime. “All of my friends do it. Why not try before you knock something?”
His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. The miles flew past. Laurel shifted in her seat. He became aware of the wheeze in her breathing. Deep circles under her eyes spoke of exhaustion. She was too thin. Anorexia? He could suggest several people who could help. He shook his head. She hadn’t asked for medical advice.
As they neared the mall ten miles outside Eastlake, he glanced at the clock. “Laurel, would you like to stop for lunch?”
She opened her eyes. She’s ill, he thought.
“Do you have time? It’s your day off. You don’t have to give up your plans for me.”
The vulnerability in her voice surprised him. “My plans are flexible.” He stretched the truth a few inches. His Wednesday afternoons belonged to his son, but there were many occasions when lunch wasn’t included.
“Then I’ll accept.” She straightened. “A mall. When did this happen?”
“Two years ago.”
He flipped on his turn signal and pulled into the parking lot of the Pirate’s Cove. “This is new, too. Owned by a friend. He just started serving lunch in January. Dad and Megan give it rave reviews. Evenings, there’s a jazz combo and a fabulous buffet.” He parked, got out and walked to her door. Her amber eyes appeared glazed.
As she slid from the passenger’s seat, a paroxysm of coughing caused her to double over. Perspiration covered her forehead. Her tanned skin blanched. She fell forward, but he caught her before she hit the ground. Her hair loosened from the coil at her neck and fanned over his arm. He lifted her into the car and reclined the seat. Her frailty shocked him.
Just how seriously ill was she? Had she come home to die? Her skin felt as though lava flowed beneath the surface. He inhaled the scent of jasmine.
“Laurel, can you hear me?” His fingers found her pulse and he counted the rapid yet regular beats. The dusky hue around her mouth alarmed him. He fumbled in his medical bag, pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the rattles and crackling sounds in her chest.
He shook his head. What doctor would let a patient this ill fly across the ocean? Had she even seen one?
As he pulled out of the parking lot, he reached for the cellular phone and tapped 911. “Dr. Carter here. I’m on the way to Eastlake Community with a patient.”
Three miles from town, a waiting dark blue sedan pulled from the side of the road. With lights flashing and siren blaring, the police car led the way to the hospital.
Alex pulled up to the door and jumped out. He lifted Laurel and held her against his chest. From nowhere, came a jolt of desire. He wanted to brush his lips over her face. Damn, he thought. She’s ill, and even if she wasn’t, these thoughts are out of line.
By the time a nurse appeared with a gurney, he was halfway down the hall with Laurel in his arms. Gently, he placed her on the sheet and steered the gurney into the Emergency Room. An urge to scold Laurel warred with his guilt over not seeing how sick she was.
“Portable chest, routine labs, make the CBC and blood gases stat. EKG. Nasal oxygen at three liters after the blood gases.” He reached for Laurel’s wrist and checked her pulse. “Hang a D5W at 75 ccs an hour.” Was she allergic to any of the antibiotics?
Leaving the nurses to carry out his orders, he opened Laurel’s purse. Inside her wallet, he searched for the name of someone to notify. A snapshot of his family caught his eye. Behind a credit card, he found a slip of paper. “In case of an emergency, notify the Mellwood Bank.” No help there, he thought.
He dialed his sister’s unit and waited for her to come on line. In a few words, he explained what had happened. “Allergies?”
“Penicillin. She took it once when we were in school and ended up looking like she had scarlet fever. What are you going to do with her?”
“Admit her.”
“Oh, dear.” Megan said. “I remember how she freaked out when they wanted to keep her in the infirmary overnight. Better put her on my unit. There’s a private room. I’ll be down in ten minutes.”
“Any idea why she doesn’t like hospitals?”
“She spent months in one as a child. After the accident that killed her parents. She seldom talks about what happened then.”
Alex hung up and called Admitting. Then he returned to the curtained cubicle. Laurel moved restlessly. She reached for the intravenous tubing. “Neil, please. I can’t.”
Who was this Neil who had upset her so? Alex put his hands on her shoulders.
“You’re all right. You’re safe here.”
She opened her eyes. “Where?”
“Eastlake Community.”
“Why?”
“Pneumonia. I need to know about antibiotics.”
“No penicillin, sulfa or erythromycin.”
He shook his head. “You’re making this difficult.”
“Don’t I know.” She tried to sit up. “When can I go to Megan’s?”
His fingers massaged her shoulders. “She’s on her way. You’ll be staying here for a few days.”
Tension ran like a wire through her body. “I can’t.”
The nurse pushed the curtains open and handed Alex the results of the X-rays and lab work.”
“How bad? Tell me.”
“Right lower lobe pneumonia. Elevated blood count. Low red count. Low oxygen blood level.”
She looked up. “I’m a mess.”
“You’ve got it.”
She sighed. “Guess I’ll stay.”
He nodded and ran his knuckles over her chin. “Be back in a few. Have to call home.” Moments later, he explained to his housekeeper why he was late. “Is Johnny upset?”
“Not so it shows, but he and his invisible friend are in the yard.”
The muscle at the corner of Alex’s mouth throbbed. While the pediatrician had assured him imaginary friends were a normal part of his son’s development, Alex wasn’t convinced. “Tell him I’ll be home soon.”
Megan appeared at the desk. “Where’s Laurel? What’s wrong? She’s seldom sick.”
He looked up. “Pneumonia, anemia, maybe anorexia.”
His sister shook her head hard enough that her short blonde curls bounced. “Never. She said she was coming home because she needed to think. How long are you keeping her?”
“Until I like the lab results and know the antibiotics are working. Are you sure she’s not anorexic?”
“She eats like Jen.”
“Not lately.”
“Where is she?’
“This way.” Alex crossed to the cubicle.
Megan pushed in ahead of him. “Laurel Richmond, what have you done to yourself?”
by Janet Lane Walters
New Concepts Publishing
Chapter 1
The ceiling fan stirred the hot, humid air. Alien aromas, sweat, spices and perfumes, assaulted her. Laurel Richmond leaned against the examining table and wiped her forehead with a cotton bandanna. A babble of voices floated through the partially open door of the triage room. She looked for Chandra and remembered the tiny Indian nurse had left for the day.
Laurel’s eyes blurred. A sneeze exploded. Her throat ached and a dull pain settled above her eyes. She looked down at her wrinkled khakis, glad she wasn’t wearing whites the way she would have in a hospital in the States.
The chatter from the waiting room became the voices of Babel, dislocating her in time and space. For an instant, she wondered where she lived this week and what year headed the calendar. A dozen scenes from as many countries flashed in her thoughts. For the past four years, she had worked for International Health Rescue Missions as part of a team that followed disasters and dispensed medical care and trained native health personnel.
She opened her eyes. The moment of disorientation passed. India. The coastal plains where a cyclone had ripped through towns and villages leaving death and disease behind. She gripped the edge of the table.
Some days, she felt like a taper lit at both ends, melting beneath an alien sun to ooze into foreign soil. A wish to go home fluttered in her thoughts. Except, she’d never had a home.
After pulling her spinning emotions under control, she walked to the door of the triage room and motioned to the next group of patients.
A dark-skinned woman with pleading brown eyes spoke in a high-pitched voice, joining syllables with staccato rapidity. Three wide-eyed children clung to her sari. As if offering a gift, the woman held out a baby. Laurel took the child.
The infant’s swollen belly and thin limbs spoke of malnutrition. Fevered flesh heated Laurel’s hands. The weak mewling cries brought tears to her eyes. She bathed the baby in tepid water and then plunged a needle into the thin muscle of his buttock. With shaking hands, she handed the mother a bottle of sugar water. Then Laurel examined the three little girls.
Her knees felt weak. She leaned against the examining table and forced herself to focus on the task at hand.
The sing-song spate of chatter stopped. Laurel looked up. Neil Bourne stood in the doorway. Though the day had almost ended, his khakis looked neat. His dark hair, lightly sprinkled with gray, and the tiny lines of experience at the corners of his eyes revealed the ten years’ difference in their ages.
He smiled. In the past, his smiles had brought comfort and allowed her to speak of her dreams like a child talking to a trusted uncle. Today, his smile made her feel edgy.
“Dear girl, it’s nearly eight. Time to close shop for the day. You work too long, too hard.
“No more than you.” She studied his face. Something in his expression told her he had news. Was the team moving to the scene of some new disaster? She wanted to protest another dislocation.
“Let me help you finish?”
Unwilling to let her tiredness show, she nodded, stepped to the door and gestured to the next patient.
For an hour, she and Neil assessed the rest of the patients in the waiting room. When the last patient had been seen, she closed the door and slumped on a chair.
“Time to go.”
Neil’s deep voice lured her to her feet. She washed her hands and splashed water on her face. As they crossed the road to the house where the members of the team lived, only his hand at her elbow kept her from staggering.
“Dinner?” he asked.
“Let me change.”
He shook his head. “If I let you go, you’ll collapse on the bed and miss another meal.”
She followed him into the house. “It’s too hot.”
“It’s a far cry from London in May,” he said. “Here, there’s the hot wet season and the hot dry season.”
“It’s not like home either.” Where was home? A chill made her tremble. Her vision blurred and she sank on a dining room chair. Flies droned. The ceiling fan stirred the air.
A servant entered and bowed. Soon dishes of curried chicken, rice, vegetables and fruit arrived along with a pot of steaming tea. The mingled aromas made her swallow.
She poured a cup of tea and sighed. “What I’d give for a glass of iced tea.”
“Barbarian.” He reached across the table and covered her hand with his.
“Homesick?”
She shook her head. “Just weary.” Tired of living like a gypsy, though she’d never known another kind of life. Nannies, city apartments, country houses, boarding schools, summer camps.
“In two weeks, we’re for London and a week there while we re-equip.” He squeezed her fingers. “You feel warm.”
“The heat. I wonder if I’ll ever feel cool again.” She sipped the tea and toyed with the food on her plate.
Neal ate as though his next meal would arrive at some unspecified future date. He finished eating and walked around the table. “Let’s take tomorrow as an escape day.”
“Can we?” As his fingers lightly stroked the tight muscles of her shoulders and strayed to brush her neck, she tensed. “The patients?”
“Will be here long after we’re gone.” His fingers caressed her throat. “I know a place in the mountains with a pool fed by streams and breezes sweetened by the scent of flowers. “I’d like to take you there.”
“That’s not a day’s outing.”
“I know, but it would be a splendid place for a honeymoon.” His stroking fingers stilled. “Marry me.”
Shock waves rode her nerves. What could she say that wouldn’t hurt him? From deep inside came the knowledge she no longer wanted this roving life and that was all Neil could offer. She wanted the home she’d never known and for him to remain a friend, a mentor, not a lover and the keeper of her heart.
He pulled her to her feet and turned her to face him. “We’re a smashing team.” His deep voice spun webs of enticement. “Consider the miracles we’ve performed and how many more are possible if we marry.” His mouth covered hers.
He’s not the one. The inner warning stiffened her body and aborted her response to his kiss. “I can’t.”
She couldn’t decipher the look in his pale blue eyes. She wanted to explain, but anything she said would keep the situation rolling like a mud slide down a canyon wall. Months ago, she had told him about the secret love she held in her heart. He had dismissed the memories as a fantasy.
“I’m sorry.”
He cupped her chin. “You’re alone. So am I. The world is full of people crying for what we can give them.”
The look in his eyes belonged to a zealot. She would never come first with him. The sick would always claim his energy. “I...”
His fingers touched her lips. “Don’t decide in haste. Think of how much you can give to so many in the future. Then give me your answer.”
She backed away. Beneath the panic that gathered in her thoughts, she wondered why he had waited until tonight to ask her to marry him. Was it because yesterday, her birthday, she had told him about the money that would be hers next year? Why hadn’t he asked her last month, last year, or at some time during the two years she had been part of his team. Not once in that time had she sensed his caring went beyond friendship.
She walked to the bedroom she shared with another nurse. Without undressing, she lay on the hard mattress.
The long night of tossing and turning, of sleep interrupted by strange, frightening dreams, ended at dawn. She sat up. Her head and throat ached. She looked at her roommate.
“Tell Neil...tell Neil...I can’t...I have to...” She lay back and closed her eyes.
As soon as the house emptied, she packed, wrote a note to Neil declining his proposal and hitched a ride to Calcutta with the man who brought supplies to the clinic. Though she knew running away was wrong, she couldn’t think of any other action to keep Neil from stirring guilt over her leaving IHRM. At the airport, she booked the first flight west.
From Calcutta to Athens to Rome. When she boarded the plane for London, her memories of the number of airports had blurred. Aspirin washed down with tea or coffee had kept her body bathed with acrid perspiration. In Athens, she had begun to sniffle. A cough had developed in Rome. By the time she reached London and the flat she had rented four years before, she wanted to sleep for a week. Five minutes after entering, she collapsed on the bed.
Sixteen sleep-drugged hours later, she showered to wash away the stench of travel and of fever, Her decision had been made. Tired of constant relocation and living out of suitcases, she yearned for a place where she could build a stable life.
A frantic day of packing began. The dolls she had collected. Her clothes. Two boxes of books. She stopped long enough to have dinner with her landlady. After leaving shipping instructions, she wrote a check to cover the rent for the rest of the lease. Then she booked a flight to the States and called Megan Carter.
The next morning, she headed for the offices of IHRM. Within thirty minutes of her arrival, she had typed a letter of resignation and carried it to the director’s office.
The gray-haired woman looked up. “Laurel, you’re not due in for a week.”
A bout of coughing left Laurel weak. “Resigning. A family emergency.”
“You sound beastly. Let me ring up a doctor.” The director reached for the phone.
“Can’t. Have a flight. Have to go home.”
The woman shook her head. “You’re ill. How can you handle an emergency when you’re the one who needs care?”
“I’ll see a doctor as soon as I reach the States.”
The director walked Laurel to the door. “I’ll hold your resignation. When this emergency ends, come back.”
“I can’t.” In the distance, a clock chimed twelve times and brought a fear she wouldn’t reach Heathrow in time for her flight. She hoisted the duffel and waved down a cab. When the plane rose from the end of the runway, she fell into a fevered dream as scrambled as her thoughts.
*****
The annoying ring of the phone interrupted a strange, yet beautiful dream. Alex Carter groped for the receiver and mumbled a greeting. Instead of the husky drawl of his answering service, the sound of his sister’s voice confused him. She spewed a stream of sentences with the force of a flash flood. “Megan, slow down. Do you know what time it is?“
“Six AM and I have to work and Laurel arrives this morning and I was supposed to meet her, but I can’t so do me a favor and go to the airport. Her plane arrives at ten.”
Alex pushed into a sitting position. “It’s Wednesday.”
“Very good.”
The sarcasm in her voice made him clench his teeth. “Brat.”
“I know you’re off and since I can’t go and neither can Jen, you have to. Just think, you can do this favor for me without rearranging your office hours. Were you planning something special with Johnny?”
“Noooo” He dragged out his response. Who was Laurel?
“Please say you’ll go. The other day when she called, I was so excited about her coming home, I never thought about who would meet her.”
Alex interrupted her stream of words. “I’ll do it.”
“Great. See you.”
“Wait a minute!” He shouted to gain her attention. “How will I know her?”
“Brown hair, brown eyes, tall, slender. She was here the summer Mom got sick. She roomed with Jen and me at Grantley.”
“My memories are vague.”
“Alzheimer’s so soon.”
“I’ll remember that.” Alex stretched. “Once I have her, what will I do with her.” Megan’s giggle pressed a warning button. “No way, sister mine.”
“We’ll see.”
He imagined the cat in the cream smile on her face. “Megan!”
“I’ll leave my key under the mat. Have her call the minute you arrive. See you.”
Alex held the receiver until he heard a dial tone. Why did he have the feeling Megan had just orchestrated a crescendo in his life? His sister had a habit of trying to match every unmarried acquaintance, friend or relative with someone. He shook his head. Being involved in one of her schemes was the last thing he wanted.
Should he take Johnny or arrange for Sarah Rodgers to pick him up from kindergarten? He wasn’t sure.
After he finished dressing in jeans and a cream-colored knit shirt, he decided that while a five year old might find the airport fascinating, if the plane arrived late, his son would complain and fidget.
Alex remembered hours wasted at the airport waiting for his wife to return from one of her vacations in Europe with her “beautiful” friends. Though nearly three years had passed since the divorce and six months since her death, his anger remained strong.
Pushing thoughts of Rhonda aside, he ran down the stairs of the post-Revolutionary farmhouse. The aroma of fresh coffee made his stomach rumble.
While he breakfasted, he reviewed his memories of Laurel Richmond. Bit by bit, he built a picture of a tall, slender girl with a mass of brown hair, huge amber eyes and a propensity for popping into his presence as though she’d set an ambush.
His hand tightened on his coffee mug. “Poor little rich girl.” The comment had been his mother’s. Laurel Richmond was an heiress. Megan, he silently shouted. Not me. There was no room in his life for another spoiled rich woman.
He been there, done that. Money bread selfishness. His dead wife was proof of that. The moment her trust fund had been hers, she’d run to destruction. Parties, alcohol, drugs. She hadn’t had a thought for her son or the man she’d professed to love,
*****
The insistent wail of an infant penetrated Laurel’s chaotic dream and brought an automatic response. One hand searched for the stethoscope usually worn around her neck. The other reached for a bag of medical supplies. Finding neither confused her. She opened her eyes.
This wasn’t Guatemala, Ethiopia, India or one of the other countries where she had been sent by IHRM. A spate of coughing left her ribs aching. Maybe she should have stayed in London long enough to see a doctor, but her desperate need to find a place where she belonged had goaded her into flight.
She glanced at the watch on her too thin wrist. How many hours had she lost as she’d fled India and Neal? Memories of his proposal still shocked her.
“Would you like a beverage?” Her flight attendant asked.
“Cola with lots of ice.” Laurel sighed. Soon, she could drink gallons of iced tea and eat chili dogs on crusty rolls.
Would she find a home in Eastlake? A trickle of grief seeped beneath the barrier blocking the sad moments in her life. She thought about the lie she had written in her letter of resignation. “A family emergency.” She hadn’t had a family since she was three.
Her mouth twisted into a mocking smile. “My mother was a hired nanny and my father the Mellwood Bank.” As memories rose of the accident and the hours spent trapped in the shattered car with her unresponsive parents, she shivered. The long months of pain-filled rehabilitation belonged in the depths of her subconscious. Only the kind and caring nurses who had become models for her life deserved to be remembered.
The stewardess collected her untouched breakfast. The infant’s wails ceased. Laurel pulled her jacket close and wished for a blanket.
A short time later, an announcement of the expected arrival time in Pittsburgh blared from the loudspeaker. Her thoughts focused on the summer visits to the Carter’s house in Eastlake. A brief taste of being part of a family had been snatched away by Mrs. Carter’s illness. When Laurel had returned to attend college at Grantley, things hadn’t been the same.
The plane touched down and rolled to a halt. While the mass of passengers pushed to the exit like angry ants from a shattered hill, Laurel remained seated. The aisles cleared. A flight attendant paused beside Laurel’s seat. “Are you okay? Would you like a wheelchair?”
“No, but thanks.” Laurel rose and walked to the exit. Using the railing on the right hand side of the enclosed ramp, she soon reached the end. The long hours of travel, the fever and the cough that had plagued her since the flight from India had drained most of her reserve strength.
At the end of the ramp, she scanned the milling crowd for Megan. Without warning, a memory of being sixteen and in love rocked Laurel.
A tall, blond, athletic man scanned the area around the exit ramp. His glance slid past her. She walked toward him. “Alex Carter, what are you doing here?”
“Laurel Richmond. I’m here to take you to Eastlake.” He clasped her hand.
“I thought Megan was meeting me.”
“She had to work.” His gaze swept over her. “Rough trip? You look exhausted.”
“I’ve been living a hectic life. How did Megan trap you into meeting me? I could have rented a car.”
A lock of sun-bright hair fell across his forehead. “That’s a long story. I didn’t know you were coming until six AM when my scatterbrain sister called. ‘Alex, I have to work and Laurel’s arriving at ten thirty and would you meet her and I know you’re off, so say yes.’”
Laurel laughed. “And so you came.”
He took her arm. His touch, the overheated building, the noisy crowd combined to make her feel faint. She inhaled. A trickle of cigarette smoke triggered her cough reflex. She fought to catch her breath. “Let’s get my bag.”
“Are you home for good?”
How could she tell him she didn’t have a home, just two residences the bank had retained? Would he understand why she had returned to Eastlake?
“Why don’t you consider staying in Eastlake? The hospital needs nurses. Have you kept up your license?”
“Yes.” She noted the signs pointing to the baggage area and turned to the right.
“Lately, I haven’t been thinking beyond each day.”
His fingers lightly stroked her jacket sleeve. She wondered if he was aware of his action. The rush of heat she felt in response to his gentleness dissolved the wall holding back her pain. In silence, she walked beside him.
She pointed to the navy blue duffel circling the carousal with the suitcases. “The duffel’s mine.”
Alex snagged the strap. “Just one?”
She nodded. “I’ve learned to travel light. Not much room in a tent or a hut.”
“What were you doing in a tent?”
“Working for International Health Rescue Missions. Didn’t Megan tell you?”
“Probably. It’s hard finding facts in her chatter.”
They entered the bullet train and exited minutes later at the door leading to the parking lot. The air, redolent with exhaust fumes, made her choke and cough. Alex opened the car door and slung the duffel in the back.
“How’s your son?”
“Johnny’s five and a lot of fun.”
“And your wife?” As soon as she blurted the question, she remembered what Megan had said about her sister-in-law and how she had abandoned her husband and her son.
A muscle at the corner of Alex’s mouth twitched. “She died six months ago.”
“Does your son miss her?”
The tic increased in tempo. “He hadn’t seen her since the divorce.” He pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the Parkway. “What were your assignments like?’
“Primitive conditions. Needy people. Too little help often arriving too late. I saw a lot of apathy and anger.”
“But you helped?”
“Some.” Just now, she didn’t want to talk about IHRM and the reason she had left.
“How’s your father? So many of Megan’s letters were lost because of the number of times the team moved. All I have is bits and pieces of what’s been happening.”
He caught her eye. “I bet if you had them all, you’d still be confused. Dad’s become the heartthrob of the middle-age set.”
She watched his face lose it’s guarded look. Though sorrow lines remained deeply etched at the corners of his mouth, the tic had disappeared. Had his wife’s desertion soured him? Not knowing how to offer comfort, she closed her eyes and drifted to sleep.
*****
Alex glanced at his passenger. Though she had spoken about being a member of a medical team, he noted the expensive cut of her khaki slacks and jacket. Bet she had fun playing “Lady Bountiful.”
Her gauntness reminded him of his ex-wife’s physical condition the last time he had seen her. That afternoon, Rhonda had brazenly admitted using cocaine to enhance her playtime. “All of my friends do it. Why not try before you knock something?”
His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. The miles flew past. Laurel shifted in her seat. He became aware of the wheeze in her breathing. Deep circles under her eyes spoke of exhaustion. She was too thin. Anorexia? He could suggest several people who could help. He shook his head. She hadn’t asked for medical advice.
As they neared the mall ten miles outside Eastlake, he glanced at the clock. “Laurel, would you like to stop for lunch?”
She opened her eyes. She’s ill, he thought.
“Do you have time? It’s your day off. You don’t have to give up your plans for me.”
The vulnerability in her voice surprised him. “My plans are flexible.” He stretched the truth a few inches. His Wednesday afternoons belonged to his son, but there were many occasions when lunch wasn’t included.
“Then I’ll accept.” She straightened. “A mall. When did this happen?”
“Two years ago.”
He flipped on his turn signal and pulled into the parking lot of the Pirate’s Cove. “This is new, too. Owned by a friend. He just started serving lunch in January. Dad and Megan give it rave reviews. Evenings, there’s a jazz combo and a fabulous buffet.” He parked, got out and walked to her door. Her amber eyes appeared glazed.
As she slid from the passenger’s seat, a paroxysm of coughing caused her to double over. Perspiration covered her forehead. Her tanned skin blanched. She fell forward, but he caught her before she hit the ground. Her hair loosened from the coil at her neck and fanned over his arm. He lifted her into the car and reclined the seat. Her frailty shocked him.
Just how seriously ill was she? Had she come home to die? Her skin felt as though lava flowed beneath the surface. He inhaled the scent of jasmine.
“Laurel, can you hear me?” His fingers found her pulse and he counted the rapid yet regular beats. The dusky hue around her mouth alarmed him. He fumbled in his medical bag, pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the rattles and crackling sounds in her chest.
He shook his head. What doctor would let a patient this ill fly across the ocean? Had she even seen one?
As he pulled out of the parking lot, he reached for the cellular phone and tapped 911. “Dr. Carter here. I’m on the way to Eastlake Community with a patient.”
Three miles from town, a waiting dark blue sedan pulled from the side of the road. With lights flashing and siren blaring, the police car led the way to the hospital.
Alex pulled up to the door and jumped out. He lifted Laurel and held her against his chest. From nowhere, came a jolt of desire. He wanted to brush his lips over her face. Damn, he thought. She’s ill, and even if she wasn’t, these thoughts are out of line.
By the time a nurse appeared with a gurney, he was halfway down the hall with Laurel in his arms. Gently, he placed her on the sheet and steered the gurney into the Emergency Room. An urge to scold Laurel warred with his guilt over not seeing how sick she was.
“Portable chest, routine labs, make the CBC and blood gases stat. EKG. Nasal oxygen at three liters after the blood gases.” He reached for Laurel’s wrist and checked her pulse. “Hang a D5W at 75 ccs an hour.” Was she allergic to any of the antibiotics?
Leaving the nurses to carry out his orders, he opened Laurel’s purse. Inside her wallet, he searched for the name of someone to notify. A snapshot of his family caught his eye. Behind a credit card, he found a slip of paper. “In case of an emergency, notify the Mellwood Bank.” No help there, he thought.
He dialed his sister’s unit and waited for her to come on line. In a few words, he explained what had happened. “Allergies?”
“Penicillin. She took it once when we were in school and ended up looking like she had scarlet fever. What are you going to do with her?”
“Admit her.”
“Oh, dear.” Megan said. “I remember how she freaked out when they wanted to keep her in the infirmary overnight. Better put her on my unit. There’s a private room. I’ll be down in ten minutes.”
“Any idea why she doesn’t like hospitals?”
“She spent months in one as a child. After the accident that killed her parents. She seldom talks about what happened then.”
Alex hung up and called Admitting. Then he returned to the curtained cubicle. Laurel moved restlessly. She reached for the intravenous tubing. “Neil, please. I can’t.”
Who was this Neil who had upset her so? Alex put his hands on her shoulders.
“You’re all right. You’re safe here.”
She opened her eyes. “Where?”
“Eastlake Community.”
“Why?”
“Pneumonia. I need to know about antibiotics.”
“No penicillin, sulfa or erythromycin.”
He shook his head. “You’re making this difficult.”
“Don’t I know.” She tried to sit up. “When can I go to Megan’s?”
His fingers massaged her shoulders. “She’s on her way. You’ll be staying here for a few days.”
Tension ran like a wire through her body. “I can’t.”
The nurse pushed the curtains open and handed Alex the results of the X-rays and lab work.”
“How bad? Tell me.”
“Right lower lobe pneumonia. Elevated blood count. Low red count. Low oxygen blood level.”
She looked up. “I’m a mess.”
“You’ve got it.”
She sighed. “Guess I’ll stay.”
He nodded and ran his knuckles over her chin. “Be back in a few. Have to call home.” Moments later, he explained to his housekeeper why he was late. “Is Johnny upset?”
“Not so it shows, but he and his invisible friend are in the yard.”
The muscle at the corner of Alex’s mouth throbbed. While the pediatrician had assured him imaginary friends were a normal part of his son’s development, Alex wasn’t convinced. “Tell him I’ll be home soon.”
Megan appeared at the desk. “Where’s Laurel? What’s wrong? She’s seldom sick.”
He looked up. “Pneumonia, anemia, maybe anorexia.”
His sister shook her head hard enough that her short blonde curls bounced. “Never. She said she was coming home because she needed to think. How long are you keeping her?”
“Until I like the lab results and know the antibiotics are working. Are you sure she’s not anorexic?”
“She eats like Jen.”
“Not lately.”
“Where is she?’
“This way.” Alex crossed to the cubicle.
Megan pushed in ahead of him. “Laurel Richmond, what have you done to yourself?”
Friday, April 29, 2011
Friday's Writer's Tip - On Being Prolific - Thanks Isaac Asimov
While looking through my shelves for something to use as writer's tips I came across a book with essays of writers who are or were famous and thought I'd look at them and see what they have to offer. One was a short essay written by Isaac Asimov one of my favorite science fiction authors. This was a list of things you should do to become a prolific writer. I'll list the tips . They made me chuckle.
1. You have to like to write. If you don't you'll have to find another dream. This is true of any writer, even those who write slow. This is a good tip to remember.
2. You must not like much besides writing. This tip is a bit harder to consider. There are other things than writing and sometimes they get in the way. Also sometimes writing gets in the way of other parts of life.
3 You need self-assurance. This one made me laugh. Mr. Asimov's take is that you must be convinced what you've written is perfect and there's no need for revision. You can change a sentence once but not a million times.
4. Never lose time. Time is something that can't be replaced. He talks about ways not to waste time. Becoming antisocial, hiring people to do some of your work, never answering mail.
He ends with saying to concentrate on being a good writer and leave prolific for those who can't help it.
What about you, are you trying to become prolific or are you just trying to tell the stories and allow each one to take the time needed to turn your dreams into a good story?
1. You have to like to write. If you don't you'll have to find another dream. This is true of any writer, even those who write slow. This is a good tip to remember.
2. You must not like much besides writing. This tip is a bit harder to consider. There are other things than writing and sometimes they get in the way. Also sometimes writing gets in the way of other parts of life.
3 You need self-assurance. This one made me laugh. Mr. Asimov's take is that you must be convinced what you've written is perfect and there's no need for revision. You can change a sentence once but not a million times.
4. Never lose time. Time is something that can't be replaced. He talks about ways not to waste time. Becoming antisocial, hiring people to do some of your work, never answering mail.
He ends with saying to concentrate on being a good writer and leave prolific for those who can't help it.
What about you, are you trying to become prolific or are you just trying to tell the stories and allow each one to take the time needed to turn your dreams into a good story?
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Thursday's Interview -- Lorna and Larry Collins
Today's interview is with the Collins, writing partners and partners in life. They are fellow EPIC members and I've enjoyed their company as several conferences.
1. What's your genre or do you write in more than one?
L&L: We started writing a nonfiction memoir, then moved on to mystery, romance anthology (Lorna) and fantasy (Lorna).
2. Did you choose your genres or did they choose you?
L&L: Our genres picked us, without a doubt! After living in the Osaka, Japan area and building the Universal Studios Japan theme park, friends convinced us we had to write about the adventure.
Lorna: I started the book, then asked Larry to add a chapter. What he came up with was a completely different book than the one I'd begun. So the project sat on a shelf for over a year until friends convinced us to join their writing group. At the first meeting, they solved the problem by suggesting we each write separate chapters.
Larry: By the time we'd finished three complete rewrites, however, Lorna's words made their way into my chapters, and there's a little of me in hers.
Lorna: Mostly the humor. The rewrite process is really how we learned to write together.
Larry: After our first book, 31 Months in Japan: The Building of a Theme Park, was published in 2005, we attended the Maui Writers Conference. During one of the workshops, the presenter asked the question, "So, you've published your first book. What's your next?” Lorna had started a (still unfinished) romance novel, but I didn't have a next book. At the end of that same session, an announcement was made that one of the other presenters had fallen on the stairs and was hospitalized. I immediately thought, "What if the body of one of the presenters was mysteriously discovered on the stairs, and various authors at the conference all accused each other of the murder?"
Lorna: Larry told me his idea, and I really liked it. The next day, we met a fellow we'd seen around the conference as a volunteer checking IDs. We talked to him for no more than ten minutes. As we walked away, I said to Larry, "We have to write that guy." He became the inspiration for Agapé Jones, the protagonist in our mysteries, and Murder... they Wrote was born.
Larry: Neither one of us ever intended to write mystery, but now we're on our third, Murder on Maui, after the publication this year of Murder in Paradise.
3. Is there any genre you'd like to try? Or is there one you wouldn't?
Lorna: My latest work, Ghost Writer, (currently with the publisher) is a fantasy about a ghost. I really enjoyed writing that one. I have another called Sofia’s Garden to start as soon as I have time. Of course I’ll still write the anthologies and mysteries.
Larry: I enjoy science fiction, so maybe I’ll write that someday. I’m currently working on an anthology of genre fiction short stories called, Lakeview Park. They are about the people who visit a fictional park with that name.
4. What fiction do you read for pleasure?
Larry: Science fiction, mysteries, biographies, and whatever books Lorna leaves out after she finishes. That means I’ve been reading a lot of romance. However, I must confess I’ve enjoyed several of the novellas in the anthologies she’s written with others.
Lorna: I like sweet romance and cozy mystery, plus occasional biographies.
5. Tell me a bit about yourself and how long you've been writing.
Larry: I began writing in high school and was published twice in our high school literary magazine. During my work life, I have written a great deal of technical material, including one paper on how refineries work that was used as the basis for the company’s design training course.
Lorna: I have also done a great deal of technical writing, including procedures, instructional manuals, and training courses during my career.
6. Which of your characters is your favorite?
Larry: I enjoy Agapé Jones, particularly his relationship with his wife. Even though it’s fiction, it feels a lot like ours.
Lorna: I, too, love Agapé and Gerry, his wife. A current favorite is Max Murdoch, the title character in Ghost Writer. He’s pompous and opinionated, and was so much fun to write. I also have a very special place in my heart for Kimi McGuire and Jason Nakagiri, the principals in my novella Finding Live in Paradise from our award-winning anthology, Directions of Love. I drew a lot upon our lives in writing theirs, and I cried when I finished their story. I didn’t want to let them go.
7. Are there villains in your books and how were they created?
Lorna: We write cozy mysteries, and neither one of us really likes one-dimensional bad guys, our villains are multi-dimensional.
Larry: There is some good in all our characters, or at a least logical motive for why they do bad things. They are sometimes self-centered or oblivious to the feelings of others.
8. What are you working on now?
Larry: My short story anthology and the start of our next mystery, Murder on Maui. We plan a trip back to Maui in the fall to do current fact-checking and research. Hey, it’s necessary for authenticity.
Lorna: I’m currently working on my novella, A Shot at Love, as well as the prologue and epilogue, for our current anthology, The Art of Love with a deadline of early September. I’m also working on the beginning of Murder on Maui and planning the outline for Sofia’s Garden. Then we have at least one more anthology planned, Snowflake Secrets: The Magic Continues, which we plan to complete next year. It will be a sequel to our first, Snowflake Secrets.
9. What's your latest release and how did the idea arrive?
Larry: Murder in Paradise was published in February of this year by Whiskey Creek Press. We couldn’t let Agapé Jones remain in retirement. He was just too much fun to write. Besides, we were going to Oahu, and that’s where the majority of the book takes place. Besides, it was another chance to do research.
Lorna: Murder in Paradise is currently number three on the publisher’s best-seller list.
10. Tell me about your latest book and how it came about. Enclose the opening of the book around 400 words.
Lorna: My latest, Ghost Writer, is with the publisher and I’m waiting for the final edits. Here’s a taste of the beginning:
Chapter 1
“I don’t believe in ghosts.” I said it all my life to anyone who’d ask. I’m a ‘techie,’ a computer programmer. I deal with data and facts, not fiction and fantasy.
So how did I get mixed up with a temperamental, egotistical, rude, smart, funny, aggravating, self-centered, loveable… uh… spirit? Okay, if you insist, ghost.
It all started the day I moved into my house.
Well, it’s not really a house, more of a cottage on the sand south of Laguna Beach, California.
The place was the one blessing I received in a whole series of otherwise disastrous events, starting with losing my job.
I worked in the mortgage industry for three years following my college graduation. It was all I knew until I became another victim of the banking industry collapse. One day I went to work, and the company was gone. Pffft. Taken over by the government. The assets were sold, and I got two weeks’ severance.
Of course, at the end of the first week, not only was my job gone, but so was Jeff, my live-in boyfriend who hadn’t worked in over a year. I figured he’d found another female who was still gainfully employed. No great loss there. Still, it was nice coming home to a human being after work. Well, not always, but he was there most of the time waiting for dinner.
It was probably just as well because I couldn’t afford the apartment on unemployment insurance anyway, and I got the eviction notice the day after Jeff moved out, taking all the cash in my wallet with him. The building was in foreclosure.
So I packed my car and headed for my folks, thankful that I’d had a furnished apartment. I wouldn’t miss all the well-used and mismatched furniture or the odd dishes and silverware for three and a half.
I wasn’t expecting to stay with my parents, at least not for long. When I left for college, they turned my bedroom into Dad’s den, complete with leather recliner and big-screen TV. He wasn’t giving it up either. I’d sleep on the couch.
A block from their house, the car engine stopped, and I coasted to the curb. Dad took a look, but it was a goner.
So the news that I had inherited a house came at just the right time.
1. What's your genre or do you write in more than one?
L&L: We started writing a nonfiction memoir, then moved on to mystery, romance anthology (Lorna) and fantasy (Lorna).
2. Did you choose your genres or did they choose you?
L&L: Our genres picked us, without a doubt! After living in the Osaka, Japan area and building the Universal Studios Japan theme park, friends convinced us we had to write about the adventure.
Lorna: I started the book, then asked Larry to add a chapter. What he came up with was a completely different book than the one I'd begun. So the project sat on a shelf for over a year until friends convinced us to join their writing group. At the first meeting, they solved the problem by suggesting we each write separate chapters.
Larry: By the time we'd finished three complete rewrites, however, Lorna's words made their way into my chapters, and there's a little of me in hers.
Lorna: Mostly the humor. The rewrite process is really how we learned to write together.
Larry: After our first book, 31 Months in Japan: The Building of a Theme Park, was published in 2005, we attended the Maui Writers Conference. During one of the workshops, the presenter asked the question, "So, you've published your first book. What's your next?” Lorna had started a (still unfinished) romance novel, but I didn't have a next book. At the end of that same session, an announcement was made that one of the other presenters had fallen on the stairs and was hospitalized. I immediately thought, "What if the body of one of the presenters was mysteriously discovered on the stairs, and various authors at the conference all accused each other of the murder?"
Lorna: Larry told me his idea, and I really liked it. The next day, we met a fellow we'd seen around the conference as a volunteer checking IDs. We talked to him for no more than ten minutes. As we walked away, I said to Larry, "We have to write that guy." He became the inspiration for Agapé Jones, the protagonist in our mysteries, and Murder... they Wrote was born.
Larry: Neither one of us ever intended to write mystery, but now we're on our third, Murder on Maui, after the publication this year of Murder in Paradise.
3. Is there any genre you'd like to try? Or is there one you wouldn't?
Lorna: My latest work, Ghost Writer, (currently with the publisher) is a fantasy about a ghost. I really enjoyed writing that one. I have another called Sofia’s Garden to start as soon as I have time. Of course I’ll still write the anthologies and mysteries.
Larry: I enjoy science fiction, so maybe I’ll write that someday. I’m currently working on an anthology of genre fiction short stories called, Lakeview Park. They are about the people who visit a fictional park with that name.
4. What fiction do you read for pleasure?
Larry: Science fiction, mysteries, biographies, and whatever books Lorna leaves out after she finishes. That means I’ve been reading a lot of romance. However, I must confess I’ve enjoyed several of the novellas in the anthologies she’s written with others.
Lorna: I like sweet romance and cozy mystery, plus occasional biographies.
5. Tell me a bit about yourself and how long you've been writing.
Larry: I began writing in high school and was published twice in our high school literary magazine. During my work life, I have written a great deal of technical material, including one paper on how refineries work that was used as the basis for the company’s design training course.
Lorna: I have also done a great deal of technical writing, including procedures, instructional manuals, and training courses during my career.
6. Which of your characters is your favorite?
Larry: I enjoy Agapé Jones, particularly his relationship with his wife. Even though it’s fiction, it feels a lot like ours.
Lorna: I, too, love Agapé and Gerry, his wife. A current favorite is Max Murdoch, the title character in Ghost Writer. He’s pompous and opinionated, and was so much fun to write. I also have a very special place in my heart for Kimi McGuire and Jason Nakagiri, the principals in my novella Finding Live in Paradise from our award-winning anthology, Directions of Love. I drew a lot upon our lives in writing theirs, and I cried when I finished their story. I didn’t want to let them go.
7. Are there villains in your books and how were they created?
Lorna: We write cozy mysteries, and neither one of us really likes one-dimensional bad guys, our villains are multi-dimensional.
Larry: There is some good in all our characters, or at a least logical motive for why they do bad things. They are sometimes self-centered or oblivious to the feelings of others.
8. What are you working on now?
Larry: My short story anthology and the start of our next mystery, Murder on Maui. We plan a trip back to Maui in the fall to do current fact-checking and research. Hey, it’s necessary for authenticity.
Lorna: I’m currently working on my novella, A Shot at Love, as well as the prologue and epilogue, for our current anthology, The Art of Love with a deadline of early September. I’m also working on the beginning of Murder on Maui and planning the outline for Sofia’s Garden. Then we have at least one more anthology planned, Snowflake Secrets: The Magic Continues, which we plan to complete next year. It will be a sequel to our first, Snowflake Secrets.
9. What's your latest release and how did the idea arrive?
Larry: Murder in Paradise was published in February of this year by Whiskey Creek Press. We couldn’t let Agapé Jones remain in retirement. He was just too much fun to write. Besides, we were going to Oahu, and that’s where the majority of the book takes place. Besides, it was another chance to do research.
Lorna: Murder in Paradise is currently number three on the publisher’s best-seller list.
10. Tell me about your latest book and how it came about. Enclose the opening of the book around 400 words.
Lorna: My latest, Ghost Writer, is with the publisher and I’m waiting for the final edits. Here’s a taste of the beginning:
Chapter 1
“I don’t believe in ghosts.” I said it all my life to anyone who’d ask. I’m a ‘techie,’ a computer programmer. I deal with data and facts, not fiction and fantasy.
So how did I get mixed up with a temperamental, egotistical, rude, smart, funny, aggravating, self-centered, loveable… uh… spirit? Okay, if you insist, ghost.
It all started the day I moved into my house.
Well, it’s not really a house, more of a cottage on the sand south of Laguna Beach, California.
The place was the one blessing I received in a whole series of otherwise disastrous events, starting with losing my job.
I worked in the mortgage industry for three years following my college graduation. It was all I knew until I became another victim of the banking industry collapse. One day I went to work, and the company was gone. Pffft. Taken over by the government. The assets were sold, and I got two weeks’ severance.
Of course, at the end of the first week, not only was my job gone, but so was Jeff, my live-in boyfriend who hadn’t worked in over a year. I figured he’d found another female who was still gainfully employed. No great loss there. Still, it was nice coming home to a human being after work. Well, not always, but he was there most of the time waiting for dinner.
It was probably just as well because I couldn’t afford the apartment on unemployment insurance anyway, and I got the eviction notice the day after Jeff moved out, taking all the cash in my wallet with him. The building was in foreclosure.
So I packed my car and headed for my folks, thankful that I’d had a furnished apartment. I wouldn’t miss all the well-used and mismatched furniture or the odd dishes and silverware for three and a half.
I wasn’t expecting to stay with my parents, at least not for long. When I left for college, they turned my bedroom into Dad’s den, complete with leather recliner and big-screen TV. He wasn’t giving it up either. I’d sleep on the couch.
A block from their house, the car engine stopped, and I coasted to the curb. Dad took a look, but it was a goner.
So the news that I had inherited a house came at just the right time.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Plotting - Scenes
Now to look at scenes. Each scene in the story should have a beginning a middle and an end. There's also something else that needs to be shown. Not really foreshadowing but a spur to make the reader want to go on. Each scene has a purpose and a problem to be solved but solving the problem should point to more problems as the story unfolds. If the problem solved ends completely, the story will end there or will fall flat.
What are some of the kinds of scenes" First meetings and this doesn't necessarily have to be the first few scenes of a story. A significant character can be met at a later time.
Discovery scenes are those which reveal new data about the character and the problem. These are generally significant discoveries.
Crisis scenes - where something threatens to bring failure to the hero or heroine in achieving their goal. If you have more than one main character, there may be more than one crisis.
Black moment scene -- Here the main character or characters believe they have failed. Believed is the key word. This brings an intensity to the story and this scene must be played out, as all main scenes should.
Climax scene - Here is the final battle no matter what kind of story you're writing.
Resolution scene that follows the climax and gives the ending of the story.
What are some of the kinds of scenes" First meetings and this doesn't necessarily have to be the first few scenes of a story. A significant character can be met at a later time.
Discovery scenes are those which reveal new data about the character and the problem. These are generally significant discoveries.
Crisis scenes - where something threatens to bring failure to the hero or heroine in achieving their goal. If you have more than one main character, there may be more than one crisis.
Black moment scene -- Here the main character or characters believe they have failed. Believed is the key word. This brings an intensity to the story and this scene must be played out, as all main scenes should.
Climax scene - Here is the final battle no matter what kind of story you're writing.
Resolution scene that follows the climax and gives the ending of the story.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Tuesday's inspiration -- Still Bird By Bird and a bit more
Before I ger to Bird By Bird, I'll speak a little about dandilions. Today I was inspired by all the wonderful yellow flowers on my lawn. I know many people look on them as pests but for me they're a sign that the short days of wanter are really gone. I also love them when their heads turn gray and the seeds can be blown off. Guess in that respect I'm still a kid.
Now for Bird By Bird. Ann Lamott is talking about the two voices in the writer's head. One is the praising side and the other is the negative head. Seems perfectly natural to me. When finishing a book or a story I think, and probably a lot of other writers think "This is the best thing I've ever written. It's sure to be a best seller." Then that other side comes in and says, "No editor will see the brilliance or the readers won't buy." One has to find a way to ignore both voices and just keep doing.
Another thing in this essay brought to mind my first television interview for a local channel. years ago. I've only done two and not sure I'd ever want to do another. The first one was the worst. A two hour live show with call ins. I'd jsut sold the third book in about four months. I was told by the host/producer of the show that I was the most poised guest he'd ever had and I managed not to sputter and stutter. I have no real recollection of what I did or said. I had spaced out into another dimension. I was wearing a dark green pants suit and my calf hugging cordova leather boots. On the way home My feet felt strange and I couldn't figure why. Then I took off my boots and found I had clawed the feet out of my panty hose. So maybe i looked and sounded cool and collected. That was outside, but inside I was scared. Is there a moral here? Maybe it's that one can do what they must to promote their books. Of the second interview all I have is a video that I've never viewed.
Now for Bird By Bird. Ann Lamott is talking about the two voices in the writer's head. One is the praising side and the other is the negative head. Seems perfectly natural to me. When finishing a book or a story I think, and probably a lot of other writers think "This is the best thing I've ever written. It's sure to be a best seller." Then that other side comes in and says, "No editor will see the brilliance or the readers won't buy." One has to find a way to ignore both voices and just keep doing.
Another thing in this essay brought to mind my first television interview for a local channel. years ago. I've only done two and not sure I'd ever want to do another. The first one was the worst. A two hour live show with call ins. I'd jsut sold the third book in about four months. I was told by the host/producer of the show that I was the most poised guest he'd ever had and I managed not to sputter and stutter. I have no real recollection of what I did or said. I had spaced out into another dimension. I was wearing a dark green pants suit and my calf hugging cordova leather boots. On the way home My feet felt strange and I couldn't figure why. Then I took off my boots and found I had clawed the feet out of my panty hose. So maybe i looked and sounded cool and collected. That was outside, but inside I was scared. Is there a moral here? Maybe it's that one can do what they must to promote their books. Of the second interview all I have is a video that I've never viewed.
Monday, April 25, 2011
25 April -- Week Behind and Week Ahead
Another week in the past and another one ahead. Am still cleaning up Confrontations, trying to fill out the worst Author's information sheet I ever saw, doing an interview that won't be up until June but lest I forget I'll do it now. Have started what was a Sudden Seduction but I may change the name if I can think of another S to go with Seduction. Thank heavens for my critique group. I started the story and found I had two opening scenes. Read them both to the group and they helped me see where to start the story and while looking over this, I saw what needed to be added. That's a plus. So will be doing some work on it this week.
Also this week, Tuesday- still Bird By Bird, Wednesday more on Plot, Thursday the Collins are being interviewed. Friday a writer's tip and Saturday a Chapter - I think from A Minor Opposition Sunday will find 3 more blogs to visit.
Also this week, Tuesday- still Bird By Bird, Wednesday more on Plot, Thursday the Collins are being interviewed. Friday a writer's tip and Saturday a Chapter - I think from A Minor Opposition Sunday will find 3 more blogs to visit.
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