Sunday Check-In

Wow, I didn't mean to go a whole week without posting. It's been a crazy week. I keep thinking things will slow down, but somehow they don't. The good news is that it's only two weeks or so until Thanksgiving break. I need that (and we usually get paid early -- I really need that).

I've not made major progress this week, unless you count the twelve pages I wrote for grad school, but I have my first round of edits on Facing It to work on now (I'm 11 pages into 266) plus Fall Into Me is through final line edits. Whoo!

Normally, I don't share a lot about my works in progress, for a variety of reasons. However, at Esther's request, I had planned to talk some about each project this week, but never got around to it. So I'll share some tidbits with the word count meters tonight, okay?

Unseen

Not much progress this week on the book involving a St. Augustine homicide detective and a team of paranormal investigators, including a psychic kindergarten teacher whose life is turned upside down by the dark force providing her otherworldly information. (Hey, Carol told me to try writing something different to jumpstart my brain!)

1,001 / 90,000 (1.1%)

Gone

Um, not as much progress as I'd have liked. This is a Chandler County (i.e., Hearts of the South) book, but the protagonist is an outsider who's recently joined the sheriff's department. The former GBI agent delves into a missing-persons case while his marriage deteriorates around him.

2,242 / 90,000 (2.5%)

The Marriage Arrangment (although I'm thinking of retitling it Deeper Into You or With Each Breath)

This is Vince's book (Do I hear Bree going Eeeee?), the story of the business-arrangement-like marraige he makes with an old friend, only to find himself falling into love and out of control.

538 / 60,000 (0.9%)

Normally, I don't post WIP excerpts, but here's a brief, rough-draft, very unedited taste of Vince and his heroine:

“Marry me.”
Vince Falconetti set his orange juice aside, slanted the laptop away and granted Markie Ransome his undivided attention. “Pardon?”
Sunlight glinting off her blonde curls, she leaned back in the chair cater-corner to his and peeled the wrapper away from her poppy seed muffin. A touch of whimsy colored her smile. “You should marry me.”
He stretched out his legs, adopting a lounging posture, and let his gaze trail over her. He liked having her at his breakfast table, liked her easy friendship and teasing sense of humor. Relaxing, waiting for the punch line, he rested his elbow on the arm of his chair and rubbed his forefinger over his mouth. “And why is that?”
“Because we’re perfect for one another.” She broke off a morsel of muffin and popped it in her mouth. “And face it, Vince, you’re not getting any younger.”
“Thanks a lot.” He laughed and reached for his juice. His gaze strayed to the laptop screen. Even with the dive the market had taken the previous day, Falcon Security was up four points and—
“I’m serious.”
He stared, points and juice and everything else mundane forgotten. “You think we should get married.”
“I do. No pun intended.” She gazed at him, her pure blue eyes serene and steady.
Frowning, he allowed several moments to pass. He opened his mouth, closed it again, shook his head. “Explain.”
She didn’t react to his curt command with flustered dismay, not that he’d expected her to. With a lithe stretch, she set her muffin atop her plate and straightened. She eyed him with an earnest expression. “Your grandfather wants to see you settled. You said yourself, after Lee was born, you wouldn’t mind having a child. I already serve your hostess role. You need a wife who doesn’t need your money, and I don’t. I need a husband who won’t be threatened by my dedication to my business, and you won’t. We’re friends, and we enjoy each other’s company. Why shouldn’t we get married?”
He watched her, struck more by what she’d left unsaid than the reasons she’d trotted out. As arguments went, it wasn’t bad. Wonder if she’d worked out that whole “having a child” bit and what that actually entailed? An image flashed in his mind, her tall, slender body beneath his, fingers pressing into his back, the two of them joined in the most intimate of embraces. He narrowed his eyes. “I’m not interested in artificial insemination.”
Her shapely brows lifted, a slightly mocking light entering her eyes. “Neither am I.”
He tilted his head. “So you’re proposing a marriage in all aspects of the word?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“I won’t lose myself in you.” Her voice hardened for a moment, then the chilly stoniness of the words slipped away under another winsome smile. “I was thinking friends, with marital benefits and a wedding ring. I want a child, Vince, but I’m not interested in settling for just any man. I want someone who values what I do, but won’t expect me to subjugate my life to his, to become his arm candy when he feels like it.”Like her mother. The unspoken words trembled between them, but he heard them nonetheless.
**

I will make every attempt to be around more this week. Maybe things will settle down a little around here! (Although, somehow, I doubt it.)