Broken Doorbell

    Made it to 53900 words on the current novel. The point of view changed. Almost through the door to the finish line. Please do not ring my doorbell or pull my chain, I am not answering right now.

   This was such a struggle in Toxic Assets, as I wrote the first and second revision in first person. Then after two readers complained about the point of view, calling it a contemporary fu-fu style. I changed it and then editing became this voice in my head nightmare. I am going to use a literary trick and switch the middle half of the book that is written in second person over the shoulder of the eco-terrorist, and then the first person narrative will be the ending. Not as flashbacks, I need to use something else, not certain what that will unfold.

    In my last book I wrote in beats or poetry scenes like a movie. This one is written in another method. I'm intrigued by the story location and that this one is more of a thriller. My lead and heroine is fifty something, I may need to make her younger to be realistically able to complete the athletic actions she takes. Writing this post very fast as time is so valuable with doing Nanowrimo my goal is to be finished on the 24th.

     Take a look in the photograph, there are lucky horseshoes on the door, a common western theme. I had expected to have The Lucky Boy Advance Reader copies in my hands yesterday, but UPS left a delivery slip- I guess I didn't hear them. If you want to review, contact me and I will send a copy.

   I apologize if I have not been very present in my usual promoting others but I am very focused on creating new work and the muse is singing all over the place. Do this Do that hurry up and scat.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0064FOCZO


http://mywjb.com/caroline-gerardo


Showtimes for the Novel

     I have kept pace with my goals for Nanowrimo. My word count this morning at 4:55 AM is 25608. There are a number of these writer meetings and mini contests that I can't get my head around, and don't understand how they help in getting the first draft completed. By the time I read the rules of these special mini stunts or drive to the event the learning curve would distract me from my goal - Plan being to get a first draft done this month.

    Meanwhile, life seems to not want to cooperate with my lists and writing targets, melodrama in my personal life stirs up trouble.

     What problem do I describe first?

      EDITOR NOTES XXX I have removed these comments to keep my heart from breaking.

      Needless to say, I have not signed on to Facebook because I feel I must change my status back to single. When I switched it to "in a relationship" I had no idea the information was publicly displayed. Friends commented in happy support. This surprised me, how many around me cared enough to read some little sign of my status. What is that quote, hmm, "There's going to be a hoo-too tonight so stay in your hut."  I was biding time for some show of better fortune or turn of events but this morning I need to move on. I am going to hang my status back to solitary. A strange thing happened in the brief time of being both feet back into an "us" all these men came out of the cracks interested in me. I think there is something about being unavailable that puts a flag up signalling, "come on down."

    Other melodramas in my life- we discovered someone broke in the house and stole Blair's camera and some personal items. The burglary gives me an uneasy feeling, as we speculate who is the creeper.

I have my novel The Lucky Boy up early on Amazon.

 http://www.amazon.com/The-Lucky-Boy-ebook/dp/B0064FOCZO/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321103305&sr=1-6

The paperback won't be available until November 18th.

If you are reading this please go to the Amazon link and check the tags or write a review in support.

The baby needs new shoes.

 I promise there's not going to be a hanging in an hour, unless you fail me and don't buy my book.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0064FOCZO



Time Machine, #IIChallenge - Northern Ireland

Ballyholme Short Story, Time Machine Caroline Gerardo

The do-over spirit arrives in Natalie’s room under a waxing gibbous moon.

“I’m sending you back to a moment in time where you may correct any error,” the ghost says.

Natalie is unable to move her limbs, terror climbs from her toes to her chest, but the pain does not waken her. She cannot roll over and pull the covers over her head.

“Go away, I’m not buying any magazines, ghost.”

The apparition is not lovely, her knotty pine hands touch the smile lines on Natalie’s cheek.

“I’m taking you back to points in your life,  twice you may change the tide of events, a time machine-”

“What do you think this is, a Christmas Carol?” Natalie says.

“No, trust me,” the phantom says.

“I’ve heard that line before, it never leads to good fortune-”

“It is 1980 and you are in Ballyholme, Ashley Gardens. Open your eyes Natalie back in time.”

“Oh, I know the stone façade of the flat- if I could shake myself awake, or put my feet on the floor,” Natalie says.

“Natalie you were in love, Robby does not know you were MI5.”


**

Back in the apartment, a slouching bed rests in the guest bedroom, like a rock swallowed by the sea. Fireplace ashes need clearing, the penetrating smell of soot consumes the confines. In the kitchen, a fit woman cranks the gas meter with twenty-five pence coins. This pays for the stove and hot water. She opens the window to allow the smell of salt air fill her heart. Robby is in the living room with his guitar. His brother Shaun and Michael Connelly (a rough and tumble punk with piercings and tattoos on his upper body) are speaking with sullen tones. Robby is six foot and lean, not as robust as his brother Shaun, the three of them make up the band Moondogs.

“He was such a fool to listen to his older brother, they should have stuck to punk music not politics, damn god and Ulster.”

“So - change what happened-” the spirit says.

“They sent me there with instructions to infiltrate the Blacknecks. I was doing my job as military intelligence,” Natalie answers.

“Didn’t they tell you not to fall in love?”

“Yeah, but they also knew I was incapable of not caring, that and my abilities made me great.”

“Seems like you should’ve known with your code name-” the spirit stops.

“Cumaean,” Natalie sighs remembering the taste of chili-mac dinner that stormy night. “We were poor and the boys thought it exotic compared to potatoes.”

“You have the chance to run, to back away, change what happened-” the spirit offers Natalie an out.

“No. I locked away my abilities with my past. I still analyze; but I never write down dreams. Going back doesn’t change who I am," Natalie says.

“This was your first kill?”

“They planned to bomb Belfast Central Rail Station. The VBIED (Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device) was already in the trunk. I slashed the tires to stop them, figuring they couldn’t substitute another car in time. I called the car location in. Then they borrowed a van, I had to stop them.”

“Don’t shoot three boys, change the altercation-” the spirit taunts.

“I wouldn’t change a thing.”

“Sure?”

“Yes, I lost a love for Queen and Country, but I saved many others. Take me away from the smell of the ocean it makes me regret and feel shame,.” Natalie says.

“Then I direct you Natalie to a time you recall well, it is recent history. Again choose to change the course of events, perhaps better your life.”

Natalie says, “I don’t want to play this game. I have regrets but I’ve made my road.”

“About a year ago, you were betrayed by your fiancé, and made a choice that perhaps was unwise.”

“I don’t regret the geriatric pregnancy. I'm not taking anything back,” Natalie says.

“The Doctors warned you, elevated blood pressure might kill you or cause a stroke.”

“One life is not better or more worthy than my life.”

“Your other children what will they do as orphans? Will Catholic guilt help?”

“I believe in love, and giving unconditional love,” Natalie says.

“But-” the spirit plays devil's advocate.

“No there is no but, point out all the people who have hurt me, those who lied, cheated me and my children. It doesn’t matter, I choose to love, to forgive, every day of my life.”

The ghost grows more white and translucent. Her voice is higher in tone as a child’s, “Natalie you have chosen to stay on this earth.”



**

The doctor removes the disposable gel foam pads and applies gummy candy to the paddle, “hit her again, the foam on the pads are not making a good connection.”

The Defibrillation depolarizes a critical mass of Natalie's heart muscle. The sound of the force punches the delivery room. Her body bounces, the arrhythmia stops, and normal sinus rhythm returns oxygen to Natalie’s cells.

“Welcome back little mother.”

http://indieink.org/writing-challenges/

This was written for the Indie Ink Writing Challenge 9/11/2011 based on
Disease prompt to happen upon a time machine and go back and change something. I thought about the prompt last night, and given the opportunity, there is little I would change, except to grant myself more time.

copyright Caroline Gerardo

Character of Natalie I am developing to start another novel- in early stages noodling - getting to know her.
I would appreciate input about: female character who was a spy now middle aged. Can you like her or is she cold? This female protagonist may have flash backs to this past later in the story.

Short Stories From Wyoming

The baby is finally sleeping in his own bed after travelling from California to Wyoming twice this summer. Because our cottage doesn’t have curtains yet on the south-east side the house floods with blue clear light early in the long days. I’m up writing before the dawn and feeling more productive and stronger in spirit. My novel is off for editing. I have completed fourteen short stories, one a day just like the vitamins. They vary from flash 1100 to 5000 words. I sent one on a lark to Steven James when I spotted his call to: a murder goes never goes as planned. Firing off the words straight stream of consciousness. Some of the stories are great pondering of ideas nagging to be put solid on paper, some are dark.

My neighbors on the north side (there is only meadow and mountain range to the west and south really no need for privacy), Adam and Sue are a dear couple in their seventies. He is a silent source of courage and example of how a good man walks to me and all of my children. The cancer is in his spine now, and myself being a cancer, well they never say survivor yet; but I do, I know his immense pain. Adam is using a walker to get around on their property but the time is approaching when they need to make some adjustments. In the past week I realize how being neighborly can be the difference between life and death.

Adam and Sue manage cattle on hectares of land. Their property is fenced with barbed wire and spiny pots, last summer Carson and I took the bale of wire, clippers and hatchets to repair some of the weaker spots. I am certain each of those points were stronger than any icy wind from the mountain.

Out in the garden pulling bugs off my tomatoes and sunflowers when one of the dogs tears off barking. The baby is hanging in this pouch on my chest as happy as a new born kangaroo, he smiles at the disturbance of yapping.

“Come back Peanut.” I look up and see Adam working his way across the meadow with an aluminum walker. With muddy hands and a sweating front I jog towards him.

“What are you doing out?”

“Some of the livestock is missing.”

“How many Adam?”

“Don’t know, but my grand champion European Cross and all the Angus disappeared.”

“And you don’t have money to hire cowboys to fetch them.”

“Right.”

“Can Sue watch the baby? My two eldest didn’t come with me this week, Carson is in Santa Cruz and Blair has summer college classes.”

“We were hoping you might say that. She was saddling Shorty to go out herself if you didn’t volunteer.”

“Can I help you back?”

“No,” he says gently, and smiles, “you are something..”

In the barn, she fumbles with the red Indian pad to prepare Shorty, named so because he is a giant seventeen hands tall. I turn a bucket upside down in the hay and arch my feet. I tighten him down.
I don’t hear Adam returning, and I did not want to embarrass him with my hovering.

“Go check on Adam heading back Sue.”

“He was stubborn, he didn’t let me go ask you.”

“I have expressed breast milk in the refrigerator, I think three or four. He needs a nap in an hour then at three feed him one. I don't know how long this will take.”

“Come here Maclund Reid,” she lifts his grunting face from my chest contraption that he loves. He knows her but he fusses. She bounces him as if on the ocean in the rhythm that he enjoys and he is calmed.

Adam is at the barn gate,  "you’re an angel.”

“No only wish God smiled on me that way.”

“Pack my Colt and some snacks.” He points to the holster, “Watch for black bears.”

“I’m more concerned about thieves.”


***
Story to be continued

Amazon Buzzards Come and Get Me

On Sunday the revision was final.

I deleted one ending and have chosen two.

I am emailing pdf copies and a paper copy to:

a writer buddy beta reader, a friend from twitter who fits my demographic and my friend in London. All three are men because

I believe that is who will most enjoy the narrative. This one is pretty dark, and this time frame since Thanksgiving has been the inkiest buzzard swarming betrayal in my personal life. But the story has a hopeful quality in his Don Quixote quest to connect and ultimate acceptance of who he is in the soul. A character as anti hero transforms through the diving in the pool as a lifeguard through fire, violence and electric shock. My editor in the U. K. only read two chapters and is clapping his hands to hurry me along. Editing for me is a tedium and a torture. Dean Wesley Smith in his Killing the Sacred Cows says not to use the slow process I have chosen, but there was backlash critics who sniped at me for my writing style.

A couple of the posters on Amazon are not critics of my work,

they are mean spirited individuals who know of me.

However, manipulation of Amazon is widespread. The more novels,

short stories, poetry and work I complete and publish

- the easier it is to take a swing under my chin

to break my neck.

Little do they know I am ready with my left.

Photograph copyright Caroline Gerardo 2011- yes there are buzzards in that foggy tree waiting.

Poison My Anti-Hero?

LustGreed (Cardinal Sins) 

Poison Water Hole copyright Caroline Gerardo July 2011

Second revision is near completion. I have three different endings for the novel. I would like to find three beta readers who will each read the pdf. of the book and decide with me - Does Seth have a happy ending and Rebirth? Does his daughter that he disallowed, and claimed was not his (although there is a DNA match just as in real life) come back and take his life? Does he make peace with his own soul fulfill a need for connection?

I am inclined to have him live in apathy but for story telling purposes that seems rather dull. It is not one of the endings I have put in chapters. The vengeance ending is my last choice.

The novel has some structural problems I need to toy around with. I think I will make three sections with chapters as the voice changes. First is voice of daughter in a brief prologue introduction, then the body of the narrative is in second person, and the ending chapter might be first person or daughter depending on the ending I select.

I continue to struggle with an anti-hero who wants love and connection. He takes the journey with willing heart but lacks the right map. Can we as humans really change that much? Or are our souls, our destiny filled with liquid of a certain DNA, a pre-planned God mapquest and if doused in violence the water is forever poisoned?

A couple of my short stories are up in the Kindle 1000 range

 Lust Vanity (Cardinal Sins)

Swimming Turtle

Lust

Turtle Bravely swimming into the dark future.

Copyright Caroline Gerardo

Ebook Freedom

Merideth Greene's review of Read Mill

http://bit.ly/p9Pefa

Intelligent article about choices, my hand is up in the air when called upon. Me first.

I love the freedom of reading in all formats.

There is something sacred about wandering through Laguna Beach Books and chatting with Jane Hanauer about novels she stacks. I still adore the smell of vanilla pages in my hands, dog earing the pages or leaving them upside down on a beach towel in the summer. An ebook does not fulfill the same piece of soul.

However, I also enjoy the ability to order ten books on my Kindle and decide after reading two Chapters what I will or will not continue in a faster delivery method. It is a less emotionally connected purchase. I buy on impulse on Kindle, often not reading the whole book. Why you ask? Like my teens, the siren song lures of so many other things to read and taste while online.

An interactive reading style will further develop the internet. I see authors like myself who also are visual artists using linking websites, music, and interactive story telling. Writing might be something where three authors begin a premise and readers change the direction of the tale. Not the same as gaming, prehaps in real time. I embrace the idea that ereading is the Gutenberg press of our time. Authors and artists must join together to find new ‘guilds’ and new art forms that will push the limits of narrative experience.

That a company chooses to limit or change the font I chose, certain I dislike the edges of that. Will they also censor the violence or sexual overtones in my writing?

It is an amazing time of growth ahead of us, happy to see Meredith Greene, you are asking questions.

Readmill Site in Progress

Vanity released on Kindle Today.

Vanity released on Kindle today

Thriller Lake

Photograph Central Park Scary Wisteria Framing the Lake 2011

copyright Caroline Gerardo

Eleven days until my deadline, the novel is shaping up.
How many violent scenes, beats and situations can I leave in the story?
Will my reader get tired on the thriller roller coaster?

I looked online statistics and my novella Greed has past 10000 sales. 10011 exactly as of yesterday.
I have not been checking and was shocked to find it in the top 100. This brings with it some negative things that I mentioned to a couple other writers. I found my books on torrent sites, and lending sites when I never agreed to lending. I also found a couple negative reviews by persons posting under alias names.These things are completed for the purpose of only money. This should not surprise me, this is a business.

My answer is complex:
I want to warn anyone who signs up for a torrent site or a free book lending site. There is nothing in life for free, the owners of these websites are making money off my work but ALSO your personal information. When you enter your email, your address, your credit card all this is farmed and worth a great deal of money. Information on what you buy is sold to third parties. The persons touching your privacy may be organized crime.

Most authors never make a living from their hard work. It takes a year for me to write a book at the minimum. If anyone needs to read my work for free, please contact me and I will find a way.

Meanwhile back to work writing.

Novel Draft #2 Seeing Light

photos: copyright Caroline Gerardo

I am heading out of the writing tunnel. This book is a battle. Sanity, death, quest for family, quest for true love all smothered in drug stealing, bum fights and crime not cheerful thoughts to grip me. A reader will pick it up and finish the novel in what five or six hours?

The endurance of a year loving this guy, Seth, a character is not daunting. I have sent him off to be read. It is not a graduation ceremony in June. I will complete two more edits.

I am mentally toying with changing the first chapter to first person. The narrator able to distinguish some of what happened, but she will have a flawed lack of reliability as she was not there every step of the story. Even when we are in real life a participant can we recall or comprehend what happened in the souls of men?

This photograph, recalls Van Gogh painting Branches of an Almond, is from a cemetery in Savannah. The light is hot through the tree. The flowering magnolia, not almond but the crazy color is there. Now your perception of the image, the emotion when your eyes go back, will read the words and the picture with new clarity.



Mothering a Bad Hero

When Mom Was My Age
Link for Interview By my Daughter about when I was nineteen. Please go read it, I love Jane Friedman's project about motherhood, how we see those we love and collaborative writing.

Savannah copyright Caroline Gerardo 2011

This is just a short post about writing. I am plugging along editing. If you emailed
or called I will get back to you, soon.
I have two weeks left of writing for my deadline. I handed over a
copy to my second favorite reader. I will keep working through the last five
chapters. I thought about asking my old reader to have a look, but he has
been so distantly cold and out of my life it could only have a bad outcome.
I have chopped out beats and scenes that didn't move. I am on the last
legs of my novel marathon, this part I just breathe.

The story has a great
deal of mental mahem.
My hero is a psycho.
Can a thriller have a bad hero?

I guess I'm his Mommy, being the author I still love him.
That is creepy.
Laughing-- back to work.

ROW80 Writing Goals

Jane Brucker, 2011 reading at her Art Opening photograph by Caroline Gerardo copyright 2011

I have not checked in on ROW80. I have kept to my writing every day schedule .I threw out word count for now as I am reducing the novel from 151108 words to around 80000. I will have second revision done done done by July 4. I am going to Thriller Fest in New York on the following day. I am focusing on finding an agent who has passion and obsession for literary thrillers. My work is not a “pigeonhole able” single genre. I am writing thrillers, but they are literary and more general fiction than just financial thrillers.


I have settled on a title now that the narrative is set in stone.
The Lucky Boy.
What do you think? I had toyed with Lucky, but Alice Sebold has a novel/memoir (that I love by the way) of the same start word title. My novel is not the same.

Side note: One of my son’s first phrases was, “I’m a yucky boy.” By this he spoke with a slight lisp intending to express his joy and good fortune, upon which his sister and I would crack into shards of laughter. Now that he is fourteen, he uses it with a sarcasm that points out that being raised by two women has it’s downfalls.

Little Sycamore Canyon Trail Ridge June 2, 2011 photograph copyright Caroline Gerardo

I ask you to vote on one title: A Lucky Boy or The Lucky Boy.


Goals this week: Get Chapters 8-10 into clean speaking order by Saturday, exercise, love my children, and pray. No gardening, no dating (sorry Harvard guy), no time for frills. Focus on the finish line.

I will have the keen eye of the red tailed hawk that we nursed back to health. My eye is on the ribbon at the end of the race.

Preponderance of Crows May 21

Van Gogh Wheat Field

Preponderance of Crows

Copyright Caroline Gerardo May 13, 2011

Kakka बाली

The neigh Sayers hike with black t-shirts

Why exercise if the end of days is only nine away?

They speak in tongues, in whispers, in my dreams.

Flocks of crows are upon us.

My heart pumps crimson rust.

Once it filled with liquid amber.

Numerology tells the jackdaw to raid the tomb.

Flocks of crows are upon us.

The rook imitates human voices.

He calls koww and caw eh aw for Bali Kakka.

When he flies on my right, it is good omen.

Flocks of crows are upon us.

Rumor is Harold Camping has West Nile Virus.

A raven can use tools and make art.

I am a three legged corvid, we will all survive.

***

I first posted this just as Google softwear updates crashed. I was thinking it had something to do with criticizing the doomsday group.  The video and photographs I uploaded, I lost. Somehow, no copy but I had a clip of a different video. Video on Blogger takes forever to load.  

ROW80 Writing Second Draft Stay The Course

sweet peas in my yard

Productive Week

It is Mother’s Day and family has been the focus of my life path. In the past months, I have squeezed the limits of my time into allowing myself five hours every day (more on weekends) just for writing the novel. This causes some conflict with my extending family who live nearby. They like to pop in and visit. They telephone more often knowing I am pulling into a solitary cacoon. I maintain the love and support for my two children. I have never missed one of son’s baseball and football games this season. I make healthy meals and am hiking or running with them both several days a week. In order to work full time and write full time – things have to give me the solitude I need to finish.

This week I made a new story board. It is white board that is four feet by three feet. I mapped all the chapters. I added some images that motivate the characters. This helped me see clearly the journey that Seth must make through the narrative. It also made me decide to change the ending.

The story is somewhat chronological, with a few shifts in time. I used that in my last novel and struggled with using date in italics and point of view changes. Last time on the second draft, I changed the whole novel from first person to second with a few shifts. It was tedious editing and boring labor as focusing on a sweet gum leaf while Lamaze breathing out a baby. This time point of view is no problem. I am excited diving into the second draft and enjoying things Seth my lead character loves, slingshots, bergamot, insects, tinkering with inventions, and then all his evil bad stuff: bum fights, drugs, violence.

I wrote about 19211 words for the week. I word count is going to decrease now as I fight over synonyms and cut extraneous junk. If you are reading this, I need help on the title. I am now calling it Lucky. This is a novel title already of a totally different story. What do you think?

On my other lists of duties:

We hiked in Laguna canyon three days. The sage, the pearly everlasting and poppies have painted the hillsides.

Tomato plants are still alive, as are the dogs and Soup the turtle who is busy mowing the rose petals as I write.

I had fun meeting friends on twitter. The best is reading what they are doing.

The bank job has picked up a pace . I thank Heaven for the income.

The children’s grades are good. I have neglected my Mom, siblings and nephews. I told my nephews that Auntie Caroline cannot make them dinner twice a week until the second draft is completed. They frowned and the younger one volunteered to edit for me. I am cutting a big patch of my sweet peas to put in bowls for the other Moms in my life. Happy Mother’s Day to all.

News Lady

I met Carole Simpson at the Los Angeles Times Book Festival.  She gave me her book for free. Carole is gorgeous in person. Her writing is tasty. Her memoir of sorts is about her climb in the white male dominated world of broadcast journalism. Despite all the backstabbing, Carole's voice rings positive and clear. I stayed up late last night to read the whole book. It is funny, bright and I highly recommend you read NEWS LADY. I love the part where she married her best friend, one smart lady. Carole Simpson offers us inspiration to get the job done, despite pregnancy, prejudice and pride. Carole I wish you happiness. Please write another one for your readers to enjoy...

Caroline Gerardo NegativeSuck Magazine May 2011

http://negativesuck.moonfruit.com/#/wordprompt-6/4551014523

Love Sonnet Gone Wrong

Lizzy your letters do not reveal about being homeless, living in a Chrysler station wagon with no seat belts.

I too deserve a Moorish Portuguese castle.

Was time different then, moments between a woman and a man were something other worldly?

Naked I wait as a noblewoman in an Etruscan painting,

laying upon Carrera marble in Bal a Versailles and gauze.

A mind wanders back to that city of stone.

In the days after the floods, as young lovers we waded in the muddy waters taking the ancient furniture of strangers to the third floor.

He told me, “Strip down your clothes.”

Then he kissed me softy.

I did not care about the douse in cholera water. We survived.

With only scurf upon your skin for protection, let the artist heat the wax of encaustic and smooth it over me, for it will open my tristful pours.

I memorized a Rumi poem for him.

“I impetrate you to hear the ruby speak in his native tongue.” He kept his head down looking at his fingers on the Xbox controller for Black Ops.

“Fire up ovens of boiling sweat burning desire and cool slowly the pigments added.” He did not divagate.

“Use minerals from Madagascar and places you know nothing of.” Still he has no answer.

“Break into someone’s house when they are away on vacation. Pretend the children belong to you. Tell them many lies about the future.” That one got his attention.

“Shut up I am playing.”

Becoming his Telni in Devdasi tradition, ask for more every day.

Then one day he is done with you. He might call you on his cell phone to say, “I don’t want you anymore.”

Do not call to Saint Sebastian to stop the bleeding to shore up the holes in your heart.

He fails to listen carefully.

Send a chorus of attorneys.

They know nothing of sonnets only billable hours.

The finest doctor thinks you loony.

They blame it on lead, radiation and chemo therapy from cadmium.

Drinking mithridate from a Riedel decanter will not tear out the poison heart of diamond.

Only it will grow harder.

My Shadow and the Snake

copyright Caroline Gerardo April 2011

Excerpt from "LUCKY" my next novel. The first draft is ninety- nine percent complete. Tomorrow I will post more on bookcountry.

I am off to the Los Angeles Book Festival.

***

Amy got into her car butt first after the amniocenteses.





“The baby is fifty-three weeks. I know you do not want to know the sex. I will find screen shots on the ultrasound that do not show the genitalia.” The Doctor said.



“Thank you.”



“Your weight gain is a little below target. At your advanced age, well excuse me, I meant to say this as a complement. You are taking excellent care of yourself.”



“I’m walking and swimming a little.”



“Just take it easy. Your blood pressure is high.”



“Is there anything else I should do?”



“There are no miracles Amy.”



“I pray.” She moves her hair behind her ears. She unties the gown, then pulls up her jeans with the stretch waist.



“Have you told the father we matched the hair follicle with the last amnio?”



“I told Seth months ago, he claims it is impossible because of his vasectomy. He abandoned us.”



“Just making sure you have someone to see you through this.”



“My Mother is going to be there for the delivery.”



“That is good. Keep taking your vitamins. We will see you next week.”



Amy smiled at the receptionist. The woman has the telephone hand set in between her shoulder and her ear. She looks up, nodding a thank you for the muffin from Starbucks. The linoleum squares in the office neatly lead past the magazines in the lobby. Amy opens the door and holds it gently. She keeps the door from slamming to avoid disturbing the other patients who wait to have their urine sample, weigh in and routine checks.



She starts the car. The seat belt feels rough over her stomach. She thinks of events of the past month. She has not heard from him for five weeks. The last time he disguised aggressive justification in an email. He is too busy to think. He chatted about how at this point in his life he appreciates what is beautiful in his daily new life: a new girlfriend, his glorious appointment and the fawning press. He does not understand the ramifications of his actions and does not care. Closed in an eggshell, the cover is made of Plexiglass, the world is inside his head. She now knows why his ears ring.



“It is best for both of us if you don’t contact me.” Seth never responds well to emotion.



She stops at the light. The car in front of her is a Maserati in a big hurry to jump the crosswalk. It lurches ahead and then back. She does not understand why.



When the light turns green, she pulls forward to see the snake. She gets out of her vehicle. She remembers there is a baseball bat in the trunk. With the bat in her hand, she examines the serpent. It is a gopher snake. It will never again meander in the mustard weeds. She moves it to the curbside with the bat.



Another car sounds a horn. An older man rolls down the window.



"Did you club it with the bat?"



"No. Roadkill."



She starts to tear up.




"The important thing was to love rather than to be loved."
W Somerset Maugham  Of Human Bondage

Caroline Gerardo Author: ROW80

        Caroline Gerardo copyright April 24 2011

Caroline Gerardo Author: ROW80: I am over my target. I feel happy to report 9230 words this week. Good words. The novel is 93% of my first draft. Working title - LUCKY. Seth is a psycho who stalks a girl, kills another by accident, promotes bum fights for money, lies, takes drugs to dull the pain and becomes a huge success.

The word count is 146223 and needs cutting. I hate editing.
4 plugs for indie authors
1 poem
I finished short flash piece, not certain on title.
The story is about a song writer recluse.
I need to add images.
I exercised every day.
Job was busy and happy got some deals.
All pets and children still alive and kicking.
I am not making big Easter dinner fuss- #writing.
Didn't complete reading books, they are calling but saving as
reading is not on my list for this coming week either.

Goal:
4000 on the novel Lucky
3 plugs for indie authors
Finish flash piece with an image and post.
Exercise 5 days.
Get deals at work closed for a paycheck.
Need to follow back with four magazines that requested the book last week.
Pray, meditate and smile every day.
New writing group Thursday night.

Title of Novel in Progress: Lucky?

My current novel in progress I have been calling "Seth." The old title was simply the name of the lead character. He's a psychopath. One might say it is all not his fault, or everyone around him is too lazy to see through the fog of their own existance..  After giving him a row of trials, volcanoes, and temptations you will somehow love this guy.

The title Lucky seems trite. It reminds me of how much my son loves Lucky Charms. If I put the cereal in the story will the sue me? Thank you General Mills for Box Tops for Education but also for the evil look in the eyes of that green guy on the box in the morning.

So with that in mind, can you name all the magically yummy marshmallow symbols above?

Back to work Caroline you have much work today. Writing is never as simple as one might think.

Scattered

Sales! I haven't started the tour. I don't have a card. I am waiting for the bookmarks. I see money in both accounts. Could the email about a review be real?

I love writing.  It is solitary. Telling a story that tornadoes in my brain. I hope you will like my stories, the characters I fell for, and care about their struggles.

Meanwhile -I need to keep my pace with the current novel. Steady on my focus.

Things that get me off track: my knee hurts from running or the barometric pressure changes from the rain, need to find a dry wall contractor to fix that mess, and where are my car keys?http://carolinegerardo.com/