The world spins madly on...

I haven't written anything in months. Then, this morning, out of nowhere, Kellen and Braeden and Kyle started chattering away on the drive to work. And so I am starting revisions on what was once titled The Bargain, new title as-of-yet-unknown.

Here is the first, VERY rough, page:

The empty shot glass spun across the bar. It caught the light and cast a shimmering rainbow over the dark mahogany wood. A second later, it hit the floor and shattered.

Kellen’s head hit the bar with it.

The cool, damp surface felt good against her overheated cheek. She closed her eyes and tried not to think about the grime and stickiness she rested on. There were, after all, far worse things to think about.

Like her mother.

“Kellen, that’s disgusting. Pick your head up.”

Her best friend Jordan’s voice pierced the haze of alcohol and numbness. Kellen shook her head.

“Whatever.”

Jordan sighed, an exasperated noise that grated on Kellen’s nerves. She should tell her best friend to head home without her, that she would be fine walking home. The bartender and owner of Sanctuary, Dom, would take care of her as he usually did. She would tell Jordan to go, just as soon… as her head… stopped spinning.

“Get up, Kellen. Now. Dom, help me.”

A sharp tug on Kellen’s arm and she was suddenly upright, stumbling through the hazy bar, supported by Jordan on one side and Dom’s tall, burly form on the other. Patrons watched them as they walked to the rear of the long room. Strange shadows danced high on the walls, reflections of the stained glass windows that stretched up to the steepled ceiling.

Sanctuary was an apt name – before being a gin-soaked hangout for the down and out in the crumbling city, the bar had been a church, old and glorious in its construction. When Dom took the place over, he tore out the pews, upended the dais, but left the statues in shadowed alcoves, the gargoyles perched high on the turrets, and the colorful reflective glass that covered every surface. It gave the place character, he claimed.

Kellen thought it made the structure's transformation even more sanctimonious. Then again, that was part of the reason she loved it so much.

It was quite an eventful week in my quiet little life! Many bad things, many good things... overall, I'm inclined to say that the good outweighed the bad. Hopefully the rest of my hectic semester will not tip the scales.

Monday: The Good: Elected co-chair of Women's Law Forum at school - position I really wanted. Also appointed treasurer for LGBT caucus. Interview for Volunteer Lawyers Association - spoke with interviewer about Harry Potter Fanfiction (hmmmm). Also received (and accepted) part-time summer research assistant position for head of Legal Research and Writing department: YAYAYAY! The Very Bad: Constitutional Law Professor had a stroke in class!! Luckily, one of best friends at school is a nurse, and she handled the situation brilliantly. Still horrible. He is OK now, in the hospital. Very sad.

Tuesday: SICK! Mono... again :( Boyfriend's birthday, though - somehow managed to throw him a surprise party. Friends drank wine. I drank tea.

Wednesday: SICK! Interview with Judge for summer externship. Was assured by fellow students I would meet with her law clerk for thirty minutes, with Judge for two: law clerk was out sick. Good or bad? Who knows! Spent the entire half hour with the judge, hoping the whole time she wouldn't notice that my glands were so swollen I looked like a dinosaur.

Thursday (today): SICK! But... voicemail during class! FROM JUDGE! GOT JOB! YAYAYAYAY! Summer = Check; part-time paid, part-time unpaid. More than I expected! Also... Constitutional Law Review, practice for Oral Argument.

Friday: Probably still sick. On-call in Civil Procedure. Must read. Also, preparation for Student Bar Association Budget Meetings. Study Group at 2:00.

Saturday: Yup, still sick I'm sure. Budget Meetings for WLF and LGBT in morning. Maybe movie and dinner with boyfriend? Maybe?

Sunday: You got it - stiiiiiillll sick (if I'm pessimistic, I won't be so disappointed when it happens.) Study Group.

Monday: ORAL ARGUMENT DAY!!!! Yup, twelve minutes in front of three judges (aka one district court judge and two volunteer lawyers) defending the Appellate Brief I slaved over for weeks. Hope I do not make a fool of myself. Hope I win. Pray for me. Think SUMMARY JUDGMENT thoughts.

Tuesday-May 15: STUDY, STUDY, STUDY, PASS FINALS, STUDY, STUDY, STUDY!!!

May 15: Collapse.

Lives inside my refrigerator.

This post is not for the squeamish. Last week, I was very happily munching on a bowl of salad - you know, the works, lettuce, tomatoes, shaved carrots, a little scoop of tuna, some cucumbers - when I looked down and said "hey that doesn't look like a piece of lettuce!"

It wasn't. It was a bug. A pretty big sucker, stiff as a board and flat as a pancake. Pretty gross, but not SUPER bad. I mean, it happens, right?

My grandfather (see prior post for a better understanding of these actions) was not too pleased. He insisted on taking the bug and refrigerating it in a little plastic baggy. He was absolutely determined to do research to find out whom he could report this to. This was a week ago. SEVEN DAYS with the bug in its little plastic coffin in the fridge.

He finally got around to calling the FDA yesterday about it - he was sitting at his kitchen table on the phone with the woman. I was sitting across from him, perusing my constitutional law book. The bug - and its open bag - was in between us. I happened to glance down in the middle of his phone conversation. I dropped my book.

THE BUG WAS ALIVE, CHIPPER, AND STROLLING ACROSS THE KITCHEN TABLE.

Cue the screaming, hopping up and down, gag reflex. The bug seemed quite pleased to be causing such general mayhem. The woman from the FDA officially thinks we're nuts, and the man we spoke to from the salad company wants us to send the bug back - presumably to see if it can survive the voyage. I don't *want* to send my bug back. I've named him Frank, for Frankenbug. I don't think I have a choice though.

If they get credit for an elixir of life, I'll be pissed.

Let me preface this post by saying that I have one of those wonderful, kooky grandfathers - we call him Joe. He is the type who is always coming up with new inventions (like getting squirrels drunk so he can catch them) and is always salvaging whatever my poor, beleaguered parents try to throw out from our childhood (like half-broken doll carriages).

Picture this: bright orange warning cones block half my driveway, a white plastic lawn chair teeters precariously on a large boulder on the other side of the driveway. The cones prevent my mom from parking in the garage and create a three-car pileup at the very end of my driveway.

Enter my mom:

Mom: Joe? What's with the cones?
Joe: What cones?
Mom: The cones that are stopping me from parking in my own driveway.
Joe: Oh, those cones. They're for the branch.
Mom: What branch?
Joe: The branch that's about to fall.
Mom: Why is the branch about to fall?
Joe: Because I've been trying to pull it down all day!
Mom: Why have you been trying to pull it down?
Joe: Because it's about to fall!
Mom: O-kaaaaaay. Let's try this: what's with the chair?
Joe: I was standing on it, of course, trying to pull the branch down.
Mom: Of course you were.
Joe: I threw the baseball attached to the fishing wire, trying to get it down - but I hit a car that was driving by.
Mom: You hit a car that was driving by??
Joe: Don't worry, they thought it was a nut.
Mom: I need to go hyperventilate now.
Joe: Don't walk near the cones, by the way. The fishing wire's still there.
Mom: No wonder we have no friends.

** Half Hour Later **

Dad storms into the house...

Dad: He's nuts. He's ****ing nuts.
Mom: Don't walk by the cones.
Dad: ** Holding a tangle of wire **
Me: **Dies laughing.**

I am hunting. For what, you ask? It's a logical question.

Unfortunately, my answer is less than logical: yes, 42,000 words and 150+ pages later, I am hunting for a plot.

Plot?

PLOTTTT???

Anybody seen a plot?

Yes, I am still sick and apparently, also delirious.

Still, if anyone finds my plot hitchhiking its way to Vegas with a sign that reads "In the market for a new writer," direct it my way if you please. Thanks.

Teaser Tuesday:

“Sweetie…” Her mom’s voice held a hesitant note.

Kellen raised her head. “What is it?”

“It sounds like you and this Kyle are very attached to each other. Or maybe it’s Braeden… I can’t quite tell.” Shannon tilted her head, frowning. “Either way, you know what a bad idea it is to invest too much in what they tell you.”

“Mom!” Kellen shook her head. “I’m trying to tell you that one of the only two faeries who can help me save your life was just kidnapped by the embodiment of evil, and the other one is not answering my call, and you want to talk to me about my love life?”

“I’m your mother,” Shannon demurred. “Of course I want to talk about your love life.”

"If you should die before me, ask if you can bring a friend." Stone Temple Pilots.

If there is one quote to sum up the entirety of my novel, Bonded, this is it.

And I think, thanks to jengt's awesome critique, I have finally finished revising it. For this time, anyway.

I'm exhausted, but very pleased.

Goodnight everyone!!

Braeden chuckled. The sound had a rusty quality to it. “No, I’m sure it won’t.” His eyes bored into hers. “If you’re not happy in this world, you could always come back to mine.”

“Yeah, because you made it sound so appealing,” Kellen shot back.

“For me,” he corrected. “It’s unappealing to me… because I’ve been there for so long. Things haven’t changed. I’m…” He hesitated, and flexed his shoulders. “I’m tired,” he said finally. “I’m tired of staring over my shoulder, worrying about what I say. The courts are covered in traps, just waiting to trip me up if I do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing, act the wrong way. I’m just plain tired of it.”

Kellen let out a breath. “Yeah, still sounds a little like an all-expenses paid trip to hell.”

Before she could draw another breath, Braeden’s hand cupped her chin gently. He turned her face this way and that in the moonlight. Her skin burned where he touched.

“Not for you,” he said.

“If you stole me, wouldn’t I become a servant?”

His hand tightened reflexively, then relaxed again. “Not you,” he said again. “I wouldn’t do that to you. I… couldn’t.”

Kellen met his gaze squarely. “Would you have a choice?”

Oh man, guys, I need some advice.

Soooo I've been querying lightly on my once-retired manuscript, Bonded. Including a status query for an agent who's had the full for six months or so, who I never heard back from. I always use the same e-mail address... but now, all of a sudden, I've discovered that for some reason, this e-mail is just not working. I've done a billion tests today, from all different types of accounts, and they're not working.

So here's my breakdown, all to agents who have this e-mail address which is not working:

4 regular queries
1 status query

Is it truly unprofessional to e-mail them back and ask them politely to e-mail me back to a different e-mail address (one that I know is working)?? If this is okay, how would you all phrase an e-mail like that?

This makes me panic.

I was driving into school this morning, and realized just how closely the city I spend 95% of my time in mirrors the story in my book. I even named it the same thing: the Ironbound. If you know anything about Northeastern cities (or have read anything that lists the 10 worst cities in the United States in the last ten years) then you know where it is.

Pray for me. Hard. :)

"To her surprise, he came easily, though his gaze was still trained with deadly accuracy on the petrified cabbie. She kept one hand on his arm, talking as quickly as she could to distract him as they walked. Dawn approached quickly over the abandoned streets of the Ironbound. The buildings they passed stared down with plaster faces that were chipped and worn. Looming structures of metal and iron jutted over the rooftops, their bases buried in the river that ran alongside the city. Licks of smoke and fog curled into the sky, mingling with grayish looking clouds. It would be a rainy day; Kellen felt a couple of droplets land on her hair and cheeks."

Kellen wrinkled her brow and stared back at him. Slowly, things started to make sense. She turned her head. The men skulking around the pool tables stared back at her, their eyes glowing an eerie red under the haze of lights and smoke. The woman at the far end of the bar flicked her cigarette once, twice, and then darted out a long tongue to catch the ashes as they fell. Kellen jumped as a heavy hand fell around her shoulders. The gray-haired man leered down at her as he had before… except now, rounded horns protruded from the mass of tangled hair. He licked his lips with a forked tongue.

Kellen swallowed a cry and flattened herself against the bar.

"I tried to tell you..."

Teaser!! (For the first Tuesday in a long time :))

“I am done with serving, do you hear me?” Braeden’s voice shook the walls with its fury, and Kellen couldn’t stifle a small gasp. The sound echoed from the ceiling, reminding her of the first angry crash of thunder that signaled the beginning of an October storm. A large crack snaked its way down the mirror. The temperature in the room dropped several degrees until she started to shiver from the cold. Anger made his distorted reflection terrible to look at, the scar standing out in harsh relief. She clutched the sides of the sink until her knuckles turned white, and didn’t let go until the sound had faded from the room. White-faced, she trembled.

She watched, her throat tight, as the anger faded from his face. Braeden’s hands circled her neck lightly, their thumbs resting on the beating pulse in her neck. He could choke her, so easily. She’d never been this terrified of anyone before.

So, after my revelation the other day, I decided to join jonowrimo. My outward goal is to finish the first draft of my new YA; in order to accomplish this, I decided I needed to hit 1,000 words a day. It's a pretty steep goal, considering I have class from 8:30-3:45 pretty much every day, and we're supposed to put in 3 hours outside of class for every 1 hour in class.

I didn't write a single word today.

... then again, I think I can afford a day, considering I wrote over 5,000 yesterday!! :)

For the first time in over three months, I believe I'll have a teaser for Teaser Tuesday. This makes me happier than I can say.

10,800 / 50,000 (21.6%)

Right when I first got into law school, a professor who I respected and admired told me that if I chose to go, I could kiss my dreams of writing YA books goodbye.

It was one of the worst moments of my life.

Since then, all summer, I didn't want to write. I was too scared, frightened that somehow, pursuing one passion would force me to forego the other. I resisted writing, even when it hurt not to, and ruthlessly slammed down every idea that popped into my mind. I closed the lights on my WIPs, told myself they were no good anyway, and settled in to study cases.

And then I got to law school, and imagine my shock when one of my professors told us that he wrote fiction, short stories, novels, that were actually published and well-received. That, in addition to being a respected lawyer at a top 50 law school, he had managed to pursue his dream of writing.

I was still scared. But if he could do it... maybe I could too?

And then I got a new idea... I tried to ignore it and I tried to push it down. But it wouldn't go away.

Maybe I really can do this. I hope I can.

Can I?


The Bargain - Teaser 1 :)

“Kellen.” Suddenly, he was no longer beside her. Now he stood in front of her, just out of reach. She could see him, look him right in the eyes, every time her swing drew back. “What if I told you I could free your mother from this disease?”

Kellen’s chest exploded; without a second thought, she launched herself off the swing and hit him straight in the chest. They both went down, tumbling head over feet until Kellen lay stretched out on top of him. Tears ran down her cheeks.

“I’d tell you I would do anything,” she hissed. “Anything at all.”

Braeden's face, at first faintly shocked, settled into an easy grin.

“Then I’d say we have a bargain.”

I've never used one of these word count meters before, but here goes:

13,482 / 58,000 (23.2%)

This is my revision word count on Bonded from yesterday to today, although it's definitely going faster than it will soon. I start to hit the meat of the changes in a couple of chapters, and that, plus added law school work, will slow me down considerably.

Still, we shall see :)

Fun Bonded quote of the day: “Want to dance?”

Karyn whipped her head around. A wimpy-looking Batman leered at her from just inches away. He shouted his question again and grinned, showing a mouthful of braces.

She cringed. “Sorry, I’m more a Joker type of girl.”

It's no wonder lawyers don't have sense of humors - law school sucks it all out of them.**

In order to stay sane, I've made a writing goal for myself: I will finish a draft of a novel by the end of this semester. I did no writing over the summer, and I feel like I'm going nuts, especially with all of my time being taken up by cases that are interesting, to be sure, but very very tedious.

I'm frightened I've lost my creative ability, so I'm going to set aside some writing time for myself... three weeks in, and I haven't exactly figured out how to fit the writing into the hectic schedule of being a 1L. But I will.

In the meantime, at least I've got SOME sort of hook down. It's pretty crappy, actually, and doesn't have any of the fun elements in the story yet (romance! mistaken identity! angst!) but it's something, at least, and in the meantime, I get to learn lots of fun stuff about Celtic mythology.

Whooo.

The Bargain (tentative)

Kellen Morgan’s made a deal with the devil himself: the Dark Man, the most dangerous faery in Celtic lore. In return for freeing her mother from a terminal disease, Kellen will undergo three trials for his dark majesty. But it doesn’t take long to realize that whatever Kellen is searching for, she’s not the only one. And as her twenty-first century life fades into the background, Kellen realizes she’s not only fighting for her mother’s life anymore… she’s fighting for her own.



**I'm allowed to say this now because I'm a JD candidate... wow that sounds weird.

Summer before law school - pretty amazing.  I love the work I'm doing - I work for a senior citizen day care center, aimed especially at those senior citizens who don't yet need nursing home care, but who have serious disabilities, be they mental, physical, or otherwise.  It's both depressing and encouraging.  It is encouraging because for some of these seniors, this center is all that they have to keep them going or else they would likely deteriorate - in short, they live for the social interaction, sense of individuality, and the chance to do activities like tai chi (they're so cute!!) and bingo or trips to casinos (so funny!) and other fun events.  Not to mention the fact that many of them might not be eating at all or taking their medicines if not for the meals we serve and the fact that we have a full-on nursing staff to take their vitals, and the free transportation to and from any doctor-related visits we offer. 

Why is it depressing then?  It's depressing because they honestly need this - the joy they get simply from us remembering their name and calling them by it is absolutely humbling.  They've been used to being lumped in under the blanket "medicaid" label for so long that any chance to be seen as a person is something absolutely foreign and breathtaking for them.  And for me, it's sad to know that these are the facts of life for some people.  The whole situation is really making me think long and hard about getting into poverty/public policy law.  For once, I feel like I'm making a huge difference.  There's really no other way to describe it but humbling.

The only teensy problem is the location of the center - where it is located is mostly a Hispanic area, which naturally means that most of the seniors speak Spanish only.  What's the problem, then?

I, um, don't.

While I'm mostly working with computers here right now, I do want to get involved with the seniors, which necessitates a pretty decent knowledge Spanish.  About a thousand flash cards later, I'm still learning... if anyone has any suggestions, I'm totally open to anything that would open these lines of communication!  Stupid self - why did I take french???

Buenas noches everyone!!!

I have too many ideas flitting around in my mind; I can't keep focused :(  Well that, plus the fact that finals, graduation, and summer are right around the corner...

Here's a little teaser to a new piece, a more traditional fantasy... in some ways...

Thanks to the monsoon that is currently hitting the New York-New Jersey area, I got in a car accident this afternoon.

I'm fine, all the passengers were fine... my car, my beautiful baby, is not so fine :(

This is so not my week.

In better news... I'm finally on time!!!!

I apologize in advance for anyone who wants to slap me and say "shut up" after this post, but I am graduating college in May, and within the last four days my life has been thrown into turmoil - and I believe I have developed an ulcer. (jk)

A. I got into law school
B. I got accepted to NYU's Publishing Institute
C. I got offered a job at the academic publisher I work for

... Is it bad if you decide your future by rolling a dice?