Findley's Island

Image: CC0 Public Domain, no attribution required

Sorry for the lack of blogs, but these things happen. Last week was Holy Week, one of the two big holy times on the Christian calendar. Since I work in a church, I was busy assisting the pastor with the service on Maundy Thursday, doing a "modified" and interactive Stations of the Cross on Friday along with a youth group sleep-over in the church, and of course the big Easter service on Sunday.

And then there was this: on Thursday I learned that my dog's cancer has metastasized to her ribs. We're trying a different protocol now, and so far Tippy is alert and her usual self but... well... let's be honest, we all know how this is going to end. What no one knows is when. Then again, that is true for almost every living thing on the planet.

So, as you can see, my life has been a wee bit topsy turvy. Add to that, a family trip to Gettysburg, which kicks off on Tuesday. And, yes, we will be taking my three-legged, cancer-ridden crazy little dog with us, but not without the contact information for a 24-hour local vet. Because... you know... or rather we don't know.

Anyway, I'm attaching the notes and bits of dialog and story for that YA novel I was writing about last week. It  either will be paranormal or fantasy book or some weird hybrid. As you read it, remember, that this is the roughest of rough draft material and is part-story, part-author information. And I have no idea what it will look like when it comes to fruition. But if you're wondering how authors do it, the material below is how this author starts. I take an idea and riff on it. Then I start messing with things like notes for the plot and secondary storylines. And then the writing begins. And after the first draft... the revisions and editing. It's a multi-part process. 

P.S. please excuse any typos and weird usage in the draft below. I don't have time to smooth it out.
 

Hope you enjoyed it.

With any luck, I'll be back on Wednesday and Friday with blogs about the family visit to Gettysburg. My grandsons tell me a ghost hunt is in the works. I'm cool with it, as long as they don't pay me a visit in the bathroom, turn off the lights, and turn off the water like they did in the Gettysburg Hotel on the Diamond last time I was there. If the lights go out, that's one thing. But on the second night, when the water turned on, I thought, "Okay. Back to bed. Mama don't like this stuff."

​I'll be checking in soon... I hope... Ha!