Through an Author's Eyes - Part 1

Happy Friday FFF,

Wait! Don't tell me it's Friday. It can't be Friday. It just was Friday and we cleaned the house. (We clean house on Fridays. Anyone else do it then too?) Not enough days have gone by for it to be Friday again. Nope. Not possible. I refuse to believe it. It should be Wednesday. That's it. It's Wednesday. Then what on earth am I doing get a post ready? Uh, maybe because I'm a little unsure. If by some chance it did happen to be Friday, I'd hate to spoil my record and cause wonderment, and maybe confusion among my readers. Yet, if it's NOT Friday, . . .

Oh, dear. This is too confusing for my brain. Either it is Friday or it isn't.

This week has absolutely flown by! And it wasn't because I was crazy busy either. In fact I tried to cut back on things so I wasn't rushing around with my brain here, there, and everywhere. Let me see. What did I accomplish?

I am almost finished with this Bike Trip book I've been working on for about 2 years. I'm just waiting for Grandpa to return some checked pages, and get some information from him and one of my uncles. Then I can put all the pages together and attempt to upload the HUGE file. It's going to be crazy.

I've been working on formatting "Dylan's Story" and playing around with the mock cover again. Hopefully soon I'll actually start work on the real cover.

Oh, I received 10 NEOs in the mail and have shipped 2 off already. :) The others are waiting to be mailed. It is so fun sending NEOs to other writers. I can't wait to hear how they like them. :) Do you have a NEO? Have you ever wanted to try one?

And I have been writing. I heard back from a friend about a certain thing for "Finding Joy" so know I can write it and make it real. :) When will this story be finished? I wish I knew. Right now, if I figured correctly, the story is at 83k words. And I'm not at the end yet. It could be one of those really, really long books. Would you mind?

Okay, enough about me. Here's the start of a new story. If you are a writer, you might find some things amusing. If you are not a writer, you may still find some things amusing. But I don't know if this story stays interesting. My mom doesn't think so. I guess I'll let you read it and decide. Of course you only get some of it each week. (It's long.) So, enjoy.

Through an Author’s Eyes

    Settling back into her seat, Annette Jasper let her fingers lightly brush the keys on her NEO as she looked out her window at the clouds below her. When her index fingers found the small raised dots they were accustomed to rest on, she glanced down at the small screen with its blinking curser. She needed a story.

    After a look at the other passengers of the airplane, she began to type. She would write a story about her own trip, only she would change things. Instead of going to visit her cousins because her parents were taking an month long trip to Europe for business, her main character would . . .

    Slowly Annette tapped a finger on the portable, battery-operated typewriter she loved using. A frown creased her forehead.

    “Having trouble there?”

    Turning her head quickly, Annette smiled involuntarily at the older gentleman with iron gray hair who sat one seat away from her with his newspaper.

    “Not really. I’m just trying to decide something for a story I’m writing.”

    The older man folded his paper and looked interested. “What do you have so far?”

    “Not much,” Annette admitted. “I know my main character is going to stay at a ranch in the Rockies, or near the Rockies, and she’s never been there before. I just don’t know why she is going there.”

    “To visit a friend?”

    “Maybe.”

    “How old is she? Does she have parents? Is this a modern story?”

    “Yes, it’s modern; she’s actually traveling by airplane. She has parents, but I don’t know where they are. And I think she’s about eighteen or nineteen.”

    Nodding, the gentleman sat in thoughtful silence for a few minutes before asking, “What does she do when she gets there?”

    At that Annette laughed a little. “I’m not sure. I’m going out to a ranch to visit my cousins and I’ve never been there. I thought it would be fun to write about my adventures, only change it so it wasn’t really me.”

    “Quite a clever idea. So, why aren’t your parents traveling with you?” The man seemed genuinely interested.

    “They are heading to Europe on a business trip.”

    “Ah, well, I suppose your character’s father could be in the military and be stationed in someplace, say–Japan, and was able to take his wife with him. However, your MC wanted something different–”

    “And had a friend who invited her to spend a month or so with her.”

    “Excellent idea!”

    A quick glance showed her that it had been more than four minutes and her NEO had turned off. In a matter of seconds it was back on, and she began typing. At first her fingers were slow, but they seemed to have only been warming up, for in no time they were flying over the keys and the story began to take shape.

*

    Kate pressed her face closer to the window of the plane and stared out. It was strange to see the clouds from the top instead of from underneath. No matter how many times she had flown, and with her father being in the military, it had been quite a lot, she never tired of watching the clouds or the distant ground, if the day was clear. Someday she would like to fly. . . .

*

    Annette gave a sigh of satisfaction as she finished rereading the start to her story. Hopefully she could keep adding to it and her blog readers would enjoy it.

    “Finish it?”

    Smiling at her new friend, she nodded. “At least what I could write now. Thanks for your help.”

    “Glad to do it.”

    “Are you an author?” Annette asked, zipping NEO into its protective cover.

    The man smiled. “Well, yes, in a way. I used to write for magazines and literary newspapers. I’ve tried my hand at a few novels for my grandkids, but I didn’t think they’d be of interest to any publishing house, so I just used CreateSpace to print some copies.”

    “Oh, that’s what I use!” Annette exclaimed.

    “So, you’re published already, are you?”

    After that Annette had no time to wonder what her parents were doing or what her cousins would be like, for she was busy swapping publishing stories with the older gentleman, and talking about her other books and his books. It seemed to her that their destination was reached in record time.

    As she gathered her things together and moved into the aisle, she tucked her new friend’s business card into a safe pocket of her carry-on. They had exchanged cards and the older man had said he was hoping he would get to read the finished story of her visit.

    “It is kind of funny,” she thought, moving slowly along in the rush of people disembarking, “to write a fictional story about my real adventures. I wonder if there will even be anything worth writing about. Perhaps there will be a mystery we can solve or . . . something. I think I’d rather not deal with bad guys or disasters. Huh, why do we authors like to make those things happen in books when we’d hate to face them in real life?”

    “Annette! Over here!”

    Pulled from her thoughts, Annette spotted her cousin and waved a greeting as she made her way over to her. “Savanna!”

    The two girls embraced warmly. Though Annette had never seen her youngest three cousins, she had met the oldest two when she was about five, she only vaguely remembered Levi. But she had spent a week with Savanna at a conference two months ago and they had become fast friends. When everything had worked for Annette to stay at her aunt and uncle’s out west, the two cousins had been thrilled.

    “Let’s get your luggage and get going,” Savanna said. “It’s still over an hour until we reach Gone."

    “What?”

    “Gone. Our town. Or at least the town that’s the closet to us and the airport. Actually its real name is Gone Ridin’, but everyone calls it Gone. It’s not very big.”

What is the most interesting town name you've heard?

Have you ever gone to spend a few weeks alone with relatives?

If you could go anywhere in the US, where would you go?