It’s an April update!
So, I bought an author marketing program for $27 and found out that you’re supposed to write a status about your writing progress and book progress every month!
Who knew?
Not this author.
So, here’s what I’m up to.
I’m starting a super cheap, super new, super cool writing course. You can check it out here and you can still join although it’s getting pretty full, which is awesome since I only announced it this weekend. But if you want to learn more, check it out here. I call it the WRITING COURSE OF AWESOME because I am original like that.
What else?
I’m still revising ANOTHER NOW, which is a big time travel story. It is killing me.
Here’s a tiny excerpt:
Chapter One
“The Ghost Inside”
The Broken Bells
Dear Dad,
I know you’ll never read this and you’ll probably think I’m weird for even writing it since you didn’t care enough to hang around when I was born. Now, your first impression of me (if this letter IS your first impression) will be, “Wow. My daughter is old-school emo with a lot of retro drama writing me a letter longhand and not on the actual computer like a normal person.”
I don’t care.
That’s a lie. I probably do care what you think of me because I am needy like that, but I don’t care enough so that it makes me stop writing this letter.
Even though it’s super one-sided communication since you’ll probably never read it.
Even though I do feel a little drama over writing it this way.
Even though I shouldn’t care about communicating with you.
You made your choice a long time ago and that choice was not me and Mom.
And that hurts.
Mina (Your daughter)
The goal is to throw the stone out the farthest:
Watch it drop into the waves.
Breathe out as it disappears into the cold Atlantic.
Try again to beat your last throw.
That’s it. I never seem to beat my last throw even though Abby always beats hers.
I’m a person without a father and whenever she feels too badly for me, my newish best friend, Abby Shriver, makes us head to the boulders and rocks that line the ocean’s edge of the Shore Path, this mile-long gravel path that abuts some of the fancier houses in Bar Harbor. She thinks that will make it better. The ocean, she says, is fatherless too and according to ancient Greeks, the ocean was the father of everything. The ocean doesn’t take sides in all the wars of man and gods. It just is.
But that’s old myth.
And the Atlantic Ocean off our Maine coast is so real.
Today, we’re quiet when we walk. It’s barely a half of a mile down a one-way road, another small road, and then a dirt path to the ocean where we can throw our stones into the ever-moving abyss.
When we get there, the wind keeps lifting up Abby’s hair, mixing the smell of honey with that of clam flats. Her hair keeps striking me in the face until she binds it in one of those utilitarian black elastics that most people keep on their wrists. Abby only keeps bracelets on her wrist – silver ones that jangle when she moves.
“They remind me of fairy bells,” she says when I try to get her to stop talking about my lack of a father and randomly try to shift the topic to her.
I take a rock and throw it, but the wind’s strength works against me and it barely makes it past the shore.
And finally, my new Patreon story
And over on Patreon, I’m starting a new story this week! It’s a chapter a month if you want to check it out. It basically costs $1 a month to listen to my story and $3 a month to read it. There’s a new chapter every week. It’s super fun; I promise.
Chapter 1
The birds tap at the kitchen window with tiny beaks. They hover there above the azalea bush and the still-to-bloom tiger lilies, wings wide open, eyes staring inside at where Mom and I bustle around the kitchen. They smack and caw and coo. There are seagulls, pigeons, crows, a couple of hummingbirds, a few owls, robins, blue jays, finches, doves and a random eagle tonight. All of them coexisting in some sort of peaceful bird truce. All of them watching us.
“Hey guys.” I give them an air first bump that I hope is cheerful. “Everything is okay.”
So, yeah, things are a bit bizarre around here, and Mom’s worried that I may not be able to handle it. This isn’t just because I have a tendency to levitate. And it isn’t because a news reporter has noticed that I exist, and it isn’t even that I seem to have ridiculously randy feelings about my best friend, Nora. My mother, thank God, does not know about that last part. No, she worries because of the door upstairs and the birds that are appearing absolutely everywhere all the time now.
“I am so tired of those darn things and their – and their – and their defecation.” She puts the stress on the last word of the sentence, wrinkling up her long nose. “It’s impossible to get it off the deck. And the chirping and squawking.”
She crosses herself.
Here’s our latest podcast! We’re adding extra interview episodes starting this Thursday!
WHERE TO FIND US
The podcast link if you don’t see it above. Plus, it’s everywhere like Apple Music, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and more. Just google, “DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE” then like and subscribe.