Writing. I still do that.
After I sold WIDE OPEN, I didn't talk about it online while waiting for contracts. As this took a bit of time, I got out of the habit of talking about writing. Which is why, in a roundabout way, I haven't talked all that much about book two.
But I am working on book two! I am, specifically, working on the ending, which is tricky because there are many parts that don't really work yet, so the ending isn't going to work, but if I don't write it, it can never be fixed.
Current title of book 2 is DEEP DOWN, set in South Dakota (again!) and beginning about six weeks after the events in book 1.
Here is a small bit. Hidden behind a cut for the snippet-phobic:
She turned onto the rough lane up to Pabby's ranch house ten minutes later. Halfway up the lane there was a low spot that washed out every spring. Hallie dropped down to second and the tail end of her pickup slid sideways down along old ruts and morning-frosted grass. Then, the tires caught, the engine revved up half a note, and she moved on up the lane.
She drove around the final shallow curve to the main ranch house and stopped with the front of her pickup pointing toward the house. A skinny black dog slunk across the drive in front of her. It stopped when it reached the far side just short of a trio of scrub trees. A second dog, as skinny and lank as the first, settled next to it, tongue lolling and sharp teeth gleaming.
Hallie studied them for a moment, the truck idling almost silently. As far as she knew Pabby didn't have a dog, hadn't had one since her old collie had died ten years ago. "They just die in the end," she'd told a thirteen-year-old Hallie. "What's the point?" Which was a weird thing to tell a kid who'd lost her mother two years before. Not that Pabby worried about things like that. Which had always been the part of her Hallie liked.
But I am working on book two! I am, specifically, working on the ending, which is tricky because there are many parts that don't really work yet, so the ending isn't going to work, but if I don't write it, it can never be fixed.
Current title of book 2 is DEEP DOWN, set in South Dakota (again!) and beginning about six weeks after the events in book 1.
Here is a small bit. Hidden behind a cut for the snippet-phobic:
She turned onto the rough lane up to Pabby's ranch house ten minutes later. Halfway up the lane there was a low spot that washed out every spring. Hallie dropped down to second and the tail end of her pickup slid sideways down along old ruts and morning-frosted grass. Then, the tires caught, the engine revved up half a note, and she moved on up the lane.
She drove around the final shallow curve to the main ranch house and stopped with the front of her pickup pointing toward the house. A skinny black dog slunk across the drive in front of her. It stopped when it reached the far side just short of a trio of scrub trees. A second dog, as skinny and lank as the first, settled next to it, tongue lolling and sharp teeth gleaming.
Hallie studied them for a moment, the truck idling almost silently. As far as she knew Pabby didn't have a dog, hadn't had one since her old collie had died ten years ago. "They just die in the end," she'd told a thirteen-year-old Hallie. "What's the point?" Which was a weird thing to tell a kid who'd lost her mother two years before. Not that Pabby worried about things like that. Which had always been the part of her Hallie liked.