Bizzy Writing

It's actually been over five months since I've sat down and written more than ten thousand words.

I decided to set Garnet and Quella aside after reading a second, nearly complete manuscript and not being able to decide if I like the completed one or the almost completed one better. Both have a few issues I need to address.

Therefore, I went on a prowl through the files on my laptop and found a story I'd begun well over a year ag, maybe even as far back at 2017. I read the 53 pages I'd written back then, did some proofreading and editing as I went, and have been writing more of the story. As of this morning I was on page 90 (single spacing, spaces between paragraphs at present)...approaching 40,000-something words. I though it might be a novella, but it's to the point where it's writing itself and I'm just coat-tailing along for the ride.

This one is about a young woman from a dysfunctional family, loaded with anxiety and low self-esteem, but determinedly plodding ahead in life on her own, hiding a damaging incident from her middle school days. When violence erupts in her home, she lands in her older sister's now estranged boyfriend's apartment as she's quickly and heartlessly thrown out of her family's home. He's "the devil himself" according to her father, has been used by her sister to support a lifestyle she wants, but isn't interested in working for to attain on her own, and who has had his eye on Cathy's younger sister since he started dating her, and now she's finally old enough. Charlotte is all hands off, but he's not going to give up on her.

She's a realtor. There's a house on the market they both want, only she can't afford it, but he can. When the under contract sale falls through and the house comes back on the market, Charlotte finds herself showing her strictly platonic "roommate" the property, writing up his offer, discovering his prequalification from the bank is more than adequate to get him the house. Deeply disappointed, she tells him the house is his when the buyer agrees to his offer.

Meanwhile, Charlotte's quietly made preparations to leave the area, finding a job several hundred miles inland, locating a small apartment there she can afford. He's taken aback that she's so upset about the house that she's pulling up stakes and leaving. And then the rug is pulled out from under her feet when a murder-suicide occurs, but it's the catalyst that turns the tide of her life...

You'll have to read this little seaside romance later this year to find out what happens.