IWSG for August 2016

Good morning, everyone! Today is another opportunity to release those writerly insecurities into the blogoverse with our fearless leader, Ninja Captain Alex Cavanaugh and intrepid co-hosts: Tamara Narayan, Tonja Drecker, Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor, Lauren @ Pensuasion, Stephen Tremp, and Julie Flanders! (Wait a minute. That includes me! I knew I should have written this yesterday.)

Here's this month's question: 

What was your very first piece of writing as an aspiring writer? Where is it now? Collecting dust or has it been published?

Can a story collect dust on a hard drive? Hmm. When I decided to write a novel, I thought it would be a good idea to warm up with a short story first, just to see if I had it in me to complete such a project. The result was a 20K mash-up of a dream, memories from childhood of swimming in Lake Hartwell, the movie Dirty Dancing, and a road trip I took in my twenties to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Oh, and it's set in the sixties.

So what's it about? A sixteen-year-old girl goes on vacation with her family to a mountain resort (that's the Dirty Dancing part). There she meets a glamourous couple in their twenties and spends an amazing afternoon with them on their pontoon. Days later, a similar trip with her family turns into a series of small disasters.

So it's about being stuck on the verge of adulthood, seeing what you want to be without having any idea of how to get there. Let's just say it needs a lot of work (plus an ending with punch instead of fizzle) before it would ever be ready to see daylight. But it served its purpose. It was good practice before that first novel.

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Speaking of characters at rough transitions in their lives, the blog tour for Heart Stopper and Other Stories is making a stop with Kathleen Valentine. There you'll find a character profile of Chloe Langley, protagonist in the short story Detour.

Also, my daughter finally uploaded the book trailer she made for the title story in this collection. Thank you, Sedona! (Now we just got to get a hot link in that description.)




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How is your summer going in regards to writing and/or marketing?