Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 130255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 651(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 651(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Mind you, that wasn’t much different from me usually.
Ahem.
A hot mess of a crying woman.
There. That distinction would make all the difference, I was sure.
Ugh.
Why was I crying so hard? I could barely see the screen through my tears, yet my fingers were typing at speed I wasn’t quite used to. They slid across the laptop keyboard and tapped at the keys like it was second nature, and I supposed it kind of was. I could touch-type, after all, but there was sure to be no end of typos in this stream of words.
Well. I did have an editor for a reason.
As long as it didn’t read about a banana riding a tricycle, it would be fine.
I, uh, may have written that in a half-asleep state before. To this day, I still have no idea what I was talking about.
I paused for a moment and checked the time.
Shoot. I’d been writing for two straight hours and missed dinner. But there was so much mojo here for this unexpected turn of events, but I also needed to eat.
I could eat later.
For now, I needed to make my characters hurt the way I was.
• • •
“You owe Grandma a new pool noodle.”
I looked up from my laptop to see Max approaching with Winston cradled in his arms. “I’m sorry, what?”
“You owe Grandma a new pool noodle.”
“Oh, no, I got that bit. It’s just not a sentence one expects to hear mid-afternoon,” I replied. “Why on Earth do I owe her a pool noodle of all things? And why did you just walk in here?”
“I knocked. You didn’t hear. I figured you were out here. As for the pool noodle, that’ll be his fault,” Max replied, holding Winston out.
“Merow,” my cat whined.
“Oh, no,” I groaned, hitting the save command before glaring at him. “Did you use the goats as a scratch post again?”
He blinked at me. “Meeer.”
“We spoke about that, Winston. You can’t just use their horns to sharpen your claws, pool noodles or no pool noodles.”
He wriggled in Max’s arms and jumped down, bounding up the steps into the house behind me. I watched him go with a slow slide of my gaze before I dragged my attention back to where Max was watching him with unabashed amusement.
“That cat is such a dick,” I muttered, looking back at my laptop.
“He’s a pretty wild character,” Max agreed. “How’s the writing going?”
“Do I really have to go and buy your grandmother a pool noodle?”
“No. She has forty of them.”
I glanced up at him. “I’m not even going to ask.”
“Best you don’t.” He chuckled. “So? The writing?”
“Took a detour,” I admitted looking at the screen. “These people in my head don’t conform to my wishes, so here I am. Writing fifteen thousand extra words and reworking the entire ending.”
Max raised his eyebrows. “Sounds stressful.”
“Mm. I was hoping to be done in about two days, but it’s going to be more like five now. It really cuts into my rest time, especially since my brother just reminded me that our parents are coming home. If I’m not there, my mother will kill me.”
He slowly nodded. “So when are you leaving?”
“It depends how quickly I can get this finished. I was kind of hoping to have a week to relax when I was done, but I don’t think that’s possible now.” I glanced up at him. “It’s probably just a week until I leave now.”
Another gentle nod. “I’ll leave you to finish writing. Just wanted to return the great explorer to you.”
“Actually, if you have a second… Could I pick your brain?”
He paused midway through turning around and raised his eyebrows. “Pick my brain?”
I pointed at the screen. “For my book. I… kind of broke them up.”
“Kind of broke them up?”
“With the intention of them living happily ever after, of course.”
“Of course. What other intention would you have?” His lips tugged to one side. “What can I help with?”
“I used the situation with the Glenrochs that you explained, and I had the classist prejudice lead to their breakup because the heroine couldn’t cope with being made to feel less than anymore, so she broke it off and won’t speak to the hero anymore.”
“That’s pretty valid.”
“But I need to get them back together.”
He put his hands in his pockets and bobbed his head, pressing his tongue against his top lip thoughtfully.
“So, how do I fix it? How do I bring them back together in a way that basically knocks sense into his prejudiced family members?” I tapped my fingertips against the laptop. “I feel like they’re not going to come around by themselves and there needs to be some kind of catalyst for the change, but I don’t know what that catalyst could be.”
Max pressed his lips together and joined me on the outdoor sofa, sitting on the other part of the L-shaped seat. “Well, you generally find a level of hypocrisy in families like that. The heir is held to a higher standard than other family members, siblings included.”