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I want to say it’s been a good week. The beginning sure wasn’t, but the end was much better. I’ve told you that I have a couple of sick family members, and I have a couple of friends who are going through some very difficult things now as well. These things take up a lot of space in my thoughts these days, but I am trying not to worry so much about things I cannot control. So when I have time to write, I am writing. or editing, depending on the situation. Today is for both. Also, I’m watching a strange little movie called The Lovers with Josh Hartnett right now, while I write my blog post for the week. I’m not in love with the story, but since I’ve invested so much time in it, I have to watch to the end now. Plus, there is the eye-candy. But if you haven’t watched it, I’d say even for the eye-candy, find a different movie to watch. Or maybe re-watch Penny Dreadful instead, if Josh is your eye-candy of choice.
I’m wondering how other people manage to keep working and finding inspiration when there are so many bad things going on around them. Some days, it’s really difficult not to worry, let alone how to summon up any creativity. My brain is too full some days, which means I might only get a little work done, not the bigger chunks I hope for.
I think the inside of my brain some days looks like this…
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Now imagine that tangle is moving, about five hundred miles an hour. That is what my brain feels like some days. How do you untangle that? Or at least slow it down when you need to stop thinking so hard about one thing and redirect your brain to something else? I can do it when I’m reading a great story, tune everything else out. But with everything that’s been going on since last summer here, I’m finding it more of a challenge to do it otherwise. But I am still making progress, which is a good thing, though it’s slower than I want.
So, while I go back to rewrites on tiger shifter #1, maybe a little snippet of story for you.
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Of the cats, only the tiger remained. Smiling, she went inside to visit with him, but he was napping in the far corner of his cage, so instead, she headed for her office and collected her purse. She could get home without having to call for an escort. It was bad enough Joe had dragged himself out of bed early that morning to follow her to work. She didn’t want to get him back out of bed now. Convinced, she climbed into her car and steered toward home. It wasn’t until she was about fifteen minutes from the house that she realized the car behind her had been there for a while. She tried to brush away the concern, but her pulse quickened anyway. Stupid. She was just being paranoid, thanks to all this time with Harley and Boris trailing her back and forth. Except the car got closer when she turned onto the next road. Tessa frowned in the rearview mirror. “Are you kidding me?” She pressed her foot harder on the accelerator. The car behind her sped up, too. “Dammit.” There was no talking herself out of this now. She steered the car away from home when she got to the next intersection, doubling back in the opposite direction–toward India’s.
The other car kept pace with her, even on the twisting, windy portions of the road. But when she steered onto the route that led to the Wentworths’, the other driver must have finally realized her destination–he sped up again, coming closer and closer to her back bumper. Tessa’s heart already beat too fast, but now it pumped so hard, her ribs hurt. She accelerated a little more. Then more. The other car kept pace, even drew nearer.
Her mouth went dry. “Stupid ass,” she muttered. When he bumped her, her heart stopped beating for a long, painful moment. The car shuddered a little, slipping before regaining traction. She pressed harder on the gas. Almost there–the gate at the end of the drive was just coming into view. He hit her harder the second time, making the back end of the car swing out to the side, raising dust and gravel on the shoulder of the road. Tessa realized she’d screamed even as she fought to make the car go where she wanted it to go. When she had it back on the road, she jammed her foot on the gas.
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( Photo credit: Fraser Mummery via Foter.com / CC BY )
See you next week!