This is a little something that I wrote a few months back while working through one of my moods.  

The Call of the Midlife Crisis

It’s not a whisper in my ear or a soft beckoning from afar; it is deafening.  It is here now taking control of my every action, infusing it’s gray hued doubt into my every decision.  Midlife should bring contentment, a time to reflect upon the fruits of our labor, not a time to panic, overanalyze each step along our journey.  Midlife has turned into one never ending what-if for me.  What if I had did this or that differently.  Could I do something differently now and get a new and enlightened outcome?  I am in the thralls of a midlife crisis like a ship trying to weather the heaviest of storms while out to sea.  I am working double time not to get dashed against the rocks where the Sirens sing their sweet songs.  Their songs are sweetest on a Sunday evening.  

Would life be different if I went to the rocks where the Sirens perch?  The reasonable person in me says I would be careened against the rocks and broken, but the person who is deep in the midlife crisis doesn’t care.  I DON’T CARE.

But I do.  That’s the problem with overanalyzing every decision.  I can’t even be content to just give in and enjoy the ride as I hurtle toward the rocks all the while listening to the call of those wickedly deceptive Sirens.  They lie but somehow to go back the way I came seems almost as destructive as riding the current toward them.  

So I fight.  I don’t give up.  I persist.  I exist.

Some may think that women don’t have midlife crises but we do.  With so many expectations on us to keep up with our male counterparts in the workplace, all the while all too often still the primary coordinator of all things Family, is there any wonder that we develop fissures in our personas, question our actions, fall off the deep end, drown in our thoughts all right around middle age?  We want more, we want less, we want someone to sweep us off our feet, we want to be independent and not need anyone.  We want ... something, but I don’t know what it is.  

To say I’m a planner is an understatement.  Those around me know that I plan out almost every action in my life to the best of my ability.  Well, it’s worked and not worked.  I plan, I get an action that I am not happy with, I alter course.  Most of us do this, right?  But what happens when the system stops working or rather you are no longer happy with the results that you get?

The call of my midlife crisis is here, now.  I can’t escape it so I try to outsmart it, but it seems to find me wherever I am, whatever I am doing.  I hear it more going through the valleys of my roller coaster life but the call is there even at the peaks.  I just don’t always hear it over the hollers and noise of the ride.  

What is this midlife crisis of mine?  I can make lists of the positive in my life and the positive far outweighs the negative when put on the scales of time and yet it is the negative that I focus on.  It is the negative thoughts that fuel the beckoning of the crisis.  What drives this crisis?

Alone.  I am alone.  This seems to be one of the driving factors behind the surmounting crisis in my life.  The reality is that I’m not alone anymore than I ever have been.  Are we ever really alone?  Are we ever really with someone else?  The answer is no to both questions.  We are no more alone than the day we were born.  We are not really with anyone regardless of the titles you might put on your connection to them.  They are individuals just as you are.  True we have people that come and go in our lives.  Some stay for extended stretches.  Some have brief stents in our lives.  But to say we are alone is not true.  We are social creatures and do better with others around us.  So why do I feel alone when I am surrounded by people everyday?

The answer to that is simple.  I may be surrounded by people but I am closing myself off to fully connecting with others.  To say that I don’t connect with anyone would be false though.  I have a couple close friends that I am truly open with.  I can share my deepest secrets of my soul to them and only have love reflected back.

So why do I feel alone?  This sense of aloneness is after all a driving factor to this midlife crisis knocking at my door.  

I plainly see the answer to my question.  I need more close friends, soul mates if you will.  My soul is not resonating with most around me and it feels lonely. I have had two close friends move away from me in under two years.  The connection with them was strong, brilliant if you will.  In them, I found myself.  I liked that person.  I would very much like to find her again and this time keep her around for others to see.

While those two friends are always a phone call away and will always be in my life, I am now convinced that my soul is missing them. I miss them.  Both came into my life truly without looking for them.  I must add that gender is irrelevant to this story but one is female and the other is male.  

Why can’t I connect intimately and wildly with new people and by intimately I don’t mean sexually.  I am referring to connecting with those as my truest authentic self where I don’t have to hide who I am.  I am just me without pretense, without self manipulation, without explanation.  Me.

As adults, our intimate circles seem to get smaller with time. I think we don’t connect with others as easily as we did when we were children because life or what we perceive as important in life gets in the way.  We make choices and choose to focus on our careers, our portfolios, our children, our bank accounts, our cars, our homes, but not the connections that our souls need to thrive.  I could have all the money in the world right now and I would feel the exact same way.  The call of my midlife crisis is getting louder.  I hear it bellowing to me.  I sometimes wonder how others don’t hear it.

This sense of aloneness is like a hole in my life.  Sometimes it is gaping and the loss of something, and I don’t know what that something is, overwhelms me with a sense of impending loss or doom.  Loneliness.

I have found that I can dodge the sense of impending doom by planning.  There’s that word again.  I am a planner.  One would think that I should know by now that I can plan and plan and plan and I will still feel this way.  True that I can sometimes plan out every minute of my day, filling it with this party or that party, this family event or that one,  but until I STOP planning and just be in the moment, that midlife crisis will continue to chase me and I am definitely getting slower with age.  It will catch me if I continue to run the same race, competing in my life as I have always done. 

I must face it head on.  I know this.  I must show up for my life right now.  I need to stop planning, connect with those around me.  I must be here now.  There is no tomorrow.  It’s not here yet so there is no sense in worrying over it.  I’m not saying that I should forego all planning for the future because I find that to be irresponsible but I am saying that it is irresponsible of me to not show up for my life which is right now.

Since November

I had no idea that it's been almost 11 months since I last wrote a blog post!  Shame on me!  So some might wonder (or not - which is likely the truth) what the heck has been going on since then.  I really have so much to tell you but I think it might be best if start a separate blog for that - an anonymous one.

Life has been interesting, but unfortunately it gets a little overly full at times and some sacrifices have to be made, such as this blog, such as my writing.

Still Here

I know I haven't written anything in awhile but life has been busy and oh so exciting.  I was trying to decide if I was suppose to be upset with myself for not writing lately and then it dawned on me that my real life experiences lately are only going to better my writing and my writing material when I finally sit down and start writing again.  ;)
We leave for Hawaii in 2 days so I know I won't be back to my blog for a couple of weeks but I plan to try in the month of December to complete my short story that I'm about half way through.  I can't tell you much about this story - not on this blog anyway, but let's just say it's fun to write and read.
I absolutely plan to get back to either Fairy High or Year One or both in 2011.  It's time for me to pen another novel!
So what about Sage?  Maybe 2011 will be the year that I find a home for that book.  That 400 page story will always have a special place in my heart.  :)

Year One -- The Evolution of a Thought

I love how a dream can linger and that small kernel of a thought can fester and grow into a story.  Just for the fact that this is the second time I've come back to this story and began to organize my thoughts, I'm hopeful that this is the new story I'm going to get super obsessive over.
Here's a newer version of the prologue of my little alien invasion story.

Year One

Prologue

            The year is 2082 and the world is reeling from 30 years of World War III.  Death, poverty, and terrorism are a way of everyday life.  Liberty and the American way do not exist.  The world population is half of what it once was.  Despondency is the human condition and starvation reigns throughout the land.  Human trafficking poorly disguised as indentured servitude is commonplace amongst the rich and well-placed citizens of the newfound World Union.

In what is known as Year One, the visitors identified as the Liberators come to save us from poverty, from despair, from war, from ourselves. 

They claim they had been watching us from afar, monitoring our condition.  They had been weighing their options, debating how to help us and when Earth’s most intelligent inhabitants, humans, were finally at the brink of destroying their world, they could not just watch anymore.  So they claim.

Some feel the visitors have been here all along.  Some feel that our perfectly timed saviors are the cause of our current state.  

Year One - A Glimpse

I had a dream that started last night early on and I remember telling myself "remember that".  Some time this morning, I saw the same bit of the dream.  When I woke I didn't remember it right away but when I was driving to work I sat there thinking "there's something I'm supposed to remember" and then I did.
This is a rough version of what I saw in my dream (names inserted as I wrote it out).

Year One

Prologue

            The year is 2082 and the world is reeling from 30 years of World War III.  Death, poverty, and terrorism are a way of everyday life.  Liberty and the American way don’t exist.  The world population is half of what it once was.  Despondency is the human condition.

In what is known as Year One, the visitors known as the Liberators come to save us from poverty, from despair, from ourselves.

Chapter 1

            “No, let him go!” I scream at the Liberators that clutch at my friend.  “Mack, fight!” I encourage as I continue to thrash and claw my way through the crowd at Liberty station.  I see Mack Steelsworth being pulled through the crowd backwards.  His heels are dug in as he flails and swings his arms reaching for me.  I reach out to him but can’t get to him despite my efforts.  My legs won’t move faster.  I suck the air in through my parted cracked lips but to no relief for my lungs.  I feel the world spin as the fire sets in my lungs from desaturation.  The oxygen hunger spreads through my limbs and finally to my brain.  As I suffocate, the world goes soft and then black.

What's The Next Twilight In Theaters?

I'll be the first to admit that I was a crazed Twilight fan.  I stood in line at midnight at Barnes and Noble waiting for Breaking Dawn to come out, and I wasn't the oldest person there either.  I was just as eager as the 13 year old girls that were waiting in line with their fathers or mothers.  My heart raced when I was finally the next person in line to buy my book.  I promptly sped home at 12:05 AM and immediately went into my office and climbed into the recliner and settled down to read until 3 AM.  I did take a short nap and got back up at 6 AM and kept on reading straight through the weekend.  By Monday morning when it was time for me to return back to work where I'm a pharmacist, I was tired but absolutely in love with Bella and Edward as a stronger more likable couple.  I still believe that Breaking Dawn was the best of the four books.

Fast forward a couple years and I'm still a Twilight fan but I'm also a Sage, Anita Blake, Meredith Gentry, The Hunger Games, and The Mortal Instruments fan.  I've come to have a relationship with other characters that have managed to weave themselves into my busy life.  Of course Sage is a part of me by now.  I am Sage, Sage is me.  I have to think most writers identify with their characters one way or another --- but maybe that is only new writers like myself.

Anyway I'm getting off the topic.  Sorry.  Back to what you think will be the next craze for book to movie adaptation.  I'm not sure that the Twilight phenomena will be duplicated but I will be one of the first people in line to see The Hunger Games movie!  If The Mortal Instruments gets made into movies - I'll be there too.

Soon there will be no more new Harry Potter and Twilight movies.  Other movie studios have tried to make that leap from the page to the silver screen but the movies didn't take as well as HP and Twilight.  I loved all of the Percy Jackson books, but the movie was so-so.  I actually liked The Vampire's Assistant movie but the books only slightly appealed to me.  Those books appealed more to my 8 year old than me.  

So I ask --- what book to movie adaptation do you think could possibly top Twilight's success?

What Would Your Pen Name Be?

I've been thinking some about pen names.  Lots of famous writers used pen names during their careers.  Some did it because they were female and times were different back then, so they used a male pen name.  Others use pen names because they don't want to associate their other writings with whatever it is their penning under a fake name.  Whatever the reason, pen names can have a lot of meaning and sometimes a lot of thought has went into choosing them.  If you had a pen name, what would it be?

Cassandra Clare's "The Mortal Instruments" Series

Well I've went and done it again.  I'm searching for another series of books to read or devour, depending on how you look at it.  I just finished Cassandra Clare's YA series "The Mortal Instruments"which consisted of three books.  In fact, I've read a total of seven books in a little over three weeks.  I really love books that transport me to a whole other world, dump me there, let me fight along side our protagonists to overcome oppression and in general themselves, to later rise up and be better for it.   Hmmm, I guess that means I appreciate books that have happy endings even if bittersweet.

Clary, Jace, Isabelle, Alec, Simon, Luke, and Magnus are some of my favorite characters that I've read in quite awhile.  I think it can be difficult to have a lot of characters and hold true to each of their own unique personalities.  I would love to see Cassandra dive more into Simon's and Alec's personalities and their  conflicts that define them in the next book that is coming out next year, but either way, I can't wait to read what Clary and Jace will be up to next Spring.

Have you read these books?  What did you think?  Do you have a suggestion for what series I should read next?

Query Number Two for Sage: Dance of the Marked

It's been six weeks since I submitted to my very first literary agent.  I think it's safe to assume it was a rejection.  I'm okay with that.  I'm super excited to submit another query letter to another literary agent.  I've been doing my research and I have found another agent that seems like she would be a good fit for me.   This submission will be via email and is only of the first two chapters.  I haven't rewritten those first few chapters of the book.  I still have a great idea on how to change the beginning of the book but I want to hold off on doing that for now.  I think the first couple chapters do show Sage's maturing character and in the end make her a stronger protagonist.  Those first few chapters also let the reader get to know her before she's thrown back into a world that is paranormal and faster paced.

Over the last six weeks, I've managed to edit more and bring my word count down to 124,775 words from the original word count that was just shy of 128,000.  I'm fully confident that I can edit out another 1000 to 2000 without changing the beginning of the book.

I'm not fully convinced though that I have to bring my word count down to 100,000 to get published.  I'm currently reading a YA novel that is easily 128K words.  For now, I'm not going to focus on a certain word count but just making the book better.

Wish me luck with my second query letter!

Are Aliens the New Vampires?

I was just reading an online article that proposed that aliens might be the new vampire, the new "it" in movies.  Of course since writing is my passion, I ask what you all think is the new "it" in young adult / adult books?  What do you think will be the next hot topic?

By the time we see a book hit the shelves, around two years have went by since the author finished penning it.  Writers can't predict which way the publishing houses are going when they write their novels so even if they have an unpublished book, they probably should move on to their next project while still sending out query letters for the finished book.  (sounds like I'm giving myself advice.)

We all know vampires are hot and have been the the hot topic for at least 5 years now with the release of all the Twilight books and The Sookie Stackhouse novels and then the Twilight movies and True Blood TV series (I'm sure there are lots more if I think about it), but it would seem that the publishing of vampire books has slowed down.  I wonder if that is because publishing companies are ready for something new or that audiences are?

So what would I love to see more of in the YA section?  Well I'm probably biased but I do love the paranormal romance but I think I would really like to read another dystopian novel/series.  How about a hybrid - dystopian paranormal romance?  LOL!  That would be the icing on the cake for me!  Yum.
But honestly, I think I could see alien and fairy books on the rise over the next few years.  Well at least I would like to read them.

What would you like to read more of?  What do you think will be the new "it" in fiction books?

20 Years!

Wishing my husband a very happy 20th year wedding anniversary!

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Wow!  I finished the trilogy Sunday morning around 3 am.  Yes, 3 am!  I absolutely loved the books even though at times they were disturbing.  Not really disturbing in an appalling way but more a disturbing that gets you to think about our reality.  Honestly I could see something like this actually happening.  As a country, we seem to love our reality shows, so is it really that much of a stretch to think that we would watch children fighting to death in a large arena?  The Romans watched gladiators fight to the death in arenas... I'm just saying.
At times while reading the books, I had to stop and ask myself what makes these books YA?  You got me. Nothing about the subject matter screams YA at me.
In a way that's one of the things that I love about the YA category...adults read those books too.  There are so many adult sci fi / fantasy books that it's almost easy for a book to get lost on the shelf and collect dust but it seems that YA books are the new "it" and adults are looking in that section at the bookstore too.  You know who we have to thank for that right?  You got it.  Thank you, Stephenie Meyer, for getting us adults to peruse the YA section at the bookstore.  I personally need to thank her for inspiring me to sit down and write.  She's the same age as me and has one more kid than me.  It was after reading two or three of her books that I decided that I have stories in me that I wanted to try and write.  So here I am 2 years later, with one book looking for an agent, and several more stories just trying to claw their way out of me.
One of my biggest wishes is that I had more time to read and write but you know how it is these days.  Bills don't pay themselves and kids don't get themselves to school.

Excerpt from Chapter 32 from Sage: Dance of the Marked

I've had a busy week this week with both girls starting school and trying to get back into the swing of things.  I didn't edit any on Sage over the last four days.  I know I probably should have or started writing more on Fairy High but I chose to spend what little free time I had reading Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games.  I loved it so much that I went out and bought the other two books in the trilogy.  I'm happily into book 2 now.   Reading her book inspires me to start working on End of Men again, my dystopian novel.  I'll see if I get any free time next week.  I'll be on call for 31 hours this weekend at work so basically I'll actually be going into work off and on over the whole weekend.  

Here's an excerpt from Sage.  Enjoy.

Chapter Thirty-two

Once in Motion

            “No Brian, without any intervention, I’m certain she won’t change tonight,” my dad told Brian.  I can’t believe my husband is having this conversation with my father.

            “But, look at her, she’s already starting to change.  She can barely control her hands.”  Brian was trying to be calm for me, but I could tell he was having his doubts about turning me tonight.

            “Open, Sage.  Let me see your teeth.”  His thumbs were pushing my lips over my sharp teeth before I could answer.

            “Dad, please, you don’t have to examine me.”  I swatted his hands away.  “How long would I have on my own without any intervention?”  My husband was pacing our small bedroom.  His anxiety was making me more nervous than I wanted to be.  He was emanating power throughout the room.  It was almost suffocating thick.

            “I’m not sure, but when Tristan got to this point, he had a few more days until he could make the full transformation.  Jason took another two weeks.”  He sighed and then continued, “If not me, then do you want me to get Tristan in here to look at you?”

            “Absolutely not.”  I shook my head and pulled my legs up against my chest wrapping my arms around them.  I didn’t want anyone examining me.

            “How long?” I looked over and asked Brian.  He knew I was asking him how long it took for him to change.

            “I didn’t fluctuate between forms, Sage.  Once I started to change, I did so within a half a day.  Maybe we should give you a few more hours to see if that’s what you’re going to do.”  His eyes were pleading with me.

            I shook my head.  “What’s the hang up, Brian?  You were going to bite me tonight anyway.”

            My dad gave Brian a surprised look.  “You were already planning on biting my daughter tonight, before any of this happened?  Why?  And more importantly didn’t you think you should have discussed that with me?”

            He raised his hand telling my dad to wait.  “First, Sage, yes I was going to ask you if you wanted to change on the full moon tonight.  I didn’t want you to have to be dealing with your first transformation right after the start of school.”  He gave me a comical look.  “You were going to say yes anyway.” 

I stifled a laugh.  He was right.  If he had put it off much longer I was planning on some way of getting him to sink his teeth into me, even if it was under coercion on my part.  I didn’t have a clear plan yet, but I honestly didn’t think I would have to resort to drastic measures.

Brian continued looking at my dad, “And second, David, I didn’t know that what my wife and I do in private has to be discussed with you.”

“Fine,” he gruffly said.  “What about Eric?  Don’t you think you should discuss this with Charlotte and me?  My son just turned 14 two days ago for God’s sake.  You can’t just force this upon him.  He’s too young.”

Brian was quiet for a minute.  I could hear some of his thoughts.  They were sharp and painfully clear.  Brian was starting to get annoyed with my father.  “David, I’m sorry that you feel like you’re losing your children.  You’re not.  Under different circumstances, if Eric came to me and asked me to bite him and rush his transformation, I would discuss this with you, Charlotte, and his partner Samantha thoroughly before consenting.”  My father raised his eyebrow at the mention of Samantha.  I think he already had the idea that they had bonded but this confirmed it.  Brian continued, “But we are about to be attacked, and this is my pack, my clan.  My decision!  Zoran says we need as many werewolves that we can muster and I believe him.  I will do everything in my power to protect this clan, to protect my wife.  Eric is one of mine and him consenting is enough for me.”

Prologue of "Sage: Dance of the Marked"

Please feel free to critique.  I would love constructive feedback.  Thanks!

Sage

Dance of the Marked

Prologue

            Dreams are captivating.  They seamlessly blend the realities of our conscious and subconscious minds, and often distort our ability to discern what is real from what is imagined.  In truth, our minds actually never sleep.  Perhaps what we see in our mind’s eye is closer to the truth than what we see with our physical sight alone. 

            My parents, like many of the elders from my clan, believed that a chosen name confers certain gifts upon its owner.  I don’t know if it’s true, but my parents, keeping with the old ways, gave me the name Sage in hopes that I would be wise and full of insight.  Sure, insight.  Right.  I wish I had insight into my recurring dream of late.  It leaves me feeling neither wise nor insightful but rather confused, for what I once thought wasn’t possible, might be.  I think I might know what it means, but I sure hope that I’m wrong.  I often replay this dream when I’m awake in hopes of finding that loophole that will prove that in fact dreams can’t come true, that they are only dreams.  I don’t think I want it to be true, or do I? 

            The dream is always the same.  Two silver wolves stand in a clearing amongst the tall pines.  A light fog is visible hovering over the dry earth.  It must be early morning, right before the sun rises over the mountains.  Then, I am running, running in the woods at the edge of my hometown.  I hear pine needles snapping all around me.  I can’t remember if I am running away from or toward something, but I know that I am not alone. 

It’s been almost a year since I left home and left my old life behind me.  Life had been preciously normal, even mundane here at college.  I routinely went for stretches of days or weeks in which I felt like any other 19-year-old college student; well that was until about 3 months ago when certain physical traits started to appear, along with bizarre dreams not fully tangible but memorable enough to leave me with a sense of foreboding.  I could feel the truth of the dreams press down on me as that thin veil between my subconscious and conscious minds slowly lifted.

I always had a secret to keep, a secret that really wasn’t mine alone.  I come from Julian, California, a far-flung mountain town outside the postcard perfect city of San Diego.  It’s the kind of place where everyone knows each other, but many that live there have a secret too, the same secret.  Everyone that harbors this secret seems to get pulled back to this small town as if by some mysterious black hole’s gravitational pull.  It may sound a bit melodramatic, but now I too am beginning to feel that pull, and I’m not sure that I’m going to escape it.  The real question is, do I want to?

"Blink" is already taken

Drat!  I went to the bookstore today and discovered that the title "Blink" is already taken.  So I guess my fairy book will remain "Fairy High" until a proper name occurs to me.  I'm going to laugh one day about this if "Fairy High" is the name that sticks.  I can't wait until next week when school is back in session for the kids and I can get back to a normal routine of working 3 days a week and writing all day on Thursdays and Fridays and some on the weekends.  I'm not going to attempt to edit on "Sage: Dance of the Marked" until next week at this point.  Probably just as well.  I managed to trim 2000 words out of the almost 127,000 word novel and I need a fresh set of eyes to trim even more.  It's such a shame that it's over the max words for a YA book because besides needing some editing, the story is complete and I really think it will find an audience if published.  Of course it's my baby and I might be biased.  Hahahaha!

Book Titles

Today wasn't the most eventful day in my drive to write.  I edited more on "Sage" and managed to get my word count down to 124,990 which is good.  I know how I'm going to rewrite the first three chapters to be more in line with the rest of the book.  This will cut my word count by another 4-5K and will make the beginning more exciting.  I don't want to overhaul the beginning though until I've let about 6 weeks go by since I gave the agent my query and what not.  The agent works for an agency that will not respond if they are not interested, so I need to not mess with the sample pages that I gave her until I'm sure my writing was rejected.

I've started to outline my next project which I was referring to as "Fairy High" until today.  Yes, it's a YA book about a 13- year- old girl that discovers she's actually a fairy.  I've been rethinking the name of the book.  I like the title "Blink".

The book's opening line is Zaza's mom talking to her when she's only two and telling her to not blink or she'll miss it.  What "it" is, I haven't decided yet.  I have an idea how the book starts and what the conflict in the book is.  I just haven't visualized how the book ends.  I have the closing line to the book already.  :) This is how I visualized "Sage" when I was writing it.  I would get visions or dreams of what goes on in the story and then I would write them down in my rough outline and eventually I had connected all the dots.  So my outline to "Blink" is growing and I've been taking notes on paper.

Other than that, I gave my 3-year-old a spa day.  lol!  I cut her bangs, trimmed all her nails, and painted her toenails.  She thought it was great!

Excerpt from Chapter 25

(Sage just finished having a heart to heart with her mom.)

I left shortly after that.  She tried to tell me everything was all right, but I felt very uneasy.  From the moment that mark developed on the back of my neck about eight months ago, everything it represented was having a snowball effect on my life.  It just kept growing and growing, but eventually I knew that that snowball would make it to the bottom of the hill and break open.  I just wasn’t sure what was inside that snowball.  Clearly a werewolf, but was there something more?

I reflected on what she told me on my drive into town.  I knew there was power in me.  I also knew my power felt stronger when I was near my partner.  Sometimes I couldn’t feel where my power ended and his began, but most of the time we were just one. The other term used instead of “partnered” is “bonded”.  That might actually be a fairer interpretation of the cohesiveness felt between partners.  Brian’s and my power were welded together, after all.  Sometimes the power was welded side by side; one could expand and overlap the other's, while other times it was a shared power.  One power.  It wasn’t a far stretch to think that our offspring would need some of that power to survive.  The werewolves gave off the most power, so it would seem that the more werewolves a clan has, the better the clan does reproductively. 

Excerpt from Chapter 30

Another small excerpt.  Just a reminder for those that don't know the story, Brian's pack can hear Sage's thoughts.

Chapter Thirty

Finally, Finally

            Ramona was only about a half hour from Julian, straight down through the mountains, but still higher elevation than the rest of San Diego County.  The town had grown since I was a little girl.  The days of one traffic light were in the distant past as the town pushed outward along its borders.  Many of our nonmarked clan members had moved away from Julian over the last two hundred years, but many didn’t go far.  Ramona was full of individuals that descended from shapeshifters.  The funny thing was that most of the citizens there didn’t know that, but occasionally a teenager would pop up on the radar who had enough genetic material to develop the mark, not often, but occasionally, and then the elders would have to step in and inform the parents that their child can run a little faster, bench press a little more, and overall is different because they themselves must have some genetic material of a werewolf. 

These rare finds of individuals that develop the mark, yet their parents are markless, are few and far in between.  The last time I heard of this happening was Keith’s father, Richard Stubbe.  But come on; with the last name Stubbe, that doesn’t surprise me.  After all, Peter Stubbe was a crazy German werewolf that went around killing villagers hundreds of years ago.  All well documented.  So of course there’s lycanthrope genes in that bloodline.  Funny how people don’t know their own history.  Keith’s father moved to Julian when he was 18 years old so he could reintegrate back into the clan.  And that he did.  He found himself a nice marked female and had himself a werewolf for a son.

Brian cleared his throat but it was Jason who spoke, “No don’t interrupt her; her mind ramblings can be very interesting.  I almost felt like Trish’s grandpa was giving me another history lesson.  It’s like turning to the History Channel and finding a soap opera on instead.”  I looked back to see the biggest smile on Jason’s face.

“Shut up, Jason.”  I blushed.  

Excerpt from Chapter 11

This is just a small excerpt from perhaps one of my favorite chapters in the book.  I wanted to turn the entire chapter over as part of my sample of writing to the literary agent but it doesn't fall in the first 50 pages.

Chapter Eleven

The World

The sky had a whitish blue hue to it as if the world’s image was being reflected in a looking glass.  Peace filled me as I looked away from the Earth up into the heavens.  My thoughts drifted far from here, but heaven couldn’t hold me. This world, my world, felt chaotic and confusing as it pulled me back down.  I was bound to this place in time and so my thoughts returned to it.

I decided to revisit the scene of the crime – the location of last night’s council meeting.  From atop of the 30 foot boulder that formed the backdrop to the stage, I could see the clearing where my people gathered to watch me make a fool of myself last night and alienate some potential friends, friends of my family, friends of Brian’s.

The day, though beautiful and sunny, had been greatly overshadowed by my angst about my inhuman behavior last night.   I was supposed to demonstrate my abilities, that was all, nothing more, but somehow I got carried away.  My instincts took control of me and I tried to hurt people, good people.  A fleeting smile crept over my face.  Well actually they were wolves – but still my people.

From on top of my perch, I could still hear the soft crunching noises of an animal below.  “Shoo, go away,” I said as I looked over the edge of the massive boulder.  My eagle eye platform was about 30 feet up and 20 feet in diameter.  My day had been getting weirder and weirder.

Still hanging my head over the edge I said out loud, “Don’t you have a rabbit to go catch or something?  Perhaps you can make someone else’s girlfriend feel bad, because you know that I feel horrible about last night.  I don’t need you circling my rock every five minutes to see if I’m still up here.  I’m not part eagle, I can’t fly away you know.  Besides, I’m not coming down until you leave.  Shoo!”

I sat there running my tongue over my newly sharpened teeth, trying to ignore the wolf that had been trailing me part of the morning.  My wolf was at work, this one, Jason, was assigned to keep me out of trouble – so Brian told me earlier going against all my protests.  He said if I wasn’t willing to go home until I felt better, than I was going to be assigned a chaperone.  I tried, but there was no arguing with the alpha male in him.

A golden tail hawk floated by overhead, I’m sure it was wondering what I was doing laying on a rock.  Probably looking to see if I were dead, thinking perhaps the wolf below fatally injured me.  I pondered if the hawk knew there weren’t supposed to be wolves in this part of the country anymore, or perhaps the hawk knew the truth that that wasn’t a real wolf, but a different species all together.  Maybe the hawk accepted the fact that there were werewolves just as there are gophers or field mice.  If so, then I too would have to come to terms with my new reality of the world.

My Other Projects

Besides "Sage: Dance of the Marked" my completed but unpublished YA book, I have other projects that I have started and then set aside.  I started a story that I affectionately named "The End of Men".  This idea came to me one day after looking around and noticing that there are more and more females being born.  Of course one might think that it is just my perception since I am a mother of two girls.  My 8 year old daughter's classes have been almost 2/3rds female since kindergarten.  My 3 year old daughter's daycare classes are over 50% female.  Heck, even my brother only has a daughter.  My dad ended up with three granddaughters and no grandsons. :)  I decided to google this local phenomena that I was witnessing and found that the sex ratio might really be shifting to more girls being born.  I'll be interested to see what the new census reports when it comes out.  Anyway, back to "The End of Men", I've never written down my thoughts for where the story is going, I just started writing it from page one.  Oh I definitely have thoughts about where the story is going but haven't bothered to outline the rest of the story.  This is very unlike how I wrote "Sage".  I wrote rough outlines or summaries of almost all the chapters for that book.
I have another project that I'm ready to start on NOW but I'm still editing on "Sage".  I might put "Sage" away for awhile just so I can get started on my new story.  My new story doesn't have a proper title yet so I refer to it as "Fairy High".  It definitely will be YA.  I've taken notes, researched and outlined where the story is going.  I just need to start writing.  It helps having the rough outline to guide me.
I have another project that I had started on and that one I can't tell you about.  LOL!  It's not YA and likely will never see the light of day. ;)
Those are the only projects in which I've actually created files and started to put something on the computer.  I do have other stories in me that are trying to crawl their way to the surface.  "The Tree Folk of Juniper Creek" and "The Rise of the Witches and the Warlords" are just two of them that might actually make their way out of me.