WILO Wednesdays

I'm working feverishly on revisions and polishes for SUPERSTITIONS. In my latest comb-through (as opposed to the dreaded comb-over), I left off with Ellie and Alexander making their first trek into the Superstitions Mountains in search of the Lost Dutchman Mine.

           It was morning, and the sun already baked the desert sand at the Siphon Draw trailhead. I stared out at the Flatiron as the eastern light brought the endless sea of saguaros and creosote bush and the broken-looking cliffs of the Superstition Mountains into view.

            I waited as Alexander dug through his grungy backpack, which looked as though it had seen its fair share of days in the Supes, as well as on dusty floors and linoleum caked with citified grime.

            “Shouldn’t we get going?” I asked, adjusting my own backpack, moving the hose of my Camelbak to a more accessible location.

            Alexander pulled out a large tube of sunscreen, squeezing a glob of it into his palm. He slathered it over his face and neck and extended the bottle toward me like it was a canteen to quench days of dehydration.

            “I’m good.”

            “You can never be too safe with ultraviolet rays,” he said while lifting his eyes skyward.

            “The ultraviolet rays and I are fine,” I reassured him while securing my ponytail.

            He pushed the sunscreen back into his bag.

            “Are we ready?” I asked.

            “Almost.”

            Alexander took out another bottle, pinching a large bead of blue on his finger, then proceeded to smear it down the line of his nose. I studied him as though he were some abstraction by that De Kooning guy.

            “That looks ridiculous,” I said, enunciating every word.

            “What? So you don’t think I look attractive?”

            He caught me off guard. Because, in fact, he was attractive. But what was I supposed to say? I couldn’t let him know I thought he was nice to look at. Instead, I felt heat rise to my cheeks. Alexander noticed and, smiling, averted his eyes. When he looked at me again, he extended the bottle of colored sunscreen.

I shook my head.

“All right, but if you burn, you’re the one who’s going to look ridiculous.”

WILO Wednesdays

(Where I Left Off Wednesdays)

So I am deeply into revisions on SUPERSTITIONS, my YA contemporary novel due out in July. This is where I left off on Chapter 4 where we finally meet the elusive Alexander.

A week into school, a kid with disheveled clothes and mussed up hair wandered into Biology as though he was a vagabond. He arrived in the middle of Mr. Simms’s lecture on cellular growth. A blue backpack with a coming-off patch that read, “Keep on Stepping” hung off his shoulder.

“May I help you?” Mr. Simms stopped in mid-sentence.

The boy looked around the room as if waiting for someone else to answer the question.

“No. You there. Standing at the door. I’m talking to you.”

Giggles erupted. I simply watched this eccentric guy with total curiosity.  

“I think I’m in this class,” he finally answered.

A crumpled schedule was squeezed in his hand. He ironed it out on his shirt then examined it. Mr. Simms waved him forward, taking the tattered paper and reading it. “Well, we’ve been wondering where you were.”

Again, the new guy searched the room. “You have?” He actually sounded simultaneously surprised and puzzled by Mr. Simm’s statement.

“The mystery man—Alexander Coons the second,” said Mr. Simms’s as if introducing someone famous to the class. And in a sense, I guess the new guy was—famous, that is. So it was him: my Biology partner in the flesh.

“Alexander is fine,” he corrected.

More snickers. Alexander studied the crowd, wondering where the joke came from.

“Well, Alexander,” Mr. Simms replied. “You can have a seat right there.” He motioned to the spot next to mine.

Alexander hesitated, scanning the faces in the room one more time. He seemed suspicious of us all, but slipped into the chair beside me.  His backpack remained attached to him, pushing him forward away from the chair back.  He didn’t seem to mind.  As a matter of fact, he focused on a stray thread that attempted to break loose from his already-fraying jacket. 

I looked back at Kyle who paid our new classmate a quick glance then rolled his eyes to me. I ignored Kyle and Mr. Simms, too. Instead, I watched as Alexander Coons II tugged at, and finally freed, the wayward strand from his jacket.

While I was intrigued by his eccentricities, I also felt sorry for him. As I glanced down, I noticed his Converse sneakers were a bit dingy had a few holes; the bottoms of his jeans were coated in age-old dust and frays; his fingernails desperately screamed for a scrub brush and a clipping. The pulled thread was wrapped tightly around his index finger, cutting off circulation. As I ventured beyond the threadbare jacket from where the strand had come, my eyes fastened on his. Dusky brown and filled with quiet suspicion, they met me in a showdown. When I smiled, he immediately backed down and returned to his experiment with circulation. While winning the staring contest seemed like a triumph, I still had a whole year of experiments to conduct with my new partner: Alexander Coons II. It was sure to be eventful.

What are you working on now? Where did you leave off?



Summer Schedule

Beginning this weekend, I will be on a brief hiatus in order to embark on some rock climbing adventures. When I return, my blogging schedule will change to Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Mondays I will continue my weekly posting, Six Things I Did Today.

Wednesdays will be my weekly WILO Wednesdays (Where I Left Off). I’ll post the paragraph where I left off in my latest WIP.

Fridays will be an extension of the A to Z Challenge, aptly entitled FLASHBACK FRIDAYS. During A to Z, I posted about the 80s. While that likely will be my focus, I may throw in some screaming 70s and gnarly 90s once in awhile.

Come back tomorrow for the cover reveal of my upcoming YA Contemporary novel, SUPERSTITIONS, due out this summer.