It’s official.

I  stared out the window while Jeff, the back-guy, discretely checked the condition of my ass. A little moment of stunned silence.  Then my chiropractor let out a low, slow whistle through his teeth.  “That is a really deep bruise,” he said. “What did you do?”

“I fell.”

And the tale began so simply–with a spot on the tile, a bottle of Lysol and Missy’s water bowl.

You know that movie Signs? And the little girl had this weird need to drink a lot of water? But she was very picky about the water? As a result there were a helluva lot of half filled glasses around the house? Well, our cat Missy is kind of like that. A small saucer doesn’t do it for her. There might be drought. She wants a big, honkin’ bowl, and she prefers that it be topped up frequently.

Missy is 16 yrs old. You don’t mess with a geriatric cat with a passion for pre-dawn caterwhauling. Consequently, her bowl is a huge silver mixing bowl which is never less than half-full.

The spot on the floor was about ten inches away from her bowl. Missy hunkered down and watched me clean the spot, her tail twitching in what may or may not have been a threatening manner.

If we have to be picky with the details of what happened next, I have to own that I may or may not have said something nasty in reply to my feline friend. That’s really immaterial, and if Karma thinks I deserved what I got because I may have dissed my cat, well then Karma can kiss my…

Anyhow, spot taken care of, I put on the coffee. And then because it was freakin’ dawn, and I hadn’t had my caffeine, I forgot all about the greasy residue that Lysol leaves on ceramic tile.

The moment my bare foot slid on the Lysol smear, I thought, “This is so going to hurt.”

I hate it when I’m right.

Both legs shot up in the air, and I came down hard on my ass. Thud. A moment later, the back of my head landed into Missy’s water bowl.  Splash.

Husband heard the ba-bump and came pelting down the stairs to discover me laying in a pool of water. “Bear,” he said very cleverly. “You’re all wet.”

The bottom line is this: Jeff the back guy is sending me for X-rays to determined whether or not I actually cracked my tail bone because my right butt cheek looks like Stallone’s face at the end of Rocky II.

So it’s official. I can say without any exaggeration that I have found working on the edits for Hedi’s next adventure one enormous PAIN IN THE ASS.

The Trouble With Fate: a Mystwalker Novel

So, now that I’ve teased you guys with the Tale of Two Covers,  perhaps you’d like to know what the book is all about?

Want a peek at the back blurbie stuff? 

I HAVE TWO WORDS FOR WEREWOLVES:

My name is Hedi Peacock and I have a secret. I’m not human, and I have the pointy Fae ears and Were inner-bitch to prove it. As fairy tales go, my childhood was damn near perfect, all fur and magic until a werewolf killed my father and the Fae executed my mother. I’ve never forgiven either side.  Especially Robson Trowbridge. He was a part-time werewolf, a full-time bastard, and the first and only boy I ever loved. That is, until he became the prime suspect in my father’s death…

BITE ME.

Today I’m a half-breed barista working at a fancy coffee house, living with my loopy Aunt Lou and a temperamental amulet named Merry, and wondering where in the world I’m going in life. A pretty normal existence, considering. But when a pack of Weres decides to kidnap my aunt and force me to steal another amulet, the only one who can help me is the last person I ever thought I’d turn to: Robson Trowbridge. And he’s as annoyingly beautiful as I remember. That’s the trouble with fate: Sometimes it barks. Other times it bites. And the rest of the time it just breaks your heart. Again…

First in the incredible new Mystwalker series!

Cover, cover!

The Trouble With Fate

Well, here’s the good thing that happened to me a couple of weeks ago that I wasn’t able to talk about:  St. Martin’s Press has added another cover to THE TROUBLE WITH FATE.

Here’s the outside cover.

This is Merry. She is not just a piece of pretty hanging from a chain. If you had a magnifying glass, and she was amiable, you might be able to see her shadow in the middle of the stone.
But that’s not going to happen.
First off, she’s not her usual amber self. She’s very definitely flooded with red light and in my experience that means she’s annoyed.
You see, Merry is an Asrai with an attitude.

Now, what’s this nonsense about TWO covers?

Ah, it’s called a stepback. Stop and think for second. Have you ever passed a book where the outside cover is slightly narrower than average? And then you notice another cover slyly peeping beneath it?

Who can resist? You see a glint of something shiny and curiosity gets the best of you.

Come on, the cover whispers. Open me.

Well, if you did flick open the front cover of The Trouble with Fate, this is what you’d see.

I’d say something clever like “Meet Hedi Peacock,” but the copy writer at St. Martin’s Press beat me to it.
So, I’ll say this~
Aren’t homecomings grand?

So there you go.

That’s the Tale of Two Covers…oh, wait. I didn’t tell you the story of how that came about, did I? Well, that will have to wait for another day. Because right now, I’m working on the edits for Hedi Peacock’s next adventure…

The Shower

It used to be I couldn’t take a shower without someone banging on the bathroom door. Even getting out of our shower was complicated–I had to knock on the acrylic glass door to give the snoozing short fat black dog a heads-up before pushing it open.

My kids are grown. My dog can’t climb the stairs anymore. I can have lots of long, hot showers now.

And you know what? Most writers really love their showers. That’s where the plots become untangled. That’s where the dialogue gets stirred.  In between rinses, we think.

I needed to do that today. I didn’t look at myself as I got undressed. Didn’t allow my thoughts to move to the edits or to my personal problems as I turned the taps. The acrylic door made a click as I sealed it.

I stood under the deluge.

I’d thought I’d handed in a book that was strong.

I was wrong.

What I handed in was something akin to a jar of lightening bugs–individual flickers of flame. A jar of bugs is interesting but a solid beam of light that brings the reader from one point to another is far more so. That’s what I should have submitted March 30th. I should have crafted something so clear, so inherently compelling that the reader couldn’t turn away.  And I hadn’t.

I can see that now.  What you don’t know is that it took at least 20, maybe 25 reads of the editorial letter before I could actually begin to absorb the seeds of those comments. For four fucking days, rage, and hurt, and resistance kept getting in the way. During that time, I ripped out 10K of words from the front half of the book. Doing so abraded my skin. Softened up my shields.

Around late Monday, early Tuesday I finally saw with my own eyes my novel’s essential flaw. Once I could identify that–all the parameters of it–I was ready to absorb the rest of my editor’s comments. I went through the letter again. Mostly nodding.

Today, I sat down to read the last 200 pages of the book.

I made it through 100 before I stood up.

I’d thought I’d moved through grief. But when I looked with the eye of an assassin at that thorny issue of the ’great divide’, I felt my heart squeeze. I turned the pages, one after the other,  and on each page of hard-won prose I carefully pressed a post-it. A verb printed in red ink on each one. Cut. Chop. Move. Eliminate. Expand. Change.

It’s not going to be as easy as suggested. There is no cutting it in two. That’s what I’d hoped for. A sharp knife, a steady hand, and then presto! 12,000 words on this side of the book, and 12,00 words on that.

This will not split. Not evenly at least.

Tearing would be required.  Rending too.  And I’d have to come up with new words. For action, for despair, for urgency and for bravado.

To do what needs to be done…oh, hell. To do that.

Then all the things that are part of my life–there’s life beyond writing, and sometimes its issues are far more compelling than any bubble world the writer creates–welled up. There are stakes there too. More important than any damn book.

So I took a shower. And once the water grew cold, I turned off the taps. And then I just leaned against the wall and cried.

Oh hell.

This was my life, post-cricket, on Thursday.

This is 1:42 p.m.

It took 2 minutes to saw through the bubble wrap on the package to reveal the annotated copy of Hedi Book 2 and THE NOTES.

This is my life after getting past the first two paragraphs on THE NOTES.

Somehow I made it to the couch but when I looked up some two hours later half a bottle of beaujolais was gone, and this is what I saw.

This is how my hangover felt Friday morning.

These is what I wanted to do between 4:00 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. on Friday.

This is  what I did instead.

I talked to my friends (Uhm, I had to. I sounded liked a blithering raging monster the night before).

This is what I eventually did.

Life felt marginally better after that phone call to my editor.

I began the important part. I went shopping for essentials.

And I assembled a few essential tools.

I’ll see you when I come out the other side. Until then, please ignore the whimpers from Canada.

Leigh

The cricket in the gold car.

Okay, I’ve been all Drama-Mama. Even I’M tired of it.  After the cumulation of this week’s woe, I was ready to spring back like a downtrodden dandelion.

Given, that is, the right circumstances.

First the exposition: we live in a type of neighbourhood where people don’t personally fix their own car. Surely I’m exaggerating. No. I am not. I’ve lived here for over two decades. I’ve seen men wash their cars with great ritual. I’ve even once witnesssed a guy changing his back tire. But I’ve never seen anyone other than my husband fix their vehicle on their driveway.

My dH–he of the clean white nails and fancy tie–can change both back brakes in a little over an hour. I know this because once he starts I usually have enough time to have a shower, blow dry my hair, tidy the bathroom and consider my eyebrows before I have to sit behind the wheel and put pressure on the brake pedal. “Put your foot on the brake.  Have you got your foot on the brake?”

I’m lucky, aren’t I? I’m the girl whose husband has a car sensor. We never pay exorbinant mechanic bills. It’s a win-win, right? Well, there’s just one tiny flaw. If a guys really, really handy with anything mechanical, he gets kind of…mulish…about losing to a car part he can order online at a 70% discount.

Bottom line: Our cars can’t die.  My husband forbids it.

It becomes a battle of wills between Mr. Fix-it and the Car Gremlin which eventually erodes to a comedy of epic proportions as the car ages. The more the car gremlin spits in his eye,  tighter clenched jawed he gets. Out comes the tools, the jacks, the red scootie-bed-thing.

I wish he’d give it up because it’s becoming clear that we really, really need a new vehicle. This is not a vanity issue. Our cars are aged 12 and 11. I pointed out that the summer is coming and the heater on the driver side of the gold car only blows out hot air.  “No problem,” he said before disembowling the dashboard.

Then came the cricket.

It’s not really a cricket rasping its back legs but it sure sounds like one. Whenever you hit a bump or brake the gold car chirrups. Loudly, gayly, impudently.  It’s the most annoying thing you’ve ever heard. Recently, my son drove the gold car through downtown Toronto traffic. He turned to me and asked in quiet horror, “Do you think they can hear it on the street?”

Me to husband that night. “I’m not driving the gold car anymore.”

Husband: “Why not?”

Me: “It chirrups.”

Husband: “No problem–”

Me: “Then you drive it.”

He spent the weekend fixing it. Making it all nice and shiny, and to his ears–cricket free.

“I fixed it,” he said, wiping his hands. “It’s good now.”

“May you live happily ever after.”

“It’s gone.”

“Great.  I’m still not driving it anymore.”

Tonight he came home, got changed into a t-shirt and a pair of jammie bottoms, and then disappeared into the garage. Half an hour later, he asked me to help him.

He was outside on the driveway, crouched by the gold car. Wearing the flannel pants he refuses to answer the door in.  “I need to find the squeak. Get in the car and drive it five feet forward. Brake. Then reverse it ten feet.”  He waved me into the driver seat then knelt, ears cocked. “Go ahead.”

I’ve lived with him for 28 years. I got in the car and drove. Back and forth. Forth and back. Car chirruping.

“Stop!” He lifted his hand. “When you brake you have to make sure that the back wheel is right in front of me.”  Just in case I needed a pictogram he did one of those you’re-the-plane, I’m-the-guy-with-the-orange-vest” hand motions.

I stared at the top of his head. “You know, I could run over you. It could be one of those death by accident deals.”

“You won’t run over me.”

“I’d like to.”

“Back and forth. Make sure you stop exactly–”

“Yeah, yeah.”

So that’s what we did for twenty minutes–once again, firmly cementing our street reputation as the odd couple. Him on his knees in his flannel jammies, head cocked like rover. Me at the wheel going up and down the driveway. Braking hard enough to make the car squeak.

Tonight, the squeak won.

But I warn you, Cricket. He’s coming for you.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I wasn’t in the mood to hand feed the dog his mush again. For God’s sake, mutt. You’re not actively dying. If I’d put a plate of french fries down, you’d gobble it up. You’re playing me.

I’d had a handful of very bad days. Writing had been slugglish and unproductive. My cumulative word count was pitiful and the anxiety level inside me was getting almost intolerable. I’m going to run out of time if I can’t produce more pages a day.

There’d been no word on book 2 in the Mystwalker series. Oh God, what if my editor hates it? Will I have time to fix it? How big will the changes be? Will the revision be huge? Oh God, I can’t go back to that revision hell. I can’t.

And worse (and here’s where you’ll really want to bitchslap me), I’d been the recipient of great news about The Trouble With Fate. Things that should have made me feel wonderful. Instead all I could feel was fear. I’m a fraud. I’m a lousy writer. I don’t know if I can write another good book.

There were a helluva lot of voices going on inside me. Most of them negative.  The universe is fucking with me. I can’t write, and I need to write, and I’m afraid, and things are going to change, and I’m not ready for it.

I put the food down for the dog. “Eat it,” I growled. He looked at it doefully then at me.  I yelled to my husband. “The stupid dog won’t eat his food. I’m sick of it. I’m not going to hand feed him for the rest of his life.”

“Well, just leave the plate on the floor and walk away.”

“I can’t. Tthe cat will claim his food.”  It’s a fact. You know how in the first Terminator, Sara Connor was soft and sweet? And then in the next Terminator she was ropey armed and semi-psycho? Well, that’s Missy. As she rolled into her golden age, she developed crazy territory issues and significant delusions of grandeur. For instance, she will NOT move out of your way. Not at all. Not one inch. Make my day, she seems to say. Try and move me.

Missy is unmoveable.  Missy doesn’t change her opinion about her course action for any human. Missy resists changes.

“Put the cat out in the garden,” my husband said. “Then leave the food on the floor. Go for your walk, Bear. You need to blow off steam.”

So I did. I grabbed my iPod and threw open the door.  A package had been propped against. Must have come during my shower. Even without my reading glasses, I could read the label. St. Martin’s Press. I carried it into office. Inside was the galley proofs of my book. I looked at it and knew I should be doing the waggy-bum victory dance. But all I felt great crawling fear. So many changes. I don’t want my world to change.

I left the book right there, and walked out the door. It took me half a block to get my earphones untangled. Without my glasses, I can’t read the the songs. The device had been set on random selection anyhow. I screwed in my earbuds and hit play.

The universe had been listening.

David Bowie started singing. I hadn’t heard that song in–well, a dog’s life.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes. Turn and face the strange ch-ch-changes. Don’t want be a richer man.  Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes. Turn and face the strange ch-ch-changes. Just going to have to be a different man. Time may change me, but I can’t trace time.

Well, for the record, I’ve never really figured out what the last line means. But I didn’t need someone with a sledgehammer to tell me that “someone” was trying to talk to me. The song kept me company during my entire walk. As I eyed the chipmunks, and noted the lilacs, and smiled at the violets growing near someone’s back fence, I thought about changes, and how obstinant I am. I don’t want to face anything different from the life I’ve led for the last 26 years. I’m comfortable.  Aren’t I? Well, mostly. What’s the harm in resisting change? Maybe I can stay how I am and just somehow compartmentalize my life? You know, two personalities. Writer Leigh Evans and Leigh-Ann who wears the same red t-shirt for two days in a row?

I rounded the corner to our street. Missy was sitting dead centre in street. Just staring down a car. Refusing to move. In the middle of the street. “Missy! Move!” I yelled, breaking into a sprint. But she didn’t. She didn’t even turn her head, and I know her hearing’s still good.  Oh my God. She can never be let outside again. The sedan driver threw up her hands and inched her vehicle around my stubborn cat before I could reach her.

“You stupid, stubborn, unmoving…” I shook my head and draped her over my shoulder.

Ch-ch-ch-changes played in my ear.

Inside the house, my dog was waiting by his full feed bowl. I sat down on the tile.  “You go and get your own food,” I told my death-wish cat, unlooping her claws from my red shirt. Tail twitching in irritation, she stalked away. With a sigh, I reached for the plate. Rolled a bit of mush between my fingers to make a ball. Extended it to Gibby.

His soft pink mouth delicately accepted my offering.

He is dying. But slowly. I can’t change that.

My cat has turned into pyscho kitty. She refuses to adapt to the outside world. I can’t change that either. All I can do is make sure she’s never let out in the garden again.

Time to face the strange ch-changes.  Just going have to be a stronger girl.

I roll another mouthful and offer it.  ”Here Gibby. Eat.“