I am tickled that my fellow writer gal-pals, Randi Cooley Wilson and A Jacob Sweeney, tagged me for the Writing Process Blog Tour. Writers across all different genres, all around the world are answering the same four questions and then inviting a few more writers to participate. You can check out Randi's and A Jacob Sweeney's posts on their blogs and follow the trail back to see all the amazing peeps who have participated so far. In the words of one of my favorite Spartacus warrior's, " Shall we begin?!" 

1. What are you working on right now?
I actually have two irons on the fire right now. I have commissioned a talented young director/editor in the creation of a book trailer for Invisible Wings. I get these little glimpses of rough cuts and I have so excited; he's bringing my characters to life with music and voice...I'll keep you posted on this. The second project is a young adult novel called Uncross the Stars. It's about a high school quarterback with a horrific past and the girl who breaks through his fears to his heart. Regina Wamba of Mae I Design is currently scheduling a photo shoot with two AH-SOME models for the cover. I am in the final editing stages of this one, then on to mythology series.

2. What makes your work different? 
Wow, what a big question! Maybe it's the eclectic grouping of genres I am writing in. I know everyone says stick to one genre...paranormal, fantasy, romance...whatever, but I just CAN'T. I have too many stories screaming in my head to get out and I can;t pegged them all in one category. So, it makes sense to me that the next book will be the mythology series...it's been patiently waiting for my attention. So I'm going to give Paris, Hector, and Achilles and their friends some love :)

3. Why do you write what you write?
I want to communicate with everyone...stories just seem to be the way that happens for me. Some people sing, others dance. I write. Not real glamorous or sparkly, but it's all I got :)

4. How does your writing process work?
Simple. Stories strike me everywhere I go. I write the seeds down in a notebook (actually I have about 5 notebooks). I hand write ideas, plot, character sketches...doodles...then I move to the computer. You know what's funny? I want these stories out of my head, but as soon as one gets out, another one pops up. So, maybe I write what I do to keep my brain clutter to a minimum? Once I'm into the solid writing phase I write to the exclusion of everything else. I write so much my neck hurts, my back hurts, the dishes pile up, my dogs think I'm a ghost...and MUSIC!! Oh my god music! I love to find a sound track for a novel.  Right now I have Pandora playing my Matt Kearney station, and I didn't run this morning because I was finishing this blog :) 

So, I'd like to tag one of my favorite author friends in this little blog tour...because I want to read about her process, etc.

Anna Snow...look out hot mama! 

This story is about a boy and his military dad...love and regret and second chances. Enjoy! And Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there :)

Chapter 5  Cat’s Cradle 
 Nick wore black pants and a black baseball cap to school every day because he was in mourning. He mourned for all the reasons that people mourn. Mostly because it’s too late. Too late for all the things you wished you’d done, but didn’t do. Too late for all the things you wish you’d said, but instead you kept silent. Too late for all the things you wished could’ve been, but weren’t. Sometimes people have too much time on their hands and they waste it. The phrase “too late” gets tossed around for everything that hurts our hearts, as if saying “it’s too late” was a medicinal expression that somehow cleansed the wound.

Too late came for Nick the day his father deployed to Afghanistan.
“Dude, isn’t your dad supposed to leave today?”
“Yeah,” Nick said as he lit his cigarette.
“Aren’t you going with your mom?”
“I’m not gonna see that bastard off to war. He’s always leaving anyway. What’s the point?” Nick took a drag of his cigarette.
“That’s kinda cold, dude.”
“No one asked your opinion. So, shut the f*** up.” Nick stubbed the red cherry end of his smoke into the asphalt. “F*** school today. I’m going to the mall.”

I was sitting on top of the auto shop carport where Nick and his buddy smoked every day before school. His anger tasted like black licorice in my mouth. I could hear Nick’s hurt in the ugly words. When they left, I jumped down to the dumpster, then to the alley road. Nick’s house was only a few blocks away. The time to help Nick was coming soon; I could feel it. I just didn’t know when or what just yet. I kept hearing his father’s voice, too. And that puzzled me.

Nick’s mother waited for Nick to show up at the house so they could drive his father to the base. Unfortunately, Nick never came. His mother took his father to the base by herself. Nick never saw how his mother held her tears back, so her husband would think her strong and wouldn’t worry about the family while he was gone. And neither Nick nor his mother saw the tears the soldier shed inside his invisible heart. Soldiers have to be G.I. Joe tough on the outside. However, you know by now that what we feel on the inside is far more important than what others see or think they see on the outside.

In the field, Nick’s father carried a photograph of his smiling six-year-old son. In the photograph, Nick wore a green and white uniform and stood with one foot poised over a black and white soccer ball. When the sun went down in Afghanistan and the heat radiated roasting hot, not blazing hot hell-fire, his father looked at the faded picture. Over time, his sweat smudged the clarity of the colors and spoiled the flat pristine paper with puckers. He didn’t care because the picture symbolized everything he fought for. He loved his son who ignored him. Someday, he’ll come back to me. He’ll realize I love him. Nick’s six-year-old smile branded his father’s heart with memories. I could hear Nick’s father every night asking for protection for the family he left behind. Nick never knew that.
*
After his father left, Nick showed his mother no mercy.
“Just because your father’s gone, doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want when you want.” She shook her head in frustration.
“Whataya gonna do about it?” Nick snarled back, because he could. “Ground me?”
“Yes. And take your phone away.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I can turn it off, you know.”
“Go ahead. Then, I won’t have to worry about you calling me all the time. And nagging me.” Nick shrugged her off.
“I got your report card in the mail today,” his mother said matter-of-factly, trying unsuccessfully to change the tone of their conversation.
“So what.”
“You have three Fs and four Ds. What happened?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Shit. School sucks. Teachers suck.”
“That doesn’t mean you can just flunk everything.”
“I’m not flunking everything. I got Ds.”
“Quit twisting my words. Your grades are unacceptable, Nick.”
“Whatever.”
“Go to your room right now.”
“For what?”
“Being disrespectful. Your father would never allow you to—”
“He’s not here, is he? So who cares.”
“Get to your room!” Her eyes filled with angry frustrated tears.

Nick walked out of the kitchen. Instead of going upstairs, his mother heard him slam the front door. She leaned against the kitchen counter for strength as she made dinner, because her legs felt like rubber. The urgency of war took her husband into rocky hills and sandy deserts far away from her. She needed his help. I don’t know what to do with our son. I’m so angry you left me here to do this all by myself. That night, like every night, she cried herself to sleep. When daylight lit the edges of the curtains, she awoke, putting one foot in front of the other. Nick never noticed her resoluteness day in and day out. He missed each second she wiped her tears away so he wouldn’t see.

The dark day arrived when the dark blue car pulled up along the curb in front of Nick’s house. I sat on my skateboard across the street and watched as two men in military dress blues got out. I could see Nick watching them through the big picture window in his living room. The taller of the two took off his stiff hat and tucked it neatly under his arm. I could hear the footsteps timed in unison like a march on the wooden porch all the way across street. Nick opened the door before they had a chance to knock. They asked for his mother, so he hollered for her. The men looked at each other as if to say, Son, we could’ve done that ourselves, but they remained silent. Nick left them at the door and sat down on the couch to finish his turn at HALO.

His mother walked into the room and saw Nick playing his video game.
“What’s so urgent you had to yell like that?” she asked impatiently. Then, she saw the men at the door. She dropped her coffee cup on the hardwood floor, where it shattered like her dreams...into a million tiny pieces. All the tears she hid from the world flooded her heart like the Euphrates River floods its banks in springtime. Nick watched as a tremor shook her body to the floor like she was having an earthquake from the inside out.

He stood up from the couch and stared at her.
One of the men opened the door and walked in, because he was a man of the cloth.
He knelt next to the weeping wife, “Mrs. DiMitri, I’m sorry about your husband.”
“What happened?”
“He was killed in the line of duty.”
“How?” Her voice was a jolting aftershock.
“He died in the rocky hills of a northern region of Afghanistan. It’s all we’re allowed to say, Mrs. DiMitri.”
“Oh my God,” she wept.
“He died a hero saving his fellow soldiers,” the man of the cloth offered, hoping it would lessen the wound. Then, he helped Nick’s mother up to the couch because her legs refused to move. The taller man handed Nick a faded picture. He recognized it immediately.
“Where did you get this?” Nick asked the tall soldier in dress blues.
“Your father kept it in his helmet.”
“How do you know that?” Nick’s voice cracked ever so slightly.
“I saw him put it in there myself.”
Nick just stared at the picture.
“Your father was a good man. He loved you very much.”

 In the blink of Nick’s brown eyes, all the things he’d never said to his father rushed into his brain, choking off any words or feelings the way a weed chokes out a healthy plant. Nick remembered refusing to play catch with his father, because he wanted to play video games more. Besides, he’d told himself that playing catch with his old man was embarrassing. He also remembered squirreling out of hugs his father tried to give him, because it wasn’t cool to hug anyone except a girlfriend. He remembered, suddenly, that he couldn’t remember the last time he said “I love you” to his father.

In a second, some people blink the most important moments of their life away and everything after becomes “too late.” So, Nick wore black to school every day after his father died. People whispered about how quiet he was now. He shunned his smoking buddies, even as he shunned himself. His friends and teachers believed Nick was sad because his father died. Our entire town read about it in the newspaper. But I knew different. Nick’s regrets were suffocating the light out of him. 

Find out how Nick handles the news, and how Arabella helps him with his father... in Invisible Wings

I recently put Invisible Wings on Kindle for free. It was my birthday, so I decided it was a fun way to celebrate. And it did really well. It was downloaded over 1500 times and the title flew to the #2 spot on Kindle’s Free List in the Christian Fantasy and Science Fiction category. I was stunned. I wrote a “Christian” book and didn’t even know it.

            Invisible Wings is definitely an inspirational-type of book, at the very least meant to make you think about what you do and why you do it. I’d like to think of it as a modern morality tale strung through a framed story. Invisible Wings is chock-full of literary allusions to the Bible, ancient and medieval literature. Not because I was trying to write a “Christian” novel, but because the allusions invoke powerful archetypal images and feelings. The story I used Biblical allusions in the most heavily was titled “Full Grind”. It’s about a teenage skater boy who has a tattoo of Jesus on his back...because he didn't want to bleed alone anymore. I could have made a tattoo of anything, because tattoos are meant to show someone is hardened or has something to say in permanence. But, the ink was of the historical figure of Jesus. Right there, if you know the story of Jesus whether as a devout Christian or a member of western culture, you know that Jesus was crucified and tortured at the end of his life. That’s why I chose that archetypal image for my skater boy, Jay, because his life was also tortured and he felt abandoned by life.

Throughout the book, a Creator is frequently referenced and, of course, the main protagonist is an angel, which is a commonly understood in western culture to be associated with Christianity. I used the term “Creator” on purpose, not to disguise a belief in God but to make a reference to a higher power in a way that would not offend people of different religious backgrounds. (Nothing gets people more upset than when you mess with their “God” and I most certainly was not trying to do that).

So in the end, I have touched into the Christian fiction category and I am perfectly fine with that. After all, there is nothing wrong with a little faith, hope and love. Here's a little piece of heaven via Boyce Avenue...I'm not the only one using Biblical allusions. Thanks Bruno and Boyce Avenue Boys. You guys rock my ears!