July is gone and we are almost half way through August. It isn’t fair. The weather was too hot to enjoy the summer days of July. I spent most of my time indoors trying to catch up on paper work with the goal to work on my writing during August. I almost succeeded. I have forced myself to take a few days off to revise a few chapters of Part Two.
It’s all Maggie’s fault. When I revised Forever Love, I left a cliff hanger with Maggie (oops – spoiler alert). Now I have to revise Part Two to accommodate Maggie and her visions.
As I am rereading and rewriting, I have noticed that I have scenes similar to Shades of Grey. I wrote Part Two three years ago – long before Shades of Grey was published. At first I thought that I should rework the scenes because readers may think that I copied from E.L. James, but then I realized that none of us really has an original idea anymore. It’s just how we express the idea that makes us different. However, in honor of E.L. James and the attention she has brought to romance novels, I do make a reference or two to her novels without naming them directly.
Back to Maggie. I’ve ignored her for a month. She’s been sitting on my shoulder, whispering in my ear to get busy writing her part. I tried but nothing was coming. Instead, my thoughts were on Part Three’s reunion scene. For a few weeks I was playing out the scene in my head, trying to get the visual and the dialogue right. It had to be real. It had to be a page turner. But once again, I digress. Maggie. Her nudges are becoming more like jabs to the rib cage. Her whispers are getting louder and her breath smells like scotch. I think Quinn is on her side now. He wants to know how I get him through this. Davi’s patient. She’s sipping her mocha decaf and smiling at the two of them. She’s knows it will get done and it will be done the right way.
It’s because you are special, Maggie, that this is taking me so long to write. You are not the focus of the book, but an integral part of it. Without you, there wouldn’t be much of a story. So, please be patient. Have another double with Quinn and I promise I will have your parts written by the end of the week. Then Quinn and I will have a scotch together and you can have your Bailey’s while you give me that look that is only for me and you say, “You took your frickin time!”