See that smile? I am so happy. Clark gave me two days to myself at a hotel for my birthday. Alone? Why is that so wonderful, you ask. Because what he gave me was a writing holiday! I was able to work on my novel with no interruptions or distractions. It was the best gift ever. I am at about page 250 and I have high hopes that this new year will bring a completion of the first draft and a rewrite. Here is a small sample of a work in progress (this is the first page)

Karma quickly threw her engagement ring into the sea as her friend watched supportively and without surprise. Their skirts beat around their knees. Their hands were raised to shade their eyes, but they seemed to salute the ocean which had just swallowed the tiny flash of light that dropped from the cliff they stood on.

“I tried to warn him!” she shouted into the wind, squinting against the sunset that bounced off the heaving surface of the blackening water below.

“You did.” Her friend nodded and put a hand on her shoulder.

They stood like that for several moments. Their hair and clothes wildly waved as the sun dropped into the ocean. The surf undulated loudly against the sand below. The girls looked down at the fragmenting and rejoining of the water, from droplets back into a whole again, a strange and furious struggle to be apart, only to be one body, time after time had a hypnotic effect, endless and pointless and melodic. Breaking out of a trance they turned away from the edge as seagulls screamed above them.

“That was a nice ring.”

“It was.”

“Brownies?”

“It might be best.” Karma smiled appreciatively at her friend. The water in her eye receded as she blinked. Not one tear. Not over this. Not right now.