What I've been working on....

This publishing stuff takes... 

well, let's face it

FOREVER.

Okay, not forever, but it's sort of starting to feel that way. And my publisher warned me when we got started, she said, "This isn't self publishing, it's going to take around 18 months to get your book out." 

I wrote LIKE HOME 6 years ago.

So, why does 18 months feel like such a long time?! 

It's been 13 months... so we're close!

Anyway, sorry--tangent!

My point was, I can't say I feel a super huge rush to work on my next project. The publisher already has my second book and they haven't touched it yet. So, working on this 3rd one--I don't feel the time restraints. 

Confession: I haven't even touched it since before Christmas. But I'm getting my mojo back and it's fun!

This book, Am I 30 Yet? is actually the first novel I completed.

I love the story--but it needs some major editing--being my first. 

So, that's what I am doing. A lot of rewriting.

Here's my rewritten Chapter One:

AM I 30 YET?

by me :)

Chapter 1

27 and 7 months and O so single

Shoving tools and paper work from the work bench into my old back pack, I ranted to Eve. “Can you believe Angela Bell?”

            “What do you mean?” Eve watched me with a scowl. “Hey, those are mine.”

            I continued to jam the crap around us into my worn bag.

            “Sam—Sam, hey—Sa-manth-a!”

            Looking up, I paused mid-shove and faced her glare. “What?”

            “Those. Are. Mine.” Hands on her hips, she rolled her eyes at me.

            “Oh, right. Sorry.” I took the last few items out of my ancient middle school pack and set them next to her.

            “What’s with you?”

            Slamming my fist against the metal bench, a clanging noise sounded throughout our work changing room. “What’s with me? Did you really just ask that? Were you not at the same retirement luncheon as me?”

            “Come on. Angela was fine.”

            “Fine?” I couldn’t believe Eve. Sure Angela was eighteen and sure when you’re eighteen you’re supposed to be a little stupid. I still can’t believe they asked her to speak—I mean, just because she’s Ray’s niece. “It was Ray’s day. His retirement. All she did was announce her engagement!”

            “She said she loved Ray, too.”

            I took off my boots, shoving them into my locker. Flipping the strands from my falling-out ponytail out of my face, I looked up at her. “Only because he introduced them! And did you hear what else she said? I’ve been waiting my whole life for this.” I couldn’t help the high inflection my voice took when mimicking Angela, or the gagging reflex that came each time I thought about it.

            Eve pushed my shoulder and whipped her head from side to side. “Come on, Sam, shut up. Her family runs this place, and she’s a sweet kid. You don’t want to lose your job because your volume level is stuck on high and you hold a grudge against anyone who gets married before age twenty-five.”

            “I do not hold grudges. I couldn’t care less. It was Ray I was thinking about.” She was right though, I couldn’t lose my job over Angela Bell. The Bell’s Lumber Mill was one of the few places to work without commuting to Jackson or Idaho.

            Leaning down, she whispered, “Is this about Angela…or is this about you?”

            “Me? Ha!” But my voice did that stupid high pitched thing again—making me look guilty. I slid into my street shoes and stood to follow Eve out. “We’ve got to get out of this town Eve.”

            “I happen to like the Valley,” she said. And I did too.

            Star Valley was a small community deep in Wyoming, far from anything and anyone else. Several tiny towns made up what we called The Valley. And Eve was right. It was a good place. A good place, with good people, people who married young and worked hard, people who filled their homes with children and values. I was lucky to have grown up here. But as a single twenty-seven year old woman, as much as I loved the place, Star Valley was like my own personal Happy Valley Hell.

            “I hope you like being single,” I mumbled under my breath. I regretted it the minute I said it, Eve was a whole year older than me. She hadn’t grown up here, but somehow she fit right in. And she seemed fine with the fact that she wasn’t married—or dating—and that her prospects were nil.

            She turned to take a peek at me before walking out into the sunshine. “I didn’t catch that.”

***

Sunday. Family dinner night. I was still itching with irritation after Ray’s retirement party two days earlier—now I would have to endure Nana.

Unbuttoning my coat, I opened Dad’s closet to hang it inside. It was my night to cook. I came early—maybe I could avoid confrontation if I was hard at work.

“Samantha, what is your age now?” Nana was like a super spy, I never even heard her coming.  

“Twenty-three, Nan,” I said, the closet door still blocking my view of the little silver haired fox.

Nana cleared her throat—a scolding sound and started in on me. “Let’s see, I am eighty-one, so that would make you…” Nana paused for a moment. “Samantha Blake, don’t you lie to your Nana.”

            Facing her, I placed my hands on her shoulders. I could see over the little lady’s head. “Nana, you are a very intelligent woman, you know perfectly well that I am twenty-seven years old.” She had asked me the same question last week—and I know the woman’s memory hasn’t gone yet.

            “Why would you lie to your grandmother?”

            “Nana! You know how old I am.”

            She continued to glare at me.

            Blowing a sigh through my lips, I hung my head. “I need to cook.”

            “You are right, Samantha. I do know how old you are. You are three years older than your mother when she married. You have a birthday coming. Soon you will be single and twenty-eight years.”

            “Ellen,” Dad said, trotting down the stairs. “Samantha knows this. You reminding her will not change the situation.”

            “What situation?” I turned, my hands on my hips.  Did he really think this was rescuing me? My two-day irritated mood was only getting worse. “There isn’t a situation.  Being single is not a situation!”

            “It is when your almost thirty,” Nana said, her eyes as wide as shot glasses.

            Covering my face with my hands, I muffled through my fingers. “That is not a situation.”

            “What’s going on? Situation?” My oldest sister walked into the room. Elizabeth: married Eric at twenty-three, right after serving two years in the peace core. Mother of two with one on the way—yes, she is a superhero.

            “Samantha refuses to marry.” Nana’s flamboyant hands flew through the air.

            “Oh.” Liza sighed. “That situation.”

            Scoffing, I folded my arms. “I refuse? Oh, that’s it Nana. I am just so stubborn, I refuse.” I forced a laugh at her ridiculous assumption. “Whom would you have me marry, Nana?”

            My younger sister plopped on the couch, just in time to hear my speech. “What about Robert?” Amanda: married her high school sweetheart at just eighteen.  Last year she and her husband Max adopted their first child.

            “Robert? Who the heck is Robert?” I was so glad the whole family could analyze my life—again.

            “There is no reason for language missy,” Nana said.

            “You know. Robert, junior year.” Amanda ignored Nana.

            Blinking, I stepped in closer to the couch where Amanda sat. Whispering, and hoping only she could hear me, I said, “Prom Robert?”

            “Yes. He moved back west, he’s in Jackson. I saw him in the grocery store.”

            “Really?” I said, sitting beside her. “I haven’t seen him in years.” The boy did look good in a tux, and he gave me my first real kiss.

            “I know!” Amanda sat up straighter. “And he is still so cute.”

            “Who’s cute?” Max asked, walking in carrying their little Jillian.

            “The catch we’re setting Sam up with.”

            “Ah, sorry Sam.” Max sighed.

            Scooting passed me, he kissed his wife hello. I smiled at the sight of my little sister with her husband and child. I loved my family. Fiercely. Which is why I never left the Valley. But watching their lives move on while standing still myself—well, it takes its toll. And I want what they have—I do. I just don’t know how to get my hands on it.

            “Samantha, I’ve had the most wonderful idea.” Nana appeared in front of me, her arms opened wide. “I will find you a husband.”

            “Ohhhh, no you don’t.” I stood and started into the kitchen. “Nope. No thank you, Nan.”

            Following after me, she said, “Of course I will, your sisters can help me. Your mother would have wanted--”

“Nana, I know. But if mom was alive today, do you really think her answer would be to have you, my Nana, search every corner of the state until you’ve found me a man?” I threw an apron over my head and pulled a pork roast from Dad’s refrigerator.

            “As a matter of fact, I do.” Where did this woman get her energy? “It really shouldn’t be that difficult. You’ve got her long brown hair and big brown eyes. She was always a looker. Besides, she would want you to be happy Samantha.”

            “Who says I’m not happy?” I asked, beating the meat with a tenderizer. But I could see it in Nana’s victory smile; I had already lost this fight.

            After a long night with my family, I left my sisters to do the dishes and came home to my quiet, empty apartment. Already in my pj’s, I lay on my bed. Picking up my phone, I texted Eve.

Me: Eve, maybe we should move.

Eve: In? Together? You’re my best friend Sam, but I’m too old for a roommate.

Me: No, like out of town.

Eve: Is this about Angela Bell? I’m not moving because your panties are all in a bunch over an eighteen year old getting married. I love you Samantha, now get over it.

Eve was right. I was feeling sorry for myself. Opening a half a gallon of ice cream, I flipped through the channels on my smart T.V. My insides hurt. My head pounded and all I wanted was a hug from my mother. Feeling like crap always had me pining for Mom, but she couldn’t rescue me. Mom was twenty-four when she married dad. I wonder if Nana gave her this much trouble.  Probably not, by twenty-five she had Elizabeth. By twenty-seven she had me and at twenty-nine she was done with Amanda. She had a degree in Chemistry, something I know nothing about.  She never had a career, but who could with everything else she accomplished? She worked harder than any woman I’ve ever known. But mostly, she loved her family--with every word, with every action, she loved us.

When I was sixteen, Mom got sick. Test after test, and then the diagnoses, colon cancer. She went from being sick to being a patient, to no longer resembling herself. And then she died. One night after almost a year of fighting, she asked Dad to gather us all around her, she told us each goodbye. Two hours later she was gone.

            It wasn’t even nine o’clock yet, and I was turning off my bedroom light to go to bed. Using my cell as a flash light to get back to my bed, I dropped it when it started to sing. Picking it up, I looked at the little screen. Nana. “Hello, Nana.”

            “Samantha, I am serious about helping you find a mate.  Keep Friday open, you’ll have a date.” My crazy dr Seuss grandmother couldn’t leave well enough alone.

***

“Why don’t you just get online like everyone else today?” Eve asked me when I told her about my apparent situation.

            “Well, that’s great for some people, but I’m not one of them,” I yelled above the noisy machines in the shop.

            “You’d rather have Nana setting you up?”

            “That’s not what I said.” I pushed my protective eye gear up off the bridge of my nose. “I’m just not a person who can feel sparks through a computer screen.”

            Laughing at me, Eve pulled another strip of wood through the router.

“Why don’t you take your own advice?”

Smiling, she said, “Maybe I will.” But I didn’t believe her.

I put my head in my hands. “We are going to end up old maids who work together, live together, shop together, clean together, eat together--”

“No we’re not,” she said. “I don’t like you that much. Besides, I already told you I wouldn’t move in with you.”