Sunday Snippet: Muse It Up

Whew. It's been a very long week. A slow leak in one of my tires means I've been filling with a portable device every other day or so. Add in the oven going out on our stove and scrambling to find another one on top of the tire issue. We did get the range replaced and hope to have the tire situation under control this week. Bleh.

Weird weather again. Storms and some back and forth temperatures. I really hope we don't pay for the somewhat mild temperatures by having a super-hot October and November. Would also love to not have flooding from the rain. We've been very lucky so far.

Work projects were gnarly again. Started a new copy edit that, well, went okay as far as the copy edit part is concerned. The story? All over the place. I don't have to be the target audience for the manuscripts I edit, but whew! I struggled with this one because I had a hard time following the plot, which I don't run into very often at the copy-editing stage. I'm also working on a manuscript evaluation and that is going pretty well. I'm very interested in the subject matter, which always helps.

I made a little progress on getting my side project ready to go. Hopefully, I'll be able to do more this week. I'm kind of excited to see if I can make this happen before the end of the year.

Had a terrible viewing week. The copy edit needed a lot of my focus, which isn't a bad thing. I made it almost halfway through my usual shows.

Started with Marple and enjoyed the mystery. Very fun to have two Janes in the story. Also enjoyed getting a glimpse of nostalgia with Miss Marple and her childhood.

Watched another episode of Britain's Most Scenic Counties and learned more new things about Kent. I'd love to visit someday.

Caught the season two premiere of Return to Paradise and quite enjoyed being back in Dolphin Cove. Loved having Jack Mooney make an appearance again and having him kind of give Mackenzie a fatherly type of tough love. She does need to sort things out with her past before heading back to London … if she heads back.

Started an episode of Poirot but didn't get it finished. I'll pick it back up this week. I hope.

That's it for the life update this week. Tonight's post is from Muse It Up, a novella where an author finds his muse after suffering from writer's block.

Here's the miniblurb:

Nate Shaunessey can't get in the groove to write his new supernatural series. When he meets the new bartender, Hunter Gallagher, at his local pub, a muse is born. The only problem? Nate's afraid to tell her she's his latest inspiration.

And a snippet preview…

Nate stretched the kinks from his shoulders. "Whew. Mind's still spinning with ideas." But he needed a break.

After six hours of sleep, he made coffee and had a breakfast wrap of scrambled eggs, sausage, and spinach. That fueled the morning writing session. Now he headed for the kitchen to throw some sandwiches together.

Spreading mayo on some sourdough bread, he huffed out a breath. "Gotta go fast and easy." He'd put another four hours in on his laptop then hit the treadmill or a hiking trail.

Grabbing his water pitcher, he scooped the sandwiches up and went back to his writing nook. He'd already decided he'd be dropping in at the Library again later. Tonight would be coffee only. No doubt he'd have another late night or early morning with his fingers flying over the keyboard.

Leaning back, he finished off one of the sandwiches and let his thoughts drift to Hunter. He looked forward to seeing her again … but dialed back the excitement a little. Mainly because he had no idea if he should mention how she had kickstarted his brain.

He shook his head. "Do I thank her? Or just play things cool?" He definitely didn't want to make things weird.

He hated not being sure how to proceed, because he really found Hunter attractive. But … he got the feeling she'd been through something recently. Maybe she'd share.

He kind of hope so … he wanted to know everything about her. "Whoa. Calm down, Nate. Think about this." Things could go sideways … especially if he clued her in to being his muse.

But he wanted to be honest. Subterfuge worked well in his books but rarely played out with good results for him in real life. His last relationship went south because his girlfriend liked to play head games. She would run hot then cold and try to lead him on a merry chase, which he didn't have the time to figure out or the desire to pursue.

He snorted. "Didn't take her long to pack up and move on when I basically admitted my deadlines were more important than playing what does Melanie want all the time?" Which made him something of a dick, but he could live with that label.

At least he couldn't be accused of cheating or leading Melanie on. He'd made a clean break and wished her nothing but the best when she left. After that, he steered clear of getting involved with anyone new and focused on finishing the series.

Nate won't keep his interest in Hunter a secret for long and he won't hold back how much influence she's having on his new series.

 

That's it for this week. Happy reading!

Skylin