Work in Progress Wednesday: Rescue

Well, we've got the first month of the year under our belts, and I'm not quite sure what I think of it yet. LOL. It's been a long time since I've posted because I've been busy with being a mom and Christmas and just a crapload of things. So you may be wondering: Did I finish the third version of "Allie" during the time I've been away? No. Am I working on it now? Also no. Will I ever finish it??? Probably. Someday (hopefully someday this year).

I've finished this story twice already, and each time I get to the end, I have an absolute revelation on how I can make it work better. Even though I love the book idea, I just need a break from it. If it makes you feel any better, my current project isn't even the one I had PLANNED on working on right now.

Instead, I've started Rescue, a novel I actually had the idea for about twelve years ago. It started with reading a book about animal communicators. It was fascinating. I hadn't known that was even a thing. So then while reading the book, "what ifs" started popping into my head. What if an animal communicator was at a livestock auction, and a horse "showed" her a kidnapped child? Then the animal communicator buys the horse and realizes she is going to need to rescue the child herself, because of course if she goes to the police, they aren't going to believe her.

But no matter how much I wanted to write that story, I couldn't seem to get it right.

Until three weeks ago, when it all of a sudden popped into my head again as a basically complete story. (This is actually a trick, of course. It's never ACTUALLY as complete as I think it is)

I was only going to write notes for it and come back to it later, but it actually did turn into a whole story, which I ended up starting to write. Let me tell you, it is NOTHING like I expected it to be. I know, I'm the writer. How does that even happen? The answer is...I have no idea. I expected it to be quite a serious story because it involves a kidnapped child. But it's turning out to be ridiculous, with goose attacks, 70-year-old-cowboy Instagrammers, and various embarrassments and disasters for Paige, the main character. I think it needs the humor, because without it to balance the plethora of disasters, it would just be depressing.

Anyway, here is a peek at just some of the ridiculousness that is my new project, Rescue!

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What the hell was that noise?

Paige's eyes focused, and she realized her car was covered in geese, pecking her windshield, shitting on her hood, eating her wiper blades...

"Hey, knock it off before I stuff you into a pillow!" she yelled.

One of the geese looked her directly in the eye and let out a loud, "HONK!"

Paige realized the sun was fully up. Which meant she was very late for work, since the sun was usually just rising at six am. She needed a shower, and she needed to dig through the boxes and bags crammed in her car to find her uniforms.

And these geese had to fucking go.

Paige blared her horn, but instead of scaring the geese, it angered them even more and made their attack more vicious. Paige looked around frantically, hoping for help, but the only other occupants in the parking lot was a family in an SUV several spots over. The two children were in the back with their noses pressed against the window, watching the scene. The mom was in the front, reaching back to lock the door to keep the kids in. Paige scowled at the dad, who was standing at the front of the SUV, recording Paige's dilemma on his phone. Judging by the knee-high socks he wore with his shorts and sandals, she doubted he'd be much help anyway.

Paige honked her horn again, holding it for 30 seconds this time, and only succeeded in pissing the geese off even more. She gave up trying to scare them, and started her car instead. She put it in reverse and stomped on the gas, cutting the wheel hard to back out of her parking spot. Several geese flew off the hood, and when she glanced over her shoulder, she was satisfied to see Knee Socks Dad scrambling for his door when they angry birds turned their attention to his SUV. She heard the mom scream as she pulled out of the lot, several geese still scrabbling on the hood, roof, and trunk of her own car.