Something unexpected

Old What’s Her Face and I drove to Twin Falls to buy our daughter lunch back in August. Before that, the last time I saw her was May.

She came walking through the door last night, completely unexpected. It was about the first time she’s gotten two adjacent days off in all that time. After griping about her car troubles, she settled in and opened her Christmas presents. The auto issue was a simple fix, it seems.

I put a halt to every plan I had mapped out. Family comes first, and she stayed until just before noon this morning. We wound up having a great chat and I loved seeing her.

This ate up all my quality writing time, but I don’t care. I finally bit the bullet, pulled on my headphones and starting writing the aftermath of Mari’s big shootout in the afternoon. Red Dead ambience is great for this story.

My scene involved a big chunk of dialog as Mari went through processing at the local jail. I need to do a bunch more if I’m going to save her from the gallows.

I’m going to try to add that bit tomorrow, but it’s also the day I call my mother. Like I said about my daughter, family first. Even a little bit will move the pegs, and I like what I’m getting down.

Mari needs to go through some soul searching about her ox and her dog. If she’s going to die, she will want to guarantee they are cared for. This next section of the book will be less action, but I want some gut wrenching bits to it. She’s still having her PTSD dreams, and I might get some mileage out of those.

I also have another hard blow planned for Mari, but that will be several chapters down the line.

Word count is way down today and I don’t care. I’ll gladly park a manuscript to spend the day with my daughter. It was like a late Christmas present for me.