Free on Kindle! If you like Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse novels, Deborah Harkness’s Discovery of Witches and Nickelodeon’s Avatar the last airbender, you will love this series.
And, there is a hot librarian. #Elizabeth Hunter #Elemental Mysteries. You can get the first one for free on Kindle right now! (I am not getting paid for this—i am just a big geeky fan.)
Big Guns!
BIG GUNS!
If you ever wanted to throw your money around like Oprah, now is a good time! Don’t you want to be my hero?? At this point chances are you can LOOK like a hero…….Pretend you are buying a table at a charity gala. I will give you and 7 of your friends all the rewards listed—even the expired ones, if you go ahead and make a pledge today of $150! I just need to get funded by May 9th at 9am!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1912437156/big-in-britain-a-novel
Pub Crawl seemed an appropriate term for the night’s event. The long flight and the preceding week had taken it’s toll. I felt like I had just finished a marathon, I had not slept well in a month and my feet, crammed into ridiculously sexy shoes, ached. I just wanted lie down.
Not too far from the line to get into pub number four, I spotted a bench. I sat with a groan of relief, fantisizing about crawling underneath and stretching out for a little power-nap. I needed to rally and no one would notice a body under a bench.
I settled for taking off my shoes and the night went downhill from there.
I don’t know what I was thinking. Every woman knows you can’t remove four inch heels a half size too small and expect to get them back on your feet, let alone regain control of your evening. Things get out of hand when you take off your shoes. “
Jennifer Heath on: Sexy Shoes and Chaos.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1912437156/big-in-britain-a-novel
See update #6!
Bonus! Excerpt from mid-flight, L.A. to Great Britain
“So,” she said. Crap. I knew what was coming. We’d covered love-lives, sex-lives, school, jobs, parents, mutual friends, fashion, television and HBO, current events, film, religion and politics. Only one topic remained.
“So,” she said. “How’s Simon?”
“Simon? Simon who?” I said. She rolled her eyes. She was witness to the beginning, having served as my assistant counselor that summer.
“Shit, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“No, it’s fine.” I shook my head, chuckling. “I’m fine. No worries, you’re fine,” I said. “He’s fine, I’m sure. I really don’t know.”
Truly, I hadn’t thought of Simon in months, actually.
At least, not wistfully.
Simon Harris, the British boy I met at summer camp who broke my heart, still calls or emails me about every six months. I don’t answer his calls. (Anymore) And, I delete his emails. (Almost immediately)
We met when I was 18. He was 19. We broke up over ten years ago, just before I turned 21. I should have put an end to it a long time ago. I realize that, I get it.
But, with each careless contact I get a tiny thrill of hope that lingers just long enough to go sour in my gut. Last August, after three years of emails only, he called me beacause he heard Both Sides Now by Joni Mitchell. He went on and on in his message about camp fires and sing-alongs. Then, he asked me to send him the recipe for S’Mores.
Once, he drunk-dialed after getting together with some old “mates” from University he’d introduced me to the first time I flew over to visit him. They all got on the line at the end of the call and sang a garbled, drunken version of Fly Me to the Moon by Frank Sinatra. That wasn’t even our song. But, sill, Beverly had to force me to erase it after I played it every night for a week.
And, a few times in ten years he has called just to say “he wanted to hear my voice”. Those calls hurt the most.
Part of me (the part that remains convinced I’ve ruined him for other women with my pure and perfect love) clings to the fact he’s never married. He has fathered five children however, with five different women. So, clearly he has not been lonely while wringing his hands over the loss of me.
I am lucky he dumped me. I dodged a bullet. Intellectually, I know that to be true.
But.
But, I’ve always wondered if there was anything else I could have said or done or been to make him keep loving me.
There we stood, on the English coast, the sun painting an exquisite scene as it set into the Irish Sea. I made my case, holding back nothing. I laid out my plan to move to England. Leaving school, all my friends and my family didn’t even seem like a sacrifice. I told him in a hundred ways that I loved him and then I begged and cried. My tolerance for humiliation knew no limit, back then.
Here’s the thing. He didn’t see it—his back was to the water. So, he couldn’t see what I could see. I think that contributed to the discrepancy between what he thought his feelings were and what I knew they should be.
He gently shook his head and kissed my cheek.
I just couldn’t believe it.
But, I didn’t despair. For weeks, I was positive he would come around. I waited for the phone to ring and every time it did I knew it was Simon calling to say, “I love you, take me back.”
In the following five weeks he called twice. The first time he phoned to share the good news of his sister’s engagement. She was the sister I’d always wanted and I cried knowing I was missing it. The second call he asked me to send him the soccer scarf he’d given me. Funny that I am, to this day, so stubborn I refuse to call it football as some kind of passive-aggressive protest yet, I can’t seem to gather the ovaries to tell him to stop messing with my head. I gave him my heart and he wanted his fucking scarf back.
And now, ten years after the break-up, every six months when I get the semi-annual shout-out, I ache. I curl up in a ball and I want to hibernate.
Lucy had found Simon un-worthy of my love almost immediately. I was afraid she might sprain an eye-ball over the Atlantic if she knew I still occasionally pined for a boy I first loved when I was 18. So, I just tapped my empty wrist and smiled.
“Actually, it’s almost time for a phone call from Simon.”
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1912437156/big-in-britain-a-novel
You may be wondering, “Just who are these characters Em made up, anyway?” Good Question! I asked myself the same thing. A lot. The following bit is a writing exersize I did to help me play with my characters. It will not likely make it into the book and may never be available again after this campaign.
But for YOU (or ya’ll or y’ins, depending) I am putting up this Interview Excerpt for your entertainment because, I love.
xxooEmily…pass it on.
“Michael Forrester’s friends Hannah and Sarah agreed to meet with me. After a ridiculous amount of rigmarole (choreographed by Forrester, for his own amusement, no doubt) the lobby of my hotel won out as meeting-place.
Sarah and Hanna have known Forrester for years. They worked together in a touring company, doing children’s theater right after college.
Forrester’s manager gave me a list of topics about which I am not to enquire. Again, this is more nonsense. The list includes: Michael’s romantic relationships, favored sexual positions, his weight, whether he’s had plastic surgery and his opinion on the United States’ debt ceiling.
Three seconds into the interview I feel as though I am being punked. Like Michael, his friends thrive on the ridiculous, pushing past convention and barreling through to absurd. I spent our twenty seven minute interview near tears —from frustration as well as laughter. The following is an excerpt of the interview.
JENNIFER: Did you have a sense years ago that Michael would “make it” so to speak?
Hannah: Make it? He hasn’t made it. Not until he gets his Cover girl contract.
Sarah: Yeah, he has a lot to prove before he’ll get the call from Weight Watchers.
Hannah: Yeah, he needs to go to rehab, gain forty pounds and get divorced from Eddie Fisher.
Sarah: Eddie van Halen.
Hannah: He would never marry Eddie Van Halen. His type is more clean cut.
Sarah: Like Eddie Murphy.
Hannah: Exactly. And don’t think Eddie doesn’t know it, the ego on that guy.
JENNIFER: Did you think right away, ”Wow, this guy’s got that special something”?
Hannah: Yeah, we were pretty sure but then he took antibiotics for it and was fine.
Sarah: We knew he was talented, of course. And,itchy. Very,very itchy.
JENNIFER: What makes Michael stand out at the Fringe Fest? His shows sell out every year and his fans seem especially…
Hannah: Enthusiastic! They love him.
Sarah: He never holds back. He goes all out, every minute of every performance.
Hannah: He is not afraid of looking foolish or unintentionally ironic. He doesn’t care if he looks good. He sings balls-out in this show and he’s got no voice whatsoever.
JENNIFER: What about his reviews from last year? Two critics in particular said he seemed listless and un-engaged.
Hannah: That’s expletive deleted bull crap. Those fucking critics have no idea.
Sarah: Did you know he had to be hospitalized after that show?
Hannah: He had a hundred and four degree fever. He had the expletive deleted flu.
Sarah: Then he caught pneumonia in the hospital.
Hannah: And, a kidney infection.
Sarah: They had to put him in a medically induced coma.
Hannah: Then while he lay unconscious, clinging to life, his room was burgled.
Sarah: And he woke up in a bathtub of ice missing a kidney.
Hannah: He got it back though.
Sarah: Because of the tracking device.
Hannah: Leftover from his days as a covert black-ops sniper.
Sarah: He’s the hottest sharp-shooter on two continents. Seriously, though, he did have a fever.
Hannah: And he did go to the hospital. Except here they call it hospital. Not the hospital.
Sarah: You cross the Atlantic and suddenly parts go missing from your person. I think we need to call Interpol.
JENNIFER: So why do you think Michael has stayed here and not gone back to the States full time?
Hannah: You have to go where the work is. You can call it “America”, by the way, and we won’t pretend to not understand. Canadians.
Sarah: Americans can take themselves too seriously.
Hannah: The British love a fool. They don’t suffer fools, though.
Sarah: That’s profound, Hannah.
Hannah: Yes it is. They like to make fun of themselves and each other.
Sarah: And they love him here because he loves them. They love laughing at him and it makes them feel like they are special because he is using his genius to make fun of them.
Hannah: That’s his gift, really. He makes you feel like you are the only person in the room when he’s with you. He listens so closely to what you say—like with a hundred and ten percent of his attention—
Sarah: It is unsettling when you first meet him. He is king of eye contact and he asks a lot of questions. He studies you, your every move—like maybe you’ll be his next project.
Hannah: He gets a lot of pussy that way.
Sarah: Hannah! Okay, yeah that is true. He always has some girl on the line.
Hannah: Apparently his expletive deleted is ginormous. “
Feel free to pass it on….weeee!
Good Book
I am reading Dana Stabenow’s Though Not Dead. I recommend it— suspense, history and an Alaska w/out hockey-moms in lipstick!
Argh.
I’ve been reading too much first-person present tense and I keep lapsing into it. Poop. Pooped.
Less than 11 hours to go!
Do you think it’s possible to raise $5550 in about 10 hours? I would cry tears of joy, Then, I’d pee my pants.
Please, if you ever wanted to be something bigger and greater or better than you are, please pledge and then pass this link on. Please consider donating $1 (or $5550) today. Before 9am et 5/09/2012. You will have my undying gratitude and I got your back, friend. And, I am bad-ass, don’t forget. I’ll be good to have in your corner.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1912437156/big-in-britain-a-novel
Love, Em
Pub Crawl seemed an appropriate term for the night’s event. The long flight and the preceding week had taken it’s toll. I felt like I had just finished a marathon, I had not slept well in a month and my feet, crammed into ridiculously sexy shoes, ached. I just wanted lie down.
Not too far from the line to get into pub number four, I spotted a bench. I sat with a groan of relief, fantisizing about crawling underneath and stretching out for a little power-nap. I needed to rally and no one would notice a body under a bench.
I settled for taking off my shoes and the night went downhill from there.
I don’t know what I was thinking. Every woman knows you can’t remove four inch heels a half size too small and expect to get them back on your feet, let alone regain control of your evening. Things get out of hand when you take off your shoes.
Jennifer Heath on: Sexy Shoes and Chaos.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1912437156/big-in-britain-a-novel
See update #6!
Ah-ha?
Why am I stressing? I liked improv way better than all that “acting” I studied in college….outline shmoutline. Writing should be the same? It’ll come to me, right?
Don’t answer that. Or do.
