So I was trying to think of what to blog about and coming up blank–my brain is already fried from school stuff . . . Hence, I’m just putting this out here for people to read & hopefully give me feedback (i.e. if this was a random book u picked up at the store, would it make u want to read more?)! Sending out the full manuscript tomorrow to agent #3 that’s requested it so keep your fingers & toes crossed & say some prayers:)
CHAPTER 1
“The childhood shows the man
as morning shows the day.”
–John Milton
“The simplicity of the whole thing will have to be its charm,” I stated, setting up another white folding chair.
“Sometimes less is more,” Ethan reassured, his six foot frame casting a shadow over me, providing sweet relief from this Michigan’s summer day.
“I guess. Anyways, what’d they expect from a shotgun wedding? Amy is just lucky my mom and dad didn’t kill her and Jonathan,” I commented, stifling a laugh.
“Sarah, stop overreacting. It’s not like she’s some knocked up teenager,” he reminded me.
I shook my head, my crinkly hair sticking to my sweaty face like sap on a maple tree. “Whatevs. I don’t think Amy being twenty made much of a difference over being unmarried. At least not to my parents; or to the priest that refuses to marry them in his church.”
“Is that why they’re having the ceremony here?” he asked, his small thin lips tight.
“Yup,” I answered in a voice perfectly neutral.
“Hypocrites, the church is full of ‘em. That’s why I don’t believe in God. Just look what it does to ya.” He peered down at me over his long, narrow nose with a reproachful look, anticipating a response.
“Ethan Tyler Anderson,” I warned in a tone similar to Erin’s, his mom. “I’m not here to argue with you. Besides, I think my old house provides the perfect country setting for an occasion such as this.”
Kicking my sandals off my rainbow painted toes; I sat back on the grass and admired the place of my childhood. My Aunt Linda bought the house from my parents when they divorced several years ago. The dreary gray paint it’d known in its early days replaced with apple red. I smiled as I spotted the familiar row of Charlie Brown looking Christmas trees that perpetually lined our backyard, pathetically trying to guard our family. I now felt sympathetic to their plight since I tried to do that same thing many times since my move to Orlando. Realizing it to be an impossible task, I’d since given up.
“Cindy, gimme that. Why’d ya hafta go an’ tangle these so bad fer?” Dad complained to my mom in his Irish brogue as they tried to outfit the gazebo with sparkling white Christmas lights.
“Oh, my apologies. I’m sure a handicapped man such as yourself can untangle these better than I, and certainly at your height, can hang them up on that gazebo all by himself too, so I’ll just leave you to it,” Mom mocked, storming past me into the house.
The aforementioned handicap came from Grandpa Burke’s lumber mill. On the day of my birth, Dad lost his left thumb to a table saw while working at his father’s shop, casting a stigma on my existence from the start.
. . . so that’s the first 500 words–whaddya think? In my wildest of dreams I’m picturing Zac Efron for Ethan and Ellen Page for Sarah when the book gets optioned for a movie. In fact, I’m gonna go watch 17 Again now b/c Zac Efron=magical:):):)
