Emmy’s newest longies:

RECLAIMED

Sabrina Hodges was the type of woman who did not back down from a challenge, no matter how daunting the task. When she had suddenly moved to a foreign country that was hours away from all those she loved, no one had been as surprised as she herself had been. Sabrina’s late grandparents had been British, but she was all American. Or, she had been.

It was Sabrina’s first day in England, near the famous white cliffs of Dover, and already she missed the sunny beaches of California. The strong scent of salt water assaulted her nose as the brisk wind whipped her unruly, curly hair viciously into her face, causing her nose to tingle, and her green eyes to water in protest. She drove with her windows open regardless of these various assaults, enjoying the sensation of unfamiliar goose bumps rising over her flesh with a slight shiver.

Smiling ruefully, she absentmindedly pulled her long, curly locks into a sloppy ponytail at a stop sign. Her gaze was focused out her driver’s window, where she watched as the ocean beat restlessly against the cliffs, tearing away at the natural beauty of one of Britain’s most famous landmarks. The sky above the ocean looked gray and dreary while the sun tried valiantly to peek through the dismal clouds. Sabrina lifted her face to the pathetically dull sky, remembering the sunny warmth of her homeland with a shake of her head.

Yet even in the face of such a dismal setting, she felt a warmth flow through her chest, and her heart beat slowed to a calmer tempo. As she inhaled the unique smell of salt water and fresh rain clinging in the air, she could not help but muse with a whimsical smile that dark and cold though it may be, she felt much warmer than ever before in San Clemente.

 What originally drew her to visit England was restlessness, but it was the cliffs themselves that had stirred her desire to stay. As she stared out the window at the beautiful landmark, she remembered visiting the area three years earlier with her sister, Marie. Sabrina had been immediately drawn to the towering white majestic cliffs. Something about their beauty, their uniqueness, called to her like a lighthouse beckoning to lost ships at sea.

Sabrina was abruptly pulled from her reverie when a sharp beep of a horn alerted her to an angry driver behind her. She dragged her mesmerized gaze from the beckoning cliffs and stepped heavily upon the gas pedal after an apologetic wave to the waiting vehicle.

Sabrina pulled her shiny new red Smart car up to the top of her newly acquired driveway, shutting off the engine absentmindedly. Though it was only three o’clock in the afternoon, the sky had a gray tint to it which foretold of the coming twilight. Shutting the door calmly, she walked up the flower lined grey stone walkway around to the front door in an almost trancelike state. Her heartbeat accelerated in excitement.

It was hers. It was finally hers.

She felt that she had waited years to finally own this house, when in all reality it had all happened with a time-defying swiftness. After falling in love with the area, and subsequently being haunted by it day and night afterwards, she had looked into buying a home in the area.

Sabrina loved California, so surely it would only be a vacation home. Or, so she had thought. But, upon finding her new home, all those tentative plans had changed. There was something about this town, something about this house, which fit into her soul like a missing piece. As she looked up at her new home, she inhaled deeply, absorbing the full impact of the musty smell of the ferns in the forest, the crisp scent of rain hovering over head, and the unique scent of home. The grey and white stone on the front of her home gleamed with the signs of a fresh washing even as vines climbed the exterior stubbornly, leading past the doors and windows to hang tenaciously to the roof.

Hearing a twig snap in the murky forest beyond her house, she jumped nervously. Goosebumps rose over her flesh as she looked furtively to the forest surrounding her. Her eyes searched for danger in the dark shadows that seemed to move menacingly all around her, and she worried exactly what, or who, was lurking in the shadows. Shaking her head at her silly fears, she thought happily of tomorrow afternoon when the security company would arrive to install a security system, along with new locks on all her doors. She may have fallen in love inexplicably with her little house nestled deep within the woods, but she wasn’t an idiot. She didn’t want any late night visitors coming her way. Well, not uninvited late night visitors, Sabrina thought with an uncharacteristic snicker.

Before going inside, she wandered around to the back of her home to admire the immaculately landscaped backyard with vivid green grass and vibrant flowers arranged prettily in flowerbeds. Closing her eyes in sheer delight, she inhaled the crisp scent of autumn as she strained her ears in an attempt to hear her beloved cliffs. Smiling whimsically, she swore to herself that she did indeed hear the crashing waves before she turned and returned slowly to the front of the house.

 As she unlocked the brick red front door—no, her front door!—she heard her cell phone start ringing. She threw her keys on the stairs before hurriedly scrambling through her purse to look for her Blackberry. Lipstick, wallet, passport, mirror…phone! Sabrina routinely ignored the endless pocket of junk that was her purse, and glanced at the caller ID.

“Hello, Marie.” She clumsily shrugged her coat off while walking into the house and upon realizing that there was no place to put her coat, dropped it in a careless heap upon the gleaming hardwood floor behind her. The windows by the entry were cracked open, to allow the fresh, cool breeze in. She shivered from the cool breeze teasing her skin and rushed to close the windows with an audible bang. Rubbing her arms to soothe away the goose bumps, she focused on her sister’s excited chatter.

“Sabrina! Did everything go as planned?”

“Yup, I just walked into my new home as you called,” Sabrina replied with a little dance in the foyer.

“Woohoo! Though, I must admit I am confused as to why you would prefer to be alone in a drafty old house in a perpetually dismal country! I would think you’d rather be in sunny California with me,” Marie said in a rush. Marie always seemed to throw that in their conversations, though Sabrina couldn’t blame her. After all, she truly didn’t understand her sudden obsession with Dover either.

Sabrina fully admitted that was not the type of person who thrived on solitude, to say the least. She smiled as she remembered the numerous times that she had been so lonely in her apartment back in California that she had actually left and simply walked around Target enjoying snippets of muted conversations as people passed her by.  An argument between an old married couple about who was supposed to take out the trash; the excited murmurs of a newly married couple planning the arrival of their first baby…

Yet here she was, in a new country with no friends and no family; in a deserted, drafty, and possibly haunted house—and perfectly, peculiarly content.

Quiet here writing wise…

Here are a few updates from me:

1. I did not get chosen for the Angels and Demons anthology, so FALLEN is not getting published…for now. I may look into other venues in the near future.

2. RECLAIMED , which had been requested as a revise and resubmit, has been with the requesting publisher for almost two months. While I have no idea how long to expect a response wait period to last, I’m thinking I will hear soon. When I submitted the first time, they responded at just over two months. So I’m getting nervous and excited.

3. Some of that nervousness propelled me to submit to another publisher, a new line of a big publisher. So I am excited to see if anything comes from that area, as well.

4. Been knitting A LOT. I took on a lot of orders, and am finally catching up. Here’s my FLICKR, if you are interested: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenkubes6/. You can also follow my store’s progress on FB: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Purl-Of-Knitting/174140033743?ref=mf.

For now, that is all my news to impart. Maybe I’ll give you a glimpse of the new and improved RECLAIMED.

Big weekend for me.

1. I will be featured (well, my query will be) on the awesome, sweet, wonderful (I’ll stop now) Jodi Meadow’s blog. She will be showing me what is wrong with my query, while also helping others learn from my mistakes. To top it off, she is a fellow wool and knitting lover. Does it get any better? Here is the link, I should be on there sometime today: http://jmeadows.livejournal.com/

2. Also, by the 16th, I will be hearing if FALLEN has been accepted for the Demon and Angels Anthology by Samhain. There was a lot of good competition out there, but I remain hopeful (though not optimistic) that I *may* slide in. LOL

3. My first lottery in my new store ends this weekend. Oh yeah, I opened a store for my knitting. I may have not mentioned that. I’ve been busy knitting my little hands off. Here is the link: http://hyenacart.com/purlofknitting/index.php

4. Still waiting to hear about my “revise and resubmit” for RECLAIMED. I have no idea how long it will take, so I check my email constantly. Constantly. haha

5. So, the gist of my post is: Critique, wait, knit, wait.

Excerpt from FALLEN:

Rebecca Chance had known from the very beginning of her quest to become an angel that she stood a fifty/fifty chance of success. She was far too temperamental for her own good. Training was a strenuous combination of being lectured by a senior angel ten hours a day and good old hands-on experience. Aspiring angels were not allowed to go anywhere near humans until after they had endured one year of the seemingly never-ending book studies. Rebecca had endured all of this, had sat stiffly in her desk (Sally did not allow you to slouch) every day for a year now, and her time to accept a case on Earth had arrived at last.

Her subject was a male named Anthony Weis. He was a single father to a three-year old daughter named Miranda. Apparently, Anthony had lost his job, his house, and would soon debate suicide. Anyone in the angel world knew that this was potentially an enormous disaster, so the senior angels had assigned Anthony as Rebecca’s first case. It was said that the senior angels would always attempt to assign simple jobs to the aspiring angels for their first assignments. Rebecca’s duties entailed of entering Anthony’s life and persuading him to live life morally, or, in this case, by not committing suicide. Easy enough, right?

Why, then, were Rebecca’s palms sweating, and her legs shaking? Once she officially became an angel and received her (metaphorical) wings, then she would no longer be a mere human. She would not be cursed with frail nerves, or a case of the jitters. Rebecca could not wait until that day arrived!

She had been struck speechless on that day long ago when she was approached by Sally as she sat alone in her tiny studio apartment. She had been astonished for more reasons than one. Firstly, there was the fact that she was not exactly angel material. One could say that her fiery red hair matched her temperament perfectly. The second cause of her shock had been pure disbelief. Surely she had been hallucinating. Rebecca had looked up from her torn couch to see a beautiful woman with long blonde hair, and gorgeous blue eyes smiling down upon her. She thought maybe she had died.

Sally had informed her that she had been chosen by God as one of the elite few among humans to have a chance at becoming an angel. She would not have wings and a halo (those were just myths, apparently), but she would be an angel sent on missions to help save people. Rebecca had looked around her small apartment, that was infested with rats and cockroaches, and had not hesitated in her acceptance. In a whirlwind of activity, she had shortly been learning the ins and outs of the Angel Academy. She was one of only five women who had been chosen for the position. The men angels were kept separate from the women, so Rebecca had no idea how many of them existed; but she knew they were out there somewhere.

Rebecca pulled herself out of her musings, and surveyed the house in front of her. It was a small home, modest and simple. Out front, there was a U-Haul truck with boxes strewn haphazardly next to it, and a little girl sat on the steps playing silently with a baby doll. Her chestnut hair gleamed in the sunlight, and her brown eyes were very grave for one so young. Rebecca tore her gaze from the beautiful child and searched for her subject, Anthony. She did not see him, but she could hear a male voice muttering angrily from within the U-Haul.

She took a deep breath, and approached the truck.

***

 

Tony was not in a good mood. But who would be taken aback with this fact, all things considered? His wife, Jane, had left him and his daughter almost immediately after the birth of their first child. He had, in turn, been left to deal with the overwhelming cost of daycare, diapers, formula, and housing as a single father. He was not useless by any means, but the modest income of a plumber only went so far, especially when he could not be on call due to babysitting issues. That was when most plumbers made their income, for they were able to charge double the normal cost of their labor.

Tony had been working hard at being a single father and a small business owner for three years now, but it had finally blown up in his face. He had known his failure was inevitable, but he had always hoped to somehow miraculously avoid it. The only thing that kept him going now was Miranda, his daughter. She was everything that was sunlight and happiness in the dark, dreary world. She was the only good thing left on earth, of that he was convinced. He had long ago given up on God being there for him. There had been too many unanswered prayers for too long now, including the loss of his home. Miranda was all he had.

He ran his fingers through his curly brown hair, and sighed. It was freaking hot in the truck, and he wanted to check on Miranda. He had told her to stay on the steps, but one could only trust an unsupervised three-year old for so long. Miranda was surprisingly mature, but he would still feel better after he ensured she was where she belonged.

He spun around and stopped in his tracks. A woman was standing at the bottom of the ramp to the truck, with her head cocked slightly to the left. She was so beautiful he rubbed his eyes with his fists, thinking that surely the heat must have caused him to have hallucinations. Women of such beauty did not exist. It just was not possible.

When he reopened his eyes, however, she remained. She had shockingly bright red hair that cascaded down her back to her hips. Her eyes were a bright blue color, so bright that they matched the blue sky above her. She was pale white, and had a small splotching of freckles across her nose, yet the rest of her skin was somehow flawlessly smooth. She looked as if she glowed in the sun; but that apparition was probably due to the difference in lighting between the dark truck and the bright sun outside.

He cleared his throat nervously.

“Can I help you?”

The woman simply smiled at him, and he was once again caught off guard. She was gorgeous. He felt himself stiffen, and tried to fight off the reaction. Jane had been gorgeous and had broken his heart, and left her daughter, without as much as a goodbye kiss. He did not like gorgeous women. They were all heartless bitches.

“Yes, I was looking for Anthony Weis. Would that be you, by any chance?”

Tony relaxed, and shrugged. She must be looking to hire a plumber. “That would be me, yes. But I’m out of business, lady. You’ll have to look elsewhere for service. I’m moving.” He motioned lazily to the boxes surrounding them, and then climbed agilely down the ramp to the asphalt below. He did not spare the woman another glance, walking instead towards Miranda. Miranda looked at him with curious brown eyes, and Tony squatted down beside her.

“Hey, darling,” he said softly. Her serious eyes met his, and she smiled slightly. Tony felt his heart lurch as she put her small hand over his knee. He had failed to provide for her, and now they were being forced to move into a tiny two bedroom apartment in Dallas. He had enjoyed living in his small house in the suburbs, with the picturesque white picket fence, while it had lasted; now it was time to return to the city–and to the corporate job, as well.

Updates from me:

1. I am almost done knitting another pair of pants for Emmy, will post pics soon. Next up is a drop stitch scarf for Emmy, and a scarf for Greg.

2. Someone googled my name and author to find this. This excites me to no end, because I am a dork. haha

3. I am waiting to hear back on my submission for FALLEN, a short story (25,000)  I wrote for a contest, and RECLAIMED, the revise and resubmit full ms (92,000 words).

4. I am putting up the first few pages of FALLEN for your viewing pleasure, if you would like a glimpse. I may do RECLAIMED soon too…

I hate…

waiting.

 

That is all.

Emmy’s hat in progress:

And now…

back to knitting!

In this order:
1. Scarf for Kennita (almost done)
2. Longies for Emmy (ready for first short row)
3. Hudson Hat for Emmy
4. Scarf for Greg

The ten millionth editing-

is complete, and is on it’s way to the editor that requested a “revise and resubmit”. (plus a few agents)

Woot!