Tori Tells All

For this Version of Author Monday, we welcome author Wendy Ely. Thanks for joining us, Wendy!

Writing Dreaming of Him!

I usually don't like paranormal anything. I don't watch paranormal anything and the genre itself scares the crap out of me. The whole ghost subject freaks me out. I believe in spirits but if something odd happens in my home I go into total denial or we will be packing our stuff. I do have a fourteen year old daughter who has a darker personality than I do. She is a paranormal and horror buff. She also writes novels already. After she finished writing her first book at age twelve she decided that maybe we should write a book together.

We set out plotting Dreaming of Him. We agreed that we'd both write it but I'd do a lot of the romance in the book because the thought of romance made her want to gag.  After we plotted most of the book, I wrote the opening scene and had her read it. "Mom," she had said, "I love it, but you need to write the whole thing." She decided that her talents weren't as good as mine (she is wrong!) and couldn't write with me.

Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) was coming up and I figured that writing Dreaming of Him would be the perfect project to do in that month and an awesome gift for my daughter. I accomplished the task of writing the novella in one month (surprising since I know nothing of the genre!), edited it, and had a contract from my publisher shortly after.

Here is the opening scene of the book:


I stood by the lake’s edge and tossed a rock, trying to make it skip across the water as my father had once taught me when I was a little girl. My lips twisted in a frown as the rock plopped against the water and quickly sank. Obviously, rock skipping could be added to my list of failures.

“Hey.” The sudden sound of a deep voice cutting through the silence should’ve startled
me, but it didn’t at all.

Curious, I turned toward the sound.

He stood there with a strand of dark hair falling down against his tanned forehead. He
brushed it back and smiled, revealing a brilliant set of teeth.

“Have we met before?” I asked, trying to place him from somewhere.

Instead of answering, he stepped next to me. “Let me show you how to do that.” He
picked up a rock and twisted his wrist just right, sending the rock skipping across the water. Once the rock sank, he turned to me again. His dark eyes stared into mine as he slid his finger down my cheek.

“Amber--”

The blaring alarm pulled me from my dream, jerking me straight up in bed. The
obnoxious sound came from a little blue box sitting on my dresser, set far away from my bed to force me up from the comfort. I groaned as the day’s reality set in. The manager of Rich Chick expected me to be there for work in an hour. I hated not only the annoying beep-beep that ripped me from my dream, but also knowing that I’d be behind a counter pretending to be someone different. Then again, I hated most everything about my life. I glanced over to the bottle of prescription pills on my dresser. Should I go another day pretending everything was fine without taking the mood-altering drug people swore by? I shook my head at the notion. No more pills. Not today. Not ever again.

***

Buy link: http://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-of-Him-ebook/dp/B006ZKBZD0/ref=pd_sim_sbs_kstore_2?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2

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