All posts tagged: first-love

Deborah Shepherd on unearthing a 30-year old manuscript, re-writing it, character development, mental health, gardening, first loves, being creative at all ages and more in SO HAPPY TOGETHER

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By Leslie Lindsay  Completely engaging and totally immersive read about a woman’s journey to find her long-lost love, but what she finds is completely different from what she imagined. ~WRITERS INTERVIEWING WRITERS|ALWAYS WITH A BOOK~ May Spotlight: Mothers & Mental Health/Illness  When Carolyn Tanner flees her unhappy marriage for a cross-country trip to find her long-lost ‘true love’ Peter, she’s in for a bumpy ride. I loved SO HAPPY TOGETHER (published by SWP April 20 2021). I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one–would it be sappy? Sad? Mysterious? Too light? I was completely gobsmacked with SO HAPPY TOGETHER, which is told from the POV of a smart, feisty, and instantly likable wife/mother/writer. Carolyn Mills-Tanner’s stultifying marriage and life as a harried mother is wearing thin. Her three children–ranging in ages from 8 to 14, are heading to summer camp and Carolyn now has the opportunity to travel cross-country to find her first love, Peter MacKinley, from her days as a drama major at the University of Arizona. She leaves a ‘Dear John’ note for her …

Fiction Friday:

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By Leslie Lindsay You know how reading a really gripping book can get your creativity flowing?  Well, it worked wonders for me this past week as I dove (quite literally) into Deb Caletti’s book, HE’S GONE (Bantam, 2013).  While this book is about remarried woman who wakes on a typical Sunday morning only to find her husband is missing, it has little to do with first love, which my novel is about.  Dani (Caletti’s female character) can’t remember them coming home the night before, she’s stumped.  Over the course of 10 days, she recounts every last moment together, the words they said, the moments they shared trying to recreate the possibility of what happened.  I was particularly taken with Caletti’s well-crafted sentences, the gritty language, and overall gripping tale that our lives–and our marriages aren’t always what they seem. Interested in how HE’S GONE sparked my own creativity?  Here’s an excerpt written just last evening that will go into Slippery Slope (working title).  “I can’t sleep.  The sheets are all baggy and sweaty.  Joe lies next to me, …

Fiction Friday:

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By Leslie Lindsay Working on something new to piece into my novel-in-progress, this is meant to show Steve, a biomedical engineer’s obession with his first-love, Annie.  Let me know your thoughts!  “The only thing I know is promises should have been made.  A contract, an algorithm of love:  Girlfriend says she needs spaceàbreak-up.  End of relationship. Option Two: Girlfriend says she needs spaceàgive her space but not too much. Keep her hanging in your world.  Because you love her too damn much.  It’s like the fine art of balancing a chemical equation.  God, but Annie hated chemistry.  She was the entropy agent, blasting into the relationship generating thermodynamic heat, a contrast between order and disorder.  I will her into my mind, fast-forwarding the years. Annie is small, delicate, frail.  She sits in a chair at a sunny window.  Her hands are mottled with age spots, prominent veins blistering blue and purple.  I cup her hand with my own, watching it transform before my eyes—youthful, slender straight fingers spread forth.  I lean in and kiss her cheek.  “You’re …

Fiction Friday: Ice-Cream Truck

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By Leslie Lindsay  (image from http://www.giantrobot.com/news/typewriters-lasting-in-india/attachment/typewriter/)  Welcome to another addition of Fiction Friday starring my novel-in-progress.  Okay, “star” is a premature descriptor.  How about white dwarf, instead?  This scene takes place at a drive-in ice cream place like Sonic.  It’s a young-love flashback.  Guy wants girl back.  Let me know what you think.  [Remember, this is an original work of fiction.  Not to be borrowed or stolen without proper credit, and in some cases, moolah].             At that moment Steve reached over to me in the cab of his new truck and placed his hand on my left knee.  An electric zing shot through my body, starting at the place where his large, lean, mechanical hand rested on me, reaching all the way down to my toes, making them tingle, back up through my solar plexus to my head making me feel dizzy and all liquid-y inside.  His touch made me melt, like my oatmeal cookie dough ice cream had.             I turned to face him but before I could say anything, his hand clasped my …