Today I woke up with a headache and ended up going back to sleep for a while longer until it went away. I totally overslept, but I slept awfully last night worrying about the surgery Tiana has to have. I'm frustrated because the woman I have to speak to in order to schedule the surgery has not been available when I've called. I've left two voicemails for her and haven't gotten a response yet. I'm tempted to call her every hour on the hour until she responds to my messages, but that would probably just piss her off and make her intentionally make me wait longer. I'm trying to be patient, but we need to get this surgery scheduled ASAP. It's intensely frustrating to feel like this scheduler person doesn't understand how important this is.
I've been having ideas lately for other books aside from just the ones I already have in the works. I know I'm already working on The Council and Train Wrecks, but I'm going to start keeping a journal of ideas that I have for books. I've been thinking of a middle grade book that I want to write tentatively titled Jimmy Jameson and Mr. Van Pyre, Science Teacher. I started thinking of it one night in the shower. Sometimes I find that ideas come to me at the strangest times. Sometimes it's just a totally random thought that crosses my mind, other times it's related to a song or something someone says. However the book ideas come, I've been having more ideas coming lately than I could possibly work on at one time.
For those of you who aren't familiar with the publishing industry and don't know, a middle grade novel is geared towards the eight to twelve age group. Jimmy Jameson and Mr. Van Pyre, Science Teacher is a middle grade novel about a ten year old boy who goes into fifth grade looking forward to having the cool science teacher his older sister had, only to be met with the strange Mr. Van Pyre who Jimmy believes is really a vampire. Don't even ask where that idea came from because I have no idea. I had never even thought about doing a middle grade novel before this idea came to me.
So, my super cool sister has bought me an iPod Touch for an early Christmas present and I've been fighting with getting iTunes loaded onto my laptop so I will be able to add songs to it when it gets here. I say "fighting" because the stupid program kept giving me error messages every time I installed it. I'd uninstall it and reinstall it and still get the same message. Finally, last night I googled the error message I was getting and found out it was a registry problem with my computer and was able to fix it. Now I have iTunes ready and waiting for the iPod Touch to get here. I'm much happier now that it's working, but I'm totally not used to it at all. I've always been a pretty die hard Windows Media Player user and like the program and ease of use. So far, I'm not fond of iTunes and wonder if I can get the iPod to work with WMP instead if I can't get comfortable with iTunes. My sister uses it and loves it, but I'm still unsure about it. I'm not one who enjoys learning about new technology, I kind of prefer to stick to what I already know. I'm a wimp like that. :-)
Okay, I'm currently listening to playlist.com which I spent the past couple of hours fiddling with and adding new music to on my "writing" playlist. Scarlett (my teenage daughter) recommended a couple of bands and my sister got me started with a couple of others too so I wanted to add some new songs to my playlist. The music of the moment is from a new band to my playlist, a recommendation by Scarlett. Right now, "If All Else Fails" by Matchbook Romance is playing. This is probably a good song for Train Wrecks. According to Scarlett, Matchbook Romance is very "emo" and appropriate for Train Wrecks given the subject matter it deals with.
The excerpt for the day is set the day after Jackson showed up at Elyssia's house causing trouble. The group is trying to figure out what is going on and when they can expect the vision Elyssia keeps having to happen.
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Talk at the breakfast table was light and easy. It wasn’t until after the table was cleared, the dishes were washed, and we were sitting around the living room that anyone brought up the night’s events. Amie had already filled in Nate before they came downstairs, so he was well aware and quite worried about what was to be done to protect her.
Filled with concern for Amie’s safety, Nate began the discussion. “So, if El’s vision saw her at the school at night, we should be able to narrow down the possibilities of when this must be planned to take place. It’s not really that often that there are activities after dark at the school, right?”
I immediately thought of something, “Friday’s football game and the bonfire.”
“If it’s Friday night, it would have to be after the game, at the bonfire. Jackson would be too obviously missed if he didn’t show up for the game. The whole school is looking forward to us winning a game with him on the field. I would hope he wouldn’t ditch all his friends on the team,” declared Nate.
Evander was hesitant to believe this. “I don’t think his ultimate desires cover any such thing as football team morale or school pride. However, I do think you’re right that he would be too obvious if he didn’t show up for the game. Things get a bit wilder at the bonfire, and he could easily slip away them. Besides, it wouldn’t seem that strange if his father was there. Plenty of team parents show up for the games and stay for the bonfire each year. And during the bonfire behind the school, the school is opened up for people to use the restrooms so there would be access to the building.”
With that, we were all convinced that we had the day and approximate time of the event in my vision. We considered our options and discussed them in depth for hours. We strove to overlook nothing. The plan was simple. At no point during the night would Amie separate from one of us. Someone, Evander, Nate, or me, would be with her at all times. My father had to work that night and couldn’t possibly get out of it so he and Mom would be unable to be there for any support in the plan. The best they could do was hope that it all went smoothly and we all came back unharmed.
To be on the safe side of things, Nate and Amie agreed that Nate would drive her to school each day and run her home straight after school, before football practice. Nate only lived four houses down on the opposite side of the street from Amie and they often rode to school together so it would not be odd for him to do so. She also agreed to come over to my house after school on Friday and go with me to the football game.
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