Blue Musings

I'm close to the finish line on DERELICT, my SF novel in progress. 

This has been an experiment in public accountability for my writing. At the outset, I was worried that I'd have difficulty in keeping to a posting schedule, or lose readers because it was a first draft, or even get frustrated with the story, since we writers are a superstitious bunch and sharing something in progress is a scary thing.

I'm happy to report that none of those things happened. And along the way, I've gotten the chance to interact with some wonderful folks on Wattpad, FB, and G+. 

If you would like to read along, you can follow the story either on Wattpad or on its own story blog.

Now that I'm within a few weeks of completing the manuscript, I'm going to start to post 2 chapters a week for those of you who are impatient readers. :)


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 The Road to Redemption was sparked from the lyrics of the Stealers Wheels song, Stuck in the Middle with You. The refrain has the line: "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you." At our family's dinner table (which can be a bizarre place), that got warped to 'Zombies to the left of me, vampires to the right. . . ' And then my odd brain was off and running.

As most creative processes do, this one evolved into the story included here, which does not, in fact, contain any zombies.

***

Jayce thumbed through the sheaf of well worn bills, keeping Reverend Larkin in her peripheral vision. He didn't look like the picture on the back of his books or the ones on his website, but sleeping in the same clothes for a night or two can do that to you.

"It's all there," he said. As haggard as he looked, his voice was still better suited to the stage or the camera than to the front seat of her pick-up. Easy to see how he persuaded the faithful to empty their pockets into his personal ministry. He was fully Human, though, despite the seductive voice. Jayce had been surprised.

She frowned, staring out the windshield at the rain damp street. He made it sound like a routine job. Point A to point B. All the money up front. But he was entirely too confident for her typical client. What what he doing here? People like him had limousines and entourages, not one Sensitive in a tired truck.

Larkin's money felt like it had passed through too many hands. Jayce wanted to wash hers, though that never prevented the emotional assault. She slipped the bills back in the envelope and shook her head. So many desperate people. As tough as things were around town, Larkin's revival meetings had been SRO. Hard times always seemed to swell church coffers. Something they had in common--both their jobs seemed to be recession-proof.

Continue reading The Road to Redemption in the attached pdf, or follow the link to my downloads page for mobi (kindle), epub, and pdf versions.

If you are looking for any of the previous short stories from older editions of BlueMusings, head to this downloads page. All formats of the prior offerings are there along with information on how to download the stories for your preferred reading device.