What We’re Writing by Jenn McKinlay

First, last week’s winners from our guest bloggers are…

The winner of Ellen Byron’s FATAL CAJUN FESTIVAL is – Ramona Long!

 and

The winner of Nancy Coco’s FUDGE BITES is – Jamie Gillespie!

CONGRATS, Readers, the authors will be in touch!

JENN McKINLAY: Revisions! Revisions! I have no idea why but I can’t speak these words. Oh, no, they must be sung out loud to the tune of “Tradition” from Fiddler’s Roof. Why? Because I’ve been on a writing bender for the past two months that would have turned a demure church lady into a drunk, like, pirate Jack Sparrow drunk. Seriously, pass the rum! 

Normally, I love revisions. It’s usually a tweak, a twist, a tightening of the screws. Not this time. This was like shearing a sheep in possession of a donkey kick with only a rusty pair of toenail clippers. And no, I am not overdramatizing the situation! 

In two weeks, I removed ninety pages (90!!!), jigsaw puzzled the remaining chunks that were left, and then wrote a brand spanking new sixty-five (65!!!) pages to stitch it all together. And now we’re gearing up for round two. 

The book in question is PARIS IS ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA, coming out in July 2020. It is my first stand alone, a rom-com that I love as intensely as only a mother could. 

In short, it’s a story of self-discovery as our protagonist Chelsea Martin is forced to confront the reality that she has become a raging workaholic with no life when her widowed father announces he’s getting remarried. At her sister’s suggestion, Chelsea decides that in order to find herself again she must go back to the year she spent abroad and find the three men she once loved – Colin in Ireland, Jean Claude in France, and Marcelino in Italy – and try to reconnect with open hearted, happy young woman she once was. Basically, she's looking for a life do-over. 

Here’s an early look at the opening of PARIS IS ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA:

Chapter One

     “I’m getting married.”

     “Huh?” 

     “We’ve already picked our colors, pink and gray.”

     “Um...pink and what?”

     “Gray. What do you think, Chelsea? I want your honest opinion. Is that too retro?”

     I stared at my middle-aged widowed father. We were standing in a bridal store in central Boston on the corner of Boylston and Berkeley streets and he was talking to me about wedding colors. His wedding colors.

     “I’m sorry, I need a sec,” I said. I held up my hand and blinked hard, while trying to figure out just what the hell was happening.

     I had raced here from my apartment in Cambridge after receiving a text from my dad, asking me to meet him at this address because it was an emergency. I was prepared for heart surgery not wedding colors! 

     Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. I wrestled the constricting wool scarf from around my neck, yanked the beanie off my head, and stuffed them in my pockets. I scrubbed my scalp with my fingers in an attempt to make the blood flow to my brain. It didn’t help. Come on, Martin, I coached myself, pull it together. I unzipped my puffy winter jacket to let some air in, then I focused on my father. 

     “What did you say?” I asked.

     “Pink and gray, too retro?” Glen Martin, aka Dad, asked. He pushed his wire frame glasses up on his nose and looked at me as if he was asking a perfectly reasonable question. 

     “No, before that.” I waved my hand in a circular motion to indicate he needed to back it all the way up.

     “I’m getting married!” His voice went up when he said it and I decided my normally staid fifty-five-year-old dad was somehow currently possessed by a twenty-something bridezilla.

     “You okay, Dad?” I asked gently not wanting to set him off. “Have you recently slipped on some ice and whacked your head? I ask because you don’t seem to be yourself.”

     “Sorry,” he said. He reached out and wrapped me in an impulsive hug, another indicator that he was not his usual buttoned down mathematician self. “I’m just…I’m just so happy. What do you think about being a flower girl?”

     “Um…I’m almost thirty.” I tipped my head to the side and squinted at him.

     “Yes, but we already have a full wedding party, and you and your sister would be really cute in matching dresses, maybe something sparkly.”

     “Matching dresses? Sparkly?” I repeated. I struggled for air. It was clear. My father had lost his ever lovin’ mind. I should probably call my sister. Dad needed medical attention, possibly an intervention. Oh, man, would we have to have him committed?

     I studied his face, trying to determine just how crazy he was. The same brown-green hazel eyes I saw in my own mirror every morning held mine, but where my eyes frequently looked flat with a matte finish, his positively glowed. He really looked happy.

     “You’re serious,” I gasped. I glanced around the bridal store that was stuffed to the rafters with big, white fluffy dresses. None of this made any sense and yet here I was. “You’re not pranking me?”

     “Nope.” He grinned again. “Congratulate me, peanut, I’m getting married.”

     I felt as if my chest was collapsing into itself. Never, not once, in the past seven years had I ever considered the possibility that my father would remarry.

     “To who?” I asked. It couldn’t be...nah. That would be insane.

     “Really, Chels?” Dad straightened up. The smile slid from his face and he cocked his head to the side which was his go-to disappointed parent look. 

     I had not been on the receiving end of this look very often in life. Not like my younger sister, Annabelle, who seemed to thrive on “the look”. Usually, it made me fall right in line but not today.

     “Sheri. You’re marrying Sheri.” I tried to keep my voice neutral. Major failure as I stepped backwards, tripped on the trailing end of my scarf and gracelessly sprawled onto one of the cream colored velvet chairs that were scattered around the ultra feminine store. I thought it was a good thing I was sitting because if he answered in the affirmative I might faint. 

     “Yes, I asked her to marry me and to my delight she accepted,” he said. Another happy stupid grin spread across his lips as if he just couldn’t help it.

     “But…but…she won you in a bachelor auction two weeks ago!” I cried. “This is completely mental!”

So, how about you Reds and Readers, have you ever had a time in your life when you wanted a do-over?