Happy Father's Day - we had donuts. :-)


I’m deep in the middle of my WIP right now, so I’m blogfail.

I've copied and pasted an entry below that originally ran in June 2006 here. I had finished a first draft of FLASH BURNOUT, but I was still working on it. Now that book is less than six months from its release date. ☺

Here's the rerun:


It was almost time for lunch.

We were almost out of bread.

“Subway?” I called.

“Yay!” I didn’t even have to ask what my son (8yo) wanted: a foot-long roast beef sandwich. Plain.

“Um, I’d rather have something soft,” said DH apologetically. (Mouth still tender from dry socket.) “Maybe a bean and cheese burrito from Taco Bell?”

The line at Subway was long enough that I considered bailing. It consisted of mostly teenage boys and their moms. They were all tall and sweaty, wearing long shorts … fresh from a basketball game. I decided to stay and soak up their gangly presence. My MC is their age.

A kid with nascent sideburns turned toward the kid nearest me and cocked his head, listening. His head began to bob, and he announced, ‘“Peaceful Easy Feeling.’ The Eagles. 1978.”

Then I heard the background music, and sure enough, he was right. Spies should be silent and invisible, but I laughed out loud. He grinned in embarrassment and turned away.

I love that kid. No way should he know that song, but he does. And he was a few years off on the release date (yes, I had to check) but I’m impressed! A quirky teenage boy in the flesh. My MC has some basis in reality, not just my own mind.

I ostentatiously DIDN’T look at him after that, so he could go back to being himself, but yes, I kept my spy-eyes on him. After he ordered, he slouched toward some buddies at a table, paused, and played a little air guitar for “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” out of sheer sarcastic exuberance.

I’m glad we were almost out of bread yesterday.

Driving my son to sports camp Friday morning, I had a character flash. But I was driving. And I had left my notebook at home, anyway.

“Son!”

“Yes?”

“I need you to remember something for me. Okay? Something for my book.”

“What?”

“I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to remember it for me today, and remind me later, so I can write it down, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Here it is: Marissa keeps food in her pockets.”

“What’s the name?”

“Marissa. Marissa keeps food in her pockets.”

“Marissa keeps food in her pockets. Okay.” He chuckled a little. It does sound funny out of context. But Marissa didn’t always get regular meals when she was little, so it’s not funny; it tells the truth.

Of course, after saying it out loud and making a huge deal of it, even I was able to remember the thought, and write it down later. I’ve lost plenty of fleeting ideas.

When I picked Son up from camp at the end of the day, we chatted about dodgeball and capture-the-flag and what to have for dinner, then stopped at the video store for Friday’s Movie Night selection.

“Hey!” I said. “What was it I asked you to remember this morning?”

“Marissa keeps food in her pockets.”

"That's right! Thank you."