Get Lost

 

This is Ruby. Or at least it's the character called Ruby in my mind. It may be a different image for someone else, which is the magic of books. I have a scrapbook for Get Lost where I put photos like these, sketches, writing, anything that reminds me of my story and its characters.

This is Ruby as a child. Obviously. Even though I found the images months apart.

 

This is just a pattern and a feeling and a sketch to go with all of that. It doesn't show up in the story but that doesn't mean it's not part of it -- maybe a certain desert sensibility, a wildness, something that involves spices and Marco Polo and deadly knives in a jeweled scabbard.

 

I think I may have mentioned that a friend in the publishing business read my novel and had some excellent suggestions for changes in it (thank you, David). Excellent but very tough. I've been letting it all percolate and starting and stopping and thinking and now I can go with it again. Yay.

Here is a prologue that may or not go in but it is part of the story:

Chilled autumn air rushed into the vacuum left by the departing M-Rider. It swirled up my skirt in movie star fashion and sent sparks tumbling along in the train's wake. A midnight sky was stuffed with stars and absent the moon. I could hear the earth humming, slipping towards winter, singing itself to sleep. Or maybe it was just the rumble of the distant train.

Inside the station, I pushed my bag into a locker, made my way past elbows and cue sticks, eight ball in the corner pocket, hey girlie what's your name? and sat down at the bar. Helena was on the other side, flirting with a string of admirers while Joe poured strong and steady. 

"Somebody buy me a drink," I said. "I've got a story to tell."