I’D READ SOMEWHERE that it took 10,000 hours to be an expert at something. Writing was different, too vague a “something” for 10,000 hours to add up to much. Maybe 10,000 hours of lying in an empty bathtub brainstorming added up to being an expert on brainstorming in an empty bathtub. Maybe 10,000 hours of […]
WHEN I WOKE, I did not have a hangover, but I did have a text from Shadi, reading, He has a whole RACK of vintage luxury hats!!! And how would you know that? I texted bacI climbed off the couch and went into the kitchen. While I still hadn’t gathered enough courage to go upstairs,
Sunset Cove’s Lost Manuscript: Turning Point in The Beach Read
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GUS SLID OUT of the booth, and I followed, gathering the donut box and mycup of sizzling shit. It had stopped raining, but now heavy fog hung inclumps. Without another word, we got into the car and drove away fromDONUTS, the word glowing teal in the rearview mirror.“It’s the happy endings,” Gus said suddenly as
The Sun-Drenched Showdown: Why Liam’s Secret Changes Everything Read More »
“THANK YOU SOOOO much for having us, Pete,” I said as I pulled her into a hug in the foyer. She patted my back. “Any time. Any Monday, especially! Heck, every Monday. Red, White Russians, and Blue could use fresh blood. You see how things get stale in there. Maggie likes to humor me, but
The Ride: Sparks Fly on the Ferris Wheel (A Beach Read Romance Chapter) Read More »
The Book ClubWAS THERE A dignified way to happen upon your dead father’s lover? If so,I imagined it wasn’t blurting I have to pee, jerking free the bottle of wineyou’d handed your host, and running back down the hall in search of abathroom. But that was the best I could come up with.I twisted the
The Book Club Chapter: January & Augustus’s Secret Writing Prompt Read More »
The Labradors “SWEAR YOU CAN do this, January,” Anya was saying as I zoomed out of town. “If I promise Sandy a book by September first, we have got to have a book by September first.” “I’ve written books in half that time,” I shouted over the wind. “Oh, I know you have. But we’re
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The Mouth THE WORST PART of being college rivals with Gus Everett? Probably the fact that I wasn’t sure he knew we were. He was three years older, a high school dropout who’d gotten his GED after spending a few years working as a literal gravedigger. I knew all of this because every story he
“Gus’s Side of the Street”), Read More »
The Pete-Cute I AWOKE, HEAD THROBBING, to a text from Anya: Hey, babycakes! Wanted to make sure you got my email re: your glorious mind and the summer deadline we chatted about. That period reverberated through my skull like a death knell. I’d gotten my first true hangover when I was twenty-four, the morning after
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I WASN’T READY TO look through the rest of the house, so I settled down at the table to write. As usual, the blank document stared accusingly at me, refusing to fill itself with words or characters, no matter how long I stared back. Here’s the thing about writing Happily Ever Afters: it helps if
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I HAVE A FATAL flaw.I like to think we all do. Or at least that makes it easier for me when I’mwriting—building my heroines and heroes up around this one selfsabotaging trait, hinging everything that happens to them on a specificcharacteristic: the thing they learned to do to protect themselves and can’tlet go of, even
The Sceptic and the Sweetheart(beach read) Read More »