Another except from Vitality

Could I be that girl? Could I live a normal life in any city I want and just be free? Could I fall in love without fear of hurting anyone? Could I be myself and be with my family? Is it even possible to live a normal life with this blood flowing through my veins? Will that ever be possible? I can’t stay here long, it’s already too dangerous, and he’s already got a hold on me.

Will I ever stop running? Will I ever be safe?

The only option I have now is to leave, to keep going, to separate myself from everyone I love or could love and hide.

Cole’s words swim through my head.

“Sometimes you have to sacrifice things to do what you love. What do you want most in this whole world?”

I didn’t have an answer for him, but now, soaked to the bone and standing outside my apartment, I realize what I want.

“I want to be free,” I whisper, the words tumbling from my trembling lips.

I can’t tell him why and he doesn’t ask. He just looks at me like he understands, like none of us are free. His hair is matted to his forehead, clear droplets of water dripping down onto his nose and mouth. His shirt clings to his toned chest and all of me just wants to bring him upstairs and dry him up. That’s what a normal girl would do.

“Why does the caged bird sing?” he asks, his eyes dark under the soft light of the building lobby.

“Because he’s safe?” I answer quickly, thinking maybe I was better in my cage in Freedom, safe from any harm.

But was I safe? They still found me and I still had to run. I’ll always have to run. If I were in a cage, that would just make it easier for them. I’ll never be safe.

“Because her heart is still free,” he says, his soft voice tingling the hairs on my ear.

I didn’t even notice him step closer to me. I can see every muscle beneath his shirt now, the fabric a part of his skin. I blink my eyes away from his chest and focus on the wall behind him.

“Just never forget that no one can control your heart Tave.”

Excerpt from Vitality

“You’re hiding something from me,” Cole says, his fork stabbed into a piece of fish. “Your eyes are betraying your secret.”

Yes, I am hiding something from you. I’m hiding a lot of things from you. Like my name, my ability to heal people, my ability to take from people, where I’m actually from and why I’m actually here.

“I actually hate fish,” I wince, partly from the look on his face and partly from the lie.

“I knew it!” he exclaims, dropping his fork onto his plate. “So why’d you get it then?”

“Well you were raving about it and how it’s the best fish in Vancouver, I figured I needed to try it.”

“But alas, no luck eh? Still not a fish girl?”

“Definitely not,” I say, even though this is the best fish I have ever had.

“Well I thank you for being honest with me now, but you know, you could have just told me before. I wouldn’t have been offended or anything. In fact, the way I could tell you had a secret just made everything worse. I don’t like secrets.”

Great. This would go well down the road wouldn’t it?

“Who does?” I ask, shrugging my shoulders. “The truth is the best.”

How do the lies just spill off my tongue and out my mouth without worrying about the consequences? When did I become like this? Have I always been like this? I have had to lie to people all my life about who I really am. There are only two people who truly know who I am. So I guess I’ve just become a very good liar over time. This was bound to blow up in my face eventually.

“Some secrets can be good,” Cole says, drawing my attention back to him and his chocolate eyes peering into mine. “I mean, a little mystery is sexy.”

I won’t worry about this blowing up anytime soon. The only things blowing up around here are my nerves and my heart.

“Well, there are other foods I don’t like, but I won’t say what they are,” I say, a smirk twitching the side of my mouth.

Cole’s mouth erupts into a full grin and he leans back in his chair, studying me. I don’t look away.

“Well, we need to get a room. Your aura of mystery has got me all hot and bothered!”

I know he’s kidding and I laugh at his joke, but we still stare at each other and I know that there is more than just a joke there. The tension darting between us on the table is loud and erratic. There’s no calming it down. Anything we do from here on out will just set it off even more.

Am I ready to go down that road?

Olivia Curphrey.

So it's offcial. Olivia, the main character in my novel, has taken over my life. If I'm not writing her story, she is in my head, throwing ideas at me, begging, just begging for me to write her. It's an incredible feeling. I mean, most of my characters do this to me, but she's different. Maybe it's because she was the last character I wrote before my computer crashed. Maybe because all summer when I wasn't writing, she was still there, still egging me on. And now that I've finally continued her story, she just can't get enough of me. Now all I need to do is find time to write it. I guess that'll be the hard part.

Don't worry Olivia, we'll make it through and everyone will know your story eventually. Don't you worry your pretty little mind.

My new muse.

I've been writing a lot. I'm finally over my fear of losing my work again and I've been writing like mad. I started a book blog, since I've also been reading a lot, and plan to do as much writing as I can this year, even if it's just blogging. I need to keep following my dream, even if I am far from home and publishers. One day I will have a novel published and this will all be worth it.

I still wish I hadn't lost my work, but there's no use dwelling on it. I've continued the story I started from where I left on and I'm doing just fine with it. This might be the one I try to publish. Yesterday I started rewriting the beginning, the part I lost, and it was hard at first but I think I'll be able to do it. This character is going through a lot of stuff that I'm feeling right now so it's easy to write her story. I crave to write her story. She whispers to me in my sleep and tells me to write more, not to leave her hanging. She is part of me now and that's why I started writing again. I found the character that begs for more. There is no way to stop writing now. She's taken hold of me and she is everything I think of now.

I've been reading a lot, which is good because it gives me ideas and tips on writing my own stuff. My book is similar to the stories I read and it's all going to work out in the end. You see that? How different am I from the girl who wrote that last post, feeling like she would never be able to write again?

I guess a good character does that to a person. Damn you Olivia Curphrey.

Breaking Through.

So my computer crashed. So I lost my most recent novel and the one that I'm working on right now. I'm trying not to let this take me over. I'm trying to be strong and not cry. But it's hard. It's really hard. These stories, these are my babies, my life. my blood, sweat and tears. Yes I can re-write them but it won't be the same. We all know that. It won't be the same. It's all my fault, I'm not blaming anyone else. I have an external hard drive but I hadn't put these two on there. Thankfully, as I need to keep positive, I didn't lose any of my other ones because I had them all on my external drive. Starting all over is going to be hard. I'm going to see if I can get someone to get them off the drive but I'm trying not to be too hopeful. I'm trying to let it seep in that I may have lost them and will need to rewrite them. There are so many "what ifs" running through my mind and I'm trying to block them out. It doesn't matter if I did anything else because it's too late to fix it. There is no going back now.

There is a barrier in my life right now and I need to get past it. I need to open up Word and start writing and stop thinking about what could have been. The only thing to do is move forward. Push Jen, push through this.

Write on!

This story is possibly going to turn into a novel. So far it's 160 pages typed up and I still have so much more to add to it. The very idea of this makes my stomach flip with excitement. This is the longest story I've written and to me that is a huge accomplishment. Even if it never gets published, even if people don't like it, all that matters that I wrote that much. To me, writing stories is my life but sometimes I get antsy and want to get to the end as fast as possible. So I cut it short or skip some details just so that I can say it's done. But not with this one. With this one all I want to do is make it longer. All I want to do is make it a novel.

In other news, I've gotten a lot of great feedback for Fall Into Me on my writing site (at writing.com) and it's made me feel great. They tell me I'm a good writer and that it deserves to be published. Even though I've never met these people, their words mean the world to me. Their words make me realize that my writing is important and that I should keep doing it. I will keep doing it an one day it will be available in bookstores.

Writing.com

I've taken the next step in my writing. I've joined a writing website where I can post all my stories and get ratings and reviews from other members. It's a great site and there are a lot of tips and tricks to help with my writing. I enter contests on it all the time and even though they do not pay out in money, they pay out in gift points which can be used around the site. I've won a couple and I continue to use the contest prompts to explore my writing further and help me along. And I love it.

In other news, I've been writing a new story and so far it's pretty long and I'm not nearly done. It's a love story (as most of my stories are) with a little twist (as most of my stories do) It involves three characters: Veronica, Ethan and Emmy and is told from each of their perspectives. Each chapter is titled with their name so that you know whose voice you're hearing. Ethan and Emmy have a past and dated for quite a while until Ethan broke it off. Six months later and she has flown into his life again and he can't get her out of his head and maybe he doesn't want to. But he has recently met another girl, Veronica, and has just as much, if not more, chemistry with her. For a while he is involved with both of them but then he makes the choice and chooses Veronica. Unfortunately Emmy is not going away any time soon and she is not happy with Ethan's new found love. But how far will she go to get Ethan back?

Veronica is a dreamer who wants nothing more than to find her happy ending and overcome the fear of being hurt. She watched her parents' marriage fall apart before her eyes and she plays by certain rules to make sure that won't happen to her. Ethan is a musician torn between his past and his future and Emmy is an actress ready to play any part she needs to in order to get what she wants most. And what she wants is her own happy ending.

I'm really excited for this story. I've been writing it every day and I'm already so attached to the characters. I have faith that it will turn out well. I've also been reading a lot which is important to me because the more I read, the more I know what publishers are looking for in novels. And I'm getting there and one day I will be there. I have no doubt in that.