A Considerate Kidnapper?
Recently I went shopping with my daughter and granddaughter.  We had to make several stops at different locations and by the time we got to the last one we were all getting a little tired.  Turns out everyone in our fair city evidently had to make a stop at the same store and all of them decided to check out at the same time.  I know that anyone reading this has been put in this situation on more than one occasion while out shopping.
Gina was a real trooper and made the offer to stand in line and make both our purchases if I wanted to take Savannah to the car and sit with her while Gina checked out.  Of course I said yes so Savannah and I hightailed it back to the car.
Savannah crawled into the back seat and buckled herself into her booster seat and proceeded to wait patiently for Gina to join us.  Savannah is a really talkative little thing so whether or not she and I carried out a conversation wasn’t an option.  Again most of you have tried to carry on a little tete-a-tete with someone in the backseat of a vehicle and it can be quite uncomfortable with the person in the front.  It was a fairly warm day so I had left the door open and was sitting sideways in the seat with my feet on the ground.  I had grabbed hold of the little handle over the passenger’s door and leaned back over the armrest between the seats so this put Savannah and me face to face without me having to put all my weight against the armrest which would have been a bit more than uncomfortable.  That thing digging into my back just above my waist wasn’t what I would call relaxing.
During mine and Savannah’s little talk I still paid attention to what was going on around us so when a car door shut close to us my head came up.  I noticed a lovely woman walking between the car next to us and the one on the other side.  Her movements only piqued my attention even more.  Her slow hesitant movements as she turned her gaze toward me I found curious.  She moved forward where the taller part of the vehicle blocked all but the very top of her head from my sight but she backed up and gave me a very hard stare.  Stopping on her backward movements she finally spoke in almost a whisper.  I actually had to ask her to repeat herself.
“I beg your pardon?” 
“Ma’am are you OK?”
“Yes, just talking to my granddaughter in the back seat.”
“Alright.”  She responded in a hesitant manner but went on her way still keeping an eye on me.
Now what about me concerned this lady so much was beyond me.  I don’t think I looked as if I was in any medical distress, at least I don’t think I did.  Then it hit me.  I never removed my hands from that little handle over the door.  I began to wonder if the dear woman had thought I might be handcuffed to the damn thing.  Surely not.  If that were the case I had to have been taken by the most considerate, and stupid, kidnapper ever.  I mean not only has this person left me alone in a vehicle in a busy parking lot close to the row of stores but had left the door open so that I was able to get fresh air.  Finally I came to the conclusion that she must have thought I was physically ill, although I hope I didn’t look that bad, but whatever her reasons I wish to thank the dear lady for her concern.  Actually I believe she did think I was kidnapped because the woman actually looked a bit scared and if it had been a matter of me being ill I think she would have taken a different approach.

OK, I admit this is old news by now, well if not old it’s been heard before.  I have six books in the old barn and this is number seven.  I should be used to this by now but I’m not.  Right now it is going through two edits and not by someone who will be doing the final edit but by two people who have a back ground in two different fields that are an important part of the overall story.  One I’m not too worried about.  Well that’s not true either.  This person will rip me a new one if I got anything wrong but that I can deal with.  It’s the other one that has me concerned.  ‘He’ will rip me a new one and leave me broken and bloody.  An excerpt from a much earlier blog follows…
‘I've had about ten people read the book and I only got one bad review.  Now I can't tell you that I don't respect this person and their opinion because I do.  The thing is he was the only guy to read it and as I told him before I handed it over to him it was written with a way a woman thinks and feels.  His actual words or at least five of them were, "You are no Steven King."  I'm glad that someone finally pointed that out to me because I must have been confused.  I went back and looked at my birth certificate and sure enough I'm not Steven King.  Damn who knew?’
Later he started reading my books with a much more open mind and although he has never commented on any of them individually he did tell me, just the other day actually, that everyone is entitled to one bad book.  I’m assuming he still holds that to the first one but I doubt that he ever reread the book and to be honest the poor man got the totally unrevised version of the book and there is no other way to put it, it was pretty bad.  Oh not the overall story and he even said that at the time but damn who could follow half of it.  When I went to do the first edit before handing it over to someone else I had trouble reading and keeping up with it.  The story was all there, the sequence was fine, but the typos and sometimes the remedial manor in which it was written was horrifying and I almost gave up.  It took me months to pick it up and fix it but I did and what came out of it was a book that I was and still am proud of.
Anyway getting back to the new one, George’s opinion on this one is important.  Is he going to find things wrong with it?  YES!  I wouldn’t expect anything else from him especially with it comes to this book.  For some reason George inspired a character in the new book that took me by surprise and the next thing I knew this guy, being a lot like George, came in like gangbusters and took over.  Like George this character was a police chief, although George has retired now, and is strong, dedicated to his job and the city he works to keep safe, is a man of honor, a quirky sense of humor at times, and most important he takes no crap from anyone.  Oh I couldn’t help myself I did name this character George.  Are there differences, most definitely and I hope my wonderful, extremely intelligent, handsome, amazing, and sometimes sensitive big brother remembers that.  Of course my big brother never had to deal with a malevolent, horribly evil, killer spirit that you couldn’t put in handcuffs and throw into a jail cell, at least, I don’t think he has.
I will now spend the next few months on an emotional roller-coaster while the book goes through all it has to before it is finally ready to be published.  During this time I will question why the hell I do this, what was I thinking when I started several years ago to even begin to believe I shouldn’t even be doing this, and wanting to go hide under my bed.  At some point I’ll pull myself together and remember the answer to that question.  I love it.  In so many ways I find myself in what I write.  I personally think there can be no better reason for anyone to do anything.
Someone else I need to mention here is a beautiful lady who inspired the story.  She took a picture and from that picture came a short story but I couldn’t let it rest there.  It haunted me.  At times that picture was all I thought about.  Finally I sat down and started writing the book.  Thank you Rima.
Also a special thank you to Regina Rochelle for taking over directing the book trailer for this book.