This feels like you're watching me give birth
Sorry for the graphic image, but really, it's that intimate!
Well friends, here we are at the next hard thing I’m making myself do. I’m writing “the end” on a novel I’ve been flirting with for years, and to make myself keep at it, I’m sharing some of it with you.
First, here is a short-ish blurb about the book as a whole.
It’s called “When Stars Align” and this is what it’s about …
Everyone Halley Jacobs has ever loved is dead. Well, at least, everyone she’s related to, including the grandmother who raised her. Halley is set to inherit a generous sum of money but the catch in her grandmother’s will leaves her with a deadline to find a new place to live. Halley has the chance to follow her dreams, if only she knew what they were.
Ben Jacobs has been in awe of the heavens since the moment he met his future wife at a viewing of Halley’s Comet. Celeste Morgan captivated him on first sight. But their plans to build a life around celestial events crumbled when Celeste was diagnosed with a mysterious disease that nearly took her life and forced Ben to make an impossible decision. Thirty years later, he’s chased solar eclipses across the globe trying to outrun his guilt, but the next best chance to witness totality in person will take him face-to-face with his past.
Marcus Sterling has no desire to ever see his hometown again. But to further his research on the effect of totality on insect life, he’ll have to return for the solar eclipse. Which means facing the disappointment of his parents and the long memories of a community that was all too glad to see him go.
When stars align, good things happen, but will Halley, Ben and Marcus be able to see how their lives have been building up to this exact moment in time?
That wasn't so hard now, was it?
Yes, yes it was. Considering that I actually had to write that blurb because I never have for this story and I struggled to find the words to sum it up without saying too much, then yes, it was difficult.
But the fun’s not over yet! I’m going to share a scene from the novel with you. I can’t tell you for sure that this is “chapter 1” or anything like that because I write scattered, generally choosing the scenes that I feel most like writing, even if they are not in chronological order. If this sounds chaotic, it is a little bit, but to me it’s like putting puzzle pieces together.
The excerpt
Thank you for coming.
Gram would have loved to see you again.
She certainly was a special lady.
Halley Jacobs felt like a robot repeating the same words in succession to the line of people who had turned out to say goodbye to her grandmother. She hadn’t expected it to be so exhausting.
Estelle Morgan had been the kind of woman to leave an impression on people. She had moved through the world as if she was the queen of it. A benevolent queen, but a queen nonetheless. That her husband, Halley’s grandfather, had been a beloved professor at the university and a brilliant scientist only increased her beloved status in the community.
It was a status Halley had failed to live up to, and at 29, she was now the sole survivor of her family’s legacy with not a clue how to carry it on.
While Gram’s death hadn’t been unexpected—she was almost 90—it had come as a shock. Estelle Morgan was the kind of woman you thought would live forever. And in Halley’s life, she’d been the only constant.
Now, she was gone, and it was just Halley.
She stood in the cemetery where the coffin had been lowered into the ground and flowers tossed in on top of it. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, the preacher had said. Gram would have hated the sentimentality of it all. Would have dismissed the tears shed on her behalf. While Gram had believed in an afterlife, she had also been practical. Death was a part of life. A cycle none of them could avoid. Halley had never seen her shed a tear. Not when her husband died when Halley was 10. Not about Halley’s parents, who had died when she was barely out of diapers.
Gram never visited the cemetery, didn’t like to dwell on the past. How ironic that her body would rest here. If she could see Halley lingering at the gravesite, she’d have something to say to her. Probably along the lines of: Don’t waste your time mourning what was lost. Look ahead to what you still have to gain.
Halley swiped a tear from her face. For all Gram’s stoicness, she was the only family Halley knew, and the thought of going back to the large empty house across town filled Halley with dread. She blew a kiss to Gram’s grave and walked a few paces to another gravesite, this one more familiar.
She sat down in front of the slanted granite marker that bore her mother’s name—Celeste Morgan-Jacobs. A bouquet of orange flowers that looked like stars nearly obscured the words that summed up her mother’s short life:
Beloved daughter. Mother. Wife.
November 21, 1970 to August 20, 1996.
It would never be fair—to have grown up without a mother. Gram had done her best, but having a grandmother wasn’t the same as having a mother. She’d spent countless moments imagining what it was like to have parents. Today was another one of those days. Halley shouldn’t have had to bear the burden of her grandmother’s funeral alone. Sure, Gram’s friends had rallied around her, helping to organize the funeral and bringing her food—more food than she could eat in a month—but it wasn’t what she needed most. What she needed was someone to hold her hand. To be the strong one as she was falling apart. To guide her as to what came next.
There would be meetings with lawyers and bankers and God-knows-who else to settle Gram’s estate and Halley felt ill-equipped to handle any of it. Being an adult didn’t mean she was ready to be on her own. Gram had taken care of everything. Always. Including her.
Who would take care of her now?
That’s just the beginning!
And by that I mean this scene takes place early in the story. So, yeah, there it is. Over the next several weeks, I’ll be sharing a few more excerpts as well as working on adding new words to the story so I can complete my goal of writing “The End” on this thing before next summer. (Likely sooner if I get my rear in gear.)
Thanks, as always, for being here. ‘Till next time, take care!
Oh, Lisa, I love this. A few years ago my kids and I went down to Muddy Run to watch a solar eclipse and the whole experience left a distinct impression on me. This concept brings all of that back to mind. I really enjoyed how you launched us right into the action by putting us at the funeral in Halley's head. So good. Can't wait to read the next installment!