One-Night Stand...

I've never experienced this. More to the point, I have very strong objections of the notion, and skepticism over the fact that this could happen in the first place. I literally screamed at the TV screen each time I watch this developing story line, and glowered at the opened book when I read a similar thing, busily thinking to myself, "your conscience should kick in right about now!" I refused to believe that a) first of all, you could be that wasted past all coherence, thrill and excitement notwithstanding; and b) that even if you are more than midly intoxicated, that all your coherence will go out the window - clouded, granted; lowered, yes; but nonexistent?

It doesn't mean, however, that my characters share the same conviction; one of the good things about creating fictional characters is that you can put them through whatever, and control the outcome (or not... sometimes my mind just runs off with a storyline, and my hand would write as fast as it allow me to do, and voila! Even I was surprised at the end result).

So here's a bit of a snippet I've been working on, about Evelyn, the character of my latest novel (yet to be titled), the always calculated, careful girl, making a slip of a judgement and finding herself, unexpectedly, in the arms of her ex-boyfriend-slash-good-friend...

Driven by inexplicable impulse she could only describe later on as having consumed way too much booze, therefore clouding her coherence and otherwise sound judgment, she stretched both her arms out, shuffling closer as soon as Eric helped pull her up to a sitting position, coyly placing her head on his chest, her mane rustling against his cotton shirt as she nuzzled her head further, trying to find a comfortable, hollow spot.

Quickly recovering from his ultimate startlement upon witnessing the most forward, almost bordering on flirtatious gesture his demure ex-girlfriend had ever given him throughout their seven-year friendship, Eric wrapped his arms around Evelyn’s hunched shoulders, a palm gently stroking the length of her silky chestnut hair, the effect on the girl growing more and more inert was rather hypnotising that Evelyn’s head began to nod off.

“Eve?” Eric called, shaking her lightly.

“Mmm,” came the mumbled answer from Evelyn’s unmoving lips.

“Eve!”

“Huh…? What?” She pulled back and blinked groggily, staring at him in utter disorientation as if she had just met him.

“Perhaps… you should… uh…”

Eric couldn’t understand why he was suddenly shy at the thought of suggesting to his close friend that she should have a proper lie down, his head jerking vaguely to the direction of the hallway, where her bedroom door stood ajar at the opposite end, his cheeks burning.

As if they had forged a silent truce Evelyn wanted to honour, she simply nodded, putting all her weight on Eric as he offered his support, giggling helplessly as she toppled off-balance, landing in a rather undignified pose on top of Eric.

“Oof!” both of theme exclaimed in unison; Evelyn for bumping her head onto her friend’s sturdy chest, and Eric because the girl, in an effort to break her fall, had braced an arm out, her hand pressing on the sensitive spot of his thigh.

Evelyn’s hilarious cackle disappeared as she looked up, brows furrowing as she met Eric’s eyes; he was regarding her with an extremely foreign expression she had never seen before; not even during their brief romantic relationship in high school.

“Eric…”

Cradling the curve of her skull firmly on his broad hands, Eric pulled her up, aiming his lips on hers, the heat of his passion burning through her skin.

A Little Hiatus...

I can't belive that it's been exactly 1 month and 1 day since I wrote... oops.

Things have been super-hectic in every aspects of my life lately. I have had to put up with sometimes excruciating pain stabbing my lower right gum, and had to visit 2 dentists with the verdict that:
1. All of my wisdom tooth are still inside my mouth.
2. The wisdom teeth on the far right-hand side has grown on an angle, and therefore it was putting pressure on all the other teeth; not to mention that because of that, over the years, the toothbrush couldn't do a very good job in cleaning the teeth properly, so it was also decaying.

In that light, they sent me to another dentist to get both my bottom and top right wisdom tooth removed.

I really thought that... well, the worst to happen, really. The referring dentist and the actual dental surgeon both took one look at me and said "can you take some time off?" In which I replied yes. They then told me that the reason I would have to do this is because there might be swelling involved after the painkillers wore off.

My immediate thought was for one side of my face to be blown up to extreme proportion. To this effect, I went to look at myself in the mirror almost every hour, wondering when my face would turn purplish-blue, or any unnatural, unhealthy colour, and ballooned up. To my ultimate relief, this never happened. Despite the initial tightness on my lower cheek when the drugs were wearing off, and the fact that my gum wouldn't stop bleeding until the next day, despite the fact that I honestly thought someone had punched my lower jaw and I was recovering from it, I felt quite... chirpy.

But I did take a day off and had a super-long weekend, in which, you guessed it, I did nothing but plonk myself on my favourite spot on the couch, half-watching Days of Our Lives, and wrote to my heart's content.

The weekend after, my wonderful, loving husband and I celebrated our 6th year wedding anniversary by going on to a lunch cruise. We had a perfect weather for it, so we went up to the observation deck and took some picturesque photos of the city and its surroundings.

Apart from that, I have been excitedly (read: squealing like a schoolgirl) counting down to our trip to the US. We'll be flying to LA, connecting flight to Miami, driving to Orlando. A week later, we will be in New York. After 3 weeks of that, it will be Las Vegas for 4 days and the remaining 3 days in LA before heading home. To say I'm bouncing off the wall, grinning from ear to ear and clapping my hands in exuberance is an understatement.

What about writing? Well, yes, there has been a lot of that too. I am finding more and more, to both my delight and sometimes frustration, that I dwell a bit into the details; both of characters and general setting descriptions. And so what I thought would only be a one- to one-and-a-half page section turned out to be multiplied by three, or sometimes four, and whilst I've been writing heaps, I've been writing a continuation of the same section, and therefore it slowed the progress of me writing the other, completely different sections.

Take, for example, the section I was working on before, about Michael & Lizzy having a disagreement over dance lessons. Lizzy felt uncomfortable shaking her bootie in front of Michael, the best friend she had sort of grown up with ever since they entered high school.
Now... in my mind, before I wrote a single word about this section, I had envisaged that it would take no more than two sections; one section devoted to the events leading up to the argument (with Lizzy pouting her lips and scolding Michael for dragging her to take dance lessons in the first place, therefore putting her in this awkward situation), and the second one exploring how Michael & Lizzy would navigate around each other in tryin to come up with a compromised, win-win solution.

As I started writing, and continued writing, the number of sections also grew, and I think I was only satisfied when I had written four sections about this incident; one was as described - Lizzy scowling and darting murderous glances to Michael, not wanting to shake her rear end; second was Michael's attempts to 'break down' her resolves, including bringing a white chocolate and raspberry muffin as truce offerings and taking Lizzy into the empty dance studio, putting on an upbeat R&B music they both loved; third section was... ummm... at another dance lesson, with Michael thinking that Lizzy wouldn't show up and he had to be paired up with some stranger to be his dance partner; the fourth section - having recovered from finding Lizzy standing and grinning in front of him, she finally did the booty-shake, with Michael trying hard to keep a straight face as Lizzy had instructed him. There was also the surprise at the end in which the table turned when a male dancer demonstrated a move that would make any masculine man roll his eyes and bolt out of the dance studio, never to return... EVER.

See? Life is never dull around here...