For the next couple of weeks I am an honorary member of our Australian customer service team. Apparently, they have no leads, managers, or supervisors at the moment – the team is totally new – and their phones are swamped, so a couple of us were asked to step in and assist with troubleshooting issues and pushing stuck orders through until they get caught up.
Let me tell you, pushing stuck orders through was a lot easier in the old system!
Anywho, since I’m technically on lunch right now, here’s my two snippets.
When last we left off the still unnamed project that the muses demanded I work on right now, Marcus had just summoned Gareth to our world. This week, Gareth gets to meet the rest of Norah’s family.
“Eddie? What’s going on?” An elderly woman stepped into the hallway behind the man. Gareth had not met her before, but he recognized her from a picture that Norah had kept on her dresser at the farm – her mother. “Who are you?”
“One of Norah’s crazy friends.” Eddie answered before Gareth had a chance to. “Says he’s taking Marcus and Norah away from here.”
“Oh no you are not, young man. That is my grandson -”
“Who you have done nothing but ignore and mistreat his entire life.” Gareth cut her off. “You lost any rights you had to call him family long ago.”
The old woman’s jaw dropped. “Well I never…”
“Eddie, call the cops.” Another woman prompted from the doorway to the living room. A chubby boy with a black eye peeked around from behind her.
“That’s my Aunt and my cousin Vance.” Marcus explained.
“Ah. So the whole family is here. Lovely.” Gareth studied Norah’s mother and sister from his position on the stairs, wondering how she had escaped such prickly old thorns and become such a wonderful person. Only she hadn’t escaped after all – they had trapped her and locked her away somewhere, and were plotting to send her son far far away from her. “Tell me where Norah is.”
“Tarrytown Mental Hospital – but they’re not going to let you see her. The only visitors allowed are family.”
“Unless you get admitted too.” Eddie added. He pulled a cell phone from his pocket. “Marcus, back away from him.”
“No!”
“Marcus! You do what Eddie says right now!” Norah’s sister yelled at Marcus.
“Gareth is right. You’re not my family. I don’t have to listen to you!”
Eddie held his phone up to his ear, “Hello, 911? I have an intruder in my mother in laws house. He’s trying to kidnap my nephew-”
The next thing Gareth knew, the man was floating in the air several feet above the floor. He gaped at them in surprise, his arms and legs pinwheeling while Norah’s mother and sister shrieked in surprise. “Put me down! Put me down!”
“I’m not the one doing this.” Gareth turned to look behind him. Marcus stood a few steps above him, his eyes wide with shock at what he had done. “Marcus put him down.”
“I’m sorry.” The boy stammered. “I didn’t… I mean.”
“It’s fine. Put him down. Gently.”
And now for the WIPpet snippet from The Descendants! Since today is the 11th, here are 11 lines from chapter 2. In this scene, Matthew and Vivian have a long awaited talk. I wish I could have shared it all with you, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t make the math work, and, well, spoilers sweetie..
The look on [Matthew’s] face was identical to the one she saw on Andrew’s face when she caught him sneaking sweets behind Bree’s back. “I… uh… It’s an old habit.” He pulled the cigarette away from his lips and went to snuff it in the ashtray sitting on the table in front of him. “I’ll put it out.”
Vivian shook her head. “I don’t care – it doesn’t bother me. Her royal bitch on the other hand…”
He laughed at the nickname, but it quickly dissolved into a coughing fit. Apparently smoking and laughing was just as treacherous as laughing and drinking milk at the same time. “I’ll keep at it then.” He watched as she sank down into a chair across the table from him and buried her face in her hands. “Dare I ask what she’s done now?”
“She told everybody about Mom.” She noticed he scooted his chair back a few inches. “I don’t bite.”
“No, but you do have a mean right hook and a pretty broad vocabulary of insults.”
“You broke my heart. What was I supposed to do? Smile and pretend everything was sunshine and roses? As for the other thing, well, you deserved it.”
“Kissing under the mistletoe is a time honored tradition.”
“That most people usually ignore.”
“And I would have to but the old man insisted-”
“You could have ignored him.”
“True. Unfortunately the opportunity was too hard to resist.” He took another pull from his cigarette and blew a smoke circle towards the ceiling of the patio. Vivian stared at him. Opportunity? Too hard to resist? What did he mean by that. However, before she could ask, he continued speaking. “I thought everybody knew about your mom by now.”
So, for everyone who was curious about why Vivian punched Matthew – there’s the story. He kissed her under some mistletoe because his dad told him too. Even though she had been crushing on him for years, she took offense, and well… fist met face. Come Christmas time I may share the full story, but The Descendants has changed so much since then that it’s going to need some editing. We’ll see. There’s months between then and now, and things could slow down during that time right?
God I hope so.
To read more WIPpets, go here.
The Many Worlds of Christina L Olson 
“wondering how she had escaped such prickly old thorns and become such a wonderful person.” AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Erp. Was that out loud? I mean, erm… that’s not realistic enough. *cough* Nice people don’t come out of messed up families. *cough, cough* Seriously, you need to change that. All those in-law-esque people should be just wonderful. Because that would be, um… *can’t finish without bursting into laughter again*
(Shh… Don’t tell my in-laws I laughed. *looks around nervously*)
These are both fun snippets. 🙂
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Thank you!
I may have fallen in to a bit of a trope by making her family so horrible. The truth is that they’re kinda like the Dursleys in that they are mind numbingly normal, and anything that isn’t normal is automatically feared and rejected. My own mom was the same way for awhile, and then she quickly realized around my junior year in high school that she would never be able to stop my obsession with comic books and sci fi and fantasy novels and embraced it.
Though I think finding out that one of her favorite Real World participants was a comic book writer and artist helped.
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My mother will tell you that I am a horrible person. I used to be sweet, and do just what she wanted , and then….just ask. She’ll tell you at length.
Norah needs to get out of there, and so does Marcus. I love that Eddie gets a bit of what’s coming to him…
And I think Vivian overreacted…I mean, she got a kiss….from a guy she liked. Returning the favor with a punch seems a little unfair…
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It probably was a little unfair, but she was embarrassed about being kissed under the mistletoe, and he took things a little too far. Plus he had just told her he wasn’t interested in going to prom with her only a year or so prior to the mistletoe incident, and they hadn’t talked aside from the basic niceties in the mean time, so she was confused and still pretty bitter.
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We all have our less than stellar moments…
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I love the bit your muses are insisting you write. 🙂 And this line “Put him down. Gently.” had me snorting. Very nice.
For the WIPpet, yeah, waiting to find out why she slugged him when she actually probably wanted the kiss. Although, if she didn’t want anyone to know she wanted it …
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The muses have been very demanding lately. If I’m not plugging away at the Descendants, it wants me working on that new project, then last week, it threw a third project at me which I’ll probably publish under my pen name since it’s a little more risque.
At the time the kiss happened, she was still interested in him, but also pretty mad at him. He had turned her down only a year earlier after all. Plus she figured he was only kissing her because they were under mistletoe and his dad told him to, and then he took things a little too far when she wasn’t expecting it.
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Gareth is a much better person than me when he says “Put him down. Gently.” I’d have dropped Eddie on his head. Still, I can but hope (and fantasize), right? 😉
The mistletoe was after Vivian had asked Matthew out and been turned down, wasn’t it? I don’t blame her for walloping him, talk about mixed signals! I’m glad things seem a little better between them now–but considering past evidence and her current mood, he’s a brave man to come out with “the opportunity was too hard to resist”…!
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Gareth is a good guy, but even he has his limits. Wait till you see what he does to Norah’s doctor next week 😉
Yes, the Mistletoe was after Vivian had asked Matthew out and he turned her down. It was about a year later, but they had barely talked in the mean time. Also, she was assuming that he was just doing it because his dad goaded him into it. Then when he took things a little too far…
Matthew is a brave man for admitting that it was too hard to resist. Unfortunately we won’t get the story behind that until much much later. I feel bad that everyone is liking him so much, because after the next chapter, we won’t be seeing him (except for maybe in flash backs) for a long long time.
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Ohh, I’ll be looking forward to that, then! Gareth seems like a very nice person, so it’s always interesting to see what happens when they get angry.
Nooo, don’t feel bad that we won’t see Matthew for a while. All your characters are great so far–even the ones I want to slap! lol–so there’s lots more fun characterisation to look forward to and the promise of seeing more of Matthew in the future. :p I really do like Vivian, so I’m very much looking forward to seeing how the story goes on. 🙂
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She punched him? For kissing her? O.o
….
Had he just smoked a cigarette?
Aside from not understanding her violent reaction to such lovely attentions from a guy she liked, I genuinely like this bit. I love how you fit so much character into your writing without drawing too much attention to it.
I also like the bit with Gareth and Marcus. I am totally rooting for them.
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Thank you!
Actually, from what I remember from the short story, he had been smoking that night. However the reason why she punched him was more because he had just turned her down a year earlier. She was embarrassed at being singled out beneath the mistletoe, and figured he was only doing it because his father told him to.
Just wait till you see what Gareth gets up to next week!
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I was thinking how these people reminded me of the Dursleys and then saw you mentioned it in a comment! Thought the confrontation was nicely done – although I don’t know about putting Eddie down gently. Maybe gently with a little force behind it.
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