Today is Valentine’s Day.

It’s also Ash Wednesday – which marks the start of Lent.

Clearly whoever is behind deciding when these holidays fall wasn’t thinking this year.

Valentine’s day has been a little rough this year. The Boyo is still a little sick, my grandmother fell and fractured her wrist, among other things. So Valentine’s Day, like most of 2018 so far, is fired.

And even thought husband and I are not Catholic, we do participate in lent by fasting or abstaining from certain things. Usually we go with fast food. This year I decided to do something different and give up Facebook because it was frustrating me and I spend way too much time on it.

We are only 20ish hours in to Lent. You want to know how many times I’ve broken my promise to stay off of Facebook? A lot. Let’s just leave it at that.

Thankfully God is forgiving, and tomorrow is always a new day.

I was able to get a bit of writing done this week, so that was good. Unfortunately I am way behind my goal for the week (like three thousand words behind) so that’s a bit frustrating. I had signed up last month for Write Track to help me figure out how much I needed to write each day to finish this book on time. Which was a great idea, and the word goals weren’t too bad. However, there’s no way to factor in days off, so if you fall behind, seeing all that red on your calendar can be a little anxiety inducing.

It didn’t help matters that I was having a rough time with the chapter I’m currently working on. The words are just flowing, oh, so, slowly, and the frustration from falling farther and farther behind wasn’t helping. So I’ve skipped ahead to the end of the book instead. I’ve known for many many years now how I want to end this part of the series, so it’s a lot easier to get the words on paper. I’m hoping that by banging it out I can get caught up on the word count, and not be as irritated by it. And in the future, I’ll just figure out the word count the old fashioned way – by writing it down on a calendar instead of using an app or website.

And, now… on to the good stuff!

Today is the 14th, so here are three paragraphs from Elusion. This takes place near the end of the novel. An attack has happened on the village, and Mattie and Liam are arguing amidst the chaos of the aftermath.

“Can you blame me? Everyone had experienced some sort of theft prior to your appearance. Then the moment you showed up, they all stopped.” Liam stepped closer to her, his voice dropping to a whisper that was no less venomous than when he had been yelling. “Not to mention that two of those… things… seemed like they knew you last night.”

Mattie flushed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I saw them grab you. They cornered you between the Millers and the Weavers. And they let you go. I know you’re strong. I know you’re fast. But you aren’t that good. Not against two of… whatever those were.”

To read more WIPpet Wednesday Posts, go here.