Sunset Street Excerpt

Yesterday was another release day! Time to take a different turn compared to those wacko fairies from last month. Sunset Street is a YA urban fantasy, and it definitely has a more somber tone.

Per usual, you can now get Sunset Street from Amazon!

I have also slowly been pulling some of my titles out of Select and going wide with them. I'll have a post in a week or two with more information and links.

Until then, here's an excerpt from Sunset Street.

❦

Rain showered down on the scene, an occasional flash of lightning and rolling thunder in the background. Kind of desolate. I wasn't sure if such a game would help me forget the ache in my chest or if it would only exacerbate it.

I squinted, catching a flash of green behind the rain. A street sign, labeled Sunset. Of course.

The bleakness made me reconsider my afternoon plans. To clear my head, I went to the window. It squeaked, as reluctant to open as I was to put forth any effort, but finally gave. The sweet smell of rain drifted toward me, causing my mind to wander and dream of less lonely times -- those few boyfriends who had ended our relationship before I felt it had even gotten started. My need to be with someone was a show of weakness, and once they realized that, it was all over.

I returned to my computer, determined to do something to distract myself. If the game still seemed too dismal after a few minutes, I'd stop.

But I studied the little scene a bit longer. Maybe the houses hid amazing adventures, the bleakness a facade. What would it be like to stand in the middle of that street? To think I was the only person left in the world?

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, so I could get the full effect of the scent of the rain drifting through the room. The smell grew stronger and stronger. Ah, sweet rain. I imagined my upturned face feeling the drops shower down on me.

When I opened my eyes to play the game, I was no longer sitting in front of my computer. The scent of rain was overpowering -- I had given my imagination too much credit because the rain actually fell on my face.

I stood in the middle of the deserted street.

❦

Be careful what you wish for.

Stuck in her dorm room alone on a Friday night, Leah can’t imagine her loneliness getting any deeper until she pops a new game into her computer... and gets sucked into it. Trapped in a world of darkness and rain, she fears she’ll never see another living soul again. Until she meets Zach. He may be the balm for her heart she’s been searching for, but fulfilling her wish comes with a price. Is she willing to pay it?

1001 Reasons Not To Clean - #1 through #5

So, this whole dealing with the house stuff got me thinking... Yes, I think too much, and I like thinking of silly things.

Which brings me to a new blog series. 1001 Reasons Not To Clean! You don't think I can come up with 1001 reasons? I decided to aim for that high number because I want a challenge. 101 would have been too easy. If you know me, I don't make anything easy for myself. Let's see how many I can list. I have no set schedule as to how often I'll post for this, so we'll see where it goes. Also, this idea exemplifies how much I hate to clean.

1. 5 minutes after you clean the outside of the window, a bird poops on it.

2. It's hard work - hard work sucks.

3. The outdoor hose faucet is right next to a duck who made her nest against your house, so when you go to wash the blinds, the duck attacks you. (NOTE: This is a high possibility. We really do have a duck that made her nest near the faucet. I'm shocked she didn't attack me!)

4. It's a Sisyphean task. Once you clean something, you're just going to have to clean it again, which makes you wonder why you even cleaned it in the first place.

5. You'd rather play Pokemon GO.

Oh, did you want to see the bedroom complete? It's all painted! And all but our pictures and some video games have been moved back in. Here's a picture before we moved everything back in. Yup, I chose the color, and hubbie was non-committal on the purple, so if he hates it, it's his own fault for not speaking up.

Challenge Fail - Onto the Next?

Nope. You didn't see any after pictures of the girls' room. I got everything out! As planned. Then I started slowly moving stuff back in and sorting into piles, but that didn't actually start happening until after Sunday, and then between summer school, swim lessons, and sheer exhaustion, not a lot of progress was made during the week. Because I also wasn't going to do it all on my own. My eldest is old enough to help with her crap.

So, we had to get things ready to deal with the bedroom. Everything (except a bunch of my books) is back in the girls' room, though for the most part in sorted piles. I'm not about to take a picture of that, though, because now there's even more stuff in there from our bedroom. Yeah, things are a mess. Here's a nice picture though of when I emptied the room out!

This means we're onto the next project, and I'll have to finish organizing the girls' room (and my books - I did manage to select one bag of books to be taken to Half Price Books - that's a tough job for me!) after the bedroom is done.

Now, for the most part, hubbie's taking care of the bedroom. I, of course, helped him move everything out, but he'll be dealing with the wall repairs, the priming, the painting, and the ripping out of the ugly brown carpet. It sounds easy, doesn't it? Not in a 100-year-old house it isn't. The walls are plaster, and we have some pretty huge cracks. Plus he needs to be extra careful because there's lead paint in the room. He's not even touching the closet (a project for a cooler week).

Sorry that my blog's been taken over by life stuff, but right now, this is what's going on! Sadly, life can't be writing, gaming, and fun all the time. I'll leave you with one of the before pictures of the bedroom. You can see the horrible blue wall as well as the nose-wrinkling brown carpet. Sadly, I'm guessing the blue and brown combo is back to being an in thing? I sure hope not. Here's hoping the hardwood under the carpet looks nice!