Trick or Treat #D6 – Making Arrangements ~ I Write for Apples

Title: Making Arrangements
Category: Adult
Genre: Women's Fiction
Word Count: 73,000

Pitch: Battling cancer, Lang Ellis spent her (supposed) final year of life making sure her soon-to-be widowed husband could manage without her. Ha. After he drops dead on the tennis court, Lang, miraculously alive and well, learns one of his many secrets could cost her the most important thing she has: her family.

Question 1: In your MC's voice, what costume character do you relate most to and why?

Last year I would have been Cinderella, charmed life and all, because I was alive and in love with the most wonderful man of all. This year I can't decide between the Wicked Witch of the West and a zombie because one minute I'm enraged with that son-of-a-bitch and the next I'm devastated over losing him.

Question 2: As an author, what makes your manuscript a tasty treat (aka marketable/unique)?

My MC is a widowed baby boomer learning to stand on her own two feet for the first time in her life.

First 200 Words:

Lang leaned heavily on the shovel and tried to slow her breath.

A florescent cardinal perched jauntily on the feeder, dapper and energetic. She scanned the garden for his mate, and found the drab-feathered female scuttling in the leaves. Lang and Jack Ellis if they were birds.

Lang put all her weight on the shovel, balancing carefully as the earth gave way and the shovel easily slid in the damp November ground. She hadn't smelled the earth in over a year. She closed her eyes and breathed in the rich, damp scent of dirt.

She should be packing for the celebratory trip for her one year remission, not futilely trying to divide a wayward Lenten rose. She waited for her breath to slow as she went over her list, deleting the big floppy hat. After this past year, she didn't want to ever wear a hat again. Her hair was still chemo-short, but at least her scalp wasn't visible. At first glance, anyway.

Lang knew better than to smile about the love letters she'd written Jack, but she pictured them stacked and tied with the pink ribbon. She didn't want to tempt fate, trash-talk God. Still, she felt a tiny bit smug knowing she'd covered all her bases, that the letters she'd written him after her diagnosis were tucked away, unopened.