WIP Wednesday: Your last glimpse of Some Assembly Required before it is submitted!

Lex Chase and I have been hard at work finishing up our comedic (and surprisingly angsty and robust) foray into IKEA's spectral plane. I'm spending my day with some last-minute edits and then Some Assembly Required will be off to our publisher. It's been an interesting lark--much plottier and heartfelt than we'd imagined it we jokingly set out to see if we could outline a book based on a silly writing exercise assigned by Damon Suede at a conference in Orlando earlier this year.

It was never a book we truly intended to write, but Damon liked the snippets we'd written in the class and encouraged us to continue it. And then our editor heard him talking about it with us, and the rest is history. Or rather, the rest is ghosts falling in love in purgatory, which just happens to be housed in IKEA.

Given how much time we've spent frantically trying to finish by our deadline--which is today, by the way, because Lex and I like to live dangerously and down-to-the-wire--it was a surprise that coming to the end of the manuscript took us by, well, surprise. Suddenly we were done. It was happy, to be sure, because every writer likes to actually finish a project. But we were also sad to leave Benji and Patrick behind because we'd fallen in love with them. Personally, I think I might miss Agnes the most. She's plucky and mysterious and has most of the great one-liners in the book. *g*

So without further ado, here's the last snipped of Some Assembly Required you'll see here in #WIPWednesday, since after today it's no longer a #WIP. *sniffle*

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Some Assembly Required, release February or March 2016, Dreamspinner Press

Agnes didn't look over, absorbed in her knitting and apparently trusting him to work through the snarled yarn himself. He started winding. “Find her parents?” 

Benji didn't bother to ask how she knew. Agnes seemed to know everything that went on in the store, which made it all the more puzzling that Patrick thought he could prank her. Surely Patrick realized that Agnes was more, didn't he? Benji couldn't put it to words, not even in his own head, so he'd never tried to talk about it with Patrick. Besides, he kind of liked the unique bond he and Agnes had. It was certainly better than the antagonistic one she shared with Patrick. 

“Her mom. Pretty sure that will be the last time she wanders off. She was shaken up.”  

Agnes nodded, looking up briefly from her knitting. “Something about it shook you up, too.” 

It had, but he hadn't really noticed it until Agnes said something. He was always happy to reunite a missing kid with its parents, but it usually felt better than this. Today Benji just felt empty.  

And really, always and usually? Benji wasn't one for melodramatics, even in his own inner monologues. Why was he be using words that implied he'd been here years when it had been a month or two, tops? He needed to find a hobby or something.  

“I wish Patrick would decide if he was avoiding me or not,” he said, because Patrick was kind of like having a hobby. If a hobby was rude and sarcastic and more often than not ended with Benji needing to regenerate in the ball pit with Agnes.  

Agnes hummed. “Patrick has a lot more than that to decide,” she murmured. Her lips moved soundlessly as she counted her stitches, though the mass of finished rows on her lap followed no discernible pattern. Agnes's knitting was as cryptic as her advice.

WIP Wednesday: an IKEA movie date!

Photo credit

Lex and I are so, so close to the finish line with Some Assembly Required. We've built the world and filled it in with a lot of wonderful, colorful characters. And now we're getting to the nitty gritty stuff that I love...sweet moments and relationship building! *g*

What happens when you're a ghost so your spiritual essence is tied to IKEA and you can't take your crush on a date? Why, you bring the date to him! Benji and Patrick's relationship is moving along at a snail's pace (or rather, Patrick's pace...) and Benji decides what they need is a good old-fashioned movie date.

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Some Assembly Required, February 2016, Dreamspinner Press

Benji sighed as he moved over to snag a VGA cable from around Karin's neck and start hooking the laptop up. She'd clearly not known what he needed, since she brought several. He saw an HDMI and what he was pretty sure was an ethernet cable, though he had no idea where she'd have gotten that. 

Agnes craned her neck, watching him closely. “So you're going to show a movie using this?” 

He wondered when the last time Agnes had actually watched a movie. Had they even had talkies then? He decided discretion was the better part of valor and bit back his joke. 

“I'm streaming the movie and using the projector to put it up on the wall. Kind of like how movie theaters do it.” 

Agnes poked at the laptop, and the screen flickered from the burst of electromagnetic energy. She drew her hand back quickly, and Benji almost laughed. It was the closest to chagrined he'd ever seen her. 

Karin joined them, squinting at the laptop. “So there's a movie reel in there?” 

Not for the first time, Benji wondered just exactly how old Karin and Agnes were. 

“Uh, no. Nowadays movie theaters are all digital.” He bit his lip when he looked up and saw two blank faces. “It's hard to explain. But no, there are no reels of film.” 

He'd had a hard time figuring out what to screen for Patrick on their movie date, but after an hour agonizing over his choices he'd settled on The Avengers. It was the perfect mix of action and geekery and it was exactly the type of movie he bet Patrick would have lined up to see on opening night. 

Benji was going to be kind of devastated if Patrick didn't love it. 

WIP Wednesday: Some Assembly Required

Today's #WIP Wednesday takes us back to IKEA purgatory with the lovable Benji and the grumpy

IKEA Smaland! I'm too much of a germ-a-phobe to let my own
kids play there, but it sure does look fun. (If you don't mind a case
 of dysentery from the ball pit.) Photo credit.

Patrick. Lex and I are moving along at a nice clip on Some Assembly Required, though to be honest we're going to have to pick up the pace if we have any hope of meeting our deadline. (Yikes.)

I think we're about halfway done. Lex, who if you didn't know writes epics, would probably disagree. Hopefully we'll meet somewhere in the middle. *g*

This is the last week of school for Thing 1 and Thing 2, so I'm hoping for a burst of inspiration to help me crank out a few chapters before all hell breaks loose around here. Fingers crossed!

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Some Assembly Required

aka the IKEA purgatory meet-cute you didn't know you needed until now

The sharp-salty tang of tears wasn't exactly out of place in IKEA. Benji had learned that sometimes even the toughest men cry, and it seemed like those times were especially likely to occur the longer they were inside IKEA, following around harried partners with over-filled carts. He wasn't going to generalize. While most of them seemed to be straight, he'd seen more than a few bears reduced to manfully sobbing in housewares. 

But this was different. This wasn't the lone tear of a man (or woman, let's be honest, there were plenty of them too) pushed past the brink of boredom and frustration. It wasn't the happy tears of a giggling co-ed who'd found just the right fuchsia faux fur rug for the dorm room, OMG! The tears he could taste on his tongue were of a frightened child, and they drew him in like a beacon. 

Karin had told him she'd never seen anything like it. No one who'd come before him had ever been able to interact with the living the way Benji did—not through the usual means that Patrick used when he was trying to influence someone, but actual interaction.
So far it had only worked with kids under six, which was perfect because kids under six and Benji were like peas in a pod. 

“What is it, Lassie? Did Timmy fall down the well again?” Patrick asked when Benji's head lifted and he took a deep breath. Upstairs. Close enough to the cafe that the scent of meatballs and lingonberry made it hard to pinpoint, but that hardly mattered. That in and of itself was enough of a clue to tell Benji exactly where the kid was. 

“It wasn't funny the first time you said it and it hasn't been funny the last ten, either,” Benji muttered.  

WIP Wednesday: Back to IKEA!

This last week has been a hectic, horrible rollercoaster, and it played havoc with my writing schedule. Those of you who follow me on Facebook or Twitter know that my 5 year old was hospitalized over the weekend--her second hospitalization in two weeks. 

She's home now and recovering well, but there's nothing quite so scary as rushing your child who's unable to breathe to the emergency room, and then having the doctors unable to easily solve the problem. :/

But like I said, she's home now, and even back at school today. That means I'm back to work, both the EDJ (which isn't evil at all, actually) and writing. Yay! Today's WIP Wednesday is a snippet from chapter 5 of Some Assembly Required, the IKEA meet-cute afterlife book Lex Chase and I are writing.

 Some Assembly Required  

Benji went limp, letting himself sink deeper into the ball pit. He didn't want to see Patrick. He didn't particularly want to see this Agnes woman either, but needs must. He'd rather the devil he didn't know rather than the one he did in this instance. 

Though Patrick had been adamant that this wasn't hell. Were there devils in purgatory? Probably. And Patrick with his sinful good looks and screw-everything attitude was definitely a prime candidate to be one. He stayed under a few more minutes until a bejeweled and wrinkled hand thrust down into the balls. 

“Patrick's gone, it's time to come out,” Agnes said. Benji put his hand in hers, wincing at her surprisingly tight grip as she pulled him up. 

He gasped when his head broke the surface, the open air tasting sweet and light on his tongue after the heavy, fetid air from the bottom of the pit. There wasn't any accompanying relief in his lungs, though. He took another cautious breath, alarm spiking through him when he realized his chest wasn't moving. 

“We don't need to breathe. Most of us do, just because it's familiar. But that's a corporeal need, son, and we're most certainly not corporeal anymore.”

WIP Wednesday: IKEA!!

With the nifty #amwriting bracelet I made for myself!

Now that King of the Kitchen is submitted, I'm back to working on Some Assembly Required, the IKEA meet-cute that Lex Chase and I are teaming up to write together. It's uncharted territory for both of us--first time writing with a partner, first nod toward contemporary for her, first experience with fantasy/paranormal for me--and it's incredibly exciting. I'm having a blast.

Since it's set at IKEA, I decided a research trip was in order. If "research trip" can be loosely defined to include a massive IKEA shopping spree and a trip to Jungle Jim's amazing international supermarket. I'm saying it can, because I came home energized about the project. (And also because that means my mileage to Cincinnati is tax deductible!)

IKEA!!!!

On an related note, I feel terrible that I missed last #WIPWednesday. I'd had a terrible day, and honestly it slipped my mind. I have a pretty good story to tell about it, so I'll save that for a little later in the week. It'll be titled Failure to Adult, which should give you a pretty good idea of the content. *g*

So without further ado, here's today's #WIPWednesday snippet from Some Assembly Required:

Patrick's grin didn't dim in the slightest. “Oh, that was a misdemeanor at best,” he purred in a tone that had Benji blushing. Patrick let out a delighted laugh. “Oh, I do so like the innocent ones. This is going to be fun.”
Benji swallowed again, not because of a dry throat this time but to make sure his voice didn't break when he answered. Patrick was the most inappropriate person he'd ever met, and it was both terrifying and more than a little arousing. Benji definitely needed to get out more.
“What's going to be fun?” he asked, wary.
“Why, being your personal shopper for the day, of course,” Patrick drawled. “Whatever did you think I meant?”
Benji flushed but didn't back down. “I don't need a personal shopper. I'm only here for some boxes and then I'm heading home.”
Patrick's gaze flicked up and down Benji's body, and Benji's hot cheeks flared again. He'd never been so blatantly checked out before. He couldn't help but wonder what standard Patrick was using for comparison and whether or not he measured up.
Patrick flinched, but covered it up with a stretch. “That's what they all say,” he muttered.

Benji had no clue what he'd said that had upset Patrick, but since Patrick didn't seem to be dwelling on it, Benji decided to ignore it. He felt a twinge of guilt at knowing that someone was hurting and not trying to help, but part of his the new four-point plan for a happier life that he'd come up with while staring at his meatballs this morning was not getting involved in other peoples' drama. And as cute as he was, Patrick had drama written all over him.