Hometown Love (a novel)

This is a continuation of Hometown Love, a novel. It’s in second draft, so it would need several more rounds of drafts, at least, before it would be ready for print. This book came out a little sassier than my Cassie Waterman books. Maybe it’s a combination of chick-lit and women’s fiction, but I think it’s a good read. Hope you enjoy it.

I straightened the wrinkles from my long-sleeved white button down shirt and made sure my hair net was in place, hurried to the table, and held a pen over a notepad all professionally. This was different than doing the take-out orders and fetching pastries from a building out by the alley. This was also different from being a hostess on the weekends.

“Welcome, good afternoon,” I greeted.

“We’ll have the usual,” my customer said.

“Would you like it medium or sweet?” I asked as I scribbled out the order. My penmanship was terrible.

“Medium is good,” she replied. “But isn’t that girl going to fix it?” she gestured to Katina who was waiting on another table. Katina had her polka-straight hair pulled up in a high ponytail. Why couldn’t that be me? I thought. New Rule for this food establishment: To all wait staff, cooks and preparers, busboys and girls, and cashiers for the take-out line. If hair is past chin length, it has to be tied back, women or men. If curly, wear a hair net too. The woman snapped her fingers at Katina. “Is she going to wait on us or what?”

“Not today. I’ve been promoted.” I stood tall at my five foot eight and grinned.

My customer frowned. I may have dropped my smile and mirrored her frown. She had as much confidence in me following a recipe as my own mother did. Thanks a lot!

I dashed off to behind the counter, mumbling under my breath choice words. This married couple was in their upper sixties to near seventy and dined with us every Friday afternoon. The wife would get all dolled up, costume jewelry on all fingers and bracelets, and a gaudy necklace. She’d wear frilly dresses that I recognized in the surrounding clothing shops. The husband would come in wearing his navy blue Greek fisherman’s cap and he wore an evil eye necklace charm – that acted like a third eye on his chest – and it would stare at me. It knew about Petros and Nikolaos and it wasn’t happy.

To be continued…

Nature Park In Tarpon Springs

The alligators are more out now because of the warmer weather. So, here’s what was at a nature park in Tarpon Springs. We were walking on the boardwalk and saw him. He was so still. Stone-like.

Hometown Love

This is the beginning of Hometown Love, a novel. It’s in second draft, so it would have several more drafts at least before it would be ready for print. But, for Valentine’s Day week, I wanted to share a piece of this book. Hope you enjoy it.

HOMETOWN LOVE

by

Tina Forcier

In high school, over a decade ago, I had only one boyfriend. Jordan Quattrini was my sweetheart since the middle of my freshman year, and we were an item past my eighteenth birthday. He was all Italian. He was cute, in a nerdy way. I was considered cute, too, by guy classmates with my long curly dark hair and fair skin, but I wasn’t exactly college-bound for Ivy League like him. I was drawn in by his brown eyes that were dressed up with glasses when he studied. He had nice shiny hair and wouldn’t go along with his mother’s wishes and get it cut at the barber shop. Nope. Not him. He sort of resembled Johnny Depp, not from Pirates of the Caribbean, but from What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, minus the red highlights that went on in Johnny’s hair back then.

My circle of friends from Warwick Vets didn’t see what I saw in Jordan. Sadie, who had been my best friend for a few years, found Jordan annoying. He’d tell these corny mathematics jokes to us in the hallway, (Why is 6 afraid of 7? Because 7 ate 9), and she’d be like, “OK…?”

CHAPTER 1

GREEK COFFEE AND NIKOLAOS

Monday, November 26th

A line of cars streamed down Dodecanese Boulevard, scurrying to find parking spaces in the pay lots and whatever curbside spots that were available on the main road and side streets.

My boss had given me a new duty this week as a waitress at Anastasia’s Restaurant and Bakery and that was making Greek coffee. I had seven steps to follow. Was Dimitri crazy? At home, I was an instant coffee kind of woman. But then he offered me two dollars more an hour plus I’d get better tips. OK. I could do this, I thought.

“Ivy,” he said. “You have customers on table three.”

To be continued…

Writing a Christmas Novel 101-decorations, holiday music, and more

It’s that time of year when Christmas trees are going up, lights are twinkling, the inflatable decorations are in the yard, the weather is chilly or pretty cold out and it’s shorter days, and holiday music is playing on the radio. It’s all the perfect time of year to write a Christmas book. But it doesn’t have to be December to do so. Here’s what I find inspiring to write one by.

1. Play Christmas music. I use my Kindle and have Alexa playing in the background. It has played holiday music any time of the year I have tried it. But if you have CDs, that will work too. Or find Christmas videos on YouTube. Those are there all year.
2. Put out a Christmas decoration. Display an ornament on a table or your desk. I have a Santa hat ornament for the tree. Looking at it even in June, made me think of December and the holidays. And it also prevented me from breaking it if I packed it away for the year. It was nice and safe sitting on my desk.
3. If it’s the holiday season, visit a store looking at all the decorations. The pre-lit trees, snowman lights-ups, and so on. I enjoyed checking out a Christmas village set up at Lowe’s this year. It was lit up and it had music playing and there was artificial snow that looked pretty real. It made me think of Christmas from the yesteryears and brought back some memories of growing up in New England. I’m in Florida now, so Christmas is a little different with the warm temps and the sun rays that you can still get a tan from, or a slight sunburn from. If it’s not Christmastime, you can search online for old ads. Ads for winter clothes and decorations and many other things that are holiday.
4. Display a Christmas village piece if it’s in your collection. One that lights up. It can give your writing room (or writing spot) that holiday glow. It might even inspire you to have that village piece in your story. Is it a cafe or a little store? You can keep this decoration out all year.
5. Take photos of Christmas decorations. Anything from lawn ornaments and inflatables to light-ups, and if you take a photo one December, it might come in handy as you are writing your holiday story throughout the year. Share it on your social media if that helps. In this post, you can say that you are writing a Christmas book and maybe how it’s coming along. You can give updates on your progress. It might make it more fun for you and maybe for others.
6. Find old photos of your family at Christmas, remembering the times. See what’s in the background in the photos. Is there a Christmas tree set up? What does it look like? What is everyone wearing? Red colors? Green? A Santa sweatshirt perhaps? Who is in the photo? Grandma who isn’t around anymore? Kids who have grown up now?
7. Just start writing your book remembering to add the Christmas lights and decorations. And if it’s set up north, snow and cold weather.

Good luck writing your Christmas book. Happy Holidays!

Bonus scene for Chelly Fleet (a Cassie Waterman novel)

Chelly Fleet (a Cassie Waterman novel) is available on Amazon in e-book and paperback. It was just released on November 24th. This is a bonus scene not in the book. They are in Deer Creek, Florida, and out shopping. I don’t think there are any real spoilers, but you never know. Happy Reading. Hope you enjoy it.

We left Aldi and Donna said that she had another stop to make before going back to the house. “There’s something that you will both want to see,” she said.

She drove down State Road 54 and made a left-hand turn at the intersection of A to Z Books and Café and I wondered for a brief moment if we were going there and what she wanted us to see. Was it a new book? What new book would it be? She liked to read mysteries and gardening magazines and Mike was into cookbooks, so possibly she wanted to go Christmas shopping for more presents. She made a right-hand turn this time into the plaza across the street from the bookstore. And she pulled into a big parking lot that had only a few empty spaces. There were so many stores in this plaza like the one across the way. The holiday was coming up fast. It was the countdown to Christmas with Grandma’s Avon Advent Calendar with the little mouse on day 20.

“Follow me,” she said to us. “I’m picking up something at Michaels.”

“Oh, Michaels,” Aunt Paula said her eyes widening. This was her store. I could only imagine how many things she’d want to buy in there. But then I thought of Jeremy lecturing me about how we don’t have much of any room to take back anything we’d get on this trip. The car was already about packed as it was. And we did buy several things up in Philadelphia. Now, we were more pressed for room. If I purchased a pair of boots while here, I’d have to wear them back and maybe even leave behind the pair of flip-flops that I brought. That’s what I was told. Or I’d have to hold things on my lap while on the road back to Warwick and that wouldn’t be too comfortable. Was comfort more important than stuff? That’s what I was asked and it kind of made sense, but I was questioning if I ran into something I really wanted and it was on sale.

“I ordered something online for pickup,” Donna said walking ahead of us and in the direction of the entrance doors to Michaels.

“What is it?” Aunt Paula asked.

“I’m making a Christmas ornament and needed the glitter paint for it. It’s going to be a high heel shoe. It’s going to be super cute. I saw a picture of it on Pinterest. Reminds me of the ones Carrie used to wear in Sex and the City. I’ve got the first season on VHS. Mike set up an old combo player that he got on eBay for my video collection.”

“You do?” Aunt Paula said and she was into vintage stuff too. Her house was like stepping back in time a couple of decades. It was the way I remembered it being when I was growing up. But with a few new craft pieces that she has made since then.

Donna entered the store and we followed. “Yeah. You wanna watch the show while you are down here sometime? I can make us girls popcorn and my homemade lemonade. I like watching things from the late nineties. It was such a great time to live and experience. Don’t you think?” She looked over her shoulder at Aunt Paula and then at me. I was a student at Rocky Point High then. The late nineties were my dark days. I guess some of them might have been like gray clouds and maybe sometimes they were just the puffy white clouds that aren’t so bad. Then there were the thunderstorms.

a traveling Christmas

Writing a Christmas Novel 101

Writing a Christmas Novel 101

When is a good time to write a story that’s set at Christmastime? It can be any month from January through December. It doesn’t have to be December to get into the holiday spirit. But for me, here’s what I did while writing Chelly Fleet, a traveling Christmas book.

I began the first 12,000 to 15,000 words of it during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in 2021. Since NaNoWriMo does take place in November, it is pre-holiday season, but Christmas was coming. I was up in Philadelphia that year, so it was chilly and cold out and we were having the usual November weather for there. I was also traveling to Florida right at that time, and that was giving me ideas as to what I could do with my story.

After NaNoWriMo was over, I continued to write one page a day for December, January, to maybe May. But still somewhat worked on it for the rest of the year. I might have taken a slight break when I went to Puerto Rico that summer, and then I went to Florida and back to Philadelphia, and then back to Florida and then once more to Puerto Rico by Christmastime. It was a traveling year for me in 2022. I decided to keep going on the novel and make it a chunky one and maybe it would be ready in time for next year. It would be around the length of my first book, Return to Sender. And in the end, it became just about exactly that. The e-book length is 387 pages it says on Amazon, and Return to Sender is 386. How did I do that?

a rose in the garden

This was a rose in the Philly garden. Going through old pictures and found this one on my computer. A good one. Such pretty flowers these were. 🙂

flowers in the garden

A bouquet of gerbera daisies in the garden. So excited to have 5 flowers now.

my Camp NaNoWriMo journey

Hello, and welcome to my blog. I wished that I’d started my Camp NaNoWriMo journey on here on day one and continued through, but better late than never. And the last days of Camp are the most exciting to me. Well, that and the first couple of days.

It’s day 28 of Camp with only two days left to the month and writing challenge. I already finished my words for the day. 600 total. My goal is to get 10,000 words down for my next Cassie Waterman novel, and I’m now about 500 words away from that goal. I had gotten behind from my goal earlier in the month, and some days it was a real struggle to get any words down. Even though I wanted to write, and the story circled my mind often, I just didn’t get the 340 words I needed to stay on track. I did manage to do some words every day, though, maybe even one day it was only 20 or 25 words total. It was progress anyway. That’s what I told myself. It was moving the story forward. Yay! I’m happy with all I’ve done so far with Camp and that my novel is getting closer to completion. However, I am thinking about something more for the novel…