Friends

Only your real friends tell you when your face is dirty. (Sicilian Proverb)

The GP sent me an email to let me know that I left a noun off the list last night - "friend". (Here's where we have another collective "Awwww...!")

I am very blessed to have many people in my life whom I consider friends. Most of them are fans, some of them muses or editors, some are my friends just because. Some I've known only a short time, others all my life (I have two friends I still correspond with, and see when I can, whom I've known since we were 9 years old). All of them are cherished.

I was watching my daughter interact with some of her teammates at the tournament this weekend, and there is one young lady in particular with whom she seems to have formed an immediate bond. Upon first glance, you would probably consider these two the most unlikely pair of friends, at least from the standpoint of their physical attributes. But I've developed an uncanny grasp of the obvious over the years - it's not what's on the outside that makes friends.

This is the basis of the story for my current WIP:

Four women from four different walks of life meet by chance and discover they have one bizarre commonality - two have barbaric ex-husbands, and two are married to men with vicious ex-wives. As a joke, the four friends begin plotting the demise of the "psycho exes". When the exes start turning up dead for real, the friends must figure out who's killing them and why - before one of them ends up being the next victim.

It's still in the rough draft stages, but the story is coming long nicely. The BMWs are calling this "chick noir" - J.T. says it's Desperate Housewives meets Patricia Cornwell. There's a much darker element involved than in any of my previous books. I need to figure out a way to work that underlying noir theme into the pitch synopsis. This book is not part of my Jack MacAnder series and is unlike anything I've ever written before.

Which might explain why I'm having so much trouble pulling everything together. It's a challenge.

I like challenges.

Music of the Moment: Fanfare for the Common Man, Aaron Copland

Read a book. It's good for you.

=) JB