It's our second-to-last morning here in sweet, sunny Sacramento. Next stop: Oregon for a weekend, and then we're trekking up to Canada for a week-long vacation out in the pretty wilderness. And I'm extra giddy (and sleepy/unshowered) because last night I heaved a messy, kinda unwieldy, first draft into my developmental editors' inboxes (it also, maybe, was missing 20k words of an ending, but don't worry it )
While this draft was extra messy, I was immediately obsessed with my charming flirt of a playboy/giant golden retriever hero (Rowan) and my tough, tattooed, Bad Girl/bad-ass heroine (Charlie). Obsessed, as in, this-close to making them both a bunch of sexy mixtapes and declaring my undying devotion, obviously!
This love story will change a lot in the drafting process, but *so far* I can say we've got some fake dating (!!!!!!!!), a touch of reverse-grumpy-sunshine, and some wholesome friends-to-lovers magic. By which I mean one friend (Rowan) is like "I don't care that you turned me down, I'm here for a good time, ladies, so excuse me while I DON'T try to smell Charlie's hair or stare at her pretty face, I am super fine with this hahahahaha" and then the other friend (Charlie) is like "As if I ever have time for Rowan's nonsense, I am much too busy being a cool, confident Bad Girl who Doesn't Have Feelings and I'm definitely not jealous when Rowan dates other people, who am I to say anything, I'm just here, being Really Hot and Not Caring."
That's it...that's the book so far. Subject to change dramatically -- and really, isn't that what makes this 'writing a novel' thing so breathtakingly beautiful?