Progress report on Wake-Up Call

Can you believe it's nearly June already?

Where does the time go?

I've only just completed the first edit of "Wake-Up Call".

This book is a paranormal romantic murder mystery.

A short summary of the book:

Daryll is an architect, whose office is attached to his home. He shares the business with his best friend Euan and the pair have been friends from primary school age.

Daryll is married to Alicia, and they have two young children, Lizzie (4) and Josh (. They also have a dog, Molly and a nanny for the children, Monique.

One morning, Daryll wakes as normal. There are a few things not as usual. He feels a bit fuzzy, his alarm is not set ( and this is something he is rather OCD about) and during the day only his dog and daughter acknowledge him. What has he done to deserve everyone else ignoring him?

I'm now working on the next edit of the book, and I hope I'll manage to complete the editing and formatting before the end of the year. It's about time I publish another book.

Once I've finished the editing, I will be looking for beta readers, so let me know if you're interested.

Update on "Wake-Up Call"

 Yes, I'm still writing and editing too. I don't have a lot of free time, but I haven't yet given up on this hobby of mine.

So, today, I set aside a little time to edit Wake-Up Call. Warning! It's only the first edit and it is not yet fully polished. I'm slowly nearing the end of the book with the first edit (still several chapters away from it, but the end is in sight).

It feels like it has been ages since I last published a book and it's about time something new was added onto my published books list.

And now it's time to share with you an excerpt from the book. I hope you like it.

Mum got up and walked to Alicia, hugging her, “Stay strong sweetie, those beautiful kids of yours need you. I’ve got your back. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.” Mum hugged Alicia tighter, tears still glistening her eyes and then let go while dad was shooting daggers at Alicia.

“Let’s go Liz, I’ve heard and seen quite enough. Where is your loyalty, woman? After all the things she did to our boy. Can’t you see Alicia drove Daryll to it? All this is her fault and hers alone.” Next Dad strutted to the front door, his steps echoing on the tiles in the hallway, held it open for mum to step through, then shot another death glare at Alicia and slammed the door behind him.

Well, good riddance to bad rubbish. How dare dad behave like that to my beautiful wife? Certainly she did not deserve that? Had Alicia done anything to upset me to such a degree I would take my own life? No, no matter what dad had said, there did not seem to be any truth in it. There was no way I would consider those words as truth. Dad’s words were poison.

Alicia shuffled back to the couch in a daze and slumped back onto it. Leaning forward, her head in her hands, tears flowed freely down her face. “Daryll, I miss you so much. Why did you have to leave us? What did I do which was so terrible you had to take your own life? Will I ever find out what was in your mind when you took that overdose? Why did I not see the agony you must have been going through? You should have talked to me; nothing could have been that bad.”

How could I leave Alicia in agony and full of despair? This was all my doing and had nothing to do with what Alicia did or didn’t do. What had I been thinking? Drugs? An overdose? Alicia was right; nothing would be bad enough for me to want to leave the ones I loved; my wife, my kids, my parents, my best friend, or even my business. Why had I done that? And why could I still not remember taking an overdose, or the reason for it?

Only one thing was important now; I had to comfort the woman I loved. As I sat next to her on the couch, I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her close. Alicia came willingly but did not appear to notice. My free hand stroked her arm and I could not resist grabbing her chin and pulling her face closer, and kissing her gently on the lips, “I’m so very sorry, sweetheart. Dad should not say that; he has no right, and he is so very wrong. Nothing you did would ever make me take my own life, nothing. Come here, we can do this, you can do this. And I’ll be there for you every step of the way. I love you so incredibly much and I’m so proud of you.”

Again, I kissed Alicia on the lips. This time, her hand moved to her lips and lingered there, a question forming on her face. “Daryll? No, it can’t be. Oh, look at me, now I’m starting to hallucinate, too. It must be the grief and the shock of Joseph’s hatred. But I don’t deserve that. Certainly Daryll did not take his own life because of something I did or didn’t do? No, Daryll would have talked to me about it first if something upset him that much he no longer wanted to be here. And why would Joseph even think Euan would have an affair with me? No, that’s absolutely ridiculous.”

Alicia stared into space for a while, “Hmm, maybe that thought is not so ridiculous after all.”

My heart jumped in my chest.

“Perhaps Joseph had a bit of point after all.”

Now my heart appeared to stop. Was it possible for my heart to stop when I was already dead?

“Euan has been behaving strangely these last few days, like he wants to step into Daryll’s shoes. No, that can’t be true. And there is no way I would fall into his arms. Certainly not so quickly after losing the only man I ever loved. Well, except for my dad, of course. No, if Euan thinks I will simply swap from Daryll to him within days of Daryll’s death, he has another thing coming. No matter how supportive he has been, I’m not interested in a relationship with Euan.”

A sigh escaped, and I pulled Alicia closer, hugging her and kissing her all over her hair, face and lips.

Again Alicia looked a little confused and thoughtful, then shook her head.

Love,

Joni 

Progress report on Diary of a Female GP

I guess it is time to update everyone on the progress of 'Diary of a Female GP' again.

It has been 2 weeks or so since I last had time to edit part of the book. Today I managed to finish another chapter. You may already have noticed a post on my Facebook Page with a short excerpt of the book. The scene below actually happened slightly before the one you can read here on my blog.

So, how far is the book now? The first 23 chapters have been edited and the remainder of the book awaits. There are 44 chapters in total. Still, the chapters from chapter 27 onwards were edited while writing already. Only a few more chapters left, then read it through again and export it from yWriter6 to Word for some extra touches and bringing it to Kindle format. And then it will be ready for the beta readers. Finally! Having a full-time job is definitely a pain where writing and editing is concerned.

So, here is a little excerpt of the book (the scene before the one on Facebook). I hope you'll enjoy it.

*****

At a quarter to eight, the practice manager knocks on my door and walks in, taking a seat, “Can I have a chat, please?”

Oh, no, what have I done now? Although I can’t come up with anything I’ve done wrong, I’m not infallible, and it is possible I made an error or inadvertently upset yet another person. In response to Claire’s question, I nod.

“Sylvia came to see me yesterday.”

No, I could not think of anything I did to upset our receptionist.

“She complained about a patient and I wondered how we should deal with this. Apparently, Patrick walked up to reception yesterday afternoon and leaned over in a threatening manner. Patrick told her she was a good-for-nothing B*** and she should just do everyone a favour by walking out and right in front of a truck. This started because Sylvia was unable to give him a prescription yet as it had not yet been signed. Although Dr K had received the box of prescriptions, he had not signed them yet. Sylvia looked into it and found out Patrick requested the prescription late morning yesterday and Dr K received the box yesterday lunchtime. How should we deal with this?”

Why had Claire considered it important to discuss this with me now? This could easily have waited for discussion in our partners’ meeting at lunchtime. Discussing it with all partners present, okay Dr P was on holiday at the moment, was preferable to only discussing it with me. One thing was certain though, Patrick’s behaviour was unacceptable, and it was also not the first time he had displayed this behaviour. On two previous occasions we felt obliged to send Patrick a letter warning him his behaviour was unacceptable and if he continued to display it, this would lead to removal from our list. The last time was about six months ago and again he had fallen back into his old habits.
In an obvious place in reception, we display a notice that prescription requests take forty-eight hours to process, so expecting it to be dealt with within a matter of hours was unacceptable in itself. His behaviour following this was even worse. We would need to consider placing a barrier at reception to protect our receptionists.

“Although I realise this is an important issue, I think we should discuss this at our meeting at lunchtime when Dr K is also here and can help us decide. It may be time for a removal letter, but let’s see what Dr K says about it.”

*****

Yes, the not so nice sides of General Practice. As mentioned it isn't a bed of roses.

And if you would like to find out what happens next, why don't you have a look on my Facebook page. You can find the post with the next scene here: https://www.facebook.com/JoniMartinsBooks/videos/427541884520286/

Joni