Sadie Jay

The bitter cold has truly and fully settled in, here in southern Illinois. We had a little snow this week, just enough to cover the ground and make it slick. Our forecast for the upcoming week includes snow and ice. I'm over it already! Bring on Groundhog's Day (because regardless of what that groundhog sees, spring is approx. 6 weeks away.)  Uptown, February of 2015. I'm hoping we don't get a repeat this week.  This week's snippet is from Smoke and Sparks . I'm doing another round of edits and this passage caught my eye. Vaughn and Daryl live in different states and are Face Timing for the first time on an evening that Vaughn is finding particularly difficult. Talking to Daryl improves his mood tremendously. Told from Vaughn's POV:  “You called me Darling,” I said softly. He’d pronounced it in the slight hill-billy twang that occasionally peppered his speech, saying ‘dar-lin’ like the old Conway Twitty song.            “That okay? Calling yo...

The January doldrums have hit. It's cold and gloomy and I'm dreaming of warm beaches. I haven't seen the ocean since January of 2019, but one of these days... There may come a day yet when I get to move south, but today isn't that day, sadly. But it's nice to daydream.   This week's snippet comes from the third Campfire Storie s book, Cinders and Ash . The group is sitting around the campfire, telling stories, but Lindsey and Brian's attention is less on the stories and more on each other:  Brian didn’t tell any tall-tales of his own, although he laughed along with everyone else. I caught him watching me, little side glances, only because I was doing the same thing. We were too far apart for those small accidental touches, but his fingers lingered over mine as we shared a beer, passing it back and forth. I hadn’t done that, shared a drink, since I’d been in high school, but a strange thrill passed through me with each touch. I grabbed a stick and cooked som...

I'm not one to make official New Year's resolutions because, let's face it, I never keep them. But I also looked back at 2021 and, although I made some progress with my writing, there were several things started and nothing finished. So I bought myself a planner and I've set myself some goals. I'm hoping that having a physical "reminder" will help me be more focused!   First walk of the year. It was a warmish day, but the creeks still had ice.  Snippet from my current WIP, Fangs for the Memories : Even vampires can have body issues! Alex was born in the late 1940s and changed in 1969, so he grew up reading comic books, and the comics back then had several pages of advertisements. Do they now? I haven't read a mass produced comic book in years and I don't know! From Alex's POV: I stood and pushed down my slacks, bending as I pulled them off.          As I straightened, Alex said, “You’re so thin.”         I crossed my arms over ...

Happy New Year! I (long ago) reached the age where staying up to greet the new year appealed less than sleeping through it. But I still celebrate it in my own way–which is a big pan of Hoppin John (black-eyed peas) for lunch! My idea of a nice New Year's Eve included a walk at the Nature Center (before the nasty weather moved in.) I'm going to snip one more time from Cut Shot . Ian and Jed's relationship is a secret, so Ian rented them a room for New Year's Eve that they've escaped to after attending a couple of parties with their friends:  Jed handed Ian a filled glass. “What do you want to drink to?”          “Us? Is that something we can toast?” Ian asked.          “Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it?” Jed seemed honestly perplexed and Ian considered the night, how they’d kept their distance but couldn’t stop the sultry looks crossing between them. He couldn’t fathom how they’d gone unnoticed, but the parties were raucous and their...