Monday Moments features
Love In Touch - by Lucy May Lennox.
There's a *GIVEAWAY* of a $25 Amazon or B &N gift token and an ebook of Love In touch! Read on for that Link.
There's a fantastic author interview to read with your morning cuppa, afternoon tea or evening snack; find out about the book that's got such an interesting cover and read the whole of Chapter One. But first, let's get to know Lucy...
Welcome, Lucy! Take yourself back 20 years and tell us if you had any
aspirations to become an author at that time.
Well, 20 years ago I was a college student majoring in
Creative Writing, so yes, absolutely! I was writing all the time but the
professor kind of killed it for me. I wanted to write SF space operas, and he
wanted me to write middle-brow serious fiction. Clearly literary fiction was
the only kind of writing that was valued at school, but to me so much of it was
boring, self-serious, dispiriting nonsense. After four years of that, I only
wanted to write for fun for myself and my friends, which is what I did. For
years I wrote an ongoing story back and forth with friends over email, just parodying
our favorite movies and TV shows and being silly. It was really fun and
cathartic. It's only in the past 5 years or so that I've gone back to writing
things other people might actually want to read.
It's funny--when I was a teenager, I was determined to
become a novelist, and I applied to colleges looking for Creative Writing
programs. I went to visit one very prestigious college (which shall remain
unnamed) and an English lit professor told me he saw no pointing teaching
creative writing, because if I wanted to write I could just do it. At the time
I thought that was a lazy and pretentious answer, but now I wonder if maybe he
was right. Maybe I would have been better off just writing on my own all along.
Now jump forward 20 years from today. What do you think
you’d like to be doing then?
Who knows! Writing even more, hopefully. But who knows what
the technology will look like by then. Maybe it will be even easier to combine
words and images, like comics or animation, even for people like me with limited
drawing skills. That would be awesome.
What’s your preferred genre for reading material?
I read lots of genres, as long as it's written well. I guess
my favorite is historical fiction, the more meticulously researched, the
better. I like Young Adult, because authors will take on more topics and themes
that in serious fiction, and there's usually more hope and optimism. I like
reading the classics of English literature too. I've been slowly working my way
through classic novels I missed in school.
What do you think will be the main reading materials within
the next decade? Books, some form of portable tablets?
I don't think the book is going away that quickly. It's a
form of technology that's been around for hundreds of years because it's
efficient and useful. In ten years, tablets might be replaced with something
else, we don't know yet. But books will still be around. The idea of the novel,
as a story of a certain length, structured in a particular way, with the
conventions of showing characters' speech and thought that we are all used to,
that will certainly be around even longer, no matter what platform we're
reading on.
In recent years there’s been a movement towards popular
cult-type stories- sometimes driven by what’s been popular on TV and the
cinema, like Vampire, shifter, time-shift sub-genres. What do you see as being
the ideal focus to capture the imagination in 5 years time?
Haha, if I knew the answer to that, I'd be rich. Seriously,
I'm so far out of the mainstream, I have no idea what most people will like. If
I can reach even a tiny niche audience with stories they can't find anywhere
else, I'll be happy.
Can you give us an idea of what your writing schedules might
be like during the remainder of 2013 and on to 2014?
I have a huge historical novel already written that I'd like
to get published.
Fast and furious:
Ice cream or chocolate cake? Cake. I'd like to say ice cream too, or both together, but
I'm lactose intolerant. Damned internal biology. Please don't mention ice
cream; I might cry.
Home made lemonade or rum cocktails? Lemonade.
Cycling tour of France or a beach holiday in the Caribbean? Beach. I love France but I'm not up for anything more
physically challenging than walking around a museum or going shopping.
A date with a politician, or a date with Gerard Butler?
Um, neither? I can't think of a worse type for a date than a
politician, the kind of person who is professionally insincere, and I had to
google Gerard Butler to know who he is. I don't think I've seen any of his
movies. No wait, I did see Beowulf.
Man, was that CGI creepy. So no. If we're talking Scottish actors, though, Ewan
McGregor can call me up anytime.
Children or pets? At the moment I have neither.
Thank you for a great interview, Lucy!
Kassie has felt adrift ever since her dad died when she was in college. Now
24 and living in Seattle,
she gets interested in learning sign language through her roommate, a sign
language interpreter. One day at a Deaf community event, she sees a young man
sitting off by himself. Kassie feels compelled to try signing to him–the fact
that he’s strikingly handsome doesn’t hurt.
Jake has been deaf and blind since birth. His disability has cut him off
from the world, but beneath his isolated exterior, is a smart, sweet guy with a
dry sense of humor. Despite the odds, he’s highly educated, but at 26, he’s
gotten stuck in a rut, with few friends and no clear career plans. Until a
sweet-smelling girl introduces herself to him unexpectedly, and opens up a
whole new world to him.
Jake is more intelligent, more genuine than anyone she has met before, and
for the first time Kassie starts to feel like her life has some direction. But
as their friendship deepens into something more, the difficulty in
communicating with each other only grows, and it seems like everyone they know
thinks their relationship won’t work. How can they come to a deeper
understanding of each other, and find a future together?
Dev Love Press
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Here's a bit more about Lucy:
Lucy May Lennox is a lifelong resident of the beautiful Pacific
Northwest. Her first ambition in life was to become a child actor,
but when she grew too old to be an adorable prodigy, she turned to writing
instead. A connoisseur of novels featuring men with physical disabilities, she
grew frustrated with all the cliches, ignorance and stereotypes and decided to
write her own positive take on disability. In addition to writing, Lucy also
enjoys cooking and gardening, and is an amateur opera singer.
Find Lucy at:
Today's *Giveaway*
To enter the draw for the $25 Amazon or B & N gift token; or to win an ebook click
HERE
Thank you for visiting today, Lucy. Best wishes with your writing!
...and now as a special extra you can read a lovely chunk from the beginning of Love In Touch...
CHAPTER ONE
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Kassie asked as she slammed the car door
shut behind her.
Erik smiled down at her, his brilliant white grin reassuring. “Of course.
You’ll be fine.” He jogged across the parking lot while Kassie dawdled behind,
even though the rain was increasing from a mist to a steady drizzle.
“I don’t know. My signing still sucks. What if they don’t understand me?”
Erik put an arm around her, hugging her to his lean tall frame. “Come on,
you’re not here as an interpreter. This is just a casual meetup. And since when
have you been shy?”
Kassie grinned despite herself, then looked up at the low-slung building
before them. A sign over the door read Seattle Deafblind
Center. She glanced up at
Erik again.
“OK, but you’ll help me if I get stuck?”
“You’ll be fine,” Erik repeated as he pushed the door open.
To Kassie it seemed purely by accident that she ended up in this place at
this time. She had moved to Seattle
after graduating from college because she wanted to get away, to start over.
She had chosen a small school in Indiana
near home, but her father had gotten sick in her freshman year and died in her
junior year, leaving her to sleepwalk through college in a haze of grief that
prevented her from making any friends, let alone boyfriends. By the time she
graduated she was ready to start over in a new place where she didn’t know
anyone. She found a job easily enough as an administrative assistant (well,
secretary really) to the head of finance at the corporate office of a big name
department store. The pay was alright, even if the job itself felt pointless
and boring. The atmosphere in the office was decidedly stodgy despite the store’s
inept attempts to be edgy and hip.
It was because of her housemate, Erik, that Kassie started taking American
Sign Language classes at Seattle
Community College. Erik
was a CODA, a hearing Child Of Deaf Adults, and worked as an ASL interpreter.
Learning ASL seemed like a good way to get involved with something more
meaningful than her current job, but after over a year of classes Kassie was,
if anything, even more painfully conscious of how far from fluent she was. From
time to time she accompanied Erik to pizza nights and meetups at the Seattle Deaf Community Center,
but while people there were nice, they always seemed a bit mystified by her
presence. Inevitably someone would ask if she was training to become an
interpreter.
No, I just want to learn, she’d reply, doing her best to make her
signs quick and natural. Usually the other person would smile, but somewhat
hesitantly, as if that wasn’t really enough of an explanation.
If she signed,
I’m Erik’s friend, people assumed they were a
couple, which seemed ridiculous to her because he was so obviously gay. But
apparently it was the only way people could make sense of her presence there.
Still, she kept going with him every month or so. The meetups, just casual
gatherings to chat in ASL for a few hours in the evening, were good
practice. Then one day Erik mentioned to her that he had been asked to attend a
similar meetup, but for deafblind people. Impulsively, Kassie volunteered to go
with him, but the thought of her inadequate signing skills was making her
uncharacteristically nervous.
Kassie followed Erik into a medium-sized meeting room with round tables and
plastic chairs arranged around the hard linoleum floor, like a school
cafeteria. A dozen or so people stood or sat eating pizza, just like the Deaf
meetups she had been to before, except everyone sat much closer together,
signing in pairs. Erik greeted several people with great animation, hugging
them and introducing Kassie. Most of them seemed able to see her signing well
enough to understand her, even some of the people carrying white canes. Only
one woman put her hands on top of Kassie’s as she spelled out her name.
As Kassie started to relax and look around, she noticed a figure sitting off
by himself, separated from the small knot of people. She watched for nearly
half an hour, but no one approached him. She gauged him to be about her age.
His eyes were closed and his brows pinched up in a frown, but even so he was
strikingly handsome, with close-cut, glossy black hair contrasting with a pale
complexion.
She nudged Erik, pointing toward him with her chin. “Who’s that?”
“Oh, that’s Jake,” Erik replied. “Don’t worry about him–his intervener will
be here soon.”
“His what?”
“Intervener, it’s like an interpreter for deafblind people. Like Mandy
there,” he added, waving to a woman who was signing into the hand of another
woman seated beside her.
“I’m going to say hello to him,” Kassie said. It seemed wrong to her that
one person should be excluded from the group.
Erik looked slightly pained. “Kassie, you don’t understand,” he said.
“Everyone else here has Usher’s Syndrome. They’ve been Deaf all their
lives–only started to lose their vision as teenagers or adults, and most of
them still have some sight. They’re all ASL native speakers. But Jake is
profoundly deaf and totally blind from birth. I’m not sure he even knows ASL.”
Kassie stared at him, her eyes growing larger. “How can he not know ASL? He
must know something, right?” she asked, a little shocked.
Erik explained, “It’s hard to learn the signs if you can’t see them. I think
he uses a different manual alphabet that’s easier for him.” Seeing the look of
concern on Kassie’s face he added, “Don’t worry about him, he’s fine.”
Kassie turned to look at Jake again. He didn’t look fine to her. He looked
bored and lonely. She knew how it felt to be on the outside, to have no one to
talk to. What if he was just waiting for someone to go over to him? It didn’t
hurt that he was cute too. If they were at a party she would find some excuse
to talk to him. “I’m going to say hello to him,” she insisted.
“Try printing block letters on his palm, he might understand that,” Erik
suggested with a shrug.
Kassie squared her shoulders and marched across the room, daring Erik to
stop her, but he had already turned his attention to someone else.
Jake did not seem to notice her approach his chair. He sat with his back
rigidly straight, but his head dipped slightly down and to the left. Up close
he was even cuter, with his strong, slightly triangular jaw. The contrast
between his glossy black hair, slightly grown out on top, and his pale skin was
startling. His eyelashes were dark and thick too, although his eyes opened only
slightly, showing a line of white.
Kassie waited for a moment, but when he still did not give any sign of noticing
her she tapped him on the shoulder. Jake jumped so high she nearly retreated,
overcome with guilt for having startled him, but he was already holding out his
left palm toward her. Realizing it would be even more cruel to walk away,
Kassie extended a trembling finger and wrote very slowly in the palm of his
hand, H-E-L-L-O.
To her extreme surprise, he saluted her with the ASL sign for
hello,
then added,
My name is Jake, in rather jerky, hesitant signs. At
least that’s what she assumed he meant; rather than spelling out his name, he
made a name sign, tracing a sort of J against his chest with his pinkie finger.
Kassie made to introduce herself as well, with his hands resting on hers,
realizing only too late that when she gestured towards herself, she brought his
hand directly onto her breasts. Jake seemed to realize the same thing–he
breathed in sharply and flushed from his neck to his hairline, bright pink
splotches standing out against his white cheeks. Flustered, Kassie tried again,
this time only moving her hand halfway.
My name is K-A-S-S-I-E, she
signed, fingerspelling her name then adding the name sign Erik had given her, a
K at her right temple, a reference to her short, curly blond hair.
Jake did not reply, so she made the signs again, even more slowly, but he
kept tugging her hands towards him. She gently tugged back, but that only
seemed to agitate him. He brushed his fingers over her palm, then made some
rapid signs she couldn’t follow. She stared at him helplessly. He sighed in
irritation as he repeated the signs, the splotches on his cheeks turning darker
red.
This time Kassie picked out
C-A-R-T-E-R, but that was all. What
is carter, she wondered, feeling increasingly panicked. She glanced behind her,
trying to spot Erik, but instead a small balding man with round glasses set
atop a hooked nose suddenly appeared and insinuated himself between her and
Jake. Before she realized what had happened, he pushed her aside and put his
hands under Jake’s. Immediately they began signing back and forth rapidly.
Kassie shifted from foot to foot, unwilling to end their conversation so
abruptly. If you could even call it a conversation, but still, it seemed rude
to walk away. “Umm…excuse me, but who are you?” she asked the interloper.
Without pausing his signing with Jake, the man gave her a sour look. “I’m
Joel Carter, Jake’s intervener,” he snapped.
“Oh, of course!” It seemed so obvious now. “I’m Kassie,” she said,
fingerspelling her name again and adding her name sign at the end, so he could
repeat it into Jake’s hand. “I’m a friend of Erik’s. I was just, um, saying
hello to Jake.”
Carter passed along the message, then said, “Jake says hello.” Kassie
watched their interaction curiously. Carter was not using any ASL signs or
fingerspelling she recognized. Jake held out his left palm flat and at an
angle, while Carter tapped and brushed it in different places with his fingers,
sometimes straight or bent, sometimes one or more than one finger at a time.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Carter, but do you mind telling me what system you’re using?
Erik said Jake doesn’t know ASL, but I guess he was wrong about that. Anyway it
looks like now you’re using something else. I’m just curious,” she finished
lamely, realizing she was starting to babble.
Carter was not pleased with her question. “He knows some basic ASL,” he
answered shortly, “but we’re using the deafblind manual alphabet.”
“Oh, I see.”
Carter stared at her but did not say anything more. After a moment Kassie
realized what was happening: Carter didn’t want to talk to her. He wanted her
to go away, but being an ethical interpreter he was not going to say anything
to her he would not also sign to Jake.
“Well, um, ok, nice to meet you, Jake,” Kassie said, and patted him on the
shoulder as Carter interpreted. Again Jake jumped a bit, and Kassie fled back
to Erik on the other side of the room.
For the remainder of the evening Kassie stuck close to Erik, signing briefly
with a few people, but for the most part feeling like an observer. At the Deaf
meetups there were always lots of people, and she rarely had a problem finding
someone willing to let her practice her ASL. But here she realized it was hard
to sign to more than one person at a time, and even harder to initiate small
talk with a stranger. She never realized how much she relied on catching
someone’s eye to begin a conversation. She ended up chatting with one of the
interpreters about her ASL class, although she knew her teacher would scold her
for using her voice.
Back in the car , Erik asked, “So what did you talk about with Jake?”
“Nothing,” she replied truthfully.
“I told you his intervener would show up,” Erik said as he pulled out of the
parking lot. “But he is kind of a hottie. I don’t blame you for wanting to chat
him up.” He turned to wink at her.
“Oh my God, what are you talking about?” Kassie protested. “Not everyone is
a horndog like you.”
Erik just laughed. In the two years they had been living together they had
grown close, even though initially they only met through Craigslist. Erik was
the ideal housemate, a good cook and fastidiously clean, even if he was kind of
loud and liked to play techno turned all the way up. After feeling alone for so
long, Kassie was glad to have someone to joke around with. She liked going out
with him to gay clubs where she could dance however she liked, and no one hit
on her. Not that she was against dating–she had attempted a few relationships,
but somehow the guys she met all seemed self-involved and shallow.
But even though Erik was fun, he definitely had his own life that didn’t
always include her, and she tried not to be too clingy. She tried to find
activities that would get her out of the house more, and suddenly she found she
was running around all the time.
Now she caught sight of the clock on the car radio.”Oh no, is that the time?
Do you mind dropping me off at my yoga class? I’ll take the bus home.”
Thank you, Lucy for a lovley peek at Love In Touch.
Slainthe!
