❤ The Winemaker | More Miles to Go... ❤
A short (short) story & some MM2G Idle Chatter
IN THIS ISSUE OF MORE MILES TO GO…
LAURA’S IDLE CHATTER: A FEW MORE WORDS ON THE ART OF BECOMING A NOVELIST AND A SHORT (SHORT) STORY EXCERPTED FROM MY LATEST WIP
Happy summer everyone! And welcome to all my new subscribers and followers! I haven’t written in a while, but the weather is heating up here in Western New York—a fine time to put another log on the air conditioner...settle in with a cold beverage of choice, and round up a few updates for More Miles to Go...!
July is a difficult month as I lost my dear mom on July 11 of 2023. My sense is talking about loss is uncomfortable for everyone, and I’m sure I depress the heck out of my social media as I have now lost both my parents. As such, their birthdays/Mother’s/Father’s Day seem to roll around rather frequently, therefore, the photo sharing of holidays past is often in high gear.
No one has to say anything, but my own experience tells me the thought of losing one’s parents freaks people out a bit. The grieving really never stops. Alas, I’m here to report that once they have left this earth, speaking for myself anyhow, one realizes that you do kind of become them. You know, like the hilarious Progressive commercials suggest? I’m sorry to inform, but it happens.
As an example, my mom was a devoted caregiver to my brother born with spina bifida, and I have taken over some of her role looking after my brother who cannot walk. Some time ago, he, and few of his well-meaning friends, decided that Tom needed a book of his memoirs; it would be an amazing accomplishment, the thinking went. Trouble is, Tom is not a writer by trade, and all he had in terms of a “memoir” were a couple early chapters (that he and my mother put together years ago) and few snippets of stories tapped into his cell phone.
Needless to say, I took the snippets, parts and pieces, and fleshed them out into his now published book: Beyond the Bridge: 10 Lessons I’ve Learned From a Lifetime of Disability. It’s live now. On Amazon. For real. We’ve spent the last year, really, trying to put this project together and after a lot of toiling early and late and a million technical difficulties, it did come together well. With that said, my novel writing has been mostly on the back-burner. But in the end, I think we are all pretty jazzed about the project.
In other news, I did have another go-around with my friends over at Harlequin. My fourth effort for them, for context. In April, I put together a proposal for a pitch session I was sure couldn’t lose as they wanted characters with diversity. Hello! The pitch was for their billionaire Romance line and they asked for billionaires living and working in New York City—I was sure I could nail this one. As you may or may not know, New York is my home, and if you live anywhere in New York, well, The City becomes home away from home. Check and check!
Anyhow, I sent the pitch through Submittable the second the clock ticked for the session’s opening, and I didn’t hear anything for several days. Good news?! The day before their deadline to give the go-ahead, yep, I received my rejection slip (she curses in Italian). As I’ve mentioned, this has been submission number four. So, it’s back to the drawing board for me and my billionaire fantasy men...
The best news is my short story “An Equation for Love” will be published in a print anthology available on Amazon through Micromance Magazine sometime this month. Here’s a look at my working teaser: “Baseball, hot dogs, and...a slide rule? He’s got a loud motorcycle. She’s trying to solve a calculus equation to pass summer school. Find out how they both intersect in my short story ‘An Equation for Love’ found in A Serendipitous Summer, available at Amazon in July.”
I do hope we get the word soon. Word up! Oh, and I did have a supermini-fictional story (a 75-word excerpt from an unpublished novella) run for a day on Paragraph Planet earlier last month. Yay!
What follows then is a short (short) story excerpted from my latest novella series The Malibu Boys. They sure are dreamy. I’ll tell you more about them next time, promise! As always thank you again for subscribing, and I’ll see you down the road real soon! Happy Fourth everyone!
The Winemaker, by Laura Turner
Lucien carried his newest vintage, a bottled memory of sun and soil, into Elara’s Tavern. The air hummed with voices and laughter, a stark contrast to the quiet silence of his cellars. “Piccolo,” he said.
She poured the deep ruby liquid. Her fingers traced the cool glass. “Perfection,” she said, their eyes meeting across the polished bar.
He sighed. It was not only about the wine’s taste; it was silent recognition, a winemaker’s quiet intensity meeting the tavern-keeper’s knowing gaze.
In that moment, the noise in the room dissolved. “Si, perfezione,” he said aloud. Lucien’s passion, distilled, fermented, and bottled, was then coupled with Elara’s readiness for consumption. This pleased him.
It was a heady blend, he knew. And promised a story told in secret. Aged rich and complex, the mood complimentary as the pour between them.
A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR:
Thank you again for subscribing to More Miles to Go...and thank you to all my newest subscribers and followers. I so appreciate your time and interest in my writing work and my latest quest: tracking my progress toward the NYT Bestseller List. I know it sounds like a steep goal, but you can read about the whys here. Hopefully you’ll find something useful in my journey dear writer friends. The comments are open. If you’d like to support me, please click on the little heart “like” button below, or feel free to leave me a comment. As always, I value your feedback as well as your precious time. See you down the road!
Laugh and be well,
Laura
Well done as always Laura and thank you for the shout out :-)!
Love reading your work, Laura!