Books, contemporary romance, New Adult Romance, Writing

EXCERPT: FOUND IN SILENCE

by lisasorbeLeave a Comment on EXCERPT: FOUND IN SILENCE

I’m driving faster than I should through the shitty part of Cedar Hills when I hear a gun shot.

My first thought isn’t to duck and cover.  Save my neck, worry about a bullet to the head or chest.   The fact that, if a bullet does hit me, Emilia may have to grow up not only without a father, but also without a mother.

No.  As usual, it relates to time.

I’m running late, and now I have to deal with this.

It’s only when my SUV starts to wobble, the steering wheel practically pulling from my grasp as it spins wildly to the left, that my heart rate kicks up a notch.  But only a notch.  Because as I struggle with the wheel and my Range Rover careens into oncoming traffic, I’m calm.  The whole experience happens slowly, like time is thick and syrupy instead of fluid, and what should be lasting only seconds suddenly takes minutes to unfold.

I miss a beat-up truck by inches, the driver blaring his horn as I skid past his front bumper and onto the shoulder of the road.  The tail end of the Rover swerves as it jumps the curb and teeters across the sidewalk, bouncing me around in my seat like a rag doll.  The fact that I’ve maintained my composure is probably the only reason I’m not smashing the brake pedal into the floor and causing further chaos.  Remembering my father’s advice about not slamming on the brakes when skidding on ice, I try the same tactic and lift my foot from the accelerator while re-gaining control of the steering.  When I finally give pressure to the brake pedal, the SUV is already rolling to a bumpy stop.

The radio is still thumping through the speakers, a poppy backdrop to the roller coaster ride I just survived.  I abhor silence, but now the music seems almost too loud, needling into my ears as my senses finally start catching up with the circumstances.  I shift into park, jab my finger into the radio dial, and take in my surroundings.  I’m in the half empty lot of a small Asian Supermarket, my Rover taking up two spaces and parked perpendicular to the other two vehicles in the lot.

The sudden silence is louder than the music, and it pushes the needles in deeper.  A swift feeling of irritation sweeps through me, like I have a million tiny bugs dancing just beneath my skin, and I roll my head and shoulders to dislodge the jittering sensation.

When I open my door, I’m immediately blasted with hot, sticky air and the acrid scent of burnt rubber.  Any thoughts of gunshots subside when I step out and take a look at my driver’s side tire.  The front wheel is in sad shape – ragged and deflated, the rubber flat-as-a-pancake where the chrome rim meets the concrete.

“Great,” I mutter.  If I wasn’t wearing new suede sandals, I’d kick it.  Hell, maybe I will kick it, anyway.  I pull my phone from the pocket of my shorts and note it’s already three-twenty – well after the time I was supposed to deliver the damn pies.  I prop my hands on my hips and glare at the tire, as if through sheer focus alone the thing will knit itself back together, fill with air, prop itself on the rim, and I can be on my way again.

The sun is unrelenting, as unrelenting as my mother will be if I don’t get these deserts where they’re supposed to be in ten minutes.  Which will still make them thirty full minutes late.  A trickle of sweat oozes down my temple – partly because of the heat, mostly due to the pressure.  It feels like a spider skittering across my skin, and I swipe it away with more force than necessary.  I absently pinch the front of my peasant blouse, fluttering the thin material in an effort to cool down.

Shit.  Shit, shit, shit…

A flicker of light to my left catches my eye, a burst of sun bouncing off a passing car and reflecting in the plate glass window of a nearby shop.  I squint through my sunglasses, taking in the establishment’s sign and praise whoever the hell is watching out for me because I think I just might be saved.  Tucking my phone back in my pocket, I reach into the Rover, pull out my purse, grab my keys, and high tail it through the parking lot and across the street to what I’m hoping to God will be my salvation.

Wright Auto Repair isn’t a church, but as I push through the door and step into the lobby of the two-story brick warehouse I’m ready to bow to whoever can fix my tire and get me on the road again.  Preferably now.

The first thing I notice is the smell; the entire place reeks of gasoline, rubber and, somehow, burnt Cheetos.  I wrinkle my nose in disgust as I make my way across the small space, the stacked heels of my sandals practically sticking to the grimy floor and giving a soft tug of resistance with each step I take.

The second is the mullet rock blaring from the open door behind the counter leading back to the garage.

I snort, listening as the singer compares the crotch of his ladylove to cherry pie.

Classy.

Read more of Jen’s story in FOUND IN SILENCE.
❤ Available NOW on Amazon:  http://amzn.to/2mv8wvy!

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Books, Writing

EXCERPT: FOUND IN SILENCE

by lisasorbeLeave a Comment on EXCERPT: FOUND IN SILENCE

I turn back to the fire, flex my fingers out toward the flames.  With the unseasonably warm weather and the heat in front of me, I’m almost too hot, so I shrug out of from under the blanket Miles wrapped around me and stretch.  “It’s so beautiful out here, though,” I say, my voice wistful.  Then, without thinking, “I used to have land like this.  Not lakeside, but still.”

Miles tosses his empty in the takeout bag and leans back on his hands.  “Used to?”

 I groan, falling back on my own hands and tipping my head back to look at the sky.  “I inherited it from my grandfather.  Well, my brother and I, that is.  He had the land split between us when he died.  But,” I say, drawing the word out, “I was at college in Chicago when he passed, and twenty-seven acres of Iowa farmland wasn’t exactly on my wish list.  And never, in a million years, did I think I’d end up back here.  So, knowing all that, I made an offer to my brother and he eventually bought me out.”  I fold the blanket and flop down on my back, bunching it behind my head. 

 Miles follows suit, rolling onto his side and propping his head up on his elbow.  “And now,” he says, looking down at me, “here you are.”

  I chuckle, my voice dry.  “Yep.  Here I am.”

 We’re quiet for a moment, though it’s not uncomfortable.  The summer night song is gone for the season, and aside from the manmade sounds of the radio and the fire, the night is silent.  In fact, I have a feeling if I walked away from this very spot, out into the woods behind the house and closed my eyes, the silence would swallow me whole.

 “You were right about silence,” I blurt.

 Miles, who has since shifted over onto his back, hands behind his head, looks over at me.  “Huh?”

 I study the stars.  “That day in your kitchen.  You know, back when I first started working for you and…”  I pause, take a breath and release it.  “We didn’t like each other very much.  You said silence was underrated.  Remember?”

 His laugh is deep, throaty.  “Yeah, I do.” 

He reaches down and grabs my hand, pulls me closer.  And when I roll to my side and lean my head against his chest, it feels like the most natural thing in the world.

“Silence makes sense of the chaos, doesn’t it?  All the shit that’s happening around us that we can’t make sense of unless we step away from it for a bit.  If we can just manage to let the quiet in, it’s like we’re able to see the bigger picture.  Or,” I say, “At least a bigger portion of the picture than we could before.  It’s like life is constantly screaming at you to listen – disaster, disease, rude people, financial crap, divorce.  But all it’s really trying to do is get your attention, and when you get still and shut up for a few seconds, you can finally understand what it’s been trying to say all along.”

Read more of Jen’s story in FOUND IN SILENCE.
Available NOW on Amazon:  http://amzn.to/2mv8wvy

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Books, Writing

JUMPING TIMELINES

by lisasorbeLeave a Comment on JUMPING TIMELINES

It’s live.  My rickety little book is live.

And while I do have a few regrets with this first book, they’re not major enough to make me wish I hadn’t published it.

Thankfully, I don’t have time to sit and bite away at my fingernails, because the second book is due in just a little over a month.  *sigh*

Onward and upward.

One Fluttering Heartbeat (A Prairie Tale, Book 1), now available at Amazon.  Click here to buy!

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Writing

JACKASS WITH A SET OF BALLS

by lisasorbeLeave a Comment on JACKASS WITH A SET OF BALLS

The countdown is on.  And I’m obnoxiously posting about it.  Again. 

Maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut.  Published this thing without anyone knowing.  Maybe used a pen name, so if it bombs royally no one will know I’m the untalented hack who wrote it in the first place.  That way, I could have just continued on with life – no harm, no foul.  No one the wiser.

But.  

I have a tendency to stick to my comfort zone like glue.  And writing a book, not to mention actually publishing it, sticking my name on it, and sending it out in the world to be *gasp* read by people other than my close friends?  Well, that pretty much effs up said comfort zone. 

And sticking to your comfort zone all. the. time?  Man, that’s just…  It’s not a good way to live.  It’s like what Thoreau says about men leading lives of quiet desperation.  Or Franklin, who claims that “many people die at twenty-five and aren’t buried until they’re seventy-five.”  Sticking to our comfort zones keeps us from living.  It keeps us dead.    

Some days I feel like I’m sitting on top of a mountain – meditation-style, of course – completely Zen with the fact that I’m accomplishing a life-long dream.   But as October 10th drifts closer, I more often than not feel like I’m stuck in the middle of the ocean, during the stormiest storm of the year, without a raft, my feet circled by a pack of sharks, and a box jellyfish at my elbow.

Basically, if I didn’t tout about this thing, I probably wouldn’t be publishing it.  Hell, I probably wouldn’t have written it in the first place.  Accountability.  It’s something I desperately needed so I could push through the self-conscious feelings of doubt and procrastination that have weighed me down over the years and, some days, still tempt me to pull the plug on this whole thing.

But I can’t pull the plug.  Because my big mouth and fat fingers have spouted off so many times about this book that if I don’t publish it, people will notice.  And then, to put it bluntly, I’ll look like a jackass.

Of course, I may still look like a jackass after I publish it.  My rambling prose certainly isn’t Pulitzer worthy, nor is my little contemporary romance book going to hit a bestseller list.  Some people may find it boring, some may hate the foul language or the sex scene or the main character.  They may find it too wordy, not wordy enough, or notice a grammar error that will immediately have them slamming the book shut in protest while thinking one word – HACK.

So yes, by publishing my book I may still look like a jackass.  But at least I’ll be a jackass with a set of balls.

comfort   

Writing

FLICKERS TO FIREWORKS

by lisasorbeLeave a Comment on FLICKERS TO FIREWORKS
ONE FLUTTERING HEARTBEAT
Coming 10/10/17

“… trails his fingers down the back of my neck, grabbing the ties of my halter and yanking them loose. He releases my hand and begins to peel away the wet fabric from my body, sliding his mouth across my cheek and biting my ear as he shoves my dress down, down. I hear a rip as the sodden material stretches over my hips, past my thighs, and then…”

Yeah.  There are some steamy parts in Fluttering.  Not a lot.

Some people might like this.  Some may not.

I’m prepared for the blasts.

Even though this book is considered a romance, the intimacy between the two main characters isn’t really what it’s all about. 

Fluttering is about working through your problems, not wallowing in them.  It’s about being so strong that you allow yourself time to be weak.  It’s about living with loss, the numbness that straddles depression, and taking the first steps toward the light.

It’s not a perfect book.  But it’s my first book.  It’s a little piece of me that I’d like to share with you.  It’s an imperfect story told by an imperfect person who struggles daily with dark thoughts pierced every now and then with tiny flickers of hope. 

Hope that, someday, those flickers turn to fireworks.

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Just Create

Fear & Art

by lisasorbeLeave a Comment on Fear & Art

This is so true. (And so spot on for me lately.) Especially when it comes to art.

People will either love your art or hate it. And it will have nothing at all to do with you. Or so the saying (sorta) goes.

For so long, I’ve let fear stop me from creating. Or, at the very least, creating what I wanted to create. I can’t tell you how many unfinished stories I’ve let fall away into nothingness over the last twenty years because, really, who was I to write words worthy of being read by the masses? Or the number of photo shoots where I compromised my vision and let the client dictate the session, resulting in the types of shots that didn’t define my work and, after the shoot, left me feeling drained and dull rather than inspired and engaged. Or, back in my design days, crafting my work around what I thought the professor wanted to see rather than what my heart wanted to show him. And spending sleepless nights before each graphic design presentation – tossing and turning, my stomach filled with dread at the very thought of standing up and showing my work in class. Because, I mean – gawd! – what if they hated it?!

I think it all comes down to having confidence in your art. Of falling head-over-heels in love with your creation. And truly, truly not giving a good goddamn what anyone else thinks about it.

I’m working on it.

 

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Bridal, Portrait

JUST FOR FUN: SARAH

by lisasorbeLeave a Comment on JUST FOR FUN: SARAH

There’s really no rhyme or reason to these shots.  They don’t tell a story – at least, not in the traditional sense. 

I had a few dresses from some shoots that fell through and, thankfully, was able to talk the lovely and talented Sarah into wearing them while frolicking around Discovery Park.  I’d planned a whole shoot on the beach by the bluffs, but it was a mud pit, so we ended up just shooting with what we had. 

We trudged along a sludgy beach, clambered over tree trunks, slipped and slid on slippery rocks, and almost got swept away by the tide.  (And I almost lost my shoe!)  The sun showed up to harass us, but we got the last laugh when we found a shady spot by a giant fir tree.  Seattle, please bring back your beautiful gray skies. 

Always eventful, to say the least.

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