Well hello there!! I’m doing loads of new things this week. I’ve got my new goal sheet and I’m going to be doing a new WIPpet with you all. Here’s ROW80
1. Lost & Forsaken — write 1 chapter a day until complete (7 chapters to go)
Monday – Yup! ch 15
Tuesday – ch 16
Wednesday – working on it right now!
2. Simple Biology — write 1 chapter a day until complete (26 chapters to go)
– This is to start after Lost & Forsaken is finished
3. Outline that novella thing the paranormal romance that has no name so, MILFy thing 3
– nope
4. Edit Grace through Redemption — 1 chapter a day until caught up, then as they come in from betas
Monday – ch 5
Tuesday – ch 6 & 7
5. Edit Unbound — 2 chapters a day until completed (round 1), 2 chapters a day until completed (round 2)
– haven’t done this! doh!
So for WIPpet!
I decided to take a page from Regi’s book. Since I’m not going to share from Lost & Forsaken (it’s book 4 and book 2 isn’t even out yet. Finding non-spoilers is hard), I’m going to work straight through on a this MILFy thing 3 that I want to write. My ultimate goal is to keep it about 40k words total, but since I’ve tried that in the past and NOT had luck with it, we’ll see how this goes. I’ll be posting an excerpt a week from the MILFy thing 3, pretty much writing a little each week until I finish the two projects I have going now and then I’ll bang it (pun maybe intended?). So here we go…the MILFy thing 3.
This is hard, since I don’t have names for characters yet lol
Okay, here’s what I did. I sat down and wrote for five minutes to start this story. 5 minutes being for the 5th month of the year. Please excuse all typos, seeing as how I literally just typed this out. Have fun!
“Have you ever heard the legend?” Kay whispered one night. Her heart was thundering in her chest, but she knew hers wasn’t as bad as the other rangers. She took a deep breath when they shook their heads no, the firelight flickering on their faces in the cold night air. “Really?”
“Nope,” Gladys replied. “But it is only my first year here.”
Kay nodded. She’d been a ranger at Glacier National Park for the last three summers. Gladys was only on her first, and she’d been stationed at the park entrance, meaning she probably didn’t hear as many of the stories as Kay had. It was a lonely job up front.
“It starts like this. There’s been sightings, all over the park, of this woman. They say she’s ethereal, pale as a ghost with hair so white. But she’s young. In her twenties maybe.” Kay looked around at the other rangers and smiled. No doubt some of them had heard the story before, or perhaps they had even seen the woman wandering the forests. Kay had never seen her, but that didn’t matter much, it was fun to spread the story around. “Her eyes are as blue as the center of Lake Mary.”
“Have you see her?” Gladys asked, leaning in, her curly hair with gray streaks falling in front of her eyes.
“I haven’t. But Jacob told me he saw her once.”
“Who’s Jacob?”
“He worked her last year. Wife’s pregnant though.”
Gladys nodded and so did Harper. Kay took a deep breath, the tension in her chest tightening as she continued. “She wanders the forests during the day and at night. Guests have seen her coming and going, but when they go in search for her no one can find her.”
“That’s not surprising out here,” Harper muttered.
“Well, that’s true,” Kay agreed. Every year people got lost in the great forests of the national park, and every year someone didn’t come home, never to be seen from again. It was their job to make sure that happened the least amount of times as possible. “She wanders through the forest. Jacob said she was humming this tune that he’d never heard before but it sounded like a lullaby.”
“What does she do?”
“Just wanders,” Kay answered, her eyes wide.
If you would love to join in either ROW80 or WIPpet Wednesdays. Feel free! We’re a friendly lot!
Adrian J. Smith 
Intriguing snippet, AJ. I’m impressed that you just pounded it out and posted it. :)
Ha! Thanks! Sometimes it’s fun!!
Ah! Glacier National Park! Okay will get back to that.
I like the snippet. I love the idea of rangers sitting around a campfire doing what campers usually do, telling ghost stories. And I think it’s great that Kay seems to have this half-belief in it going on. Like she’s not saying for sure it’s true, she’s just open to the possibility. So much fun!
Okay, the park itself:
On one of our family road trips, when I was 7, we did Glacier National Park. We camped in an old-fashioned tent, with the heavy metal poles and thick canvas. Anyway, we only stayed one or two nights wherever we went, and on the night we stayed in Glacier there was the worst lightning storm my family has ever been through. I am not exaggerating when I say we could see lightning hitting directly outside our tent. The rain was so heavy, it almost collapsed the tent, too. Scared my parents so much. I was too young to be scared, so to me it’s still this AWESOME memory, but Dad never took us back to that park…
I used to live about 3 hours from Glacier, so I’ve spent LOADS of time there. And yeah, storms there and in south Montana tended to be like that. I’ve had that experience before. We packed up ourselves and the dog really quick into the car and booked it for town for a bit because the lightning was striking about 10-20 feet from our tent.
Rangers aren’t given housing, so they basically make the best of what they have. They either have to rent something in the area or camp out. Most tend to camp (especially if they’re younger) because it’s free depending on where they find to camp.
That’s interesting about rangers not being given housing. A few parks do, but those are the ones open year round, I think. I assumed there were barracks at least for other parks. I like camping and all, but to go that long without toilets that flush and showers… Yeah. Not so much. Gotta say, though, thankful for the rangers who are willing to do it.
There’s toilets and showers at a lot of camp sites in Montana. Especially nearer to the parks. A lot of people drag up small trailers too.
Nice. Toilets and showers are nice. So, so very nice. Best part of living in the 20th-21st centuries, seriously.
Haha! That and Nutella!!!!
I can’t have Nutella. :-(
Awww I can try to make RegiNutella
I can’t have either hazelnuts or milk, so I’m kind of out of luck. :-/ But the offer warms my heart! <3
I’ll make them synthetic!
I’m intrigued by your snippet! And having just wrote it…awesome. I should try that sometime. ;)
Nice work on your ROW80 stuff as well.
Thanks! I’m in love with this story already lol
A bit ghost story, a bit local legend… She just wanders. Love it! Great piece to just pound out, Adrian.
Hoping I pound it out quickly!
We really wanted to get to Glacier in or pre-parenting years….still on our short list!
I’m intrigued by the wandering woman, and the ranger gathering (having worked concessions in national parks for several years, I know my share of legends, too!).
I hope this piece turns out like I want it to!
This has the feel of a good old-fashioned ghost/legend tale. I already love the tone and atmosphere. :)
I hope that feel lasts for a little bit at least. until the glass shatters anyway. =P
Rangers had housing at the Grand Canyon and at Yellowstone, while we were there. My ranger friend is at Joshua Tree now; I don’t know if she’s got housing in the park or nearby, but, since she’s got a husband, a daughter, and pets, my guess is that camping is a recreational activity, not a lifestyle.
She also probably wouldn’t be given housing if they did have it. Depends on park. I’ll do some more research
I really don’t know about Glacier, but, once I’ve slept, I can give you more details about the parks where we worked, if you want…
TnT kept me up all night – again! (but the story’s written up to 1953, so only seven minutes left to go – it takes a loooong time to write an hour in real-time!)
I researched it yesterday and they do have some. When I was writing this I was avoiding research because I’m supposed to be finishing a project not starting a new one =P I was going of memory from Lewis and Clark which didn’t have any housing.
I so know that I don’t want to get embroiled in research now feeling!
You could have this be an extended hike – rangers often do LOTS of hiking.
Lol I imagine even with housing they’d have a campfire near by
Depending on where the housing was, they might. =)
Pretty sure glacier only has one housing place. They’re not very big like Yellowstone
Yeah – Yellowstone is huge! I miss it so, so much. Our oldest is a Montana boy by birth, and did the Grand Loop at 2 weeks old!
I miss Montana a lot. It’s definitely my home
There was a country song when I was a kid, before I ever saw Montana: “Meet Me in Montana”….,maybe someday, we will. Jim and I definitely want to go back. If I didn’t have more other reasons than I could count, hearing a bull elk bugle live would be enough. That sound is magical to me!
It really is
Gaaaaah creeeeeeeepy! And I just read this at 1am….. *clings to kitties* I’m kind of a wuss when it comes to ghost stories, but I HAVE REASONS. And this makes me think of the White Lady legends. Impressive you just wrote that and posted!
Ha! Thanks! I love ghost stories.
Your speed is incredible. In five minutes I’ve likely written a paragraph. And rewritten it. And tweaked it. And checked social media. And…
Ah. Never mind.
Great snippet and an awesome start to what sounds like a great ghost story. Just wanders. Uh-huh. Shee-ur.
I write nano style. So no editing allowed (except blaring typos) until real editing begins. Helps me actually finish things even if it means more editing in the long run.
I try not to edit on the go, but recovering Rewriteritiss sufferer here.