Hey all! I can finally announce my big news! I know a lot of you saw it on Facebook already, but not everyone is over there. I’ll be moving to an itty bitty town in the middle of nowhere Kansas come the middle of July. I’ve got a real big-girl job that starts on July 21! I can’t wait for it. I’m so crazy excited to finally be working in my field.

So in the midst of packing, I have a release coming up and a novel to finish editing and another novel to finish writing. I’m a bit cray cray; it’s okay.

I also wanted to share some other good news.

On June 1, my newest series was released…well book 1 anyway. Now, I don’t normally check rankings or reviews because let’s face it…the likelihood I’ll get a review a week is slim to none. BUT! I was turned on to checking my rankings, which I don’t normally do because I don’t want to know how bad my book is doing. Well…I’ve been checking them recently. Just once a day because I don’t want to become addicted to it. Anyway, I’ll stop rambling.

For by Grace has been in the top 26 of the Gay and Lesbian genre on Amazon since it’s release 18 days ago. Talk about ridiculous. I’m not sure what to do about it other than squee and tell everyone I know, so that’s why you’ve had to suffer through this rambling. It’s given me a lot of motivation to try and finish writing book 2 by the end of July/middle of August (I’m about halfway done with it) and maybe, just maybe, get it out in December.

Anyway! Onto WIPpet Wednesday now that I’m done rambling…

This week my post is still from Fallen from Grace (you know, that one book I want to finish writing soon). This is still coming off from last week; there’s a missing section you don’t get, but it shouldn’t be too jarring to skip it. My math is simple. 17 short paragraphs. 18 – 1 from the year = 17.

Here we go…

            Turning around to stare at him, Grace gave him a hard look. Maybe staring and glaring would work. If it did, then she would have her answers soon. Grace gave up after fifteen seconds of staring.

“What’s your name?”

The man didn’t reply. He didn’t move or do anything other than look back at her.

“Name! What’s your name?” She tried again, shouting louder this time.

Her frustration grew to its topmost levels when he still didn’t reply. There was a group of gawkers that were still watching the cruiser, all staring and pointing at her. Grace had had it with the clown and turned around to face the front of the car. She hit her lights and started toward the jail, making sure to follow protocol. Perhaps one of the corrections officers would have better luck getting him to talk to she did.

The entire ride was in complete silence. Grace pulled up at the jail and shut the car off. She didn’t want to go inside, fearing that Amya might be in there somewhere—it was after all her day to be there. She took a deep breath and stepped outside after closing the lid to the computer in the passenger seat. She opened the back door of the cruiser and helped the clown out, grabbing his wig as an after-thought.

Grace started to march him toward the door, but as soon as she got three steps in, the clown started resisting like a lost puppy on a leash for the first time. He wiggled and backed up, putting all of his dead weight into it so that she was practically carrying him each step. After five minutes of struggling and making it only another five feet, she gave up.

Planting her feet on the ground and glaring again at him, she walked him back to the car—a direction he was willing to go—and pushed him onto the cruiser. She gave him another pat down and then stood him up, looking him up and down.

“What’s wrong?”

The man shook his head.

“What is wrong?”

Again he shook his head.

“What’s your name?”

He shook his head and opened his mouth, a bumble of sounds and noises coming out. Grace stepped back and narrowed her eyes, realizing for the first time that the man couldn’t hear her. He was completely and totally deaf. He hadn’t even had enough hearing to learn how to speak. Grace bit her lip and shook her head.

Technically, she wasn’t supposed to handcuff him. However, since he had been fighting with her and resisting arrest, she had been allowed to, but there was no way to communicate with him without his hands. Grace took a chance.

She grabbed the notepad out of her pocket and the pen, setting it onto the trunk of the car. She unlocked the man’s hands and nodded at the notepad. He reached for it slowly and carefully, scrawling on it quickly before setting it back down. Grace looked over and saw a first name written in messy handwriting on the white paper.

She felt so stupid—if only she’d paid more attention to the few times she’d seen Crystal teach her kids the alphabet. Grace grabbed the pen and paper and wrote down what was going to happen to him next before she put the handcuffs back on one of his hands and lead him into booking.