Wednesday, September 30, 2015

New Beginings

Gloria was spending the evening as she spent most evenings, gazing adoringly at Moon-moon, her sexy brainiac werewolf boyfriend. She wasn't sure what turned her on about him most. His body was any woman's wet dream, all tall and sinewy. Lots of rolling muscles tucked under velvety smooth light skin, and toffee colored hair that was always shaggy and messy, making her think he'd just rolled out of bed and wouldn't mind taking her back into his bed to play. She'd be lying, though, if she didn't admit to being totally seduced by his exceptional brain. He was both a friggin' genius with anything electronic--literally--and he had a very sophisticated sense of humor most people were too full of themselves to understand. He was playful, finding joy in every moment. And then there was the thrill of danger. Hello, he was a wolf!

The only thing she didn't understand about him was what he saw in her. She was a short, thin little weregoose. Not a mongoose or an eagle or any other fierce, noble animal. A goose. Her hair was the same odd brownish-gray of her feathers, and so fly-away that the only hairstyle that worked with it was a long, layered shag cut reminiscent of Goldie Hawn circa nineteen seventy-one. Except not in pretty blond. Sure, her chest was seriously built, but that was a common feature of all avian shape shifters. Seriously built chests look a lot better on men than women, in her opinion. On her, it made her look like bubble-boob Barbie, the stuff of pre-teen boy fantasies and pervs.

 She wasn't even all that smart. She graduated high school last year with a 4.0 GPA mainly through slavish study habits and careful consideration to her class selections. Now that she was in college, her lack of natural scholastic talent was becoming painfully obvious. She sighed and forced herself to get back to her writing assignment. Why she'd chosen Modern Creative Writing 101 was a mystery.

No, that wasn't true. She knew why she chose it. Being able to tell people that she was a writer had seemed so smart and sophisticated, someone worthy of Brian's love and attention. She may not be able to keep up with an electrical engineer like Brian when it came to science, but writers were known to be very cerebral people. Then she made the mistake of believing her professor when he said they could pick any genre they wanted for their semester writing project. They had until Thanksgiving to hand in an original rough draft of a novel length book. She'd chosen romance. Apparently, romance was not a respected genre in literary circles.

She could have changed her genre. Professor Greene did offer to let her do so after he handed her the composite genre tip sheet for romance, which she was expected to follow, when he saw the look on her face after reading it. She might have accepted his offer had he not used a disparaging attitude. She was a goose, damn it. No one could out stubborn a goose with her feathers up! She was going to write the best goddamn romance novel ever!

 

9 comments:

Savanna Kougar said...

Oh, this is gonna be good! Come on, Gloria, you can do it.

Pat C. said...

"Writers were known to be very cerebral people." HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I see you saved yourself from death by Marissa by switching leads to Gloria. I wouldn't want to mess with Marissa either.

Will Lamar be offering his professional romance-writerly advice? Especially to that idiot of a professor?

Savanna Kougar said...

That would be a scene, Lamar confronting that professor... ~big grinz~

Pat C. said...

Rebecca, you have my permission to use Lamar for this story in any way you see fit. You write a better Lamar than I do.

Rebecca Gillan said...

Yes, I had planned on Lamar giving Gloria writing tips. What I want to know is how you knew that, Pat...

Pat C. said...

I'm psychic. Now if only I could predict lottery numbers.

Dale Hancock's wife also writes romance. She started out as Chloe, but I've decided to change her name to Carrie to avoid confusion with Mayor Gil's wife, who, as far as I know, has never written anything other than a honey-do list. Check with Solara to be sure.

Now I'm waiting for the shriek that's sure to come when Gloria informs Lamar her professor told her romance is between a man and a woman.

Pat C. said...

PS: Mary Ewing's boyfriend is also named Brian, but everybody knows him as Porker so it's no big deal. I could change my spelling to Bryan. I went to school with a Bryan.

Nobody else better name a character "Sergei." I got dibs.

Savanna Kougar said...

Wow...smackdown time... just in case a character says 'my name is Sergei' ... but, no, so far, none of mine have said that... ~grins~

Rebecca Gillan said...

I can change it to something else, but since Gloria's Brian is better known as Moon-Moon, it might be a fun little side note to explain why he got stuck with that nick name: because his given name is so common. Hmm, maybe I'll rename him John. That's also a very common name.