It's been entirely too long since I made a big purchase of books from Amazon.com. But now that I'm working and getting a steady paycheck, yea-ha! I'm buying some books, dang it!

I just hit the submit button on my order.

I bought:

Thirteen Reasons Why
I've been wanting to read this book for months now. I requested it at the library, but it took them like six weeks to get in Story of a Girl and I can't wait that long for Thirteen Reasons Why.

The Luxe
A Victorian era version of Gossip Girl! What's not to love?

Glass
I'm such a huge fan of Ellen Hopkins. I read Crank so long ago. I'm excited to read the sequel. 

I can't wait to get my order in! It's my Christmas present to myself.

In the meantime, I'm reading Son of the Mob, which is really-really good so far. The voice is great. I also have Rebel Angels, Ironside, The Chaos King and The Book Thief.

It feels like it's been so long since I just read book after book after book. I guess I've been focusing too much on writing. Now it's time to take a break and get back into some reading.

The writing break went well! I think I needed it anyway, considering I was starting a new job. After overloading my brain with all these new bank rules, it was nice to come home and just surf the Internet or sit down with a book. I finished Bloom, as I said and started Vampirates and Story of a Girl, which the library FINALLY got in. I was bugging them weekly. They're probably happy to get rid of me!

I also watched lots of TV and some movies. I watched an Australian indie remake of Macbeth. I love Australian indies. Ever seen Somersault? SO GOOD. The guy who played Macbeth in the remake was a main character in Somersault. His name is Sam Worthington and he is so yumm. He's been cast in James Cameron's new sci-fi movie, Avatar, so I think we'll be seeing more of him in the US. 

After watching Macbeth, I was instantly inspired to open a new document in Word and just started writing. The thing with Australian indies, they have this haunting quality, quiet and poetic. I just love them. At least the ones I've watched and perhaps it's true too for US indies, but I haven't seen many to know.

Anyway, here's what I just wrote and I love it. It felt so good to stretch that writing muscle after a week or so! That really isn't long at all, but, whatever. For me it is! 

This is a story of death. Of the literal and figurative sense.

Because I saw them dead and because I am not the same as I was when this story started.

Where did it start, exactly?

Where all stories start.

On a day.

On a day that began like any day.

Perhaps it was a Thursday though I can’t remember clearly. After the beginning, the titles of the day blurred together like lights outside a carousel. They were just a flash of golden smudged against the darkness.

But on that day, I twisted shut the lock on the front door of my father’s chocolate shop and that was where the ordinary ended. It was a distinct end, an audible click in the night.

The next sound that reached me, carried on the crisp cool wind of autumn, was a gunshot.

(And since this is technically a teaser, consider it my teaser for Tuesday. I'll be working all day Tuesday, so I won't post.)

            They found the BMW bent around a tree, a deer injured at the roadside.

My mother loved deer. She had an odd talent of summoning animals. They gathered wherever she was. Maybe that deer, that night, had sensed her. Or maybe he’d just been running scared from something else.

It didn’t matter now.

The deer was dead. So was my mother.