WIP: My NaNoWriMo Story

This is my first stab at fiction. Earlier this week I was playing around with writing some scenes in my planning notebook. Would love to know what you think. I’m intending this for a YA audience I think…but things could change.

I’m thinking this will be the opening scene for my NaNoWriMo novel. Thoughts? Ideas? Feedback? 1st draft. Totally rough.

“Omerta”

He didn’t come home last night. Brooklyn to Jersey–a common commute. He usually calls if he’s out late, but dad is a silent type. He always has his reasons.

I urged mom to call the police and report dad missing. She insists that everything will be fine–but I sure can’t tell that from looking at her. She’s fidgeting around the house. Cleaning, tidying. The cleaners were here yesterday, but it looks like she’s expecting company. It’s making me nervous so I’m headed to my room to study.

At least, I’ll pretend to study.

This morning, in drippy black paint on our red front door was the word Omerta and a black hand print. Stupid vandals. Seriously–who tags in this neighborhood? It’s gated–of course, every pizza delivery man has the code–maybe one has a creepy artistic streak?

I miss my dad. He’s not my “real dad” but he’s been in the picture for a long time. He’s a great stepfather and has always treated mom and I as the center of the world. His business keeps him busy though. He’s the biggest diamond seller in New York. Being the biggest anything in New York will keep a person busy.

My dictionary didn’t have “Omerta” but Google tells me it’s an Italian noun meaning “secrecy sworn by oath; or a code of silence.”

Now I’m sure it’s the creepy pizza delivery guy. The goth one that’s always so twitchy and won’t make eye contact. Pizza, Italians–they go together. At least that’s what my dad says. He’s Italian–fourth generation, he should know.

I knew that pizza guy was a freak.

Summer Update

It’s been a pretty busy summer. I scaled back my writing a lot and focused on some classes and writing exercises.

I’m still writing a Prosper Lending Review, and also now as a guest writer for DebtKid.com. I’ve had a few essays published as well, my favorite being “Dimples in the Rain” which was published by Divine Caroline.

My single greatest project has been the completion of a fully-rebuilt blog for frugal family living (this was a project I originally began last year),  The Penny-Wi$e Family. I’m also working on two e-books for readers, which I expect to have completed before NaNoWriMo begins in November.

Appearance on Job Club on ABC

I’ll be taping Job Club with Tory Johnson later today, and I think it is scheduled to run on Wednesday.  This is my first television appearance. We’ll be talking about my essay “Dear John, Thanks for the Layoff” which ran on the BusinessWeek.com Web site last month.

If you are looking for more information about our family, thrifty living or my other projects, this Web site has a link to nearly everything, except for my two blogs, so I’ll post those here below.

Our family/adoption blog is here: www.jessc098.blogspot.com, and here you can learn more about our family’s experience with older-child and special needs adoptions. Also, it’s a great place to check in for the latest funnies from the kids, which are always labeled “Oh Dear.” My kids are clever, observant and kind and come up with a lot of these funny little observations.

I started a blog called “Pennywise Family: Laid Off and Loving it”  at www.pennywisefamily.blogspot.com. This started almost immediately after my layoff (the next week I think) and detailed how we calculated the costs of working, the savings of having a parent at home, the cost-cutting triage that we did initally just in case of financial shortfalls. I also regularly post other’s ideas and recommendations for cost-cutting.

No need to feel like a lurker, jump in the conversation, comment and ask questions, I almost always comment back in a few hours.

**Update: the interview appears here: http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=7865743**

All the best,

Jessica

Prosper Lending Review

My other small business, which is usually fairly low-key, really revved up in May, so I cut back my writing calendar a lot. Here’s a few of my recent posts–all with Prosper Lending Review, a blog about peer-to-peer finance and investing.

6/1/09: Seattle’s Child, The Full Plate

This was my first food story, for Seattle’s Child, “The Full Plate” is their food section.  The story was prompted by the plan to take my kids this summer to pick our own berries to freeze and can.

5/26/09: BusinessWeek.com–Dear John, Thanks for the Layoff

I’ve done a run of personal essays lately, and this one is no exception.  “Dear John” started as a therapudic writing project to give myself a snapshot of where I’d come  in the three months since I was laid off from my job.  (The essay was published several months after it was written).  Friends and family urged me to have it published and after much thought, I relented for the sake of providing a little recession-hope, I saught a home for it.  BusinessWeek.com came as a reference to me via my friends at Seattle’s Child. As a freelancer who’s been out of the game for a little while, they were great to work with because they did minimal editing (I didn’t feel at all like they’d hacked up my essay).  (I’ve been super fortunate in this area lately).  BusinessWeek was also great to work with because they were patient with me every time I started to back off the project–for fear of damaging my still-good relationship with my former boss. He’s a good guy, and I don’t want anything to read out-of-turn and hurt any feelings.

That said, I’m happy to be on my own, and without the fear of not being able to find a job, and without someone “pushing me out the nest” I don’t think I would have ever worked up the courage to go solo. 

The moral of this story: “Fear not, and work hard!”\

**Update**  This story has since been carried several other places

Yahoo business

5/5/09 Guest Personal Finance Post

Today I was excited to have the opportunity to guest-post for BibleMoneyMatters.com, one of my favorite PF blogs, while the writer takes a few days off for a family emergency.

  Here’s a funny thing about bloggers. We really help each other out.  In the print world, this blog and mine would be in direct competition, and we’d be working like crazy to take each other out.  We both have similar messages and similar audiences, however, blogs being “free media” for the reader, aren’t in competiton with one another (aside from the friendly page-rank competition).  You see, in blog media the readers will always read more blogs.  They won’t choose one over another unless your content gets old or stale or off-message.  Same goes for Twitter. It’s a media that truly is about quality. It makes for happy writers, happy readers, and happy advertisers/sponsors.  No adversaries here (except the SPAM commenters of course, but at least the bloggers are universally united against them).

I love the Internet.

5/1/09 Seattle’s Child: Slice of Life

New Experience: LiveBlogging FINOVATE Conference in S.F.

DIY Paperweight

Today I’m livebloging the San Francisco FINOVATE conference, and thanks to the modern technologies, I’m actually doing this from the comfort of my own home, with the company of my secretary-cat, Arthur.

The conference is now on break, so I’m catching up on posts and setting up all of my link-backs, but the experience of live-blogging an event via Twitter and Blog is fantastic. Very interactive and real-time, as if I was there at the event, without the handshakes and uncomfortable shoes. I can’t help but wonder how long the traditional conference and convention will continue.

I’m posting my messages at www.prosperlending.blogspot.com, but here are the links to some of the posts today.  On Twitter, the posts are tagged #FinovateStartup09.  Side note to convention planners, please choose a shorter hashtag. We bloggers can’t say nearly as much about your event when our 140 characters are taken up by your chosen hashtag.

Speculating a Prosper Re-Launch (by the way, I speculated right).

Pay it forward and win a Kindle

Just in time for Finovate, new features

Thanks!

Tom from Prosper Lending Review pointed out today that Pertuity Direct had linked to my profile of their firm on their corporate Web site. You can see the article here: http://pertuitydirect.com/About/News/default.aspx Look for the Prosper Lending Review icon.