Weathered Too Young (49 page)

There was only one thing to do—beg for Kevin’s help!
Thus, I asked Kevin if he thought he could entertain the kids for an entire day while I wrote a story for
Sandy
.
Being the kind and heroic hunk
of burnin’ love
that he is, he agreed—and I was excited to know that I was going to have an entire day to write!
At the time,
an entire day dedicated to writing
was
an inconceivable concept to me.
Usually I
had to steal
ten minutes here, half an hour there,
or get up at four
am
to have maybe a solid hour or so to write.
So the concept of having
an entire day was fairly unfathomable.

Yes, Ke
vin had gifted me an entire day
so that I might write a gift to Sandy (who
m
he loves too
—
after all, our only daughter is named after her).
Thus,
early in the morning
,
a few
days before
Sandy
’s birthday in M
arch of 1995, I grabbed the big white flour bucket I used for a
desk
chair, sat myself down at the computer
,
and be
gan to write a story entitled
Weathered Too Young
.
Tw
elve hours later, I’d finished.
The inscription read:
“
To My Bosom Friend,
Sandy
, In Honor
of
Your 30th Birthday
.
”
For a cover, the book (rather manuscript)
boasted a picture from the front
of a card Sandy and I had each purchased
for one another
in college—t
he picture of a dark-haired, blue-eyed, gorgeous man that we’d gasped and giggled over
when we’d found him
in the card store in downtown Rexburg
,
Idaho
,
eleven years
before.
I scrawled
Weathered Too Young
across the Xerox of the hot-guy
card,
gift
 
wrapped the manuscript
, slid it into an envelope
,
and mailed it the next morning.
Sandy
loved the story (at least she claimed to at the time—
she still claims to).
I let several friends read it over the years, but
Weathered Too Young
remained fairly exclusive until eight years later, when it was released to the public as an e-book.

Just before
Weathered Too Young
was released in e-book form, I did take the opportunity to make some subtle changes.
When I began writing, I couldn’t always think of character names I liked at first.
Now the names are usually synonymous wit
h the birth of the character, b
ut it didn’t used to happen that way for me in the beginning.
Therefore, I would often
simply
plug in any old name—just to get me through until the character whispered their real name to me.
This was definitely the case with
Weathered Too Young
.
Short on time, I’d originally named Lark Lawrence
“
Lori.
”
Slater was actually Billy (William Slater),
and
Tom was Sammy.
Being that I had to send the book immediately after writing it, I never had the chance to change the names
as
I’d wanted to.
Therefore
, just before the e-book version of
Weathered Too Young
was released, I did change
some names
.
Now, a
s you
may have noticed (if you read the original e-book version), I also made some name changes along the way while rewriting
Weathered Too Young
into a novel.
Jack became Hadley, and Katherine’s last name
was changed from Thatcher to
Thornquist (because she’s not at all related to Reese Thatcher
from
An Old-Fashioned Romance
,
and I didn’t want anyone to be confused)
.

I’m going to pause here and share an absolutely
unnecessary
tidbit
.
As I was rewriting
Weathered Too Young
, I became curious as to whether Samson Kane’s name had actually been Samson Kane in that original manuscript.
I thoug
ht it had been b
ut wasn’t sure
since I
don’t even have a copy of that original story.
(You know how you make something for somebody but never make one for yourself?
That’s what happened here.
I found the same thing to be true of cross-stitching many years ago—though, for me, it never seems to be true where
cookies and cake is concerned
.)
Therefore, I picked up the phone an
d called the person w
ho I knew did have the only o
riginal manuscript
—my best friend, college roommate, and inspiration in so many ways—Sandy.

“Was Samson Kane’s name really Samson Kane in that original book I wrote for you?” I asked.

“Well, let me grab it
and see
.
I have it right here!”
Sandy
exclaimed
.
Sandy
began to thumb through the old manuscript—the one I’d written so long ago—the one I’d signed “Lolita Ce de Baca
,
”
which is still my pseudonym of choice (I plan to write under it again someday).

“Hmmm,” she said.
“Let me see
.
Oh, here it is!”
(Now this is the funny part
.
I’m going to type
Sandy
’s exact words here
because she made a verbal typo
—not unlike many typos I’m well-known for—only this one cracked me up
!)

“
Ah, yes,” she began,
“
Here we go
. I
t says
, ‘
Lori turned to see Samson Kane running lamely yet intently toward them, wielding his enormous wife
.
’
”

Instantly,
I was undone
!
I laughed so hard my back hurt
,
and
I couldn’t catch my breath.

“Oh!
” she giggled.
“Wait
,
I mean…wielding his enormous
kn
ife
!” she corrected.
Too late
. W
e were roaring—
really busting a gut
.

(Which reminds me of the time my little six
-
year
-
old nephew was sitting in the backseat of my sister’s van watching
Jumanji
.
My sister and her kids had just picked me up from the
Atlanta
airport
,
and I had brought
Jumanji
for them to watch on the two
-
hour trip home.
The scene with all
the rhinoceroses
running through town came on, and my little nephew (who
then
had trouble saying
h
is Rs
)
exclaims
, “Oh no
,
Auntie!
A herd of stampeding winos!”
I had a sudden vision of a
crowd
of inebriated men racing through the streets and nearly laughed myself into a visit to the hospital!
Next time you’re feeling a little blue, just
visualize
herds of stampeding winos and villains wielding their enormous wives.
It’s good for the soul, ain’t it?)

Anyway, back to my
original
venue of
useless
bab
ble—t
he novel version of
Weathered Too Young
.
I became curious a
while back
,
being that I could hardly remember the story of
Weathered Too Young
—
as to exactly how it played out.
So
I printed
a copy
, sat down, and read it.
Instantly, I was agitated
.
I felt like I’d read a condensed version of something!
I mean, the characters had so much more to sa
y
.
M
ore importantly,
Slater and Lark had so much more kissing to do!
Sure, the e-book was fun—a quick an
d
easy read
,
a zippy little escape
in
to romance—but there was so much more!
I couldn’t sleep that night.
I knew I had to rewrite it—tell more of the story.
Furthermore,
certain
events had been somewhat misrepresented in the original book
,
being that’d I’d written it so fast.
Thus they too were corrected.

As you may or may not know, an e-book is usually a story that is haunting me
,
begging to be told
,
keeping me awake at night.
Yet often I’m in the midst of
one
story or novel when
inspiration for another story
hits.
Thus, I’ll
pause—
take the time to write the e-book so that my mind can let it go and my friends can have a “quick fix” to read.
Readers really enjoy e-books
,
and I like
knowing that a story won’t be lost while it waits its turn
to be told.
However, once in a
while, an e-book will begin to haunt me after a
while—begging for attention once more
,
demanding to be lengthened into a novel.
This is exactly what happened with
Weathered Too Young
.
I couldn’t focus on anything else
.
I was driven to
“
flesh out
”
the story—to
let the reader linger in watching Slater and Lark’s relationship develop—to
lengthen the
ir
passionate moments.
And so I silentl
y screamed, “Stop the presses!”
I pushed aside the project I had been working on
,
for
Weathered Too Young
needed a broader voice.

(Blah, blah, blah!
Are you thinking, “Sheesh, Marcia!
Is there ever one organized, concise thought in your brain?”)

Of course, the novel
Weathered Too
Young
belongs to
Sandy
just as the e-book did—just as that original manuscript did.
So does
the
sequel
to
Weathered Too Young
—
The Windswept Flame
—
as well as
another little story you may have read entitled
Daydreams
.
Twenty-six years after meeting,
Sandy
is still
the first person I send a story to
or send the
individual
chapters to as I’
m writing
.
I still depend
on her affirmation of a story—her approval
of it.
Sandy
—the truest friend—a
cherish
ed
friendship
. I
n truth
,
I can’t imagine what my life would have been like without her.

As one final little ditty into my weirdness, I did call and ask
Sandy
to tell me everything about the original title pages on that old manuscript.

She said, “
You did!
You wrote “Weathered Too
Young” in your handwriting, and then you put the picture of that totally hot hairy
-
chest guy we had hanging in our dorm at Ricks
. A
nd then in tiny handwriting
, you
signed it
‘
Lolita Ce de Baca
’
!”