Joyce Tremel was a police secretary for ten years. More than once, she envisioned the demise of certain co-workers but took to writing as a better way to stay out of jail. Her fiction has appeared in Mysterical-e, and her non-fiction has been published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police magazine, as well as online. She is a member of Pennwriters as well as Sisters in Crime.
Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together and welcome the fab Joyce Tremel!
When Jenna Bennett/Jennie Bentley tweeted that she wanted to feature a #WriterWednesday (or #WW) on her blog I half-jokingly volunteered. She took me up on it. Her instructions to me were “Write something short about what you’re working on and send it to me along with links and an excerpt.” Easy enough.
I’m kind of in a weird state of limbo right now. After three
rounds of rather intense revisions on In Spite of Murder for my agent, Meredith
Barnes, she made a tough decision to leave agenting when she was offered her
dream job at Soho Press. She referred me to several agents who have the
manuscript in their hot little hands. I’ve never had so many agents reading at
the same time, so I’m hopeful at least one of them will love it as much as
Meredith did.
I’m working on two things at the moment. One is a sequel to
In Spite of Murder—tentatively called In Spite of Politics—in which my
protagonist’s mother runs for mayor of the small town of Spite ,
West Virginia .
Murder and hilarity ensue, not necessarily in that order. If you want to read a
short synopses of both books, you can find them on my blog. Click on the tab that says “In Spite of…”
The second thing I’m working on is a short story featuring a
female police detective and a case of identity theft that leads to murder. It’s
different than the Spite books—more of a straight police procedural.
If you’d like a taste of IN SPITE OF MURDER, the following
is one of my favorite scenes. Yes, it contains kissing.
Here’s the set-up: After
Irma Jean is fired from her job as police secretary, she ends up at the bar in
the Waverly Hotel which is owned by a hunky Irishman named Luke Jameson. Irma
Jean is attracted to him, but still not over her ex-husband’s betrayal. She
gets plastered and is rescued by Luke, who takes her up to his suite to
recover. This is the scene where Irma Jean starts to admit to herself that
there could be something between them.
“May I ask you something?” Luke said.
“Sure.”
He leaned toward me. His green eyes were tinged with blue. I
hadn’t noticed that before. “Do you still love him?” he asked.
“No, I don’t love him.” I didn’t even have to think about my
answer. “Far from it, especially right now.”
Luke reached over and tucked a stray piece of hair behind my
ear. His touch sent a thrill through me. “I do miss him, though.” That didn’t
sound right. “What I mean is I miss the man I married. Not the person he turned
out to be. I miss—” I almost said I miss him in my bed at night. But
that wasn’t true. Luke had been the one in my dreams lately. I felt a flush
from head to toe.
“What were you going to say?” he asked.
It was hard to answer with my heart going thumpety-thump.
“Nothing.”
He leaned in closer, his face only inches from mine. “You
can tell me.”
No way. We hadn’t even had a date yet. It was one thing
thinking about sleeping with him—it was another one entirely telling him about
it. I didn’t know all that much about him, and he hardly knew anything about
me. I thought I knew Curley and look where that got me. Luke was kind and
considerate. Not to mention sexy as hell. I’d already made a fool of myself
with him once today and I wasn’t going to do it again. “Really, it’s nothing.”
He grinned. “You’re blushing.”
“Thanks for telling me.”
“It’s cute.” He took my hand in his. “You don’t have to be
afraid to talk to me.”
“I’m not,” I said. “I just don’t want to talk about Curley.
He’s in the past and I’m moving on.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Anyone in particular in your moving on
plan?”
“Maybe. I’m keeping my options open.”
Luke leaned forward and kissed me. The kiss was soft and
tender and short, but the flush I’d felt a few minutes ago was nothing like the
one I felt now.
“I hope I’m one of those options,” Luke said, then kissed me
again.
A minute later, there was a knock on the door. One of the
ovens in the kitchen caught fire and Luke had to go take care of things. At
that point, I could have used a fire extinguisher myself.
It had been a hell of a day. I’d lost my job, been betrayed
yet again by my ex, had too much to drink and made an ass of myself, passed out, sobered up, and kissed the hottest
guy in town. And it was only eight o’clock.
***
So, that’s my contribution to Jennie/Jenna’s new feature,
#Writer Wednesday. And just so you know, she’s doing the same on my blog. Stop
by and visit, won’t you?
7 comments:
Thanks for hosting me today!
It's kind of fun to let Irma Jean go out in public.
Thanks for sharing the excerpt. Sounds like my kind of read!
Yay! A future reader! Thanks.
I love it, Joyce! Especially since I've seen bits and pieces of a very early draft. It's really blossomed.
Thanks, Annette! I cringe when I stumble on my earlier drafts. It's a good lesson, though. There's a reason they're called rough drafts.
My rough drafts are of course perfect, just like everything else about me. 0;-)
Thanks again for hosting me! It was fun!
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