Okay, I am officially done with draft 2, but I just added a scene and would reeeeeally like comments on it. Is my grammar ok? Does it flow with the rest of the story? Does it end all right or does it need to continue all the way to the good-bye at the airport (that especially I need to know!).

Also, I don't know what this new revelation says about Katie, but for the record I've always known this. So... yeah. I didn't quite make it up.

One other interesting fact about holding onto the past: in the beginning when Mariah checks her email and mentions the wall paper with a picture of two little girls she didn't know? That was the twins (in draft two "two little girls" is changed to "twin" girls so that that's not QUITE so vague). =)

So anyway... PLEASE READ IT! It's very very short (like half a page or less!). Promise. And more importantly, PLEASE COMMENT and tell me if I need to change something!

( The story of the house )

From there it cuts to the end, where Mariah's back in IF, which I posted earlier.

This is a rewritten scene from my NaNovel, rewritten on purpose to include David, who wasn't around enough in draft 1 (currently halfway through draft 2 at the moment). Does it work? What do I need to change? PLEASE tell me. =)

( Read it pleeeease! )

...BECAUSE IT'S DONE!!! WOOHOOOOOOO!!!!

To: Mariah Hart <crazy_daisy@yahoo.com>
From: Nadya Brookes <nbrookes@yahoo.com>
Subject: Maryland

Hi honey. I wanted to let you know that Randy has accepted that job offer and he and I are looking at houses in Maryland right now. We would like a home with three bedrooms, so that you could have your own room whenever you came to stay with us and decorate it however you wanted. Your dad and I have decided that you will spend Labor Day and Thanksgiving with me and Randy in Maryland, so I hope we've found a house by then for your sake!
Hugs and kisses, Mom
P.S. Also, from now on I'm going to be using a new email address: randynadya@md.rr.com. Love you!

( More behind the cut from chapter 9 )

Lots happens in the last chapter. Mariah reads the Book of Mormon because of a bet with Sarah and Molly and the Young Women in their ward. Um... Mariah gets sick. She loses the bet and has to take everyone out for ice cream. Then she goes home.

The house looked different as we pulled into the driveway. Dad and I hadn't talked much on the way home from the airport - I think he was afraid that I'd yell (which, come to think of it, he had reason to) and I was trying to decide how best to say what I wanted to say.

( More from chapter 10 )

I probably wouldn't have remembered it at all if I hadn't offered to dust Grandma's mantel (you know you should start speaking to your best friends again when you volunteer to dust). Okay, so, I would have remembered, but I probably wouldn't have asked.

( Caution: read at your own risk )

Amazingly enough, this was way easier to write than the last. Heh.

I do not want to write more.

I do not want to write more.

I do not want to write more.

I do not want to write more.

This is why I hate writing.
~*~

By mid-January the routine of college life had come back to her. Katie woke up, went to class, studied, read her scriptures, and went to church mechanically. It wasn't that she wasn't enjoying herself - because she was, finally - just that, on days that didn't include letters from Ben, life didn't seem to have much brilliance.

There was nothing particularly exciting about her life right now either. The most sensational thing that had happened all semester (which, granted, hadn't been very long - but still) was Susan losing her diamond monogram bracelet (which was very ugly, anyway). So it was no surprise that today had been another long, average, enjoyable-but-not-joyful day.

The telephone was ringing when Katie got back the dorms, but someone had picked it up before she had finished opening the door. She didn't think much of it, until Mary Slessor shoved the phone at her as Katie came through the door.

"It's for you," she whispered. "I don't know who it is."

Katie dropped her bag full of heavy textbooks and sat down on the floor. "Hello?"

"Katie?" It was Jean Jansen, only she didn't sound quite like herself. Her voice was tense and tight with emotion. Katie felt cold, although she couldn't have said exactly why.

"Yeah," she said, her mouth dry. "This is Katie."

"Katie," said Mrs. Jansen again. "Katie, it's David. Katie, David's dead."
~*~
Another excerpt shortly.

I was admiring (ha) the way my hands had gotten all pruny, letting the water and the snapped-off green bean ends drain out of the sink, when the phone rang AGAIN. As dramatically as I wanted (after all, no one was around to see) I wiped my hands on a wet towel and picked up the phone, looking like a martyr facing the firing squad.

( Read on, Lizzy... )

Mariah's such a pessimist. Heh.

~*~
</i>
"And?" Now my voice was hardly a whisper. I don't think Dad heard, but he went on anyway, exactly like a ten-thousand-ton train barreling down the tracks, right over the unsuspecting squirrel caught between two of the ties. (The squirrel, of course, was me.)

"And he and your mother and considering accepting the offer."

Squish. Dead squirrel.</i>

Heh. Yes. I'm not going to post an excerpt for ch. 6, just because... well, first of all, I wasn't happy with that chapter and can tell that will be one of the first things to die in the second draft. And also, ALL of it was important info but it all took a long time (5,000 words, as do all the other chapters) to say. Sooo.... no excerpt this time, folks. Here's the pertinent information:

1. It's roughly a year after the last chapter. Katie has thought more about God all year - it just hasn't stopped bugging her - and, finally, she just recently agreed to go to church with the Jansens. She thinks it's ridiculous and boring at first... but eventually she decides she needs to know more and so takes the missionary discussions (for those who don't know, "missionary discussions" = a series of lessons about the LDS church).

2. She takes the discussions. It takes a while, but eventually she prays and decides it's all true.

3. Her mother forbids her to get baptized. Her father intercedes on her behalf, surprisingly enough.

4. She gets baptized.

5. Her mother is livid. Her father, on the other hand, goes over to the Jansens' house with her afterwards for cake. Katie decides she likes him even though he's not actually been a part of her life for the past seven years (she's now seventeen and a senior).

This is the only line I'm going to post. I'm not even sure why, except that it has that vague ring of this-might-be-important so I'll post it just in case.

"The water was cold, but Katie didn't notice it. Ben baptized her, of course, and forever after she would remember him in white, wet to his waist, like he was that day."

And just a teaser for the next chapter:

You know something? I really hate snapping green beans.

I got to do a lot of it with Grandma, because she was "partial" (as she said - I don't think I'll EVER get used to some of her weird Southern words) to fresh green beans. Her garden was full of them, and so was her table - and I got to do all the dirty work.

Grandma helped me the first time, but after that I was on my own. She didn't even try to hide her cruelty, either.

"I grew them," she'd say with a hundred and eighty watt smile, "now it's your turn to chip in."

Just because I feel like being evil. ;)

In which Katie goes to church and gets an email from her mother. This excerpt is mostly the latter. The first part of the chapter is Katie's experience in church, which is all derogatory (heh). The only important piece of information from that is that her Young Womens' (youth group for girls) leader has red hair, and her name is Sister Jansen. ;)

"I only had four email messages (and one was an ad), which was kind of sad considering that I'd been gone an entire week. Of course, there was the fact that half the school wasn't speaking to me anymore, which probably factored into that."

( Poor baby, her mother doesn't love her... )

Comments welcome. This week has actually been the week where I've though more than any other "I AM completely talentless, why am I even doing this?" so this chapter was a struggle, even though Mariah is incredibly easy to write. Hopefully I will be able to marshall my self-esteem for the next chapter, which will be difficult as it skips about a year and still has to run smoothly. Wish me luck. =)

Also, good luck to Syf and all other brilliant NaNoers!!!

Here are snippets of chapter four. It was very difficult to figure out what to put in... it's a chapter that covers a lot, so I'll summarize what I don't add.

ALSO, please not: The Hall family is now the Jansen family. It's what they were originally, I dunno why I changed it, and now it's changed back. A lot of people have had a lot of name changes so keep that in mind while you're reading. ;)

"Her summer passed quickly, a strange mixture of the perfect and the terrible. Her mother grew worse with each passing day (or at least, that's how it seemed to Katie) - more controlling, more paranoid, and more snappish. It didn't help that Katie's brother Michael had declared his major as "something artsy and ridiculous" (in her mother's words) and proposed to his girlfriend. What was even worse, in her mother's opinion, was that Debra had accepted and they planned to get married in a small, family-only ceremony (not even the sort of grand, expensive affair her mother loved) that winter. Katie's mother stormed around the house for weeks, taking out her annoyance mostly on Katie, and working harder than ever to impress Margie and Robert Burns."

( Read on - a date, among other things )