A LIFE LESS ORDINARY

By

Victoria Bernadine

BLURB:  

For the last fifteen years, Rose “Manny” Mankowski has been a very good girl.  Now, at the age of 45, she’s questioning her choices and feeling more and more disconnected from her own life.  When she’s passed over for promotion and her much younger new boss implies Manny’s life will never change, something snaps.  In the blink of an eye, she’s quit her job, sold her house, cashed in her pension, and she’s leaving town on a six month road trip.

After placing an ad for a travelling companion, she’s joined in her mid-life crisis by Zeke Powell, the cynical, satirical, most read – and most controversial – blogger for the e-zine, What Women Want.  Zeke’s true goal is to expose Manny’s journey as a pitiful and desperate attempt to reclaim her lost youth – and increase his readership at the same time.

Now, armed with a bagful of destinations, a fistful of maps, and an out-spoken imaginary friend named Harvey, Manny’s on a quest to rediscover herself – and taking Zeke along for the ride.

EXCERPT

“All I ever wanted was a life less ordinary.”

Manny lay flat on her back, eyes wide, staring at the ceiling while she waited for her clock to hit 6:00. Another day of work, she thought. Another day older and deeper in debt.

She had the alarm timed to the millisecond. The jarring noise had barely begun when she clicked it off. She sighed then threw back the covers and got out of bed.

She padded into the bathroom, glanced without interest in the full-length mirror that doubled as her shower doors and took her morning inventory.

Plain face? Check.

Looking tired? Check.

Thirty pounds overweight? Check.

Dark circles under deer-caught-in-headlights eyes? Check and check.

She shook her head at her limp, mousy hair and wondered when she’d gotten so old.

She sighed in resignation then conjured up her Perfect Fantasy Man–or Harvey, as she liked to call him–to give her a morning lift. She cocked her head to one side as she stared into the mirror and imagined him standing behind her. She smiled at the handsome man, and he smiled back, putting his hands on her shoulders. Everything about him was warm, in stark contrast to the cold shades of grey in which she lived her life. He had warm brown eyes, warm brown skin, and a warm smooth voice that always reminded her of golden honey. Today his hair was black with greying temples, and yes, even that seemed warm to her.

He was perfect, everything she considered ideal in a man–and extra-perfect, of course, because he was a fantasy. Just the thought of trying to establish a relationship with an actual man felt too much like work.

She sighed and Harvey disappeared.

“Instead I ended up in a rut–everything planned and executed to the minute.”

Guest Post (by the Author)

How to create a great work area for inspiration.

Thank you for hosting me today!

When it comes to creating a great work area for inspiration, I think the only advice I’m qualified to give is:  create a space that makes you feel comfortable, and that will be different for each person.

What works for me, personally, is likely not going to work for most other people mainly because what works for me is, I think, counter-intuitive to what people think about when they think of a place to work:  I need noise.

Music, conversation, the sound of tires on pavement.  Dogs barking, kids laughing, even (for short periods of time) car alarms.  I need something – anything – that breaks the silence.

Let me explain.

I grew up on a farm in a very small house (less than 800 square feet) with nine other people, including two extremely social parents.  I shared a bedroom with at least one of my sisters until I was twelve.  My two youngest brothers (out of four) were still at home when I got the room to myself, but their bedroom was in the basement.  The kitchen was so small, my dad had to get out of his chair at the head of the table in order to open the fridge.  In the living room, I could lay on the floor with my head at the couch and my feet touching the TV stand.  The only door inside the house was on the bathroom.  We had a curtain on our bedroom while my brothers had a door…but no doorknob.  My parents had nothing at all.

Add to this mix of space and people the fact that we had constant company.  Family and friends would always be dropping by to visit, and often stayed up all night long.  I would go to sleep as my parents and their company played cards, drank, and talked and laughed and laughed and talked.

This is all a long-winded way of explaining that noise–the sound of life and happiness–makes me feel safe and comfortable, and that, in turn, makes me feel creative.

Noise, obviously, isn’t going to be for everyone.

Nowadays, I put on some good music–which can range from the most mellow you can think of, to country, to the old rock and roll of the 60s and 70s, to raucous heavy metal to…well, anything, really, although I’m not a big fan of rap or jazz.  Or I put on the television and have a documentary or an old show I know well playing while I work.  Or I write on the bus during my daily commute; that’s actually where I wrote a lot of A Life Less Ordinary.

So, that’s why my best advice is to create a work space that makes you feel comfortable, secure, safe and happy, whatever that may look like for you.  Once you do that, you can experiment, and have fun with whatever you create.

 AUTHOR INFORMATION:

Victoria Bernadine (a pseudonym) is, as the saying goes, a “woman of a certain age”. After twenty-something years of writer’s block, she began writing again in 2008. She began with fanfiction about a (now-cancelled) TV show called Jericho and particularly about the characters of Heather Lisinski and Edward Beck. From there, she expanded into writing original fic and she hasn’t stopped since.

Victoria enjoys reading all genres and particularly loves writing romantic comedy and post-apocalyptic science fiction. What those two have in common is anybody’s guess.

She lives in Edmonton with her two cats (The Grunt and The Runt). A Life Less Ordinary is the first novel she felt was good enough to be released into the wild.

Victoria can be contacted through Love of Words Publishing Inc. (loveofwords@shaw.ca) or through her brand new blog at http://victoriabernadine.wordpress.com/.

A Life Less Ordinary is available for sale on Amazon in both Kindle and hard copy formats at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AMJBOSQ. 

Victoria will be awarding a $25 (grand prize) gift card with two gift cards for $15 each; the cards would for either Amazon or Smashwords (winner’s choice).

Follow the entire tour for more chances to win:

http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2013/03/name-before-masses-tour-life-less.html

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