Book Excerpt

As some of you know, I am in the process of writing a book. It is a semi-autobiographical, humorous, and we’ll say, embellished non-fiction. This is the first time I have ever taken on anything so big in my life and it makes me very nervous, and I think about every little thing, way too much. I have doubts about whether my short-form posts are good enough, let alone a novel!

So I am posted an excerpt from my book. I welcome criticism (as long as it is truly constructive) and of course praise! At one point I felt it was too dialogue-heavy, now I wonder if I’m focusing too much on minute details. My writing process is tremendously different when it comes to this monster. With that in mind, please be kind to me! 🙂

Here it goes:

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The hours leading up to my date with Alex were a complete disaster. I kid you not, I literally shit my pants. I don’t know if it was nerves, or if I caught something from the water at Water World the day before but I was sitting at the kitchen table, in white short shorts, thinking that all I had to do was let out a little fart. Well let me tell you, I was wrong.

After throwing my shorts into the washing machine and then taking some Pepto Bismal I had to decide if I was still going to go to a nice Hibachi style restaurant and risk stinking up the place and embarrassing myself. I decided to wait it out and see if my stomach felt better in a few hours. I would use that time to practice the fancy new updo I was going to try out tonight.

Ha! What a joke that “updo” was. I think by definition, an updo is supposed to stay up right? Despite the fact that I had about 25 bobby pins in various spots on my head, the ‘do was not staying up. It was supposed to be one of those elegant, sophisticated, but modernly updated French twist type styles. I assure you, mine looked like I slept with a hotdog in my hair. But hey, maybe I was being too hard on myself, so I walked to the living to ask my dad how it looked. He would surely give me an honest answer.

“Yeesh! Did you do that to your hair on purpose?!” he said with a grimace.

“Ugh! Thanks Dad!” I said as I stormed off, already starting to remove bobby pins.

At this point it was an hour and a half before Alex was supposed to pick me up. My stomach had settled down enough that I decided I was safe to go. But my hair on the other hand, looked like my stomach had felt a few hours ago.

I ended up settling on a much simpler version of the French twist I had attempted. I pulled my hair back, twisted it up and threw in a clip. It was not nearly as elegant or sophisticated as I had hoped, but I thought, “Eh, good enough I suppose.” I put on a black dress with a V neck line that was deep enough to show that I’m a woman, but not too deep to show that I am a lady. The hardest decision was the shoes. I have a slight obsession with shoes, specifically high heels. At this point in my life I had about 45 pairs of heels. I had four options in front of me: Open-toed T-Strap patent leather stilettos, pointed-toe patent leather pumps with an adorable white accent bow and trim, or my strappy pink snake skin sandals with two and a half inch heels. What shoes you wear on the first date makes an important statement. I spent the next ten minutes alternating shoes and lifting one leg in the mirror, then the other. I narrowed it down to the two open-toed options; it was a nice evening and I didn’t want to look too business-y. I put the pink one on one foot and the black on the other and asked my dad, “Okay which one?”

He looked away from the tv to my feet and said, “I like the black ones.” Just in time for Theresa to pass through the room and say, “Well I like the pink ones.”

“I’m going to meet this guy right?” My dad asked.

“I mean, not yet. If he asked me out while I was in Fort Collins, you wouldn’t.” It’s not that I didn’t want Alex to meet my dad, I just didn’t want my dad to scare him away on the first date. Asking out a cop’s daughter was intimidating enough.

My dad raised his eyebrows as he said, “But you’re not in Fort Collins. You’re under my roof and he’s picking you up from my house.”

At this point I realized there was no point in arguing. Plus, if a guy was too scared to introduce himself to my dad before taking me out, he probably wouldn’t make the cut anyways. “Fine, I’ll text him and warn him that you might be cleaning your gun,” I said jokingly.

“It’s already clean.”

It was 5 minutes to seven and I couldn’t tell if I was feeling butterflies in my stomach or if I needed to run to the bathroom again. Theresa was sitting on the couch playing on her phone with Luke. I came out finally dressed and perfectly accessorized. The only problem was this bird’s nest I had on top of my head. I made a last minute, executive decision to ditch the updo. I let my hair fall and simply bobby pinned a few of the front strands back, hoping that my eye makeup would be pretty enough to distract from the mess of hair.

“Is that him?” Theresa asked when she saw a black Denali pull up in front of the house. “That’s a nice car!”

I looked outside and didn’t see the silver Trailblazer he drove at school. Right as I was saying, “I don’t think so, I think he mentioned he might be taking his mom’s car” Alex got out of the car and was walking up to the house. I was really feeling the nerves now. I barely remember walking to the front door and letting him in. He shook hands with my dad, told him where we were going for dinner and then in an instant, we were walking to the car together.

“You look nice.” He told me.

And as if I was just talking to Kayla, I said, “I don’t want to talk about it.” I just sort of blurted it out. I didn’t mean to be so abrasive and I was hoping I didn’t ruin the date in a matter of seconds. “My hair just didn’t turn out the way I was hoping.” I said, trying to make a smooth recovery.

“Well I think it looks great!” Alex said as he opened the car door for me.

I was impressed already. Not only did he handle my idiotic hair complaints like a champ, he opened the car door for me.

 

Stay tuned for more!