The full manuscript

Is in two places right now, and I am waiting. Waiting for a positive answer, hopefully. I check my email a good ten times a day and while it loads I hold my breath.

It's amazing how this process works, it is so time consuming and yet it is all for the hope of a chance. Everyday I am more and more grateful for the readers I have now, it is so nice to have that connection so simply.

I have a certain and uncertain time I am required to wait while the manuscript is considered. There are moments in the day that I try to send the story positive energy, which is probably stupid. I think of my sweet homeless soul, who really only lives in my head, but he is in so many hearts I feel like he is real in a way. Mouse and the knitting needles? His story, his chapter. I want to run my hands over it and know that he is being remembered by someone else as well.

When I have doubts, (which, oh my gosh, is all the time) I try and picture my favorite scenes and believe in them.

Lick, bite, blow.


When he plays the piano and the music falls over her like a waterfall outside the church.

Smile 200.

The sorry tattoo, and how she erased it in the sun.

 My mobster, so vicious and so determined to protect his brothers.

The weddings.

The funeral.

It's still so real to me, though the story was complete a long time ago now.

So I guess this is an update of my losing my mind just a little bit, the more I try the more I want it. The more I learn, the more I realize it is such a hard thing to put into reality.

Wayras Park and the Hudson River

We were driving past this restaurant by the station "Bella Luci"

The train on its way to New York City.

They were refurbishing this, couldn't get closer.

Recognize his shade spot?

There is the parking lot, where he walks her to the car.

The City welcomes us.

There is the platform!

Such an easy word to spell.

What it looks like if you are about to walk into the sign.

The station from the road.

Those third rails are a bitch.

A little backwards reading.

It was a dark and stormy night. Or just olden times.

Just love this picture.

You can see the top of the church in this shot.

When I went up to visit my New York family last fall,  I begged Mr. The King to bring his camera and take some pictures for me. I love how he frames stuff and we had a gorgeous day. I wonder if the actual station matches the one you saw in your head. When I was writing I pictured the Rhinecliff, New York station, But the Rhinecliff train would not be the one she would take to the city in real life, so Poughkeepsie became the destination. I picked the title "Poughkeepsie" because it was simply the most interesting word in the first chapter.