Bonus Material from the Nebraska Series Page 12

  Dave: Don’t you have someone else to bug, like Tom?

  Joel: Not today.

  Tom: Did someone say my name?

  Joel: No. This has nothing to do with you.

  Tom: I’m pretty sure I heard my name.

  Joel: While listening to music?

  Tom: It’s not music. It’s an audiobook, thank you very much.

  Joel: Let me guess? The Little Engine That Could?

  Tom: No. Why would you think I’m listening to a kid’s book?

  Joel: Well, you should. Not only is it a lot better than what Dave comes up with, but it’ll teach you to keep trying because one of these days, you might succeed at something.

  Dave: You two need to get out of here. This has nothing to do with either one of you. You aren’t even in Isaac’s Decision.

  Joel: Which is good if you insist on rewriting it. I don’t want my name associated with your penmanship, or as I term it “crapmanship”.

  Neil: *chuckles* Pretty clever there, Joel.

  Dave: No, it’s not clever. It’s stupid.

  Joel: It’s a whole lot better than your writing.

  Ruth: This is exactly why Isaac’s Decision didn’t go according to plan. Dave and Neil decided to hijack a good portion of the book, and it’s taking Sarah and Mary to smooth out the kinks.

  Neil: What’s wrong with that?

  Ruth: It isn’t your story. It’s Isaac and Emily’s.

  Emily: I actually prefer this version. I didn’t feel like running off to Missouri and finding my real mother. I know you want me to dwell on her, but I’d rather not. I’d rather focus on positive things, like what Isaac and I have together.

  Isaac: Exactly. There’s no need for all that drama. Plus, back then, what were the chances a young woman is really going to travel by herself? It’s not like it is today where it happens all the time.

  Ruth: It could happen, Isaac.

  Isaac: But the probability wasn’t as good. Besides, if you check your history, you’ll know that when women immigrated to America in the 1890s, they were detained until it was assured that someone could care for and protect them. Today, a woman can go wherever without such a hindrance.

  Ruth: Oh come on, Isaac. You can’t generalize this for all women everywhere. Carrie Ingalls won a homestead in a lottery in her mid-thirties, which was around 1905, and she maintained it all by herself. If she could do this by herself, then there were things women did without men, even if it wasn’t the norm of the day.

  Emily: I don’t want my book to end up as a history lesson. I just want to marry Isaac and live happily ever after with him. The hard part was getting him to admit his feelings for me. After that, why put me through more pain than I have to? So what if the parents have to work things out so Dave and Neil can bury the hatchet and move on?

  Ruth: It lessens your “spotlight” to do that.

  Emily: So I get less scenes in the book. As long as no one falls asleep while reading it, who cares?

  Joel: As long as Dave isn’t writing it, that shouldn’t be a problem.

  Isaac: True. I sounded like a complete idiot in his second rewrite. “I am brave.” “I am brave and strong.” “I will take you home.” No one talks like that.

  Joel: That’s what I’ve been saying all along.

  Dave: Well, that’s gratitude for you. Don’t either of you ask me for favors in the future because I’m not doing them. *leaves*

  Isaac: The story is going along fine. We’re changing the story only because it’s better the way we envision it. You need to trust your characters to do the right thing.

  Ruth: I guess I have no choice since you all run the show. Very well. We’ll see how things turn out. And you better do a good job because, unlike Dave, I don’t like doing rewrites.

  Photo credits:

  Dave calls for ban on my books: File ID: 3303435, © Yuri_arcurs | Dreamstime.com, purchased on 10/26/2011, no longer available; text calling for the ban mine (made it in GIMP)

  ***

  The Characters Have a Meeting Without Me

  (Blog post made on 10/30/2011)

  Dave: I win! Ruth Ann Nordin has severe writer’s block! She stalled out on Isaac’s Decision and can’t go on. This is the best day ever. Now Isaac won’t end up with Emily, and better yet, he might even end up with Eva! I give myself two thumbs up for what Joel was unable to do during the writing of his book.

  Joel: I’m going to kill you.

  Dave: Why? This has nothing to do with you.

  Joel: Yes, it does. In case you haven’t noticed, Shotgun Groom is due out around November 15. If she gets writer’s block so bad she can’t proceed with her books, then my book will never see the light of day. It’ll end up in the saddest place a book can go…the computer’s hard drive where it’ll stay forever. No one ever reads those books, Dave!

  Dave: Oh come on. You’re overreacting.

  Joel: She hasn’t written anything new in the past two days, thanks to you. That means Her Heart’s Desire and To Have and To Hold are currently stalled in addition to Isaac’s Decision. Your ridiculous antics have led to a chain reaction that could shut her down for good.

  April: Move aside, Joel. I got something hot and sticky to pour on his head.

  Joel: Moving aside, April. Give it to him, good!

  Dave: You can’t be serious.

  April: Deadly. You know how long it took for me to get Joel to agree to be a happy husband? For the longest time, all he did was mope and complain about how horrible having a wife was. And now that I won, you’re making all my patience and hard work for nothing.

  Joel: Um, you mean that we both won, right?

  April: What? Oh, okay. Yes, we both won.

  Isaac: And people wonder why I eloped! There’s absolutely no getting through to you, Pa. I swear, talking to you is like talking to a brick wall.

  Dave: Well, you don’t need to worry now. I’ve taken care of everything. You don’t have to try to battle feeling guilty while you talk to that Craftsman girl.

  Joel: April, that hot and sticky substance you got isn’t enough. We need to get something hard and wooden to whack some sense into Dave. Got a thick tree branch where you’re at?

  Emily: We don’t have to resort to violence, everyone.

  Isaac: We don’t?

  Emily: Of course not. There’s a very logical way out of this which will enable me to marry you, get Her Heart’s Desire and To Have and To Hold back on track, and make sure that Shotgun Groom goes out as planned.

  Isaac: What’s that?

  Emily: We kill Dave off. I think if he dies somewhere between Shotgun Groom and To Have and To Hold, we can still give Mary amnesia so she won’t mourn his passing. I’d hate to give her any grief since she’s been nothing but kind to me. Then Mary finds someone else who won’t have the hang ups Dave does. He’ll no longer bother Ruth, and we’ll save her from any more grief in the future.

  Joel: That’s not a bad idea. I vote for this guy. His name is Howard. He can be some guy who lost his farm in a big locust swarm or something. Maybe he’s a widower. I can fix him up with Mary.

  April: Where do you know Howard from?

  Joel: He can be a friend I acquire between Shotgun Groom and To Have and To Hold. He’ll be lonely and looking for a wife, and there will be Mary who can’t run a farm by herself.

  Dave: That’s enough, Joel and Emily! Ruth can’t get rid of me, no matter how much you two want it.

  April: Make that three people who want it.

  Dave: Fine. No matter how everyone but my son wants to kill me off, it’s not happening. I am too important to the Nebraska Series.

  Joel: Dave, when you walk into a room, how does your big ego fit through the door?

  Dave: I don’t see any emails coming in for you or any of the other heroes in Ruth’s books like the ones that come in for me.

  Joel: April, make that branch extra thick. Maybe we can knock that enormous ego out of him.

  Mary: Hold on, everyone. I see no reason to at
tack or kill Dave.

  Dave: Thank you, Mary.

  Mary: Because there’s no point. If Ruth can’t finish Isaac’s Decision with Isaac and Emily ending up together, then she won’t be writing any more books. And if she won’t be writing any more books, then To Have and To Hold will never be completed.

  Dave: Well, yes. That’ll have to be the way it goes.

  Mary: One might think it’s unfortunate. Here we are currently at the point where I’ve lost my memory but am starting to realize what a wonderful man I married. And one of the upcoming scenes will involve me with my husband in the bedroom, this time without any clothes on–

  Dave: What?

  Mary: And Ruth was planning on three or four sex scenes in the book, which is far more than what she usually gives to any other romance she’s done.

  Dave: You know, I might have been too hasty to do some of the things I’ve done in the past few interviews.

  Mary: But it’s fine. We don’t need another book. We already have Eye of the Beholder. No other character gets two books where they get to be the main characters, so we don’t need a second one.

  Dave: Now, wait. Let’s not be hasty. We should have another book dedicated to you, Mary. And when I think of it, you show up quite a bit in Isaac’s Decision, too. If it means Isaac marries Emily, then I’ll go along with it. Who knows? Maybe it won’t be so bad.

  Joel: Oh brother. *rolls eyes*

  April: At least, Shotgun Groom will be out in November.

  Isaac: I’m just going to pretend I didn’t hear anything my mother said. *goes to wash his mind out with soap*

  Bonus Materials from To Have and To Hold

  I know this book comes before Isaac’s Decision in the Nebraska Series, but after all the referencing I did to this book from the Isaac’s Decisions interviews, I thought it was better to place it here in this book.

  Description: Six years after Dave Larson married Mary in Eye of the Beholder, Mary loses her memory. In an attempt to help her remember her past, Dave takes her to Maine where Mary will come face to face with the family she left behind. Will her love for Dave be enough to overcome the unpleasant aspects of her past, or will past insecurities keep her from regaining her former happiness?

  Interview with Dave and Mary (hero and heroine in To Have and To Hold)

  Blog post made on 11/28/2011)

  Ruth Ann Nordin: I might as well have just titled the book, “The couple who never fights” because I’m at chapter 11 where Dave and Mary are in Maine to see her ailing father, who has a week left to live, and to help her gain back some of the memories she lost. Well, part of the conflict I had planned to do is crumbling around me because these two are on the same page–as in, they actually talk to each other openly and honestly. What a weird couple, right? Who in real life acts this way? In my marriage, my husband and I argue, drive each other crazy, don’t tell each other everything, say “nothing’s wrong” when there really is something wrong, etc. That’s normal. Don’t get me wrong. We’re happy, but there are days we look at each other and wonder, “What was I thinking when I married this person?” Well, Dave and Mary aren’t like that. Sure, she didn’t talk to him in Eye of the Beholder that time after the miscarriage, which provided great conflict, but good grief, they are talking about everything in this book.

  Dave: Why would you want us to fight?

  Ruth: Well, it would make the story more interesting.

  Dave: Oh, give me a break. I fought you like crazy over Isaac’s Decision, but you didn’t listen to me no matter how much noise I raised. I see no reason to argue with anyone anymore, and even if I did, I wouldn’t argue with Mary. I love her.

  Ruth: Married people fight, Dave.

  Dave: That might be true for everyone else, but they don’t have Mary in their life.

  Ruth: You could avoid her questions. Like when she asked you what you talked to her father about, you didn’t have to tell her.

  Dave: I didn’t give her the details of what he said. I see no reason to do that. Her knowing the kinds of names people called her and how they used her when she was growing up isn’t something that will benefit her. I just told her the overall gist of what he said.

  Ruth: But this was the perfect chance for her to wonder and start worrying about your attraction for her.

  Dave: *rolls eyes* When I could just tell her and make love to her instead? Yeah, like I’m that stupid to pass up a chance to have sex. I made that mistake in Eye of the Beholder. I’m not going to do it again.

  Mary: Ruth, you’re worrying over nothing. There’s plenty of conflict in the story if you look for it. My family in Maine is full of conflict. Sure, I don’t remember anything to tell you what that is, but there’s a good reason why I left and didn’t want to come back. There’s a reason why I started throwing out the letters my mom sent me.

  Ruth: That’s pretty vague.

  Mary: Well, you chose to give me amnesia, so I can’t help you connect the dots.

  Dave: That’s telling her, Mary.

  Ruth: Dave, don’t tell me you’re still holding a grudge since I wouldn’t take your rewrite of Isaac’s Decision.

  Dave: There was nothing wrong with what I wrote. I concede that Emily is a good wife after all, but I still think you could have accepted my offer to help write the ending.

  Ruth: Sorry, Dave. I don’t have ghostwriters. Sink or swim, I write what I publish. Hey, I pulled out the old GIMP program and did a poster for you guys. Want to see it?

  Dave and Mary: Not really.

  Ruth: Great. Here it is…

  Dave: And you thought my writing was bad?

  Ruth: What? You don’t like it?

  Dave: Don’t quit your day job.

  Ruth: Oh come on. It’s not that bad.

  Dave: Yes, it is.

  Mary: This isn’t going to be the book cover, is it?

  Ruth: No. It’s just an experiment I was doing on merging images and fading one into another.

  Mary: Whew. That’s a relief. In that case, I think it’s just fine.

  Ruth: You two are all heart. It’s amazing I don’t give up writing with all the grief you characters give me.

  Mary: I said it was fine.

  Ruth: Because it’s a draft.

  Dave: Look who’s talking. You brought Joel in here to criticize my writing and write those bad reviews on my work. I know Joel made all those reviews.

  Ruth: And you wrote all the glowing ones.

  Mary: What reviews?

  Ruth: These. They were posted during the writing of Isaac’s Decision, and they’re in this book.

  Dave: What: How could you tell?

  Ruth: All the references to Mary… It was a dead giveaway.

  Mary: Hmm… Does Joel write books?

  Dave: I don’t think so.