Time seems to be flying faster than a double winged buzzard! Don't know if that's really a thing, but I'm going with it. 

The garden is drying up, the grand girls are back in school, but I'm still finding things I need to get done before I can sit for longer than an hour at my desk and write. I've heard it said that you just have to keep your butt in the seat and pound away at those keys and eventually the right words, sentences, paragraphs, and dialogue will accumulate and you will have a novel. In some respects that is true. You will get a lot of words on the page. Some of which you will not delete. But I also need to have my mind in the game. When I've got stuff I know I need to do, it is a lot harder to concentrate. And then there is the wild Cavapoo we call Jack. He insists we take long walks every day. Not just once or twice a week, but EVERY DAY!  

So, until the last jar of salsa is canned, my hot peppers are all wood-smoked on the grill and stored in the freezer, and my pole beans have been pulled down for the winter, I will find it hard to finish the book I'm working on. But this past week of high 80s is above average for the middle of September here in Minnesota, so I'm certain the chill of fall will soon follow. Then it will just be me and the keyboard working away as the sky turns grey and gloomy outside my window and my thoughts settle easily on the plot ahead.

Here is a taste of what I've been working on. I hope you enjoy! Be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think. Remember, it's from my rough draft, so be kind you "grammar nazis'." 

Excerpt from my work in progress:

Callie Ann and Billy released a collective sigh of relief. They watched as the stranger strode purposefully toward Douglas and the mayor. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun.

“All right, enough of this. Where is he?” he demanded loud enough to hear through the trees. “I know he was here.”

Douglas backed up in surprise. “Donaldson, what is going on?” he demanded angrily.

“They’re going to kill him,” Billy whispered. “I can’t let’em.” He started to scramble up, but she grabbed his arm and yanked him back.

“What are you doing?” she whispered frantically. “Let Douglas deal with them. It will be all right,” she promised, although she didn’t feel very confident now.

Donaldson didn’t appear happy about the way things were going either. He shook his head and tried to wave the other guy back. Douglas took that moment to leap forward and attempt to wrestle the gun from the stranger. Callie Ann and Billy watched, petrified. The horrific scene played out before them as though in slow motion. Callie Ann realized the exact moment when all hell broke loose. In the scuffle, a single shot was fired. The three men froze for two long seconds and then Douglas slumped. His arms and head limp as a rag doll, he crumpled to the ground.

“No!” Billy jumped up and went charging through the trees and brush like a bull in a blind rage before she could even think to stop him.

Callie Ann crouched in horror as the man with the gun whirled and fired again. Mayor Donaldson’s horrified bellow was lost on the wind as he looked from the fallen sheriff to Billy pounding toward him. The bullet missed its mark and pinged into a tree trunk not five feet from Callie Ann’s head. Billy never slowed. He broke through the tree line and hit the road running, his outlaw hair flying around him. She knew what was going to happen before she heard the second report of the gun. She closed her eyes against the ghastly sight. Billy was her best friend. She couldn’t watch him die.

“What do you think we’re going to do now, Sid?” Donaldson screamed, enraged. “Do you think you can just kill everyone in my town, and no one will notice?”

Callie Ann opened her eyes and peered around the tree. Billy’s body lay splayed in the gravel; his arms stretched out as though still trying to reach his brother’s murderer. She was thankful she couldn’t see his face. She couldn’t handle that right now. Her heart pounded so loud it was all she could hear. What to do?

Donaldson was still haranguing the man called Sid as Callie Ann crept slowly toward her bike. She pulled her helmet on, not bothering to connect the chinstrap, and threw her leg over the seat. From this position she couldn’t see anything through the trees, but she hoped they were still too busy arguing to think to look for her. She fought down the shaking that started in her gut. She needed to be in complete control if she wanted to get away without losing it. She turned the key and pulled back on the gas. The engine roared to life and the sound of the pipe was deafening in the quiet of the trees.

She shifted into first and took off as fast as she dared in loose dirt and gravel, hoping to get a jump-start on them. She didn’t even glance their way but whipped out of the trees and along the lake toward the open road. Over the revving of her bike, she thought she heard another shot fired. She nearly tipped the motorcycle as she turned onto the country road, but managed to control it, bringing it back upright just in time. She twisted the throttle and shot forward at a pace she’d never been comfortable on gravel before. It was approximately ten miles to a paved highway. It was her only chance. She could lose them on a paved road. Maybe she’d even get lucky, and a cop would pull her over for speeding. The guilt nearly overwhelmed her, but she kept going. It wasn’t fair that she was getting away while Douglas and Billy lay dead and bleeding back there by the lake. But if it were the last thing she did, she would make sure their murderers paid in full.

“I’m sorry, Billy,” she whispered even as tears coursed down her cheeks and soaked into the cushioned sides of her helmet. “I’m so sorry.”

She glanced in her side mirrors. So far there was no sign of pursuit. They were probably too busy trying to cover up the blood they’d already shed, she thought. Anger pulled her lips into a thin, hard line.

Five more minutes and she should be on the highway. If she could just stay ahead of them for… Five. More. Minutes. Her hands tightened on the handle grips, and she dared accelerate a little more.

It was hard to see clearly in the vibrating mirrors as the bike jerked and bumped over the rough gravel road, but a small dot appeared in the road behind her. She hoped it was just her imagination, but she feared it was the Jeep catching up with her. Ahead, she could see a thin black strip of highway cutting off to the west. She set her mind on reaching it before they managed to close the distance between them.

She lost sight of the pursuing vehicle for a second as they dropped below the last rise in the road. They were definitely gaining. When her eyes cut to the mirror again, she missed seeing the obstacle in the road. A mud turtle or boulder maybe? Too Late! Her front tire jerked to the right. She was thrown off center and the bike careened off the gravel causing her to unintentionally pull back on the accelerator. The bike flew over the ditch and into the cornfield. She felt her body lift off the seat and she released her grip and tried to tuck and roll as the ground suddenly came up to meet her like a concrete wall. She felt her helmet fly off on her first slam against the ground and then she bounced again. Sharp pain pierced her side. When she finally stopped hurtling through the cornfield, eyes shut tight in fear and self-preservation, she thought her heart would beat itself out of her chest. She lay still. The fight gone out of her.

Pain throbbed inside her head as though tiny Irish tappers were inside performing the Riverdance. She tried to lift her hand to feel for injuries but nearly screamed as white-hot bolts of excruciating pain shot down her side and into her arm. Her eyes fluttered open. A patch of angry black clouds glowered above bent and broken cornstalks waving down at her. She thought she heard the roar of an engine passing nearby and then… nothing. The silence slowly slipped around and over and through her like an ocean fog, and everything went black.