Anticipation - Part Two - Enjoyment Reading

Anticipation – Part Two

Most of us go through it, I should guess:  periodic cash flow gaps.  I venture to say that even well-known, professionally successful writer such as Peter Bowerman, Jennifer Mattern and others who have a fairly consistent, even revenue flow from clients have the occasional situation when the unexpected – such as vehicular issues or a household move that involves unanticipated circumstances – results in a circumstance where it becomes necessary to live rather frugally for an interval.

I actually lived in that circumstance off-and-on for several months in late 2011 and early 2012 when it became necessary to replace a vehicle during a time when I had lost a major client.  I may, in fact, be in that circumstance again in the near future because of a combination of needing repairs on the recently purchased vehicle and tax time.

Before anyone gets huffy about needing repairs on a vehicle purchased less then three months ago, I’ve said to acquaintances in-person and will say here that I paid very little for the car, so I really can’t complain.  It is an emissions problem, which also means that not only when I bought the car the sellers didn’t know, but a good three weeks later when I had the car inspected the “check engine” light had yet to go on.  A rather expensive repair so soon after the car, but under the circumstances just one of those things.

As to taxes:  I did well enough with the Federal tax and got a refund.  However, I do owe a few hundred on state taxes.

As to anticipation, I am going back to essentially the beginning of March and the last few days of February.  I began working on-site at that time, an assignment I have had over the last several years.  However, having just gone through all the expenses of purchase, registration, sales tax and inspection of a car, it was a difficult stretch to get through the three full weeks to the first paycheck.

That interval became a time of anticipation for me.  A time of anticipating when I could once again have a few dollars to spend as I would like.

The first thing on my list of what to spend things on was books.  During the interval between going to work and the first paycheck, I spent a handful of sessions looking over my materials from Crossings book club [for Christian material] and checking out the Recommendations list at Amazon.com.

I put together a Wish List from each, and enjoyed the anticipation of planning to order when that first paycheck arrived.

Indeed, although I normally order my Christian romance fiction through Crossings, I decided to order a couple such books through Amazon.

Why?

Because the Crossings editorial team assesses the Christian fiction they consider adding to their line, and try to select only offer what they classify as “the best” of what’s available.

Yet, as a fiction writing hopeful myself, I feel that we also learn something from fiction at any quality level:  from ‘how on Earth did that get published?’ up through ‘top drawer’ material and every quality level in between. 

So, ultimately:  my sense of anticipation of acquiring some books when cash became available, and then of starting to read those books during the in-transit time, helped smooth over the psychological rough edges of some necessarily quite frugal days towards the end of the winter.

And, I truly think the anticipation helped heighten my enjoyment of the material once I got to read it.  [I’ve read one novel a weekend since they began to arrive.]

I still have several left that I have yet to read:  most with something specific to anticipate about the book. 

So, I’m still enjoying that anticipation of having some pleasant reading time to come.

There’s still more on my Wish List I would like to add to my collection eventually:  but for right now, I have enough likely enjoyable fiction reading to provide a delightful sense of anticipation across the next at least three or four weekends.

And on another nearby island . . .

My other most recent read has similarities in terms of setting and background to

Driftwood Lane

, which I reviewed in my last post.

This novel, also a contemporary Christian romance, also occurs on an island off the Coast of Massachusetts near Boston.  However, in this case the entire island is fictional as is the nearby town of Cape Light.

This book is a collaboration of two authors, who as nearly as I can tell have written two series in this fictional area:  a Cape Light series and an Angel Island series.

This book, The Wedding Promise, is the second of the Angel Island series.  An interesting side note is that this is one of two series Christian romance books I have read in the past year in which I found the second book of the series far more enjoyable to read than the first and that in both such cases these series were a two author collaboration.  [The other being the Davis Bunn/Janette Oke series beginning with The Centurion’s Wife.  In that case I found both book two and three more enjoyable than the first book].

In addition to the off-the-coast of Massachusetts setting, the two books share that the female protagonists initially arrive at the island community as the result of the decease of a relative and resolution of the deceased relative’s affairs.  In this case, there are no children involved but as with

Driftwood Lane

, the primary setting location involves a place of public lodging:  in this case a full-service Inn versus a Bed-and-Breakfast.

The matter of the deceased relative factors in The Wedding Promise as well, but it is more in the background than in Driftwood Lane because of the fact that all that history is more set up in the first novel of the series.

The Wedding Promise uses conflicts that arise around the determination of a young couple other than the male and female protagonists to have their wedding at the Inn, despite the Inn’s deteriorated condition and the female protagonist’s inexperience.

Authors Thomas Kinkade and Katherine Spencer deftly build and resolve the conflicts in very organic ways, culminating in the literary epiphany that the male protagonist is hiding something.

In an unusual but effective move, the authors do not leave the full realization of the male protagonist’s mysterious past unidentified for long.  And they effectively use the “show don’t tell” principle by revealing the nature of the male protagonist’s secret through actions that speak far louder than words.

As with Driftwood Lane, the authors pack a good deal of action and resolution into the last few pages of the book.

In this case, however, as part of a series, although the romance advances towards the end of the book, we are still left without a full realization of the male and female protagonists’s romance as the book reaches its conclusion.  That is left for additional books in the Angel Island series.