Ya LGBT – aliciajoseph

My Published Books

I’m (hopefully) a couple months away from finishing my fifth book tentatively titled Yet, Here We Are. I’m at the “wrap up” stage of the story. I am tying up loose ends and resolving all conflict in a way that I hope satisfies readers, because who likes a bad ending?

My plan was to be completed with the book by this time and to already have started the editing process. That obviously didn’t happen. I suppose this is why they say to write your plans in pencil.

My goal is to always write at least one scene a day. Last night, I wrote half of a scene. Tonight, my goal is to finish the rest of it. Shouldn’t be too difficult. I know how the story ends and I know the scenes I need to get me there. So why am I dragging my feet? Why are getting these words on page seem like such a drastic feat?

While I get this fifth book figured out, here’s a little bit about the books I have already finished and published.

Madison Andrews has spent her entire life ~unsuccessfully~ searching for love. She begins having vivid dreams of the same woman every night, and soon, Madison believes this woman is the love she has been searching for. Madison’s dreams become more intense and she realizes the dreams she’s having recreate moments taken from actual events from her life ~~ and this woman is there for all of it. Madison searches for her, but how can she find a woman she knows everything about… and yet nothing? She doesn’t even know her name.

Dana Perkins lost her longtime partner in a tragic accident. Although she still struggles with the loss, her profound loneliness is evidence that it is time to move on. She knows her deceased lover, Casey, wouldn’t want her living this way. Dana begins her slow process of letting go, removing reminders of Casey from her house, and dating again.

The women she meets leave Dana uninspired and missing her deceased partner even more. Just as she is about to resign herself to the belief that she will never love again, Dana meets Emily Daniels, a married woman who is deeply conflicted over her attraction to women. Soon, the two women form a friendship that leads to deeper emotions. They discover that one moment in their past had brought them together in a way neither woman could have ever imagined. Is that one moment in time enough to let both women follow their hearts, or will they let their past continue to rule their future?

aliciajoseph11_v2 — A Penny on the Tracks

Lyssa and her best friend Abbey discover a hideout near the train tracks and spend the summer before sixth grade hanging out and finding freedom from issues at home. Their childhood innocence shatters when the hideout becomes the scene of a tragic death.

As they’re about to graduate from high school, Abbey’s family life spirals out of control while Lyssa is feeling guilty for deceiving Abbey about her sexuality. After another tragic loss, Lyssa finds out that a penny on the tracks is sometimes a huge price to pay for the truth

AnnabelandtheBoyintheWindow-hires — Annabel and the Boy in the Window

Annabel and the Boy in the Window is a story set in the mid 1950’s about living against societal norms and expectations. Annabel is a teenage girl who has little interest in marriage or having children. She desires an education and a career, but her alcoholic father stands in her way. Annabel sneaks out of her bedroom window at night and walks the streets of her quiet suburban town, while dreaming of a different life. She peers through peoples’ windows, eager for a glimpse of what a normal and happy family life looks like.

On one of her nightly walks, she sees Danny through his window and is immediately captivated by him. His soothing smile and gentle demeanor give her the feeling of safety and security that living in her own home fails to provide. Danny, the popular high school quarterback, is two years older than Annabel. He and Annabel run in very different social circles, so when Danny approaches her in the school hall one day, no one is more surprised than Annabel that a simple conversation about schoolwork would lead to football games, dances, and affairs of the heart Annabel never experienced before but only read about in books.

Annabel has dreams of her own, but when her abusive father becomes a threat to wreck those dreams, all seems lost until a secret from his past comes out and changes everything.

Thanks for reading. My first three books Her Name, Loving Again, and A Penny on the Tracks are available on Kindle Unlimited.

Moving On

When I was in college, back in 1998, I took a Creative Writing course where I wrote two horribly-written short stories and some really bad poems. The stories were called The Hideout and The Attic. Apparently, I wasn’t very creative with titles back then.

To this day, I don’t know why I didn’t toss those papers in the trash the moment the semester ended. But not only did those pages make the trip back home with me, they managed to survive a couple decades in a bin with so many of my other failed writing attempts.

About eight years ago, (damn time flies) I pulled out that dusty bin and went through those old writings. It had been a while since I’d written at that time and I wanted to get back into it. After all, being a writer was always my dream. Life, with all of its distractions, had pulled me off course for a little while, but I found my way back to it, and I thought past writings was a good place to start.

Turns out, I was right.

Even though those old stories were really bad, as I read through them I found a storyline in each I could build on. I turned The Hideout into a novel called A Penny on the Tracks that was published in 2017. It’s an LGBTQ coming-of-age story about friendship, loyalty, and the struggles of coming out. The story revolves around two best friends, Lyssa and Abbey, who discover a hideout near some train tracks and spend the summer before sixth grade hanging out and finding freedom from issues at home. But their innocence shatters when the hideout becomes the scene of a tragic death.

As for the other story, The Attic. Well, that one went through many rewrites with two major plot changes, taking me two extra years to write. It was frustrating and many times I wanted to give up, move on to another story, but I kept writing until I got the story right. Not only have I finally finished the story, but I got it contracted. The name of the book is Annabel and the Boy in the Window. I’m unable to put into words the relief I feel in finally being able to put that story to rest.

I am now in the process of revising what was my first attempt at writing a full-length novel that I wrote shortly after I graduated from college. I ended up finishing it, but as with the short stories, the writing was horrible.

So in the bin those pages went. Then a couple years back, I fished the pages out of the bin and just like with the short stories, I’d found a storyline I could work with. I’m hoping to be finished with the story by next summer. After that, I have two more previous attempts at novels I need to take a look at and see if there’s a storyline in them I can work with.

Despite having a drawer full of new story ideas, I can’t leave my old stories behind. They’re taking up too much space in my head and I need them gone before I can fully concentrate on anything new.

If you’re a writer, do you keep old stories? How do you decide which ones can be salvaged and which ones to let go? I’ve realized it’s not just old stories I have a hard time letting go. Past relationships, old friendships, cherished memories from a time that can never be lived again, all have a hold on me.

It’s hard to move on, isn’t it?

My Novel, A Penny on the Tracks

In college (22 years ago), I wrote a short story titled, The Hideout. It wasn’t very good, merely acceptable for a college Creative Writing course. The characters were bland. The dialogue dragged. I told more than I showed (a writer’s cardinal sin). The story was everything good writing isn’t supposed to be, yet some five years ago, I stumbled upon the twelve or so pages, stuffed in a binder, in a bin in my closet. There were a few short stories in that binder, all equally bad. But for some reason I’d hung on to them, and it was a good thing that I did.

After many revisions, I’ve turned that cringe-worthy short story into a published novel. The Hideout, now titled, A Penny on the Tracks, is a coming of age story that follows the friendship of two eleven-year old girls, Lyssa and Abbey, who spend the summer of ’86, mostly unsupervised, relishing the freedom in riding their bikes in the streets of their hometown, watching MTV while singing and dancing wildly on the furniture, and eating as many messy bologna sandwiches and junk food they want.

But we soon see, despite this seemingly juvenile heaven, the girls each carry heavy burdens of their own, that come to the breaking point late in their teens. As children, the girls discover a hideout in a remote area near the train tracks, and spend much of their summer days there, using the place as a safe haven from the angst of their unsettled lives.

Lyssa resents her single mother for not being home when she needs her, while Abbey would prefer her mother to be gone for most of the day. This provides the backdrop of their friendship and the strong bond between them. It also is the catalyst for personal discovery, sexual identity, and tragedy.

APennyontheTracks-web — A Penny on the Tracks

Back of the Book

Lyssa and her best friend Abbey discover a hideout near the train tracks and spend the summer before sixth grade hanging out finding freedom from issues at home. Their childhood innocence shatters when the hideout becomes the scene of a tragic death.