Sliding Past Vertical by Laurie Boris excerpt and giveaway

Sliding Past Vertical

by Laurie Boris

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BLURB:

Sarah Cohen is a walking disaster. She means well, but the ex-diver’s hasty decisions wreak havoc on her life in Boston. Good thing Emerson is a phone call away in Syracuse, with a metaphorical mop to clean up the mess. Their long-distance friendship can be excruciating for him, though. Years after they shared a brief college romance, he’s still in love with her. When everything goes wrong, Sarah takes another plunge: back to the scene of her last mistake, to start fresh. Unfortunately for Emerson, the move puts her too close for comfort. Her attempts to straighten her life’s trajectory are sometimes amusing and sometimes catastrophic. With Sarah around, is anyone safe?

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Excerpt

Jay wasn’t answering the phone or the door buzzer, although she knew he was home and alive: his car sat in front of his apartment building and changed parking spots every day or so, which she couldn’t imagine had happened of its own accord. So the only avenue Sarah had to elicit any kind of reaction to his no-show on the waterfront was his answering machine. She left what she considered angry messages. They were ineffective. She then opted for a softer approach—by that time, she really was worried about him. When this didn’t work, she tried silence. Perhaps a few days of guilt stew would provoke some contrition.

It was nearly a week before she saw or heard from him again.

Her birthday fell during that week. Everyone else remembered. Emerson sent red roses with his usual mushy card—a tradition he kept up since she’d graduated from the university and moved to Boston, eight years ago. For the first five years, Sarah had a counter-tradition of her own. She’d have a short panic attack in the back room of the Copy King, followed by a serious case of the creeps for the rest of the afternoon, interspersed with calls to her roommate to debate the symbolism of red roses. Later, over a beer or two and a lot of convoluted rationalization, she’d convince herself that perhaps she’d read too much into a bunch of stupid flowers and a heartfelt birthday greeting from her old-lover-now-platonic friend.

Then she’d call to scold him for having spent too much on her.

“I had a good month,” he’d say.

Somehow, July always happened to be a good month.

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Laurie Boris is a freelance writer, editor, proofreader, and former graphic designer. She has been writing fiction for over twenty-five years and is the award-winning author of four novels: The Joke's on Me, Drawing Breath, Don't Tell Anyone, and Sliding Past Vertical. When not playing with the universe of imaginary people in her head, she enjoys baseball, cooking, reading, and helping aspiring novelists as a contributing writer and editor for IndiesUnlimited.com. She lives in New York's lovely Hudson Valley.

Guest Post:

The Biggest Lesson I Learned From My Heroine

I’m a bit different from some authors. Instead of outlining and building a character from scratch, I let one fall into my head. I follow him or her around as we find the story together. So sometimes (oh, who am I kidding; it happens nearly all the time) I get to work with characters who are a little broken, a little damaged, or who don’t always make the choices I want them to.

This means I often hear the same comment from my early readers: I wanted to SLAP her!

If it’s any consolation to them, sometimes I want to slap her, too.

Yet to write a book any other way, for me, would feel wrong. It would feel like I’m forcing a character to do something contrary to his or her nature. Readers can sense this. It can make the characters’ journeys feel fake, like the author is moving them around on a chessboard to suit the needs of the plot.

When Sarah Cohen popped into my head for Sliding Past Vertical, oh boy, did I want to slap her. Probably more than any of my other heroines. She meant well. Underneath, I could sense that she meant well, and didn’t want to hurt anyone, but some of her decisions had unintended consequences because she wasn’t thinking them through. I really felt for Emerson, who still loved her after she broke up with him in college. Stop hurting my book boyfriend, I wanted to yell at her.

But I had to let her do what she was going to do. That’s one of the most important lessons I learned from her. As I write a book (and for a while afterward), the characters feel as real to me as the people I come across in the supermarket, on the train, in the gym. That’s what a lot of readers say they love about them. Yet real people don’t always make the best choices, especially if they are in trying situations. They make the ones that feel like the best thing to do at the time. And knowing this has not only helped me feel more compassionate toward other people, it’s helped me feel more compassion for my characters and for myself.

I haven’t always made the “right” decisions in my personal life. Who has? Through writing, and especially when I’m given the gift of a character like Sarah, it helps me grow and helps me learn more about forgiveness.

In a novel, though, if a character never learns anything or changes in some way because of what she experiences, well, what’s the point of having her in the book? It’s a question writers often ask themselves while a story is in development. Sarah, as much as I wanted to sit her down and talk some sense into her, deserved to stay because she had to go through a transformation. She had a lot to learn. I had to be compassionate enough to let her do that on her own, without pushing her around or making her be someone that she wasn’t. And maybe that’s why she came into my life.

Links

Website                       http://laurieboris.com

Facebook                    http://www.facebook.com/laurie.boris.author

Amazon Page             http://www.amazon.com/author/laurieboris

Twitter                         http://www.twitter.com/LaurieBoris

Buy links:

Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sliding-Past-Vertical-ebook/dp/B00FD64RL4/

Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Sliding-Past-Vertical-ebook/dp/B00FD64RL4/

Laurie will be awarding a Grand Prize of a $30 Amazon Gift Card to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour, and an e-book copy of her backlist book, Drawing Breath, will be awarded to a randomly drawn commenter at each stop.Follow the tour and comment; the more they comment, the better their chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here: 

http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2013/10/virtual-book-tour-sliding-past-vertical.html