Lately, I need more than ever to have things in order (no, it’s not why you think, we’ll talk about that). Thinking is just easier this way so, here’s how this post will go:

Announcement

What it means to me personally.

What it means to my writing.

Why I’m not addressing the elephant in the room.

The announcement is that we, my family and I, are waiting for baby number 2.

(That’s when you go all happy and cheerful, and I go misty-eyed).

My husband and I always said we would think about having another baby when Massimo, our boy, would start school. Guess who started kindergarten this year? Yep, him. All of a sudden, all the time we thought we had to think about it was done. Considering how I’ll be turning 40 in June, honestly, we were pretty quick to jump one side or the other of the deal. You figured out which way we went, right? Now we have an ETA, or due date, for August 30.

The biggest surprise, though?

Hands down, that we’re having a girl.

Never really thought it would happen, not in a million years. Not sure why.

Maybe because I’m not really sure how to be a girl’s mom, which leads to the second section of the post.

Me, mom of a girl. That’s gonna be tricky.

You see, I’ve never been a girly-girl. I’ve always had more friends who were boys, ended up doing things with boys. First at the horse stables and in school. Later, I took Law, a course where the male population was 80% (we’re talking Italy, nearly 20 years back). By then, I was already with my husband, who never challenged my tomboy attitude. He made it shine even more if anything.

Shopping bore me, I have little patience for a manicure, and no, I’m not going to spend 4 hours in a room to have my hair done. I learned to use makeup with decent results last year, no kidding.

I saw all those moms with girls at my son’s school, and they were all so…. Lovely. Them, their daughters. I’m not lovely. And I can’t see me, or my current family, with such little flowers of girls.

Then I thought that maybe I was scratching the surface of this gig, and in the wrong way.

One thing I read is that a child’s different-sex parent is the person from who he learns about relationships. What he can expect, ask, boundaries and the such. I’m okay with that. I think I’m teaching/showing my son well.

The child same-sex parent is the example of how to be. It’s about giving an example of growing as a good human been.

Okay.

I think I’m a good human being, all considered. And I can show her how to be her own person because I’ve always been. I can teach her it has a price, one she must be willing to pay for intellectual and emotional freedom. I never conformed to something unless it worked for me. Not many people thoroughly like me, and that’s okay.

I can show her how not to be a pushover because god knows I’m not.

I ended up thinking that we, me and this girl of mine, might never be lovely. A little rough, a lot of not put together, a lot of big mouth and opinions. She will know how to fight, fair and dirty. And, hopefully, she’ll be happy. Not all the time, because like my grandfather used to say, only fools are happy all the time. But I do think of myself as a happy, well-adjusted person who can make choices based on reason. And a good heart to finish things off.

How this will impact my writing?

Well, I’m trying very hard to tie some loose ends. I’m currently writing the last third of it, and I hope, SO hard, that I’ll be able to make it before August.

When I’m done with it, I’ll have that book, plus 3 more already written, that are waiting for editing. Something I can do, slowly, when she’s here. I love editing though, and it comes easy to me, so that’s the hope, anyway.

But we’ll see.

I will still keep my blog going after a much-needed pause. I’m sure I’ll need an outlet for books and writing, something that’s linked to books when I can’t keep going with mine.

And if you’re asking why I didn’t talk about the (quoting my son) boss virus, well, do you really need someone else talking about it?

I have no more insight over it than many people who keep yapping nonsense after graduating in virology on FB. All I can say is, follow what science says, be safe, and for the love of god, stop buying toilet paper. It does nothing to the current situation.

-Viviana MacKade

 

About Viviana MacKade

Beach bum and country music addicted, Viviana lives in a small Floridian town with her husband and her son, her die-hard fans and personal cheer squad. She spends her days between typing on her beloved keyboard, playing in the pool with her boy, and eating whatever her husband puts on her plate (the guy is that good, and she really loves eating). Besides beaching, she enjoys long walks, horse-riding, hiking, and pretty much whatever she can do outside with her family.
Find me:
The best way to know me is through my website (and the books I host): http://www.viviana-mackade.blog/

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Featured Book!

GUNS FOR ANGELS by Viviana MacKade

Ann
My sister was all the family I had. She was taken from me and now, someone wants me dead, too. Not sure why.
I’m sure I’m not going to give my life up, though. I’m not going to let them get away with my sister’s murder.
The new me will try, anyway.
You see, when she was alive I could live in brightness and peace. Now I have to accept the darkness within me. After all, isn’t life about balance? Ironically, the man who can teach me how to embrace the shadows is broken, hopeless, and angry. Mark is also the only one I trust to lead me through my heart’s night, and back into the light.
The one I trust to keep us alive.

Mark
A favor to a teammate: pick up two girls in trouble, take them to the Team’s safehouse. Should have been easy. It was not.
Then someone killed one of my team, one of my brothers. Now it’s personal.
They want me, too. I can deal with that. But they want Ann. The only person who cut through me, who woke me, who grabbed my hand and guided me back into life one smile at the time.
I’ll be damned if I let them have anything.
Not. One. Damned. Thing.

From NY to sunny Miami, Ann and Mark run into a maze of lie, betrayal, and death, where love is the only, terrifying certainty. And when truth unravels, they will have to risk all to survive.

Excerpt

They entered a narrow hall, its bare walls painted in a subdued magnolia. At their left, an old, dark wooden staircase led upstairs. The veil of dust on the handrail carried fresh scars where hands had touched not long ago. A strange smell saturated the house, one Ann didn’t have a name for. It was out of place and mean. It reminded her of the last moments in her house, when those men had broken in shooting and screaming. Could fear smell? Could death?
At the end of the corridor, a door opened into a tiny bathroom. At its side, another door was ajar. The afternoon sun filtered through the crack, as if the room strained to contain all the light in it.
Mark’s face was detached, set into a mask as he prodded the door with his fingertips. More light poured into the hall.
Her heart rate rocketed as they waited at the door’s side. Ann wanted to scream to fill the silence.
Seconds ticked away. Drenched air mingled with fear ran down her neck in rivulets of sweat. Mark gestured her to stay and took a step inside the room.
She peeked from behind him, saw it was empty. A laugh crawled through the ball of fear at the base of her chest, asking to be freed, but her elation didn’t live long.
“There’s trouble in this house,” Mark told her in a tense whisper after looking around in the empty room. He walked out, moved toward the stairs with light strides.
Lightheaded, Ann followed him holding the piece of paper he’d given her as if her life depended on it. Funny that it might just be the case.
And they say paper and ink are useless, nowadays, she mused to herself.
At the top of the staircase, Mark opened the door with his foot; when nothing happened he stepped inside. Ann stayed behind him.
The upstairs was as big as the whole house. Ann let her eyes run over the filing cabinets, all lined up like little soldiers along the low walls, dutifully closed against prying eyes. An open skylight looked up into the blue sky where a lonely cloud plodded away, but no air came in from it to ease the heat. The walls were plain white up here, amplifying the light and the room’s emptiness.
A body lay on the floor. It swam in blood.
Ann’s mind didn’t recognize it at first, didn’t understand it, but at some point her brain caught up with her eyes. Her senses floated away to the sound of her own blood withdrawing from her head, the outline of her surrounding faded into white. A commanding, familiar voice called her but it was muffled, and too far away. When the white completely closed in, she let go.
Ann. It was Mark’s first thought when he saw Mouse’s body.
When he turned to take her away, to spare her other memories she shouldn’t cash in, it was too late. He would protect her from any harm but he had no power against what she saw.
She paled, her eyes lost focus, and then she went down

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*All my books will be at 99 cents for as long as the quarantine lasts.

CRESCENT CREEK COLLECTION

From the cold Canadian border, the US1 runs along the east coast with patience.

Throughout its 2,369 miles, it braces itself in the northern winters, sighs with pride in Richmond. It falls west in the Carolinas, to stroke the great smoky mountains with loving eyes. And it’s south, still south, through the marshes and plantations of Georgia.
Finally, it indulges in sun, white sand, and oranges.

The Sunshine State.

Not the fastest way, sure, but if you have time to drive it all the way down, you might find yourself lost in one of the coastal towns that dot the US1 like little jewels.

Maybe that town’s name is Crescent Creek.

These are the stories of its people.

*novels have returning characters, but can be read as a standalone*

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