My mug of morning tea is too hot to drink as I sit at my computer in my writing room, reading aloud through the piece I'm going to be reading next Friday night at BOLD Coffee and Books for the third event for Who Killed One the Gun?. I'm reading out loud to practice, to get the words of this excerpt comfortable in my mouth, because my mouth is a twelve-year-old ice skater who needs years of practice before she could ever possibly stick that double lutz. But I'm also doing a tiny bit of editing as I go. There are a couple passages in here that the audience won't understand if they haven't been reading the pages that come before.
I pause at a joke that's the last in a running gag that runs through several scenes. Nope, no one will get it. It's got to go. Fingers on the keys, I make the change and continue with my reading.
If I admit it, it feels kind of delicious to read this out loud again. Like I did throughout the writing and editing process of this book. Even making that tiny change takes me back to the way it felt when I got to tinker and play with these words. These words come clumsy out of my mouth as I read, but in my head the skater glides and twirls.
Steam curls from my mug of tea. I recite.
The preacher sweeps his eyes round his quarters like he’s making sure One the Gun is properly taking it all in. The lids are low on the preacher’s eyes, somber, his neck bobbing below the surface of the cross of his shoulders. Gun scans the bookcase, the small chest at the foot of the cot, the religious-looking clay figures decorating the short mantel above the fireplace.
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