Who Wants To Be My Valentine? E-Book

Yolanda King

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 34

Beschreibung

Eliza is a young woman in her mid-thirties who is still single and hates spending Valentine's alone. Her best friend dares her to a bet: come Valentine she either goes on a blind date or hires an escort or, failing that, treats them both to a lavish weekend at a spa resort. Will Eliza embark on an erotic adventure or will she chicken out at the last moment?

Leseprobe

Who Wants To Be My Valentine?

PrefaceWho Wants To Be My Valentine?Copyright

Preface

This is my first short story entirely and completely written during the second Covid-19 lockdown.

I began writing my previous one, "The Prize", published around Christmas 2020, before we were forced into the first lockdown at the end of March 2020. I discontinued it because I was completely overwhelmed with having to help my children do their schoolwork and keep them distracted so they wouldn't become too frustrated and depressed due to social distancing. It worked for a while but a few weeks before our government granted us a bit of freedom again my daughter had turned into an aggressive – also physically – little monster and my son into a crying bundle of misery. I'm not going to mention my own pathetic condition.

At some point the restrictions don't justify the means anymore and that point, for us, was reached when my children displayed signs of emotional damage.

So I had written about 40% of "The Prize" when I put it on hold, only being able to resume my writing once both of my children were allowed to go back to school in September. Alas, it was only a brief period of relief.

With the onset of the Christmas break it was already obvious to everyone with even just the tiniest bit of common sense that the renewed lockdown was going to continue after the break.

I used the break nicely, not having to monitor any schoolwork, and sat down to write every single day. I made nice progess on this short story as well as on my new novel, which will hopefully be published some time this year. I also experienced a burst of inspiration for new short stories and a couple of short novels.

Distance learning resumed after Christmas break and with it the incredible stress on us parents (I demand compensation from my government but as usual, they don't give a rat's ass!). I tried to write while simultaneously helping my kids figure out the computer program used by schools, navigate it and get done with their workload. Needless to say, my writing was put on hold once more. I didn't manage shit.

So I attempted a different approach: on my 2 free afternoons a week (those afternoons when I wasn't a private tutor to other children) I simply sat and wrote, cramming in as much as I could and leaving my husband with whatever was going on with the kids and the household chores, except for a bare minimum of involvement, like writing the shopping list.

It still left me rather dissatisfied. I added on extra writing time on the weekends, juggling with procrastinated chores (like renovation works – we live in an old farmhouse) and my children's need for my attention unrelated to school (school has become a very sore subject in our home...).

I finally decided that I was done trying to tear myself apart. I made it clear to my children that they could turn to me if they needed help but that they would have to structure and organize their school time alone (I'd tried to help them so often but I can take getting bitched at only so much, you know). I had to draw the line. I was fed up with the pissing matches that had become our habit, part of our quotidian life.

From then on I was able to go back to writing for at least a couple of hours every day and therefore managed to not only commence this Valentine short story during the second lockdown but also to finish it in time for Valentine's!

Who Wants To Be My Valentine?

"What?" Eliza shouted. She and her best friend Samantha were at a party. It was New Year's Eve and the room was packed. A week ago Samantha had waved a flyer into her face. "This is the perfect solution to our misery! We want to meet new people because we don't always want to hang with our girl friends and we're currently single. At this party we can go wild and have fun and get to know a gazillion other people. Maybe we'll even meet a couple of hot guys who are boyfriend material."