Pages of Pigments IV, and a HUGE POMI ANNOUNCEMENT

I forgot to post yesterdays, Pages of Pigments! It was because some creeper took a picture of my  baby in a grocery store and ran off so then I spent the rest of the day totally FREAKED OUT. But before we get to the excerpt, I have something WILD to tell you. We have been working hard to get POMI released, and after consulting the stars, and my editor we have reached a shocking conclusion!

It must be two books. 

I am as shocked as you are. When I wrote the book it was definitely a standalone. I toyed with the idea of a sudo-sequel about another character that might be a novella one day, as well as a sort of history book. But the thing is, I knew I was going to be flogged over the ending. So then I wrote an alternative ending for those of you who need the happy ending spelled out for you--but the truth of the matter is, what happens after the first ending is more important. Because it isn't bad. That is an underlying current in POMI; hope when there should be none and that is what the second book is going to help me convey  The first book will end with a question unanswered, and the sequel that will be named soon will answer that.

So POMI is coming out soon, very soon since I got to shave part of the ending off--and the other book? Looks like it will be ready this fall.

Anyway, back to Pages of Pigments
(Don't hit me) Standard warnings apply--not yet the final edited version. Also mine, but feel free to share so long as you don't claim you wrote it.

...Leo pulled a page from Lucia’s book and drew the big oak tree that stood just outside the classroom window. It danced and shook on the page just like it was really doing in the wind. For the longest time Lucia was content to just watch.

The images Leo drew were beautiful, but Lucia thought they had nothing on the artist. The setting of his jaw that was highlighted by the bouncing of his curls in the candle light.

When Lucia picked up her pencil, she had no intentions, but her fingers had a mind of their own. She sketched swans, a sky full of them. They weren’t as good as Leo’s, but they weren’t bad either. Lucia felt as though there was just something missing.

“What have you drawn Lucia?” Mr. Garcia asked from behind her.

She hadn’t heard him approach, his footsteps muffled out by the sloshing of the persistent rain.

“Lovely,” her teacher said, eyes twinkling as with a secret, “you we’re always so found of the swans.”

Lucia was growing tired of other people knowing more about her lives than she did, but she wasn’t at all surprised to hear this information. She did love swans, and she seemed to love them more when Leo was the one doing them.

“Something is wrong with them,” Lucia said flatly, “it’s like… like their soulless.”

Mr. Garcia sucked in a quick breath, as Leo mumbled something Lucia couldn’t make out. The old make recoiled, like she had reached up and struck him instead of making an observation about her own art, and for a moment, he said nothing.

“That’s an interesting choice of words Lucia.”

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