Books are like babies...

You write one (er, that's the short version...) and then you marvel at it, thinking it is the most magnificent baby you have ever seen. You coo at it. You show it off to your friends. If you're lucky, you get a publishing deal on it and send it out into the world (ok, my analogy is getting stretched a bit here, go with me).

Then, you write a second book. You think it will never be as beautiful, or funny or smart as your last book, that you can never love another manuscript as much as you loved that first one. But, out it comes and suddenly you realize that you do, you love it every bit as much. You think it's brilliant and funny, and you coo at it and tickle its feet (?). You want to send it out in the world to be loved and adored, as that first one was. 

My second (which is really my third) YA manuscript is about to take its first steps into the world: it goes to my agent this weekend, and then, hopefully, if she doesn't hate it (don't hate my second kid, don't hate my second kid...) off to my editor, as my "option" book (oh, dear G*d, pretty please, don't hate my second kid!).

So, without further ado, take a bubble gum cigar and wash your hands and take a peek (geez, don't cough on it like that!). Here's the first page of my new baby. His name is Frankie Sky (please don't hate my kid). I mean, just look at those cheeks, those fingers, those eyes! ;)



FRANKIE SKY

A Novel, by Gae H. Polisner

"It's so silly. All you do is get the heck out of your body when you die. My gosh, everybody's done it thousands of times. Just because they don't remember, it doesn't mean they haven't done it." - J D Salinger

  Chapter One


"It is not more surprising to be born twice than once." - Voltaire


The first time I see Frankie Schyler, he’s diving into the deep end of the Lawrenceville Country Club pool.

All around the pool, clear as day, are big white signs with black letters that say, “NO DIVING,” but, then, Frankie can’t know about those.

I’m not a fan of the water myself for good reason, and, thus, not prone to dive in after him. In fact, I’m not at the pool that day to swim. I’m tailing Mrs. Merrill from across the street.

Mrs. Merrill is beautiful, but in a hard way like Angelina Jolie, not in a soft, fragile way like Kate Winslet, or like my mother.

I’m not usually this nosy, but I’m tailing Mrs. Merrill for a reason. Which, unfortunately, has to do with my father.

The whole thing started totally by accident the week before. I’d been home early for lunch in between final exams – my last ones of 9th grade, ever – and was standing at the kitchen sink drinking a glass of orange juice. Mom was at her “job” at The Foundation, also known as the place that sucks the lifeblood from her. Well, at least whatever lifeblood she has left. Dad was at work, too, or so I assumed, at his job selling houses, which he’d finally started making money at again. Which put him in a better mood, which was good, because our house was bleak enough as it was.

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