Saving Moira

My current work in progress has the working title Saving Moira and the first draft will run short.  I believe a novel should really hit the 70k word mark at the very least, and this novel's first draft will end well short of that.  This only means I have the room to go back through and weave an additional subplot through it, but I don't know yet what that will be.

In Saving Moira, Christopher Beranger made his dying wife a promise to bury her on the land they owned and loved.  What he couldn’t tell Moira, as she lay in her deathbed, was that the bank had already begun foreclosure proceedings.

Christopher and Moira lived with their dog, well-liked by neighbors, but they kept mostly to themselves.  When they received the dire prognosis, Christopher stopped taking work and they spent their time walking the wooded acreage together until Moira simply was no longer strong enough.

After she died, Christopher kept his promise and buried her in her favorite spot, down by a bend in the brook.  He then dug false graves, filling the forest with them, in an attempt to confound any attempt by others to find her.

The bank auctioned off the property, and Christopher was resigned to leaving the house with only their dog and a few odds and ends, until an order to move Moira provoked a confrontation.  Among those who wanted her moved were the land development company which won the auction, and Moira’s brother Mike, who wanted his sister buried elsewhere.

Sympathetic to Christopher were the local police chief, Lem Holt, and an attractive print journalist named Karen Kendall.  Karen took up Christopher’s cause, and wrote about the couple and Christopher’s promise.  Soon protesters were at the property showing solidarity with Christopher and Moira and angry with the banking system and the so-called 1%.  Mike, Moira’s brother, was also there, with a handful of supporters of his own.

Now, the sheriff’s department intends to execute the eviction order, and time is running out for Christopher….

…and that’s what I’ve written so far in the novel Saving Moira.

I'd like to write some more today, but I have to finish preparing for the college course I begin teaching tomorrow.