Showing posts with label sample writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sample writing. Show all posts

Friday, October 7, 2011

time for some sample writing

One of many books I'm considering writing a sequel to is Gal Friday Noir: Mayhem in Mexico (and yes, if you're wondering, I'm looking for a new title. I think the title is a little misleading. It's more action packed than noir suggests to me. Still, sigh.) I'm editing it while I'm on the home computer. This is the one driving me crazy making changes from first person present tense to first person past tense. I thought I was nearly finished and was doing a final run through... and the answer to that is no, not. Forgot I was interrupted :D

Anyways, here's a passage after Serena and her FBI agent partner, Joseph, has rescued her kids. She stays behind to ensure their escape and is now waiting for her own rescue once the kids are safe. We start with her talking:


"Another drug?" Oh just peachy keeno. Another drug. Another thing to worry about in the fight against these zombie monsters in human clothing.

"Yes. This one works to make the person more malleable to specific commands."

"Sounds dangerous. What if the wrong person gives them a command? Then what're you going to do? Give them counter commands until steam comes out their ears? I'm more impressed with your knock out drug," I said sarcastically.

"You're such a spitfire. Breaking the strong ones is so much more riveting for me. This drug works a lot like hypnosis works on the masses," she continued as if she hadn't just said she's going to break me. "While under the influence of this new drug, I can train the mind of whomever I want to do what I want, when I want."

"That's a lot of I wants. Hasn't anyone told you the old saying? Want in one, shit in the other and see which fills up faster? Because that's where I see this going." No way she'd developed mind control drugs for the Infected. Right?

I finally saw a frown cross her face. Good. My mother always said I could try the patience of a saint. She didn't find it funny when I told her that suffering was what made a person a saint and maybe I was put on Earth for making saints. I was a bit of a snot. Who was I kidding? I still qualified.

"You're a real smart ass. But you'll see. It takes a few doses to become effective but we'll get there. In the meantime, my friends and I are going to make sure you remember your stay here."

No doubt they would. I knew her old pals would be more than happy to stick the screws in and turn them. "The sourness in my disposition isn't due to the wonderfulness of my position. I'm quite confident you'll make my stay here memorable. Just remember, I'll be paying you back." If I lived through this ordeal.

"Bravado will get you nowhere but hurt. My men aren't as tolerant or forgiving of sarcastic humor as I am. But, the talking is over. I'm sure your cheek is feeling better compared to how it felt when you first got it. It seems to be healing at an alarming rate for a human. You're infected with the virus, I believe. How have you convinced the military otherwise?" She narrowed her eyes at me. "You can't cheat those tests. They don't leave you alone for a minute after they've verified  your identity. Fascinating."

She slapped my injured cheek. Hard.

My head snapped to the side in the aftermath of the blow. My eyesight was swimming. Shit. That hurt. While I was blinking to bring my eyes in focus, she slapped the other cheek. Now I was dizzy and sick. Fuck. She'd barely started and I was this sick? It was going to be a long day. God help me if I was here a week.

My head wass lolling around like a drunk in his favorite bar. I tried to speak, but couldn't at first. I finally regained the use of my tongue. "Is that all you got?"

She grabbed a fistful of my hair and jerked strait up. I swear stars were flying around her head after she cuffed my ears with her other hand. She yanked my head back so my neck was exposed. She took a knife from under her skirt which looked impressive when you were in my position. She scraped the knife down my neck.

The pain of the knife slicing burned against my skin. The blood ran down my neck to my shirt. I knew she planned on keeping me alive, but I wasn't looking forward to finding out how much torture my self-healing body could take without dying.

She let my head go and it bobbed like a buoy on water. My headache was exploding in little colored fireworks behind my eyes. Great. A stinking migraine to add to the list of pains. Thank you super virus, for making me so awesome.

 I wasn't even trying to focus my eyes on her. I didn't want to.

"You'll be left here while we make our arrangements with our traitor within the FBI. When I come back, I'll take you to your first bathroom run. You're our guest here. If there's anything you want, you just have to ask."

"Let me go?" I said sarcastically.

"You're being unreasonable," she replied mildly.

"Fine. How about Pizza Delivery? Or is that against hostage etiquette too?" My world was still spinning and my head still bobbed up and down.

She stepped forward and slapped me again with a quick snap of the wrist. My head jerked so far to the right, I was surprised when my neck didn't snap.


And hence starts the beginning of our captured heroines torture. Sigh. It was hard to write the whole bits. Especially in first person. Anywas, off to write some more. TATA for now.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Blah

AS many of you know, my kids were very sick this week. It was a very rough week for me personally. I'm trying to focus on other things, but sometimes, that doesn't work. This week was one of those times. I did get some work done. But I'm not sure what is going on in the future. Not that anyone does, but my life feels very unsettled right now. I really need to paint but I'm out of Varnish. I have a special mix I use for my medium that is part varnish. Partly, I'm out of varnish because back when I got it to replace some when I was almost out, I got two bottles of varnish for acrylics. I paint with oils. That's not such a good idea.

My writing is going okay except for formatting issues! UGH I've priced down the full length novels while I fix these things. I got the print proof of Winds of Fire and almost cried. So many formatting issues. And I used their template. Instructions were copy and paste. Yeah right. I spent 8 hours fixing formatting, which I have to do again because it went wonky again when I tried to fix the other issue. and then guess what else? The template provided by Amazon doesn't put in page numbers!!! I want to scream and cry. And I don't like the cover. Maybe making my own, but they don't have the handy dandy template that's blank and let's you put stuff in anymore. At least not where I could find it.

These stories are good stories that I'm having fun with. Why does the rest of it have to be so hard? I know my work isn't perfect (if you see any errors not involved in formatting, please tell me!) but I want it as close to perfect as I can get it. I read a Harlequin romance recently that had bad errors in it and it reminded me that stuff gets missed even with experience and professionals. So I fix what I find and make it better. And I have no high-horse about people showing me errors. (not in style but in grammar. Style is personal choice.)

So, before I can really get going on my other books, I have that to do. And I got a provisional yes for a novel for a fantasy group off a synopsis and question and answering period. I HATE SYNOPSIS. I'm not big on queries either. And you know what? The person who was helping me, QUIT OFFERING WORKSHOPS. AHEM. LOOKS AT @CJREDWINE pointedly.

Not that I blame her. She has other work to kepe her busy, but I'm still not real happy about it. That last query I posted? Sounds interesting, but the book is hard, fast pace and slams you in the gut and I can't seem to get that into my query. I bet CJ could. She was so awesome and wonderful with that stuff. I'm still whining, I know. If she ever offers another query class, I'm going to sell my husband so I can afford it. Or something equally desperate :P

I haven't been posting samples of my writing lately because I was going to do it on my website. I have done some there, but I think I'm going to do some more...

How are my friends and followers today?