Welcome to the Weekend Writing Warrior blog hop where writers share an 8-10 sentence snippet of their writing, published or unpublished.
My snippet this week comes from the first novella in a series of seven, Shattered Dreams. Drafts for #2 and #3 have been written. The last four plotted out. My plan is to start publishing them by the end of the year. What’s fun is that the characters come in and out of each other’s stories, as they should as one or both of the couples went to school together and all remain in the same community. Oh, and there is a 1969 Volkswagen Beetle that is pulled out of the lake in #1 with a mystery surrounding it.
As a waitress, Shelley is in the diner’s freezer, having propped the door open with a brick. She stumbles, exclaiming out loud, and in the next instant, Mason is there beside her asking if she’s alright. She’s startled, bumping into him, which tips over a bucket of pickles that moves the brick, which seals them in darkness.
SNIPPET:
Shelley heard him moving around. “Where are you?”
“Smile so I can see you.”
Shelley chuckled, unable to help herself. So like Mason to joke when there was a problem.
She heard him moving. “What are you doing?”
“Let’s pretend we’re blind, and we’ll talk with our hands.”
“We are blind. It’s dark, remember? Besides, I can’t see your hands.”
“That’s the point. We can use the braille method.”
Weekend Writing Warriors / #WeWriWa / #8sunday Welcome to the Weekend Writing Warrior blog hop where writers share an 8-10 sentence snippet of their writing, published or unpublished.
My snippet this week comes from a current work in progress, Arrested Pleasures, that is the 3rd novella in a series of 7. The first, Shattered Dreams, has been published. Drafts of #2 and #3 have been written. The rest are being plotted out. My goal is that Burning Desire #2 and Arrested Pleasures #3 will be published by the end of the year.
Dan Walker and Anne Martin had one disastrous date in high school and he’s been chasing her ever since, unable to get a yes to another date. It wasn’t often that anyone could get the better of Game Warden Anne, yet he could do it with one word: Dare, a game they had started after that one date. Confronting her head on was the only way he could get her to talk to him. Even back then, other guys were thrown off with her long look that they called cold. He called it curiosity, and he liked it when she was staring at him. Almost like studying a bug under a microscope. He was good with that, her being focused on him.
SNIPPET:
She decided to up the stakes.
“Truth,” she said, calling his bluff. It was chancy and sometimes worked.
He unfolded his arms, put his feet closer together so he stood straighter, and looked down at her. “Dare.”
Damn, he just called her bluff.
“Dare, but only with the Truth first.”
“I get to choose the Dare?”
She started to nod, then hesitated. That was too quick. Damn, he was outsmarting her again. How did he do that? If she said no, he’d call her a coward and heckle her for days. If she said yes… crap, she could be heading for a bucketful of trouble. She took a deep breath and expelled it. “Deal.”
Welcome to the Weekend Writing Warrior blog hop where writers share an 8-10 sentence snippet of their writing, published or unpublished.
Every weekend, the Weekend Writing Warriors—also known as writers—participate in a weekly hop, sharing an 8-10 sentence snippet of their writing, published or unpublished.
My snippet this week comes from Grendel’s Mother, a fantasy that was a ten-year project, and which was conceived while I was a student studying Beowulf and teaching a Women’s Studies class where we were reading and sharing books where women didn’t have a voice. A light bulb went off for me when I realized Grendel’s mother had no voice, and yet she was an important character in the medieval tale. I saw her at the beginning of the story as a teenager who had no value to her family other than how she could serve her brothers, mother, and father, and who as property being given to a much older farmer in the community to profit her father.
SNIPPET:
Raised in a household of boys, I was curious and eager to learn the other skills that swirled around me in conversation: hunting, trapping, creating goods from leather, weapons, combat, farming, livestock, and more. To my way of thinking, having knowledge was more important than perfecting the skill, especially since that knowledge was forbidden me. I should think a husband would want me to have those skills, allowing me to be a true helpmate. Though, I imagine da would box my ears if he ever heard me expressing that idea aloud. He believes women are only good for three things: rutting, birthing sons, and putting food on the table, and not necessarily in that order.
With the swoop of one devastating event followed by another delivered unexpectedly and swiftly, however, everything changed.
Now, I am the seasons: Nature and I are one.
BLURB ———————————————————————————————-
Grendel’s Mother
Late 5th century, early 6th century, Denmark
A 15-year-old girl, the only girl in a large family of boys, dreams of freedom and marrying her secret first love, a young farmer. Up until now, her life has been one of servitude. She cherishes those moments when she’s alone in the woods, those few times she gets to see him in mere moments.
She fights her father in his decision that she wed an older widower with young children. Then, a horrific event changes her life forever. Pregnant and discarded, having brought shame to her family and community, she is sacrificed to the dragon to die. But the dragon saves her, instead. It is their secret.
Taken from the pages of Beowulf, this historical and fantasy medieval tale gives voices to a woman’s journey of societal injustice and her love of Nature that enables her to survive in the wild alone, where she gives birth and raises her child—deemed a monster—entirely on her own. That child is Grendel, and she is Grendel’s mother.
Not only does she battle Grendel to keep him safe, but she must battle Beowulf, the soldier here to kill her son, as well.
She decided to up the stakes.
