Teaser Tuesday: What Happens Next?

Remember Cass, the heroine from my new WiP? No, not the one with the eye-patch, that's Chance. ;)

This is the as yet untitled contemporary-steampunk (is that even possible? I'd love to hear any opinions about that) I've been working on for a few months. Cass's mom's a witch, but she's not. She doesn't know anything about her dad. All she even has of his is a key she never takes off.

Poor Cass was in a heap of trouble when we saw her last (this sounds like it should be read by the guy who did the voice-overs on Dukes of Hazzard, lol), evading the strange men who are chasing her by running into her crowded garage. Enjoy!

I took a moment to breathe, then crept toward the back door that led to Ma’s garden and the woods beyond. Woods where I’d played hide and seek, and capture the flag with Jody and the other boys all my life. I could hide there much longer than in the barn, and maybe they’d waste enough time looking for me in here that I’d be able to get a good head start. There had to be at least two of them, maybe more.

Muffled yelling came from behind the closed garage door and I ran to the back as fast as I could, leaping over broken tools and the rusty old riding mower I used for parts to keep the good mower working. My foot came down hard on an uneven surface—who knows what—and my ankle turned. I stumbled to the ground. It didn’t hurt yet because of all the adrenaline running through my body, but it would. I couldn’t put any weight on it. I’d never even make it through Ma’s garden, much less into the woods. I had to hide.

A light, a loud humming, and a smell like burnt matches distracted me from all that. My stomach twisted into knots. Were they going to burn down the garage? With me in it?

A huge white circle formed in the middle of the garage door, like a giant searchlight, or a second sun. Before my brain could even make sense of the light, the noise, and the smell, a shadow darkened the bright circle. A leg stepped into the garage, right through the door like it wasn’t even there, followed by a body and head. The guy from my kitchen. A brief jolt of satisfaction rippled through me when I saw the cut on his temple, before the circle faded from the door and we were both left in darkness. I gripped the solid metal barrel of my flashlight and tucked myself into the shadows of the hulking mower.

He must have tripped over something because he swore. It wasn’t English, though, and I didn’t think it was Spanish. He fumbled for something that lit up. It hadn’t been a flashlight. I ducked even lower behind the mower. I’d never wished to be able to use one of Ma’s spells more in my life. But what else could I do against a guy who could pass straight through an aluminum garage door?

The light moved toward me and I wished I’d listened to Ma when she told me to keep Thor, our German Shepherd, here with me. Then again… these guys had obviously done their homework, and if Thor were here, they would’ve had a plan for him, too. At least he was safe, but I was getting in deeper by the second. The guy drew closer, whispering something in a foreign language.

My ankle felt puffy and tight under my sock. There was no way he wouldn’t see me open the back door. If I’d been able to run, I might have gone for it anyway, and relied on my instincts to hide out in the woods until they gave up. I was a sitting duck with this ankle. Even if I could knock this guy out with my flashlight, another would come for me next, maybe more. Who were these people?

Over the years I’d seen Ma and the sisters do some pretty serious spell-work. I was open to the idea that anything, from Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster to werewolves and vampires, might be real. Male witches, on the other hand, were the stuff of myth and Harry Potter novels. I’d never heard of anything like these guys. This couldn’t be good.

He was just on the other side of the mower now and headed toward the back door. There was no way he wouldn’t see me. I gripped the flashlight like a baseball bat. As soon as his knee passed the mower, I swung at it and connected with a loud thunk.

The guy let out a yell and crumpled to the ground. The illuminated object he’d dropped shattered, but the crystal-like fragments stayed lit. He yelled foreign words, and then his eyes met mine, all dark and wet. I’d really hurt him. I pushed that out of my head, stood up—trying not to limp on my ankle—and raised the flashlight in front of me.

“Wait!” he called to me. “We don’t mean to hurt you.”

“Why should I believe you?” I wanted to inch toward the back door, but he didn’t need to see I was injured. And a part of me was curious about why he was here. A smaller, quieter part thought he looked kind of hot in the low light, blood and all.

“You’re right, we’ve given you no reason to trust us.” His eyes were slick with pain, which made him seem more sincere, but I knew how hard I’d whacked him, twice, and his knee had to be swelling right now something fierce. “This is not the way I would have done things.”

“Done what things?”

“We need the key you wear around your neck.”

“What? Why?”

 “Your father is in trouble.”

 


Dun-dun-DUN!! Hope that wasn't too cliffhanger-y this time. ;) 

So, do you think a story like this could count as steampunk, or does that genre absolutely have to be set in the Victorian Era? Can you have a contemporary paranormal with steampunk elements? I promise there will be a lot of steampunk elements, as well as a healthy dose of witchcraft. What do you think? I'd love to hear it!

WiP... Thursday: Just Write!

[Tried to post this yesterday, for WiP Wednesday, but Blogger was giving me major agita and I gave up. I know, no one likes a quitter, but I felt like I was about to smash something that probably cost more than I make in a month. Makes the above picture that much more appropriate, non?]


Last night I hit the 30K mark of my WiP (see an excerpt here). Go, me! I rule!

Oh, wait, I don't really. Thirty thousand words may sound like a lot, but when I realize it's taken me almost a month to write the last five thousand words, it's really nothing to be proud of. *hangs head in shame*

In my defense, the past month has been pretty busy. So many books came out that I wanted to read, and I have to admit I've been a little... distracted. I've learned that having an agent hasn't stopped me from compulsively checking my inbox after all. If anything, my palms are even sweatier than when I was querying. My breath catches every time I check my gmail in the hopes there might be some good news: that an editor loves my book. Obviously, it hasn't happened yet, and I'm about thiiiiis far from a freak-out of epic proportions. Good thing I live in New Orleans, where no one would notice.

Ugh. Submission is worse than querying. I never thought I'd say that, but it's true. It's enough to make me throw my laptop out the window or set it on fire. Or go all gansta on it á la Office Space.

But for a few hours last night, Finding Nemo on in the background (after I caught the beginning of this sweet documentary on t.v about the history of Pixar), I forgot about all that and wrote over 1500 words. And I thought of a new direction for the plot. No, there are no missing clown-fish involved, don't worry, but there's intrigue and danger, and magic... This story's going to kick ass, y'all!

That's when I realized that there's no excuse for not writing when I have the time to actually sit my butt in my chair and type. I know I'm not the first person to figure this out, and hell, it's not the first time I've had this same epiphany. But I'm adding it to my list of mantras for getting this first draft finished:

Butt in Chair = increased word count

Don't get it right, get it written.

Anyone else have a mantra they follow when drafting?

Anyone out there in editing/revision hell? What do you say to keep yourself motivated?

Teaser Tuesday: Cass

It's been a while since I shared a snippet for Teaser Tuesday. I'm a little stuck on my WiP, but I'm still absolutely in LURVE with it. I just don't know what to do next. It's still untitled—shocker, I know—but I was going to call it Clockwork before Cassandra Clare's novel came out.

The main character's name is Cassia, but she goes by Cass. She lives in modern day Mississippi (I had originally set this in the 1890s, but again, Clockwork Angel made me change my mind, and I think things are going to be much better this way now, except it's technically not steam-punk. Whatevs. It's still going to kick butt. Once I figure out how it ends) with her mother, who is a witch. An honest to goodness, spell-casting witch. Sixteen year old Cass, however, isn't. But it still affects her whole life. As you'll see when chapter 2 opens...

Sunday night, only two days into my vacation from Ma and the coven, I was watching t.v. and finishing up a Spanish lesson to email back to one of my junior college professors. The classrooms there were the first I’d ever sat in. The nearest elementary or high school was over thirty miles away, but that wasn’t the real reason Ma had home-schooled me. She always worried about me, that I’d be teased because of her.

Everyone in town thought she and her sisters were silly women playing with Wiccan incantations, but I knew better. And as a kid, I promised Ma I’d be able to handle school, that I wouldn’t let anything anyone said get to me. I wanted to meet other kids, kids who maybe didn’t have a witch for a mother. Sit at a cafeteria table, kiss a boy who wasn’t Jody. He’d been a lot cuter when I was thirteen, and kissing him had been kind of exciting at the time. That excitement quickly faded. Especially since Ma never gave in.

I could’ve held my ground and at least convinced her to let me go to high school for a few years, but instead, I decided to take the fast track to college. I’d be matriculating before my seventeenth birthday. I was taking junior college classes in calculus and Spanish, which I needed to get into a good school, and I couldn’t learn all by myself. My calculus professor was actually the one who convinced me to apply to MIT, her alma mater. She wrote me a recommendation letter and everything, which was hidden in my sock drawer next to a plane ticket. I had an interview scheduled there in October, which I had to go to if I wanted the kind of financial aid I’d need.

I turned off the t.v. and pulled up the MIT admissions page on my laptop. Ma didn’t want me to go so far away. She didn’t get that this was my dream. Maybe because I hadn’t exactly told her. She’d never understand.

So focused on the laptop, on the cheery MIT freshmen and erudite faculty, it took me a few seconds to realize the lamp next to the couch was off. Had the bulb burned out? No, all the lights on the entertainment center had gone dark, too. How could we have lost power on such a calm night?

The moonlight coming through the windows was pretty bright, but I held the open laptop in front of me on my way to the kitchen to find a flashlight. A sound like a creak came from behind me. I turned, washing the weak glow of the computer screen over the living room. Empty, just like I left it.

As I turned back around, the light didn’t shine on the open doorway of the kitchen. A guy, not even twenty, stood in the door.

I clutched the laptop to my body. Who the hell was he? Dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin, and a cleft chin, he stood completely still.

Just as I was about to work up the balls to tell him to get his ass out of my kitchen, another small creak sounded behind me. I slammed the laptop closed and swung it at the guy’s head. He staggered into the kitchen. I didn’t stick around to find out what kind of damage I’d done, I just raced toward the kitchen door. I’d locked it at sunset, I knew I had, but I was betting it’d be open now. It was. My keys were right by the door and I grabbed them.

The warmth of the laptop was reassuring under my arm as I ran to my truck. I slid in the cab, turned the key in the ignition, and… nothing. Baby’s engine was dead.

A shiver ran up my spine. I grabbed the Maglite from behind the seat and ran into the garage. I slammed my palm against the button to lower the garage door and hurried toward the back, where there was another entrance. It was really an old barn that had been converted decades ago by my grandfather. Swallows nested in the rafters and over the years Ma had packed the rear half of the building with junk. Cutting through the garage with only a flashlight would take longer than I thought.

I’d left the laptop in my truck. My cell was in the house. The coven was gone, and the nearest neighbor who might be home was a good eighteen miles away. A part of my brain wanted to hide in the garage, hoping these assholes would take the t.v. and the silver and whatever else they wanted, and go. The more cynical part of my brain knew they’d done something to my truck, which meant they weren’t after Ma’s paltry gemstone collection.

They were after me.

Ooooh, Shiny!

Oh, boy.

No sooner do I pass the 12K mark of my WiP, Cass's story (as yet untitled), when I'm attacked by Shiny New Idea Syndrome. I've got it bad. It's too early to talk about yet, but it's an alternate history set in the same time period as my Belle Epoch novel, Strings, with a similar "theatrical" flavor, but it's more of a boy-meets-girl story. I just read the latest of Naomi Novik's alternate history of the Napoleonic wars—with DRAGONS (I heart Temeraire!), and I loved Westerfeld's Leviathan. I think I've got enough historical background of the time period to do something really fun, and introduce a huge supernatural element that will make it awesome!! Now just to finish the WiP...

I've still got another 75K or so to go with Cass's story, a story I don't have an ending to yet. So it may be some time before I am able to work on my SNI. I'm thinking if I get any ideas I'll just jot them down in a notebook, but I'm not going to brainstorm for that idea on purpose yet because I want to focus my attention on my WiP.

How do y'all handle a Shiny New Idea when you're in the middle (or the beginning) or another WiP?

WiP Wednesday: Inspiration Strikes!

This week I decided my manuscript for Evangeline is ready for resubmission to an agent who seems to really get the story. I proofed, double-proofed, and sent it off. There's a part of me that wants to open that file back up and check every word again, as if that might somehow change the copy I sent the agent. Even before I sent it, I was starting to feel antsy, like I'd read and re-read so many times I was just putting in commas and taking them out again (Thanks, Oscar).

I was obsessing over the minor details when I knew the revisions the agent wanted were big picture stuff, and elements I believe I've successfully addressed, but still, the nitpicking and obsessing continued.

All that stopped when I was in the shower the other morning and BAM! an idea just hit me. I had a name, a conflict, and a few key scenes. I still don't know how it ends, but I'm ready to find out.

And just in time, too. It's been a while since I wrote anything new, aside from a few chapters of a sequel to Evangeline to see if I had it in me. I've been so busy this spring with polishing up Evangeline that I haven't let myself think of anything new. I haven't had the time, and I didn't need the distraction.

Now I'm wondering if it's some kind of survival instinct, like my muse knew my brain was way, way, way too busy for a new idea. Especially now that it's hit me with inspiration at the exact moment I needed something to distract me while Evangeline is being reconsidered.

So, thanks, Muse! Glad ya got my back, baby! I owe you a Dr. Pepper. Anyone else want to share a little about how their muse works? Does yours inundate you with new ideas while you're working on something else, or are you and your muse on the same wavelength? Muses can be moody, pesky and irrational, but where would we be without them? Living in caves and not even bothering to draw on the walls, that's where. Oh, and if you're wondering, my new mc's name is Cass. Her mom's a witch, but she's not. And that's all I'm going to say about it right now.

Don't forget to enter my birthday giveaway, which will be open until Wednesday, July 7th.