Teaser Tuesday

I've been trying to post for the last two days! But Summary Sunday didn't work out so well. I tried to write a summary of my WIP. Really, I did. But it kept mutating into this monstrously long thing. Sort of like the WIP did.

It also revealed some potentially chronic plot problems and the only borderline-almost-decent summary I cam up with completely misrepresented the story. In other words, I made the plot sound way cooler than it actually is. Which makes me think some massive overhauling might be in order during the editing process. Maybe I have the right idea with the summary. It would probably shorten the 200+K mutation into something that won't send agents running for the hills.

But until then, I shall tease. It's a bit rough, since I spewed it out between the hours of 3 and 5am. Hope it's still enjoyable! :)

Context: The military is camped out in my MC's hometown, and everyone has been freezing to death for the last few nights because they don't have proper winter gear. It just occurred to my MC that her family has tons of warm clothes, so she went scuttling off to her old house, assuming her father (who she has seen around camp) still lives there.

My parents' room was still lived in. My father hadn’t made the bed and there were socks on the floor. I went to the closet. My mother had always hidden our birthday presents in there, up on the top shelf.

My father’s military uniforms were hanging nearest the front. I brushed them aside and grabbed an armful of sweaters, scouring the corners, floor, and shelves for the missing jackets.

Downstairs, I heard the door open, and the sound of feet on the hardwood floor.

If my father was off shift, we were late for ours.

Then, “Ay!”

My heart missed a beat. That voice was not my father’s.

“Mina!” Rory’s voice was pure panic and in the instant before I bolted my eyes landed on the insignia on one of the dark green jackets I had thought belonged to my father.

Three inverted chevrons with a line over top – a colonel’s rank symbol.

I ran.

I flew out of the room and raced for the stairs, snagging the clothes hamper as I passed.

Below me there was a bang and a thud – Rory hitting the wall and then the floor. I leapt out of the stairwell swinging. The hamper smashed against something solid and a man in an SO’s uniform – a major – toppled, his baton skittering out of his hand and across the floor.

I clutched at Rory’s jacket, but he was already on his feet and hurtling towards the door – towards the man standing in front of it. The man – the colonel – could only gape as Rory and the box of mittens slammed into him and sent him crashing into the wall. Then Rory and I were past him, out the door, leaping off the porch and tearing up the street.

The hamper was big – awkward – heavy. It slowed me down. Rory got further ahead.

Then something caught my arm and wrenched me around. The hamper slipped from my hands, spilling onto the road. I was nose to nose with the major I had just knocked over. I had a brief glimpse of his snarling red face, saw his arm move out of the corner of my eye, and then my head was snapping to the side and fire was spreading across my cheek and over my eyebrow, up to my temple.

There was a crunching thud and I was sure it was the sound of every bone in my face shattering.

The grip on my arm loosened and slipped away.

My head spun and all I could see were colourless splotches. I threw my arms out, not knowing which way the ground was coming at me.

“Mina.”

A hand caught my wrist, steadying me instead of making bruises.

My vision cleared and I found Sade. The look on his face was as horror-stricken as I had ever seen it. My gaze sunk to the major, sprawled on the ground between our feet.

“Halt!” The colonel stumbled outside, revolver drawn and pointed at us.

“Go!” Sade shoved me forward.

BANG!

I threw my arms over my head and ran.

Teaser Tuesday

Second post of the year! New Years resolution to blog regularly going well! :)

Slightly longer snip this week, from my good old monster of a WIP. *suspects she really ought to get around to posting a summary of this thing* Hmm. Maybe I'll have a Summary Sunday?

Anyhoo, here it is! Hope you enjoy!

Sade looked around. “You know I haven’t actually got a clue where I’m going.”

“Where are you trying to get?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Away.”

So I lead the way down to the shoreline, and when we weren’t allowed past the makeshift blast walls, we wandered towards the arm of land that encircled the westward side of the bay. Technically we weren’t allowed out there either, but Drake was watching that strip of wall and he ignored us.

There was nothing but rocks and a few sparse tufts of grass out there. A cold wind blew inland, whipping my hair around. I could hear waves crashing on the seaward rocks. Errant drops of spray spattered my face. A haze hung over the bay, greying out the islands. Baltic was nothing but the faintest outline in the fog. It was hard to imagine that it was garrisoned by five thousand enemy soldiers – that there were walls, cannons, and long range guns built into its shores and mines beneath the ice.

Sade was looking out to the sea. I followed his gaze, and after a moment I made out the grey blurs of battleships, lurking on the horizon. We could only see the foremost ones, but I had no doubt there were as many here as there had been on the east coast – maybe more.

I glanced at Sade, thinking of his reaction when we had seen warships before.

He caught my eye, and he must have spotted the anxious look on my face, because he smirked and said, “I’m fine, love.” He looked back towards the horizon. “Just caught me by surprise last time.”

“Oh.” I eyed the ships' shadowy outlines. One of them was moving, ploughing southward through the ice. The ice would be thick out there. The sound of it cracking and groaning and shattering rolled across the water and into our ears. “At least they’re not very close.”

“They don’t have to be close,” he said, turning and heading for the land’s tip.

I followed.

Teaser Tuesday

I haven't posted in over a week. Bad blogger! Bad!

I can't even blame NaNo madness, since I gave up on that. You know those characters who just won't. Shut. Up? Well, those are the sort of characters I've got in my WIP. They wouldn't let me leave them. Not even for a couple hours. They kidnapped me and duct taped me to a chair, I swear.

So I followed the advice of everyone who commented on my last post and surrendered. :)

The good news is I have now slashed 48 386 words from my WIP!! In fact, I have probably slashed more than that, but I replaced some of them with shiny new words so they didn't really count.

*scuttles off to find shiny new words to tease with*

Mmkayy. Found something. Anyone else tweak their teasers incessantly before posting and become completely unsatisfied with them? XD It's a smidge on the long side, and also a smidge on the dark side. And um, yes, that is all.

*posts*

I hesitated, chewing on my lip. Finally I said, “Maybe I should come then.”

Sade was shaking his head before I had finished talking. “No. No, love. You don’t want to see that.”

"You just said it wouldn’t be that bad.”

“Compared to seeing someone get riddled with shrapnel, it isn't.”

“Then maybe I should get used to it, if it’s worse on the lines.”

He glared at me. “You’re not going to be on the lines.”

“Yes, I will.”

"No, you won't.”

"Yes, I will!”

He lit his cigarette, biting back a retort. “I’m not going to argue with you.”

“You already are,” I muttered.

“I-” He stopped, and blew out a stream of smoke. “I’m going to be late. Someone will come get you when it’s over, alright?” He started to walk away.

I went after him. “I want to come.”

He stopped, looking skyward, and turned back toward me. “Mina, please.”

I had the faint sense that I was being ridiculous because I really did not want to go. But my going to Dez’s execution – I shivered just thinking the words – had somehow become tied to me going out to the lines with them. “I want to come,” I said again, “If Miko’s going, I should go too.”

"Go inside.”

"No.”

"Please.”

"I want to come.”

"You don't.”

"I do.”

"You shouldn't.”

"But I do!”

"Why?”

"Why not?”

“Because I’m the one who has to shoot him!"

"I – what?"

He looked away. "I don’t want you seeing that.”

I stood, unable to do anything but stare for a long moment. “Why you?” I asked finally.

"Because I'm the bleeding CO.”

"Oh,” I said softly.

He looked at the ground. “Please, Mina. Go inside.” And he turned and walked away.

Teaser Tuesday

Snippet from THE BOY WHO STOLE MY HEART CAR.

Rachel was back, and she looked peeved. Presumably Samuel hadn’t been visible through any of the windows she could get at. But instead of giving up and heading back to the car, she was gearing up for round two, which seemed to involve climbing Samuel’s tree to scope out the upper story.

As we watched, she leaped for one of the lower branches, caught hold, and started scrabbling up the trunk so she could hook her legs over the branch as well. A minute later, she was hidden from sight by the foliage. All we could see were shaking leaves as she clambered from one branch to the next. Finally, near the top where the leaves and branches thinned, we saw her. She hung onto the trunk and perched on a branch that was as good a vantage point as she was going to get.

“Can she even see inside?” Jay asked.

The answer, apparently, was no, because he had no sooner voiced the question than she started edging away from the trunk and towards the house. It was slow going, and a good thing she and I had not traded clothes again because scooting along a branch like that would likely have been very unpleasant in a skirt. As she made her way outwards, the branch started to droop under her weight, and wiggle, and wobble. When she had to lie down and cling with both her arms and legs I started to worry that the tree was better suited for kindling than climbing.

“Does that look safe to you?” I asked.

Before he could answer, there was a resounding snap and Rachel’s branch parted company with the rest of the tree.

Rachel screamed, Jay and I launched ourselves out of the car, and when I tried to go bounding across the road, I discovered I had shut my skirt in the car door. And, better yet, the door was locked, the keys were still in the ignition, and Jay was already on Samuel’s front lawn and really too busy trying to prevent Rachel from breaking her neck to be bothered with something as trivial as detaching me from a car.

Dangling from another lower, but thinner branch, Rachel got her senses back and started screaming, “Help! Help! Curse you, Isaac Newton! Why couldn’t we live on the moon? He-e-e-elp!”

Speaking of this book, I should really be sending out more queries...

Teaser Tuesday

Three days of alliteration in a row! Yay!!

I'd fluff this post up a bit more, but I've done absolutely nothing since last Friday (all that productiveness wore me out) and unlike some people *cough*Kody*cough* I can't think of awesome literary topics to blog about. (That's code for "Go check out her awesome post about modern adaptations." I've been mulling it over since I read it.)

And now, onto the snippet.

I'm going over my WIP, re-writing chunks of it, so this snippet is from near the beginning.

“It’s so cold,” I said, in what I hoped was a pitiable tone. It was my and Layla’s favourite line, when we were vying for boys’ attention. It hadn’t failed yet. At the least they offered to walk us home. At best they put their arms around us.

It didn’t work so well with Sade. “Put your coat back on then,” he said.

“I’m already wearing my coat,” I replied, trying to find it in the dark and put it on without him hearing the rustle of fabric. “And I’m freezing.” I decided to be a little more direct. “I need something to warm me up.”

I heard him move, and for a brief moment I thought my ingenious plan had worked, but then a blanket landed over my head.

“You really should be careful what you say, Mina,” Sade said lightly, “Anyone else might have thought you were trying to flirt.”

I was glad it was so dark inside, because I was sure my face turned bright red. I choked for a moment before managing to say, “Why in the world would someone think that?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes people just seem to get the strangest ideas.”

Hmm. I have a feeling I've posted this somewhere before. Apologies if you've already seen this! (Especially since I don't think I've changed this at all in my editing. :P)

Teaser Tuesday

Yay for the first ever Teaser Tuesday!

And an even bigger yay: I have a title for my finished book! (The one I'm going to start querying as soon as I finish fiddling with the first 10 pages.)

It is, THE BOY WHO STOLE MY HEART CAR. It comes courtesy of a friend of mine. She's brilliant. ^_^

The following is a snippet from aforementioned book - or a potential snippet, anyway. I'm thinking of adding it (or something like it) since it seems to address the previously unaddressed issue of why my MC didn't phone the police. (I needed a better reason than her phone being coincidentally dead.)

And so, without further ado:

“What did the police say?”

“The police?”

“When you told them someone tried to steal your car.”

“I didn’t tell them.”

“You didn’t?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Well, he didn’t actually steal it,” I said quickly, “So I assumed they couldn’t really do anything. And even if they could, I’m sure they wouldn’t have found him. And if they had, he would have known it was me who ratted him out, and he knows where I work, so that would have been dangerous. And he had very nice manners.”

Rachel blinked at me. “Nice manners?”

“Yes. Aside from the attempted car theft, I mean.”