Well, what the heck, why not? Looks like fun! This is from a WIP that began life as a short, by the by...

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Jack bent his head against the wind and hurried down the street. He kept his nose pointed toward the bricked sidewalk, relying on the sounds of fellow travelers’ footsteps to tell him when to move out of the way. He saw nothing but his own shadow and heard nothing but a tinny ringing in his ears. His breath came in short bursts, and he clenched his fists in his pockets, willing himself to slow down, to walk more aimlessly. Still, he risked a glance back, unable to shake the expectation of unexpected danger. The sidewalk was mostly deserted. A few suburban moms darted in and out of the storefronts looking blowsy and harried, dragging their bored preschoolers behind them. Leaves tumbled down the picturesque small-town street, their dry, fragile edges blunted and broken by their wind-powered cartwheels. Nothing out of place here except Jack himself.

Mountain-Boy loved nothing better than putting on his skis and doing backflips off the roof of his cabin into the soft snow below. But tonight he wasn't doing backflips. He was sitting on the roof leaning against the chimney hoping to see the Moon Bee. She only visited at night, and Mountain-Boy never knew when she would come. His skis lay abandoned in the snow beside him. He worried and drew doodles in the snow with his finger.

The Blue Dolphin

"Jack. Catch."
Jack Davis glanced up at the perky gal who looked like a pixie. She seemed way too young to bartend, but he caught the bottle of Sam Adams that whizzed along the top of the polished bar. Janelle was good at her job, and smart. He'd watched her for the past hour. She knew everyone by their first name, and never asked a second time about their drink preference even it was a fancy mixed drink. He supposed small town bars were like that. He took a long swallow of the cold brew. In a while, he'd ask some casual questions about the gruesome murder.

First paragraph of my work in progress. Unnamed.

There were no tears in Jana’s eyes as she watched Gareth’s coffin fall into the sky. Escape velocity on Callisto was so low the small rocket’s trail only blazed for a moment before it sputtered and died. Brief and brilliant as our love. She dared not project the thought; he wouldn’t have heard her anyway. Gareth had ever been blind to the single defining defect of her life. But he had known – and he had loved her anyway.

No more.

This is the opening paragraph of my contemporary paranormal "Theatre of Seduction."

I’d never seen anything so spectacular and forgettable in my whole life. I’d felt the unusual lassitude creeping over me as the orchestra finished the overture and slipped into the misty music of the opening scene. The pageantry staggered me--the filmy beauty of the sets, the costumes, the performers—-and yet I couldn’t remember a single line or moment from the entire show. Emotion lingered there long enough for a whiff of the familiar, tickling feel of a sexual attraction that bordered on the urge of desperation, but never crossed into my consciousness. All I know is that I stumbled out onto the sidewalk with a thousand other people and all of us were in the same half-aroused, half-befuddled state. I couldn’t explain the feeling. I wasn’t entirely stupid. I’d had enough sense to grab my cell phone and videotape as much of the show as I could before the lassitude took over.I had two minutes and seventeen seconds, to be precise, of a show I couldn’t remember seeing.

The craving for salt hit him in the morning and prickled his mouth all afternoon. He scraped together a handful of change and headed outside. The curse had never stopped him from going outside, and it wouldn’t now. The only thing that stood between him and the salty bag of chips he craved was someone spotting him.

MIRRORS OF NECESSITY: My Take on Robert Frost (A Portrait Memoir)

One summer morning in a suburban Boston cemetery in 1954, Robert Frost gave me his soul. Not that I, a six-year-old, knew he was the renowned poet Robert Lee Frost. That came later. Frost claimed he was a hobo, or as he put it, eyes at mischief, “. . . a hoe boy. A forest hoe boy -- from the city, most days. Depends how I feel. Other days, I’m a city hoe boy, from the woods!”

Shelby teetered on the bridge railing at her usual spot. In her left hand, she gripped a bottle of Jack Daniels while waving her other to maintain her balance. Reaching her favorite spot she plopped down on the cold, steel railing. She dangled her feet high above the rocky stream flowing beneath the bridge, and took a long drag on her cigarette.

The flames burned high on the distant cliff spewing dark, oily smoke that lessened as the fire ran out of fuel and melting snow quelled the stubborn flames. Down below in the heavy mist, thick-needled branches shook high in a tree. A grunt and the sound of ripping material broke the silence. Suspended thus, Jiryn grabbed the line attached to the dragfall net and unbuckled herself. Branches snapped as her body was sieved through layers of boughs, spitting bits of green and brown. A muted thud sounded as she hit the ground, mercifully carpeted in a thick bed of needles and cones.

Me loveth contests designed for writers. Here's the opening paragraph to my novel:

Katherine stood in the doorway watching the boy sleep. The soft glow of the nightlight beside his bed illuminated his face. Shadows encircled the rest of the room so that every corner housed a menacing veil. What or who could hide there, she did not know. With grace earned by practice, she quietly checked the window, ensuring that it was locked and underneath the bed and in the closet, finding both empty.

Hey Nathan! Thanks for the contest!

Historical Romance.

Here you go!
***

The last stop. If she could make it through the next few minutes, she would be free.
Sucking in her breath, she willed her heart to slow.
A smile pasted on her face, she dismounted from her horse. She tied him to a tree far enough from the house that she hoped Tommy wouldn’t notice the bulging saddlebags or the rifle tucked under the strap.
Tommy shoveled manure in the yard by the barn. A grin spread across his freckled face when he saw her. “Mornin’, Lainey. What brings you out our direction?”
She choked back tears. If only she could say goodbye—but she couldn’t risk it. Couldn’t risk him convincing her to stay. “Hello, Tommy. I was just on my way back from town, and thought I’d swing by to say hello on my way.”
He took hold of her hand. “My house isn’t exactly on the way from town to your house.”
“I know. I just wanted to see you.” Leaving him behind without a word was the only way.
“That’s sweet,” Tommy grinned, placing a kiss on her cheek. “How is your mother?”
“She’s in no more pain.” The same lie she’d told all morning.

Children Of Avalon

King Arthur is dying, and with the death of his illegitimate son, Mordred, the royal line of Pendragon is broken forever. Warring against the very heart of nature—the sacred isle of Avalon, Mordred sealed his dismal fate, bringing death to himself by his father’s hand. The dark powers the boy wielded to make war on Camelot lay smashed amid the ruins, and Excalibur shines undimmed over the bloody field of battle.

First paragraph of my completed YA novel:
“Ow,” I suck in hard through clenched teeth as the needle slips smoothly through my skin.

I was getting dressed for my first date in 20 years at the same time my ex-husband was passing a kidney stone. Divine justice. For the first time I could remember, selfishness enveloped me. Tonight was not about Richard’s pain; it was about Richard’s pain not interfering with my plans. What if he had to go to the hospital? Who would watch the kids? What if the dog ran away during the confusion? I’d have to cancel my date, get in the car, pick up the kids, find the dog and maybe take the kids to visit Richard in the hospital. Worse, I will have shaved my legs for nothing.

From WIP, Zero-Matter, a sci-fi thriller/mystery.

“Do it again! And this time do it right!” Dr. Marcus shouted into his microphone.
He was exhausted, worn down to the point of idiocy which for him still meant the genius realm, just not the very top of it. His eyes were rimmed with red, glasses discarded since he didn’t have the stamina to focus his sight any longer, tie pulled down loose with the top button of his shirt undone. The ends of his sleeves were rolled up twice with a fine layer of dirty sweat ringing the tips and his remaining hair stuck out in all directions from the sides of his head. I could see all this, see the drained expression on his face in the control room and knew I should have some compassion. He had been working for thirty-six hours straight, fueled by coffee and cigarettes. I knew I should probably give him a break but since he wasn’t giving me one, I went with what I was feeling.
“Forget it! I can’t do it and even if I could, I’m done!”

I was too late. Again. The demon’s pheromones still clung to the air of the condo’s master bedroom, mixing with the metallic scent of her victim’s blood. I had missed her by five minutes at the most from the glistening scarlet color splashed all over the walls and furniture. A quick glance showed the window was closed and locked against the Houston humidity. She hadn’t gone out that way. I’d used the only elevator, which left the stairs. Dammit! If I had my team, the bitch wouldn’t have gotten away. New frustration added to the tension that knotted my shoulders.

First paragraph of a middle grade sci-fi WIP.

JJ felt the heat on the soles of his feet intensify, even as the ever-thinning air around him grew colder. His thermo-suit popped and rattled, and he was sure it would disintegrate before he tore free of earth’s gravity. Sam isn’t going to like this, he thought as he watched the blue sky above darken. He dared not look down; just the act of turning his head would send him careening off course and cause him to plummet back to the surface, eight miles below. Nevertheless, he knew he was still being followed. The blip on his heads-up display flashed a rhythmic red pulse. The beeping was slowing, so he had built some distance on the robot drones which pursued him, but they were still there, watching him rocket toward the blackness of space

From WIP, Zero-matter, a sci-fi thriller/mystery.

“Do it again! And this time do it right!” Dr. Marcus shouted into his microphone.
He was exhausted, worn down to the point of idiocy which for him still meant the genius realm, just not the very top of it. His eyes were rimmed with red, glasses discarded since he didn’t have the stamina to focus his sight any longer, tie pulled down loose with the top button of his shirt undone. The ends of his sleeves were rolled up twice with a fine layer of dirty sweat ringing the tips and his remaining hair stuck out in all directions from the sides of his head. I could see all this, see the drained expression on his face in the control room and knew I should have some compassion. He had been working for thirty-six hours straight, fueled by coffee and cigarettes. I knew I should probably give him a break but since he wasn’t giving me one, I went with what I was feeling.
“Forget it! I can’t do it and even if I could, I’m done!”

I was in my third week of a temping job on a corporate floor in a corporate building on 5th Avenue in New York City, which meant that I was: a) on first name basis with the permanent employees, b) already bored to tears of the permanent employees, c) doing shitty busy work for the permanent employees, and d) dangerously close to becoming, myself, a permanent employee.

From my WIP, a MG urban fantasy (no title yet):

Duncan faced Electra’s burning glower without backing down. He wanted to shout, “Would you rather I’d kept us all in a condemned building?” But what would be the point of arguing? He had made the choice, and they had all acted on it. There was no turning back now. Electra’s mouth twisted into a snarl. Duncan knew the look: she was getting ready to spit verbal fire.

The blades of Ceara’s wipers swished back and forth across her windshield splattering the continuous stream of snowflakes over the foggy pane. Curtains of lacy white billowed and blurred the night sky. She applied light pressure to the brake, and put her old Subaru into park on the side of the icy road. Bloody hell - she was lost. A venomous oath escaped her lips. She cursed herself and then cursed Shane harder. His blasted proposal had her in shreds. Her thoughts had been meandering in circles around issues of trust and marriage. And while her mind battled with internal dilemma’s, she realized with belated horror she’d lost her way.

I'd seen death many times before, but to see a man hung against the wall like some bizarre ornament with his stomach ripped open and his eyes missing, I felt instantly sick. Looking at him reminded me of those surgery programmes, only this was too close and too real for comfort. This was savage and barbaric and even as I averted my eyes to the blood that pooled on the floor around his feet, that spattered the wall as though some mad painter had been let loose with a crate of Merlot, I was lost for words at the complete scene of carnage that some predatory killer had left behind them.

Thanks for doing this, Nathan!
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Belaq Shandy wiped a hand across his face, the ridges of scar tissue catching his fingertips. It had been -- not a handsome face, no. It had been a passable face, once, such as wouldn’t frighten children. Perhaps even comely, when he smiled, which had been often in those days. That fox had long since left the coop, though, as she had reminded him.

Deep in the cold, dark interior of the deserted castle a single torch cast an eerie glow as King Hendrik of Tussock paced like a caged lion. Impatience and determination marked his every move. He was an impressive creature of poise and power. Hendrik was a warrior, a man who conquered by force and saw his every will met with a single command.

First paragraph for 'Brethren Moon:"

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"This is hard for me to talk about. Secrets get comfortable in your soul, and don’t want you poking at them. It might be easier if there was some sort of Lycanthropy support group where I could stand up and say, ‘My name is Nathan, and I’m a werewolf.’ However, since there’s no such place; I’ll have to muddle through on my own. You asked to hear my story, and I promised to tell it to you. Grab your tea and get comfortable. This could take a while."

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Terri

This time, Jake dug the grave alone. A thin blanket wrapped around the boy’s body would serve as the coffin. He walked to the head of the grave and slowly, methodically, pounded in the wooden cross. The ground had claimed, and held, yet another victim.

From my paranormal YA project called The Tweed Coat:

It called to me the minute I entered the Village Thrift Shop. It was draped over a thread worn dressmaker’s form. It wasn’t my style; I’d have called it old lady looking. But this gray tweed coat was drawing me closer and closer. It had some sort of fur around its collar. I could see that it was the real thing --- black mink maybe? I abhorred fur and always vowed never to buy anything but synthetic furs, but I couldn’t stop moving towards it. My palm was outstretched and tingling in anticipation; ready to slide it from the form when a pushy lady with a cart filled to the brim squeezed by me. She looked me up and down and smiled, showing the few yellow teeth still not able to break loose of her gums.

“Too mature looking for you anyway.” She tossed the coat into her cart and rolled away.

coll

The first of the currently-being-rather-rewritten novel that is tentatively titled: "A Hero for Iolia"

Natasha Morgan was widely known as West Galen Academy's "Charity Case." The students, whom she tried to have as little to do with as possible, had reminded her of this fact nearly every single day. Unlike these affluent representatives of the four corners of the modern world, Tashi Morgan was without fortune, social standing, or even family. She had grown up as a ward of the state and was now under the temporary custody of Annemarie Wroth, Headmistress of West Galen Academy.

When Everett Cotton’s mother finally died, he knew he could pack his tuba and move to Maine. His tuba because he played it every night, and Maine because it seemed—to him—a place that had more air. And the only thing in the world he wanted—other than Eileen—was air enough to open the windows wide and play all afternoon without the basement neighbor banging on her ceiling with the broom.

1st paragraph of my fantasy novel:

Moonlight streamed in from the open windows, illuminating the path in front of Fox. A glint of metal caught her eye, only serving to confirm her suspiscions. She was being followed, and unlike herself, her enemy was armed. Fox did not quicken her pace, but paused to sniff the air. Amorak. She could smell sandy sweat of the desert people two leagues away. And an Amorak meant one thing: poisoned weapons.

Thank you, Nathan. From a MG novel:

I didn’t exactly hate Wednesdays but I sure didn’t love them, either. Even when no fights broke out in the dining room and the toilet in the women’s restroom didn’t overflow, I couldn’t look Mom in the eye and tell her Wednesday was my favorite day of the week. How could it be? Wednesdays were dirty dishes and puddles of spilled coffee, arguments over the last slice of pecan pie, little kids crying and drunk guys mumbling to themselves. Stacking chairs, wiping down tablecloths, and sweeping the floors. Wednesdays meant hard work and not enough thank yous.

hold on...

does a line of dialogue count as a single paragraph?

I refuse to be a chicken :P So here it is, the first paragraph of my speculative romance.
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Waves from gently rolling seas licked the wooden sides of the skiff as the old man rowed out from the island alone. The thick fog which had covered his flight from the island was gone, burned off by the warmth of the day. He was roughly a hundred yards out from the shore now. Far enough that concealment no longer mattered. The tang from the salted air was not the only thing that brought tears to his eyes.

Sophie Collins swung into the spot labeled “Curbside Take-Out Only.” If removing her drunken mother from a restaurant didn’t qualify as Take-Out, what did?

From my science fiction novel, FORGING TRUST:

THE HUMPED herbivores beat their hoofed feet against the grass-covered ground. They stampeded down the gentle slope of a rolling, green hill, making for the dense cover of the bluish-green forest. They were quite fast for moderate-sized beasts confined to the ground, but Varthikes was faster. His great, tanned wings folded back, carrying his golden-scaled body in a dive toward the herd. Golden, vertically-slit eyes locked on one of the trailing adults.

Theo Thomas knew all about abandonment, bouncing around from place to place, orphanages and foster homes. Never settling. Somewhere out there, his mother existed. She was a numb spot in his heart, now. At least that’s what he always told himself. He lied.

Thanks for the opportunity.

Bless you, Nathan, as you try to work through all these paragraphs!

Here is the first paragraph from my newest [untitled] YA-Fantasy WIP

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Dorie sat at the desk in front of the single window in her bedroom. She stared out at the forest, her eyes burning after an hour of crying. The sun was nearly down, just a few wispy strokes of pink lingered in the sky above the dark treetops in the distance. Dorie glanced down at the drawing she had been working on. What started out as a landscape had ended up a chaotic mess of thick, angry lines, scribbled fiercely over the paper which was now splotched and soggy in places where her tears had landed. She crumpled the paper in her fist and threw it at the waste basket near her door. She missed.

Thank you. Hope this is as much fun as the last contest.

First paragraph, chapter 1 of a YA urban fantasy:

“And what does our illustrious police do?” The reporter’s voice murmured from the TV in the living room. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The second mutilation-murder this month leaves them twiddling their thumbs. I tell you a serial killer is escalating, and the Trebridge police do nothing.

Thank you. Hope this is as much fun as the last contest.

First paragraph, chapter 1 of a YA urban fantasy:

“And what does our illustrious police do?” The reporter’s voice murmured from the TV in the living room. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The second mutilation-murder this month leaves them twiddling their thumbs. I tell you a serial killer is escalating, and the Trebridge police do nothing.

The Ice House is a vodka bar on the shores of Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown. Its insulated walls are coated with three feet of Canadian ice and the internal temperature hovers just above -5° C. Patrons are given sheepskin-lined jackets and mittens at the door, but Jack’s chest and arms have always done the trick for me. Until today.

There are two kinds of people in this world. One can be thinking, feeling, sensing, judging, loving, full of hopes and fears and happiness and woes. Then there is me. Hello, my name is Adam. I was born without a brain.

At the tender age of 10, I had an epiphany. On a beautiful, spring morning there was a knock on our front door. I opened it, shut it, locked it, and went running to my mom.
“Mom! Call the cops! The McDermotts are here! They want to kill me!”
“Oh, honey, don’t be silly. Let those nice boys in. They’re here to play a charity event I’m hosting tonight.”
Nice boys? This was proof my mom had never been a kid. Otherwise, she’d have known boys like Frankie who threw animals and rocks at oncoming traffic, and smashed bottles in the street saying things like, “insteada da street, dis coulda been yaw head!”

From "Locals":

On a bright humid morning in June, a sixteen year old girl named Deborah Garrison stepped off the boat from Hyannis, walked ahead of her mother down into the crowded summer streets and set everything in motion. She didn’t seem special; just one more pretty girl on a summer island crowded with them. And she didn’t actually do anything; nothing that happened later was her fault. The simple, irreducible fact of her presence was enough. Even years later, the consequences and implications of Debbie’s arrival seem bizarre and implausible, far too much to balance on those thin sunburned shoulders. It was like setting off an avalanche with a sigh.

‘Jordan. Isn’t that a girl’s name?’ The words slipped out of her mouth before she even had time to think about what she was saying. Here was this quite cute guy actually talking to her and she was beginning their acquaintance by sounding like a bitch.

Well, the first time I came to your blog was for the first, first paragraph contest. I would be remiss to not show up for this one.
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I hear it in the distance. A loud boom echoes off the cliff face behind me. The sky lights up, showing dark clouds disguised in the deep night. Metallic. The air has a metallic smell of new nails and fresh blood. I can taste it in layers over my tongue as the cold drops slide into my raspy throat. The rain tastes sweet. Yet I had hoped the clouds would wait before shedding off the excess pounds slowing them in their eastward marathon.

“Come back here with my Louis Vuitton, you bastard.” I stood on the top step of the winding staircase, clutching a pair of golf shoes. His golf shoes. I’d snatched them from his closet in a vain attempt to slow him down.

Romantic Suspense manuscript:

Abby froze at the cold press of a gun’s muzzle at the back of her neck.
“I know who you are and I know what you’re doing here.”
Instead of instinctively tensing, Abby forced her body to relax. She raised her hands in the air signaling compliance, knowing that she could turn and reverse the situation in the blink of an eye if she had to. She was happy to let Louis think he was in control of the situation, especially if it got her the information she needed.

The opening paragraph of my novel:

The fortune-teller studied the dark leaves at the bottom of the teacup as Eva squirmed in her creaky chair. When was she going to tell her something about herself that Pam, her best friend and roommate, didn’t know?

"Who's Ashley?"

The sidewalks were deserted—no one lived in this part of town, at least not legally, and though there were a few lights on here and there in the stone buildings, the work day was done. What would a cop think seeing such a large group of men go by? I actually looked around, hoping to see one and be put out of my misery. No police cruiser in sight; I sighed, and let the crowd carry me forward.

Freehold’s icy wind drove through Vick’s Agency-issue jacket and trousers as if the material were the filmiest lingerie, and she hunched her shoulders against the weather’s onslaught. She trudged up the deserted street, one gloved hand attempting to find further warmth in her pants pocket while the other held the strap of the rifle case slung across her back to prevent it from pummeling her spine with each step. The weapon’s weight was a comfort, like a dependable friend. Clouds from an impending snowstorm obscured the moon overhead, and she looked continuously from side to side, eyes analyzing shadows in alleys and doorways, and finding nothing more than rodents, bums, and unpleasant childhood memories.

The opening paragraph to my historical fiction novel, currently titled "Chrysanthemum Promise":

The brisk fall breeze blew throughout the small garden, bringing with it the promise of the long, cold, winter.
The winter of my life, young Sophie thought. A tiny cry came from her baby, as if sensing the despair of the moment.
“Hush, my little one,” she said. “No need to cry.” She rocked her daughter, trying to soothe her while wiping the tears from her own eyes.

all right. screw it.

Here's the first line from my novel, TALESPIN. YA, I guess. Modern Fantasy.



"You can put down the cat," said a voice from the dark. "Or you can die. Your choice."

Here you are. I hope your eyes don't melt (more than they probably already have):

Shimo injected another shot of caffeine into his veins. He wanted more, but his stupid nuclear--a spindle-legged thing with eight eyes--watched him too closely. Meanwhile, bright lights flashed across the screen. Shimo took the game controller: hour twelve of his marathon had begun. Guradranian vampires had just invaded when his mother kicked in the door and, like a starch-stiff officer, marched in between Shimo and the game. Judging by the "I'll kill you" glare, it was time to put the controller down for a few minutes.

The alcohol rushes out of my body as my level of depression rises like an hourglass draining the fullness of one side to the other. My stomach turns with the horrible wreck I have made of myself from drinking whiskey and eating questionable amounts of food at three am while moving my mouth in a rush of explosive banter with strangers. It is Sunday, and the weekend has caught up to me. I will go through next week with the same intention I had the past hundred or so weekends: I will straighten out, I will not throw away hours of my life for an expensive bar tab and a thundering dehydrated headache. But when Friday again arrives, I find myself sliding my debit card and punching in the four numbers that define my status to purchase a cheap bottle of red wine in anticipation of something better. It never happens, though, and I am soon back at the crossroad I have been at on the previous Sunday morning. To get over this feeling I drink seemingly endless cups of coffee and numb myself to the one hundred channels I have paid for. But, as everyone knows, there is nothing on and I result to staring at the walls. Monday can’t come sooner as I wait for feeling (physically) better. Though, the emotional toll of grinding at Monday through Friday numbness causes me to slip deeper into a feeling of nostalgic yearning for Friday and Saturday nights.

Just for the fun of piling on Nathan:

On death row you only got a few options for how to spend your time. Some guys get caught up in the legal stuff, trying to figure out how to avoid dying. A lotta guys get Jesus and spend all day reading the Bible and praying, but I don't go in for that. I didn't even bother to answer the letters I got from the death row fangirls. What kinda woman writes a love letter to some killer she never met? Creepy bitches looking for a cheap thrill. Mostly I read and listened to the radio when they let me have one. Did a whole buncha push-ups and sit-ups and pull-ups. Jerked off. Whatever I could do to kill time.

It began at 8:00 o’clock in the morning of the last Monday in May, when the widow Ms. Angela Gremore – owner of Gremore’s Grocery, A & M Hardware, and Riverrun Café – stood up at the pulpit in the Riverrun Hall and informed all in attendance that she would personally oversee the planning for the upcoming Finnish-American Folk Festival. Not a word was spoken in response. Ms. Gremore held the town of Riverrun firmly in the palm of her wrinkled hand, and this was not the first time she had squeezed her claw-like fingers inward upon its residents; but the Finnfest – now this was trespassing upon sacred ground.

Hell, literally.
The vast expanse I found myself in was an utter and desolate wasteland. The only thing special about it was the incredible heat, despite the lack of any visible sun, laying obvious my new reality. As if I need a reminder about where I am. Looking at the other half-naked and similarly burning souls, it was still difficult to believe that this was where I'd ended up.

My mother was always losing things. When I was twelve, she lost my dead sister. She spent several years looking for her, but by the time she had lost Deja she was far too gone to realize there’s no finding the dead. Once you lose sight of them, they are gone forever.

Jack pulls the car off the road about 100 yards from my parent’s old house out on Route 108. I’m thinking of how many times we’ve done something like this over the last four years in one of Jack's cars. There was the white Chevy Caprice era, the blue Camaro era, and the first BMW era. I guess that makes this the second BMW era.

Mental sleepwalking again. With the sureness of dumb logic I know that, physically speaking, I am in bed. And yet a significant chunk of my brain thinks I am someplace else, up and about this creaking, centuries-old house, wandering about like a mental case again, seeing things, hearing things, smelling things, even feeling things that in the waking hours do not exist. Freaking psycho.

The day Ultra-man saved the world still haunted Richard Steele. Reminders of it were everywhere from the billboards encouraging the citizens of Central City to thank their Hero in Red, to the Ultra-man shaped chicken nuggets at Burger Hut that kids relentlessly ate hoping that ingesting processed chicken meat in the shape of a super hero might give them super powers. Even at the office he couldn’t escape Ultra-man’s omnipresent intrusions into his life. Too often the watercooler talk veered away from the latest ballgame or television story line to the Indestructible Man’s latest heroics. The latest article in The City Voice by Erin Anderson, the unofficial expert on Ultra-man, would always cause a stir in the office. Even though Richard didn’t subscribe to the paper for the purpose of avoiding these articles, they always found him at work. And they always left him cold and bitter. Everything said about Ultra-man’s triumphs only reminded Richard more pointedly of the Hero in Red’s failure, of the day when Central City’s flawless protector let him down.

While I read, my husband watches the Military Channel, a show called, “The Greatest Helicopter Ever.” Some gadget is being tested in an abandoned field. The narrator growls only viewers with security clearance and Chuck Norris can watch. By the time the episode wraps, the testosterone level in our bedroom is so high, that I find I’ve grown a beard and a camouflage shirt. I bark at the dog to drop and give me twenty.

O.O :D First Paragraph:

I stirred around for those first five perfect seconds, when you can’t remember anything, and the only thing you have to worry about is getting up from the comfort of your mattress. Those five seconds ticked by far too quickly, and soon had me remembering the events from the night before.

^.^

Here's the first paragraph from my urban fantasy, called "Magic Stud."

At three minutes after two o’clock, the assassin arrived at Taitte Elementary School in a black limousine and parked on the playground.

Billy Matherson was a special needs student. His particular area of need was discipline. He required disciplinary actions suited for a child several grades above the fourth. Several times a day he found a new and innovative way to require a paddling from Ms. Young.

Oh dear, Nathan, what have you brought upon yourself?

First Paragraph of my WIP - tentatively titled 'Vampire-Slaying Death Metallers of the Apocalypse'



The world ended in a cacophony akin to a crappy Britney Spears song: a mishmash of humping noises and synthesized wah-wah sounds that couldn't finish too soon. In the dance club of the final days the lights went out and billions of hipsters wavered on the floor with no one to tell them what to believe in. And then came the fever and the storms and the angels of death, and everyone fell down.

Everyone except me. I am heavy metal, the beast that cannot die.

The image blurred a little. Detective Alec Theron adjusted the focus, then zoomed in on the face. "That's DiGiaComo. I'd swear to it." He pushed the button, taking another picture.

Here is the first paragraph of my completed romantic comedy, "Dealing with 'I Do'":

How am I supposed to plan this wedding? I’ve never gotten married before, but here I am, not only with a list a million miles long of work-related things I need to do, but with a monthly timetable of obligations, things that I have to do, or my own wedding will be a total flop. All I need is to screw up in front of my future mother-in-law; she already thinks I’m a complete moron.

Hi Nathan, I linked the Contest in my LJ.

First paragraph is actually a journal entry prologue. The rest of the novel is written in a more normal tense.

We watch in dread as the sun sinks into the ground, shadows lengthening, night inexorably approaching. We embrace the dwindling rays of sun knowing they could be our last, knowing that we will soon go forth and fight the terrors of the night, the hunted becoming the hunters and that many of us will die as we try to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. That many of us will die trying to make the world safe again.

From my novel SPIN:

Everyone has something to be ashamed of; you see them every day on reality TV, crying and confessing, while their cast mates sit slack jawed while the cameras roll. Me? I sold my soul for money. My knack for making anything sound good landed me a job as company spokesperson for the premiere financial institution on the West Coast. Spinning the worst financial crises bought me a Mercedes and a house behind a gate. Give me the worst corporate event you can think of and I’ll make it sound like afternoon tea. Lose some money? It’s an investment opportunity. CEO commits fraud? A misunderstanding of tax laws. My love for money has led me to do a lot of questionable things to get ahead in life and I’m about to do one more.

-----------------------------------
Years later, she still could not recall the name she'd been born into. Perhaps it started with an L or an E. Often, she considered it had been something exotic, like an X, but really, she knew it wasn't something like that. Just a vowel, some lower letter of no consequence. They called her Hazy, the people that had come through her window that night with muted whispers and flashlights, and they had taken her away from the family she can no longer remember, from the room that had been blue and the bed that was wide, the blanket bumpy with stuffed animals. She remembered the bed the most, and how the cold had gasped into her, rashing her with sudden goosebumps when they ripped the blankets away and wrapped her mouth with their leather palms. Their eyes had been bright and wide, frightened. Their fingers had been thick as mop handles, a little rough. Everything was a little rough in the middle of the night with the sheets torn back and cold let in and the moonlight flaring bright outside the dark square of the window. Two of them, she remembered. The one who whispered was taller, thicker. It was his palm clamped over her teeth. The other was slender, quiet. His were the eyes softened by fear. Hush, they told her. You'll be fine. You'll forget about this place. We need another. We need a little girl like you. We need you.

-----------------------------------

Thank you, Nathan, for the contest. Young adult:

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was an ordinary kingdom. Everything about this kingdom was ordinary. The hard-working and cheerful commoners were ordinary. The regal and majestic King and Queen were ordinary. Even the wicked witches and evil sorcerers were wicked and evil in ordinary ways. Yes, this was quite an ordinary kingdom, with one important exception. The princess of the kingdom was far from ordinary. That’s because she was extremely ugly. In fact, she was so ugly that many thought she was the ugliest princess in the land. And they were right. She WAS the ugliest princess in the land.

From my completed YA suspense novel...
Thanks, Nathan.

-----------------------------

Theodora sat in the principal’s office, again. Across from her sat Mr. Silver, in his dress shirt, tie and perfectly combed gray hair.
“Why did you do it?” Mr. Silver asked in a somewhat defeated tone. He seemed tired. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and middle finger and took a deep breath in. Theodora sat in silence staring at her band-aid covered fingertips and wished today wasn’t the day she chose to stop her bad habit. The words, “great timing” rolled around in her head.

May I say, ouch?! Good luck, Nathan.

How could she have not seen this coming? Well, in truth, she had seen it coming, she’d just averted her eyes. And now she was paying the price. Rolls of her own flesh puffing out between bands of leather, rope, and green garden twine repelled her, but she refused to look away, for once. This is what she had come to. This is what years of averting her eyes had done to her. Here she sat, on the eve of turning thirty, fat, naked, red and not nearly drunk enough to survive this night. Things had to change. She refused to spend the next thirty years tied naked to a damn ugly chair.

Mike stormed out of the house, over the back fence and into the bush, his home away from home. A sound pulled him up. Someone crying? He crept forward and as he rounded a ghost gum, the noise increased in intensity. In the hazy light, he squinted. A pile of orange and purple material shook with each sob. Mike grunted as a small head lifted out of the mound. A boy. The last thing he wanted to see was another kid. Mike wheeled around. If the kid was lost, he could find his own way home.

Malcolm peered over his shoulder while wedging a crowbar into the door jam of the house. With the ease of someone who had done this many times before, he shifted his weight resulting in a solid crunch as the back door gave way. Resting the crowbar against the stoop, he motioned for his lookout, Spencer, to join him. They entered, hesitating momentarily in the doorway as an immediate wave of overwhelming odor flooded out from a dark kitchen. Malcolm removed a small comb from his pants pocket and casually stroked the teeth through his neatly trimmed goatee. Sighing with distaste, he surveyed the disheveled room. Stacks of old newspapers towered haphazardly against the side of a refrigerator. Plates, bowls and muffin tins overflowed from the kitchen sink. An undisturbed assembly line of ants worked their way in and out of a foul-smelling garbage heap cluttered with egg shells and Little Debbie snack wrappers.

No one knew that Zola Piccolo had died that misty morning in the small stone apartment on Via Gombito. There were no reports in the Bergamo village paper or mourners to carry her body back to the place she was born. She had returned from Spain many years earlier and had forgotten she existed, becoming more transparent with each quiet day that passed, until she was no more. For years, ghost like figures wondered the narrow halls, on drafty wooden floors, searching for the once boisterous woman, but there was no remaining substance, nothing that eyes could see, only the quietness of her ways.

I almost fell onto the trees. Katy and I were racing each other and I stopped so quickly that I pitched forward, twisting to the side to avoid landing on them. I ended up on my knees, like I was praying to the little evergreens. My Dad hadn’t finished planting them yet and left the baby trees along the perimeter of the grass. I wondered if they felt strange lying down like that, if they were yearning to take root, if they even knew they weren’t upright like they should be. “Do the trees know they’re lying down?” I asked Katy. I kicked the slops of mud off my shoes, preparing to run across the field again. Katy looked down at the trees and considered their wayward plight. “They’re too little to figure it out,” she said. “They probably think the sky moved.”

"Another supernatural murder has been reported, this one in San Francisco, the werewolf city. The victim was Adam LeBron, age 38. This is the seventh murder of a supernatural in the last month. Authorities are not sure if the murders are linked-"

Naddie Boles woke on her own, exactly as she had since her first day in this place, whatever and wherever it was. She felt a certain sense of triumph over this reclamation of a few daily minutes prior to a guard’s arrival to issue morning prods. The four guards did everything with a brusque and awkward efficiency that struck Naddie as being unique to these four emphatically mean and uncommonly tall men. From the indifferent, but child-like expressions they wore, to the strange, clipped speech they spoke, her captors were different from other people by way of some singular, wholly indefinable quality.

Nathan, thanks for the opportunity. From (working title) Blood Drugged.

“Feedin’ or Fuckin’?”

Aimee, her slender, naked body glistening with sweat, teeth bared, cocked her head in a way that said, you know what he’s doing. She glanced over her shoulder into the room and Anthony followed her gaze to the bed. The sheets were in constant motion, moans and squeals easily floating to the door. As nervous as he was, Anthony smiled at his brother’s prowess. Maybe Max would be so happy and content that Anthony’s mistake wouldn’t matter that much. The door slammed and wiped the smirk from his face.

Twilight, and the air stank like trouble. A hot orange sun burrowed into the horizon as the truck swallowed the last of a fifty dollar bill; it was looking like dinner at the mission again. I paid the attendant in the tiny kiosk, noting the green Olds that swung slowly around the corner, heading east. Prowling; I knew the look. I tracked it as I climbed into the truck and coaxed it to life. Checked my mirrors; stalled. One minute. Two.

Wind wheezed behind Iona MacLeod as the Sea Wench Inn’s door banged open, the tang of salt and tar masking the stench of sweat and brine. The breeze crashed against her back, splaying her hair across her face. She turned to gaze outside as a man stepped through the open door. Behind him, palm trees thrashed in the gray distance. She wondered why he was out on such an evening.

It was the last time I’d ever accept a drink from an unfamiliar woman.

I squeezed my eyes tight in a futile attempt to shut out what little light entered. Nothing stopped the pain from slamming against the inside of my skull. I eased my eyelids open, remembering the last drink I’d had, which wouldn’t have done this much damage. She’d drugged me, there was no mistaking it.

First paragraph, "Stoned", satire:

At 9:03, on a cold Tuesday morning, Alex would get his fifteen minutes of fame. In truth, his share would be closer to one minute; the orca would garner the other fourteen.

The little car shuddered and started up the long and winding grade as Rene downshifted and mashed the throttle. She was still mad but the blood wasn’t pounding in her ears now. The leather vest she wore was laced too tight. She had intended to be standing and fighting, not driving. Rene pulled at the laces with one hand but she had taken extra care that morning to make sure they wouldn’t come loose.

Thanks Nathan
AMH

Not my current project, but fun all the same! :)

*~*~*~*~*

My headache started with the first blast of plasma. It melted through my kitchen window at an angle, burnt a hole in the ceiling, and incinerated part of my down comforter. I rolled over and covered myself in the remaining sheets. A second blast destroyed my dresser, and then a third took out my mirror.

I didn’t go into prostitution because I was desperate; I did it because I was bored: Bored of my hausfrau existence, bored of my husband both in bed and out, bored of my ingrate daughters who don’t (yet) understand what it means to be the sacrificial lamb in the nuclear family setup and that being a wife and mother can be its own category of prostitution. They will. And I’ll laugh.

Carol, through half-opened eyes, watches dust particles dance in the spectral light bursting through the mini-blinds. Its dance reminds her of hot ash floating above a camp fire. All that’s missing here is the hiss and pop.

The wind stung her eyes as she pushed herself to top speeds in her attempt at escape. She dodged through and around twigs and leaves, trying to shake her predator. Her refuge was in sight now. If she could just make it a little further. Her lungs burned with the fire of being filled and expelled in too rapid a succession. Her wings ached. Her heart hammered in her ears so loudly that she was no longer able to hear her hunter. The threat still existed, of that she was sure, she just now had her own theme music—a single drummer.

From "IronMakeover":

It sounds insane, maybe it is really, but for years, I was afraid to ride my bike over the lines of paint that mark the sides of the road. I remember reading somewhere that in wet conditions, these little white strips of paint can be a bit slippery, so be careful. During this same time, I also had a major fear of dogs, which is odd since we own a dog. But a certain type of dog, the predatory country dog—-which I call the “Grim”—-terrifies me still today.

Ah, what the hell. I've always wanted to discuss reality TV with Nathan Bransford. Opening paragraph for something I'm working on under a diff name, cause it's dark:

The first day of my captivity was like being born...or dying. They're both kind of the same thing. They both have a tunnel and a bright light at the end. Maybe it wasn't like either, actually. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong now, because for me that day, all there was, was darkness.

This is from a current WIP, a romance:

Vermont was a wasteland.

Trees stripped of leaves, their branches curved upwards to the sky, as if pleading for salvation. But there was none to be found in the dark night sky. White, crystallized snow covered pastures, meadows, hills. The stark nakedness of the state showed all its flaws, none of its beauty.

Welcome to hell.

It was a kiss to bring the heavens crashing down around their ears and, indeed, Daryn noticed a star falling far to the north in one of the few moments his eyes wandered from the girl’s face. And though the falling star was an extraordinary event, his mind quickly returned to more pressing matters. She had a pixie’s triangular features, rounded at the edges, an upturned nose, freckles sprinkled like sugar on top of a cake, and bright, scintillating blue eyes. He hadn’t forgotten the lips. It was simply impossible for him to see them at the moment.

Regardless of what you read in those tabloid magazines you devour religiously each week, being a socialite is hard work. There are the bi-weekly highlights, daily meetings with your stylist, conference calls with your PR rep, and, of course, regular lunches with your agent. Well, I suppose the agent is more of a celebutante thing, but you get my drift - you can’t half-ass it. Perfection isn’t an aspiration, it’s a job requirement and you have to be prepared to work for it. Lucky for you, I know all the tricks, and I’ll share a few of my secrets with you. But fair warning, I move fast and you have lots to learn, so pay attention.

From SMOOCH, my YA novel:

The bell rings and each student at Musington High clamps their hands over their ears. The speakers broadcast a roaring lawnmower for two continuous minutes. We shuffle to homeroom with our arms up and our ears covered, elbowing each other to say hi. Most of the teachers stand by their doors, ushering us in to their individual torture chambers.

This was probably not the best time to be wondering about what color her underwear was, but Anna couldn't seem to shake that thought. When they found her body, what would they think? She had foregone boring white in favor of something with a little more personality, but maybe the police would eye her purple polka-dotted panties with a bit of mockery. Then again, maybe they'd appreciate her bringing a little color and humor to the scene.

Since you're asking for WIP's, I assume that the prizes don't have to be claimed immediately? Because, I don't know about anyone else, but I wouldn't have a query or partial ready for review. *pick pick pick*

Okay. Here's the first paragraph from SF novel, SHATTERBOX:

"It was like I could hear someone calling out to me. I had been asleep for so long, that I didn’t even look where it came from, just waited for it to go away. But he wouldn’t. He would never go away. Unlike the others, who always came from the whiteness and disappeared back into the whiteness, Rueben was a presence I could not shake."

The cracks webbed out along the green paint like dark highways. Jacob’s fingers followed each branch as they spread out over the antique wood. The pad of his index finger picked up one crease only to intersect with another. That distressed look would add a lot of value when he sells the little train bed online. But something told him that the bed wouldn’t leave his company that easily.

From my cozy mystery...

Of all the hats worn by a preacher’s wife--I never imagined I’d have to add a fedora. I wasn’t even sure they made them large enough to fit over the unmanageable mound of frizz I call my hair. Not that I’m really a detective. That's almost funny. Wendy Gilmore: housewife, mother--private eye. But I certainly felt like one that morning. As soon as I spotted the name of the missing woman in the newspaper, I recognized it. And I was pretty sure I knew what had happened to her.

From my YA novel:

We crouch next to the building and start taping our hands. It takes a few minutes to wind the tape around our palms and fingers. Then we dip our fingers in the chalk cans that each of us carries on our belts. The chalk gives our fingers extra grip on a humid summer night like this one. Jax isn't talking. He's always quiet before he starts a climb, and tonight he’s even more so than usual. Maybe it’s because of the mustard-colored building on Wall Street on Monday. There was a street light nearby so we had to squeeze into a narrow shadow and climb quickly when no cars were going by. None of us could get even five feet up the slick yellow wall facing the sidewalk. Even Jax couldn’t get a toehold, though he tried several times, and he hates giving up.

Max Fielding was sitting on a rock and staring at a sky that was profoundly empty when the pigs ran past him. They were small and pink and tender looking, and they ran with a determination that proved them to be smarter than they looked. As the trio ran by his rock, Max couldn't help thinking of nursery rhymes. Who tormented the pigs? A troll? No, that was the goats. A wolf? Yes, the big bad wolf, come to blow their houses down. These three little pigs ran up a small mound before disappearing into a cluster of forsythia with the rustle of leaves about to turn brown. These pigs were running from something, Max thought, and it was the first real logical thought he thought he had had in a long time. In the nursery rhymes, the pigs and the goats and the fat little children were never running from anyone; they were always running into someone, the baddies, the wolves and the trolls and the witches. Max shifted his position on the rock because, despite the warm September sun, the rock was cold and strangely damp. He tried to remember that last thought, the one about running, but it, like the pigs that had spawned it, was gone.

Daniel trudged down the hallway. He didn’t look forward to this aspect of his job. He wished that he didn’t have to collect rent and post overdue notices or evictions. He didn’t like being the bad guy. He always had thought of himself as the good guy. Ever since he was a kid and he collected comic books and pretended that he was one of the characters in those books. He was a strong and upright hero. He would make the world a better place. And now here he was walking down the hall to put up a third notice on a door.

Sybil Boxer couldn’t ignore the demon in her head, although sometimes she tried to.

Night mist swirled around Valinda's boots as she walked through the empty street. She heard a faint buzzing, barely audible, as the neon signs that lined the street flickered, died, and were reborn. The only other sounds were her stiletto boot heels striking the asphalt and the splash when she stepped in a dank puddle.

Malak ducked behind a section of crumbling stone wall, panting in fright. The meat he’d stolen from the demon-hunters’ campsite lay somewhere out there in the rubble and weeds, but he didn’t dare go back for it.

First paragraph of a historical thriller:

Cate wanted nothing more than to escape. It was only an hour until the Swiss-German border, but she wasn’t sure that she could make it that long. The train trip had been pure torture since Frankfurt. Within minutes of joining her bank of seats, two middle-aged women became the best of friends, exchanging stories about their families and playing a polite game of who was the better citizen of the Third Reich. Siegfried is a model member of the Hitler Youth. Heinrich joined the party before Hitler became chancellor. Leisel is dating an SS officer. Blonde Braid, the nickname Cate gave to the woman with a thick plait coiled around her head, proudly wore a swastika pin on her boiled wool jacket and invoked Hitler every other sentence. Brown Bun, as Cate christened the other woman, reminded her of a severe school mistress—the kind that would make you copy out Mein Kampf for detention.

In Khazgrad, a man lay dying. The room was large, lit with several lamps and candles, which shimmered through aromatic smoke. Richly furnished, the white stone walls were hung with long, exquisite tapestries, and the floor was soft with animal hides. The dying man lay on an enormous down-filled divan, more a harem lovenest than a deathbed. He was wrapped in hand-woven quilts and dressed in softest satin, damp with the sweat that oozed from his feverish glands. His face was aged beyond his years, eyes pinched shut against another wave of wracking pain. Hands grown callused from years of swordplay and horse mastery, their strength ebbing by the hour, gripped the quilts about him. His hair was greying, and his blood-flecked beard was speckled with silver. Here was a man undoubtedly struck down in his prime. With the same tenacity he had fought throughout his life, he battled the sickness that besieged his body. No foe had yet bested him. It was a sick irony that a disease might prevail where so much cold steel had failed.

She rounded the corner and plowed into him, colliding with the left side of his chest and losing her grip on the too-full plastic tumbler. A cascade of Milwaukee’s finest christened a navy tee shirt tight enough to ripple with the muscles it covered. The golden brew dripped down to the crotch of comfortably faded jeans while large hands gripped her shoulders.

Opener to my mystery/suspense WIP--

William DeCarlo wanted kids, but not for the usual reasons. He wasn't particularly fond of the little bastards, nor was there a gaping hole in his heart begging for the unconditional love of a child. The nuts and bolts of babymaking didn't arouse any special interest, and he was deaf to the ticking of the proverbial biological timepiece. In fact, his strange impulses could best be described by a documentary he'd seen on the Discovery channel about lions: "The lone male, when entering new territory, will decimate the existing pride, mate with the lionesses, and thus establish power and control..." This insight--at least on a conscious level--escaped him. Unfortunately for the women in his life, ignorance didn't make him any less dangerous.

I never considered myself the type who'd read another person's mail. In my defense, my roommate did throw the envelope away without even opening it.

Thanks, Nathan. From my WIP adult magical realism novel:

*****

Dana believes the swans are bullshit. The people who come to the causeway to gaze at them, who sneak down the sides of the embankment at night, hoping to snatch a feather or stumble across a fragment of broken egg and have all their wishes granted, they're just plain stupid. That's if they're locals. If they are tourists, she's willing to settle for gullible, since most days their tips pay her rent.

Okay. That's a word that got tossed around a lot in the weeks and months leading up to and after my first psychotic break. “Is she okay?” whispered behind doors when I was feigning sleep. “Are you feeling okay?” when I trudged into the kitchen at 1:00 pm in my pajamas after another heavily drugged night of dreamlessness. “Is this okay?” my concerned and helpless mother would ask about everything - her meals, my clothes, my bedding. Nothing was okay. Everything was okay. I didn’t care.

From my current work in progress, Dying For Dinner:

Death is never pretty, but on Margie Walker, it was downright ghastly. The 5 a.m. phone call summoning Jason Brown to the crime scene was short and sweet, and as he stood shivering in the dark alley, Jason was certain this would not be his big break, his Pulitzer story. He swallowed hard to keep his breakfast down as he stared at the rotting tomatoes and wilted lettuce surrounding Margie’s massive body, the color draining from his face as he watched a fly escape the body’s gaping mouth outlined in Margie’s signature bright orange lipstick. He was pretty sure that his reporting career had hit an all-time low in the eight years he’d spent working the police beat for the Albuquerque Journal. Unbidden, the thought came before he could stop it. The lady spewed venom in life. In death, she spewed flies.

Lisa

1st paragraph, The Dark Servant

From the vantage afforded by the hilltop, the peaceful sprawl of the city spread out before Rak in a patchwork of greens and golds interspersed with reds. His duty to the Brethren and his sacred oaths of service to his God required him to enter into this sun-loving city on a mission he privately thought was doomed to fail. Privately thought, because it was rarely wise to express doubt publically, at least not when you served the Lord of Night. The odds of success were slim in this alien land so far from home, but what choice did he have but to try?

Step Magellan got the bad news on Wednesday and the really bad news on Thursday.

[That's the whole of the first paragraph of current wip-the second paragraph starts getting into the details. Whether the first is good bad or indifferent, I disqualify myself as I have representation for previous stuff. Just wanted to throw this in, the first time out in the public eye.

Pleasant & Divine
by Deborah A. Rankine

“Screw it,” Grace Russell mumbles. She drags a kitchen chair over to the cupboard above the fridge. She stands on tiptoes, curses her five-foot nothingness. Blindly she hand-searches the back of the top shelf for the pack of Player’s Plain she’d hidden there three months before. She’s convinced herself that having them in the house would be a good thing. That knowing she could light up any time she wanted was incentive enough not to.

Horses thundered across the plain, kicking dirt clods into the spring air. Tall grass whipped against their flanks as they plowed forward. Every stride meant more distance between their riders and the relentless enemy that pursued them.

The first paragraph of my memoir:

"He stood at the end of the pier watching the petals drift out to sea. No longer the young sailor he'd once been; he leaned on his cane. He was an old man now, something his comrade, his friend never got to be. The red and white petals followed an unseen path, becoming tiny specks in a vast ocean, an ocean that during the war held only sorrow and loss. But now those same waters were a place of healing."

From the manuscript of a novel I call Moon Shadows: the Genesis

"But what would be turning them back Kj?" Grey asks, once more feeling the heavy, stifling, power of the unknown, unseen, authority. Turning to look into her eyes for her answer, she fades to nothing before him, gone, vanished into the thin mountain air of the Wind Rivers. A shudder of fear rattles through him, and he frantically scans the meadow looking for Kj in vain, feeling the unknown, unseen, presence close around him, suffocating him . . . Grey awoke with a terrible start, gasping for air, bewildered and distraught, trying immediately to recall elements of the dream, already dissipating from his memory like wisps of morning mists. Dreams, he thought, never make any sense – they are never logical and this one's no exception. But it is the vivid impression of reality that make certain dreams seem important. This was one of those, and Grey felt oddly uncomfortable – perhaps afraid. For a long time he lay there on his back, staring up at the ceiling, watching shadows - cast through the cottonwood trees by the low-slung moon - dancing like waving patterns of Rorschach objects. Their gentle sway began to relax him, and after awhile, his sense of the present restored to his mind, the pounding of his heart abating, he drifted back into sleep.

3 AM. My last night on Earth and I'm slumped over on a balcony, thirty floors up, nursing a can of water. Inside the apartment behind me, dull beats drone on as the party continues. A few friends had come to send me off and few more strangers had come for a free drink. Everyone is too drunk to notice I have slipped out. Everyone but Aline.

Wow. Over 230 posts already, and they are really good. I guess, if this is a good representation of even a portion of an agent's slush pile, it really shows us our competition ;)

Good luck to all.

Had it not been for the scrape of the shovel over the frozen earth and the rattle of icy dirt against steel, Jake Granger might have been able to ignore his reasons for being out in the dark, in the sleet, digging a hole. Yet it was the most important hole Jake had ever dug, would ever dig… and he hated every thimbleful of icy dirt he tore from the ground. When it was done, it would contain the last, best part of him, and everything for which he’d once had reason to live.

Jenny Dee
liadano (at) yahoo.com

Mr. Bransford, thanks for doing this. You are a saint (if a little crazy for subjecting yourself to this).

From my completed mystery, THE MESSENGER:

Dan Taylor sat in the wingback chair next to his bed, watching the quietly sleeping form of his wife in the darkness. The sheets rose and fell ever so slightly as she dreamed. Dreamed of a family, he was sure. But he couldn’t think of that. Maybe when they were living in Camden, but not now.

This is TA-

^*******

Not everyone deserves forgiveness. I don’t. Lucky doesn’t. But Lucky doesn’t want forgiveness. Or need it, I guess. All Lucky cares about is beating the rap. Me? I want them to lock me up and throw away the key.

Nothing like a contest to illicit a first post...
Here goes. Be gentle.

Three days before Christmas I drove my grandmother down to the methadone clinic. Something came up, so Mom called at 8:15 the morning of, pleading with me to take her. Mom knew that would leave me just enough time to call and beg my boss, Mr. Warner, for one more morning off to handle what he called “an unfortunate situation.” Mr. Warner was not unfamiliar with my grandmother. After all, he was the one who posted bail when she was caught waiting for the number three bus in nothing but what the Lord gave her and a pair of blue terrycloth slippers. After that, every time the commercial for Warner Brothers’ Law Firm interrupted her television program she retold the story about how the man on the TV had kept her from the midnight sale at Walmart.

The party was at that point where just five guests left lingered. Pamela and I had started picking up the living room. The tree was slightly tilted, the cat had tinsel stuck to her tail, most of the ribbons were untied. All that was left of the cinnamon candles was their burnt out scent mingled with the odors of brandy, rum and soured eggnog. Long past bar-closing time, all the drinks had been drunk, and the only sounds were the tinkling of the Christmas bell around the gray tabby’s neck as she licked her paw and the murmuring voices of Erica and Justin, who sat on the couch, heads bent inward. Charlie, Dave and Russell were in the den and had been strangely quiet. Such a silence could mean one of two things. Either they had passed out within minutes of each other or they were up to something.

Barbara Ducharme coughed herself the color of fabric softener as she dumped another tray of smoking cookies into the garbage bin. The charred contents safely deposited, she shut the lid and threw the tray into the sink. Not bothering to remove the oven mitt from her hand, she scuffed over to the breakfast nook and slid sideways onto the bench. It was useless, she confessed to herself, as her choking fit subsided into the occasional sniff. And she didn’t just mean the cookies.

Nathan, you must have been hitting the bourbon again! From my dark paranormal....

The old man reading Hemingway was going to die, and there was nothing Gabrielle could do about it. Somewhere nearby the psychopomp lurked, waiting to snatch his soul. Gabrielle couldn’t see it yet, but the stench of musty peppermint fouled the air. That was all she needed to know. Her Sunday School teachers had claimed the minions of hell would reek of sulfur but they were wrong. The minions stunk of musty peppermint, and these days even something as innocuous as the aroma of mint tea made the hairs on Gabrielle’s neck stand on end.

Wow - I love reading these - good writers out there. My book is a YA Thriller titled Grace Under Fire:

I ran for my life.
I knew if I stopped, I would die.
At the measly age of sixteen.
A barrage of bullets sprayed a row of trees to my right. I weaved through the forest’s brown pillars like a barrel rider in a rodeo. Left, right, left, right. Gnarled branches, shaped like broken fingers, yanked at my hair and sliced my skin. A montage of events from the last few weeks unraveled in my brain. I could easily pinpoint the exact moment where I went wrong. 3 weeks, 2 days, 22 hours, and 33 minutes ago.

This is from my WIP Something like Hope:

Rhiannon sat there, staring at the walls. If she looked hard enough, she could see little shapes take form. Those walls kept her from her freedom. She couldn’t stand being caged in; she wasn’t an animal. Those walls kept her trapped inside. They saved her life and destroyed it. It would have been easier to remain in this place if they had given her the option to leave.

First paragraph?

Okay. The working title of this book is 'Damaged Goods' but the more it simmers...'Ferris' Bluff' is gaining steam.


Ace Evans eyed the sign on the old lever-handled mechanical gas pump. *Pay Inside First*. Welcome to Ferris’ Bluff, Arkansas, he grumped, and jiggered the door handle of his old Ford pickup. Once straightened and standing he stretched, working tired neck muscles and a forty five year old spine. The drive through the Ouachita Mountains, scenic as all hell, had been a brutal thing. Two lanes of twisty no-shoulder mountain road teased him with sweeping vistas of fog shrouded mountains and dark deep valley views in life or death competition with sudden switchbacks and cliff side curves, the occasional big eared deer, and oncoming traffic.

thanks for reading...

fred

The illumination generated from the second vehicle’s headlamps revealed the presence of a furtive, darkened first. The newest arrival rolled noiselessly into the small clearing and stopped alongside its surreptitious counterpart. With the fading of the latecomer’s lights, an uncommonly dark night was restored to a state of inky opacity. Only then, did the bullet-shaped motor-vehicle open to dispatch its passengers…three men, who walked to the front of the rectangular clearing to stand in unison with the two already there. Through the black, none of them could see who it was standing next to him, and none of them could hear anything other than the chirping of crickets, the gentle rustling of leaves and the eerie rasp of their own inharmonic breath. Much to the men’s collective relief, the unmitigated blackness was brief. It lasted only a matter of minutes until the men observed a a third set of lights materialize from the northwest. Jumping and twinkling, the new twin beams made their way through the trees, drilling nearer and nearer the spot where the five stood waiting on the lonely edge of wilderness that was Regency’s Far-Outer.

I hefted the saddle onto my horse. My body armor chafed. Though I’m a sworn peace officer, I’m more comfortable shooting a tree-marking gun than the state issued nine-millimeter Sig Sauer. But, the VW parked at the trailhead belonged to the man who sentenced my college roommate to life in a wheelchair. I looked at the cloud-shrouded mountain, adjusted my holster. Wearing it felt odd. Sundown comes fast here. I had to go now.

It was later, looking back on the troubles of her earlier life, that she came to understand when and how her redemption had begun. There had been so many critical moments; but the crucial moment was when she discovered poetry within herself, the day she realised she was a poet. She called herself Josephine. Her hair was strong and black. Her eyes were deep, dark blue.

It was Singer’s Special night at The Rusty Spoon, and Thomas Archer had seen neither hide nor hair of his adoptive daughter all day. His customers were not pleased. Every single man above the age of eighteen in the downtown city came to hear his darling girl sing (along with many who were not, in fact, single, but drinking to forget that little detail), and a bar full of dissatisfied, drunken bar crawlers was not exactly Tom’s idea of a pleasant evening.

Here's the first paragraph of my YA fantasy novel, The Lost Goddess:

She knew she was lucky to receive her fate. She knew she should have expected this; she should have been prepared for it. Others had received worse fates. She should be glad that she had not joined their number. Yet her reasoning could not change her heart, which still burned with anger as great as the fire at the Fall of Ivendrell. Part of her still cursed her fate for being left alone.

The Martinez family drove into Boston on September fourth. The late-afternoon sun glinted off of brick apartments in narrow streets. Ernie scowled. He had just missed the first day of school.

Holy crap, I should check this blog earlier... YA WIP (I like dialogue)


“Are you going to the Spring Fling?” Amy asked me as I rifled through my locker looking for my English and Math books.
I blew the bangs out of my eyes and looked at the mess around me. “I don’t think they’ll let me go if I don’t pull my grade up in English.” I whined.
I don’t know how they could actually keep me from attending the Spring Fling especially when I had it on good authority that I was being named the Spring Fling Queen and Derek was its King. It wasn’t fair and the idea of being tutored was completely out of the question. I did not need to be tutored like a geek.
“But Taryn, you have to be there,” She whined right along with me. “I mean they’re naming you and Derek queen and king.” The late bell rang and Amy rushed off so she wouldn’t get a tardy mark in class.
I found my books and stuffed everything that was piled up around me back into my locker. I placed the books into my backpack and started hightailing it to English. Ms. Warner wouldn’t be happy that I was already late for the class, but that I was miserably failing the class wasn’t garnering me any points either.
“Ah Miss Davidson, thank you ever so much for showing up.” I could hear the other kids snicker behind my back. I waved her off and slunk into my seat. I hated when she called me out in front of everyone.

“He is a monster, lads – an evil eyed demon. We’ll not have his kind in Camulus. Get him!”
The beating was mercifully swift - they always were. Once his slight body hit the ground and his nose bloodied, the bullies tended to relent. He need only to keep his eyes shut tight - to hide the offending mismatch of nature that made his otherwise ordinary face unmistakable. His unpaired brown and green eye often started a row with the other ten year old boys. To them he was demon spawned or the offspring of a wicked curse, and they must beat this evil out of him. It was their god given duty. Mere teasing would not satisfy their blind righteousness.

“Are you going to the Spring Fling?” Amy asked me as I rifled through my locker looking for my English and Math books.

Yep, that is my first paragraph.. Short and sweet... :)

Somewhere around Billings, Montana the dope ran out. And somewhere around Fargo, North Dakota the proceeds from the sale of the dope I hadn't shot along the way ran out. And somewhere around Minneapolis, Minnesota the last of the gas ran out of my tank. And somewhere in a nondescript neighborhood on Sergeant St. in St. Paul I was being fucked my some disgusting pig that owned the house we were currently in. This particular disgusting pig was my dealer, pimp, landlord, and boyfriend. I hadn't hit bottom, I'd fallen through the bottom, and all the way through the earth, all the way through the center of the planet to the other side, levitated in space while the planet rotated back around to Minnesota, and then fallen on the exact same spot I'd started on, then hit the bottom again. And after I landed, this stinking, pimping, dope fiend had climbed on top of me and decided that it was a good time to shoot his wad since we'd been out of dope for almost two days. Fucking for dope never felt good, it's about as low as you can go. But now I wasn't even fucking for dope, and that was even lower. Now I was fucking because in this town, without this guy, I'd never see dope again. I was fucking on the expectation of dope, and a roof over my head. If you've ever seen a Minnesota winter this will make perfect sense.

[email protected]

“Men are animals,” My Dad once told me when I was a boy. Then he paused and said in the same breath: “This is why they make good politicians.” I have always wondered why he told me this when he did and if, in some subtle way, he influenced the path I chose. If I tell you the same thing—now that I know he was right—will you follow in my footsteps? You probably wonder why I am telling you this. I am following orders. “Introduce yourself,” your mother told me. “It will help you get used to the idea.” She wagged her finger. “Be honest, even though it will be hard.” I figured: Only a fool or a coward would hide who he is from his own child—his own unborn son--so here goes.

The pilot died silently not long after boundless Amazonia began to show again below the cloud cover, but they flew on unknowing. Thom Hearn was lost in thought about what was below, nature reproducing at the same time decaying and dying. Predators hunting and eating prey, tree and vine locked in ageless death struggle, rot in the shadows seething with larvae. The heat and humidity perfect for spores and molds. There was probably pestilence unknown to science.

When I was a boy I loved getting letters. Postcards, magazines, you name it. It made me feel important, like the world was talking to me. That’s important to a boy, all to important. But when you grow up, the mail becomes a hassle. Its bills, notices, junk mail, invitations to places you don't want to go and reminders of people you don't want to see. Most of it goes to the trash, where it belongs. But sometimes you get this one letter, the kind of letter that fills you with dread. It may be the thickness of the envelope or the postmark, whatever it is, you don't want it, but you know that you have to open it. Maybe it’s your acceptance/rejection letter from college, or a letter from your ex, or in my case, anything with the words Royal Mail on it.

Here is the first paragraph of my Middle Grade fantasy.

“P-U!” The curly haired boy whispered, into the darkness, as he wiped his snotty nose on the sleeve of his shirt. He smelled like dirty laundry. In summer, he can bathe in the drainage ditch. But, this is not summer. It is bitter winter, so he will sneak some washing in next time they let him upstairs to use the bathroom.

Thanks for the contest!
This is from my paranormal.. Demon's Desire.

-------
Khan, Overlord of Demoni, drummed his black claws on the ornate arm of his throne, aware that many of the naked Demoni in the room trembled in fear of his ire. He looked to the walls and the rotting heads of his enemies mounted there. Taking macabre pleasure in knowing there were none left to stand against him. But even that delightfully gruesome sight couldn’t cool his rising temper.
“Bring the condemned.”

I'd begun to think of it as "my bench." Each day, after breakfast, I'd sit with the sun warming my back until it was time for group therapy. Most of the time I sat alone with the birds, oak trees, and squirrels. Occasionally I'd be joined by one of the other patients. I loved when Maggie came. She would chatter happily about her husband and children as if we had met on a pleasant afternoon in the park and not in a mental hospital. It was a chance to feel normal again.

A white cotton sheet twisted around Devin’s naked body. She couldn’t believe how glorious making love to Jonathan felt. The wait had been well worth it. He had mastered the art completely in the four days since they’d married. “Hurry up,” she whispered to the empty room. “How long does it take to go for breakfast?”

The trees were leading them somewhere. It began with a whisper from an ironwood, her faint voice promising redemption: “He’s waiting for you.”

Wolf was right--the dead were irresistible.

Here's mine:


Visitations from the dead crowded Dara McBride's mind, vagrant souls who reeked of the mold and corruption of the grave. Crouching on the doorstep of her spirit, they sought a place to lay down their burden of bitter memories.

When little Katie Hanley came back to town, Thaddeus Mason considered leaving. He sat, minding his own business at The Corner HotSpot and drinking his coffee while reading the Morning Edition. Why they insisted on calling the local paper the morning edition was beyond him. It was the only edition, and it came out twice a week, Sunday and Wednesday.

In the Bessie mine, near Birmingham, Alabama, more than a mile beneath the crushed slate and gravel roads of the mine camp, more than a mile beneath the buck hoist catch, more than a mile beneath the greasers and the breakers and the skinny red-haired kids mulling over the rock piles looking for coal, Owen Weathers is crying in perfect darkness.

Here is the first paragraph to my WIP novel entitled "Witness".

Lisa Ambrosio sat straight up in bed. Her heart was beating rapidly and she felt a sickening chill run through her body. She looked over to see the empty side of the bed where Gianni should have been sleeping. Glancing at the bedside clock, she noted it was 2:15. She wasn’t sure what she’d just heard, but whatever it was seriously didn’t belong, especially not in her west Connecticut home. Inching off the bed, she reached for her robe and slipped it on. She opened the door to her bedroom and padded silently down the hall, using only the dim glow from the wall mounted night light to guide her way. Instinct told her to hug close to the wall and stay out of sight.

Can you think yourself to death? I’m a compulsive overthinker, a fact that has lead to an immeasurable number of uncomfortable social situations, but had never threatened my very livelihood before now. Now, it is this thought that keeps me up at night. Heart pounding, mind racing, alternately sweating and shivering. It’s highly uncomfortable, and with the little glimmer of light streaming in through the doorway, nearly impossible to relax and try to drift off to sleep.

Ultimate First Paragraph Challenge submit: From "Greggic."

Greggic was as ugly as his name, as ugly as that of the name of his kindred suggested; The Blogluck. Everyone said so and constantly. Since he could remember, the rancid comments were continual and unrelenting. It wasn’t just because his features were so hideous, although they were, even Greggic thought so, it was that the Blogluck were mortal enemies to the Malonions, a tall, handsome, robust race of adventurous people with whom he lived since the slaughter of his beloved mother. If one could truly call his shadow-constrained existence,living.

Thanks for the opportunity, Nathan!

Sarah Duke lifted her aching body out of the dirt and dipped the tip of her rifle into the valley below. She adjusted the focus on her telescopic lens until an old brick warehouse came into view. Steady hands swept her weapon to the roof and caught a weather-worn Russian guard making his rounds. Her teeth ground in frustration.

The air is gritty and mourning doves are calling and it is noon in Phoenix.
Jack called me last night to tell me he has been going to church, which is really the last thing I ever expected, but then again, he does live in Louisville. It is the South, after all. I said, “I think that’s nice, I don’t think that’s weird,” and he laughed. I asked him what was funny and he said, “That was just an entirely appropriate response.” I suppose it was. He said, “I just can’t seem to ignore any longer that things around me happen purposefully, you know. The better you are to people and the happier you try to be, the better your life is. And I’m glad I can talk to you about it.” I tried to say that I was glad he could start to see the beauty around him, that I thought he used to be so overwhelmed by his own sensitivity to the painful things that he would shut down. Now I see I was talking about me.

.In the store, this morning, an attractive woman in high heels slips in a puddle of vegetable oil. Her legs fly high and wide and her red skirt shoots up like an umbrella caught in a gust of wind. She wears no underpants. She lands prone on the tile floor with a thud and whoosh as the air is driven from her lungs. A small splash from the puddle of oil. The annoying fake shutter sound of a cell phone snapping a picture as a tech-savvy teenager yells, "Awesome! She shaves it!"

First paragraph from my manuscript MindLink

This couldn’t be happening. Ryan sat in disbelief as the brakes of his car locked and the vehicle slid uncontrollably on the wet pavement. Filling his vision through the rain-streaked windshield was a large fuel truck, growing larger with each second as his car slid closer to it.

I thought I would give this a go too - sounds fun but gee there are some good ones. I don't envy you Nathan!
------------------------------

The car skidded around the corner. Ashley held on to the seat as if her life depended on it. Who knows, maybe it would. Anything was possible with James driving. She wondered why she did it to herself. Everyone in school knew James failed his driving test five times before finally getting his licence. So why did she agree to get in the car with him. Especially this car! Her life wouldn't be worth living if anything happened to it. James had talked her into it of course. He was stunning -- she simply couldn't say no to him.

Here is the opening paragraph of my legal thriller work-in-progress titled "No Will":

A private jet was waiting on the tarmac for Brett Ghilotti when he arrived at Kirachi’s Jinnah International, Pakistan’s largest airport. As he climbed onboard he was met by four heavily armed men, members of Maqtada al-Abir’s al-Qaeda militia. They wasted no time in patting him down to make sure he was unarmed, but Ghilotti never held a gun in his life. Never needed to. Manipulation was the only device he needed.

The illumination generated from the second vehicle’s headlamps revealed the presence of a furtive, darkened first. The newest arrival rolled noiselessly into the small clearing and stopped alongside its surreptitious counterpart. With the fading of the latecomer’s lights, an uncommonly dark night was restored to its state of inky opacity. Only then did the bullet-shaped motor-vehicle open to dispatch its passengers…three men, who walked to the front of the rectangular clearing to stand in unison with the two already there. Through the black, none of them could see who it was standing next to him, and none of them could hear anything other than the chirping of crickets, the gentle rustling of leaves and the eerie rasp of their own inharmonic breath. Much to the men’s collective relief, the unmitigated blackness was brief. It lasted only a matter of minutes until they observed a third set of lights materialize from the northwest. Jumping and twinkling, the twin beams made their way through the trees, drilling nearer and nearer the spot where the five stood waiting on the lonely edge of wilderness that was Regency’s Far-Outer.

I have led what most would consider a full life. I have sailed the World Cup. I have been through dark water and survived. I have been to Savajinn and not. I have faced Death many times and even worn his clothes. I have seen history as it happened, and occasionally made it happen myself, but without question, the single most important day of my life was the day I received a package from my mother.

First paragraph of my suspense/thriller:

Each time he pulled the trigger, something died. First a squirrel. Then a blonde. So easy, like a computer mouse, point and click. Squirrels exploded on impact of the .223 caliber missile traveling at 3,200 feet per second. With blondes, it was just the head. Each time he pulled the trigger, he waited in vain for exhilaration, for joy. He wanted to really reach out and touch someone. Isn’t that what the old phone commercial promised? Hold steady. Breathe. Sharp flash and blast. No more squirrel. He sought inspiration, like punching out a wall. Only better. But that’s not how it was. Maybe he should’ve stayed home and watched “Good Morning America.”

He used to think it was funny to tell people his mother named him Wade because she knew he'd be spending a lot of his time in deep shit. He doesn't think it's funny anymore.

RDJ

Okay, I'll play! From Confessions of a Non-Believer, Women's Fiction:

Carl is dead. There’s no god to comfort me, to welcome Carl’s soul to paradise, to pray to for salvation. If ever there were a day I wanted that to be different, today is it. I lie in bed, sure that the last few hours have been a cruel dream. After all, young, successful attorneys aren’t supposed to die of undiagnosed heart defects. They aren’t supposed to die two months before their wedding. Three months after buying a house with their fiancée. If they’re going to die in the middle of the court room, it’s supposed to be sensational: the result of a crazed defendant or a disgruntled victim taking justice into their own hands. Especially Carl, who always had to do the best and be the best, who had to make a name for himself everywhere he went. He’s probably looking down on the whole thing now, pissed that he hadn’t been able to deliver his brilliant closing arguments before fate ripped a hole in his heart and sent him falling to the floor of Judge Aberman’s court room. He probably wouldn’t even have thought of me on the way down—of how he was making a widow of me even before I became a wife—only how he’d never get to make partner now.

In the aftermath of my birth my mother hemorrhaged a tidal wave of blood. Six days later she came home, pale-faced and hobbling, to a small party held in her honor. She smiled fondly at the still-warm cake baked by Aunt Beatrice, kissed my sister Meredith on the head and excused herself from the festivities. A short while later, in bed in her own house, Mom dreamt that Meredith had stuffed me in the rabbit hutch. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and padded down the hall, where she slid open the glass doors leading to the patio.

Thanks, Nathan! MG, working title HOWEVER:

"Neelie, we need to talk." That was my dad, and I knew this was going to suck. I mean, I get home Friday afternoon after another fun-filled week of eighth grade to find not one but both parents waiting for me, all serious and frowny and intense? They were supposed to still be at work, not ushering me to a seat at the kitchen table, and I was supposed to be enjoying my precious home-alone time. But no.

So far, Dr. Mick Gregory’s first night in the Basin Street morgue had led him to consider a change of career. Medical research, maybe. It wasn’t that he’d seen anything spectacularly dinner-losing horrible — he hadn’t seen anything at all. In a city like New Orleans, he’d expected a few more customers. Research would’ve been more exciting than this.

(BTW - you're a great guy, Nathan, but you're insane to leave this open until Thursday. You're going to have more entries than Miss Snark ever did - there's a reason she made those windows small. :-) But I admire you for doing it.)

General Phil Cracken stared out into the murky horizon of the alien rock of a planet, his mind otherwise occupied on thoughts of home. Actually, it was more like thoughts of beautiful big breasted women in small bikini’s, running along a white sandy beach, but hey, one thought about home was as good as the next. Especially when you were stuck on a remote mining basecamp out in the middle of the galaxy.

“How many times have I told you-stay away from the corpses!” Mr. Pasternak stood behind Seth, his arms crossed over his chest.
Seth hadn’t heard his father enter the freezer. He was too busy zipping and unzipping body bags, looking for somebody whose nose was bigger than Morie Sorenson’s. He’d been looking for three years. He wished he would’ve taken a picture of Morie’s nose while he had had the chance. His memory of it was beginning to fade.

I have the perfect mom, at least by her standards.

Eyes that blind eyes like mine. She has already left through. Through the trees. Through - not me. She's who I see. Heal the broken heart. This will not be the start. Pulled apart - my old self running. The love of indescribable beauty, fading with the winter mist. The game turned overtime. The game turned in the sound of laughter. The game had turned.

Amelia believed monsters have been following her all her life. She believed that they lurked in the shadows of her room and sat in the darkest corners and watched her sleep. She thought she could see their eyes looming in her closet, blinking at her in delight, and their ugly grins smiling at her. Her ears thought they heard them creep around the house, laughing in delight. Nightmares consumed her sleep and terrible images flashed in her head while she slept. Images of devilish beings with humped backs that looked as if a rock was trying to break its way through earth. Creatures with skin that looked burnt, baked, and colorless, with white hairs that sprouted from their bodies. Jagged and plentiful teeth stuck out of black, decaying gums that oozed forth puss and blood. Sometimes she heard them call out to her, asking her to come with them, but she never left her bed. She would scream for her parents to come, to make them go away.

Here's the first paragraph from my WIP romance novel titled, 'SAVING CALLIE'.

The warmth of the desert vanished under a shroud of bone-chilling twilight. Jackson Neale, cautious now after four bloody years of war, slipped deeper into the concealing cover of darkness. Anyone he’d befriended on the trek westward from Virginia could be counted on one hand, and he knew with absolute certainty that the person riding into his camp tonight wasn’t one of them. He merged with the shadows and narrowed his gaze. Only a fool would enter another’s camp without hailing first, and this brazen bastard displayed a boldness that amazed him.

cool! here is my first paragraph:

The bathroom was rank. It smelled of Lysol and urine and blood – Lysol, because of the school’s half-hearted attempts to keep the restrooms germ free – urine, because the deodorizing cakes had all but evaporated from lack of replacement – and blood, because the large boy had just slammed the small boy’s face into the grimy lower edge of a urinal.

I've been working on a piece of literary fiction. Here's the first paragraph (short, I know):

The rest having sifted away he walked alone and stared briefly at a waning sun. Lord, let her rest in your peace, amen.

“I’m offering you a chance. Talk to him. Forgive him. Kill him. I don’t care.”
Jerome Abbott did have a flair for the dramatic, I had to give him that much. The instant I saw him, standing on that pier beneath the glow of a yellow light and flanked by a pair of bodyguards, I knew why I’d been called off the oil rig early. Only Abbott had that much pull. The question was why he had done it. I hadn’t seen him in over eight years.
I ignored the manila envelope in his hand, tossed my rucksack onto the pier, and climbed out of the trawler. “What makes you think I’d be interested in doing something like that?”

First paragraph of a true crime memoir...

If a snowstorm hadn’t blanketed the village of Northport, Long Island, on the Saturday before Thanksgiving in 1955, Edwin Cummings, the day-shift cab driver for Jack’s Taxi, would have lived to read his Sunday paper. The night-shift cabbie, who worked full time during the day as a driver for the Town of Huntington, had to work overtime that night, plowing and sanding the streets. This caused 41 year old Edwin, a divorced alcoholic who was involved with at least two women (Emma, who was 24 years his senior, and Lydia, who also happened to be secretly dating Edwin’s married boss) to work a double shift. But I digress.

the first paragraph of my novel:

Jonathan ‘Fuzzy’ Byrd fled his former life several years ago and now realized the hazards of ‘life on the run’ had effectively shattered his ‘Life of Leisure’ dream. Being a wanted man offered few peaceful moments; were they lurking behind the next corner or waiting to kill him when he moved from town to town? Such constant aggravations forced Fuzzy to live on the edge and kept him looking around every corner while staying clear of dark back alleys. But tonight he tucked all those worries away. . .His only interest was in her . . .

Here's the first paragraph from my YA WIP:

Even years later, I can’t tell you why I did it. I can’t give any clear or reasonable explanation. All I can say for sure is that any rational thought I may have possessed left my head the minute Nic Amati sat next to me in Honors Choir. From then on, I was as good as brain dead. Death by tenor.

The trees seemed to be collapsing in on him as he made his way through the path in the woods. The moon blanketed him with light through the trees, which had already begun to shed their leaves for the fall. The wet leaves crumpled under his every footstep. He stopped suddenly and pulled a large hunting knife from his pocket. He stared at it for a moment, the moon giving off enough light for him to see the unmarked silver gleam of the blade.
He should have used it on that girl tonight, he thought. She deserved it. He had shown restraint that he never knew he had. Now he felt empty.

(YA Book Stolen: Armageddon Imminent)

The building was staring at me again.

I looked over my shoulder and saw it lurking behind me, all massive looming stone. It was said that the Library would find those that needed it, but damn it, I didn't! I couldn't even read! I turned my back resolutely and pretended not to see it as it slid around to my side again. Stupid building. "Leave me alone," I muttered at it. "You've no use for Larath, and I've no use for you."

Here is the opening paragraph of a MG sci-fi WiP I have called "Help! My Parent's Are From Outer Space!"

~~


OK, so after looking at the title of this book, you are probably wondering how the heck my parents can be from outer space. I mean, a lot of kids make that claim. How can mine be any different? Simple. . .my parents really are aliens.

May 19, 2008 was the day that I achieved something that I hoped would never apply to me. Something that in my more athletic youth I would have harrumphed and guffawed at that was totally impossible. Are you kidding me? I can imagine myself once again as a freshman in college with the world at my feet (At that time I could actually see my feet with my own eyes without having to use a full-length mirror). Everything was shiny, happy people as R.E.M would say. I was full of it. Full of promise. Full of potential. Full of everything. What did I achieve? As you can tell, certain issues have crept into my life that I am having difficulty in accepting. I hope over the course of this adventure that I can inspire you, make you laugh, and even shed a tear or two as I begin to accept my life as a middle-aged fat woman.

Just so we're clear, this is YA, not romance, and in about five minutes there'll be a query in your inbox. You are a very sick man, Nathan.

I stare into the campfire, tongues of flame licking the sparks out of the black of the night and sending dark gray ribbons of smoke twining through the boughs of the evergreens encircling the clearing. Right now I’m ultra-aware of everything. Every sensation is intensified by my fear—and exhilaration. In addition to the crackle of the fire, I can hear every snort, nicker and impatient stomp of Starling as she stands tied at the edge of the clearing, every infinitesimal rustling of the squirrels as they leap from branch to branch in the trees above, and the distant howl of a coyote, miles off. And the stars that I had to strain to see when we first arrived, even before Dusty lit the fire, are now shining like yellow and blue spotlights through the opening in the trees forever above our heads. The chill dampness of the night air makes it feel heavy on my tingling skin, and all the hair on my body is standing on end, catching every subtle shift in the almost nonexistent breeze. The smell of brine from the distant crash of the waves on the cliffs to our west was masked before by the overwhelming scent of the forest around us. Not any more. And despite the smell of the salt, the pine and damp rot of the forest, and the smoke from the fire, I can smell him—and it’s making me crazy.

The suit was Armani, the shoes Alexander McQueen. Jerry Garcia’s name was on the tie, and Ralph Lauren’s on the shirt. The rifle was a Remington Model 700 CDL, firing a 140 gram, 260 caliber Accu-Tip Boat Tail bullet, aimed by a Zeiss 2.5-10x50 Victory Diavari 30mm Rifle Scope. The target was a judge. The finger on the trigger was Robert’s. For twenty-two years, Robert had been married to Stasi, devoted to Stasi. For nineteen of those years, Stasi had been alive, and just as devoted to Robert. The three that she wasn’t, he blamed on that judge.

“He’s not creepy. He’s just lonely.” Thea’s voice reverberated off the tight brick walls of the darkened street. Her arm looped through her sister’s. She was unaware of the two angels that followed in their wake.

Sneer scowled as the debate raged among the rats behind him. Their concerns had made little sense before and even less to him now. He had heard the same cowardly advice from the elder rats when he had been young and naive:‘Give the farm on Eason’s Hill a wide berth!’ They had said. ‘The cats living there are strange and unnatural creatures. Even an army of rats can’t defeat them, and their leader --the Witch Cat-- has nary a drop of compassion for trespassers.’

Zach shuffled along the pitch-black hallway unable to see a thing. Floorboards creaked under his feet as he tried to feel his way forward, keeping one hand on the wall. He knew his friend Brent was still there because he could hear footsteps in front of him. “Dude,” Zach said, “How are we supposed to catch ghosts if we can’t see anything?”

Isis groaned as she walked into her history class, and noted that the history project was starting today. She hated group work. She always ended up doing most of the work, and seemed to fumble around all of the other students. None of her friends took the advance placement classes, and so she felt distinctly uncomfortable among this crowd. This class was especially bad, because it consisted of the popular jocks who thought themselves the kings of the world. She was glad that life didn’t end in high school.

"- you can't help me," Delilah whispered. She stroked the gash on her shoulder. "No one can. I went to Rosewood High, and that's where all this started - where he marked me." Lifting her head, she glared at the guidance counselor. "You can't stop him. He's not human."
Mrs. Huckabee's face transformed. She stared at Delilah like a lost child. "Delilah . . . the town of Rosewood doesn't exist."

*This is a YA Urban Fantasy entitled, A FAIRYTALE MASQUERADE.
*Yes, it does have Vampires, but that's not what gives Delilah the mark. *wink*wink*

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, Fairy Godmothers were chubby elderly women that wore pastel dresses while flying around granting wishes left and right with their magic wand. Well, I'm not chubby, I'm certainly not elderly, and I hate pastels with a passion. Call me chubby and I'll whack you upside the head with my magic wand. Flying? I wish. And the entire concept of wish granting is not as straightforward as it seems. I'm also more apt to whack someone on the head with my magic wand (see chubby, above). So yeah, I'm a Fairy Godmother. At the ripe old age of fifteen (almost sixteen). Now where did I leave my wand?

"Rules may be adjusted without notice, as I see fit, in ways in which you might find capricious, arbitrary, and possibly dangerous to the Baby Jesus."

Too, too funny Nathan! I'm not even going to TRY to come up with something that surpasses that as an attention-getter!

Wow. Thanks Nathan! Here is the first paragraph from my YA WIP. Good luck all!


I hate my pinky toes, I think, sitting on my bed and studying my feet. They are really disturbing, and I am not entirely sure what happened to them. Somewhere along the way, I must have had a really bad pair of shoes that forced them to be molded into their squashed shape. Maybe it was those pink pastel jellies I wore for a year straight when I was ten. Or maybe it was genetics. Maybe I come from a long line of stubby toed ancestors. Generations of women who were mortified to walk barefoot on the beach and knitted socks in bulk.

Kayla

How much would it take to make Ellie Tetzel swoon? The kind of swoon that made her head feather light and her knees doughy soft. The kind that sent simultaneous tracks of heat careening down from the head and shooting up from the toes toward the center of her chest to melt away her heart. Would it take a white puffy shirt and pair of bell bottoms? A puffy shirt, a swath of dark chest hair, and pair of tight bell bottoms? Or would Ellie have to see the total effect—the dark crown of curly hair, the ruffled shirt, the tight pants, the platform shoes, and the swinging pelvis—before she felt fashionably faint?
(the first paragraph of a murder mystery, WHO KILLED TOM JONES?)

‘How do you know Rufus Stone? I mean, how did you know him?’
‘Rufus Stone…’ I was crossed legged and sunken in the dip of the spongy two-seater sofa. I knew it wasn’t fire resistant in the back of my mind, and it was there the thought smouldered irrationally that one day an almighty blaze would seize this shack I was renting – and all because of a seventies clandestine sofa that was surely tempting fate. I drank the dregs of my cold tea and put my mug down on the coffee table. ‘No, can’t say I’ve ever heard of him.’

First paragraph of L.A. Vice.

Thirteen corpses, and from the stench, they’d been dead at least a day in the lazy heat of an L.A summer. Detective David Eric Laine stood over the nearest body and studied it with a critical eye. Across from him, his partner off and on for twelve years, Martinez Diego, wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Puta madre,” he muttered. “Pues, que chingados?”

Thanx Nathan! :)

“Come and do me.”

Tessa stared out the window, breath fogging her view, as the man across the street bent down to lift a heavy box. Heat pooled between her thighs as she watched his faded jeans cup an ass to die for. She curled her fingers into her palms, nails leaving half-moon marks while she watched his muscles ripple as he straightened. As if feeling her stare, he stiffened and glanced over his shoulder, looking directly at her, while he waited for his deliveryman to carry the rest of the boxes inside the store.

“At it again, boss?” The wry voice from her assistant whispered in her ear.

After mopping up the coffee I spewed while reading your post, I decided to pick up the gauntlet you dropped. Here's the first paragraph from my WIP...

Grace Sterling was a firm believer that life put you exactly where you need to be. So, the irony of it wasn’t lost on her when she found herself standing in New Orleans’ most famous graveyard as the sun was going down.

This is from a sci-fi story which takes place in another galaxy:

Such a long time we have been waiting. Must sleep to survive the nothingness. But something woke me. . . was that heat that I felt? Very weak heat. My sensors indicate it is not yet time, but there is preparation that must be done.
***
Great contest. Just a taste of so many stories - they should make for interesting reading.

Setting: Morocco, mid-1990s:

He found a room just off the square, a bare cell with two beds and a sink in it and two windows overlooking the street. The man who'd led him silently up the stairs and unlocked the door didn't stay long enough for Victor to thank him, but turned and disappeared without a word, leaving the key in the lock. Victor pulled it out and shut and bolted the door. He set his backpack and tripod on one of the beds. There were no screens on the windows but he was on the third floor and it was a sheer drop to the street below. He thought that was safe enough. He stood looking out. Almost dark. An opulent blue consuming the desert sky and a scattering of stars winking in the dwindling light above the desert town.

The first paragraph of my novel, "The Sacred Heart":

"Father Max Hoy walked toward the cathedral and squinted up at her sun-sharpened roof one last time before disappearing into the blackness of her massive shadow.
“Still one real holy mother, aren’t you?” he said out loud.
The priest didn’t know that soon a woman this church would shelter, and claim, would mean everything in the world to him; and that once imagined—-once seen-—her absence on earth would portend the death of God’s hope. And he would not be the only one scissored in two by love."

Phyllis Hollenbeck
[email protected]

The first paragraph of my contemporary romance:

"Hey, Sexy! Want to get naked with me?"

From my MG WIP:

Murph parted the branches and peered through the Brazilian pepper trees. Soccer fans had gathered in droves to watch the on-going game. Not Murph. His eyes remained glued to the dimming Florida sky.The radio-controlled airplane passed high over the crowd and for the first time Murph had full reign of the controls. It wasn’t exactly piloting from inside a real cockpit, but still an excited rush needed quelling to concentrate on the task at hand. The plane was now directly above the playing field, high enough that in the heat of the game no one noticed. Okay – extend the flaps. Careful not to stall. He shot a look back over his shoulder at Grandpa.
~Bombs away!~ Grandpa signed.

Here's mine.

The soldier’s eyes were green.
Red Cross nurse Maria Hunt’s breathing stalled in her chest as she stood in the doorway of the broom closet/bandage pantry and stared into those wide pale eyes and at the blood spattered across his face and uniform.

The first paragraph of my WIP. Working title: Swimming the Witch

My first marriage was a lot like Woodstock. The music was too loud and there was no adult supervision. We never ran out of marijuana. We frequently ran out of food. There were more people involved than I'd planned on, especially in my husbands bed, and in my memories of those years it's always raining and I'm ankle deep in what I'd like to believe is mud.

My two and a half year old daughter didn’t understand that her mommy was dead as she woke me on a clear September morning. She also didn’t understand that Daddy preferred to stay hidden under the covers for the next few days. Or weeks. Months, really.

Thanks for doing this, Nathan!

From my YA, STOLEN:

He never left me for long. The time between the crunch of retreating wheels on gravel and their return would be no more than an hour—less, probably, but definitely no more than that. Tops. It wouldn’t be long enough, but I didn’t care. Hadn’t cared since the first spark of hope had taken root in my mind. It wasn’t much, just the smallest glimmer of light in the darkness, but I’d clung to it like a talisman, ticking off the minutes until at last the familiar engine started and I knew—for however short my time—I was alone.

As she woke me on a clear September morning, my two and a half year old daughter didn’t understand that her mommy was dead. She also didn’t understand that Daddy preferred to stay hidden under the covers for the next few days. Or weeks. Months, really.

Why does it take so much effort to not be invisible? I stood there in line at the coffee shop. I felt my heart beating in my chest, heard my breath flowing in and out of my lungs. And yet, a tank of a lady in a purple striped dress parked herself in front of me like I wasn’t there. Didn’t even ask if I was in line. Tank Lady just didn’t see me. She wasn’t the only one either.

It's the dame. It's always the dame. Don't matter if it's your Sainted Mother, your Maiden Aunt, the Girl Next Door, or some Floozy down at Sid's.

Mom usually doesn’t hide things from me. Except good things, like if I might get a bike for my birthday. Grandma hides things from me. Like where Dad is. She said my dad is at college. But Luis’s dad is at college, and he comes home every night. Dad must be a spy. Mom really doesn’t know where he is. It’s Top Secret. I’m going to be a spy, too. Darrell Jones – superspy. I wish my dad would teach me some spy stuff. We could make a great team.

Here is mine for my should not still be a work in progress but is:

"Hey, Red, top me up, would you?" The loud voice, accompanied by the obnoxious sound of an empty glass mug banging against the wooden tables, could easily be heard above the low buzz filling the rest of the restaurant. As he spoke, the man grinned and winked broadly in her direction, making a beckoning motion with his pudgy index finger. His companions snickered and took up the rhthym, roughly slamming their own mugs down. "Reeed. Hey. Red! I know you can hear us. How about some more beer?"

First paragraph of my YA dystopian/steampunk elements:

A naked girl stood beside Archer's bed, tall and still as a statue. Slivers of pale moonlight shined through the window blinds and caressed her curves, making her dark skin glow. Thick black hair hung in waves over her shoulders. Moving his gaze up her body, Archer locked onto her eyes. As dark as the rest of her, they trapped him in their hunger, their thirst and wild curiosity.

“Iilim, come quick!” came Shaharta’s screechy voice, cutting through the lazy afternoon heat to torment his ears with its shrillness. Oh, how he loathed that woman, with her sweaty flopping flesh and the putrid stench of her nether regions. Sighing from between clenched teeth, he set down his cup and turned to face her, a forced smile barely concealing his contempt. Shaharta jumbled toward him, skirts flapping and heavy milk bags bouncing obscenely as her ungainly legs propelled her across the village center.

He sipped the last of a shitty cup of coffee and stared across the street at Nino Tortella, the guy he was going to kill. Killing was an art, requiring finesse, planning, skill, and above all—patience. Patience had been the most difficult for him to learn. The killing seemed to come naturally, and he cursed himself for that. Prayed to God every night for the strength to stop. But so far God hadn’t answered him, and there were still a few more people that needed killing, starting with Nino Tortella.

From my WIP fantasy YA novel, called Touched:

The chair is old but well padded. It's brown vinyl is smooth from years of wear and use by others. It squeaks as she shifts her position, drawing her legs up and under her body. She's not uncomfortable, but she's not comfortable either. It's sunny outside. Cassie can tell that it's cold even though she's not outside to feel it. This is the magic of autumn. When leaves turn colors and the temperature stays cold even when the sun shines. The wind taps on the window, calling for her to come out and soak up the magic. Cassie shifts her weight in the chair, feeling left out.

First paragraph of HOW TO BECOME A BATTERED WOMAN: A MEMOIR
My new boyfriend always knows when I am lying. He reads past my words to thoughts I haven't dared say. He cups a warm palm over my cheek and asks what's wrong. “Nothing,” I say, “I, I'm fine, really.” I take garlic and peperoncini down from the cabinet, set them on a wooden board, pull out a large knife, and begin chopping. He comes around behind me, encircles my waist, and lowers his head until his breath warms my ear.

The first paragraph of my contemporary YA fantasy:

Bands of California sunlight exploded through the blinds. Elle stalked over with a frown and closed them. She didn’t want reminders of a sunlit world when her own was so uncertain.

The faint buzzing told her she’d forgotten to turn off the alarm in her bedroom. She would have given anything to stay in bed today, warm and comfortable. After turning off the alarm, she sat on the edge of the bed, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. The image of Chad, winking and giving her a thumbs up, filled the darkness. Chad wouldn’t be doing that anymore. She swallowed hard to get rid of the lump in her throat.

This is the first paragraph of my novel entitled Repeating History.

I escaped before light the morning after Granddad’s funeral. I didn’t want to think about what Dad would say when he found the note, but it didn’t make any difference. Granddad had wanted his and Grandmother’s ashes scattered at Yellowstone, and he’d wanted me to do it.

He said the holes in the ground were big enough to drive a truck into, and every last bone was gone.

Victor leapt from the castle tower’s broad stone window ledge into the night; far below, battlements, silver in the radiant gaze of a giant full moon; eastward, jagged teeth of a vast mountain range silhouetted by pre-dawn’s arrival. Astonished, Victor realized he must be dreaming; no longer in his human form, but rather a golden eagle, wings beating powerfully, rhythmically, rising silently towards the violet sky, circling the ancient fortress, its adjacent crude buildings, and stone chapel below. Cool breezes wafting, swirling around the parapets, brought with them odors of damp earth, livestock, dew drenched fields of fresh cut hay. Only the resonance of air and fluttering feather, everything else unusually silent, no voices, no birdcalls, no cars, none of the sounds Victor was accustomed to.

“My life is over,” my co-worker Tasha said while slowly banging her head against the cash register. Several guitar picks in the display beside it dropped onto the glass counter. “I can’t believe she did this to me.”

She was going to die soon. Bethany knew it as clearly as she knew the pitifully few rounds her squad had left, the sips of water remaining in her canteen, and the number of dead militia swelling with decomposition outside the makeshift barricades.

One man might preserve his dead child’s room. Another might give his dead child’s belongings to charity. Still another might set up a scholarship. But Francis Sayre was none of these men. He refused to honor his daughter’s memory. To remember Belinda was to do more than lament the lovely, lonely twelve-year-old who rose before dawn to feed the horses. It was to resurrect the picture of a car cradled by flames. And it was to relive a parting that should have comforted him with a lie: to love too well is not to love at all.

Here's mine from a YA novel, my first time playing--fun!

Grammy had a dream that she walked out on the front porch to find Pappy sitting in his rocking chair, smoking a pipe. She asked him why he was smoking a pipe, cause that’s what ended up doing him in, in the first place. But in heaven, apparently, you can smoke all you want and it doesn’t matter because you’re already dead. Plus there is no such thing as second-hand smoke, and people who don’t like the smell don’t smell anything, anyway. Then Pappy pointed out to the woods in front of the house and said that it was coming soon. Grammy was scared for a second, but then he said it wasn’t hers to deal with this time--it was mine. So she just sat down and had a mint julep with him (you can drink, too, in heaven, and you only get drunk if you want to).

Victor leapt from the castle tower’s broad stone window ledge into the night; far below, battlements, silver in the radiant gaze of a giant full moon; eastward, jagged teeth of a vast mountain range silhouetted by pre-dawn’s arrival. Astonished, Victor realized he must be dreaming; no longer in his human form, but rather a golden eagle, wings beating powerfully, rhythmically, rising silently towards the violet sky, circling the ancient fortress, its adjacent crude buildings, and stone chapel below. Cool breezes wafting, swirling around the parapets, brought with them odors of damp earth, livestock, dew drenched fields of fresh cut hay. Only the resonance of air and fluttering feather, everything else unusually silent, no voices, no birdcalls, no cars, none of the sounds Victor was accustomed to.

She should’ve known by the way he liked to hang out in cemeteries that he would one day commit suicide. But that would be in the future. Today was happy and it was such fun to run among the graves and it was so pretty with the sun shining down. Nothing like a cemetery to remind you how lucky you are to be alive.

The first paragraph from my novel, The Seven Stages of Grief.

Marlin Henderson stood at his front window watching the rain sheet up the sidewalk in furious spurts. It came down so hard he could barely see the lights from the apartment building across the street. The curb gutters on Hampshire churned, miniature torrents capable of carrying off a small dog. He looked at his watch again. Bob was ten minutes late.

Thanks. ~jon

HELL TEMPTED ME about every third weekend. So did the bottle. So did a big breasted neighbor named Magdalene. That much, I admit to. When it all came crashing down on me was the night my parrot said some things, and I listened, for the first time ever. He said, "You suck". He said, "Help me". He said, "mmmmm" like he had had a belly full.

Short Story-- "Eye for Eyegore"

“What do you mean the chest is missing?” Rafael Deleon, Guardian and Protector of Limbo paced the expansive room, leaving no portion of marble untouched. The minute he stepped into the High Council Chambers and saw a solitary Dominic Duvane, he knew the news wasn’t good.

Jeffery Blazek was dying. He lay on the kitchen floor of his cozy, three-bedroom house that backed up to the Boy Scouts forest preserve in Framingham, Massachusetts, unable to move or call for help. His muscle control was gone, and the room smelled of urine and feces. Saliva drooled slowly down his cheek and pooled under his face. His mouth snapped open and shut like a fish out of water, and his breath came in strained gasps accompanied by whistling rales. His body shook with constant tremors, and his left hand beat gently against the floor. He was dying.

“Can I have my knife back?” I’m sitting across from Principal Feinstadt in her office. My knife is on the desk between us, partially hidden from my view by an I heart my cat mug stuffed with pens. That knife cost me thirty bucks, so she better give it back.

The boy on the skateboard appeared out of no where. Slamming on the brakes, Kathryn braced herself for the sickening thud when metal meets flesh and bone. The boy’s smiley face t-shirt mocked her, while his dark, lifeless eyes locked onto hers. Kathryn closed her eyes, clutching the steering wheel as her car screeched to a halt. Nothing. No thud, no screams of pain, no thumping of the tires as she ran over the teen-agers body; only the sound of her heart thumping in her chest, and the pain from her white knuckles.

First Paragraph of Mrs. Atwater
Priscilla Baumgardener watched him from where she stood. She was careful not to let their eyes meet. At the first opportunity she gathered the three little ones together and walked with them to the outhouse. On the way back she helped them wash their hands, before they went to bed. She tried to pretend she was invisible, keeping her voice low she hurried the girls upstairs and changed them into their nightgowns. They wanted to play but she insisted it was time to say prayers. Each one prayed the prayer she taught them a year ago, “Now I lay me down to sleep. . . .” When they finished Priscilla said, “It’s all right to ask God for something you need.” A large tear rolled down her cheek as they prayed.

Nathan's the most rocking-est agent ever! And now that the brown-nosing portion of the program is over... :P (No, I mean it Nathan, thanks for the contests! :) )

The first paragraph/s to my WIP YA paranormal romance novel:

****

There was nothing but the freezing dervish of the ocean all around her. Where was the surface, and how far away was she from it? All four of her limbs flailed against the tide, pitting every last ounce of her willpower against the screaming pain in her muscles. Still, nothing. The overpowering darkness just kept hauling her deeper below. She could feel the increasing pressure pound mercilessly against her body, an invisible force hell-bent on wrestling her to surrender. As her lungs neared explosion from lack of air, her consciousness flickered with final thoughts:

No one's coming. I'm alone.

My actual WIP titled “The Last Concubine – a true story”

~ . ~ . ~


Beijing 1943
Popo walked into the eastern wing of the siheyuan located on Canzheng Hutong where her husband Yeye was lounging on the opium bed and sharing a smoke with his teenaged concubine, Nainai.
“Wife of the Young Master is here,” announced the maid Lima, who had come into the room to refill their long pipes.
“Uh huh,” Yeye nodded imperceptibly. He was focused on his smoke.
“Please take a seat,” Lima offered rigidly and turned to fetch a chair.
“Don’t bother,” said Nainai, who kicked her footrest toward Popo. “Here. Sit,” she proffered before turning her attention back to Yeye.
Popo hesitated for a moment, waiting to hear the half-anticipated objection from her husband. Yeye often called her fengzi, lunatic, the one term that annoyed her most. Diffidently, she sat on that little stool at the foot of the bed and looked on as the pair puffed and frittered the afternoon away.

YA CONTEMPORARY GOTHIC

It wasn’t the first time a good idea had come back to bite me in the ass, but I was afraid it might be the last.

I hate discovering dead bodies. Very early on a Wednesday morning in June, I shook my head and slammed on the brakes. Stepping out of the Department of Public Works golf cart and onto the smooth Cocoa Beach sand, I wiggled my fingers into a pair of exam gloves. A shiver of fear convulsed up my spine as a fishy dead-human stench wafted through the dawn. I tiptoed over to a bloated young black man face up in a dress-blue United States Navy uniform.

Florence Dodson was murdered the same night that Claire Guthrie shot her husband. For me, the story began with Claire, and I put Mrs. Dodson on the back burner in my mind. That turned out to be a mistake. I answered the doorbell about 8:30 that July night only to find Claire standing there holding a gun. Luckily, she didn’t have it pointed at me. No, Claire held the gun limply at her side. I really only saw it because the light from our front porch lights glinted off it.

From "Honey I'm Home":


It’s 4:30 pm. He’ll be home at 5:00. I look away from the bedside alarm clock and turn my attention to the heavy cold steel in my lap. I pick up the gun, turning it in my hand, my eyes scrutinizing every detail of the Smith & Wesson 44 Magnum. I remember the day I bought it, the way the ogre of a man behind the counter had tried to persuade me to buy something smaller, something lighter. Something less powerful. I recall the strange, comical look he gave me when I told him, in no uncertain terms, what I wanted.

Here is first paragraph from my true-crime story:

The place was deserted except for night manager Sharon McKernon. Not many people buy gas or groceries in the middle of the night. Around 2:45 a.m. on a July Saturday morning, a young lady in black pants and a striped shirt walked into the all-night convenience store. She lingered near the candy counter for a few minutes and picked up a nickel bubble gum. Sharon knew the girl as Vicki Thomas. Vicki gave Sharon a dime, took the nickel change, and, without a word, left the store walking south on Barksdale Boulevard, which is also US Highway 71. As Vicki disappeared into the sultry summer night, Sharon thought to herself, 'it sure is late for such a pretty girl to be walking alone around here.'

Maybe we're not supposed to act like they do--men that is. Maybe we do lack the same deeply-recessed, primitive gene that makes them wanderers and drifters. Or maybe it's like my friend Kelly says, that only one person in the relationship can be a wanderer--in body or spirit. Maybe she's completely right when she says I have the wandering gene--if only in spirit. And maybe she nailed it when she said that one way or another this is how it was all going to end.

In retrospect, it should have been obvious that a dragon was a poor choice of pet for a three-year-old. It had seemed like a splendid idea at the time, one of those impulse purchases you regret afterward, like the florid pink dress shirt Eric bought because his wife liked it, wore once, and then hid away forever after enduring an endless day of office jokes.

I predict I won't be a finalist, but I'll play.

From a WIP, a MG novel, Ballet Dreams:

Nervous, Melissa paused outside the dance room. Dressed in only tights and a black leotard, she shivered in the cool air. Her anxiety about starting at a new dance studio fought with her joy returning to dancing after a month's break.

Silence spread in a widening pool around the lyanthry woman as she and her companions entered the Rising Moons Inn. Although settled between the two nations of Ehlarayn and Serayn, and one of the few places their people could be expected to make an appearance, even here in Windhome they were as common as rose blossoms in the middle of the snow season. But only the lyanthry had the woman's delicate, almost frail figure, tapered ears, and the metallic sheen that dusted her hair and skin and that was embedded in her nails.

Ellie never expected to make headline news in her lingerie. Luckily the photographs were grainy, and the garments exquisite and classic, of a quality rarely seen so far from the capitals of couture. The day had started with tea, fruit, and promise.

I'm new here, but I figured I'd give this a shot. The paragraph is from my crime novel.

Shit.

I dropped to the ground with absolutely no grace or coordination, and half-rolled, half-shimmied under the SUV beside me. I could smell grease from the McDonald’s bag by my head, and something cold and wet seeped through my pants. Ignoring my revulsion, I scrunched my body up as small as I could, and covered my head with my arms. Glass broke somewhere up the street, interrupting the gunfire peppering the neighborhood. A car skidded to a stop, tires screaming over the pavement. Then suddenly, everything just went quiet.

Hi Nathan! This is the first paragraph of my novel, Bad Karma-Bk 3 in the S. Padre Island series.
Thanks for reading...Leigh

He expelled the breath he’d been holding as he watched her cross the street. Careful now sweetheart. Don’t want anyone to run over you. His heart rate increased. Flexing his fingers around the steering wheel, he chuckled, a single dry huff of air exploding in the stillness of the car. So, I’m not dead after all. He’d been moving through a coma-like fog since the night Skyler Danforth had destroyed the only ones he’d ever loved. Without them, his life would always be viewed in black and white.

[Well, okay. Here is my first paragraph. Thanks, Nathan!]

The girl was dying — that was clear. Pike stood in the corner of the shelter watching the priestess work over her. She chanted in low tones, moving rhythmically from side to side, her eyes on the girl and elsewhere, seeing things Pike did not. His role was to stop this, to let the girl die as she should, but he stood motionless. The priestess continued to work her miracle.

I sometime think that had I known what lay ahead, I would not have agreed to write the story of General Philip Coursen. But, then, when I'm being honest with myself, I admit I probably would have done so in spite of everything. Somewhere deep inside of most of us lies an untamed savagery, a taste for the cruel and the violent. "Sex and violence," my writing professor used to say, is the secret of a successful commercial novel. And, through the lifeless eyes of General Coursen, I was destined to see plenty of both

WIP: Jamie

It isn’t often you go for a tramp in the woods and find you’ve shot off his head.

"All may enter, although I wonder if agented and/or published authors should defer to the unpublished, who would gain more from the attention/prizes. I will leave it up to the agented/published though."

;< ok, I defer. Wishing the rest of you the best of luck.

First paragraph 'The Movable Garden'

"The rain drifted over the archway of the train station and the soft breeze took the autumn leaves from the high oaks and maples and turned the station walkway orange and gold. The leaves were everywhere this time of year and the gutters that drained the track between the platforms were clogged with heavy foliage and a clear foot of rainwater which rippled from the rain and reflected the grey sky above."

Silas Poisson was the most dangerous man in Muldable City. His wardrobe being all in hues of magenta was not generally seen as funny. It trivialized the (reputed) blood on his hands into a lolly-colored joke. Why couldn't he wear red, like any other self-respecting villain?

"The Carnie's Conspiracy" is a MG or lower YA novel, in case that wasn't clear. *g*

~ Bethany Powell

The last chord rang out in triumphant climax as her guitar reverberated against her hip. Through the blue brume of the stage lights she watched the lead, Judah, throw his hands in the air in celebration. C.G. would never tire of her good old, electric guitar.

She closed her eyes in the darkness and muttered a prayer from under the warm blanket.
"Please god, let it be 'my day' tomorrow"...
She thought of the past whole year that she was preparing and gearing up for the big exam tomorrow. It was hard to believe that the day was already here. In a few hours, she would be at the exam centre, with the real CAT paper in her hands, staring right back at her. Challenging her. FINALLY, after mind numbing monotony of cramming and the endless mock tests, she would be facing the real thing tomorrow. She held on to that thought and felt its weight for a minute. A tiny shiver ran through her being, and filling her lungs, she let out a loud breath.
Cold all of a sudden, she shook her head and tried to stay calm.
"I cant afford to scare myself now" she thought and checked the time on her wrist watch. The digits glowed : 12:42 am. A few more mins now and she would be up for 2 straight hours, tossing and turning with the haunting thoughts.
"Shit I need to sleep!!!" She said to herself almost half loud. Yanking her blanket with a jerk as she pulled it even more above her head, she quietly drifted off into a deep sleep.


Indi AT :http://indrayani-lifeetc.blogspot.com

THE LICORICE CURSE (MG)

Donnie liked to die.

Golden Thief (a fantasy novel in second draft stage)

Zahn put his eye to the keyhole. He breathed in sharply, gathering the magic he needed. The pupil of his eye expanded until the cold blue of his iris became black. He peered into the lock and it grew in his vision like an expanding universe. He could see the gears and the tumblers of its mechanism and knew exactly what the key would look like. He blinked once and swirling colors became visible in the keyhole. He blinked again and the colors became ribbons of power he could follow with magic’s eye. Alexander Zahn, the world’s greatest thief, was about to strike again.

She could feel the ground sink beneath her knees as she knelt down on the cold plastic tarp in front of her parent’s gravestone. Her mother’s dress clung to her body and the rain matted her black hair to the sides of her face while her tears became one with the tears of God. Never before had death been a presence in Emmy’s life, but during the last three days, it had been her closest companion. This new visitor into her new existence brought along his close friends, loneliness and questions.

Nine years had passed since the Dead ended civilization. Yet for Darrell Williams, the world had ended just the day before. He stood half in the shade of his porch, half in the glaring sun, staring at the afternoon wind skimming through the yellow weeds of his yard. For so many years he had complained to Mary that the three-acre property was too small, too confining -- how eagerly he had awaited the rainy days, when it was safe to journey beyond the iron fence. He had never imagined the old house could seem so monumentally empty as it now did.

Title: Notorious (Heiress A-Team)
Romance/Action-Adventure

The best thing about being an heiress – the low expectations.
Dad still ran the company, and the stockholders would freak if she even started to show an interest. And forget the concept of drawing “more” media attention – she’d maxed out.
She could do anything she wanted: crash the party, dis the party, smile for the camera, flip-off the camera. Pretend to be a singer, a model, a charity worker. Wear the hottest new shoes, or the ugliest, most expensive dress she could find… it was literally impossible to disappoint anyone.
It was even harder to impress anyone. Or surprise anyone.
It’s like… she was so visible, she was invisible. Just a buzz of noise that people forgot to listen to. Which could be useful in so many ways…

I saw the unagented part, but missed the unpublished bit. I guess I should withdraw since I am published, with more books coming out next year.

The clock struck midnight. Something in the air seemed to change, something sudden, mysterious, and--worst of all--filled with bad intent. Wind-driven clouds gained momentum, swirling into the path of a restless moon. What once was settled began to stir. Where there had been order, there was unrest, and from the gathering darkness, new life emerged. This was, however, not the kind of birth one celebrates. This was the sort born of pure evil.

ooh, fun!

From His Faithful Squire:

Waiting rooms were the antithesis of everything Taro. I knew it, accepted it, and tried not to let him drive me mad.

Antithesis. Ooh, big word, Rafe Ballard.

I’ve seen so many books out there; Immortals making a living from selling their stories, perpetuating the myth that my kind are no more than fantasy. It’s the perfect deception, and one my kind has profited from for many centuries. Even now as you read this you are thinking my words are no more than a gimmick to get you into the story. In my younger days, I too- used to love devouring pages of what I thought was fiction.

Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Thanks for reading, Nathan.

Taye’s every instinct clamored to take charge, but the situation was beyond both his experience and his control. This was no usual nest leaving. Snow was too young, too unprepared—too frantic. Whatever the young gryphon sought so feverishly gripped him beyond reason.

Even at dusk the light was agonizing. How he hated the sun, and the way it reflected off everything around him, the leaves on the beech trees, the limestone rocks, and especially the mist from the waterfall. It was almost unbearable … and it did nothing to improve his temper.

How could her friend bring her to such a barbaric event? Agony radiated off the dark-haired fighter as his blonde opponent twisted his arm into an awkward angle. He struggled to free himself, but only succeeded in cranking the twist tighter. Unable to watch anymore, Caitlyn Moore slapped her hand over her eyes.

Wow, there are some great entries here! Thanks, Nathan, for hosting yet another fantastic contest.

Here's mine:

I don’t come back to the old neighborhood very often, even though it’s just a short drive on the Eisenhower. There’s no one left who remembers me – who remembers us. I see the familiar street monikers from the expressway on my way downtown. I hear them in my head, in my old voice, the one I learned to hide long ago. It sneaks in, though, that guttural slang and dropping of consonants – when I’m angry or tired or thinking of home. And it unnerves people in my life today, to hear who I really am. They shake their heads as if they’ve imagined it and I revert to the polished grammar they’ve come to expect, and I hate them a little for the judgment but sometimes I hate myself more.

I've come to believe people are like houses and lives are like the roads leading to them. Houses are solid – or not – and are built on foundations that either withstand the onslaughts of time, weather, and their inhabitants... or not. Houses have integrity, or they crumble. They stand firm and unwavering in the face of fire and siege and battle, or they destruct under those forces. Quite differently, roads are ever coming and ever going, directing the wanderer's steps and – sometimes – leading him astray. Roads are smooth and effortless in the traveling they inspire, or they are twisted and shadowed, replete with rough patches and pocked with sinkholes left by weather and man. They are the beckoning journeys we must all make before the structure of the house we shall become is made manifest for all to witness.

My people claim hope and faith as legacies and we draw both around ourselves, mantles of protection against the idea that nothing will ever change again. We have been betrayed, exiled, wrung dry; our wings broken, our feathers plucked, our Legends stolen. Our fires, however, still glow, and we hold to hope that the dry and dusty winds that parch our throats will fan an ember to full flame and blow our Legends back to us, just as it blows errant ghosts back to ruined Xarlilei.

Boys go into the Registration, and they come out men. That’s what all the sporting coaches, philosophy instructors and proud fathers were saying about Atlantis’ quadrennial festival for boys of royal birth, but fifteen-year old Aerander was not so sure. It was just ten days of athletic competitions, temple services, and parties where the parents could brag about their sons. Despite all the talk about great, profound things happening, all anyone really cared about was who would win the contests; and the boys who ended up with gold medallions around their necks wouldn’t be any more grown up than before they had entered the Registration (though perhaps a whole lot more fat-headed).

The fumes he exuded made my eyes water. His looks were passably handsome, though. Beneath the stench, I suspected I would find a new friend and, if I played my hand right, maybe even a partner.

I was born long after there was a fighting chance. A baby boy named Caleb was born. Not that I am Caleb though. The babe’s father was unprepared for how overwhelming the birth of his child would be and cried soft and shining tears of joy. And suddenly there I was. There I began.

Thanks Nathan!

From my YA mystery

Title: The Campus Crime Club

I don’t remember who decided we should all get together. Probably one of the graduating seniors with a wicked sense of humor. Our first meeting was in the school basement, and there were four of us plus our newspaper reading, checking her watch while yawning advisor. The students were Moffat, Cruz, Boatman and me, Ms. Grimm. Yeah I know. Perfect name for someone interested in solving gruesome crimes. But mine wasn’t the only cringe worthy moniker. As my crime club members introduced themselves it soon became clear, especially with names like Chief Moffat, Machete Cruz, Navy Boatman and me, Beauty Grimm. Chief was the first one who said what we were all thinking. “All our parents musta been smoking the same weed”

Late on a September afternoon, Meredith lingered at her usual corner table, certain that she was making a fool of herself. Three bites into her scallops Provençal, she had glanced up to see a younger man being seated nearby. After only a few impolite seconds, she forced her attention back to her magazine, and read the same paragraph three times without comprehension before she gave up the pretense. Since then, she had fought—but lost—the struggle to keep her eyes off him.

Thanks for reading, Nathan!
--
Simon patted his coat pocket again listening for the satisfying crinkle of the telegram. He had been waiting, not very patiently, for over a week to hear from his partner that it would be a good time to enter Flatwoods. He had been in the saddle the better part of the day and now that he was on the outskirts of the town, he took advantage of the chance to stretch his legs. The pine-scented air was clean and bore no trace of any danger he might find. The night was clear; he swore the stars were only inches from his head and he only had to reach out a finger to touch them. It was certainly different from the gas-lit streets of Washington and New York. He had no complaints when assignments took him this far west, although he knew a lot of the other government agents didn’t care for the area, or the people. They weren’t civilized enough, he often heard. He snorted aloud at that, and his horse snorted back. Chuckling, he reached over and stroked the horse’s neck. “You agree, I see.”

There is no sweeter purgatory than Happy Hour.
It marks the end of life, at least for the day, for weary warriors attempting to drown the living hell of their bosses, their spouses, their bills, their dreams on layaway. That daily life ends and so begins the journey that will decide whether they finish their night in heaven or hell.
Of course, in a cruel parallel to real life, most of them will close out their tabs with Whiskey Satan holding their arms.

YA Fantasy...

Jeff blew gently to fan the newborn flames. The crooked smile so many teen girls, and some of their mothers, were attracted by curved his lips as he watched the flames devour the wadded papers and odd fast food wrappers which half filled the can outside his high school. One side of the mound of trash didn’t catch as aggressively as Jeff liked so he blew gently again. The action reminded him of blowing on Jasmine Tinkerton’s neck the night before. His crooked smile unraveled into a sneer as he remembered the gentle blow on her neck and the lovely resulting arch of her back.

The officers moved the two gurneys down the front steps. The neighbors were holding their hands over their mouths and clutching their children. It was a picture I've seen before on the news. But this time, it was my best friend and her child who were being placed into the hearse.

Can I just say, death is so not what I expected? True, at seventeen I gave way more thought to football plays and girls, and even my English homework, than I ever gave to death. And that's saying a lot because me and English homework are not even on a first name basis. Ask my English teacher. Trust me--he will not have nice things to say about me. Actually, that's kinda funny because he always said that I was going to ruin my life with my inability to tell "there" from "their," but death ruined it way before my bad grammar had a chance to cause any long-term damage.

What fun! The more entries, the better, right? This is currently the first paragraph of my novel "God Bones":

An ocean of blue-green grass, punctuated by thin miles of asphalt graced the boisterous edge of the Irish sea. Tucked between two steep hills, a modernized gothic castle's gray stone gargoyles stared fatuously toward the horizon. A patch of coral pink and red-lipped white roses, nourished by human bones surrounded the half-wild back garden. Tea rose and ivy crept up the castle walls. The deep, soft scent of flowers wafted up from the garden and through the french doors on the second floor. A grand piano claimed the center of the large room. A concertina, an oboe and a flute had been laid carelessly at it's clawed feet. A man with a prickly beard leaned indolently against the wall, strumming on a sitar. He had long lashes. They were black and curled, like a girl's. His feet were bare, fingers long and quick. He built his song the way a mad architect would build a house of sweet and sorrow, a house that bled and wept.

Bobbi stood with her back against the outside of Alec’s bedroom door. What was she doing? This was completely unacceptable. She had Alec in protective custody. She could not fall for him. Ray had warned her. He had seen it happening right in front of him. He pointed out that she was the youngest agent given this detail in 20 years and her judgment needed to be above reproach. She had dismissed his concerns; dismissed them, that is, until Alec went off that roof.

O-positive primer wasn’t quite the color I had in mind for the small office, but Lucas Sherwood hadn’t given the decor a second thought when he blew out the left side of his head with a .45.

Hi Nathan, Thanks for the opportunity. This is from my contemporary YA:


If you need someone to fill the empty spaces in your heart, make sure it’s not a guy like Stan Merrill. Make sure if you’re alone with him in his car at night, not to lean too close, flash your pretty-girl smile, or show the secret naked parts of yourself that will send his tongue gliding across his lips like you’re an ice-cream cone he’s about to devour. Most importantly, make sure his hands are at least twelve inches from your body at all times, and there’s something close by that you can use as a weapon. Just in case.

Every day after sunrise Momma comes home from her all-night waitress job at the Cha Cha Resort, which is down the beach just a few miles from here. Usually, the first thing she does when she walks in the door is turn on the TV. She says it keeps her company. I think it’s a bad habit. If he were here, Dad would disapprove of the trash they have on all ninety-eight channels.

From my YA contemporary fantasy TOUCHING THE SURFACE...

My body hit the water with an impact that knocked the breath right out of me. Gasping for air, the river rushed in, burning my throat as I clawed frantically for survival. Panic was engulfing me and spots of light were exploding inside my head. Just when I thought my lungs would burst, I felt fingers wrapping around my wrist, yanking me out of the water. As my head broke the surface it all became clear. I had died...again.

The haunted piano had to go, but casing out the local rental van company bordered on desperate. Vicky Segram didn’t care. That piano lurking in her living room spooked her. The next guy out that door with keys in his hand and a modicum of muscle was hers.

I wished that I could control my wings’ appearances better so that I did not have to be so hard on my legs when running. Flying would make my escapes so much easier.

From my chapter book WIP

My mom loves all the other Brownies more than me. She always says she’s a leader to 16 girls, not just a mom to one. She hugs them, laughs at their dumb jokes, and boo-hoos over their boo-boos. And when I do one single itty-bitty thing wrong, like throwing out my retainer at lunch so Mom has to go through 23 bags of trash in the school dumpster, she gets all mad.

Here's paragraph 1:
From the moment I woke up that morning I knew things were changing. First of all through the window I could see the flurries, and on the ground the white blanket of snow. It was the first snow of the year. Usually that would excite me, get me up and out of bed and running all to breakfast, but I think I was just getting old enough to realize that with the first snow something significant happens. It means that there is going to be a lot of work up ahead and it’s going to be cold while I do it, I’m going to see a lot of my family--too much, really--and I’ll be forced to act giddy all the while. Sometimes I’ll even have to sing, or at least pretend to sing.

The village was smoke and ashes. Cade’s stomach clenched at the smell of burning flesh, and revulsion curled his tail tight against his back. He couldn’t see the central square, but his sensitive nose warned him of tragedy.

Through the trees I could sense movement coming in my direction. I was sure I could out run whatever it was. Feeling Sogobia move under me, I only had moments before it was too late. The consequences would be enormous if I didn’t make it back in time. Rattles and bangs from the metal workings coming nearer beat loudly in my ears. Deep crystallized energy flowed through me in the hopes to divert this intruder from Manataka. My years of protection would not be in vain. Thrusting myself without a second thought, I flew through the air gliding from tree to tree. Landing right side up on gravel I found myself staring into the eyes of terror. Shock filled me as my heart beat like a fiery inferno. The terror and disbelief was unbearable to endure. If I had only been a second sooner…

It wasn't a sound that woke her; it was the feeling that something was sitting on her chest. Gasping for air, Danni struggled to get up but her muscles refused to obey. A shadow loomed above the bed. It was thin and wispy, with well-defined shoulders narrowing to its waist and fading into nothingness. The figure wavered in the dim light coming through the window, as if it drifted on a breeze. Danni tried to scream, but couldn't gather enough breath to make a sound. She wanted to leap up and run for help, but was powerless.

You're a brave, brave man, Mr. Bransford.
This is the first paragraph from my romantic suspense "A Rock And A Dead Place".

Red droplets glinted in the beam of Toni Perez’s flashlight. Blood. It was everywhere, on the huge, polished Geode in the left hand corner, and on the statue that loomed over the mess with a rock hammer. She was in big trouble. Sweat poured down her face as the knit mask she wore seemed to constrict around her face.

First person WIP; read away:

Another hazy day. Like all hazy days, which have been concurrent lately, this one is also muggy. The humidity sticks to cloth and skin, and every little thing. Touch a rock, it is tacky with sweat. Brush by a building, you peel a layer of moisture from it, and in this cramped city, there are many layers. Many does not describe it. The city is thousands of years old, but looks like the turn-of-creation. No one could chip away all the layers; they go too deep. The center of the old city still heaves though, taking in the life, and pushing out the dregs of death. Which has become ironic, in that the only life milling around these forgotten streets are the lifeless souls of the land. Their only cause for living is for life itself. They have been given a gift, so they do not spoil it. The world crushes them, and they make the most of it. What they make is usually what no one considers as moral. In the world outside, that makes news. I am here because of it.

I'm named because of that joke; you know, beautiful girl in an airplane turns to a guy sitting in the next seat and says: American Indians are very smart. Aha. And Polacks have big penises. Aha. And so what's your name? The guy thinks for a while and responds: Tonto. Er, Tonto Kowalski. Well, not true, about the joke. I'm really Tonto because I'm Indian, Eastern Woodland, like in Last of the Mohicans. And Polish, like my mother was hip, in love, and married a Mohican. So what would you do with this name? You could fistitcuff your way out of it or put up a shingle and put everything at risk. You can sell used cars or hearing aids or rubber bands, or you can promise people that you can find lost ones, loved ones, people they need to find. You can call yourself an investigator, set up a destination office in the boonies and get the job done right. Tonto Kowalski, Private Eye.
---- End ----
Paul Milenski [email protected]

Above anybody else, I blame the Swedes. They brought me to this particular low point. Because of them, I’m wearing this shirt in the subway watching the mime do his trapped-in-a-box routine. The mime and I stand apart from everyone, the way we do when we talk, or when I talk, at least. He doesn’t think I can do it. But I told him I could. Three minutes, I said. I don’t like the accusation on his moon-face or the way his white gloves push at imaginary walls but I do like the sprig of lilac fastened to his bowler hat and I’ve come to terms with the fact that the mime is just smarter than me.

My grandmother said the people who lived upstairs were Hungarian. It was her house, and she did not impart this information with a smile. The Hungarians consisted of a man and his wife and a girl. The girl was older than me but she was still mostly a kid except for her chest, which was showing signs of not being the chest of a kid anymore. The father wore baggy pants and tee shirts without any sleeves and he had a job at the docks where the big freighters tied up. These were Great Lakes freighters, and they don’t look so big anymore, but back then they were the biggest things in the world. The father’s job was a dirty one. Every time I saw him climbing the stairs after work his face and arms were streaked with the kind of slick, glistening dirt that boys used to associate with manhood. Sometimes he swayed like a boat on his way up the stairs. My grandmother said that that was because he was Hungarian. The Hungarian’s wife worked in the basement where my grandfather had a tailor shop. She had the biggest eyes I’d ever seen. You could fall right into them if you weren’t careful. The girl didn’t come out much, at least when we were there, visiting from Michigan. I wondered if she went to school or if she just stayed up there all day. Down Catherine Street lived a family of little people. Little Rumanians. One time I asked about the midgets and my grandmother said to say little people. If they had been Hungarian, they’d have been midgets. I know this to a fine degree of certainty.

The woman examined the crowd sitting in their chairs. Mutters among attendees flooded through the university auditorium, cascading over the crowd packing the room. She glanced over university students searching for an elusive seat, taking note of the older attendees who sought refuge on the floor. She knew that people were interested in paranormal subjects; the impressive sales of her book only proved as much. But never before did she think giving a talk on haunted objects would draw such a crowd. Everyone gave a fuss over haunted houses, but very little about haunted objects.

Contemporary fantasy, tentatively titled Disenchanted.


Friday night, seven o’clock on the dot, Lorelei Lee waltzes into my salon. Hair bunched up under a scarf, the usual, oversized sunglasses and upturned collar obscure her face. There is no pause at the front desk. No breathy greeting, or follow me boys wiggle. Just a beeline for my station where she tosses the daily paper, I rarely look at it, too depressing. The headline confirms it as the elevator my stomach is riding drops three floors. Prominent Physician Latest Victim Of The Collector?

From "Monarch"

The blood pooling under the dead man’s back reminded Nicholas Avery of butterfly wings. It spread from the twin wounds, sweeping to each side in graceful arcs that sparkled beneath the kitchen lights.

MA

First paragraph of The Star Crossing:

This morning in the shower it occurs to me that my mother has a soul the color of a tan M&M. You know, the ones you pick out and eat first so they don’t spoil the spectrum.

Over 400 comments and there are still three days left. You are a brave man, Mr. Bransford!

Anyhoo--here it is, short and sweet:

That Saturday was my first day back to work after being on adoption leave for three weeks, and a missing child investigation was not the first case I wanted to take on as a new father. Although, in the Crimes Against Persons Unit, there are never any cases worth wanting.

While his wife, Kyla, was in the living room, Phillip killed Santa. Taking the body into the bedroom, he slowly dismembered that fat old man and put his various parts into black garbage bags. Phillip started with the head. That is what the manual said to do. Start with the head, and make sure the eyes are closed.He always held an intense hatred for that smug smile and fluffy white beard. Once the head is in the bag, remove the arms and legs. The rest of the body was easy to rip apart, the whole process taking less than twenty minutes. Checking his manual, he followed directions with superb concentration. Use separate bags for all the major parts, too heavy and they will break. Put the clothing in the bag with the head, which will be the one with the most room.

David Lowell told his mum that having a seizure felt like falling asleep, even though he really didn’t know what falling asleep felt like; he never remembered. But his mum liked that sort of thing, something familiar but kind of pretty, and he knew it made her feel better. Like he wasn’t broken somehow. He first shared this lie on the morning he was released from hospital after the accident last summer, and he repeated it again this morning from his bed in the medical ward.

I woke early to the sound of gunfire; if it had only been the big guns, the eighty-eights, I probably would have rolled over and gone back to sleep. I'd long ago given up on worrying that some unexploded shell would come crashing through the roof of my cottage. Now I simply accepted my fate, whatever it should be, as far as air raids were concerned; but this morning the thunder of the eighty-eights was followed by the reports of rifles and several bursts of submachine gun fire.

I guess I'll join the masses too...here is my WIP, a YA fantasy titled "The Jaguar Warrior":

The sun had begun to set over the jungle and darkness slowly enveloped the landscape. Located in this particular corner of the jungle were a tiny village and an ancient stone palace that had long since been overtaken by the wild and unforgiving vegetation. The arrival of both royal families to this secluded, almost forgotten compound was celebrated by the few people who inhabit the area, but the jungle itself seemed agitated to have so much unexpected disorder and irreverence within its borders. As the sun completed its descent, the warriors guarding the palace grew nervous at the increasingly unnatural and disturbing silence that was overwhelming the jungle. The warriors, having never witnessed such a phenomenon, suddenly realized how terrifying and alien the jungle now seemed. They felt exposed and unprotected without the familiar song of the jungle night. Normally, an array of noises and sounds would fill the air, intensifying as the evening moved in and the sun began to slip behind the horizon. The resulting music produced by the awakened jungle and its animal inhabitants would then penetrate the humid night sky and travel great distances to the surrounding villages and cities. These nightly concerts were the lullabies that countless generations had heard and adopted as one of life’s few constants.

Sometimes when I'm a steamroller in Grandma's backyard I don’t know if I'll stop. If I start at the top of the biggest hill and make my body the way I do for Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board, I can maybe roll forever. I can roll down the big hill and up the next hill and down the other side and then launch off the curb like Zane off his bike ramp and then I would fly over the cars and over the rotten-egg salt flats. I would fly over the Dumbarton Bridge, and then over the other bridges Mrs. Katayama made with icing on her bridge cake for our fourth-grade class: the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge, the Bay Bridge, and the Golden Gate Bridge. And then I would probably fly to Hawaii or the moon. I wouldn’t even have to try.

Unlike other more ordinary destinations across the south, Concordia parish did not suffer well the more common term for the purple haze of twilight. Nightfall would not do. In Concordia parish night would never aspire to something as clumsy or unrefined as falling. In Concordia parish the night arrived.

Hi Nathan! This is the first paragraph from my novel Mama's Girl.

Mama found me in a box. She’s told the story so many times, I don’t know if it’s what I remember or what I’ve been told. She says that for a skinny little white baby, I had a powerful set of lungs. I always knew that Mama and Granny loved me. Whenever I held out my arms, somebody would lift me up. We didn’t have much else, but we were rich in love.

Opener to a Regency set erotic romance WIP.

Lexa knew he watched her. Had done since she’d entered the ballroom scarcely a quarter hour before. She was no diamond, so why did his stare fix upon her, she wondered? Perhaps it was the nature of men when attending a masquerade ball. An attempt to see below the costume to the woman within. Or perhaps not. For whatever reason, his intense examination unsettled her so that she could almost feel his finger stroking the spine between her shoulder blades. Finally, unable to bear the weight of his scrutiny another moment without challenging it, she turned to meet his gaze full on.

She wandered down the center of the street. Not the sidewalk, nor the shoulder. It was all the yellow dashed divider for her. Her pink stilettos clicked loudly with each step that she took. Keisha was defying more than just her mother. She was defying matriarchs of the world. Seventeen and the whole world lay before her.

Thank you for the opportunity! My entry (by Erin Rowan):

I felt the storm coming long before I saw the clouds. My fingers drummed on the seat, and my knees jittered. I’d been antsy for a while—three hours in a confined space with John had that effect on me—but after seeing the first lightning bolt, now I was downright twitchy.

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.
Wm. Shakespeare

My name is Billy Shakespeare. I am not the person who wrote Othello, the wonderful and significant play about jealousy and such from which I have taken this very first chapter’s epigraph, nor is it likely that I am related to that justifiably famous dramatist. I am a whoreson and, though I am sufficiently aware that such a term is not always employed in a literal fashion, in my case it can be. My mother was a whore. As is common in such cases, I did not know my father. Neither did I know his name. Or, if I knew either of those things, the man or his name, I was not aware that I knew them in relation to my own person. I hope with all sincerity that I have been sufficiently clear on this point. I will deal with the circumstances of my origination as my narrative demands but it is not, in all truth, a subject upon which I wish to expand in grievous detail. I am confident that I may depend upon the understanding of you, my reader, in this matter.

Thomas’s head hurt. It always hurt, a perpetual headache, which he had long since grown used to. Not in such a way that the senses were dulled to the pain, but blended into a sort of white noise. It was a background hum, always there, just within reach of conscious perception.

I was wondering when you going to have another contest, I pray you still have your sanity when it's over. Here is mine.

Do we really know what goes into our food? With the recent outbreaks of Salmonella, Ebola, and other diseases, I begin to wonder. An employee spills cleaning solution into a vat of food, oops. Maybe some ingredient they forgot to list on the label, my bad, blame it on the printer. Could someone force food companies into adding something to our food? If it didn’t make people sick would anybody know, or find out even. What if, the government was behind it all? What I have uncovered will make you grow vegetables and butcher your own meat.

HospitalLightsdimmed
The lights have been dimmed for the night in this hospital in Greater Tel Aviv.
It is quiet now. Not a deathly silence for there is the muted hum of any large hospital, broken now and then by the hurried footsteps of a nurse, a muffled loudspeaker calling a physician, or the occasional groan, moan or curse of a patient, or a hellish screech from some ancient relic of a Nazi Christian death camp.
I like these nightly hospital noises for they mean that life is still pulsating, that I am also still pulsating. I like company, but I am alone in this four-bed ward; the three others, walking wounded, have been sent home for the Shabbat although all three are Muslim.
I ring for the night nurse. She is in her early twenties, earnest, sweet and innocent.
I ask her for a fat notebook and a pen.
“You must sleep,” she says in a slow, fumbling Hebrew with a heavy Russian accent. “Sleep heals. Shall I bring you a sleeping pill?” Nurses are generous with sleeping pills; when patients sleep, nurses drowse.
“I don’t want to sleep. I want to write my memoirs,” I say in English, hoping it is better than her Hebrew.
She replies in good but slow English, “When grandparents become a nuisance, their children ask them to write their memoirs. Young men should experience life first so they have something to write about.” The philosophy of youth.
“And make love?” I suggest
Her face turns a flaming red in confusion. At her age, true love is a Mecca.
“I want to write them now,” I insist. “I want to freeze events on paper before my memory fades with age into exaggerations, denials and distorted images to re-emerge colored by the wishful, wistful thinking of my own personality, distorted by my subconscious, by time, by emotional needs, with a generous side dish of subtle ego puffing, plus a false shyness to embellish my story.” I liked my involved explanation even though she probably understood only half.
“Sleep is a good medicine,” she reiterates. She lingers to check the bandages on my battered left leg.
She reads from the clipboard containing my medical history. Evidently she had not been briefed when the shifts changed. Typical.
She read slowly, mumbling aloud, trying to decipher the Hebrew scribblings of the senior physician, also a Russian. The hospital insists that all the staff use Hebrew; learning the language takes priority over the health of the patients. Of course, it could have been worse; a doctor from Russia writing in Hebrew and one from France trying to read it. It is bad enough that Israeli trained physicians can barely decipher each other’s written gibberish.
I gently take the clipboard from her, and read aloud slowly, deciphering the bad Hebrew.
“Sergeant. 28. Married, without (children). Next of kin not listed. They call him the Amoker. He goes crazy wild. Dangerous. Do not anger him. Pacify him. Give him anything he wants within reason except alcohol and tobacco. If he gets violent, tell him he can have a free psychological evaluation by a psychiatrist with a worldwide reputation. This might quiet him down. We suspect that he may be playing a role. If this doesn’t work, call Security.”

HospitalLightsdimmed
The lights have been dimmed for the night in this hospital in Greater Tel Aviv.
It is quiet now. Not a deathly silence for there is the muted hum of any large hospital, broken now and then by the hurried footsteps of a nurse, a muffled loudspeaker calling a physician, or the occasional groan, moan or curse of a patient, or a hellish screech from some ancient relic of a Nazi Christian death camp.
I like these nightly hospital noises for they mean that life is still pulsating, that I am also still pulsating. I like company, but I am alone in this four-bed ward; the three others, walking wounded, have been sent home for the Shabbat although all three are Muslim.
I ring for the night nurse. She is in her early twenties, earnest, sweet and innocent.
I ask her for a fat notebook and a pen.
“You must sleep,” she says in a slow, fumbling Hebrew with a heavy Russian accent. “Sleep heals. Shall I bring you a sleeping pill?” Nurses are generous with sleeping pills; when patients sleep, nurses drowse.
“I don’t want to sleep. I want to write my memoirs,” I say in English, hoping it is better than her Hebrew.
She replies in good but slow English, “When grandparents become a nuisance, their children ask them to write their memoirs. Young men should experience life first so they have something to write about.” The philosophy of youth.
“And make love?” I suggest
Her face turns a flaming red in confusion. At her age, true love is a Mecca.
“I want to write them now,” I insist. “I want to freeze events on paper before my memory fades with age into exaggerations, denials and distorted images to re-emerge colored by the wishful, wistful thinking of my own personality, distorted by my subconscious, by time, by emotional needs, with a generous side dish of subtle ego puffing, plus a false shyness to embellish my story.” I liked my involved explanation even though she probably understood only half.
“Sleep is a good medicine,” she reiterates. She lingers to check the bandages on my battered left leg.
She reads from the clipboard containing my medical history. Evidently she had not been briefed when the shifts changed. Typical.
She read slowly, mumbling aloud, trying to decipher the Hebrew scribblings of the senior physician, also a Russian. The hospital insists that all the staff use Hebrew; learning the language takes priority over the health of the patients. Of course, it could have been worse; a doctor from Russia writing in Hebrew and one from France trying to read it. It is bad enough that Israeli trained physicians can barely decipher each other’s written gibberish.
I gently take the clipboard from her, and read aloud slowly, deciphering the bad Hebrew.
“Sergeant. 28. Married, without (children). Next of kin not listed. They call him the Amoker. He goes crazy wild. Dangerous. Do not anger him. Pacify him. Give him anything he wants within reason except alcohol and tobacco. If he gets violent, tell him he can have a free psychological evaluation by a psychiatrist with a worldwide reputation. This might quiet him down. We suspect that he may be playing a role. If this doesn’t work, call Security.”

It was taking off from a parking lot on the east shore of the St. Croix near Hudson. As the pilot and her crew readied the airship and the massive folds of colorful fabric began to expand, a crowd gathered. Cars pulled into the lot and parents unloaded families to view the moment; bikers pulled over at the road shoulder to watch. Dads with three-year-olds on their shoulders gestured, and moms held tightly the hands of their tiny, wanna-be passengers. I stood amid the excitement, myself as thrilled as the children pointing at the blossoming balloon. The elated voices of the gathering rose as the pilot called urgent orders to her men. Finally the sound of the roaring fire pressed the ready blimp to leave ground. The crew held the begging airship back with ropes taunt.
"Quickly, jump in!" the captain shouted. Of all the gathered dreamers, I was the one being spoken to.

It all started last Monday, when I secretly hoped my Statistics professor would get hit by a truck.

It's Saturday and I just found out that Professor Hagen is dead. I didn't hear the news from a friend or read it in the school paper. I found out because somebody who calls himself Death told me. Now, after a sentence like that, I did what any normal 18-year-old girl would do: I locked myself in my dorm room and wrote down every single thing that happened on Monday to prove to myself that A) I didn't kill my teacher and B) I didn't actually believe that the boy with the modelesque cheekbones and the piercing, black eyes was who he said he was.

Thank you, Nathan!

This is the first paragraph of a young adult fantasy novel I'm working on. It is currently entitled Avery Mann's Book of Misadventures: Volume I. I hope you enjoy it.

The first Friday the Thirteenth after my thirteenth birthday was an unexpectedly disaster-free day. No crossbeams collapsed at assembly. No water sprinklers went off in the middle of morning classes. No grease fires flared up in the cafeteria. It was quiet, too quiet, and the silence clogged my skull with questions like: Why was I not a normal kid like everyone else? Why did I have to be the cause of Magar Middle School’s Curse? And why hasn’t anything awful happened yet?

Good luck Nathan and thanks for doing this!

From my Middle Grade Historical Fiction novel "Surviving Matewan":

“Molly Anne McCoy!”

That was my name. It had a nice ring to it, I thought, as I rolled over on my side and wriggled under the covers. I inhaled deeply, taking in the earthy scent of soot and coal that was ingrained into my blanket. My little two-year-old sister, sleeping right next to me in the narrow bed, kept kneeing me in the ribs. I inched a little to the right to give her some room, coming dangerously close to falling out onto the floor. A moment later, the entire house rattled as a train lumbered by. Being no more than thirty feet away from the tracks, our house did that a lot. I drifted easily back to sleep, the comforting rumble of the locomotive like a lullaby to my ears.

"Either you're ignoring this dire situation, or you're unaware of the potential disaster from the lack of a digital TV in your residence." A beady salesman with beady eyes nodded toward the vintage television in the corner of the room; the man at the door of less importance.

Thanks for doing this. Here's mine,"Stakes and Corsets," a steampunk romance.

The night was damp and cool as the thick fog rolled in, covering the gaslamp-lit streets like a blanket. It didn’t bother me in the slightest. Fog made my work easier, since tonight my prey was human. A troublemaker. A threat. It was an easy assignment. Too easy for the likes of me, Lila Miller, close-contact Hunter for the Supernatural Defense League. Vampyres my specialty.

Just to give you more to read, here's mine. ;)

Some days are of the ordinary kind, that kind that you’d like to simply skip for something more exciting. Some can turn your world upside down. At times, you don’t know which one it is until it’s too late, until the day is already over, long gone, buried beneath weeks, months of other days.

Megan gripped the phone while her pulse soared like a hot-wired sports car. “Excuse me? Would you repeat that?” The voice on the other end popped across the lines stiff and professional. Her first reaction was to hang up, instead she fought down the demons, pushing dread deep inside her belly. Mental images of deceit assaulted what contentment she’d found in seven years. Thomas Phillips was about to creep into her life again.

The road opened out onto a small grassland. On the surrounding hills, clusters of houses held their vigil over the dark, mostly uninhabited valley. Perhaps fifty years ago this land had been a farm, but it was long since forgotten when the age of industry set itself upon the city of Saint Louis. A light fog was beginning to descend, obscuring the hilltops and cutting the valley off from the rest of civilisation.

All magic begins when a tear is made in the fabric of reality. It only has to be a tiny tear, just large enough to catch on a fairy’s nail and, in a matter of seconds, the rip lengthens and widens and becomes impossible to repair. Some say such phenomenon is caused by the tangibility of children’s dreams; whilst others profess ancient prophecies conjured up by men of history to be the foundations. And yet, whatever the cause, it is in these quiet moments, so well hidden from preserved documentation, that worlds open up and reveal themselves to those who stand in their wake.

First paragraph of my YA novel Daisy Harold is The Sex.


Once there was a stick. It was smooth, white, short, and plastic. Small and unassuming it could never have foreseen the amount of chaos it was going to cause. I passed it to a sophomore girl and slid her twenty into my back pocket. Carissa held the pregnancy test at arms length and gaped. I waited. Girls need to build themselves up to the big steps. "How do I do this?" she asked.

Hi Nathan,
Thanks for the opportunity! Here's my try to catch your eye. A bit of cyberpunk to cleanse the palate;

The Southie grins slyly and pulls the headphones plug from my nipple port. I move to grab her wrist, but the absinthe is kicking in, and I'm too damned slow. The animated babble of tinkling glasses and careless conversation abruptly invades my outer sense. She nuzzles my neck, tickling the fine hairs with her warm breath, distracting me from the irritating nightclub jangle.
“Whatcha loading, citzin? Share with Luna, hmm?”

Esme Roesi hurried along the outer corridors to her ship, dodging between stevedores with their loads of materiel and passengers headed for embarkation. Shouts rebounded off the high ceilings, tortured machinery squealed, and laden pallets boomed as they dropped. Sibu Station grew busier as tourist season approached, and she was grateful. Novelty beat her current routine: attending to her mother’s whims, while ignoring all reminders of Nico—damned difficult with Stella’s upcoming marriage to the man and her mother’s inexhaustible hoard of wedding-related chatter.

Urban fantasy:

The child’s scream continued.

Agent Ryan narrowed his eyes and kept his gun trained on his target, and by extension, the toddler in his arms. The child’s fear was warranted and he was sure that had he been a child, been human, and being held hostage by a filthy, sweating, bleeding, wild-eyed criminal, that he’d be screaming too. Still, the scream ruined his concentration and only served to escalate the situation further.

This is the first paragraph of my women's fiction novel, Borrowed Tango.

He couldn't die, not tonight, not ever. Not the man who loved her from the beginning, the man who taught her to dance, the man she'd waltzed with time after time, the man who meant more than any other. He couldn't. Not her father.

Through a 13th floor window, a cold January wind whispers a story. A story of a top hat made of silk, of a pen that scratches on paper, and of a man for whom life has taken its turn. But the wind also whispers other stories as well, carrying freeloaders that ride on the wind, the unseeables, the histories of all that have whispered before. The whispers have schema unto themselves apart from the top hat made of silk and the man but very much in collusion with the scratch, scratch, scratching of the pen. The unseeables, much like the man and the top hat made of silk, are in search of the one thing that can translate them from the abstract to the idea, from the idea to the man, from the man to the pen, from the pen to the scratching. Just as the pen yearns for the paper and the top hat made of silk covets the head of the man for whom life’s turn has been taken, the whispers-unseen desire the same thing that they all so desperately need: a receiver.

Oh hell, why not? First paragraph from my horror novel, DUSK OF DEATH, completed and going through edits.
-------------------------------
The alarm sounded its annoying foghorn of a beep, and Armen’s hand reached out with a quick slap at the snooze button, rendering the noise into silence. Her hand slithered back to the comforting warmth underneath layers of blankets and rested against her left arm. She let out a sigh as her eyelids fluttered to stay closed, but soon the alarm would sound again, and her time here was short—limited, by her standards, anyway.

She knew. A moment before the strike, she knew. Felt it. The little hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, ominous in their prediction of something to come. Something that couldn’t be stopped, in dreams or nightmares, day or night. Even as she stood completely still, fully aware, she was both amazed and terrified. Even as electricity sizzled around her and heated the air, as rain drops pelted her face and fell to her lips, she knew.

Stella Morgan was there with him at The Club when he approached the girl. She heard his lame come on, something about an angel falling from the sky. Stella watched as the girl smiled. She knew that smile. It was an invitation. Stella smiled like that sometimes, but not lately.

Fantasy:

AN ARROW HURTLED from the surrounding trees embedding into the horse’s chest. A high pitched shrill echoed in the air as it toppled, flinging Irini out of the cart and slamming her back against a flailing hoof. She groaned at the impact and took a deep breath. By the time she got her bearings back, she realised with dread that she was surrounded.

Wow, Nathan, so many entries. I commend you just for looking at them all...Here's mine, Urban Angel is the title

Josie Mellor threw her car keys onto her desk and collapsed in a huddle on her chair.
“What is it with me and dead bodies lately?" she asked as some kind soul pushed a mug of tea under her nose. "That's the second in as many months. I don’t know which is worse, being the first one to find her or waiting for the police to show, knowing there’s a dead body sitting at my feet. And before I can take a minute to catch my breath, I’ve got to deal with all this.” She pushed aside the pile of phone messages on her desk since she’d left it two hours ago. “I’m sure our tenants think I have the answers to all of their problems.”
Thanks

Prophet: Inspired teacher, revealer or interpreter of God’s will.

I felt as if I were in the presence of Christ himself. The roar of the helicopter’s engine abated only enough for the sound of the screaming thousands of fans who were packed like small sheep into a medieval holding paddock to reach my ears. The 14th Century castle looking once again as if its multitude of subjects had flocked to be with their king. In a way, they had and I felt a surge of privilege and pride to be walking beside the focus of their adoration and frenzy.

The healer stopped me right on the doorstep.

I can't believe you're still letting this go on until Thursday.

Good Luck.

------
From All I Need, one of those "Romance PLUS" type books...

Marie Vega sighed, a long, wretched sigh, in the seedy bathroom at Grand Canyon National Park. The Clear Blue, EPT, and First Response pregnancy tests—the latter for good measure—couldn’t have been more clear if they’d shouted “Sorry bucko, get better eggs!” to her while playing peppy marching-band music in the background.

What fun! And all so different...

This is from 'Choices', set in contemporary Scotland. WIP means I haven't really fought out the paragraphs yet, but hope this works, just under 500 words.

***

It was a miserable December day outside. It was raining again. The cold, damp sort of slow-wetting rain. The type that wets you through to the bone and right out the other side, and never quite dries out. The Scottish sort you only got there, that Rachel had left five hundred miles behind her with no regrets ten years ago, for good. She’d only been back a few times. Weddings and Christmas, and the odd Hogmanay, most of the significant clan gatherings. Dad had been fading for some time, but the call had come unexpectedly to come and say goodbye. Roger was coming with her, but unspeakingly supportive and quietly calm as ever, he’d let her come on ahead with the night sleeper. He would drive up with the children the next day. That's what she'd told Mum, anyway. A thin, recycled glass vase with bubbles in the stem and an uneven base perched precariously on the pine chest of drawers under the bay window. It held a single, soft purple, sweet pea and some contrasting long, sharp green blades, which stood to attention to greet her, on the otherwise bare wood. The same every time. A different flower, a different colour, but the same ritual. On the kidney shaped bedside table, the lace trimmed edging drooped in the middle, above the doors. It had come off countless times and Rachel had stuck it back onto the wooden trim with double sided sticky tape whenever she was there. Some left over trick from Blue Peter or some magazine. She sometimes thought Mum peeled it off again just to give her the shared sense of purpose when she came home. A lot of effort as usual. A hug would have done just as well. The slate coloured River Clyde and town roofs were still framed by the peeling magnolia paint, in the thinly paned window. The only hint of life was the scattering of yellow in the brown gorse, blended into a muddy wash on the hills above Dunoon on the opposite bank. She sat on the white cotton-ridged bedspread and breathed in. The sweet pea was one from the garden. The very last of the season. The heavy scent filled the room and mixed with the damp chill and the new pine from the headboard. Rachel closed her eyes and was walking in the forest, when Dad was a giant and she was his princess on the way up Tower Hill. When they got to the top they’d play, it seemed for hours, as she ran round and round the stone watchtower, back and forth and doubling back again, hiding from the giant, learning her first skills in tactics and surprise. Since, Rachel had used them in the boardroom. Now, he lay in the next room, with only a few days chase left in him. And maybe not long enough to get the truth about Jimmy.

The first paragraph from my current WIP 'Blood Dancer'


On a beautiful summer's morning, I watched with envy as Mama danced her death under a cloudless blue sky. Her death gown and gossamer scarves enveloped her in a mist of sun-gold and flame-red as she leapt and spun in the middle of the swaying rope bridge that spanned Jenayi's Tears. It was the first and only time I saw her with her long hair unbound, drifting like black smoke in the wind.

Thnaks for the opportunity and for relinquishing your sanity


Life was as cold as the metal railing Barrett leaned back against, gripped with gloved hands. As cruel as the wind that ignored his coat, jumper and shirt, that bit into his skin. Life was as treacherous as the narrow ledge over which his booted toes curled. As empty as the space between him, clinging to the forsaken bridge, and the river sludging through the city so far below.

From 'Halcyon Days'

A burst of bubbles popping on the surface were the only indication that Margaret Daly was in mortal peril. The daughter of an Olympic-standard swimmer, she could hold her breath longer than anyone she’d ever met, but she’d ignored the resort’s advice about not swimming alone in the scintillating azure of the Aegean Sea.

Most outsiders, if they felt inclined to be polite, would often describe the village of Lemark as the “end of nowhere.” Rachel rarely felt a need to keep her language so polite. From the view of the path coming down out of the hills surrounding the tiny town, it looked the same as it had the past four years. The fields were planted in their perfect little rows, cows and sheep grazed lazily on the unplanted land and the thirteen buildings; twelve homes and an inn used only by merchants and her troops, had little grey curls of smoke from cooking fires floating up into the light blue sky. All in all, it was an idyllic place where nothing happened. Just the sort of place to drive her crazy.

Today is going to be another same old, same old day, I can feel it in my bones as I plonk myself down in my Todd chair, which immediately relieves the bones, but does nothing to shake this feeling of repetition. Mitch may be a fashion genius, but he’s no miracle worker. The chair, if you’re interested, is the most succulent leather chair your derriere will ever enjoy in a soft but striking black. So Hot I’d wildly declared it to be when I spied and sat upon it in the Harrods furniture department, much to the sales assistant’s disgust which quickly into turned to delight when her colleague realised who I was. When the nation read my declaration (Not Hot that week included snooty sales staff), which of course included Mitch Todd’s PR team, the next thing I knew I had a Todd chair delivered to my office and one to my house, on the house. I knew that would happen.

Oh, this is fun. I may have already picked the one I'll vote for. Meanwhile, here's a false start that never took off.

Buzzard Meat

The Buzzard, he had some attitude going this one Tuesday about 10 p.m., so he took himself down to the corner for the style and for the action. First thing, when he came in the T-Bone's front door, he saw Little Miss on the stage. And he just melted into a bald-headed dough white puddle on the floor right there, oozing out of his cuffs and collar. People had to step over the mess or wipe feet if they didn't. Weren't for my man Mr.G on the door, some jiver would have made off with some De Laurent tailor-made take-out for free--just pick up that empty suit where it lay--because our Little Miss was too fine, more fine than this puddle's beloved mama, more fine than his Jaguar coupe or his 5k square foot hi-rise condominium roost. Believe it. The Buzzard, he had to know like he knew his best-ever wet dream that her mouth could suck the joint's roof right down through the pole she was humping. And oh, man. The look in her chocolate eyes said she'd spit out the nails like toothpicks while your mouth hung open. Clean your yap trap just like that, leave you speechless for life. She had a half-carat ruby glinting at the tip of her right canine, and that ruby was almost six feet above her black patent 4" high Gucci-get-fucked heels. She had the flashiest rhinestone g-string and trashiest ass and most Beverly of Beverly Hills in the joint. Her nipples had a bounce of their own, they were so plump. Like they could teach Mr. G a thing or two. Judging by the attitude happening in the bird's pinstriped pants, she was his kind of style, his kind of action. The only problem was, before long Little Miss was giving him the sign saying he might need to adjust some of that attitude. No way he could miss it as he watched that fine, high butt twitch off the stage and pause for the strobe lights to show everyone her tramp stamp: Not For Sale. No, sir, my wife was not for sale. She was buzzard bait. Harvard educated, Mayan-Watusi, black-belted buzzard bait who had just opened a cage door tailor-made for my carrion-hearted CPA.

YA/FANTASY/THE MOVABLE GARDEN/120,000 Words
J E RYAN

The rain drifted over the archway of the train station and the soft breeze took the autumn leaves from the high oaks and maples and turned the station walkway orange and gold. The leaves were everywhere this time of year and the gutters that drained the track between the platforms were clogged with heavy foliage and a clear foot of rainwater which rippled from the rain and reflected the grey sky above.

Harvey Townsend never bothered to lock his door. Since he had moved into his apartment he hadn’t seen a single person in the hallway, the foyer or the alley outside his building so he figured there was no point. Not that he had anything worth stealing anyway. He remembered a time not so long ago when he had four deadbolts on his door and a gun under his pillow. Ha, he thought. Fat lot of bloody good that did me.

First paragraph of my wip fantasy novel; I promise, the rest of it is written in a slightly more sensible style ^.^'

There’s a boy on the mountain. He’s running. His feet are bare; he’s running, as sure-footed as a mountain goat, following the waterways. He’s running through the streams as they twist into rivers. Far away, there are other boys running. They’re tumbling down the mountainsides like rainfall, like the belling of hounds, thick dark mist nipping at their heels. The peak is swallowed, now, the slopes are dimming, the clouds are rolling down towards the valleys, split only by the waterways. The boy knows this; it is why he follows them. Running water; a shield, a guide, a hope. He has not known much of hope. But now he is just running – the pound of feet, the slip and nimble twist of him against the scree and moorland. He keeps running.

Hi, Nathan! Thanks for this opportunity. The first paragraph of my Dark Paranormal, working title Haven's Grace:

The moment after the fault line shifted and the fractal fissure opened, the instant the Second Haven’s body entered the utter blackness that existed between Earth’s realms, the ice mère’s parasites crawled into view, multi-sectioned and with more legs than he could have ever counted. The glowing flesh-eaters, as long and thick as Haven’s arm, writhed and swam through the pitch-dark backdrop of non-time like bioluminescent plankton in the deepest ocean trench. As with anything that breached their natural habitat, they came at him, guided by their sweeping antennae, and leeched onto every inch of his muscular frame. If not for his dense skin, their bites would have penetrated; as it was, he felt no more than an annoying tickle.

December 10, 2007 4:25 PM

Jack Amentia sat on a bench in John Paul Jones Park facing the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The sun was setting over Staten Island and shining through an opening in the west tower temporarily blinding him. He sipped on a fifth of whiskey, trying to numb his sad heart and the cold air drifting in from New York Harbor. Yesterday was the worst day of his life. Today would be his last.

Was there ever a King Arthur? Did he really exist?

(First paragraph from 'COMMANDING YOUTH - The True History of Arthur and Avalon' ... a WIP)

This is my WIP called Turning Right. It's a true story about a girl who never knew her father and spent years doing the wrong thing until she dealt with the absence of a father in her life.

Reaching for the white cylindrical urn carefully centered on the provincial style podium, I took him in my arms and pulled him close to me. Sensing his family rushing up behind me as if I were going to smash it on the floor, I held tight to my father.

Cheers, Nathan. Herewith first para from my YA novel, The Calamitous Mission of Toby Adams:

When Mister Hamilton stood at the front of the class that day and told us this trip would change our lives, none of us could possibly know how right he was. Least of all himself. Stroking his newly acquired stubble, he studied our faces like so many teachers before him. For a glimmer of recognition. For a modicum of hope. We were, after all, the faces of the future. His future. Did this certainty strike fear – or faith – into his heart? What went through his mind at that exact moment, I'll never know. Penny for your thoughts, Mister H....

I ate a frog once. Very small and green like a lime Popsicle. But I can guarantee it didn’t taste like no Popsicle. You see, my cousin Bobby laid down a dare, and no way would I beg off a dare from my cousin Bobby. I never begged off a dare from anybody.

First Paragraph of my YA WIP

Guacamole in the eye stings. I leaned closer to the mirror and pulled my bottom eyelid down. Everything looked okay, but I splashed my eye with another handful of water just to be sure. For lunch that day, the cafeteria served fajitas, which were lame of course. Then Keith Sullivan thought it would be funny to load up his spoon with guacamole and flick it across the table. Most of it landed on a couple cheerleaders, but I was collateral damage.

“This town has gone mad”, decided Detective Jaydon Dubinsky while putting the telephone down, “loopy. Cuckoo. Batty or otherwise lunatic.”

From my twisted fairy tale, Beyond Happily Ever After:


And they all lived happily ever after.
That’s what Prince Edward had promised on their wedding night, but Cinderella found that the reality of life in the palace was far removed from any fairytale.

It took me three days to realise I was actually dead. Apparently, it is quite common when you cross over into the other realm. Everyone I met in those misty streets was still in a hesitant state of denial. I was one of the countless, milling souls who refused to go to the Bureau of Enlightenment right away and I told myself that it was because of the canned music which floated out of the Bureau’s cheerily painted, open doors. It sounded suspiciously like elevator musac, only vaguer. I hung around the entrance, watching people emerge from its cocoon-like structure; protospirits floating a foot or so off the pavement with the beatific, vacant smiles of those who had seen the light. The sight of them beaming and rebeaming at each other was enough to make my blood run cold; that is, had I had any blood left; I rather doubted it. We had all become rather two dimensional and as a result of this odd compromise, most of us felt as miserable as a wet Christmas. We had been snatched from life. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Of course I tried, like so many others, to poke myself in the arm to test my insubstantiality and like the others, my finger glided through the ectoplasm as if my arm were made of smoke. Since none of us were tired, hungry, feeling amorous or any of the other human emotions which regularly coursed; hormone driven through our neurology, we found ourselves hanging around the corner of the office building like insecure pre-teeners. We didn’t know how to act with each other or even if conversation were possible.

The first twist in my life happened before I was born, the twist of the umbilical cord around my neck, minutes of misfortune that changed everything. If you’ve seen me, you probably stared, the first time. I don’t fit ‘normal’. Children stare in curiosity, adults stare in – well, curiosity and pity and there-but-for-the-grace-of-God. Grace I lack, in many ways, which makes my name all the more ironic. My windmilling arms and bicycling legs, the jerking tremors of my body, my head which rolls like the drive of an unheard dance beat, the drooling I can swipe at but not prevent. Not bodily grace, not social grace but instead a reminder, the one in the chair who decades ago would have been hidden, centuries ago left to die. But now, in our civilised age, I live, strapped into my chair, mixing in your classrooms, your shopping centres, your streets, your society that is our society. Now you let us live, but you’re not comfortable with us. It takes longer to find us beyond those external distractions.



Nathan, you're a brave brave agent (this is about the 500th comment on this blog entry - I hope the eggnog is being kept up to you!)

The morning started wet and dark when the riders set out to the east. The sun was little more than a dull glint behind gray clouds while a blanket of fog covered the land surrounding the castle. It filled Ben Grange with the promise of mystery and excitement. But by mid-morning, the fog lifted and their party of fifty riders was galloping over the farmland that stretched as far as the eye could see. Ben stayed focused on the eastern horizon as he rode alongside his father, the Duke. A sharp, cold rain began to fall, stinging his face. Ben almost wished it were snow falling instead. Snow wouldn’t hurt as much.

Sorry. Without the typo:

Chapter 1
Ben opened his eyes. Darkness pressed against him. The whole world tilted and spun. He tried to reach out into the space in front of him, but he couldn’t lift his arms. He tried to wiggle his toes, to roll over. He realized that he couldn’t move at all. He felt his chest tighten.
He gasped for air. Was he trapped? He remembered the museum shaking and rumbling, then collapsing. How long was I knocked out? He thought. Is anyone looking for me?
“Help,” he yelled. “Help me! I’m over here!”

It was dirty and ugly. Yet it shone like a beacon, calling her toward it without hesitation. Its owner was playing cards with his friends, too drunk to notice the departure of the enticing package from his haversack. Marilla Logan smoothly positioned her skirts over the object, while carefully balancing her loaded tray of drinks. Her heart pounded. This could be worth some money, and she really needed some. The package belonged to a man who was one of those filthy ex-Rebels who regularly drank themselves silly in this dank brick building they called Symthe Tavern. She had heard that this man, Dawson, was once an important officer in the war. It was hard to see any admirable qualities in the man now.

From "Adam's Treasure"

My entry. Thanks!:


“Off wit’ you,” Aunt Mathilda said to Will as she slapped her fleshy hand down on top of his. Thirteen-year-old Will Landon looked up at her, amazed that he had been caught. The treat at the edge of the plank table, the one with the unusual, sweet smell, had driven him out of his mind until he couldn't resist any longer. Yet she had noticed. He should have known no matter how cunning his incremental moves, she would. Especially when his aunt was accountable for all the ingredients, cookware, people and food in the kingdom's large open kitchen. In spite of tin pots full of savory stews, wild game animals on the rotisserie, and every kind of bread products for the feast for a super special visiting dignitary, she had pledged her help in keeping an eye on him after his father's unfortunate death. She had promised.

Hi and thanks for the contest. Here's my entry...

I have a bit of a problem. I may (may) have killed your brother. You know how it is, right? Some things are certain. Concrete, for instance. Things don't get much more certain than concrete. Smack your face on it or trip and graze your knee and you know about it all right. The pain, the damaged fibres in the knees of your new trousers. Some stuff is more ethereal. Clouds, right? Obvious. And that stuff that looks like concrete but dark. Almost black. Asphalt. One minute it's bite-your-ears-off hard, the next it's gloop. So the whole killing your brother thing is in the second category. It's not a hundred per cent. I don't know what per cent it is, to be honest. Ninety? Eighty? Maybe fifty-fifty? After all, if you honestly don't have enough information to make an informed call, what do you do? Flip a coin. Heads or tails. Is there a god or isn't there? When it comes to who killed your brother - if he's really dead - your guess is as good as mine.

MEP said: First paragraph to my Wip Jesus Freakz and Buddha Punx:

“What are you looking at, bitch?” Zenaida Cepeta asks. I turn away and stare at the Garden Apartments across the street. I wait and hope that she grows bored, satisfied with embarrassing me in front of the school, the world. But then she shoves the back of my shoulder.

People say that nothing ever happens in a small town.
They would be wrong.
They just don’t want to know or they pretend not to know. But I did. Unfortunately. No matter how fast I drive, I’m never there soon enough to stop what was going to happen. This town was no different. The paranormal vibes I was getting were stronger than anywhere else I’ve ever been. Something was coming. Something bad. And very soon. And it wouldn’t be something that anyone with a decent brain would be able to explain. The things I look into never are.

I awoke with the sunrise. Stumbling over open suitcases, I made me way to the window and opened the curtains. Looking down from my third-floor perch I saw a long stream of courtyards, flowing in a red river of brick and mortar and tile. Inside the courtyards, elderly women chatted on stools or tended small gardens. Stashes of firewood were piled over tin roofs, muscular vines laden with squash climbed up the walls, and laundry was strung out along wires. I had woken up in China.

Will we have the chance to nominate/mention admiringly the entries we think are spiffing? I know you're the sole judge, but it would be nice to be able to give others a pat on the back. Maybe in the comments section of another post (this one being a tad bloated, and to avoid confusion)?

Thanks.

Death was in the air. Its foreboding almost took a visible shape, an effect heightened by the flicker of the campfire. It was the bitter end of a lover’s quarrel, and it already claimed one life. Now two more lives were on the line. It started to rain. It was a misty drizzle that added weight to the darkness of night. The shadows danced through the trees as the rain hit the burning logs of the campfire, sizzling as it landed and lending a new voice to the choir of insects that sang the night through.

Whoever said divorce rates are on the climb in America because it’s easy to get out of a marriage wasn’t on the same ride as Riley Randalls. This was no slide you sailed down with your hand out to grab the papers from a drive-thru window. It was full of twists, and drops that made your stomach turn. Instead of losing your lunch, however, you lose your belongings. Stuff you’d worked your whole life to get. Material possessions, yes, but also emotional things like self-esteem and pride. She prayed it would come to a screeching halt soon.

First paragraph of "Day Planner"

Michael Norton looked at the tangle of blonde hair on the pillow as the voice of reason asked: "are you sure you know what you’re doing?" The girl lay on her back, eyes closed and lips slightly parted. As tempting as it was, he ignored the urge to wake her and slipped out of bed as quietly as he could, snatching his clothes off the floor on the way to the bathroom. He splashed cold water on his face, feeling stubble under his fingers as he washed. He never worried about shaving on Sunday mornings anymore. He looked for something to take care of the headache from drinking champagne on top of whiskey. The girl had insisted they celebrate with a couple of glasses at whatever unholy hour they took a break. And now he was paying the price for agreeing.

“Hell just got another resident.” Ellen dropped into the padded recliner next to Wayne, her husband of thirty years. “Mom called. Dad died today.”
A sigh rose beside her. “When will you go? I can’t leave this time of year.”
“I don’t expect you to come with me. I’ll call Shell. She can meet me at Mom’s to help with the funeral and everything. She’s got a ton of frequent flyer miles.”
Wayne fiddled with his Blackberry now resting on a stack of folders. “I’m sorry Ell.”
A shred of late afternoon sunlight blinded her for a moment. Ellen blinked then focused on the terracotta paver blocks beneath her bare feet. “I’ll need to buy a winter coat.”

Demon Spawn:

“All right, people, I have an announcement to make before I assign teams to investigate a couple of hot spots. Get your asses in here, now!” The Chief of Special Units stalked up to the podium, plopped down a pile of folders and a SPUD (Special Units Department) coffee cup. When the Chief’s voice boomed out, grunts jumped. As number one grunt, I nearly hit the low angled ceiling when I popped out of my seat. Yeah, it did get me to sit up straighter and pay attention—something my mother had failed to whollop into me before her death. I was all ears for the Chief’s announcement—especially since he’d used the word people, not agents, people, and that included us grunts, too. Though technically we were agents, just untried, and the Chief wouldn’t acknowledge us as such until we’d been tried by fire. And it looked as if we were about to be immersed in the flames.

Hi Nathan. I have been lurking for some time and decided it was about time I began contributing.

The following is the first paragraph from the prologue of my (first) novel, which is currently at the late editing stage.

The prologue is set in England in 1890 – 116 years before the main body of the work.

Thomas watched intently as his son and the brazen hussy walked across the grand hallway. Samuel’s head was held high, his cheek still red from the slap administered in anger. Thomas pursed his lips, attempting to erase the image of the voluptuous, wanton bitch lying naked in his son’s bed, the coverlet in disarray, her legs entangled with his as they slept. Making use of a willing servant was one thing, after all, the boy was twenty-one, but allowing her to stay in his bed once he’d had his fill, was completely unacceptable. The ensuing row had revealed the extent of the affair. For virtually six months the idiotic boy had allowed himself to be used; entranced by the older woman’s beauty, believing he was in love with her. But Thomas had met her type before. Not content with the elevated status afforded a cook; she’d schemed to become one of the family. Well, her little plan had backfired. Northroyds did not marry their servants.

For most of a minute, there was only the wood and the axe. Each swing a denial. Sara rolled a new piece onto the block, dusted off her dress, and hoisted the handle. A sharp pull, and the axe-head traced an arc between her and Chestnut Mountain before punching into the wood. She wrenched it loose and swung again. This time it eclipsed the McConnell homeplace, a knotty swath scratched from the forested hillside. Another swing, her arms and shoulders aching with the effort. She blinked away stillborn tears and kept moving and tried not to reckon on the lie of a world compressed to the feel of her hands.

Hi Nathan,

This is the first paragraph of my novella 'Wire and Blood', about space colonists, originally from the Caribbean, who are stranded on a dangerous planet.

The day I turn ten, my mother walk into the corrosive sea on the western edge of Diego colony. She used to cut sheself during her depressions, so she wasn't no stranger to pain. She didn't even whimper when the hissing lilac waves attack her legs and red stains start to drift 'round her in threads.

Jake Wakely was tired, and he hated raisins. He hated questions, too. Especially the question… the one all orphans and vagabonds dread. "Where are you from?" Every curclunk of the tracks beneath reminded him of what was to come - questions, and raisins, lots of them. He scrunched his cheeks and turned slightly away from the infested bowl of bread-pudding in front of him. Why raisins? Another dessert ruined. Another home ruined. He extended his arm and picked around the mush with his spoon in search of a clean bite. Nope. His brother and sister, on the other hand, never questioned the presence of the gushy black bugs in their pudding. They slurped and smacked with no regard for manners or good taste - and Jake gagged each time they took a mindless bite.

Gus Jordan never intended to be a spy. Money certainly wasn't the motivation—he had plenty of it. Likewise for excitement—it just didn’t play a role in his ultimate decision. Sailing his Dickerson on the icy chop of the Chesapeake Bay in the middle of a winter squall gave him all the excitement he needed. If he did have a motivation to get involved in the shady world of espionage, he couldn't recall it.

A thousand studies confirmed the news: per capita weight was up ten pounds and the national infrastructure was beginning to collapse under the heft of our fat asses. More mass on the subways listing at rush hour, gurgling sewers backing up under the increased load, airlines going down. The government threatened a War on Snacks and the stock analysts debated how junk food companies could reduce their caloric footprint. Firms could either eliminate ten percent of their employees or get each employee to lose ten percent to their weight. In either case it was no time for Simon J Wolfgang, failed MBA and successful slacker, to be lurking unemployed in the halls of the nation’s largest trans-fat polluter.

Hi Nathan, thanks for doing this. My entry is from one of my current WIPs it's a Spice Romance.

Sitting in the middle of her living still wearing her wedding gown Aimee scooped another spoonful of double chocolate chip ice cream into her mouth. She looked at herself in the mirror she had set up in the room, black mascara ran down her cheeks. Her nose looked a lot like Rudolph’s at this moment in time. Pulling another tissue out of the box beside her, she wiped her cheeks and eyes achieving only to make even more mess on her face. Her life was not supposed to turn out like this. She believed they would have their happy ever after. What could have changed so much? So much for the best day of your life, she scooped up another spoonful of ice cream.

Sometimes even a bounty hunter needed a night off, especially one on the hunt for a wayward Gypsy prince. For Michel Calhoun, the Krave Ball at the Rio had seemed the perfect break, since he was having no luck in the way of earning his substantial retainer. The ‘prince’ he hunted was no more a prince than Michel was the heir to Bill Gates’ fortune. The Gypsies had a fondness for honorifics they hadn’t earned, and Michel had met Gypsy lords who lived in shacks and once a Gypsy king on the corner of Fremont and Las Vegas Blvd. It was just the way of the Rom.

The opening paragraph from my WIP YA novel (drum roll, please)...

August 14. The first day of the rest of your life. The point of no return. There are a lot of clichés people use to describe the excitement of the first day of high school, but Holly Samuels only saw it as more of the same. All those stories you read about people reinventing themselves in the summer between middle school and high school are urban legends—whatever you had been in 8th grade was what you would be in 9th grade and would be for the rest of your high school career. Once a jock, always a jock. Once a prep, always a prep. Once a nerd, unfortunately, always a nerd.

While most of the country watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon, Mitchell Costello lost his virginity in the backseat of his brother’s bright yellow 1959 Chevy Corvair. If Wendy Simpson's father had owned two AK-47s, a Glock 17 and a sawed-off semiautomatic shotgun he would’ve learned there are some people you don’t piss off: ever. Instead, Mitchell learned you can get what you really want while everyone is looking the other way. He grabbed the Buddha statue and ran.

Never again. Never ever again. Pauline Granger tugged her knees to her chest and buried her face in the pillow. Despite Grandmother's quilt that encased her like a butterfly womb, she shivered. From cold or terror, she didn't know. The stench of the alley still stung her nose, even though she had fled Melbourne hours ago.

Downward dog? Jolene thought as she wobbled to keep her balance; her hands, feet and hips forming a shaky triangle over her purple mat, her head hanging down between her trembling arms, the New York skyline bobbing precariously upside down in her vision. Jolene was certain that she’d never come across a dog stupid enough to arrange itself into such a ridiculous position on purpose and that, if indeed there was a dog that stupid, there was no way it would find a whole group of other stupid dogs willing to get together and do this at 6:00 am in the middle of Central Park. But she’d promised Lexie and Lexie would call later for details so there was no way out of it.

When you walk into a motel room in St. Augustine, Florida, and find the first woman you ever loved lying on the floor with a hole in her head, your good knee buckles and your gut feels like you swallowed a bowl of pennies. You lift the tail of your Hawaiian shirt, ease the Smith and Wesson from its holster and scan the room, knowing the most beautiful girl in the world did not do this to herself. You push the bathroom door open, find nothing but a toothbrush and a tube of Crest with the cap off. You catch your own reflection in the mirror. You look older than you did an hour ago.

Not sure how to judge a 'paragraph' when making a graphic novel. Can't hurt to give it a chance, though!

Highwater:

http://underbridges.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/highwater_ch01_p01.jpg

Breaking someone’s nose feels a little bit like bursting bubble wrap. If you hit hard enough, using precisely the right amount of pressure, a nose will break with a slightly wet crunch and the oh-so-gratifying feel of something solid giving way. Exactly like popping those plastic bubbles, but with the bonus effect of blood. Apparently popping bubble wrap is a great stress reliever for some people, and I have to say that breaking noses was proving to be just as calming for me. Or maybe it was just breaking this particular nose.

This is the first paragraph of my MS, it reads a bit jarring; however, the story is about 7 girls who live on the streets... Here it goes:

“Who’s we? We be the ones you call skanks, whores, squirrels, cunts and bitches. You? You be the game, Po-Po, drug dealers, food bosses, strikers, prospects, the haters, killers, johns, pimps. Everybody else be everybody else, and to everybody else - we be nothing."

Nathan, I'm entering this before you change your mind! This is from my middle grade WIP "The Biggest Weirdo in the Whole Eighth Grade"

How To Be A Weirdo Tip #16: write on your clothes. In sharpie. Original artwork and poetry are best. Trust me, nobody wants to talk to you when you’ve got bad poetry on your pants.

In fact, that’s exactly what I’m wearing when the new guy wanders into 1st period biology. He walks past Haley and her posse, and they just about drop their pots of lipgloss. I guess some girls would say he’s cute. Or hot. Marshmallow-right-out-of-the-fire hot. Not me, though. I mean, I’m not even paying attention, right? Everyone knows Loser Lily is off in her own world. However, when Mr. Hot-to-some-girls comes closer, a little hunk of my heart wishes I wasn’t wearing fuzzy mittens in class again. I sit on my hands and he slides into the desk next to me (me!) Then he smiles and says hi. Seriously. But I look away, because the sooner he knows it’s a bad idea to be friends with me, the better. For both of us.

Here is the first paragraph of my memoir on the year I spent in treatment for cancer (longer sample at: www.orchardwriting.com):

"I don’t know why Sarah died and I lived. She died painfully and bloodily after suffering from the ravages of leukemia for about four years. She made it past Christmas, then Easter and into summer, but in July her body just gave out. Her mother told me that Sarah called her aunt and her grandmother to say goodbye. Then she called her best friend, but all she could do was cry out in little, sharp, frustrated twelve-year-old-girl yelps. Her life was ending and she couldn’t even say to her best friend that she loved her and that she would miss her."

Hi Nathan,
Thanks for taking the time to read all of the entries, and congratulations on your marriage. May your life be filled with much joy and many blessings.

Here's the first paragraph of a YA novel I'm working on; it's called "The Mystery of St. Brigid's Cross."
***
Some days, being in high school really sucks. Like today. I’m sitting outside the principal’s office pinching myself to keep from falling asleep. Sleep. Now there’s something I would give my virginity for. Well, not to just anybody. But Josh for sure. If he tried, but he never will. It’s not easy staying awake after last night’s killer nightmare. And the idiot apparitions won’t shut up, especially when it’s quiet in class, like while I’m taking a test. Ignoring them doesn’t work. So, I sing or talk to myself—what my teachers call ‘disruptive behavior.’ Which is why I’ve been sent Mr. Amato’s office. Again.
***
Cheers!
DV from Missouri

My sci-fi romance starts like this:

Prophecy 23 of the Banished Guardian

On the heels of a sun storm,
one of four will awaken to her mate. The end will begin with spreading night and beget a war of dark and light.

Everyone has a secret that needs to be kept. Zinnia was no different; except for the fact that the very existence of her world, and the humans, hinged upon this secret remaining just that- a secret. Zinnia walked alone in the garden, absent mindedly stopping every now and then to pick a flower. Her father’s voice echoed again in her head, “The humans must never know!” Her delicate brow furrowed as she wondered, was it possible to be terrified and excited at the same time? It must be since that was the only way to describe how she felt. She approached the weeping willow that stood in the center of the garden, and without missing a step nodded at the tree. The branches parted and Zinnia walked through. Once she was in the shelter of the great tree they fell silently back into place. She sat on the bench at the base of the tree. She had always known that their world was hidden within the human’s world; every Maker knew this and accepted the fact that they must protect this secret at all costs-for the greater good. Just like they all knew that centuries before, her kind- the Makers, had been forced into hiding from the humans. This was common knowledge, as was the fact that if the humans ever discovered them, it would begin all over again- the desire to steal the Makers power- a power that could not be stolen. That was why the Makers had fled and had remained hidden for all these years. Zinnia sighed and looked around her. Her world, the Realm of the Makers, was an ancient one governed by a magic even more ancient. And now, the Dark One threatened to expose it all. It was only a matter of time before the humans began to question the ripple effect the Dark One was causing, letting things seep into their world. She knew that her fathers concerns were justified. But she was still scared, terrified even, for reasons so selfish her cheeks burned.

From my wip, Strange Angels:

The view from her new window was exquisite. In the distance, plumes of thick gray smoke rose up from the fires set to flush out the remnants of the resistance. Sencha could see nearly all of Lysan from her throne, the city spreading its dirty fingers out in three directions from the palace on the shore of the Atche sea. The palace. Her palace now. She smiled. All those well-placed whispers, those nights spent in the company of less than worthy men, her work was finally paying off. Her dreams were coming to fruition.

From my YA WIP:

I’m sure the guy lying dead in the intersection up ahead didn’t mean to humiliate me. He was having a bad day all his own. Far worse than mine, although I was having trouble fully appreciating that fact. Being arrested was bad enough. Being on display in the back seat of a patrol car at the scene of an accident was arsenic icing on a radioactive cake.

It wasn’t just about the kill. He could take her easily on the deserted path if that’s all that mattered. No one would hear, and the result would be the same. But how could he deny himself the pleasure of the lure? Then, the ultimate high when he looked into the eyes of a woman taking her final breath.

Yay! Just in time for the holidays! Here's my paragraph from The Face of A Lion:
Austin met the cat during his first week in Kuşadası. Bored with helping his parents clean their villa, he set out to explore the town. Every few minutes he had to climb onto the stone wall edging the street – there were never any sidewalks in this country – when a car or bus full of tourists whizzed past on the narrow road, a stench of diesel fumes floating behind. He peered through the exhaust and added up the houses he had passed. His mum had said there were forty houses in the original village. Something had to be wrong somewhere, because he’d counted every house for the past ten blocks and already reached sixty, and there were still a few streets before he reached the ice cream shop –
An unearthly howl filled the air, drowning out the disappearing rumble of the car. It came again, close at hand, and Austin ran to the crossroads.

You might think eleven years old is too young to have a nervous breakdown, but I’m pretty sure I had one last Friday afternoon while I was walking home from school with Charlotte. Charlotte Greene lives next door to me. She used to be my best friend until Friday afternoon when she kept raving about Stephanie McKenzie, the prettiest girl in our class. That's really the only thing wrong with Stephanie -- that she’s the prettiest girl in our class. Actually, Stephanie is sweet and kind. She has a sparkling smile and straight white teeth with braces. Her parents put braces on her teeth even though they were completely straight. Talk about money to burn. I look like the shark in Jaws. Do I have braces? Nooo. Stephanie McKenzie does.

The plastic rattle of the wind chimes is always my first warning. I lift my elbows off the counter, tug the I-Phone ear buds out and down into my bra, slide the phone behind my waist band, and reach for the Windex. The fake wood smacks against the display window, and the outside air ruffles the plush of the dangling alligators. The breeze is colder since I clocked in this morning. The tourists will be surly. The door opens wider. I stop spraying the counter when I see it's not that bitch from the new management team. It's a customer.

He lost his virginity in the backseat of his brother’s bright yellow 1959 Chevy Corvair, while most of the country watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. If Wendy Simpson's father had owned two AK-47s, a Glock 17 and a sawed-off semiautomatic shotgun he would’ve learned there are some people you don’t piss off: ever. Instead, Mitchell Costello learned you can get what you really want while everyone is looking the other way. He grabbed the Buddha statue and ran.

The gun felt heavy even though I knew it was a 22, a lightweight gun as far as guns go but not to me. Already my arms were tired from holding them straight out while I tried to aim. "I can do this." I assured myself. I visualized Hurley Dobins, that snickering smile those washed out blue eyes, his demeanor, his voice, the tobacco stained gray stubble around him mouth. Then I thought of the words he'd said and what he had done thinking that would get me angry, get my adrenalin pumping but instead I felt that icy paralyzing fear creep into my stomach and up my spine. My heart was beating faster and I heard the air heaving out of my lungs as my chest rose and fell to the racing beat. "This is stupid," the coward in me said, "you're weak, you're a woman, for Pete sakes your old. Just RUN-RUN-RUN!!!!" Bang-bang-bang bang-bang bang-bang-bang. I could smell the smoke from the pistol, I heard the shots they were loud to me even through the ear protectors. The barrel of the gun was hot to the touch. I smiled---I could do this. I had the power.

This is the first paragraph of my current WIP short story, The Elevator:


Who would have thought an elevator would cause so much trouble in my life? I used the damn things in my office building every day, from sunrise until well past sundown. Laura wasn't happy about those hours, of course. When she married a law student two years ago, she didn't expect the 80+ hour weeks. But to be fair, neither did I – we both assumed I would be working for my father's laid back office. Being snatched up by the prestigious firm Kravitz, Ellsbury, and Franklin was one of the biggest surprises in my life. Up until the elevator, it was easily at the top of that list.

For the first paragraph contest:

PROLOGUE
The two ranch style homes across the street were foreign to the subdivision's original intent. Their dirt driveways spilled from carports into the street like arms entangled. Sisters and their families constructed the homes according to a modern concept out of California. The two women ran back and forth until something changed. She was too young then to know or understand what caused them to move away from each other, from the street, from Columbia. The houses remained vacant for years.

From "Something in the Water":

My temptation started on the water. Most things do start there, or in it. I'd been kayaking around the basin at Waterplace Park, collecting samples and bagging flotsam. I'd also been watching the orange-haired boy on the amphitheater stage. What drew my attention, apart from the glare off his head, was his unchallenged audacity. He clambered on the stage railings. He crawled between them. He teetered along the narrow granite ledges over the water, feet half out of clogs the color of his hair, a pair of those obnoxious plastic things so popular lately. I'd pegged a woman lying on the grassy slope above the amphitheater as this one's mother. She had the hair. She also was ear-plugged into some gadget, an IPod or cell phone, and she didn't even sit up when the inevitable happened and the boy belly-flopped into the basin.

My YA WIP:

Dad’s hands jittered on the steering wheel as we drove past the “Welcome to Bethany Hills!” sign. I could see his eyes searching for something, anything to talk about. “This looks like such a nice little town, honey.” His eyes darted to my face like a skittish sparrow. I refused to turn my head, but my eyes hiding behind lavender framed shades watched him. Hours ago a veil of clouds slid overhead, threatening snow, making my sunglasses pointless, but I needed their protection.

Nathan, you must really love your job to volunteer to wade through this many hundreds of opening paragraphs! I'll play, too. And thank you.

Kell stood alone in the pouring rain. He had gambled everything on a reckless attempt to save the world he loved from its centuries-long succession of despotic foreign warlords. As it turned out, he couldn’t even save himself. Especially not himself. His every effort to free the planet from tyranny had been blocked by those who should have been his allies; he had managed to alienate even his closest friend; and now he was faced with exile—or worse.

The spring of 1920 blossomed as it always did, ushering in long nights on crowded porches. Children shook off the winter stillness with mason jars in hand to catch fireflies out in the thick air of Orleans Parish. To anyone who didn’t know better, the lengthening days and warm evenings appeared to be the harbinger of a southern summer, full of stolen kisses and secret letters.

Sunlight splashed golden droplets on leaves and branches undisturbed by a hint of breeze. A bugle call blared, summoning men to do its bidding as it did every morning. Smoke rose lazy in air thick with humidity. A day like any other dawned hot and clear over the wooden picket stockade that was Angel’s Wing.

Ramiro Salvatella's last words come in our final interview - not one of the blood and guts ones, like the chopper-crashing-in-the-coca-plantation one, or the "headless apostles", or Candy Weissmann's decapitation - just one about his early childhood - and fittingly, they're the last words he speaks on this earth.

“Help should be coming at any moment,” Lorilai said quietly. A young girl in her mid-teens with long, straight, black hair and soft features, she had a kind nature to her that was borderline nervous, and wide dark eyes that still had a trace of youthful innocence. Lorilai plunged a thick wash cloth into a vat of cool water, wrung it roughly, and placed it gently upon an ill woman’s head.

Stacey lightly stroked the hair on Caleb’s forearm just enough to feel his presence and make her fingertips tickle. She closed her eyes and held her breath, trying to understand how someone so close to death could awaken her senses and make her feel so alive. A tear raced down her cheek as she held a 50-cent piece in the palm of her hand. She clinched the coin and raised her fist to kiss her knuckles, as the lights in the hospital room danced off her diamond engagement ring as though it were on fire.

THE LICORICE CURSE (MG)

Donnie liked to die.

Suspense

Friday afternoon, Hartsfield Airport. Marissa Roman sank into a blue vinyl seat, keeping one eye on her target. She shifted to the left, centering her gaze on an elderly woman in a black straw pillbox with a cluster of red cherries—deliberately vintage or hopelessly outdated?—so her view would include the man. His shirt, expensive but soiled, bagged over his belt in places and his tie hung crookedly around his neck. Sweat stains ringed his armpits, and as she watched, he wiped a handkerchief over his flushed face. Was he ill?

My first paragraph of my work in progress.

I bang on the bathroom door. “Hurry up in there.”

Thanks for the opportunity, Nathan. Here is my historical WIP.

The blood on her hands trickled down between shaky fingers. She stared at them, turning her hands over to see the crooked red pathways on her skin. Even in the shadows, Marisol could see the deep color glisten. Slowly, she curled her fingers into fists, resting them on her knees, and looked down at the dead man before her. The blood from his chest wound filtered through his tunic, spreading down his side. The spent gunpowder from the pistol still singed her nose.

First paragraph from my WIP, "Diver's Paradise."

The Stranger laid the revolver on the kitchen counter. Grayish smoke whiffed from the barrel and blood oozed off the cylinder, pooling on the granite.

~Lindsey/contemporary YA


I stretch out my legs enjoying the hot sand on my calves.
Then I squint into the sun, searching for a big set of waves while waiting for Ford. He’s forever late. No point in being frustrated. Ford is Ford. He’s one of the major reasons I’m sane, well, that and surfing. I flex my toes and bend them down, digging them into the sand.

This is from Mizzle Michen and the Brownie Wars.

Mizzle Michen lived in a forest not very far from here. His house was in a hollow in the middle of an old oak tree. A set of stairs had been cut into the wood and it wound around the tree until it reached his front door. No one knew very much about Mizzle Michen; Mizzle Michen didn't know very much about himself. All he knew was that one day he had opened his eyes and there he was lying beneath the oak tree deep in the forest that he now called his home. As for his name well he chose that himself for he noticed that almost everything and everyone he came across had a name and he thought Mizzle Michen would suit just fine.

(Opening paragraph for my WIP, a collection of humor essays)

Apparently Victoria’s Secret sells a Brazilian bikini, I assume to complement one’s Brazilian wax. How I know this is part of a long story that ends with me accepting the fact that I am going to need a lot more than an intimate wax job to pull off a string bikini.

As the last notes of the song escaped my throat, I could almost feel the poison darts being launched into my backside by the drummer. His name is Mud. No, seriously, his name is M-U-D. I kid you not. That, plus the fact that he has a killer dimple in his right cheek, is why I married him. Unfortunately, he also has a temper. Which is why I divorced him. During the smattering of half-hearted applause from the drunks in the audience, I snuck a look over my shoulder while pretending to adjust the microphone cable. God, he's gorgeous. Which is why I married him again.

Fate had painted a bull's-eye on my back. When it zeroed in on me a child having a temper tantrum in Wally World would paint a prettier picture. A side note to keep in mind is that before I fell in love with Adam I didn't put any stock in in tarot, fate, much less love. Of course, all this was before my brother left a message on my office's answering that was the equivalent to Armageddon dropping a line just to say hey.

“Not again!” I shrieked as the sheets continued strangling my torso. The accusing stare of digits on the clock flashed from the bedside table. How I’d slept through the alarm for the second day in a row, was a mystery. Squirming my way free, I stuck out my tongue in the general direction of my bed and sashayed into the bathroom. Okay, sprinted.

Miracle Baby!
That's what the newspapers said after I came home from the hospital fourteen years ago. I was born two and a half months early, and no one expected me to survive. My dad said I was so tiny that I could fit into the palm of his hand. Which is pretty much where he's tried to keep me ever since. Both my parents, really. Every time I turned around, their smiling faces were in mine.

My first place of residence, of course, was my mother’s womb. Even then I had a roommate as I shared the cozy nook with my twin. Somehow, I managed to evict him from the aquasphere a little early and go on to enjoy seventeen minutes of my own pad. To be fair, John was lighter than me, and more sickly, and probably didn’t pose much of a challenge. But after months of being folded like a lawn chair, the relief was unimaginable. Nancy, the landlady of the aquasphere, is quite sure it was seventeen minutes, a long time to wait in multiple births. She was one baby down, one baby to go.

As Scorpio, I’m expected to change names as easily as I change clothes. Currently, my name is Sombra Alara. It means either “ruler of all shadows” or “shadow ruler of all.” Take your pick; it’s just a name.

I'm game...this is from my untitled WIP.

"As the rain poured down outside her bay window, Sydney carefully packed her bags. Each item she placed in the suitcase reminded her of some blissful moment she had had this past year abroad in London. The sweater she bought in Soho, the necklace she bought from a vendor at the Covent Garden Market – the same location where Eliza Doolittle sold her flowers. She had an entire stack of postcards and an entire container of CDs on which her digital photos were securely saved. She had a bittersweet feeling as she looked around her now almost empty flat. All that remained of her existence here was the bed, bedside table and desk that she had come to know as her own for the past 8 ½ months. Now they would belong to some other student starting her new life and not knowing just how much it would change her, the way Sydney had been last August."

Wow...first thing of my MS that I have ever put online.

YA Fantasy:

"Dargo, you’re the only one who has the courtesy to stick around. That’s so sad." Kathryn rubbed the Doberman’s ears as he leaned against her leg. Dargo flopped down with a sigh on the hardwood floor next to her chair. As she scribbled the solution to the last math problem, she heard a crash from outside. Dargo jumped to his feet with a low whine.

Thanks for doing this, Nathan! Here's my entry:

When my career ends, sometime tomorrow afternoon, I intend to write a book titled How to Fail a Software Project in Ten Ways. I am an undisputed expert on the subject, thanks to Armada. The stellar success of my previous two assignments as a Project Manager does not count, because Armada is such an utter and complete disaster that it obliterates every positive achievement on my resume down to the first prize I won in the fifth standard elocution competition.

Airplanes terrified her. It’s not that Kathy was afraid to fly—in fact, she constantly romanticized about soaring off to an exotic locale to start anew. But she feared that her round body couldn’t squeeze into the impossibly narrow seats and she’d have to ask the model-thin flight attendant for a seat belt extension—the ultimate humiliation. So Kathy rarely took flight from her mind-numbing job. She felt the same way about swimsuits too. Not afraid of the water, just how she’d look in apparel that was designed to glorify the one percent of the population who could successfully pull off a bikini and disgrace anyone with a flaw. So she remained amply clothed and never stopped fantasizing about the day she too would join the beautiful people at the pool

“He’s just as exciting dead as he was alive,” said Molly at her husband’s funeral, much to the horror of Harry’s family, who didn’t think being a stingy, controlling man was a fault. But those in Molly’s camp laughed at the comment and Molly knew she was finally free.

Just how does one dispose of a couple decades worth of pyrite treasures from the farthest reaches of the attic fiberboard flooring? These are the boxes that are pushed to the limits of free locomotion. Any farther, and they’d have to balance on two-by-six ceiling beams or fall through the insulation-and-wallboard barrier that separates life from its older evidence. Yet there is a reason for hoarding this fools-gold and it has nothing to do with emotion. Our everyday decisions are formulated from points on a linear slate—a continuum with pure logic on one extreme and pure emotion on the other. Most decisions come from the broad peak of the central bell curve. But certainly not all of them. For anyone who has been nuts-over-brain in love, the distance of any logic in decision making is all too familiar and all too pleasurable. Right now, though, this task of mine runs counter to both emotion and logic. I just have to be busy, to do something that shows progress, shows that my activity has bared some boards of yesterday. It’s the only way to deal with today.

The light slap of his bare feet on the smooth marble floor echoed through the hall, ruining the otherwise perfect stillness of the morning. Without its usual commotion, the castle felt deserted. Ethan could almost imagine he was alone, the only person for miles. He sighed. An illusion. It was early, the sun barely peeking over the horizon, but the servants’ halls, the kitchens, the stables, would already be busy, preparing all the necessities demanded by the king. He frowned -- The King.

Feather closed the netcat session, locked her computers’ console and pushed the keyboard drawer back under the desk. The root kit she’d just left should provide her with open access to the banking system. Now she’d be able to monitor the embezzlement that her boss thought he was doing such a good job of hiding. Almost as effective as putting a key-logger on his system without the risk of the entrapment defense. She didn’t need much more and she could have the bastard’s ass in jail.

This is YA-


We were being invaded by Ireland.
Dermot groaned in his sleep on the pull out sofa. Pat’s upper body disappeared into the depths of our fridge; I was tempted to give his skinny ass a little shove, letting the hulking, ancient appliance swallow him in one gulp. The clothes blocking the hallway belonged to Gerard, the quiet one, who unpacked by unzipping his suitcase and turning it upside down. Killian jumped over the resulting pile and landed in the bathroom, where he turned the water on for a shower.

Maybe I'll be lucky #600. Poor, poor Nathan :)

from my SF WIP...

Every time I think I can't hate this city any more, I do. At night, I hate the way the winds send the red sands sleeting against the outer walls with a sound like eternity passing. During the day, I hate the way the sun soaks through my body armor to run down my chest and pool in my boots like blood.

Namaste Sri Thomas Aquinas, my most esteemed friend! I have reached the twilight of my years and at long last have the leisure to keep the promise I made to you long ago. I'm finally able to write to you in full about the women who accompanied the unicorn. Their story is a rich one, for they brought about a reconciliation of the first woman with the first wife.

Sandra cracked like an egg on 24th December, 2007. You can say I was jumping to conclusions, but I thought maybe she was doing last minute Christmas shopping. It was hard to tell which bags, if any, belonged to her, once it was all done. I want you to picture the scene, because I can’t get it out of my head. I mean, I only saw the aftermath, but I can imagine it happening like I was there. The crowds were awful. One survivor heard her start screaming, “get out of my way!” over and over. Then she went from words to action. When it was done, the pavements and road were smeared with things that used to be people. I’m told something like thirty people died..

Edison felt guilty for not missing his mother, but he warded those feelings off and tried to never let them consume him. He managed that by going fishing once he learned. Fishing was his therapy, his church, and, in many ways, his sanity. His Holy Trinity was right out in his back yard. I’ve known him since I was eight years old. That was the year he was collected up by his grandfather. That same year he wet his first line. Not missing his mother felt worse than missing her would, he told me; an evil trick of Fate, he called it. He always talked like that. I don’t know where he got it. But something about a lake, a gentle breeze and waves lapping up the side of an aluminum john boat made the not missing not hurt so much.

LEGACY by Catherine Astolfo
For a long time the boy knew he was only a step away from the edge. He could feel it in the pressure on his chest, the blockage in his throat, the mist before his eyes. All he had to do was give in, go forward, use the anger. Just take that one last step. So he began to spend more time alone, less time talking to anyone. Now and then he’d be sitting somewhere, at the table or his desk for instance, and realize that he had not connected with the world for long minutes or even hours. He had always been a quiet, introspective boy, so he was not surprised that no one noticed the changes inside him. But the absence of attention exacerbated the anger; one part of him wanted someone to stop him, to pull him free. Whenever anyone did pick up on his mood, though, he wanted to lash out. It seemed that anger was all there was left. Yet he was holding still, waiting for the nerve to act. He would go into his room and pick the flies off the screen, stuck there in the heat. He would slowly pull their wings off, or squish them between his fingers, or just let them suffocate in his palm. Sometimes he would force himself out of the house in search of other insects or small animals to punish. In the brush and trees surrounding the back yard, he would trap ants, mice and once, a cat. He realized that this was a kind of training ground. He was getting his body and his mind ready for the stepping off.

Hi...this is the first paragraph of my postmodern fabulist tale.

The room is dark and immediate. Outside, a small boy closes his eyes as his body falls through the air. He is traveling at one-hundred sixty-two miles per hour when he hits the concrete. If the ground were thirty feet closer to the top of the building he might have survived. But his nose now sits under a tree, and his heart in a field, and unless they check his stomach they will never find his tongue, swallowed on the way down.

A man and woman, both old, with silver hair and scarlet wings, soared high above the ocean. Their hands were clasped together and in their free hands, each grasped a small bundle, wrapped in soft golden cloth. The woman was crying silently, tears running down her still beautiful face. Her brother-husband gave her hand a soft squeeze. Each knew that eventually, this day would come. After all, there could only be two. They were Alerion. This was their way.

The first paragraph from my completed fantasy novel for middle school and early teens.
______________

"Over there, my lady," cried the youth, pointing to the top of the mountain. "In that great crack next to the giant boulders." Snowflakes whirled through the darkness as a figure dressed in white robes stepped closer to the black crevasse and peered in. There, huddled together and covered with a light layer of snow, were two infants. The boy, hardly older than the baby girl he was shielding in his arms, eyed the lady suspiciously. "Be quick, my lady," the youth called from behind. "She’s coming! The Dowager is coming!" The woman seemed not to hear as she disappeared into the dark opening. In an instant she returned with the infants wrapped in her robes. "Move closer, my prince," she whispered, smiling down at her frightened companion. "Here, this scroll was left with them. Give it to the sisterhood.”

Miguel Santiago was no stranger to death. As this last of twelve children, eight surviving, drew his first breath his mother drew her last.

The young Exioxan warrior sang as he kneed his zebra into a clumsy lope across the dusty red plains of Mars. With his right hand he tossed his axe high into the air and caught it again. With his left hand he twirled a pickaxe. Shaking his head from side to side rattled the gourd instrument he had strapped onto his brow. One foot worked the small butter churn attached to the saddle girths. The other foot, buried in the three-lobed sack he had designed and sewn, nimbly sorted bug eggs from rocks, pushing eggs into the foremost lobe and rocks into the hindmost lobe. Rising and falling to the zebra’s gait, his posterior kneaded the bread dough puddled in the scoop of his saddle. Meanwhile, he guided the zebra in the wake of several dog-sized click beetles, keeping the beetles moving all together toward the stone-walled corral he had prepared for them. Long observation of insects had familiarized him with the simple algorithms directing their lives, and thus he was an excellent bug-herder. He foresaw their behavior without fail. His song swelled. He did nine things at once. He would be the greatest divisor within Exioxan memory.

Stupid. Dumb. Jerk. Stupid.. Yella gave the dough a last, futile beat in her kneading waltz with the butt of her palm. A small puff of flour shot toward her jumper, streaking the red plaid kittycat with a skunk's tail. Yella pushed the back of her floury hand toward the corners of her eyes, thinning out the tears collecting there. Leaning heavily on the dark wood table, she continued her lecture. "And now you cry about a cat jumper. Idiot."

We’re standing near the giant puppy mural outside the Flea Market. It’s a thrift store, and it’s broad daylight, but I can’t budge. I’m glued in place, counting the wrinkled dollar bills Mom’s handed me, hoping I’m wrong.

The first graph of my memoir, Breathing Under Water:


I think of it as the Big One – my own personal Pearl Harbor, World Trade Center, Hurricane Katrina. The sneak attack that smashed my career, shattered my dream of having a family, plunged me into physical and financial panic, and left me in a strange underworld with an unbreatheable atmosphere. At first I thought that if I just held my breath and swam hard enough, I’d find my way back to the surface, the known world. Instead, I’ve had to learn how to breathe under water.

She took a breath…but didn’t feel the air, cool or warm, filling her lungs.

My first try at one of Nathan's contests. Nathan already passed on my query for this novel, but I have reworked the beginning since then.

The city of Cadiz dozed under the spell of siesta, most of its residents already sprawled atop embroidered coverlets. But not at the sweet shop, where I waited for Mrs. Jensen. The clerk's keys jangled as he dogged my steps through the store. He held his breath each time I picked up a box of candy, exhaling mild Spanish curses when I put the chocolates back.

“Whoa, heavy reading,” the boy at the register stared at the pile of text books I’d just heaved onto his counter and the guy behind me groaned. I turned my head slightly and noticed that he had just one item in his hand, a rolled up piece of drafting paper.

Thanks for the opportunity!
Kelsey

I'm going to be the prick who says this:

I have a thunderstorm in a jar.

I watched them die without lifting my voice or my sword to stop the carnage. There was nothing I could do. I had tried to change their fate, but their destiny was to die and no one could change that, not even me. I am a Tracker, but not an ordinary Tracker. I'm a Tracker with visions, a rarity among my people and I was determined to be the best Tracker that ever lived. I had the visions so I could avoid the pitfalls and dangers that ended most Tracker's lives. I wholeheartedly believed that lie a year ago when I set out on my journey. What an arrogant fresh-faced youth I was then, refusing to heed the warnings. I turned from the cliff’s edge, their screams and cries for mercy cutting me like a blade. It was those screams I had tried to save them from, the screams from my vision.

Title: Office Politics (completed MS, in editing stage now):

She walks in like a deer approaching a watering hole favored by its top ten natural predators: eyes wide and fearful, face pale, a fine tremor racing through hands clasping a leather notebook portfolio to her chest. Her conservative plaid Pendleton skirt swishes around her kneecaps in a frenzy of pleats, and the coordinating jacket over a muted maroon blouse must make the office temperature seem like a suburb of hell.

Here's the opening paragraph of my Time Travel Historical Romance:

“Milady!” a servant called from a distance. With more than a hint of frustration she cried again. “Milady!”
The voice slowly permeated the heavy fog of slumber. The water felt deliciously warm, almost decadent, caressing her skin, enveloping her in its gentle embrace. Victoria sank further into the tub, allowing the water to come just below her chin, not wanting to disturb the quiet solitude of the moment. It felt as if only a few minutes had passed since she’d stepped into the hot sudsy water. Maybe if she ignored the voice, it would go away. She was so tired; she closed her eyes as she stretched languorously in the tub, taking note that in what seemed like just moments the water had turned noticeably cooler. How long had she been dozing? She examined her hands for the telltale signs and sighed when she saw how pruny her fingers had become. Long enough, she supposed. Events of the day drifted by her as she leaned her head back against the ceramic rim of the tub and breathed deeply, relishing the exquisite feeling of the still warm water as it eased her tight aching muscles. It had been the most marvelous day.

Llynaeus awoke as wolves howled outside, and this time it wasn't one of his nightmares. Rarely had they wandered this close to the smithy. Were they after one of their goats? A wolf tore at the window slats over by the forge—and he knew the answer. After seven years, they were hunting him again.

All right, I've decided to post this opening paragraph from my as yet untitled women's lit novel:

My luggage was lost. Hopelessly, irretrievably lost. I stood at the Delta counter, impatiently drumming my fingers on the faux-granite and waited for the plump Hispanic lady on the other side to tell me what I already knew.

Drohan awoke with a start, still clutching one of his knives. His heart pounded in his ears. The cellar was unlit, but he could see the details in shades of gray. Boxes of foodstuffs crowded the shelves. A few barrels huddled together. This time, no assassin lurked nearby. With a long exhale, he slid his knife home in the bandoleer across his chest. Cool beads of sweat had formed on his ashen skin during the nightmare, and he wiped it away. Settling back against the clammy wall, he tried to clear the haunting image of the young woman's eyes from his mind.

First paragraph of YA novel, "Out of the Storm."

Three months ago, my life changed forever. That was when JJ was stolen from us. I remember the exact moment when the doorbell rang. I was always starving after school so I was in the kitchen, looking through the latest Sports Illustrated and stuffing my face with a bag of jalapeno cheese puffs. They were my favorite, but since that day, I haven’t eaten another one. They were JJ’s favorites too.

The first paragraph of a WIP with working title of "Veiled Mystagogue"

Sheriff Roger Pelton’s hands felt numb, whether due to poor circulation, bad diet, or God only knew what else, the sensation usually meant trouble. Even though the bright sun gave a promising start for the day, the weather forecast predicted another stormy afternoon on Golden Bay. The clear sky was but a temporary respite, so maybe the changing barometric pressure aggravated his discomfort. He rubbed his hands together and then loosened his life jacket as the Forest County Sheriff Department’s launch approached Barren Island—a desolate heap of glacial debris in northern Lake Michigan. The numbness wasn’t supernatural. No, it arose from a nervous reaction to places he didn’t like and this island was certainly one of those. Sheriff Pelton usually spent Sunday mornings with coffee and newspapers at Rosie’s Café in Oak Harbor while his deputies maintained law and order in the county. However, last night’s storm had given his crew a busy night with traffic accidents, so he was short-handed for this piece of routine police work. During the overnight squall Harry Jackson, a brash but well-regarded member of the boating community, had run his sport cruiser aground and then shot himself with a distress flare gun—or so he said. A local waterman, known only as Big Jim, found the injured man earlier that morning and delivered him to the marina in Oak Harbor.

I return by underground train to the city we burned down long ago. Cory and I overlooked the little village it was back then, as it sat so quietly on the green foot of the mountain. I lit the first arrow and Cory pulled back the string and the flame shot through the air. I remember it was like a game, aiming at little wood houses.

First paragraph from The Other Side:

The stench was overwhelming. After two days in the desert with nothing but the clothes on his back and a gallon of water, Mateo's stink mingled with the other odors that hung in the moist air. He showered before beginning his trek to the border, but he wasn't too sure about the men next to him. Salty and sweaty, they were packed in like sardines, crammed along two walls in an attempt to avoid the overflowing commode in the corner of the room.

From non-fiction WIP:

As she had every morning since the Preakness almost three weeks before, Gretchen Jackson pulled up to New Bolton Center around 9:00 AM with the first of her daily deliveries for Barbaro. Tugging a bushel basket of hand-picked grass out of the back seat of her Jeep, the slender, youthful-looking septugenarian, in blue jeans , work-shirt and mud-caked boots, looked like a member of the staff arriving for work. It certainly would not be the first time a staff member at Penn Vet's large animal hospital catered to the discriminating palate of a patient. Nobody here thought it the least bit unusual that she scoured her 190-acre farm just down the road for choice patches of tender grass for her horse. After everything he had done for them, it was the least she could do for him.

The little hospital bracelets my two children were given at birth should have contained some type of advice or alert. Maybe something like, “Warning: Some reassembly of priorities and beliefs may be required.” I think putting the name I gave them on their tiny arms was really a misrepresentation of what I was about to take home with me. Why? Well, by the time my oldest child was twenty-one, she had changed her given name from Julia to Jay, and then to Kip. By the time my youngest was eighteen, he had been called Joey, Troah, Jay, Inner Strength, The Darkness, Mr. Giggles, Tray and Leon. None of these were nicknames. So, should a mom feel differently about her kids because their names did not remain the names they were given at birth? Should I care? I did care…at least in the beginning.

First paragraph from my current manuscript, "The Coma Chronicles" The snow fell slow and wet under the eyeliner-grey sky and, ahead of me, Jude Markowitz was skiing with my least favorite person in the world. I hated her as much as I lusted for him, and despite the cold, my goggles steamed me into near blindness. Then he came to a stop and turned in my direction, and I ducked behind a tree. I couldn’t let him see me shadowing them; I was pathetic. Truly, genuinely, pathetic. I left the trail, ignoring the sign that warned me of imminent danger. Loser I proclaimed myself. It was the last thought I had, the summation of my life, as in a mere millisecond, I was slammed into a tree, and my head split open, and a searing pain sliced me in two, sending me into an impossibly beautiful calm. I floated away as the red spot in the snow that once was me spread like spilled juice through a super-absorbent paper towel. I was up and away and free.

I would like to tell you that I don't know what came over me that night, but that would be dishonest. What I will tell you is that I'd been dating the same woman for about five years. She was gorgeous with dark hair and eyes. She was tall and had these wonderfully graceful hands and fingers, even with well- chewed upon nails. She was funny. She was one of the smartest people I’d ever known. She couldn’t cook, but she could remember and recreate anybody’s favorite drink for years. She even knew how to get people who drank the same cocktails into conversation with one another so that she could mix a round all at once. She could charm the pants off of anyone, literally or figuratively. In a great many ways, she was what so many people would call, “perfect.” For a long while, I was even one of those people who would consider perfection among her many characteristics. That, in that span of time that I called our relationship, she would repeatedly fail to acknowledge me as her partner, significant other, or any such lovely title to any family members or childhood friends was the first and biggest flaw in my eyes. So when you ask me what came over me, I will tell you that hearing myself introduced as a colleague for the sixtieth time is what did it.

Here's to believing in simple beginnigs! From a WIP middle grade chapter book--

“Jay-ake,” Mom called from the kitchen, “hurry down here! I need you to bring this dish back to Mrs. Stickles!”

Ahem. and I meant "beginnings" :)

YA Historical

Marco Alphonso Maria De Vega hunkered down in the narrow alleyway where he had slept all night, and opened the pouch affixed to his belt. Inside was almost everything he owned--a small purse, old and empty, a worn eye patch for when he pretended to have lost an eye, and the tiny, leather tube that had saved his and Yorgi’s lives on several occasions. His only other possession--a large purse heavy with maravedis--hung securely from his neck beneath his tunic. Grateful he had not been robbed or murdered in his sleep, he made the sign of the cross, brushed down his clothing, and slunk unobtrusively into the hustle and bustle of early morning Seville.

Imprinting lovers is a most coveted skill and one guarded with fervor. The few mortals who’ve practiced it learned from chance, not us. We are honorable in our fashion and would never give this tether binding fiet to those simple fools. Mortals destroy enough with their emaciated version of love; to fortify it would rot the race.

The day her dogs found Luther Reichman’s body planted in the woods like a land mine, Megeara Lewis went over to the dark side of the law — again.

I hate Harry Potter fans. I mean, I liked the books as much as the next kid, but some people just get obsessed and they think that just because they memorized a few thousand pages of fiction on the subject, they know all about magic, when frankly? Magic isn't like that at all. There's no wand waving, nobody goes around spewing dubious-Latin phrases, and we really don't run around in wacky robes and pointed hats. (Well, OK, a few people do. But they're like magical hippies or something.) Real magic is a lot more and a lot less complex all at once.

I am not a morning person. I don't enjoy waking up, sleep is fun. I've been awoken about a million different ways and most of them are not enjoyable. A few are though, and those usually involve my penis and a female. In my opinion, those don't happen nearly enough. I wish they did, I'm just not that lucky. I think the most annoying way to be awoken is by the doorbell. When I'm sleeping and the doorbell rings my first instinct is to ignore it and roll over falling back into sweet, sweet slumber. Then my brain starts working and it tells me that I need to get the door, it could be Publishers Clearing House with that big check, or it could be the police coming to tell you that someone died, or it could be your best buddy David with a fat sack of weed surprising you with a wake and bake.
I get up.

Three thousand and seventy dollars. My heart was pounding and my hands began to sweat as my mind revved to life at the thought of what that number truly meant. I owed three thousand and seventy dollars! It might as well be three hundred and seven thousand dollars, for all the difference it made.

Bob knew he’d have better luck across from the ladies' toilets: the rush hour line of women snaked down the corridor into the main hall of the station. He lingered across from them with his newspaper, looking up from time to time and checking his watch as if he were waiting for someone. And he was waiting for someone; he just hadn’t yet decided who.

“Mom, put down the power saw before you decapitate Zeus.” Zoe Nyx dashed across the living room and lunged at her mother, who was about to behead the marble Greek god ruling over the other dust catchers on her coffee table.

The boy was eight when he made his first kill, and small for his age. Small and thin, with a thick fall of dirty blond hair that brushed his shoulders and constantly had to be shoved away from his eyes. He did so now, thrusting it out of his face with a brush of his fist. The hand, like the rest of him, was soiled from too long without a proper bath. Raw scrapes marred his knuckles, and they stung in the cold slap of the autumn morning. Vestiges of last night’s tussle for dinner. He’d gotten them the night before, when he’d wrestled an older boy for a scrap of bread and leathery meat. He’d won, but his stomach still cramped with hunger.

Thanks, Nathan!

~ from my YA fantasy

Coral leaned over to pick up yet another fist-sized cobble off the beach and tossed it with all her might into the breaking surf. A spray of blue sparks followed in the stone’s wake and disappeared into the flashing water. She crossed her arms and glared down the rocky Scottish coast to the Sapaksan town, Tern Bay. The peaked roofs of the houses, the boat masts bobbing, the cliffs rising from the beach, every image was bright and sharp in the morning sunlight. And every image taunted Coral with the high odds that she’d be found out the week she stayed there.

I was six the day my mother realized I wasn’t normal. I was thirteen the day I realized she would try to kill me for it. I envy those who tell stories about their wonderful lives. I want to warn them every time I see them… at the movies, out for dinner, laughing and talking like they have nothing to fear. I was like that once. I thought my life was perfect. The creatures took that away from me one dark night. They stole it from me with my mother’s blessing and changed me forever. It wasn’t until six years after that fateful night that I fully understood what was taken from me. That I fully realized how different I truly was.

YA Humorous Horror - The Broken Wand

Joey ‘Spaz’ McCoy pried the pieces of wood out of the ground. Nearly petrified, they fit together perfectly. It almost looked like a wand. A broken wand from centuries ago. Just for fun, he pointed it at Hugh Teeters, the bully who’d given him a swirly earlier that morning, and whispered the word, “Explode.” Joey ducked as blood and guts sprayed over football field. Coach Kleats took a kidney to the chin, knocking him straight to the ground. A stray mutt scurried out from under the bleachers and began to scrounge, slopping up what looked like a lung.

Zephira almost forgot to shut the front door on her way into the cold night. Her only thought was to find a place to clear her head, to rid herself of the smell of blood, its almost metallic taste in her mouth. She hurried around the side of the house and stopped for a moment, leaning her head back against the stones and taking in huge breaths of the icy air. Feeling a numbness sink into her chest, she abruptly stood up straight and walked a short distance from the house to sit on the stump of an ancient oak.

I posted mine earlier, but it didn't go through (or at least I can't find it), so here it is again:

Ten years ago, Cassie Bridgewater sat at the dinner table eating her birthday cake. With pink frosting all over her face, she said, "You're going to die tomorrow, Mommy."

The first paragraph of my historical fiction YA novel


An hour and a half ago, I had snuck out of the house and raced to the barn to meet an overly eager Sébastien stretched out onto a mounting haystack with a single strand of hay dangling between his lips. My parents thought I was secured in my twin bed, tucked away under the covers fast asleep. If they found out, I would be in more trouble seeing as this would make the second time I had been caught with Sébastien. The first time I had skipped History class to meet him behind the school yard but when Mrs. Gaielle spotted us, she immediately notified my parents and I was banished to scooping horse excrement for three weeks.

What he should have been doing was watching for moose. After all, the gangly but oddly elegant creatures seemed to like nosing about the cabin in this afterglow/pre-dawn sort of light. At least until Thorson decided to choose them as his art subject, after which they’d gotten shy or something. Whatever the reason, they’d stopped coming. You’d think he was planning to plug them full of bullets like everyone else around here.

The wooden coffin rested eerily over the wounded earth, the deep hole as hollow as the hearts of the two mourners. The man stared past the spray of wild flowers adorning its lid to his stepmother cowered on the opposite side. The reptilian slit of his eyes and the malevolent sneer communicated loathing—and power. The widow’s eyes, puffy and glazed from weariness, watched him with a melancholy sort of understanding. The corner of her mouth lifted in a tremulous smile of acceptance. There were no tears when her husband died, none came now, and none would fall later.

The Bougainvillea Resort shone like a polished jewel in the crystalline light of the Caribbean sun. It was the most beautiful thing twenty-six year old Megan Holland had ever seen. It emerged from the lush wall of pink oleander and tangled bougainvillea that lined the drive like a Spanish castle straight from a fairy tale. The resort, one of the oldest on the Caribbean island of St. Charles, was a rambling stucco creation complete with flaming red tile roof and arched doorways.

"Oh my God!" said Nathan, seeing the 633 blog post entry. "What have I done? Great God Almighty, what have I done?"

He reached for his Makers Mark, but instead his hand found the ivory handle of his Colt .45, fully loaded, the one he kept on hand for when editors or aspiring writers went totally nuts and tracked him down to his office. He'd only had to use it six times in the last year... no, seven.

The second “colored” person I ever remember talking to was Baylee Concord, who sat next to me in Ida Lee Spitty’s second grade classroom before she moved him to the back row, and then to the back corner of the room, inside the Book Nook, and finally banished him to the supply closet. The first was Brooks, or Mr. Brooks, as Hannity and I called him, who forever seemed to be raking the lawn of the Ivy Arms Rest Home, across the street from my family’s house. Mr. Brooks was old and crooked in his hips, and he limped about the shady grounds pushing a battered mason’s wheelbarrow at a solemn pace, it’s wheel emitting a faint, fatigued squeak.

Jonathan's wings were beautiful in the moon light.I realized then, why he loved the story of Peter Pan, and why he got so excited to learn, Wendy could fly with Peter.
Jonathan reached his hand out for mine. I was scared, but after what we've been through, I knew I didn't want to spent another moment without him. I put my hand in his, and with one quick jump. I began to sore throught the clouds with my angel.

The little hospital bracelets my two children were given at birth should have contained some type of advice or alert. Maybe something like, “Warning: Some reassembly of priorities and beliefs may be required.” I think putting the name I gave them on their tiny arms was really a misrepresentation of what I was about to take home with me. Why? Well, by the time my oldest child was twenty-one, she had changed her given name from Julia to Jay, and then to Kip. By the time my youngest was eighteen, he had been called Joey, Troah, Jay, Inner Strength, The Darkness, Mr. Giggles, Tray and Leon. None of these were nicknames. So, should a mom feel differently about her kids because their names did not remain the names they were given at birth? Should I care? I did care…at least in the beginning.

Dear Talon,

You don't know me. But that's my fault. Families can be like that, hiding from each other as a way to hide from ourselves. I'm done with that. I want to be known. I call this a "Circle Journal". The idea is, it circulates between us while we have a long overdue conversation. I like the idea of that. It's probably best to keep this between us. I figure you're old enough, you can decide for yourself. Just think about it. I'd like to know you before it's too late.

Sincerely,
Aunt T

1870, off the California coast

Clouds were painted on the flat blue-gray sky, not even a gull disturbing the barren heavens. From great, black stacks, ribbons of white billowed behind the rapidly moving ship. Although the steamer cut steadily through the waves, it seemed it wasn’t moving at all—as though Huiann would spend the rest of her life standing on this deck, waiting for her new life to begin.

It was in the papers Friday morning, and by Friday afternoon, everyone had heard a different story. Students gossiped in the hallways between lunch periods, some saying that Greg had solicited sex from multiple students during his office hours, others fervently denying such claims. Teachers whispered conspiratorially between classes, though vigilantly keeping a watchful eye out for a young spy. The details were fuzzy—was it one charge, or were there multiple charges against him? Was he accused of rape, or some lesser charge? Who was the student? Where was he from? So many questions hung in the air, and no one seemed to have any answers. No one had spoken to Greg.

This is from my completed ms: Death and the Crimson Night a modern urban paranormal.

The moon hung low, a bloody slash of color against the deepest ink of night. There were no stars to be seen. Clouds, thick and a shade lighter than the sky, moved at a lazy crawl, casting long malevolent shadows against the backdrop of the Black Hills Forest. Trees, their skeletal branches extended to the sky in prayerful worship, swayed from a strong breeze. The wind was chill, nipping at my nose with a frost bitten kiss.

First para -- Intercoastal Blues.

Officer Larry wiped the salt-spray from his mirrored sunglasses. “Now here’s where you learn something.” He replaced the glasses and killed the two idling Johnson outboards before tilting them up so the props wouldn’t hit bottom as we drifted closer to the Go-Fast. “Watch that cuddy cabin door. Any second a girl is coming out, and she’ll be just a smiling and a waving. Bikini means pot smoking, topless means coke. Rookie, here’s where you discover the real reason you joined the marine patrol.” I grimaced; they’d warned me that the old-timers often played loose with the rules. But shit, if this was just some rich doctor who’d grounded on a sandbank, I’d get written-up after my very first shift. The cuddy cabin door opened. A well-endowed blonde emerged.

Other than that machine gun, she was stark naked.

Looking around the bar, I stumbled across a new theory: people are just like pizzas. I was rolling out dough and preparing pizza bases when this latest theory hit me. My position at the entrance of the pub, cocooned by my kitchen bench and oven, gave me some distance from the customers, yet allowed me to observe them and, if I really wanted to, listen in on the people sitting and standing close by. With the winter season half way through, I’d already seen relationships start and end, broken bones and broken hearts. Of course, I’d also seen a few alcohol-related injuries and the odd tussle late at night. I enjoyed my ever-changing view: it made my pizza shifts more interesting.

I didn't see Nathan's response to very short first paragraphs.

So, here is my real first paragraph. I'm afraid it's a little sparse to tell anything.

From my epic fantasy.

Bad news always rides a fast horse. The horse coming down the hill was both fast and exhausted.

There’s not enough L’Oreal on the planet to cover up my white trash roots. Daria Jakobs thought this as her black pump went tumbling down the long, elegant staircase.

The recent public hangings had left the village of Almon looking for higher answers. The air was cold in the mountains during winter so the bodies were able to dangle for the past two days. While Brother Therin M’moret hated the deaths, he was thankful for the response that they generated. A larger than normal crowd of worshippers filled the town’s only small, and until most recently vacant, Temple to Balin. The village found itself rocked to the core by the attack last week on that poor farmgirl. So they came out strong on this, the first Serat Day since the gallows performed their solemn duties.

In his mind, Sheriff Frank Hunter knew that he was going to see a murder scene. But the newly minted sheriff, a man whose law enforcement experience began the day the election tally was completed just months earlier, was not prepared for the blood.

Lily Sunday’s eleventh birthday could not have been a bigger washout if there had been a tidal wave or if a shark had broken through the viewing windows at the Atlantis Aquarium. The glass tunnel beneath the aquarium was empty. No balloons, no banners, no party blowers or streamers and, definitely, no party hats. She called out surprise, and her voice echoed along the tunnel and threw itself back at her with a slap.

YA fantasy...

Every day, as soon as he finished his morning mantras and exercises, Palem wrote out his Day’s Duties. The precious book of bamboo slats tied together in a sheath where he painted his daily list had been a gift from his father a few months ago, on his tenth birthday, but the list was his own idea. He had given a great deal of thought to this Day’s Duties, and wrote them in neat squarish letters on a fresh folio of bamboo with a horse-hair paint brush. He used an old set of his father’s carved wood block stamps to number the tasks.

[Hail the First!] Burn Incense
When he first started writing down his Day’s Duties, he’d written this task out in full, “Burn incense before Mother’s memorial,” but since then he’d learned to abbreviate to save space.

[Hail the Second!] Eat Breakfast
[Hail the Third!] Stop Plague
[Hail the Fourth!] Brush Horse
[Hail the Fifth!] Eat Dinner

How in heavens name are you going to read all of these? What a good idea!


One night,one very dark night, the sky over Philadelphia was full of stars. It was a beautiful night and Nana Moon was ready to close her eyes and have a pleasant nights sleep.Whoo,Whooo,Whooo said owl. Owl what is your problem, asked Nana Moon? What's wrong in the mansion, replied owl, everyone is running around with suitcases, umbrellas and raincoats? Relax owl, sir and madam are going to London, it rains a lot in London. Sir and madam came outside to say goodnight to Nana Moon as they did each night. Nana Moon told them this would be the most wonderful and unusual trip,they would see things no one had ever seen, it would be magical and it would change their lives forever.

On the road to wherever and whatever is next, just in time to stop and let all that is behind rush up into the front like a car rearending another with carefully packed baggage flying up, stuffed animals and hangers alike; somewhere in the pregnant pause between "Wait!" and "I love you" and written in the subtext of every simple signature and every hand grabbing another, there's a moment. There's a moment that sums up everything that's occurring and links it with the rest of existence--there's a moment that somehow exists out of time while simultaneously encompassing all the time is.

Twenty-five Februaries ago, my best buddy put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. We were seven.

As the mist drifted over the bones and skulls of the deceased and the early birds spread their somber wings to the sky, bellies all full of carrion, you had to wonder how this truly all began. If you listened, and listened well, you could still hear the cries of war and death in the morning breeze; the whispers of the dead who would never be appeased. The dew refracted rays of sunlight off the armor and weapons of the fallen. A butterfly perched atop a severed skull. But there was no beauty here. Beauty had fled this land long ago, leaving in its wake this savage war.

First paragraph of Treasured Lies, historical romantic suspense:

“You destroyed my life, and now you come to beg?” Edward Courtland, Lord of Fairgate sneered. His sunken eyes disappeared even further into his pasty, wrinkled skin. “Well, go ahead, wife.” The word was a curse on his lips. “Beg.”

“Yo, Lucy!” one of the lost jeered as the Prince of Darkness pranced by. He was on his way to inspect the décor in the newest wing of hell.

Satan cringed. “Don't call me that!”

“What are you going to do, damn me some more?”

The staircase to the roof was dingy as always. Though it was washed daily, until someone invested in some soap, it would whisper of neglect and filth. As Leila quickly marched up the stairs, though, she didn't doubt that the splendor above outshadowed any piles of dust or puddles of water she had to dodge on her way. As she neared the top, she caught a whiff of freedom embodied in a light breeze. The nighttime air in Damascus is usually a perfect temperature, and Leila never tired of the roof.

Kallie forgot how beautiful the drive to her Grandmother’s was this time of the year. The trees were budding, the grass turning green. She could smell summer in the air. It had only been a few months since she last visited but winter had been lingering in the air then. Now the world was waking up. Jonathan would love the drive, the differences between the city to the country. How she wished he would have been able to come with her this trip. She wanted him to meet her Grandmother Cora as much as her Grandmother Cora wanted to meet him. This was part of her life she wanted someone as special to her as Jonathan to share. Maybe her next trip she could convince him to come along. As she got closer to the Henry Orchard and Bakery Kallie knew her imagination was playing games with her senses but she could swear she smelled the pastries baking and flowers blooming. “If I could only bottle that scent and sell it. I could make a fortune.” Kallie took deep breaths enjoying all the precious scent she could.

Twelve-year-old Akasha clung tightly to her mother’s hand as she stared into the neat hole in the ground. Her grandmother was about to be laid to rest there, shut into a box, dumped in a hole, have dirt shoveled over her. Akasha’s chin quivered as she thought about it.

The guard unshackled the kid outside of my cell, introducing him as, “Another cop killer for you, Warren.” After eleven years in Corcoran State Prison, I’d had my share of new cellmates, none of them as young as Nick. Slight and smooth-faced, the kid acted as though his long rap sheet and conviction for triple homicide made him tough. That first night, he used my mattress as a stepping stool to get to his bunk. Either he was testing me or he was stupid. The result was the same. I bounced him off the wall. If I had been someone else, he’d have tasted blood for stepping on his cellmate’s bunk.

Phoebe had never imagined herself among the undead. But then she had never imagined herself dead. Naked at the bottom of a cliff. Frozen, like a chunk of meat. Animals gnawing at her bones. What she lacked in imagination, she made up in spite. "If you knew what was in my heart, you’d be sorry." Why hadn’t she understood what he meant?

Matilda and I are eating jellybeans in the backseat of the car. She sticks two black ones onto the points of her teeth, snarls and then interlaces her fingers making each knuckle pop. She takes a deep breath which makes a whistling noise on its way out and then starts to tell her most gruesome ghost story which always revolves around a witch named Mistress Mauve. I shut my eyes so tightly that it looks like I am squinting and gives me a pain at the bridge of my nose. I dissect her words, reordering the letters in my mind, watching them float randomly in the blackness. Soon she is speaking so quickly that I can't keep up and just as I am about to cry, the car comes to an abrupt stop.

From my travel memoir "Abu Dhabi Days, Dubai Nights":

That first night in Abu Dhabi, I didn’t have the usual anxiety-ridden dream about my first day of teaching: women wrapped in veils glaring at me, men cloaked in white, shouting in Arabic. Always, it felt as though their dark eyes blazed a hole somewhere deep inside me, and I watched myself mangle another English lesson. But that night, I dreamed that I was sitting on a long wooden bench on a rooftop high above the city, glimpsing the maze of coral stone houses below. All around me, people were talking and laughing, their voices thick and curling into the warm, perfumed air. A young woman stood before me, about to speak, when a familiar noise rippled in the distance; a strange, beautiful sound blasted throughout the town. We all turned to the now shrouded sun and sunk to our knees.

After 4 hours of looking at a vast array of war implements, my young and energetic fourteen year old decided it was time to walk the streets of London and find herself a “proper tea.” I had enjoyed the Imperial War Museum greatly and found I hadn’t thought about my miserable failed marriage all afternoon. Immersed in WW1 and WW2 exhibits, plus the treat of gazing upon a display of Lawrence of Arabia’s personal artifacts, had been the perfect tonic for my overactive imagination, and guilt filled-mind. As we were leaving a small bomb displayed in a dark corner caught Emma’s attention. Abruptly she stopped in front of the shell and asked, “Mom, Where is the original?” Absently mindedly, without looking at the item, or even registering that this was a bomb, I replied, probably in another museum. A cough from behind brought me back to the here and now. Standing beside me, a dark, handsome and amazing intense gentleman said, “The original exploded in Hiroshima, many died, it ended the war.” Looking up into the largest, dark chocolate eyes I had even seen I couldn’t for the life of me think coherently, let alone speak. Emma chirped right up and said, “Of course mom, how stupid we are, bombs don’t survive, do they? I smiled and gave Emma a wink, trying to give my feeble mind a moment to reply. Did I mention the huge, dark chocolate eyes?

The tea was scalding. It was confounding to Adelaide Randolph how anyone could serve such hot liquid to guests, but then, perhaps the girl being so young—and with no mother to train her—she didn’t know better. She resisted the immediate impulse to spit back into the cup, instead choking the boiling mouthful down in one gulp. It was decisively more appealing to suffer a fuzzy-feeling tongue for a few days than appear less than a lady in front of her fellow Society members.

~Heather Curley~

Back At Arden, Historical Fiction
It was late afternoon when John heard the buckboard as it turned the corner. He didn't think anyone would arrive today. April in Upper Canada is not always a good time to travel. This morning was typical of the weather - rain and overcast clouds. John got up grabbed his coat and hat and went out the door. The women in the kitchen looked at each other and then went back to their work.

I detested riding the school bus, but had no choice. I’d had a car of my own . . . before. But it was gone, along with most other possessions to pay back the debt my dad owed . . . To stop myself from thinking of all I’d recently lost, I concentrated on the words of the song screaming through my pink earphones. I kicked the autumn leaves aside as I trudged to the outskirts of my neighborhood to catch the dreaded bus that would take me to my first day at Silver High School.

YA Urban Fantasy--

The first time I passed through a wall, it was an accident. I was eleven. My father was coming after me. There were bruises and maybe even a broken nose in his eyes. His arm went back. His fingers curved into a fist. I flattened myself against his laboratory wall, shrinking from the blow. The next thing I knew, I was sprawled in the hallway as naked as the day I was born.

Sorry if this is a duplicate - I can't find where it was posted the first time.
Mrs. Atwater, Christian Historic Novel

Priscilla Baumgardener watched him from where she stood. She was careful not to let their eyes meet. At the first opportunity she gathered the three little ones together and walked with them to the outhouse. On the way back she helped them wash their hands, before they went to bed. She tried to pretend she was invisible, keeping her voice low she hurried the girls upstairs and changed them into their nightgowns. They wanted to play but she insisted it was time to say prayers. Each one prayed the prayer she taught them a year ago, “Now I lay me down to sleep. . . .” When they finished Priscilla said, “It’s all right to ask God for something you need.” A large tear rolled down her cheek as they prayed.

Look, I know I shouldn't have killed Jim Sweeney. Especially not in a downtown parking lot minutes before sunrise. It just wasn't the smartest career move. I'm pretty sure the local paper would notice a missing city councilman. (Well, relatively sure.) But, you know, I hate when people try to fuck me. Just keep that in mind, if you're ever tempted to run for office in my town, okay? I walked over to my truck, pitched the shotgun into the backseat and stripped off my coat. Even dead, that cocksucker Sweeney was trying to ream me. There was a bright red pool of blood around his body that glimmered like a neon sign in the snow. Thank God it was still snowing. With any luck, the blood would be covered over by a forgiving blanket of white before rush hour and nobody would know a thing. I dragged Sweeney over to my truck and managed to hoist the fat fucker into the bed. I didn't even hear the car pull in behind me. I slammed the tailgate and turned around to see an Anchorage police officer standing there grinning like a moron. "Good morning, Mr. Mayor," he said.

Thank you !

It was him.
It was him. He was involved. Don’t you see. Don’t you get it. He was involved and close. So close and taking me under with speed. I watched as his hand ripped though the gears and all I could do was sweat. Thirty miles over the county limit — in seconds and we haven’t stopped. We haven’t stopped and my nose is pressed hard to the window and my face is on fire. I laugh out loud and start looking for firehouses as Frankie gets us out of the sticks.

This is a novelized creative non-fiction work:

Shelby, Montana is not an easy place to get to. It’s thirty miles from the Canadian border, eighty miles from Glacier National Park, and eighty miles, one and one half hour drive from Great Falls, its nearest neighbor. The town of Shelby has one grocery store—Albertson’s, one Chinese restaurant, one lunch spot called Patty’s Place; for five dollars nobody leaves Patty’s hungry. Patrons stuff themselves with homemade soups and pies, mounds of French fries, plates piled with roast beef and gravy. A couple of doors down at the Prairie Peddler, Shelby’s nod to a more urban trend is the afternoon line up for lattés. Shelby has two main roads; both of them intersect the railroad tracks. Trains are frequent. And long. These are the primary rail lines that connect Chicago to Seattle. Beyond the railroad, sand colored hills like dunes circle the northern horizon. A handful of adolescent trees hug the sides of buildings for shelter. There is little hint of moisture in this season—or any other. Shelby’s three thousand residents know pretty much everything that occurs in town. Aside from the Saturday night call-ins to the dispatcher about some inebriated teen-agers, there are no murders to report and few surprises.

From my novel If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Now:

Maybe you over-identified with Dylan or Neil Young or Tom Waits or Mickey Newberry; maybe you over-identified with the music of the early ‘90’s, or with some band that put out one perfect record but never again came close to matching the beauty and pain and mystical intensity that characterized it; maybe you took up smoking; maybe you quit; maybe you took up church; maybe you quit; maybe you went back to one or both, one or more times; maybe you’ve cracked open a cold one first thing in the morning; maybe you rode the elevator with a man with a gun; maybe when you were fifteen you went to the city to see a British punk band and saw boys dressed up like girls; maybe you didn’t get it; maybe you did; maybe you went to Brooklyn; maybe you went back home; maybe you lived for days on coffee and cigarettes; maybe one of those days someone gave you an oatmeal molasses cookie that you can still describe in rapturous but accurate detail; maybe you forgot you puked it up on the train; maybe you talked a lot, maybe too much; maybe you’re oversensitive; maybe you’ve read more than you should have, including The Bald Soprano by Eugene Ionesco; maybe you’ve been to two or three or seven schools; maybe you’ve had six or eight or twelve crappy jobs; maybe you studied Native American spirituality and Stonehenge and the enneagram and walked a labyrinth and lit a candle and slept under a bridge. Maybe you knocked at the fiftieth gate for a very long time before you finally woke up. Maybe you never woke up. I did. This is about waking up. This is about how I woke up.

Morning Star Falling (Historical fantasy):

My mother taught me many stories of the Great Feathered Serpent Quetzalcoatl, but there's only one that, even now, I can still hear her telling to me just as she had when I was a young girl. It's not a story taught at the temple, at least not as she told it, and the one time I repeated it at calmecac in Xochicalco, the bitter Fire Priestess took a switch to my hands and sentenced me to three weeks of kitchen duty for my "blasphemy." But I knew my mother would never tell me sacrilegious stories about the God; after all, she too had once been a priestess of Quetzalcoatl. I've learned though that it's hardly unusual for alternate visions of our religious tales to garner suspicion and reprehension by those in power. And as "blasphemous" as this story might be, it's important and bears repeating, if only for how much my own destiny became tied up in it.

Haunted houses should not look this way, Lillian thought as she gazed up from the street at the setting of her mother’s nightmares and family stories. She expected creepy but this was no more than vintage wine, a dust covered bottle with a worn label. Although she had never seen it until today, this house was hers. The grandfather she had not met in life had left her this legacy, the house he called home for decades and a place she had never seen until today. She paused, observing each detail to form her first impression.

Kaliegh Hutchins stared at her father's handiwork, the top of which thrust up out of the steel floor like a green, neon glow-stick. The rest of the top secret project rested beneath the pentagon-shaped room, making her feet vibrate with a disconcerting thrum. Eight years ago, he had disappeared, vanished off the face of the earth, leaving her to grow up with the flakiest loon of a mother the world had ever known. Then, just as abruptly, he had arrived back in her life in the form of a letter, stating the desperate need for her help. His ungodly awful scrawl indicated some semblance of authenticity, but it was the date scribbled in the corner that had tilted her world off its center and into the realm of La-la. It read October 12th, 1352.

Hello, here's the first paragraph of my novel, "The Reality Engineers" --

It was a calm, sunny September afternoon in the year of 2010, and the countdown to the birth of faster-than-light travel—or to physicist Dana “Dizzy” Knoblauch unraveling the entire universe—was only minutes away. She stood near the main breaker in her laboratory, a cavernous, converted old lecture hall up on the fourth floor of the Electrical Engineering building. Rigged up with enough makeshift particle physics gear to choke a herd of mutated, city-stomping elephants—and boy, had that ever been a day to remember!—the room had high oak rafters and pale, cracked plaster. The disused cobwebs that she hadn’t cleaned out yet lurked like delicate, whispering ghosts.

Rick Thale stood, stretched, finished his whiskey, left the glass on the card table. He carried the letter with him out of the yard, nodded hello as he passed the fathers standing watch across the street, their children running and shouting through sprinklers, the men barbecuing, drinking beer, playing cards on a brightly lit screened-in porch, the deep yellow light an echo of the sun gone down over the hills. A uniform buzzing filled the air—was it the aggregate sound of hundreds of flying insects, or the power lines? Where was it even coming from?—as he descended, staggering, the steep hillside that lead to the stream separating their yard from the next house down. He sat on a smooth rock, carefully folded the letter over and over again, taking longer than he thought he should, numb fingers stumbling over paper. When he was finished, he set the small boat just beyond the bank, poked it out into open water with a stick he found on the shore. He watched it drift downstream for a moment, listing badly to starboard, barely afloat, before he seized a heavy piece of granite and hurled it out into the clear water, shattering the surface and the near-silence. He missed the boat by a good five or six feet. Rick picked up another stone, then another, sending them crashing into the stream again and again until it was dark. He had no idea if he’d hit the tiny bastard. It had gone down after the third or fourth volley, hadn’t resurfaced. He stood on the shore, breathing hard, feeling decidedly more sober, the only source of heat and sound at the bottom of the rapidly cooling gulley. When his breath was no longer thunderously loud in his ears, he turned, made his way back up the slope toward the house. By the time he’d reached his lawn, he’d made up his mind to get a drink. Vodka martini. Dry. No fruit.

Hey, I didn’t set out to be a SORCERER; this thing just kind of fell in my lap. One day I’m hanging out with my friends being stupid. The next, I’m living in some sort of surreal alternate reality. Okay, it’s reality. Trust me: it’s reality. Only, I’m not used to it, yet.

I better be a little clearer. I don’t wear flowing robes. Give me a break. Those went out of style with bar wenches and man-leggings. I don’t carry a magic staff, either. It would be too conspicuous. It’s hard enough to be covert, but running around with a six-foot-tall look-at-me-I’m-way-the-hell-out-of-place wooden staff would be downright stupid.

You are dead. I am alive. I’m supposed to be the lucky one in that equation. Life is grand, and all that. Yet I wake up every morning a little bit more jealous of you, knowing where you are. Knowing what I know. The way you are not missing me in quite the same way I am missing you. To you, I have whirled away for a quick turn during a dance. You can see me, spinning across the floor, just slightly out of reach. You aren’t alarmed. You know I’ll spin right back into your arms. You’ll blink, and I’ll be back.

Here's my paragraph:

Lady Isobel Maitland was staring at the man like a three-penny whore. Despite that,and the fact that her wicked thoughts were slying in the same direction as her gaze, she felt no shame at all. In fact, standing in the shadows on the edge of the ballroom, hidden behind the half-mask that covered most of her face, she flt quite anonymous, and she was defintely enjoying the view.

Lecia

I knew the paintings immediately, even though I hadn’t seen him in years. I stopped suddenly. Later, when I relived the moment, I chastised myself for being so surprised, because after all it made perfect sense. But right then, I froze. Why am I so shocked, I thought, composing myself. Why shouldn’t he be showing at this Upper East Side gallery? If I had been in Chelsea or the Lower East Side I would have been prepared. Even Soho would have made sense. In those neighborhoods, I braced myself for the possibility of seeing his work around any corner. And yet,in all those years, it had never happened.

Kate Smithfield didn't think this night could get any weirder until she found a large naked man in her kitchen eating all her Starbucks Java Chip ice cream. She was momentarily struck mute by the sight of his backside – all sleek and sinew with a waist tapering down into a hard round butt that made her nearly swoon. Her gaze lifted to his massive biceps, watching the flexing of his muscles as he dipped the spoon into the tub and then sucked off the mocha colored ice cream.

This is great Karma for you, Nathan ;-) Thanks for playing with us!

From UNTITLED:

Change is good. “Everything happens for a reason,” Kamel used to say. “There is meaning in every choice we make; beyond, a deeper meaning that we may come to understand only much later and seemingly by chance. There is a reason why we met, why you feel the need to knock on my door at midnight. Why we sit here speaking of such things until your eyelids stitch together and your head flops against the back of the sofa like that of a bird’s—having flapped its wings against the cage until will and fear, both are spent, and it surrenders to its fate.”

We guzzled cheap Indian scotch by the bottle and stayed up til four in the morning, he in his favorite teal blue terry robe, talking away; me, a receiving vessel drinking it in, waiting for it all to start making sense. We talked about love lost and found, about our failings and what we thought of as strengths, about hope, faith, uncertainty and fear; about his Russian-Uzbek bride Sabrina. How Kamel missed her—the femaleness, the soft look of her.

I am a student of human nature, an observer. Working the graveyard shift behind the counter of a convenience store makes it a requirement. Graveyard clerks should just paint targets on our chests because it’s not if we’re going to get robbed, it’s when. For me it was last July. The store I worked at the time - you know the chain, the one named after lucky rolls of the dice - is near Loehmann’s Plaza where I-405 and I-90 converge. Though located near our equivalent of Silicon Valley, it’s still a scary place. Just up the hill are million dollar homes, but here in the shadow of the freeway is another world. Drug deals go down in our parking lot.

They stood below him in anticipation, pocketed ticket stubs proof that each person in the crowded club owed their attendance not purely to coincidence or fleeting, momentary curiosity. They all paid for this. Eric couldn’t shake the idea as he began the set, opening with his most well-known and highly downloaded song. It wasn’t steep by live-music standards, just fifteen bucks, but in his mind he may as well have been one of the past-his-prime icons of the music industry. One of the acts that hadn’t released a listenable album since the 70s but kept the green rolling in with frequent world tours, billed as reunions and farewells, for which admittance prices were astronomical, bizarre case studies in the sometimes outlandish extremes of supply and demand.

-Scott A.

Here is the opening paragraph of my novel:

He unleashed a string of obscenities, his hate for her overwhelming his self control. The words spit from his mouth. “How can you be so stupid?” he hissed. He started to scream the words at her, his face turning purple, his eyes glowing red from the rage building up inside. He towered over her, foaming at the mouth, wanting to hit her. But he held himself back, thinking of tomorrow. He needed her, at least until the deal was done.

Rortin wondered if the burning in his stomach came from the poison or the wine. If the latter, he'd misjudged the bottle's potency. If the former, it meant he had less than ten minutes to end this game, gather his winnings, and then find a quiet spot to give himself the antidote.

Here's the first paragraph to my short story, "To Where Hate Leads" ...

Welcome to WQUS news at ten. Our top story for February twenty-ninth, two thousand and twenty-eight comes twenty-four short hours after scientists at the University of Chicago discovered the homosexual gene. Karen?

When I was girl, I pretended to be Scarlett O’Hara. That I grew up to be Belle Watling is no one’s fault but my own. Ten years ago I convinced myself Belle got the better deal, but now I know the truth. Only spoiled little rich things get tomorrow; us working girls are stuck with today. And today for me consisted of another two-hour trick with an out-of-town businessman.

First paragraph from Heart of Ice:

Had he died and gone to heaven, or was he simply having one hell of an erotic dream? Maybe he was hallucinating. Damn, he must be, because a hot-mouthed woman with suction like a vacuum was suddenly inside his apartment milking his dick--and he sure as hell hadn’t picked her up. He’d just gotten home after working forty-eight hours straight on a double homicide.

We knew we were in trouble. They'd just shot the man in the ascot and Beanie was indisposed in the chalet with
a recurrence of his anal leakage problem. The whole plan was falling apart.

I’ve been called a homeless man’s homeless man. Gender problem aside, I think I like it. The title points to a standard. The same standard I point to whenever I’m asked by the sweet tourist in his politest tone: “How, Miss, can you bear to lie down in someone else’s urine? In dog urine, cat urine, mouse, rat, so many different urines?” Uninformed man. So I inform him: “Sir, there are two urines on this planet: mine and not mine. Only one is fit to lie down in.” Tourists.

My dad sang too loudly on his deathbed. Imagine that. There was a possibility that he was high from the morphine but I had my doubts. Besides, his piercing gaze was clear and alert, along with the fact that he was as antsy as always. So there he was, in all of his glory, sitting up and belting out one of his favorite Frank Sinatra tunes. His old brown arms made grand sweeping gestures, conducting his performance. Weird that his deep bellowing voice was stronger than it had ever been before. His fists clenched tighter as he continued to sing with conviction and it seemed as if he was going to hop out of bed, at any moment, proving that he wasn't ready at all to die tomorrow.

Everybody should daydream. They say it's healthy for us adults. I like to imagine myself as a dictator, a kind and benevolent dictator for the most part, but arbitrary and unpredictable. For example, I hate the sound of harmonicas. When I come to power they won't be allowed outside of a prison. Nor will Wolf Blitzer because he's constantly shouting. He will have to use his inside voice or he'll be asked to leave by my heavily armed secret police force. I'll move around the holidays too, because they're all bunched up in the winter when the weather is bad and everybody has to drive in the snow. And I only dream of jailing a modest number of political prisoners because I don't want history to judge me harshly. It won't be that bad for you - don't worry about it too much. Tell you what, I'll setup a website so you'll always know what's bothering me and how to avoid my wrath.

Tentative title: Winter Queen.

Rain. Rain clatters on rooftops, patters on window pains. Drips, drops. The entire life of a raindrop consists of a violent plunge from the heavens that eventually ends in its destruction.

Not so with snow. Snow twirls and dances delicately on the air currents, gently stacks upon the ground, covering the browns of death and decay with pure white. It is a stark as it is beautiful. What human eye, upon seeing a newly blanketed landscape cannot marvel at the change simple frozen water can create?

Strange that I would have such thoughts, broken and bleeding as I was. Watching the snow’s slow dance as it covered me in a cloak of purity. I didn’t feel cold. Not anymore. Nor did I feel sorrow, or fear, or resentment. Only wonder at the beauty around me.

I wobbled into my apartment, legs wide, as if I’d spent the last seven hours on a horse. Instead, I’d suffered through the inhumane treatment masochistic women endured. A Brazilian wax. “It feels like I fell asleep while sunbathing—in stirrups.”

The men rode into Beaver Run like two horsemen of the apocalypse, justice on a white horse and war on a red one. The town's few citizens walking through the muddy streets hurried to get out of their path, while those milling on the plank walkways stared as the duo passed.

Thanks for the opportunity to be part of this contest.
Charlie

My insides constricted as I gazed around the light yellow walls of the high-school gym. The club sandwich, or at least what little bit I had managed to choke down, threatened to re-emerge, that is if I didn’t pass out first. Faces blurred and the gathering masses seemed to melt into one giant watercolor. The rising drone in my ears was replaced with the vociferous pounding in my chest. I didn’t want to be here … not today … especially not today.

Here is my first paragraph of my WIP challenge entry.

“Excuse me Sir, I know you didn’t want to be disturbed. But there’s a “bag lady” in the waiting room that claims to be your daughter!
“I don’t have a daughter as you well know it! You’ve been my secretary for the last 25 years Grace. Now get rid of the beggar and get back to work.”
“I know that sir but she looks….
“I told you.” —
In a huff, Emily pushed her way past the secretary and dropped her dirty bags on his desk.
“What do you think you’re doing?” He demanded, as he picks up the phone to call security. Without hesitation Emily pulls out a tattered picture of a woman. With a heavy hand she slams it down upon his desk beside the phone.
George’s forehead crinkles with the impression of shock and recognition. The woman in the photo was more stunning than he recalled. The picture seemed recent. She had been his past secretary, and lover, whom he fired when their relationship ended. George slowly replaces the receiver and looks up at her.
“Who are you? And what do you want?”
Emily spoke in a clear and slow voice so he would not mistake a word she was saying. “I’m¬¬––your––¬¬¬¬¬daughter–– and–– “I need a Lawyer – you are a Lawyer aren’t you?”
“Yes…Why?” He asks, in a tight stern voice, his jaw clenched so tight his face turned a shade of red with irritation.
“Because I’m suing for pass due child support that – you – DAD! – Failed – to – pay me!” Emily stated, “or should I say my mother!”

wheeeee. comment #699! from my memoir (currently work in progress):

----------

I graduated from an elite high school and one of the country’s top 30 universities, yet just about everything I know about life I learned from growing and selling pot. As an upperclassman I used a $1,000 student loan to make more than $150,000 by selling three million dollars of marijuana, give or take a million. As my influence grew I met people from across the student life spectrum, but there were never any clique biases; the only bias was against bad pot. The drugs, drinking, and dealing erased any semblance of sobriety and slowly eroded my few remaining moral standards, but between the bouts of paranoia and puking, made for one hell of a story.

Marah stopped her song; she let it drift away and stood listening.

The ground spoke up through her feet of the tramping of the armies of the dead. The Outsiders. The air spoke to her nose of unwashed foreign sweat and the chill of their empty hearts gripped in her chest. And as she waited, frozen in fear like a little bird facing a snake, the sounds of their voices drifted to her; the familiar curses and cries of her people interspersed by foreign laughs and demands.

She had lost herself in her song, lost track of time and had lost – everything.

The front door of the NYC Hospital emergency department burst open and Jewel Connor, Forensic Examiner, backed against the wall to get out of the way. A pair of blue-uniformed paramedics rushed inside, pushing along a gurney carrying the bloodied body
of a man with an arrow through his head. They brought along the smell of ambulance exhaust and perspiration tainted with fear. A nurse and a resident physician scurried to the stretcher and shouted questions. Above the noise and chaos, a harried male voice came over the intercom: “Patients are to remain seated in the waiting area until someone calls you to be seen.” As Jewel hurried past the rows of waiting patients she felt a twinge of disgust. The man in the blue jacket with the red ski cap was already dead.

Hi Nathan,

The first paragraph of my current WIP, "Simone and the Scoundrel", a historical romance:

No one took note of the shabbily dapper man forging his way through the stinking human detritus that crammed London's streets, much less cared about his cranky mutterings or the grubby toddler he towed behind.

Where were the bodies? In the two years she’d patrolled the coasts Sioneh of Rhyged saw enough Saxon raids to know there had to be bodies. Her brows drew together as she leaned on the pommel of her war horse’s saddle and scratched his withers. She expected the ribbons of smoke snaking from the ruins of the wattle and daub church and the longboat drawn against the cobbled shore. But no dead dogs or livestock? No tracks betrayed driven off sheep, cattle and captives. Why hadn’t the villagers started the plowing? Where were the men? At sea? A single partially repaired coracle leaned on its thwarts. Where was the other?

MG WIP:

If they find out about me writing this journal or about the Storybooks, they’ll Adjust me. But I’m not afraid any more. Because I know I’m not alone.

I am driving my rusty red pickup down this dusty dirt road as fast I dare. The engine growls and gravel tossed up by my tires pings against the underside of the truck. The ride is not smooth, and my loose rearview mirror wobbles crazily with every bump. If it were daylight, I would be able to see the farm bouncing in the mirror, growing smaller and smaller as I hurtle down the road. As it is, I can’t see squat in the dark Michigan night, and I won’t turn on my headlights for fear we’ll be discovered.

We found the body down at Marsh Creek where the old bridge crossed the river and the wild chickens ran loose. Where the abandoned mill used to sit at the intersection of River and Convict roads. The mill is gone now, of course, and the bog next to it, the one where they later found that dead baby buried in the mud, is just a paved over parking lot of cracked cement and dying weeds.

Every morning a tiny Asian girl shoves past Aiden while getting on the train. She sneaks in on the right, dodging people at an improbable speed considering her tiny frame. Aiden never seems to see her coming although he’s always looking. She’s become a part of his morning routine. Just like stopping for coffee at Blenz, taking a shower, and brushing his teeth. For once he’d like to get the drop on her and beat her at her own game. It hasn't happened yet.

The old freighter smashed its way slowly through the murky, bluish waves, as if trying to inflict pain upon the massive sea. Abe stood at the rear of the boat and peered over the deck, watching the sharks that followed. There were
at least four of them, their dark tear-drop shapes appearing, disappearing, and reappearing on the surface as they waited for dinner. Abe didn't know
when sharks had started following ships like a starving monkey follows a plate of food. But it'd happened sometime before he was born. He'd heard of a time when spotting a shark from the top deck of such a large ship was rare, back when most sharks were smaller than your average speedboat. But
now they were easy to spot and they were always there, close behind.

man, i don't know what happened to the formatting. sorry about that.

here this may be easier to read naturally:

The old freighter smashed its way slowly through the murky, bluish waves, as if trying to inflict pain upon the massive sea. Abe stood at the rear of the boat and peered over the deck, watching the sharks that followed. There were at least four of them, their dark tear-drop shapes appearing, disappearing, and reappearing on the surface as they waited for dinner. Abe didn’t know when sharks had started following ships like a starving monkey follows a plate of food. But it’d happened sometime before he was born. He’d heard of a time when spotting a shark from the tope deck of such a large ship was rare, back when most sharks were smaller than your average speedboat. But now they were easy to spot and they were always there, close behind.

From Blood Moon Crossing

Ziva’s tongue unrolled from her mouth, the forked end tasting, smelling the environment. Danger...close...a demon.

He did not believe that Silvio would pull the trigger of the gun pressed against the prisoner’s head until the brilliant white of the dictator’s shirt disappeared into a spray of blood and brain matter. Luis bit his lip, gulping back the bile rising from his roiling stomach. He couldn’t vomit or even grimace. The fate of his country depended on him remaining stoic.

Yikes! Good luck with all these entries, Nathan. Someone bake this man some cookies and send them express mail! (I'd do it, but meh, I don't want to have to take blame for burnt or salmonella-laden cookies.)

Here's the first paragraph of Moy Tura Echoes.

Though the hottest summer in living memory clung to the country, Morgan could remember a hotter one. Or at least, she thought so. She could not be sure whether the passage of endless years just made her remember it that way. She stood at the foot of the ruined tower and gazed up at the sun behind it.

This is the first paragraph, one line, from Lawgiver. Yep, it's epic fantasy :wink:. Thanks for doing this again:

The first timet hat I met the Lawgiver, I was fifteen and a slave.

Suelder

From my memoir, "Bastard Husband: A Love Story"

Today I put my bastard husband on a plane to the other side of the world. He wasn’t always a bastard. He was perfect and I loved everything about him. Well, almost everything. I may never see him again.

A sharp click echoed through the air, a deep sigh followed closely behind it. Today would not be the day. The man was not too disappointed for he knew that it would come soon. He placed the gun carefully back into his pocket and stared thoughtfully into the lake. Marlow Steele was his name and he stood at the end of the old, half sunken dock; the only thing that lay in front of him was a brilliant gray mist that casually billowed across the expanse of the small lake.

Shayda's Name had only ever been safe in old Gebah's mouth. Now that Name was washed away in Long River, and old Gebah too dead to give her a new one. The river wasn't supposed to take her Name. No water could - she knew that like breathing. Yet, for ten full leagues beyond her people's territory, Shayda had chased her Name as it tumbled in waters raging from spring thaw. When it disappeared into a deep gorge where she could not follow, everything went with it. Lost to her whose only valued possession had been the Name which bound her world together — the Name which had taken to water without her.

From my MG WIP:

It may have looked like Regina Robinson was precariously perched on the limb of an elm tree, about to tumble to the ground at any moment, but she wasn’t. She was actually quite comfortably situated in a well-worn, perfectly Regina-sized nook, shaded by overhanging leaves. She had spent countless hours in her tree and had never once fallen. In fact, Regina had never fallen from any tree.

YA Romantic Fantasy

The ninth year of the reign of Queen Josefina, being the hundredth year of Great Silence...

Analisia stole down the marble hallways of the palace with all the fluid grace of a snowcat. Outside the chamber of learning, she paused, listening. Hearing nothing but silence from within, she grasped the handle. As soon as her fingers touched the smooth bronze ring, an unearthly chill bled up her arm. Any other time, she might have suspected a stirring of her otherworldly gift, but this evening she felt she could safely ignore the signs. There was nothing at all otherworldly about her errand; she simply risked being late for the banquet.

Hi Nathan, I'm Sammy Suzuhara. Here's the first paragraph of my YA Sci-Fi novel, Children of Tokua


Zackaria flew a thousand feet above the ground. She loved how the cool October wind beat against her clothes and rode the waves of her long black hair. Holding tight to the side of her jetboard, she maneuvered the vehicle into downward spirals. She performed another tight corkscrew before easing her board back toward her destination, flying through the spaces between Pantor City’s skyscrapers. Her eyes widened. She approached one of the pedestrian walkway tubes that connected one building to another. Her heart thrashed her chest with rising anticipation. Zackaria released a breath. Feeling risky in the early morning, she waited until the walkway was a dangerous distance away from her before directing her board under it. Another walkway came her way and she gasped, swerving to the right only to find herself flying straight into a building. Thinking fast, she rocketed straight up. She sailed alongside the tall skyscraper and touched the glass windows with her fingertips. Gusts of wind splashed against her face through her helmet’s window. Zackaria closed her eyes, smiling. She flew above the building and greeted the rising sun. Rays of sunlight pierced her eyes and she blinked, consuming the view of the dense city.

Thanks for reading!

He did not believe that Silvio would pull the trigger of the gun pressed against the prisoner’s head until the brilliant white of the dictator’s shirt disappeared into a spray of blood and brain matter. Luis bit his lip, gulping back the bile rising from his roiling stomach. He couldn’t vomit or even grimace. The fate of his country depended on him remaining stoic.

A paragraph from my YA novel.

An escalated hum buzzed in the darkness, like African bees homing in on their nest, woke Isabelle Black. She sat straight up. It was her alarm clock buzzing. She tried to focus on the big red numbers. 3:01 AM. She pushed the clock onto the hardwood floor and plopped her head back on the feathered pillow.

Beth Hoffman knew she was being watched.
Her skin crept.
Outside the dining room window, light snow blew across the yard and the Maples moved in dance. One, long decaying, stood so close to the house its gnarled branches scratched against the glass pane.

Chapter 1: INTIMATE INFORMATION
Kensington,London 21 June 1913

A forest of rooftop chimneys stood tall and dark against the early morning sky. Like the portals of ancient Stonehenge, they aligned perfectly with the rising sun of the summer solstice as it spread over brush and tree, soared high above gables and roof-top peaks, fit straight and true through every breach and space until a single solitary ray of sunlight peaked brilliantly straight through to the leaded glass doors of 128 Queen’s Gate Garden, Kensington. The light, shattered into a thousand rainbows, washed merrily across the floor and walls of the foyer inside, but as with so many things beautiful and unexpected, the ebullient display was to be short-lived when the shadow of a man appeared outside the door. The repeated ringing of the high-pitched bell prompted a small round woman, her hair pulled neatly up under her snowy cap, to fairly fly out of the nearby drawing room.

Elara repeated the mantra over and over again in her head: this year will be different – new school, new look, a new Elara. She took a deep breath, glanced out the window, but no matter how hard she tried to get it together, confidence eluded her. Who was she kidding? Nothing would change. Nausea snaked into her stomach, creeping up into her throat like a toxic poison. Elara Alexander knew she was about to become a social leper. Again.

So, the ‘Green Room’ on the Oprah Winfrey Show is actually painted gold, mused Marsha Underwood as she waited for her television appearance. She was ready. The producers had prepped and calmed her well, including cutting off her coffee; “It makes you talk too fast,” they said.

“Moe is a Bastard,” said my grandfather.
“Not today, Daddy.” My mother outlined her lips with fuchsia pencil.
“If he thinks he can show up there today, he’s got another thing coming.”
My mother paced by the window searching for optimum make-up applying light, her compact pointed like a compass. Grandpa Solly jangled dimes and keys and a handful of those no-name hard candies he always had on him, the ones with the liquidy chocolate center. It bothered me the way he bit into the candies; you were supposed to suck on them until the chocolate seeped out, collecting under your tongue and around your teeth.
“Jesus, Daddy,” my mother said. “Your teeth are going to fall out of your head.”
“Good,” he said cracking loudly.
My mother tssked. “Just get dressed.”
“I am dressed. Nothing wrong with these trousers.”
“Mom would have wanted you to wear your navy suit.”
“That’s your story,” he said, walking toward the living room no one was allowed to use.
My mother snapped her hair-sprayed helmet in my direction. “Oh for God’s sake, Janie. What are you waiting for? Go get dressed.”
“You have lipstick on your teeth,” I said.

The scent of seared flesh assaulted his nostrils. In his state between lucidity and oblivion, a blessedly slow moment passed before he realized the tortured skin was his own. Lord Darton Prestwood, who had lost control of his stoic upper lip a good two hours ago, screamed.

From my fantasy novel, Son's Vengeance:

Atironen took another step forward. Atturis was letting his defense weaken; Atironen could see the thread of sweat along the line of blonde hair at the top of his forehead. He struck even harder, buying himself the moment he needed to adjust his grip on his sword and shake a lock of dark hair from his eyes. The gold threads in Atturis’s sorcerer’s glove crackled. Atironen dodged a blow from it, slipping to the side and attacking yet again. Atturis wheeled on him, lunging. Atironen, with one mighty swing, broke through Atturis’s defense, the point of his sword flying to his chest.

Just yesterday morning, Ram bounced out of bed.
A rambunctious plan had hatched in his head.
A plot, a notion, so mighty and grand,
his toes started running before they hit land.

From my WIP, Every Now and Then which is "book club lit" or as I affectionately refer to it- Oprah's next pick. :)

Then
The hum of the machines and monotony of beeps was strangely soothing. A soft bluish haze from disinfection lamp illuminated her shining head and skinny arm, rising slightly with each breath. Her skin looked and even sicklier olive color in that light. I wanted to leave. I had to work in the morning and it was starting to get late, especially since I still had an hour’s drive home. I couldn’t leave though; I didn’t want her to wake to me gone.

Jad Connor poured equal measures of orange juice and vodka into a glass. He watched the clock on the basement wall creep from four-oh-one to four-oh-two a.m. The exact time the paramedics pronounced Kelsey dead. He lifted the glass to his lips and drained it in one gulp. Jad refilled the glass ten more times.

oy vey! - but what the heck! lol

“You can run, but you can’t hide. Not from me,” Anna Bartiglioni muttered into the receiver at the Italian version of Musak. Juggling the phone on her shoulder and ignoring the rumbling in her stomach, she flipped through several sheets of paper, meticulously highlighting every discrepancy between the ordered merchandise and the first received shipment. She’d taken her last antacid an hour ago.

Jad Connor poured equal measures of orange juice and vodka into a glass. He watched the clock on the basement wall creep from four-oh-one to four-oh-two a.m. The exact time the paramedics pronounced Kelsey dead. He lifted the glass to his lips and drained it in one gulp. Jad refilled the glass ten more times.

From my NaNoWriMo Novel

Jane's cell phone is ringing. One eye peeps open as she tries to focus on the soft glow of her green plasma clock. It reads 3:15 am. Her hand stumbles around on the table until finally she finds her phone that will not stop ringing. Groggily she answers, "hello?"

Alone. Cold. And blind. Yet the darkness, itself, provided some measure of company. A regular visitor, it was, and never tardy. Subzero temperatures. That’s what plagued him. Never liked it. Never will. Captain William Jedson trudged on, one foot forced in front of the other. The howling swirls bit through his uniform…pierced his flesh…froze a permanent hatred for anything refrigerated. One more night would find a new addition to the frigid landscape. A statue. A symbol of defiance. Blind. Cold. And alone.

At the time she chose to confide in me, my friend Amanda Walker was just beginning to struggle to maintain the facade of her perfect appearing marriage. Given that she had managed to stay married just fine for a little over eight years to her attractive lawyer husband Julian, this was somewhat out of the ordinary. Amanda had always seemed to have it all: the easy popularity, the doting husband, her own dental practice, the perfect home. Explaining the situation for the first time, she gazed at me all large brown eyes and confusion and blurted out wildly
“It’s been going on so long it's almost like I’m trying to get caught - look at me, I’m even telling people now....I’m telling you.” Putting her head in her hands, she mumbled despondently into her long dark hair
“I never talk about this and I never get caught. What’s happening to me?”

from short story "tell me everything" about amanda's kidnap and murder by her obsessive best friend. thanks for reading, Anna.

Tumbleweed. Salsola collina. Most people don’t realize it’s actually kind of a pretty plant when it’s young. Eventually it dries up and breaks off from its roots and well, tumbles. It has lots of unusual uses – did you know it can even be used to make glass? I heard that somewhere. Everyone knows it symbolizes the Old West. Even though it came from Mongolia. I’m obsessed with tumbleweed lately. Maybe because I’d like to think I’m still useful in fun and unusual ways – even though life dried me up and I tend to tumble in the breeze more than the average person. I used to be pretty when I was young, too. Vivacious and full of life. I feel a little drab these days. Not sure if you can get vivacious back.

...and then i thought whats the point in entering a contest without leaving your details? and as I'm new to all this I dont have a url or myspace so Anna is [email protected] and yes I am the one with the psycho murdering best friend in the first paragraph above.

Who would name their kid Ralph? Our new doctor is Dr. Veenstranberg, but we call him Dr. Ralph for obvious reasons. Family therapy is to my family what weekly grocery shopping is to others. We have been through many therapists. We burn through them like toilet paper. They don’t like us, and frankly, we don’t like many of them much either. I really hate them all, but since I started going to therapy when I was six, they are a constant in my life.

From my WIP, "Skeptics and Wizards":

I glanced up and saw the homeless man lying in the snow. “Oh, the poor man.” That's when I tripped over him. To add insult to my embarrassment, I slipped on the ice and fell on my ass. “Ow.”

Scott

Still in shock after what had happened, Adar fought to conceal his fear. He was a soldier now and should be able to protect the child; it was his job. It was only yesterday that he had thought of himself as a boy, but the events of the morning had brought harsh manhood on him sooner than he would have imagined. Everything had been going well in the ceremony until the demon appeared; it could only have been a demon. What else could be so cruel and commit the atrocities he had witnessed in the hall? Had that only been this morning? It seemed ages since he had been running and fighting only to find himself running again through these endless tunnels. Who could have ever known these labyrinths were under the castle he had seen all his life. Somehow it felt wrong to run from the worst of the fighting. But Captain Ryne was right; his first duty was to the child; now more than ever it had been.

Plasma rifle at the ready, Private Ralf Bein stalked down the center of the potholed road, taking his turn on point and not liking it one bit. The street was empty of civilians, which was a bad sign, making Ralf wonder if they knew something his patrolling ranger squad had yet to discover. That the rangers had also started taking random rifle fire in the last few minutes added to this genius assumption. So far it was nothing his armor couldn't handle--because little short of depleted uranium slugs or plasma could penetrate imperial battle armor with a single shot, and the outmanned and outgunned rebels weren't that well supplied. But the deserted streets and the pling and whine when another bullet unexpectedly zinged off Ralf's gear was unnerving, to say the least.

Blood pulsed in my ears, an ocean roar. Bells tolled. Gagging on the smell of wet dog and gardenias, I puzzled over a blurry kaleidoscope far above me. As I blinked, the colors gradually resolved into a stained-glass window. Rubbing a hand over my sticky face, I remembered the truffles. The wedding. My heart constricted. Where were my kids?

A chill crawled up the back of Gail Cullen’s slender neck. Not the kind that breaks into a cold sweat; rather, a sense of unreserved excitation one feels a few times in their life. The sensation was there when her ex-husband asked her to marry him and again when her first book published. A few hours ago, when she spotted the yellow and black for sale sign on 50 Stonegate Street, it hit again.

Introducing Tobermory to an office environment would once have been easy. Wearing a kilt is the perfect icebreaker. You walk into an office wearing a kilt and people expect you to come up with off-the-wall suggestions. Six-foot-four guy in a kilt walks in, people are bored, soon's they set eyes on the kilt they expect something to happen. People love doing business with a guy in a kilt.

Logan Reed jammed a finger into the neck of his white oxford and pulled. He needed some air. What the hell was he doing here anyway?
He surveyed the church and a bead of sweat popped out on his forehead. His breath became shallow and quick. He was going to hyperventilate right here and pass out, making a fool of himself in front of everyone.

First thing was, something scuffling out front. I waited for a moment, expecting a knock, but there was nothing. I put down my drink and ambled to the door, opening it slow so as not to surprise some girl scout preparing herself for a cookie sales pitch. There was no one there. My eyes fell to the package, wrapped in plain brown paper with my name was scrawled in black marker across the top: Beverly May Parsons. I pushed the corner with my toe. It wasn't very heavy, maybe 10 pounds, a little bit bigger than a bread basket. I bent over to pick it up. That's when it moved.

This is the first paragraph from my work-in-progress: ‘When Fast Foods Attack – A Dark Tale about White Meat.’ It’s meant to be an epic of gastronomical proportions. Thanks for reading.

The evil originated in a secret laboratory and spread through fast food franchises, all over the world. It began innocently enough –just another flamboyant product rollout. The latest addition to the menu at Fried Fowl Heaven – 5 Billion Souls Served Worldwide. Word of mouth for the Bucket O’ Manna was positive beyond belief: ‘Revolutionary’ – Rolling Stone, ‘Don’t waste time reading this review. Order the Manna Meal now!’ – Variety, ‘If you do only one thing this year, try the Bucket O’ Manna.’ – YAHOO, ‘Fried Fowl Heaven is the Harbinger of the Apocalypse’ – deeplythreatened.com. The last was an entry on a web blog maintained by an activist group, which claimed the franchise was up to its neck in illegal genetic research. They didn’t get many hits. Nor would their views have mattered to the general public. The frenzy whipped up by the Bucket O’ Manna bordered on religious fervor – as if it were the heralded Second Coming. People thronged the streets for miles outside franchises, waiting for a chance to sample the new miracle. The sun smiled benevolently upon the giant corporate logo – a pair of angelic chicken wings under a halo that dripped with oil. Time Magazine finally hailed it as the crowning achievement in fast food history. It would soon choke on its words.

Galen, the King’s most trusted friend and advisor, stood motionless outside the royal chambers as he pondered the bad news he was about to report. For over fifteen years since he had been entrusted with this mission, he had given nothing but bad news. But now, the king was dying and the need for the heir more vital than ever. With a heavy heart he tapped lightly on the great wooden doors before him. A heavy click and the creaking of old hinges echoed along the hallway as the doors slowly opened and the servant within bid him enter. A sickening smell of death hit him as Galen entered the room. The dozens of floor to ceiling windows that were typically open to bring in fresh air had been fastened closed for the king’s comfort. The drapes too had been closed, giving the room the feeling of a dark cave with only a single candle burning by the king’s bedside. The sight before Galen took his breath away. He had indeed heard that his beloved friend was dying, but he did not imagine how close to death he actually was.

First paragraph from BAD POLICY:

I told the cop I was not blind.

My first hint that the devil was wearing Prada earmuffs and a Burberry scarf should’ve been when my parents gave in and let me go to the Tatiana Henderson School of the Arts. After all, they’d sworn up and down it would be a cold day in Hades before they let me move all the way across the country for high school.

Garbage day never fell on a Friday, Billie was fairly certain of that. Even after a holiday long-weekend screwed up the regular schedule so that she had to race out in her pajamas and bare feet, dragging the cans to the meet the departing truck halfway between her driveway and the neighbour’s house, it still never happened on a Friday. So the shrill screech of a truck braking in front of the house made her think she’d only dreamed all of Thursday, and now it was too late. She’d never make it out there in time, even if the garbage man was the sort to take pity on her as she ran alongside the truck to offer up her containers of refuse like one of those mothers in disaster movies trying to get their children onto a moving train as it flees a burning city. From the brief interactions Billie’d had with him, he did not seem to be that sort of garbage man.

Palmist, Haven Montgomery, plopped down on a cushioned lounge chair, toed off her stilettos, shimmied her skirt up her legs, slipped her sunglasses in place, raised the back of her hand to her forehead and reclined with a dramatic flare worthy of a Hollywood acting contract.

RENDERING EVIL

As his cab sped down Pennsylvania Avenue, one of the Victorian streetlights flickered off, just like the life Kory had taken. As expected, the pleasure had exceeded what he had felt when he killed for the first time. But that was twenty years ago. Now he wondered if the exhilaration from his latest victim would last as long.

Mari was helping edit the English translation of the Chinese sensation “My Love Is a Bargain”. She thought it might have been better as “My Love for a Bargain” or even “My Love as a Bargain”, but the translator had been adamant in his choice of title. He refused suggestions.

From humorous mystery, MOMS NIGHT OUT WAS MURDER:

The name’s Luce.
Tiffany Luce.
On the surface, I’m not much like James Bond. But take away his suave sophistication, sex-god status and futuristic cars, replace them with baby spit-up covered sweats, too-tired-tonight excuses and a dented minivan that doubles as a diaper bag, and we’re a lot alike. Okay, even then we don’t have much in common. Except for dogged persistence and (occasional) flashes of investigative genius.
And maybe a little too much of the same dependence on adrenaline. Which explains why I didn’t flee when the SUV dealership exploded one hundred feet behind me.

You made me revisit a dozen first paragraphs! Very educational. Here's the first paragraph of one:

Today I celebrated the silver anniversary of my death. Two dozen great friends, all gamma-class ghosts like me, threw a sim-space party. They made me realize these had been twenty-five of the best years of my life. A life without end — or at least so I thought before yesterday’s news.

Shadows creep up the blank walls as my awareness flows around Ming vases, across first edition leather bound books, and over jewelry boxes full of glitz. My thoughts reach out for the snoring fat man in silk pajamas. I flick the tip of his nose, knowing that I won’t get the reaction I desire – translucent hands can cause no aggravation. My mind caresses his dreams as I enter his sleep-induced fantasy. It’s time for another disturbing night’s work.

Great idea! Thanks, Nathan.

This is from my second, WIP novel: The Passion Flower Diary.

My husband died twice. The first time born pale and motionless on a hateful August day. Air so stale he had refused to breath it. One last whack at his mother's insistence and his face bloomed with life. Forty-five years later, during mulberry season, he died again. This time for keeps.

It is an unanswerable question, but one which haunts me, that of how Misty and I came to exist. The how is easy, relative to the why. The doctors toiled, trying to persuade our mother's spent body to release the babies who would not budge. Perhaps we knew this was the safest place, that the world without would not be ready for us.

Analindë's hands slid over the smooth bark and knobby bits of the Aspen tree as she scampered up to the top. Happy, she hummed a tune as she climbed. Wind tousled her hair as it blew through the branches around her. Fat yellow leaves clunked against each other adding a soothing percussive counterpoint to the improvised melody.

The invasion began disguised as a cardboard box—her sister’s Trojan horse. The package waited under the eaves of the front stoop, nestled up to the door like a newborn foal. A muted brown against the foggy gray of the house. Its sides buckled pathetically in the oppressive damp of the San Diego fall.

Wow, lots of entries here. Well, here goes. The first paragraph of my WIP, MatchMakers Incorporated.

Name: Nina stared at the blank space for a moment, unsure of how to answer and too excited to realize that this wasn't the first question. A second reading brought on comprehension, and she scribbled off Nina Mittondere. She stopped herself from moving onto the first question, however, in order to erase her answer and write it more neatly. "If the Probability Matrix can't read your name, how can it enter your answers correctly and find your Soulmate?" The statement had been drilled into her for months. Proud of her quick thinking, Nina glanced up at Mrs. Sparks, who nodded and smiled at her, before she proceeded to the actual test.

How did I end up here? All I keep asking myself is how did I, Rachel Benford, end up stuck to a black leather seat in my mother’s SUV wearing this god awful white pleated tennis skirt? I can’t stop yanking on my pink tank top. It’s so tight that I swear you can see my breakfast and it’s so freaking hot out that I’m getting those embarrassing half moon sweat marks under my boobs. I’ll make a really good first impression now. I look like a cup of strawberry ice cream that’s melting and not in a sexy kind of way with whipped cream and a cherry and all that. The kind of way where you are anxiously trying to eat it as fast as you can because you’ve already used every last napkin and tissue in the damn car and everything’s getting all sticky.

Historical fantasy, 6 BCE, Briton (Wales)

Clouds had gathered quickly blocking even the baleful moon. Lightning and thunder flashed and sounded in the distance. Chill autumn rain fell as Gwydion and Amaethon led her through the ruined fortress holding either arm and shackled her to the post facing the way they had come, arms wrapped around it behind her. In a dense fog the two disappeared. Raising her head she shuddered at the sight of the same abandoned caer, the same great hall; although now the roof had deteriorated completely and large holes decorated the once solid walls. Waves crashed against the cliff wall; spray reached her. She saw no evidence of the huge iron ring that had held her dragon self. Peering down the length of the hall she saw nothing but blackness staring back. A tear rolled down Gwyneth’s cheek.

Take heed before our minstrels start to play:
Some thoughts about the city of L.A.
The angels, this metropolis their home,
Kick tumbleweeds around the streets they roam.
>From far beyond the desert sweaty slog
They trudge and bear upon their backs the smog.
The stars above in absence dim the mood}
Of all th'angelic stars of Hollywood}
And quite reflect th'ambitions of our Dude.}
Alas, this cowboy finds himself ahead
Of this ad hoc haphazard nar'tive thread.
"The Dude" was not thus by his parents called
But "Jeff Lebowski" was the name they 'nstalled.
And this Lebowski, with peculiar taste,
Discarded Jeff and left "Dude" in its place.
You mustn't ask this cowboy why he'd switch
Aside to say it keeps my stories rich.
The Dude, this city, both to me so strange,
Afford this poem a home out on the range.
Before 2000 turned our hard drives back,}
And Bush the senior clobbered through Iraq,}
(And then his son decided to go back),}
The Dude was set upon by happenstance
And found himself a hurricane by chance,
And if the Fates had luck enough to lend
They bet the Dude he'd live to see the end.
Be stupefied as I begin to tell}
Just how the Dude precipitously fell,}
And played the hero climbing out of Hell.}
The only thing that makes a hero great
Is how he plays the hand he's dealt by fate.
The Dude, it seems, fit right into his time:
Los Angeles in decade number nine.
His laziness was not a factor when
The open door of life let chaos in.
When duty calls sometimes there is a man,
And 'twas the Dude who had become this man...
Aw, hell. I rambled on for much too long.
This introduction's over. Here's the song:

When your entire family is made up of private investigators, you learn a thing or two about observing the world around you. And that’s how I know, as soon as I push open my front door and catch the unmistakable scent of cookies baking, that something isn’t right.

942 comments? Wow. Fun way to spend the holiday! Here's my first chapter of my urban fantasy.


I always knew there was something different about me. But who doesn’t feel that way at some point, right? It’s normal to feel abnormal. The problem is, I’m right.

From Festival Madness

After all these years, Think Tank had a face to attach to that long-hated cyber-name, Mangler, a face Think Tank recognized, the face he had long suspected of being his old nemesis. Still, his mind boggled. How was it possible that here, at a folk music festival in the wilds of Columbia County, he confronted this face from the past? A weird coincidence. Had to be. All good programmers are paranoid, and Think Tank knew he was still one of the best–-and the most paranoid, which was why he felt that needle jab of distrust. The man approached him, put out his band and offered their old greeting for hello. “How’s hacking?”

Bread. Milk. Eggs. Ramen Noodles. The food stuffs in the cart were grossly outnumbered by the array of cleaning products wedged in beside them. Window spray and bleach. Air sanitizer and Murphy’s Oil Soap. Sponges, paper towels, toilet bowl cleaner. Total ticket: $103.74, eight dollars of it on food to keep the thin girl behind the cart from collapsing from malnutrition.

The phantom breeze hit my face in the still of our little kitchen. A series of disastrous events approached me with the velocity of a speeding freight train—not that I was psychic—my life was just like that. Tonight was the night I’d have to stand up and be counted. I gripped the edges of the counter stool and held tight as I tried to slow the racing of my heart and force a normal expression. It’s a good thing most of us can’t see the future. We’d all sit frozen in panic, unable to act. Just as I was now.

Thanks, Nathan.

First para of my WIP novel:

--

Daytimes I sit in the common room and stare at the streaming television screen, an old wand in my briefcase, rarely used, dulled, flecked with lint.

Three gargoyles and a mermaid, carved in stone over the tall arched door. Reena fiddled with a short clump of her cocoa-brown hair and tried to think of something, anything else to like about Abe Ockalips Junior High as her mother’s navy Corolla knifed into the queue of mini-vans vomiting young teens onto the sidewalk. Summer gone. She sighed with all the breath her skinny middle could muster. There was simply no joy here except for three gargoyles and – she squinted hard from behind her camo-print glasses – a spray of Jacuzzi-blue sparkles over the asphalt-shingled roof?

Thanks Nathan!

From my yet to be titled Sci-Fi WIP.

Saffron walked down the path between two great stone buildings, arched windows and doors watched her silent progress. The sound of children running and laughing drifted around her, but she did not hear them. Delicate white flowers along the path bloomed, perfuming the air with fragrance, but she did not smell it. A bell rang in the distance, doors along the building opened and the grassy field began to fill with conversation and merriments, but she did not notice. She could not look away from the letter in her hand.

Thanks Nathan!

First paragraph of my Sci-Fi WIP.

Saffron walked down the path between two great stone buildings, arched windows and doors watched her silent progress. The sound of children running and laughing drifted around her, but she did not hear them. Delicate white flowers along the path bloomed, perfuming the air with fragrance, but she did not smell it. A bell rang in the distance, doors along the building opened and the grassy field began to fill with conversation and merriment, but she did not notice. She could not look away from the letter in her hand.

A locked car is like a chastity belt. There may be a way in if you don’t have the key, but you can be sure it’s gonna be painful. As Mo contemplated the dark Green Mercedes sedan, the quote came to mind. She couldn’t quite recall who’d said it. Oh well, she didn’t have the Mercedes’ key and wasn’t about to call a locksmith. The only way in was through the half-open sunroof. Easy peasy.

I swore I did this once, but I can't find it. If this is a duplicate, I apologize.

****

Charles Perry turned his collar up and stuffed his hands into his pockets, trying not to look as if he were about to vomit from nerves as he watched the dinghies and sloops rocking against the narrow rails of the dock. Further downstream great ships docked to ferry soldiers, supplies, and sundries from the capital city of Etsey to the Continental coast, but here smaller, half-rotted ships plied less noble but far more exquisite cargoes. Drugs, whores, smuggled goods, spies--they could all be found on a single ship, here. Dirty people with dirty souls frequented the Golden Dock. Charles, for example, tried to come down here at least once a week. But Charles was not here tonight to bid on a dram of drug or hire a whore. He ignored the dock callers who recognized him and remembered the purse his grandfather kept well-stocked, and they shouted his favorites at him, offers of escape via flesh and chemicals at prices just for you, sir. Charles considered, briefly, staving off his nervousness with such a diversion, but in his heart he knew it would do no good. It would not solve his problems, and to be honest, it would probably only make the alchemist angry.

Oh sure, what's a bit more eyestrain for our intrepid blogger? From a work in progress:

You never want to win a contest on a Friday night in the emergency room. Most stitches required to repair a wound. Oldest nursing home refugee. Number of security guards to tackle a frothing psychotic. The main event, however -- the one the nurses and doctors surreptitiously wager on, just to keep things interesting -- is the competition for highest blood alcohol content. And on weekends the field grows crowded with serious contenders.

I should have just let the phone ring. Nighttime was made for sleeping, not talking. And even though I’d already picked up and said ‘hello’, I was still cuddled under the covers with a cordless phone clutched to the side of my head.

The sun was setting in the east. Born and raised within the clouds, Lilian never grew tired of watching sunset work its magic. As the flying city rushed together with the wind at 160 mph toward the nighttime side, the features of the different worlds—up on high and down below—slowly developed from the uniform thick haze until they touched each other. First, the greenish color of the clouds darkened, faster at the bottom. Then, the normally hidden horizon became visible. The diffuse green glow, marking the position of the sun, flattened to a band of brightness underscored by a thin line of dark deep red where sunlight passed through the dense low atmosphere.

Gavin Green, King of Alpinea Bluff, husband to no Queen, father to no heir, son to a murdered mother, son who killed his father. Gavin sits in his library, remembering that day. Last season, he found his father slipping poison into his darling mothers drink. She died that very night. She was the only person to ever show him compassion and love. His father only showed him cruelty, even when he did something properly. After his mother’s funeral, a very solemn affair for she was widely loved by the people, Howell announced that all magic was to be outlawed and all mages were to be killed on sight. No trial for those that go against Creation Howell said.

The girl was in a coma so severe that it prevented digital upload of her mind. This rescue mission called not for a doctor but an artist. Nathi was one, the best master of brain debugging in his Order. It helped that he had no brain himself.

Judy: “We met at the Harvard School of Public Health in June 1976. I had been accepted to a Ph. D. program in Public Health, and Gary taught a summer course in bio-statistics. There was a luncheon for students and faculty at the cafeteria; we were in line, and Gary put mustard on his sandwich, and I said, “You must be Jewish.” We started talking, found we had a lot to talk about, and started going out. Neither of us had a TV. We both like woods, beaches, and bike riding, and Gary is brilliant."

New York City. Early Spring, 2010

Traveling through time hurts, at least for the broker. But I’ve grown resistant to the pain. That makes my bounty hunting services invaluable, which is why my apprentice and I are hoofing it along the dark, deserted streets of Castle Hill.

Spinning. Whirling. A cacophonous montage of images and sounds suddenly collided in a concert of uncontrolled chaos that sickened me to my very soul.

From my middle-grade WIP...

It was a bitter-cold morning on the island of Outer New York City and Fred Bean should have been dressed for school. Instead, she stood before her “dress me” mirror, frowning at the superimposed image of her fuzzy gray sweater and black slacks, a possible clothing combination from her closet. Boy, did she look geeky. She quickly pressed the “next” button again and again as the entire contents of her wardrobe flashed by.

Opening for Whips, Cuffs, and Little Brown Boxes. It may be a bit lengthy, but it is what it is. :-)

When I was a kid, on rainy days my sisters, brother and I would play hide ‘n seek in the huge two-story Victorian gothic we called home. We felt like masters of the game, especially whoever could stay hidden the longest. The house with its gables and turrets and tiny hidden corners provided lots to choose from. I’d store myself away in closets; they were my favorite. Dark, secluded, with lots of clothes and boxes to hide behind. It’s funny how a closet can serve so many moods. Sometimes, as a place of refuge, just to get away from the loudness of my large family, I felt comforted to go there. It made me feel safe and secure. But during the game, I became guarded, anxious, and tense, the prey hiding from its predator. And that’s the feeling I had now, as I sat in a closet much like my own childhood place, and waited. My breath held as I crouched back in the corner. I could hear the softly treading footsteps traverse back and forth across the bedroom. For several minutes I had listened and waited, hoped the sound would fade, leave the room and move down the hall. Instead the creaking of the closet door as it opened replaced the treading footsteps. Still, my breath held. Funny, just a second ago the severe cramp cutting off the circulation in my leg and the throbbing in my sore arm had been my greatest concerns. A fleeting thought passed that unless this was the maid picking up that dirty laundry sitting in the hamper right next to my cramped body, I was, as my mother says, in deep doo doo. In what little light existed I searched for anything possible to use as a weapon. The pathetic inventory included several pairs of women’s and men’s shoes, dozens of plastic hangers, a folded portable ironing board, and a couple of blankets. Didn’t people usually keep makeshift weapons like baseball bats in their closets? This and other questions filled my head, probably to keep me from thinking about the more than likely ominous presence outside the closet, just two feet in front of me. As luck would have it, at least my kind of luck, his voice hollered from downstairs again.

I didn’t believe in ghosts, not until I became one.

Adanay’s parents had warned her countless times about her temper. If only she’d heeded their warnings, then maybe she wouldn’t be trapped in this barren place; lost between the worlds of the living and the dead. Her father, a powerful Indian Chief, had been right; her arrogance and temper had defeated her in the end. How was she to know that the curse she invoked in the final moments of her life would ensnare her soul, as well as that of her murderer, Fernando Diaz? Now, 500 years later, Adanay still waits on the person who will help free her from this self-made prison. To her heartbreak, the ramifications of her curse have affected the lives of the families who’ve ever occupied the farmland she inhabits. Adanay grows desperate to find the one who can make the difference before it’s too late.

I fingered the sharp edges of the just opened deck of cards for the next round of tournament play. My fingertips were a healthy pink, thanks to the snack I’d had between the last row of clanging, flashing nickel slot machines at the back of the casino. The purple-haired granny, I’d found shoving her husband's pension check into the Dukes of Hazard machine, was more than happy to offer me her wrist. I can be charming like that. Every time she'd line up a winner, the theme song for the Robert E. Lee would play in tinny excitement. I’d been a gentleman and dropped a nickel in it for her on my way back to my game. Now I couldn’t help but hum it while I waited for the dealer to give me a winning hand.

Thanks for the contest, Nathan!
--

When Sarah saw the man with the sword, she stopped chewing her sandwich. Then she saw him use it, and the bread fell from her hands.

The victim of celebrity stalker's Dr. Jekyl/Jimmy Bondage character, is a fine-featured 5'6" tall, athletic and curvaceous Irish lady we'll call Priscilla Longbow, whom her psychic mother reports was born with long black hair, steel-blue slanted Chinese eyes, and white china-doll skin. At birthing her mother said, "That's the wrong child, she can't be mine," amazed by the mystical Irish "darkie" descended from mythical mermaid seals, legendary transformative Celtic magicians,also called "Black Irish" from mating of Spanish adventurers with blonde Irish maidens. Priscilla Longbow's ancestors hairl from Ireland's County Mayo and County Sligo O'Malley territory homeland of legenday 16th-century Irish chieftainess Grace O'Malley/Grania, the reputed "She-King of the Irish Seas" whose spirit andd passion cut the die for descendants like Priscilla Longbow.

Hehe, what a great contest.. I wonder, since it is a WIP, should the winner be the best or the one in most need of help?

Here is the first paragraph of the non-fiction account of my cross-country motorcycle ride.

What would Peter Fonda in Easy Rider do? A rivulet of fear washed over me as my brain went blank. I could not remember any scenes from the movie. Nerveless hands clutched at the handlebars. Sitting in the dealership’s driveway, the engine of my brand-new Yamaha V-Star 1100 Classic purred below me but my heart hammered so loudly I could barely hear it. I was about to venture out onto the road for the first time astride a motorcycle.

Wonderful! Thank you Nathan for hosting this =D

Don’t mess with the Ladies of the Craft, they whispered. They are terrifying and powerful - a deadly combination. Born into the elite and select world of the Crafted, they are an arrogant and ambitious lot. Gone are the wild ancient ways of the Craft, and present are the ones who have forgotten. Forgotten what it means to be the Craft.

Sitting at the fancy restaurant was Stacey. She fidgeted with her napkin until it was little more than a wadded piece of cloth that little resembled the swan it once had been. This restaurant was nicer than any place she had ever been before in her life. That fact alone would have made her nervous. The impending arrival of a top Hollywood celebrity was enough to make her pee in her pants if it wasn’t for her fabulous blather control.

It was a cold, wet, and miserable March day. A hard rain had fallen since early morning under a dreary, swollen sky. By nightfall, the torrent refused to let up as Scoop Cuttler barreled down the two-lane road running south along the rising creek. Rain pounded the metal roof of the two-tone Ford pickup. Hot air blasted from dashboard vents, drowning out the country music blaring on the radio, but necessary to keep the windshield from fogging up. Beside Scoop sat his eight-year-old sandy haired, brown-eyed son, Luke. Missing from the seat between them was their dog, a devoted, coarse-haired Chesapeake Bay Retriever.

It churned senselessly forward, birthed as the furious spawn of heat and ice from the great waters of the north. It knew neither love nor malice, yet existed as energy and force, a consequence of the same breath which had created form, life and momentum. Had it been imbued with consciousness this day, it simply would have thought itself a fullness. Never a random killer.

Cat Spinelli knew, the moment she asked her grandmother to repeat herself, it was a mistake.

“I said, your Peter is a floppy flounder,” Mormor reiterated ingenuously.

Cat drew taut against her chair. A necklace of warmth laced her collarbone. Refusing to scour her surroundings beyond their table, she settled her gawk on her grandmother. Cat muttered out of the right side of her mouth, “We’re in a restaurant and my boyfriend is not a bottom fish.”

"It’s easy", she thought, "takes but a minute. There would be no shame in it for the family if it were simply an accident. I could pretend a deer jumped into the road in front of me and I had to swerve to miss it. I could convince myself that the light of an oncoming car was blinding me." Breanne pressed her foot into the accelerator. "I’m just so damned tired. The steering wheel was clutched firm under white knuckles. "If I just relax, let my eyes droop…" Being tired was not really a lie; she hadn’t slept for the last two nights. She couldn’t bring herself to share the bed with him, wrapped in a blanket of lies with her head on a pillow of indifference and, dare she say it, growing contempt.

Salt water from the first cresting wave rushed over the bow of the small boat engulfing its occupants, seeping into their wounds, and soaking them to the bone. The vessel offered little protection against the cold water and bitter wind. Women and children were huddled together in the middle, with supplies pushed under the seats and around their feet. The men rowed hard against the force of the water as it sprayed across their faces. The boat creaked and moaned with each movement as the small boat weighed heavy in the water.

After she laid her favorite pajamas on the heap of neatly folded clothes in the enormous pink suitcase beside her, Bronwyn crawled into her bed and silently wept. Now fully packed, she was officially prepared for her departure the next morning. She closed her eyes and sighed, tears streaking down her cheeks, and thought to herself that this house was the only house she’d ever called home, the only place she’d ever felt completely safe. How could she be leaving it in less than twelve hours on her way to a school she’d never even heard of? And her grandmother! How could she have kept a secret like this when she had known for so long?

He came to her in the deep of the night as he always did, a breath of sea-tinged mist along her skin, whisper-soft and damp like a lover’s lips. She kept still, breath held and muscles tense, acutely aware of the pulse pounding loudly at the base of her throat.

The Zandi kids are up with the larks most days - earnest Faraz at his awareness training by five, Rania giggling with her girlfriends at six - but one Monday she sets off a little late and so it is that her brother ends up putting her in her place for good.

Whoever thought that euchre and tequila could have brought about the end of the world? They were three geniuses from MIT, I was just a history professor, hired by the government to produce a miracle. I guess now there is no reason to keep our secret. We
were messing with time travel, specifically opening a hole in time and sending back
a message to warn about the attacks on 9/11 – which happened ten years earlier. But,
something went wrong and…the nerds are dead and I am the only person on earth who knows the truth. My name is Everett Harper and I pushed the button.

First paragraph, of my first novel "The Fifty States":

Phoenix, Arizona

It was the end of another day, and as sure as another day would occur tomorrow, the laptop sitting in the corner of the trailer would ‘ping’ in the next few minutes. Russell had tinkered with the settings so that the ‘ping’ was actually the sound of a woman moaning in an overtly sexual manner. That distinct sound always occurred around eleven-thirty, signaling the arrival of a carefully crafted devotion of love from Poland. The timing of the e-mails was always a given; unless of course, it coincided with some terrible spam about penis enlargement or free XXX content that always seemed to darken his inbox. Years of signing up for adult sites with his only e-mail address had put him on some of the worst mailing lists in cyberspace.

I dread to think he heard it; that sound I made, halfway between a scream and a laugh, as the blood leaked from his body. If that was the last thing shared between us, I can’t live knowing it. But how could I possibly know otherwise? It’s a vicious banshee, that sound. Its faint echo breathes at my window whenever I’m in the room. It stained the floorboards that night, and the sofa, more than his blood did. It won’t wash away. It can’t be covered.

"3K" Suspense/Thriller

She nodded to the camera and spat, “Really Mr. Griffin, is the video so necessary?”

Griffin was his first name, Merrick his last, but the German woman either didn’t care or didn’t know the difference. He fumbled with his notepad and glanced up at the girl he knew as Simone. Thanks to his parents and their horrific decision, his living was etched in the world of strange. He’d researched everything from ghosts to serial killers. He’d interviewed men whom surely played cards with the devil. And yet this bone-thin woman with her porcelain skin, high cheek bones and light gray eyes, made him squirm. “Yes, I want to make sure I record everything accurately.”

Bouncing down the sun-bleached dirt road in a dilapidated wood-paneled station wagon identical to the one her father had driven in the seventies, Janie Sullivan peered through fields of undulating weeds eager for her first glimpse of their new home. “Welcome to Paradise!” She crowed hoping her enthusiasm would bring out the adventurous spirit that seemed to have been vomited out of the rest of her family during the rollicking rowboat ride to La Isla’s sole wooden pier.

STOLEN FULFILLMENT
First Paragraph:

Oprah was filled with an excitement that she hadn’t experienced for many years. The feeling was indefinable. She had tried over and over to pin it down, she couldn’t. Although she had felt similar emotions at various times throughout her life, this time it was different. She knew it with a type of sixth sense, as she like to call it—woman’s intuition. It was similar to that feeling she got when she knew that a show was going to top the ratings or when she got a lead well before others in the industry thought it news worthy. It was familiar, but completely dissimilar from any feeling she’d ever experienced. She continued pondering her good fortune—sitting patiently still like an obedient child in church— as her stylists fussed over her. She had instructed him to make her look like a million dollars for today’s show. He had quipped back in his classic tongue-in-cheek fashion, that he couldn’t do anything less than a billion. He knew her well enough to know that although she looked calm and composed on the outside; on the inside her mind was a flurry of activity. She smiled with the contented look of a Cheshire cat, feeling smug with her accomplishment— Margaret Ann Collier. It was the equivalent of being granted an exclusive interview with the Pope. The Margaret Collier; bestselling Poet Laureate, syndicated columnist, recipient of numerous awards and accolades for her charity work— and not to mention being married to one of the brightest and most sought after financiers in the country— had agreed to be a guest on her show.

A spill of brightness from the dock lights and the rattle of the opening dock door alerted the driver to the men’s arrival. He pushed himself up in the seat, grabbed the door handle, and pushed the door open. He stepped out of the truck and into the damp October night. Clouds of vapor puffed from his mouth and nostrils. Snow would fly before month’s end. With any luck, he’d be sunning on some Mexican beach before winter’s foreshadowing became a reality.

Thanks for doing this!

It was plain old age that killed me. That last day promised to be a hot one and I was grateful for it. I had a much harder time moving in the cold and I had real hopes the winter before was going to be my last. No one needs the particular kind of misery that only ancient muscles, tendon, and bone chilled by wind and sleet can bring an old cat’s body. The garden was usually my first stop in the morning and the high-pitched hum of the insects was the musical accompaniment to my personal business in the flower beds. After first making sure the garter snake hole was unoccupied, I began to head back to the porch to find just the right spot for first nap. It was then that the steady beat in my chest, the one I had never given much thought to before that very moment, began to stutter. The syncopated fluttering soon took a more uncomfortable turn, and I sat, surprised mostly at the sudden approach of the end before pitching sideways onto the lawn. My last gasps were futile suckings of the warm morning air and the only thing that could have possibly made it all worse was the crying of the girl, my girl that found me. She wasn’t little any longer, but even so, it still made it much, much worse.

From a Middle Grade mystery wip:

For the record, the things people will tell you about me are not true. Mostly. Okay, so I did find the dead fish scattered across Mr. Sullivan’s boat, but I swear, I had nothing to with them getting there.

No thunderbolt struck unannounced from the sky, no magic door appeared, or witch’s brew boiled; no wizard left a knock upon my door, no nose twitched or red heels clicked. It just happened. I went to bed early one night, a 49 year-old housewife with a stuffy nose and sore throat. I woke up nine years old. It was snowing outside.

In Lantium, Lady Valira Iandesine Temper would have had one slave to comb her hair, another to massage her feet, and perhaps a third to dip grapes into her mouth and then hold out cupped hands, awaiting the seed. I’m not in Lantium anymore, but a thousand miles to the east, in this pig bucket colony of Irulia. The thought made her clench the elk-bone comb she ran through her wavy red hair, and she grimaced as it bit into a knot. When she’d unraveled the comb, she threw it across the room, striking the wall with a satisfying clatter.

Weeds in the Field
By some accounts I have heard, we are located only a stone’s throw from heaven. By other accounts I have heard, a stone’s throw from hell. Either way I could not guess to measure. Our trials baptized neither by fire or the ascent on an angel’s wings; it is the simple misfortune of being dropped off on a corner of the earth, besieged by a necrotic urge to cannibalize its self. Ours is the doomed song so many corpses sing with their mouths slightly opened, their hollow eyes lurching upwards as if to plead with God for one final act of mercy that never came. Like the fruits of the field and as in every garden, there is always the produce deemed worthier than the rest. So as in our world each nation bids its precious fruits in the market place of life, rewarding itself for its own declared perfection. The wealthy crops bearing their fruits proudly, displaying their abundance for the entire world to see. Others brood mournfully for that wealth and decidedly rip themselves from their nation and graft themselves onto the luscious vine of their choice. Yet still others are neither wealthy nor have the option to flea, instead they lay stranded like weeds of the field. Neither productive with fruit or beauty, magnifying themselves only as a burden to the others. We are the impetuous weeds in question, weeds of such efficiency we have harvested the power to destroy ourselves. The other crops watch, some with concern, all impotent. It is the manner of this field, so persistent in its ways that it has proven nearly impossible for the weeds to convince all creation of their worth. Hope dies quickly in a land like mine where the ebb and flow of death is as commonplace as the birds in springtime, as dependable as the snow in winter. Instead we stand collectively and shout inaudibly to our leaders and the leaders of other notable nations. Ours is a hushed roar silenced by a rebellion so out of control that either it can’t be stopped or no one can be bothered to have it stopped. Instead we wait while the soil of our nation rots beneath our feet. The blood of our brothers saturating it so completely that the aftertaste from the fruit of the vine erodes our palettes.

The last time they worked together, Carmen Redstone shot him in the ass. Denato Genonse had never let her live it down. Of course it had been an accident, one he’d caused with hotshot one-upmanship.

First paragraph of Legend, my NaNo suspense novel, first draft complete at 65K.

The elderly couple looked harmless, kindly – even benevolent.
The white-haired wife, her straight hair neatly cut in a short, attractive bob, bustled into the living room bearing two cups of coffee, which she set carefully on coasters on the maple coffee table. Nudging the old man’s knees aside, she squeezed between the table and the skirted Colonial-style sofa, lowering herself onto the cushions with a groan as her arthritic joints protested.

A humble headstone marks the grave of a man they never really knew. Even his name was unknown to them until the letter arrived notifying them of his death, a letter written by a woman they’ve never seen, never spoken to. So now they wait there together and silently mourn his passing. She sits in her wheelchair and he stands beside her, one hand resting lightly on her shoulder. They don’t speak, for what is there to say? Would she say he was a good man? Would he say that in the end he’d somehow found the strength he needed? The words would soon fade, their voices would crack and tremble, and then the tears would come. And they’ve both had enough of crying, enough of pain. They simply wait for this moment to run its course, for the time to be right to finally leave him behind, though he will forever be a part of them. Years have passed since the last time they saw him, and yet they will never forget the stranger who twice altered the courses of their lives. There are so many questions, but there will be no answers now. What came before his time with them and what came after will remain a mystery. There was goodness in his heart; of this they are certain. The parasite on his conscience might have destroyed him, but he struggled, fought until it was subdued – never forgotten, but nullified, its venom purged of its poison, its ravenous roots severed from his soul. Despite the violence he was part of, his was a gentle spirit. So they gaze down at the name on the headstone and try to understand. How did he become the man he was? And how did he finally rise above the lot he was given? In spite of he role he played in their suffering, didn’t they owe him something? Now they will never know. But they will always wonder. Until they too are dead and buried, arcane specters haunting someone else’s memories.

Mama had a thing for Elvis. Even in the pre-death months of 1977 and his historically “fat stage” Mama couldn’t get enough of watching Elvis’ flicks or dreaming about going to his shows in Las Vegas. Since I had the misfortune of being born a girl on August 16, 1977 - the fateful day of his death - she named me Priscilla. I still shudder at the thought that with one more lousy chromosome, I would have been born Elvis Aaron Jackson instead of Priscilla Ann. If I had been born Elvis, I would have spent my life being teased to hell for it though. Of course, if I was born with the decidedly male makeup, it would have made Mama’s whole world spin on overdrive. I could have been her little Elvis. Maybe then she would have liked me better. Maybe I would have liked myself. Too bad wishing isn’t as fertile as the wanting is. Too bad wishes don’t make extra Y’s. She would have had Elvis, and maybe then, she would have stayed with me.

The bartender mixed me another gin and tonic. He moved with all the speed of a deepsea diver caught in the grips of an octopus, or like a fat man wading through concrete while fighting some other octopus. I ate a bowl of pickled onions. They were good. The bartender finished mixing when he was done. I took a long, cool drink. The bartender eyed me with an unforgiving eye, like a priest about to tell an arsonist he was gonna burn in Hell. But he wasn't a priest. Or a bartender. He was Rasputin Yorgi Schnuryenko, the infamous KGB master chef. He had left a trail of unagi sushi, gaufrettes aux grenouilles, and oysters Rockefeller across five continents. He'd been running hard and fast, ever since the flaming Brie incident in Munich. But I'd finally caught up with him in this dirty Yemeni bar. He'd talk. He'd spill the beans, and then the secret would be mine. The recipe to the Romanov family bean-dip.

The first paragraph of my non-fiction narrative:

There comes a moment in life when you look back and wonder what you’ve done with your time here on Earth. Have I lived passionately enough? Loved sweetly enough? Has courage been my guide? Will I be satisfied when I die, or will I mourn the fact that I never really lived? When this moment comes, some people are driven to desperate action and their decisions become the stuff of legends. A rickety sailboat beckons one person to sail around the world. Another quits their job and becomes a world-renowned artist. Yet another conquers Mount Everest. My decision was less grandiose. Everest sounded like a lot of work, so when my moment came I decided I would catch a wild turkey with my bare hands.

Harold looks the same dead as he did alive—except for the near-decapitation thing. Yeah, alive he generally had his head completely connected to his neck, connected to his shoulders, all one piece, together, more or less. That stupid Schoolhouse Rock song starts going through my own completely connected head, and I put a clammy hand over my mouth to stop myself from laughing or maybe even humming along. Or vomiting right there all over the place. Mom pulls me away from the sidewalk, trying to get me back to the car as the police show up and turn the surreal scene into something better, something maybe I saw on Law & Order once or CSI: yellow tape, red and white lights flashing, static from radios crackling all around us.

Dark Cubicles

"So," she said, "do you want to break into a house?" Steve stared at her--what was her first name? Caroline? Christy?—for a long moment. "I’m serious,” she said. “I might fuck you if you do.” She took a long drag off her cigarette. The coal flared, casting an orange glow over a dozen greasy shot glasses and a pile of chicken bones. Steve looked her up and down. She didn't seem to mind, even preened a little. She had the clean, wholesome sexiness of a small town news anchor. My new boss, he thought. Best job interview ever. Still...he thought that once or twice he had seen a lion-studying-the-herd sort of look in her eyes. No way, he decided. Danger. Do not enter. He reached up to straighten his tie, but his hand strayed to the knot of burn tissue that ran up from his collar to just below his left cheekbone. No one had even pretended to flirt with him since he got out of the hospital.
“Yeah," he said. "Okay.” He stood up and threw a wad of money on the bar. “Let’s go.”

Judy Hogan's novel Killer Frost begins It was a love that came upon her out of the blue, which she knew she would never understand or be able to explain to anyone else, not even to Oscar and especially not to her husband. As calm and rational as Kenneth had been for the eight years of their marriage, he couldn’t or didn’t want to understand why she cared so much about Oscar, and she never had told him the whole story. She knew she was lucky to have Kenneth in her life, but her love for Oscar had been like a lightning bolt out of a cloudless sky, one of those connections you accept finally without understanding them.

I had moved back to Tucson in early December 2004, it was now Valentines Day, February 14th, a Monday. My divorce was proceeding right along, even if it included the emotional roller coaster everyone who has experienced one innately knows, but yes, moving along just fine. It was going to be weird living here again, after the hustle and bustle of Toronto and the City, New York City for those of you misinformed about the actual location of the center of the universe. We were married for 20 years, and together well over 21, and the divorce wasn't my idea. Somehow, somewhere along the way we had started living as parents with occasional benefits, not as spouses, and she just got tired of me asking for us to make a change and fix what is now so obviously un-fixable. So, she asked for her unconditional release, well as unconditional as it could be with five children in the mix that we, along with much help from the One Above had created. Fortunately for my ego, it didn't appear that as soon as she was to get her free agency, another major league contract would be signed. It looks like no tampering had occurred. So anyhow, sitting here contemplating the last ninety-six hours, I am painfully aware that if it was weird to be back living in my native Tucson, it was weirder still to know that I would never again see my children on a daily basis. That was for certain, and that was tough! I lied to you, isn't that a great way to start the relationship between you and me? Actually I lied to myself; you are just along for the ride. The divorce wasn't going smoothly. Since I had been back in the Old Pueblo, on two occasions, once for her and once for me, we had stepped to edge of the cliff we were about to hurtle over and looked down. I think as each of us did that, the sheer amount of time we had invested in each other stared right back up at us from the bottom of the abyss.

On Adiela’s thirteenth birthday she caught and cooked a rat.
Not that it was a very plump one. Even the rats were scrawny these days. But it was the first substantial meal for Adiela and her father in over a week, and they feasted on every scrap. Adiela tried chewing the bones, but she couldn’t get any goodness out.

Hi Nathan -- neat idea! Here's the first paragraph from my fantasy novel:

The wind gave no warning to Catrin that today her life would change. It whispered gently through the meadow grass and flirted with Catrin’s long gown. But the wind mentioned nothing of the yet-to-come.

Genre: Literary fiction
Title: Exit, Pursued By Bear

I am born. No, just taking the piss. Anyway, that beginning line’s already taken. So, me. Yeah. I’m studying to be an actor. Named after an actor in point of fact. Trevor Howard – my name’s Trevor, not Howard. Could’ve gone either way, I suppose. Although I don’t think I’ll be anything like him. I won’t act for four decades for a start since I have the attention span of a hummingbird. Don’t look a thing like him either, just as you’d expect, unless there’s a whole lot to my parents’ story I haven’t been privy to. I’m not leading man attractive by any means, but it hasn’t hurt me on the pull for some hot bloke, has it? And when you get down to it, I may not want to act forever, but I imagine I’ll still want to cop off when I’m ninety.

This is the first paragraph from my novel titled "Papa Bravo and the Inconvenient Arrival of Jesus":

Jesus, barefoot and smoking a great torpedo shaped joint, strolled into the pueblo of San Miguel on the twenty fifth of December. The appearance of any stranger in this besieged cocaine and poppy producing outpost in the mountains of Huila would’ve been surprising, but the arrival of an olive skinned, green eyed Rastafarian was downright miraculous.

"The Tertiary", Urban Fantasy

The grounds were dark, the moon a barely perceptible sliver in the sky. Tall stands of acacia trees lay all over the small rise from the gate to the mansion nestled comfortably at its top. Cool winter air occasionally blew through the trees, strange to him since it was July. Back in DC it would be hot and muggy, miserable without air conditioning or a cool shower.

"What do you want from me, Dad?" She knew he wouldn't answer. She had buried him three days prior. As he emerged from the shadows of the market, the early morning sun shone at his back. With stooped and ox-broad shoulders of a working man, silver hair, thinned on top, sparkled like beaded dew drops on threads of glinting cobwebs. Knowing he wasn’t really there, but wishing he was, she waited for the apparition to disappear. The shadowed figure remained, serious cobalt blue eyes beaming through her with a message. She didn’t want to hear it. It was her guilt talking.

“Bloody hell, that’s blasted hot!” Garrick Devereaux, the future Duke of Westershire, cursed as he pulled his fingers from the bowl of burning brandy. He placed the singed tip in his mouth to quell the penetrating heat before he examined it closely. “If you’ve marred me, I swear you won’t see the end of the week.”

My paranormal has a prologue, dated 1200’s, which is necessary (spells and such), but the rest of the book is in the present. Thanks for doing this Nathan.

Death spoke words that changed the living forever. From the crude wooden bed, frail hands begged Eldridge closer. “I’m dying, me son.. I know it to be true. ‘Tis time I tell ya what I should’ve many a year ago.” She clutched the sleeve of his dull gray servant garment. “The Count, he is yer Dah.”

Nathan, you are the bravest agent I know. Here's my entry before you regain your sanity and up the deadline. :-)

My skin tingles a moment before a bright slit in the worlds rips open. I clench my teeth and keep my eyes locked on my scantron, refusing to acknowledge the Fey entering the lecture hall. I don’t give a damn if it’s the king himself, I will pass this test tonight.

Valerie Lancaster sighed and swiped her hair from her eyes as she washed down the oak bar. She’d always loved owning Fangs, but tonight had tested her patience. Customers had been extra rowdy because of St. Patrick’s Day, and she’d been lucky to get them all out the door by 2 a.m. If she never saw green again, it would be too soon. She could’ve gotten one of the staff to close the bar for her, but she didn’t want any of the girls to get hurt going home that late, especially with the rash of killings going on in this part of downtown. The police believed they had a serial killer on their hands, but she knew better. Rogue vampires were using the city as their own personal buffet. She’d tried her best to keep their numbers down, but there had never been this big of a surge before. If she didn’t know better, she’d think the rogues were congregating in her city for a specific reason.

"Head laying in her lobster remains, it was."

From my finished novel on family saga.


All I ever wanted was to be ordinary, to blend in with the scenery. I got off to a bad start with these headlines: Largest Natural Born Baby of Record in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I topped the scales at thirteen pounds, one ounce; the beginning of a long battle with the spotlight aimed in my direction.

Here is the first paragraph from my paranormal fantasy "Heart of the Nile."

Ra commands your presence.

Kat immediately obeyed the order. For anyone else, she might have argued. She had just come off a mission, a successful one, and her body and mind cried for rest.

Ra, however, ruled her soul. She would lay down her life for her lord and master.

Amy stood in a small enclave, hidden by eight-foot shelves that were stacked with frosted glass plates. The ozone luminescence of the plates under the showroom lights made this private corner look like a one man spaceship. She inhaled a stream of oxygen through her lips and took a swig of water from a two-day-old bottle she’d been dragging around. What she really needed was some of that champagne to settle herself. It could be seconds before someone entered this cove. In her hand was a stack of business cards she’d collected over the last three hours. On the back of each, she wrote a brief description of the person and a line or two from their conversation. Eggplant colored blouse, blond, interested in renting lounge furniture line, planner- upstate Rhinebeck area, has six-year-old son – name Charles. She took the stack of noted cards, rubber-banded them, placing them deep into her suit pocket. She rummaged through her large bag stuffed with: copies of client orders, breath mints, hair spray, make-up bag, list of personal errands she wouldn’t get to for a least a week, six pens, two highlighters, personal cell, work blackberry, three fabric swatches, and finally, her essential hand cream.

I was startled awake sometime before dawn. A couple of weeks ago this would have been odd. Nowadays, it was routine – sleep had become a rarity for me. I knew that my aching body hungered for more, but the granite bolder that permanently invaded my heart was weighing on me much too heavily to permit sleep.

Anger surrounds me. With a sharp intake of breath I wake, then squeeze my eyes tight to feign sleep. They must not know I‘m aware. I try to shut out the argument. I try to return to sleep; to deny reality. I try...but fail. My parents‘ fury sparks from the front seat like a fire. Like a fire, it envelopes my senses. I hear the crack and pop, feel the heat, smell and taste the acrid animosity.

The Gustavsen children decided their parents’ fortieth anniversary should be celebrated over the long Fourth of July weekend. Though six weeks shy of the actual date, it was the only time four of the five offspring could gather without burning vacation days. Greta, the eldest, and Gamble, the favorite, both lived in town. This should have made them the easiest to accommodate, but the contentious first and second born could never be accused of voluntary agreeableness. Grace, the actress, would fly in from New Jersey—though she insisted on telling people she lived in New York—and Gillian, the baby, would drive down from the Twin Cities, not caring one whit if others thought that meant Minneapolis or St. Paul. Garrett, the middle child who recently relocated to Boulder, made arrangements months back to go mountain biking with friends over the Fourth and had no intention of rescheduling his trip. He planned to visit his parents over Labor Day; that would have to do.

From a WIP.

Daghul Jamil places a pair of silver metal restraints on my wrists.
I’m being arrested, I realize with a shock.
The restraints are loose, bound together by a thick ring. Metal finger cots dangle from chains attached to the restraints; these are placed over each of my fingers.
Daghul Jamil checks the bands. When he is satisfied that they appear as they should, he turns to my grandmother. Grandmother is a tiny woman, no taller than five feet. Yet, she and my mother huddle together, and it is grandmother who holds my mother up.
“We go to Ketir, Sayida Faraj.”
Grandmother’s eyes fly to me. “Ketir?” Her whisper holds a trace of fear.
“Not Ketir!” My mother wails, rousing suddenly from her grieving stupor.
Grandmother gives my mother a quick shake, returning her to her muffled sobs. Then, eyes on me, Grandmother straightens her back into a rigid line. She is so straight, so unyielding that watching her, I fear she will break. “Under the Minnah Murshidah,” she says, and this time, her voice is strong, lined with steel.

Twilight touched the waves, bringing mist that crept towards shore. As Kate watched the horizon disappear under a dark bank of fog, the surf’s cold fringe foamed around her feet and a border collie splashed by, prancing through the backwash with dripping tail. “Sanger! Aren’t you going to eat?” Called in by Marya’s high voice, Kate picked her way across tangled kelp and shell fragments to dry sand, into the throng of people where families and friends clustered around blaring radios to trade boisterous jokes and loud laughter. Another summer evening in Monterey. Another Fourth of July. There would be fireworks.

Alone in my studio, I think I am safe from my past. I dive into a pink-and-white striped hatbox until I’m up to my elbows in vintage flower charms, culling the open blooms of faux daisies and diminutive bouquets of roses, and choosing instead the fiery-red tulips that will remain forever tight in the bud, an unfulfilled promise. The phone trills, startling me from my afternoon trance, and I crane my neck, slide my gaze over the work-worn craft table. My caller ID flashes, like the sun jabbing a pupil-constricting ray from the distant horizon. Cassidy, Eleanor. My mother, dead for sixteen years. Dead to me.

Hey there, I've serendipitously come across your blog just now. Have some high fantasy!

A last look at the jagged rock all around--washed with light as gold as memory--and Peregrine turned to leave. He palmed the brightcasting stone, sending shadows darting over the tunnel walls. Dragonkind belonged in the sky. He'd miss these gods-banished mines.

http://climbthesky.blogspot.com

“Well, you know, your sister’s kidney isn’t very good.”

My father, a sturdy oak type, is known for dispensing important bits of information with this seemingly innocuous phrase.

For example, “Well, you know, your cousin was born with a vestigial tail.”

“Well, you know, we’re having the bedroom redone because the big oak tree fell through the house.”

“Well, you know, we won the lottery so we’re moving to Italy and leaving no forwarding address.”

Alright, I’m exaggerating; my father much prefers the ‘shoes optional’ vibe of Key West.

(From memoir-in-progress. Thanks Nathan...)

YA urban fantasy:

Last night I dreamed about the house again. After a year and a half without a single nightmare, I'd just about convinced myself Dr. Rubin was right. He seemed sure enough for both of us and he was positive the dreams would eventually stop. And they had stopped. Until now.

Mark Tristan awoke as if from an opium fog. He knew that somewhere the undead stalked the city, moving in a stiff shamble with predictably gray and ragged gravesclothes and curled fingers and awful breath. He also knew there was a very pretty lab technician (with whom he’d recently had strenuous sex) who was doomed to die an unspeakable death at the hands of these zombies. He knew that he, Mark Tristan, would be called upon once again to use his considerable talents to wreak vengeance upon the evil corporation that had created the zombies with a serum gleaned from Haitian voodun and powdered blowfish bladders.

-- LurkerMonkey

Devon rolled down the window and poured out what was left of his hot chocolate, watching the liquid freeze before it hit the ground. The Fairbanks train station was still two blocks away, but he asked the taxi driver to drop him off here instead. Devon hoped the driver was Inuit, too, so he spoke a few words in the Native tongue and waited for a reply. When the man finally did respond, he turned around and said, "I don't like runaways, kid. You want to be dropped off here, it's gonna cost ya. Fifty bucks. Extra."

e-mail: [email protected]

Re: Comment 885 (http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2008/12/2nd-sort-of-annual-stupendously.html?showComment=1228900140000#c6354562806558373649 NarcoLexy) -

At the end of the last sentence, "derive" should be "deprive."

Normally I wouldn't point out a typo, but this one actually turns into a different word when you leave the "p" out. I can't believe I missed it. My apologies for being so nitpicky.

Dear Nathan,

I love these contests.

Here's my entry.

Something was happening. I knew it was big but my dreams failed to provide me any details. I pushed back the gate of the white picket fence and approached the front of the doctor’s house with caution. The lights were on, but no one was home—literally. Or so it seemed. Then I smelled it—that all-too-familiar stench. It permeated the air and grabbed hold of my nasal membranes. It was a sharp, rotting meat odor--the kind that would make an ordinary person wretch in an instant. However, I didn’t. Then again, I’m no ordinary person. I knew I was standing less than ten feet away from the worst crime scene in the history of this lonely forgotten town.

Sincerely,

Lena

Cathi Stoler said:

Dawn Chapman died at dusk. The fiery edges of the setting sun angled sharply over the distant peaks while lingering slivers of orange flew across the landscape like a bettor homing in on a hot table. The fiery orb that had claimed the Strip all day, sharing the wealth of its white-hot light no longer had the juice. At this hour, its luck had turned cold. One more loser gone bust slinking away into the night.

Hi Nathan!!
The following is the first paragraph from "Out of the Shade."

Some days having wings is a bitch.

Especially when a smelly assed goblin is holding me by them in front of his mouth like a French fry, threatening to eat me if he isn’t given a get away car in ten minutes.

Did she really love him? If I had an obol for every time I've been asked that question, I could clear all the doomed souls from the banks of the Styx, assuming I could gain Hades' indulgence to do so. And perhaps I could, now that the only mortal ever to charm the Lord of the Underworld has herself become shade, a full-time denizen of his realm.

Anger surrounds me. With a sharp intake of breath I wake, then squeeze my eyes tight to feign sleep. They must not know I‘m aware. I try to shut out the argument. I try to return to sleep, to deny reality. I try...but fail. My parents‘ fury sparks from the front seat like a fire. Like a fire, it envelopes my senses. I hear the crack and pop, feel the heat, smell and taste the acrid animosity.

Lucy’s every movement was measured: the leisurely survey of the classroom, the confident stance, the steely expression. She folded her arms and waited for silence.

It had been almost four months since Kelsey stepped off the bus at central station and began a life long dream of living in Sydney. Life long is a bit of a misleading phrase in Kelsey’s case as she had only just turned 25. It was with this milestone that she was struck with the horror of having spent a quarter of a century on this earth and had nothing to show for it. Her friend Lydia, who had recently moved to Melbourne, came back to Wangaratta to throw her a birthday party but Kelsey was feeling there was very little to celebrate in her life at that time. In the six months previous she had been dumped by the man she believed to be the love of her life. Fortunately, just weeks before that tumultuous event she had met Lydia.

The day of my father’s funeral was the day my mother burned all his things. As soon as the last of my mother’s brothers and their wives had rattled off in their Model T’s, she came into the sitting room. My sister Anna and I were huddled together, forlorn piles of cheap black fabric sitting defiantly on the floor, though we’d been ordered not to get dirty. Mother was carrying a pile of father’s clothes. At first I thought she had brought them down to be a comfort to us; suddenly I wanted nothing more than to press my face to his favorite shirt, maybe still smelling of him, and feel a little of this horrible ache inside me go away. But she went straight to the fire and threw them in. She watched them burn, poking the fire to make sure every last scrap of cloth was ashes, then turned and left. Anna’s hand was gripping mine so tightly that I could not feel my fingers.

Hope this doesn't count as a double. My last one didn't seem to take.

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Mae hurried out of the school, head down, and walked up the pot-holed asphalt drive to the gate. At the head of the drive, kids were passing their wrist straps over the rusting gate sentry as they escaped school for another day.

Below is the first paragraph of my WIP, a Hollywood murdery mystery.

I glance at the offending manila envelope resting on the passenger seat of my BMW. The drive from Westwood to Sunset Strip is even more nerve-racking than usual. I grip the steering wheel fiercely, as if I were taking a hairpin curve down a twisty mountain road and not crawling through rush hour traffic on Sunset Boulevard.

I am alone.
I feel this even before I wake, forcing my eyes open through the encompassing darkness. The lights dance from the shattered glass, creating tiny prisms of red, yellow, and green from the lights above. My face grinds against the gritty pavement, rutted edges making grooves on my cheeks. I move slowly to get up, and sharp pains in my ribs tell me I have not escaped this adventure unscathed. I taste blood.

If the funeral were taking place in one of my Mom’s novels then it would be winter and it would be raining. The sky would be overcast and there would be the distant rumble of thunder as the casket was lowered into the ground. The weather can’t always match the occasion though. Today the sky was a blinding blue and in the manicured graveyard there was no escape from the sun. I could feel my black dress growing damp and my feet, enclosed in unaccustomed heels, expanding by the second. I glanced at my Mom, standing ramrod straight beside me, dressed in defiant yellow and movie star sunglasses. Despite makeup her face was pale. Her bloodless lips were clamped together in the expression she had worn for the last two days, ever since she had walked into our newly rented apartment and announced, “Pack everything up, we’re going home, your Grandfather died.”

Thanks Nathan

My dad, a real no-nonsense kind of guy, took me to see someone he knew about getting me a new identity. He drove me up I-84 toward Hartford in a borrowed car. He could get cars in a second and no one ever denied my dad anything. We drove to the Comet Diner. It’s an easy to miss place that had a punk nightclub in the basement. And if you knew my dad, that’d be the last place you’d ever expect to see him. The place was dark. The walls were painted flat black and faux graffiti in neon colors were splashed on the walls. And because the patrons wore black, all you could see were their faces and hands. The place was a Bob Fosse freak show and the music sounded like amplified insect shrieks. The music was so loud that we didn’t speak. My father lead, I followed.

Barely sure I'm ready for even this...

Living in a town where the sickness seemed to emerge from the core, I knew I had caught it again. The three massive cooling towers were still standing; the hundreds of acres of sparse land dotted with decaying industrial buildings showing only the barest signs of life and on every day with volatility and on an arbitrary time scale my heart, indifferent to the malaise, raced with opposite forces to the town itself. Motherwell is an interesting enough place if you know the best way to become fully immersed in a life that doesn't require a personal or social sense of prosperity, hope or wellbeing. The main streets are short and indistinct. Churches appear in unsuspecting places near factories or sprawling industrial complexes now extinct. There’s no sense of loneliness in Motherwell, there’s not enough space to feel lonely. The nearby towns are within walking distance and share the same dust in the air, as well as the rain and decline. Sunshine is revered like the visit of a saint and occurs on almost the same frequency. The people here are blessed for their faith and for their perseverance.

Grievous. Yes, that was the word that perfectly described her meeting with her brother and younger sister. Although she had planned what she would say and vowed to keep her temper in check, she had failed on both accounts. Thoughts had flowed from her mouth like a fresh water spring, but she would not allow her brother to ruin Elisabeta’s life like her father had ruined hers. Olivia Caine, Duchess Helford, glanced around the comfortable surroundings of her coach and wiggled her toes on the heated bricks at her feet. Others would disagree that her life resembled that of an unhappy woman.


Thank you, Nathan! :)

Slobodan took three full swallows of the liquorish-flavored rakia then pulled the bottle from his lips with an audible pop. The booze rumbled down his throat like hot lava. He wiped his face with a grimy sleeve, burped and poured the rest of the bottle into a large bucket of swill. The pigs in the sty snorted and jostled for a position near the gate.

I am thinking my post never showed up, so I'm reposting. *chagrined look* Thanks again for doing this. My entry is from Eater of Sins, my dark fantasy novel:

"Which pack do you want me to steal from?"

My master flicked aside the curled, brown locust leaves that had fallen and, with one red talon, tapped a spot on the wooden slab of a map. Specifically, his nail clicked against the pink wolf-head symbol of the First werewolves. Oldest pack, oldest ancestors--the oldest ancestor. Everyone wanted to run with them, and they were nearly impossible to join, to leave alive, or worse, to leave with the body whole.

from Where The Sun Never Dies:

The platform snaps open beneath the man's brown shoes, and in an instant they disappear as his neck pops against the noose, his feet swinging and clapping together. The crown about August cheers -- or perhaps they only give murmurs of approval; the world awaiting death is oft more quiet than that of life.

From Death By Chenille:

An egg-shaped ship shot across the sky and hid in the swirling smoke from wildfires around Los Angeles. Hovering above the flaming landscape, then moving to the edge of a lake of lights, it slid, unnoticed, to an industrial park, nestling close to a warehouse wall. Dozens of squat beings, the color of sand on an overcast morning, filed out of the ship and into the building.

Ed Fitzgerald says: Nathan, sounds like a fun contest. My first para of a WIP (just completed detective novel) is:

Desmond Card, I told myself, you stink. No, no. I mean really stink! Six weeks pretending to be a homeless, wino vet on a contract job for the DEA in the druggie back-streets of Providence, Rhode Island, does not add a great deal to one’s social cachet. I was so ripe I was offending myself just trying to breathe. When the job ended earlier today I would have taken a deep breath of relief except that the combined stink of ammonia and rat feces permeating my outer clothing would have put me down for the count.

I shot that sparrow out of the tree when I was eight. Nailed it with a pellet gun behind my grandfather’s house, but it hadn’t died as cleanly as I’d wanted. Instead, it fell out of the tree, wounded, and flopped around trying to gather its bearings through the sudden fear and pain that had smashed through the calm of that summer afternoon. When it got itself straightened out, it tried to lift but couldn't. Since the pellet was imbedded in its breast, I figured the fall had damaged a wing. I got up close and could see the lead peering dully through the feathers and blood.

Lyle Kroft had been asleep for months. A freakish hibernation would more accurately describe his slumber, his season of ignorant serenity. There had been others dreaming of white noise and virgin canvas during the extermination phase and all were slowly waking to an unfamiliar world that smelled of electrical fire and fresh death.

They began calling themselves The Sleepers.

Lyle didn’t care for the new designation. His eyes were now open and alert, heart pumping at a moderate pace to keep him awake. He didn’t know if he would ever be able to sleep again. Lyle had been awake for thirteen days and still wasn’t tired.

Where to start? They say to start at the beginning, but which one? My beginnings always seem to coincide with someone else's end. I guess I have to start somewhere. So here it goes. When she stepped out of the building I backed into the shadows. She took a few furtive glances in each direction but all she could see was the deserted street. Seeing nothing, she turned her attention back to locking up her shop. She had spent the last hour cleaning up, wiping down the counter and putting the bottles of wine that the customers had rearranged throughout the day back in order. Now she stood there on the street outside the shop, her hard day of work completed, ready to go home to her family. She pulled down the metal grate in front of the store, attached a padlock to the grate, placed the key to the lock in her purse and then stepped back again. She took another quick glance in both directions. Still nothing. She reached into her purse and pulled out a loose cigarette. She lit the cigarette, took one deep draw, turned to her left and began her walk down the darkened street.

Dear Nathan,

I love your contests.

Something was happening. I knew it was big but my dreams failed to provide me with any details. I pushed back the gate of the white picket fence and approached the front of the doctor’s house with caution. The lights were on, but no one was home—literally. Or so it seemed. Then I smelled it—that all-too-familiar stench. It permeated the air and grabbed hold of my nasal membranes. It was a sharp, rotting meat odor--the kind that would make an ordinary person wretch in an instant. However, I didn’t. Then again, I’m no ordinary person. I knew I was standing less than ten feet away from the worst crime scene in the history of this lonely forgotten town.

Sincerely,

Lena

This is a very boring story about a very boring princess. Princess Dullina lived in a very boring castle and she usually just sat around like a lump all day. Dullina was quite dull and had no interests or aspirations. Except, her desire to someday rule her own smallish kingdom.

Nothing about a swingers’ party is illegal. The revelation came to Celia late one Saturday night in February as she sat slouched in her office chair, staring at the computer screen and fighting back the oozing feeling that she didn’t know how she’d found herself at this point plodding through life as lawyer. Her eyes darted over the screen as her hand furiously scrolled the mouse. She needed something new. Another late night in the office. The team on the Anticor case, a plaintiff’s class action, had stayed late night after night working on the pleading, all except the senior partner. Darren, the most senior associate, had looked exhausted but Celia couldn’t help lingering over his full lips, grey eyes, and callused hands as he had slid the hard copy of the pleading across her desk and asked her if she needed help with anything else. “Oh yes.” She had thought as he had walked towards the door, admiring the way his jeans fit. She had flicked the corners of the pleading by the stapled corner, watching as he had reached for the door handle. “Darren?” It would have been so easy to suggest that he stay and shut the door, and she could have wrapped her legs around him. She knew he was attracted to her too. Several times, she had caught him watching her. From behind her desk, Celia had smiled playfully at him, “Have a great weekend.” He had stood in the doorway chuckling and smiled back. “You too boss.” Celia had winced. "Why did he have to mention that word? Boss."

Thank you for doing this!
[email protected]

Derby Shrewd stood at the brink of the unknown. At his feet was a white chalk line that split Hillside Park down the middle like the fifty-yard line on a football field. He had never stepped foot over this line, but oh, how he wanted to. Oh, how he and his friends talked about it. Oh, how he dreamed about it.

Marlie was about to meet her only enemy for lunch. They hadn't seen each other in twenty-two years. Not long enough, if you asked her. She expected a bitter tone and snide comments (hers); a smug, unrepentant attitude (his); along with the salad of the day (she hoped for Asian chicken with sesame-ginger dressing). And for all this, she assumed they would split the tab. But considering what Colton did, Marlie knew they could never call anything between them even.

“I think you should go to camp this summer.”
Even though my entire body clenched at the suggestion, I refused to look up at my mother from the Saturday New York Times crossword. I gripped my pen and continued to contemplate 54-Across: Chemistry Problem?
“Hello?”
I heard the water at the sink cut off and then a wet hand snatched the crossword out from under me just as I finished writing”B-A-D-D-A-T-E.” I looked up, keeping my face placid. Mom set the crossword on the counter and started rummaging through her briefcase, her fingers still damp.