Melanie Surani's Blog, page 260
May 25, 2015
Mozart hair at Sotheby's auction up for £10,000 - BBC News
I’m gonna have to bid on this.
I think it’s also a little funny how they had to put a little one-sentence bio of Mozart in the description like we need a little refresher of his “top forty” to place where we know this name.
alonakayla:
favorite things of 2k14
♥ HENRY IAN CUSICK
Seriously, how could I forget what an...
♥ HENRY IAN CUSICK
Seriously, how could I forget what an awesome character Desmond Hume is… and how gorgeous HIC is!!
Memorial Day
So, it feels a little weird to post a novel excerpt on a day like today, but I have a good reason.
I usually don’t put someone I really know in a novel without severely distorting them first. This one, I didn’t even change his name.
This is Garrett, my cousin:
We played in a band together for a little while. I was on guitar, he was on drums. While we never got anywhere with the band, it was so much fun to play together. His family is just like that: my aunt and two female cousins play violin (one is Jana Misener, cellist with The Memphis Dawls), guitar, and basically any instrument they can get their hands on. They’d come over to our place and my dad would join them on the Irish flute. I’d try to play whatever Christian rock song I was practicing.
From a very early age, all Garrett really wanted to do was join the marines. When he was old enough, he did. When he came home for holidays, he’d sometimes wear his uniform. He was polite, trim, and seemed to be happy. He was doing what he loved all the way until the end.
I’m not used to losing family members, especially one in my age group. I mean, Garrett was at the kids’ table with me. It was the boys against the girls most of the time. We loved each other, but we made fun of each other and said gross things and made our siblings angry.
So when I had to do something with my feelings, I did what I usually do: I wrote. Now, I’m not sure how great a tribute this is, but I gave Garrett a cameo in my novel Awake. I gave my mom the manuscript, and she forwarded the chapter in question to my aunt, who reached out to me and gave me details I could use (after all, I’d been away from home for at least five years by then and hadn’t seen Garrett for even longer than that).
Well, here’s an excerpt of that chapter:
They searched for hours before flashing their lights against the wall of a building. A cabin. The officer’s shoulder brushed against hers. His closeness gave her a sense of calm.
Garrett spoke in a low voice. “Now do you suppose…?” He pressed a button on his shouldered radio and muttered, “We’ve approached a structure in the woods. Over.”
After a quiet moment, in which a wolf howled in the distance, someone answered, “Roger that, G-Man. Check the structure and report back. No one else has seen a thing. This might have to wait till morning.”
“Wilco,” he responded.
Sophia swallowed the dryness in her mouth and followed Garrett around the building, keeping one hand on his arm and the other brushing the wall. A light shone through two windows beside a closed door.
Garrett motioned for her to follow, putting a finger to his lips. A glance through the window revealed a bloody heap on the floor. It was a person — a man. His clothes hung in strips; the hair matted to his head could have been any color behind the black and red crust. Sophia refused to believe it was Josh. It had to be someone Josh had overpowered before getting away.
Garrett pounded on the door. “Police!”No one answered. Garrett tried the doorknob and the door swung open with a creak. “Entering the structure. Standby,” he said into the radio.
“Received,” the radio said.
He toed the body while scanning the room for danger. “We have a possible 419. Requesting backup and rescue team to my location. Over.”
Rest in Peace, and thank you for your service!
maybeitsgreat:
Peter Heppner’s Solo by Hort, 2008, Germany
I...
Peter Heppner’s Solo by Hort, 2008, Germany
I really like this CD design. The music on it is also good.
May 24, 2015
Excerpt 3 - Awake
Costumed mannequins, wearing everything from Rococo dresses to the “50’s Housewife,” lined the room and clustered in the center. They had coverings over their heads: burlap sacs sewn to fit the face, or draped with gauze over antlers, or covered in feathers.
One of them might move.
To get to the rest of the exhibits now, she either had to go through or turn around and catch it from the opposite direction. As she turned, though, an Employees Only sign caught her eye.
The door opened with a creak. Sophia checked the costumes for any sign of life before ducking inside and slamming the door. She panted for a moment with her eyes shut. When she opened them a crack, the light hadn’t come on. After waving her arms over her head, she threw the door open again with a hammering heart.
Like so much topiary at the Overlook Hotel, she expected the mannequins to have clustered around the door. Of course, nothing had changed since she’d checked the gallery before. She eyed the figures again, before propping the door open and returning to the dim office.
Unused items crammed the floor. A computer and phone sat on the single desk, files stacked on the floor. An empty closet in the back stood open, yawning darkness. Multiple metal signs leaned against a wall, notices pointing toward restrooms, galleries, a café, and the lobby.
“Damn it,” she whispered. Who the hell took all the signs down?
Sophia picked up the phone, pressed the switch-hook, but no dial tone sounded.
“Why…” Why leave the electricity on and cut the phones?
Awake is available May 27th!
