Update // Interview // Giveaway // Snippets!

pinterestAugust 11th - Notebooks Sisters 
Interview & Giveaway
Heads up!  The Notebook Sisters are interviewing me on August 11th on their blog (really cute - with owls!): it's going to be all about The Shadow Things, and my writing, and fun stuff like that.  I'm slotted for a Sunday, and Sundays on the internet are typically quiet in my neck of the woods, but please join us all the same!  There will be a giveaway and lots of questions no one has asked me yet (such as, what are my favourite pizza toppings)!  Be there!

Life
Well, I have officially started packing.  I was excited before: the packing now makes everything real and makes things 20% cooler than ever.  My biggest concern is that my husband or I will trip in the dark over the luggage strewn across our bedroom floor, fall, and get a broken neck and then die and we will never get to go to Scotland at all.  At the moment, all of the books on my to-take list have made it into the luggage.  My car is halfway cleaned, I have approximately ninety-four pages until I reach the middle of Practical Religion, and I have not even started on any of the Georgette Heyer books which arrived the other day in the mail.  Yay me!

Some Snippets
I don't have a lot to offer you, but I haven't done an actual snippets post in awhile.  Gingerune's main document is now 134,426 words long (!!) and I actually have some breathless hope of finishing the first draft by the end of this year, which is my goal.  A loose, tentatively-held goal, but it is my goal. 

* * * * *With a scream shredding in her throat she grabbed what seemed like the thing’s shoulders and bore backward, trying to bodily drag it off [Mazelin]. But [it] came whipping round on her with a ghastly face lifted against the roof-beams, eyes great pale disks and [its] mouth hanging open like a lamprey. gingerune
"Why is the bower broken, and why is the lattice in shards?"gingerune
She had a glimpse of a tear-streaked face, wide, red-lined eyes, and smelled the scent of terror. “You pushed me away!” cried Roxane. “I thought you were going to die and you pushed me away!” gingerune
Ginger had an awful crawling feeling in her stomach and, if she was not careful, the dark which had nothing to do with loss of blood began to encroach on her vision. She set her ears back and held out while the scent of scorched fig and grilled meat filled the room, and the men who wore swords at their sides jinked with light as the fire glanced off their metal. gingerune
“Sir,” said Mazelin levelly, “what mischief are you creating?” gingerune
He stepped in closer to Mazelin with the gesture of one wanting to breaking the other off from the group to have a talk with him. Resistant to this pressure, Mazelin placidly stood his ground. gingerune
“Gods and lords of men, and you who crush small men under your feet.” The mask lifted toward them. “Here I sit, listening to your words rattling in the cup as you gamble for my life. Do you think I care?" gingerune
Mazelin came back to tend to the cakes. “A man likes to use his hands now and again,” he fumed, half to himself, “and I have a strong mind to throttle him. The pretentious puppy, the upstart little mercenary, smooth as honey in a cat’s mouth...” gingerune
...out of an armourless helplessness, those were the best words for her to hear. She lay broken under a blank hot sky at the bottom of a cold black pit, an alien in her own country. Not an exile song this time, she reflected: this time it was a song of home. gingerune
Behind me, I heard [the lady] gasp of a sudden as if struck. [My master] turned his head to her, brow searching and bemused. “Is something amiss?”From high atop her Carmarthen mount, the strong wind blowing her veil into blue flame around her white features, she looked down on [him] with the expression of one having caught a momentary glimpse of something holy. She released her lip from between her teeth. “For a moment I thought you looked like Eros.”His cool face broke into the All Hallows’ Smile. “No, not Eros. Adonis.” And he turned in a single fluid motion, brought up the great bow and bent it back, and let the arrow loose with breath-taking speed over the threshold of the steppes. ethandune