Connecting Readers and Writers discussion
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First 100 Words
R.m. wrote: "Holy cow! At some point I either did something very right, or something completely wrong to warrant such a discussion!
"
you started a dialogue. a dialogue is always a great thing provided it is done politely, with open minds, and with good/helpful intentions. as i said in another comment, i wrote one book in first person, then rewrote the whole book as 3rd. the 3rd version is better but different. however, i needed to write the 1st person version first in order to get the story out and only afterward realized it wasn't the better version. but - that was for THAT book. not all books.
there is never one way to do something, and one way is never always the best way.
"
you started a dialogue. a dialogue is always a great thing provided it is done politely, with open minds, and with good/helpful intentions. as i said in another comment, i wrote one book in first person, then rewrote the whole book as 3rd. the 3rd version is better but different. however, i needed to write the 1st person version first in order to get the story out and only afterward realized it wasn't the better version. but - that was for THAT book. not all books.
there is never one way to do something, and one way is never always the best way.
Richard wrote: "A.F. wrote: I have to disagree with you Richard. I find the first person POV can let out a character's voice far easier than leaving it behind the 3rd person wall...you're not disagreeing with ..."
Just to clarify, I disagreed with this statement you made, "first-person stifles your natural voice."
If the writer's goal is to bring their characters to life, then first-person is the most natural voice. I do agree some writers find it more difficult to write in first person and it is a matter of doing what's comfortable.
Kirsten checked her watch, shifting around nervously. Jake was late. He always kept her waiting. She shouldn’t put up with it. Didn’t he know how dangerous it was for a young woman to wait outside a dark building, alone? Yet she did it again and again, knowing it was wrong.In more ways than one.
She was taking her cell phone out of her purse when she heard footsteps. Blowing a sigh of relief, she snapped it shut.
“It’s about time you showed up …” she trailed off, dropping her phone.
Danny smiled as he rounded the corner. “Waiting for someone?”
From: "Blurry," available at http://www.amazon.com/Blurry-ebook/dp...
“Perhaps you should start from the beginning.”Jana studied the doctor in the chair next to her hospital bed. She was a typical high-powered woman in a grey pantsuit and expensive high heeled shoes. Her blonde hair was pulled in a French knot and her blue eyes glittered behind prissy, gold rimmed glasses. A two carat diamond sparkled on her left hand. How could this perfect woman even begin to understand her? She sniffed. “The beginning of what?”
“How did you wind up here, Jana?”
Jana stifled a laugh. Where was the beginning in the life of a failure?
From "Anywhere But Here." Coming in April through Whiskey Creek Press - see http://www.sherrithewriter.com for more information.
The UnwordsA smile...
compressed and encrypted...
A touch...
password protected...
A word these days...
too luxurious,
therefore carefully marketed...
You passed by me today...
You went by me so swift,
in such a hurry...
like an empty promise,
eager to be ignored...
to be forgotten...
Why won’t you look at me...
and welcome me into your world?
It’s so easy...
a smile, a split of a second, a word...
yet so expensive...
I miss the kisses I haven’t given you yet...
I miss the memories we haven’t shared yet...
I still miss you...
yet...
My appearance is not memorable...
I am not much to look at...
I lived my life unnoticed...
sheltered under filthy ceilings, divided into four...
one for every wall...
how beautiful, how elegant...
my sense of beauty it seems...
when splattered lies in the dark...
All I had to say...
remained unheard...
It wasn’t of much importance...
All I had to show for...
remained unseen...
It wouldn’t make any difference...
Every note I ever played and echoed back to me,
so exceptional and clear...
nothing but a cacophony to someone else’s ear.
The physical facts marked on your skin...
leave no room for doubt...
a savage condition...
your voice...
a distorted, pale sound...
Pass by me,
accidentally touch my shoulder on the street...
you and me, so close...
so melodic as it seems...
...couldn't be further apart.
The Unwords are only available through their official website:
http://www.theunwords.com
I don't know if this is fair, since it's not out yet, but...From Run, Clarissa, Run
Clark sat up, enveloped in darkness, the echoes of his own screams still in his ears. His jaws gaped wide as he gulped for air. Sweat ran from his brow. He panted, as though he had just finished a long run.
Slowly the world came into focus around him. The vague light coming through the small window of his basement room helped dissolve the inky blackness into a vague gray scale world. He heard a sound above him, his mother's footsteps.
He lay back on his bed and waited. The grayness grew to include a line of white under his...
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/r...
A.F. wrote: "If the writer's goal is to bring their characters to life, then first-person is the most natural voice.
every writer's goal, i hope, is to bring characters to life.
what i'm saying is that first person can be - but is not always - the most natural voice. there are no absolutes in either direction.
every writer's goal, i hope, is to bring characters to life.
what i'm saying is that first person can be - but is not always - the most natural voice. there are no absolutes in either direction.
Fantasti*Con“You will be tested.”
Allison turned the paper over in her hands to study it but found nothing else printed on the page. There was no signature, and no other marks. Aside from the envelope there was nothing to even indicate that the message was for her. She looked again at the plain white envelope. It was addressed to her, her apartment number, building address and the rest printed neatly in a generic font onto a mailing label. There was no return address. She lifted the envelope to her face and squinted at the postmark: San Diego, California.
“Excuse me,” she asked hesitantly. The desk receptionist, a fellow graduate student dressed in a plain university t-shirt and shorts, looked up from his laptop. “Did you see who put this in my box?” She held up the envelope.
I want to weigh in the first vs third person discussion but it seems that most of that's already been hashed pretty well. For me, I prefer the freedom of 3rd but I also tend to write in 3rd person limited, and only follow one character for the entire work. I used to do a lot of short stories in 1st person but as I've gotten older I'm more and more critical of badly done 1st persons so I'm less likely to take them on myself.
From Instant Preplay:Sidra Holiday wants to kill me.
She doesn’t use those words, or any words really, but the look in those light brown eyes delivers the message loud and clear. Basically, it’s I so want to kill you right now.
I was trying to help her out, and not just because she’s hotter than Phoenix in July, even though that’s part of it. Okay, a lot of it. But I thought she was stuck. How was I supposed to know she’d end up losing her phone?
Patrick, sitting next to me, can only shake his head.
Karl wrote: "From Instant Preplay:Sidra Holiday wants to kill me.
She doesn’t use those words, or any words really, but the look in those light brown eyes delivers the message loud and clear. Basically, it’s..."
That's a good start, tight.
Here are the first 100 words to
The Process Server:The hologram at the reception desk was a middle-aged female secretary in a navy blue business suit, cordial and attentive, polite and to the point.
I’m not the only person who finds a well-programmed service-sector hologram strangely reassuring – as if an artificial construct had a choice, and secretly liked us for who we really are. She was pleasant, and she was prompt … and she was utterly unable to help, flickering slightly as she tilted her head with a look of sympathy.
She leaned forward a little, reflected in the glass desktop, crossing her fingers with a finality that suggested the answer wasn’t going to change.
“Archivist Dregba won’t be back on G’Farg Station for at least a cycle,” she said.
The departure floodlights from a long-range salvage vessel arced across the tinted wall of glass behind her, momentarily illuminating the steel-grey corridor, before the giant ship’s main thrusters fired, and it headed for the blackness of open space.
First hundred words of my current work in progress -- Innocence Found -- A romantic suspense novel -- this is the prologueLife without hope was not a life worthy of breath.
Or so Shannon Brendel’s mother had said and Shannon never forgot it, but somedays she wished she’d never heard it.
Today was one of those days.
She sat by the bedroom window and contemplated for the millionth time what it would be like if she slipped into the darkness and disappeared.
No one would really miss her. Her family didn’t understand the concept of caring for those you are supposed to love. Her friends weren’t really friends, but more people she hid behind. If she were to disappear, her passing would simply be a little blip on the radar--and then everyone’s life could go on as if nothing happened.
Jen Talty
Richard wrote: "halso, about words like "exsanguinated..."There are people who don't know what that means? oh...
My heart was beating so hard I could hear it in my ears. I looked behind me but the path was still clear. They hadn’t come for us yet, but I knew that they would. I felt a vibration in my left wrist, and instinctively lifted my hand in front of me. I didn’t know where he was but I could feel his presence, haunting me, permeating every cell of my body, threatening to attack.I gasped and jerked myself awake from a deadened sleep. Panting, I shook the weird dream from my mind and turned over, almost falling off the back seat of the SUV.
A Marked Past
Leslie Deaton
Nora aka Diva wrote: "Richard wrote: "halso, about words like "exsanguinated..."
There are people who don't know what that means? oh..."
i would expect the word should be DEsanguinated. if the caffiene is removed from the coffee, it's not "excaffienated." but i know those suffixes are not universal. but hey - i love words.
There are people who don't know what that means? oh..."
i would expect the word should be DEsanguinated. if the caffiene is removed from the coffee, it's not "excaffienated." but i know those suffixes are not universal. but hey - i love words.
Whoo Hoo!!! I just published the fourth and final installment of my YA series, "Marina's Tales"...
“Squeeze it gently, don’t jerk on it.”
I took a breath and held it, pausing for a moment to steady my arm and line up the sights at the end of the barrel. The shots rang out in the confines of the long room, muffled by a headset, but still loud enough to make my ears ring. I cast a sly glance at Paul out of the corner of my eye, stepping back to reel in the paper target with a cluster of holes centered in the middle.
“Nice grouping,” he shook his head with a proud smile, “But don’t get cocky, wait until you try the thirty eight.”
Derrolyn wrote: "Whoo Hoo!!! I just published the fourth and final installment of my YA series, "Marina's Tales"...
The shots rang out in the confines of the long room, muffled by a headset..."
this makes it seem like the long room was muffled by a headset because the muffled immediately follows the long room. consider something like:
though muffled by a headset, the shots that rang out in the confines of the long room were still loud enough to make my ears ring.
The shots rang out in the confines of the long room, muffled by a headset..."
this makes it seem like the long room was muffled by a headset because the muffled immediately follows the long room. consider something like:
though muffled by a headset, the shots that rang out in the confines of the long room were still loud enough to make my ears ring.
Second edition, here we come... The beauty of e-books. You gotta love the first line though!
The land was dead and the creature that killed it was getting hungry. The White Rock alone withstood the devastation. Perched high on Mount Qui in the Ice Mountains it gleamed in the noonday sun. It was visible for many miles across the open seas which surrounded Island World. The seas were empty and no one saw it save one ship which had lost its course many years before.The crew of that ship tried to make landfall but were driven back west by a fierce storm. When the storm abated the vision of the White Rock was gone The Wizard of the Golden Star
Hm. I'll probably be the last post in this thread...
The great temple lay still and silent in the moonlight that flashed from the pennon staffs flanking the massive gateway. A man stood within its shadows watching the roadway that wound eastward between the avenue of sphinxes. A young boy, standing beside him, shivered in the wind and drew closer.
An ox cart was coming slowly up the avenue, the beasts plodding along, heads down. The dark-robed men within the cart were turning to look behind themselves every few seconds. The soft glow of the moon caught the lines of their faces and the gleam of their eyes.
http://www.amazon.com/Pharaohs-Son-eb...
He stepped from dim cacophony into bright chaos, the pepper-sharp sting of drifting gunpowder catching at the back of his throat. He coughed, drew a deep breath, held it, and expelled it, feeling the sun-warmed air fill his lungs. It seemed, somehow, to lessen the noise behind him, screams, bitten-off curses and prayers. The dull rasp of a bone saw brought more shrieks, spiraling up higher than his ears could hear
He grimaced and stepped farther into the sunlight
The fighting had been hot and furious along this roadway, the artillery hurling shells into masses of gray-clad bodies that had turned to make a stand and then fallen back under the assault.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Safeguard-e...
Wenatef opened his eyes to darkness and a silence so intense that it was stronger than any noise, stronger even than the pounding agony in his head. He drew a slow breath, the sobbing intake of air loud in the stillness. Another breath, whimpering with pain and the sudden fear that he was blind. But that fear faded. The darkness was outside him.
He lifted his head from the floor and then lay back again. He was bound hand and foot; the cords were well tied and thick. A rope was cinched about his upper arms and chest, as well.
http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Among-T...
The wind wailed through the clefts in the rock, whirling clouds of sand through the fissures that extended from the tops of the cliffs deep into the valley. The man looked up to see the constellations whirling in their ageless, fiery dance. Below him, curving away to the southwest, the great river gleamed in the starlight like a road of silver. A team of horses was tethered on the crest of the hill behind him; he heard the jingle of their bronze mounted harness as one of them shook its head and stamped.
Midnight had passed.
http://www.amazon.com/The-City-of-Ref...
The great temple lay still and silent in the moonlight that flashed from the pennon staffs flanking the massive gateway. A man stood within its shadows watching the roadway that wound eastward between the avenue of sphinxes. A young boy, standing beside him, shivered in the wind and drew closer.
An ox cart was coming slowly up the avenue, the beasts plodding along, heads down. The dark-robed men within the cart were turning to look behind themselves every few seconds. The soft glow of the moon caught the lines of their faces and the gleam of their eyes.
http://www.amazon.com/Pharaohs-Son-eb...
He stepped from dim cacophony into bright chaos, the pepper-sharp sting of drifting gunpowder catching at the back of his throat. He coughed, drew a deep breath, held it, and expelled it, feeling the sun-warmed air fill his lungs. It seemed, somehow, to lessen the noise behind him, screams, bitten-off curses and prayers. The dull rasp of a bone saw brought more shrieks, spiraling up higher than his ears could hear
He grimaced and stepped farther into the sunlight
The fighting had been hot and furious along this roadway, the artillery hurling shells into masses of gray-clad bodies that had turned to make a stand and then fallen back under the assault.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Safeguard-e...
Wenatef opened his eyes to darkness and a silence so intense that it was stronger than any noise, stronger even than the pounding agony in his head. He drew a slow breath, the sobbing intake of air loud in the stillness. Another breath, whimpering with pain and the sudden fear that he was blind. But that fear faded. The darkness was outside him.
He lifted his head from the floor and then lay back again. He was bound hand and foot; the cords were well tied and thick. A rope was cinched about his upper arms and chest, as well.
http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Among-T...
The wind wailed through the clefts in the rock, whirling clouds of sand through the fissures that extended from the tops of the cliffs deep into the valley. The man looked up to see the constellations whirling in their ageless, fiery dance. Below him, curving away to the southwest, the great river gleamed in the starlight like a road of silver. A team of horses was tethered on the crest of the hill behind him; he heard the jingle of their bronze mounted harness as one of them shook its head and stamped.
Midnight had passed.
http://www.amazon.com/The-City-of-Ref...
From Feeding the Urge
by Jeffrey Kosh
Falling out of Eden
Somewhere, beyond a wall made of Reason and surrounded by a trench dug out of Ignorance, lays another world.
The Cherokee people called it ‘The Other Side’; a world in itself, inhabited by spirits and the souls of the departed. They stated there was no clear demarcation between that world and our own, the world of ‘This Side’.
New Mexico’s Pueblo believe the place is the home of Kachina: spirits acting as intermediaries between mortals and the gods. They are able to influence the physical world and can be summoned to this side by men practicing ceremonial dances in their honor, becoming themselves the Kachina’s vessels.
Voudoun, a unique mixture of three continent’s beliefs, addresses this spiritual bonding as ‘being mounted’ by a Loa, a group of associated spirits with similar powers and personalities.
The Judas SyndromeMy name is Joel. Ever heard the expression; Shit happens? It hardly does justice to what’s happened to me, but in a pinch it will suffice as a summation of my life these past few months.
I know now that a single action can put in motion a series of repercussions. Should that action be positive, the repercussions are rewarding, but when that action is negative, so too are the events to follow. A single action can change you forever. Sometimes, if the deed is large enough, if the intent evil enough, the results can be disastrous.
RebirthI can’t find my son. Anxiety overwhelms me. My heart pounds as I rush through the compound, in my panic it seems more like a maze than the place I’d called home the past eight years. Where is my son? The night comes alive as search lights expose the darkness between buildings, igniting the tight spaces a boy of eight might find himself. A sinister thought enters my head: My mortal enemy currently shares this space with us. A renewed sense of urgency overcomes me, my pace quickens.
*****
Your Father would have so loved you. You were a blessing when you were born; you were a mystery when you were conceived and a terrible struggle while I carried you seven months in my belly.
Seven months: it's not really long enough, but you seemed to time your arrival eerily close to the date of another’s departure.
RevelationI watch an army camp among the trunks of dead trees to the west from my vantage point at the edge of this rocky hill, which was carved from an ancient landscape when the ice fields receded some twelve thousand years ago. The ruined forest offers modest privacy and even less protection should we decide to attack them before they do us. But the Sergeant and I have agreed that we are better suited to defend our position within the walls of our compound, rather than risk openly attacking a group so large and desperate.
The road moved with the abrupt seeming randomness of a cat’s tail: sharply curved left, straight, softly curved left, straight, sharply curved right. A rocky little gully for runoff framed the roadside – only leaves within, embrittling in the sun during their long wait to be flushed down with the winter rains – and served as a base for the various privacy inducing walls, progressing from the conceptual boundary of trimmed hedges to the literal wood or finished concrete fences. But it was the sycamore trees that ensured the real privacy with a great contiguous canopy of their palmately lobed leaves that give all other North American trees leaf envy.Alexander Murphy's Home for Wayward Celebrities [https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...]
As the dust and smoke from the explosion was blown away by the wind, the obelisk began to sway and tilt in the direction of the group. Rani, JJ, Linc, Mau and the Egyptian boy could see the giant obelisk starting to fall toward them. Running as fast as they could the group had a hard time dodging the masses of battling statues and jumping over the scattering of fallen debris.The obelisk hit the ground only metres behind them exploding into thousands of pieces, shaking the earth beneath and sending out a dense cloud of dust.
I entered the world with a massive defect. I attracted death. Like a magnet. I could feel it all around me. It wrapped its icy fingers tight around my chest, leaving me no room for escape. It enveloped me, draped over my shoulders like a heavy dark shroud.The day I was born my cousin died in a car accident. Eight days after my birth, while holding me in her arms my mother’s mother closed her eyes, bowed her head, and breathed her last breath. For Always
Destined for a Padded RoomYoung Adult epistolary fiction, first in a series
Available at B&N (link above) and Amazon for $0.99
I don’t want to love him. I yearn to be blind and deaf, oblivious of his existence in my world. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I just put him out of my mind?
Things were going well. I hadn’t felt the need to write about him for weeks, but I guess I must have been in denial because as soon as I saw his face, his smile lighting up the hall like a brilliant sun, I fell to pieces. It all rushed back to me as if I’d never stopped feeling it.
I didn’t know he was coming back.
Falling Immortality: Casey Holden, Private Investigator
“My husband died,” she said.
She wiped her eyes, but she didn’t shed a tear.
I was accustomed to serious — I’m a former cop — and I couldn’t give it up. “I’m sorry for your loss,” I told her. It seemed like the appropriate thing to say. There’s something to be said for effort.
“I’d like to hire you.”
I needed more to go on. “What’s your husband’s name?”
She paused as if she might be trying to remember. “Artis, Artis Farren. I’m Felicity, his wife. I hear you’re the best, Mr. Holden.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I have an inquisitive mind.”
The first 100 words of my first ever published work, Stitched & First Snow, available from Amazon for $0.99 at the link.The best way I know to describe the genre is "sentimental horror".
When Armand arrives home from work, he walks upstairs to his daughter's room to press his forehead for several minutes against the cool wooden door, the same way he has each day since her death.
Today, though, the door is open. And his daughter is lying on her side on the window seat, hands folded beneath her head.
Armand gasps, a quick silent intake of air through parted lips. He rushes to her side through beams of dusty slanted light from the half-open blinds.
"Cori," he whispers. "Cori, honey, wake up. It's me."
Richard wrote: "Lee wrote: "Richard,I agree with you in general about the difficulties of the first person voice. However, there are situations in which it has particular power: (1) where you want the reader d..."
Agreed. Imagine "The Pit and the Pendulum" "The Tell Tale Heart" or "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" without the first person narrator.
Mama knocked twice on my bedroom door. “There’s a god-awful stench coming from in there,” she said. “You need to take your bucket outside and empty it.”At one time, when I first started using the bucket as a toilet, the acrid air in my room had burned the inside of my nose, and everything I ate and drank tasted like the smell of pee. But now, after months of constant exposure, I hardly noticed it at all. I was only aware, whenever I left my room, that the air outside it was different, thinner, crisper—different.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...
http://www.amazon.com/Call-Me-Tuesday...
http://callme2sday.blogspot.com/
http://leighbyrne.com/
Hello everyone, Here's the first 100 words my new book, Circle Spinner and Other Tales. It's a collection of fantasy/sci-fi short stories.
Circle Spinner and Other Tales
The circle spinner reached out with trembling hands and flipped the body onto its back. She gasped. Her dogs whined.
The man’s limbs were stiff, but not from rigor mortis. No, this man had been frozen by fear. Whatever he'd seen in his final moments had had caused his mouth to stretch in a silent howl and his fingers to curl like talons, clawing at the earth as if escape lay that way.
But there had been no escape. Not for this man, alone beyond his circle.
The circle spinner gently reached down and closed the eyelids.
It's available here: Amazon US Amazon UK
Here are a few first lines from some short stories (the link will take you to my site where you kind find links to the full work or links to journals where you can buy issues):I can scarcely recognize my childhood friend anymore after a series of cosmetic facial surgeries designed to emulate Nicole Kidman, as I loom over a cluttered apartment in Sapporo with a webcam in my mouth, filming Ayaka riding her partner, Luka, hard with her newfound womanhood. I’ve known Luka for years, although I can tell he’s still getting used to me, reconciling himself to the thought that peculiar creatures exist in this world. Apart from the drugs and riding crop scene, I admire what Luka and Ayaka have. They’ve been together longer than my wife, Sayuri, and I, first meeting at the Fuji Rock Festival almost eight years ago, but have managed to keep that first date excitement alive. They’re good people and the only ones who know about my secret: At night, I can stretch my neck.
------
((#===#)) is the chamber where I’ll place your body. You’ll float in a solution of water and potassium hydroxide alkali at a temperature of three hundred-fifty degrees. Your skin will flake like ash and the tendons inside your hands with which you messaged me over the years will unravel to the width of spider silk until everything is completely gone. You first came to me when we were young, after a sailing accident you said had left you incomplete. My company, Eden Ice, provides artistic and eco-friendly alternatives to burial and cremation. You wanted your husband’s remains to be liquefied and stored, so when you died, the two of you could become part of a floating ice sculpture of a schooner, which would be cast off to sea. We have a working relationship, but, of course, it became more than that, though I’ve only seen you once, until now.
Sequoia Nagamatsu
Hello all,Here are the first few lines from my Fantasy/Urban Fantasy novel "The Emerald Dragon".
I’m the last person on this planet that should have been called. The Dragons don’t like me. I’m the man who brought them here. Needless to say, they don’t want to be here. More on that later…it’s complicated; but you’ll understand as you go along. I was experiencing a fairly quiet day, when I heard the sound of a child, probably around the age of thirteen. I clearly heard it in my mind. Not normal, I mean even for me. It was the voice of a female child, and she was insistent that I come to her immediately. Dragons don’t call me…no, I mean it. Dragons don’t call. After very careful consideration and about twenty minutes of vacillation, I talked with the Queen of the Dragons. She’ll talk to me.
If you are interested in reading more, I am posting a chapter every Friday for all to read and enjoy on my blog!
Solitaire Parke
From my novel Running From Beige:She sits on her kitchen stool, gazing out the window as if on a perch. The lake she looks upon is one of the most beautiful pieces of black glass that she has ever seen. The trees seem to reflect in this mirror a perfect kind of symmetry, as if demonstrating to her how much she lacked and that her life was far from balanced, let alone beautiful. But at the same time, Connie was unable to avert her eyes. It’s mocking me!
Let me add my new short Right Now1st 100 words:
If I really want to tell you about what I believe, it may help to look at what all took place from the beginning. True, I wasn’t even present at the time, but you can’t just ignore what Timothy said about events that happened to him in the Legacy Towers corporate office parking lot when he was there, that night.
How we all came together IS slightly relevant; so just bear with me a moment here…
To start with; Timothy Creed and my brother Robert Aldern are co-owners of a small two-man detective agency located in a suburb near Dallas,
The autumn wind’s whistle died with a choke as Kora Porteg slammed her brother’s window. The tattered curtains fell lifeless against the wall. Kora made no habit of attacking windows, not in the quaint little cottage she’d called home all her seventeen years, but she was alarmed, and bitterly disappointed, at the state of this particular one.“For the last time, Zacry, you can’t leave your room open to the world.”
“Things aren’t that….”
“Things are that bad! You should know. You steal Mother’s paper enough.”
“I understand about half of the paper, they make everything so cryptic. And I haven’t snagged one in two weeks.
"The Crimson League"
http://www.amazon.com/The-Crimson-Lea...
I slid my eyes toward the plant in the corner of the room again. It looked worse every time I glanced at it. The giant plant with thick leaves seemed as if it were melting in the cool office of the museum. Every time I looked, another spike seemed to droop.I pulled my eyes away from it and answered the next question the interviewer asked.
“Yes, I am very impressed with your conservation department, and I think my experience would be an asset.” My voice was strong, and I tried my hardest to make good eye contact.
Elementary Magic (Relic Hunter)
http://www.amazon.com/Elementary-Magi...
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/...
My Indian Queen: A Novella
Her name was Cassie Lynch, and she was the love of my life.
True, we never actually dated or had a relationship, and I’m pretty sure it would have been a disaster if we had. But oh, for a period of three months, she was mine. Hers was the name forever on my lips, hers the face I kissed in my dreams. We were friends, cronies, partners in crime as we navigated the hot Georgia landscape, my dad’s rusted convertible our Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria. When I think of her now, I still picture her beside me in the passenger seat, her hair flying wild in the wind and a smile on her face.
- J.M. Moris
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“My Indian Queen: A Novella” is now on Kindle and Smashwords!
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/My-Indian-Queen...
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...
My humorous sci-fi novel, There Goes the Galaxy, begins like this:Bertram Ludlow's head felt twice-baked, his skull scooped out and restuffed. He tried to sit up, but his body wasn't his. It was three sizes too big and filled with sand.
He moved to look around, but the sand rushed to his right ear. It buried his equilibrium, sinking him back onto the cold, tile floor.
What the hell happened?
Oh, that's right...
That guy happened, taking the day from coffee to kidnapping in record time.
The morning had started out well enough, Bertram thought, still groggy from both The Incident and general Caffeinatus Interruptus...
There Goes the Galaxy
The book's available on Amazon in both ebook and paperback versions.
A work of urban fantasy with touches of light romance and magical realism though set in contemporary Berlin, Germany: The Angel of Berlin.
"The youth walked along as if everything in the world was new to his eyes. Long blonde hair the color of old gold under candlelight blew in a light breeze. Clear blue eyes like a winter’s crisp afternoon sky fluttered from point to point in wonder, taking in each shutter-click of the scene.
In a faded t-shirt and jeans, tattered sandals seasonally inappropriate on long feet, with child-like naiveté, yet profound self-possession, he looked about himself. To his left, a trio of teen-agers casually tossed a Frisbee between themselves quick to jokes and laughter. To his right, a couple still..."
Available at Amazon, Smashwords, All Romance Ebooks, and several other online distributors.
Genre: Contemporary Fantasy, Gay Fiction.
Rating: PG for some adult themes.
Description: "When Robin, a young university student, saves the life of a beautiful youth, he finds he's made a devoted friend. But without memory and voice, the newly named Angel is a mystery, occasionally exasperating with his child-like qualities yet with touches of darkness that make Robin wonder what kind of being he's really taken in. A tale of magical realism and innocent love set in modern Berlin."
Robyn's Egg, a futuristic thriller set in a dystopian world where free enterpise has run its course.Moyer Winfield’s father once said, if a man wanted to know who he was, all he had to do was look at where he was and what he was doing and he would know. And as Moyer rode the tube to work, jostled by strangers and largely ignored, he realized he was invisible as air, and like air, barely existed. He was a cog in a great machine that abraded men and women to dust, and an insignificant cog at that. The great machine would continue to churn with or without him without missing a beat. Without a lick of remorse. Without acknowledgment or recognition he’d ever been.
Now available on Amazon. May 24th it will be FREE for one day only.
Here are the opening 116 words from my latest, Quinn Checks In:
Quinn Checks InIN ART, THE ARC OF A CURVE can be a beautiful and important thing. In Art Deco, for example, the consistency of its curves gives each design a sense of cleanliness and function, of uniformity.
When I was an art forger, a perfect curve was one of my best friends.
So believe me when I say that the arc of the pool cue slicing through the air towards my head was a thing of beauty, a mighty cut that in that split second, with Boston’s classic rocker “Smoking” cranking on the jukebox in the corner, made me wonder why the giant biker swinging it had opted for a life of vice and violence, instead of baseball.
LH wrote: "Here are the opening 116 words from my latest, Quinn Checks In:Quinn Checks InIN ART, THE ARC OF A CURVE can be a beautiful and important thing. In Art Deco, for exam..."
Oooo, I like the writing in this and the direction the story is headed. This is on my "to read" list. Good work LH.
Mark wrote: "LH wrote: "Here are the opening 116 words from my latest, Quinn Checks In:Quinn Checks InIN ART, THE ARC OF A CURVE can be a beautiful and important thing. In Art Dec..."
Thanks Mark!
I just bought
Quinn Checks In
from Amazon. I'm looking forward to it.
Mark wrote: "I just bought Quinn Checks In
from Amazon. I'm looking forward to it."
Can't wait for your feedback, Mark!
Beginnings oft times are brutal. Unfortunately, so are endings.In between is mostly a race.
A mad dash to grow up, acquire knowledge and earn a living, whether honestly or not.
Events spin out of control. The passing show’s a blur.
On the final leg, if we’re lucky and fate hasn’t already intervened, we race towards death.
By the time the finish line appears, speed has become an addiction.
That’s not where Frieda was currently situated.
Her world was only beginning to accelerate.
On this night, both sides of life’s conundrum – birth and death – would be in evidence.
Circumstances were intervening, both favorably and with feigned indifference.
Frieda was lying flat on her back in a horse-drawn trailer on a lord’s estate.
She was in pain extremis.
Through no fault of her own one of the most natural things in the world was leading towards a frightful denouement.
Nostra and Damus http://www.alexcarrick.com/?p=3289
Connecting Readers and Writers
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you're not disagreeing with me because i didn't say it was bad. i said it was difficult to do successfully, and i said i am not yet ready for that challenge. if you look up the link for my book "room 317," and if you were ever to read it, the original version was written first person, and i thought it worked. however, there were scenes that i wanted to add that could not happen in first person.
i wouldn't discourage anyone from doing it unless they were a very experienced writer who understood the pitfalls ahead. or, if one was willing and able to find people to read and provide feedback to find things that need adjustment. i've been in writing classes when people didn't like the honest feedback and threw chairs across the room.
cheers!