Daily Excerpt Post - November 1st

[alison-sky.livejournal.com]

This is where you can take a snippet from your writing from today that you want to share with the other members of the community. And feel free to comment on other people's snippets.

We're all about love and support here, and this is a great place to give it.


Comment limit is 4000 words. Please do not post multiple comments to show your entire NaNo.

Comments

Getting to the Chapel Early - 30 Years Early

[anonymoose_au]

“Yeah, of course, but Doc,” Marty looked over at Jennifer. “We can’t come, at least not now, it’s my folks’ Wedding Anniversary Party tonight, we can’t miss it –“

“Marty, you’re not thinking fourth dimensionally!” Doc admonished him. “It’ll take us a few hours, but as far as 1988 is concerned we’ll be back just ten minutes after we leave.”

“Oh yeah,” Marty shook his head, even after everything, he had trouble with that.

But suddenly he thought of something…the photo frame.

He’d thought of it briefly back at the store, but he’d known Doc would never agree to it. The DeLorean and Time Train weren’t used too often and certainly not for trips only a few days into the future, Doc was adamant it was too dangerous and Marty had agreed…sort of.

But now that he was doing Doc a favour.

“Still…a couple of hours, that’ll throw our body clocks way off,” Marty began, a look of uncertainty on his face.

Doc gave him an incredulous look. “It won’t be that bad, Marty.”

“Still…I know my folks want everyone bright eyed…I don’t even have a present for ‘em.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Doc seemed rather distracted. “But I can’t really help-“ then it dawned on him. “Marty,” he began in his best ‘lecture’ tone. “You know the time machine isn’t a toy. Like I said, I’m sorry you don’t have a present for your parents –“

“But I do, the problem is Doc, it won’t be ready until Monday.”

“That’s not too long to wait.”

“Come on, Doc, Jen and I are doing you a favour, can’t you help us out? I don’t even have to be the one who gets it! I can give you the pick up slip and the cash and you can get it.”

Doc looked completely unconvinced.

“I know it doesn’t seem too much and maybe I’m being dumb, but I really want to be able to give my folks their present on the actual day. I’ve only really know my family for three years, but they’ve been a Hell of a lot better to me than my original one. I want ‘em to know I care.”

Doc sighed and ran a hand through his wild hair. “All right, all right, I’ll pick up the photo frame for you. But because you’re my friend, not because I feel guilt for throwing off your circadian rhythm.” He shook his head. “You honestly thought I’d fall for that?”

Marty shrugged and grinned. “Hey, it was worth a try…”

[lacrimaeveneris.livejournal.com]

From the middle of my novel, actually. During a quest, my MC (Xiu) stumbles across a lake, and decides to make a wish.

For a moment, she let the book rest gently in her lap, as she gazed around her. She felt the rough bark of the ancient oak against her bak through the rough muslin of her tunic. Strangely, the glade was silent, save for a slight breeze which made the leaves and grasses bow in feigned obesiance to the potential power of the winds.
The moss lay thick near the edge of the brook, enveloping the meandering water in a soft cloak of velvet. The water tripped merrily over rocks large and small, swirling in a fine waltz but ultimately spinning away, searching for its next dance partner. Sunlight caught the folds of the stream's flowing gown, and made her sparkle in time with her laughing dance.
The girl rose from her shady sanctuary, approaching the brook with trepidation tempered by anticipation. She looked up, pen in hand, as three oak leaves drifted down to rest at her feet at the edge of the brook. I wonder if that tree ever blooms for spring, she wondered, or if its autumn leaves fall eternally. She shook herself free of the thoughts, watching as the brook playfully tugged at the leaves. But like shy wallflowers they were loath to be pulled away from the safety of the bank. Gingerly, she lifted a leaf, which felt strangely heavy in her hand for such a tiny object. "Kazumi," she whispered to it, letting her breath play over it. As she finished, the leaf became like gold-leafed glass, and she put it down and lifted the next. "Companions," she said next, as the leaf became topaz. She picked up the last leaf, a raging scarlet in hue. "The future" she whispered, and the leaf became ruby in her hand. She kneeled by the edge of the brook, careful not to crush any of the wish-leaves. She placed the first, the gleaming gold-washed glass leaf, gently on the water, watching it be whisked away to parts unknown. When the first leaf was gone from view, she repeated the placement again with the remaining topaz and ruby leaves, placing them ever-so-gently on the water to be borne away to the land of love and dreams.
Sighing, she stood, feeling relief flood her body as if a thousand sorrows and worries had been lifted from her shoulders. Now shigh might continue on her journey less encumbered.

[alexcat.livejournal.com]

The very first bit:

June 1876
Little Big Horn River

The buzzards flew over ahead of General Terry and his troops. He expected to see dead Indians, many dead Indians, even after meeting up with several groups of Cheyenne and Sioux in Army Blue. No one could kill that little yellow haired bastard. He had come to believe this almost as much as Custer himself believed it. Everyone else had believe it too.

This time they were wrong. All of them.

Dead wrong.

Terry and his men had warning, but it did not prepare them for the scene. Scattered all the way down the hill toward the Little Big Horn River were the already rotting corpses of horses and the pale bodies of dead soldiers. Lots of bodies.

The scene was black with flies and the smell was overpowering as the morning began to turn into another blazing summer day.

[stringingwords.livejournal.com]

The Spar and Sails was a run-down tavern on the dock front. Built from old ships’ timbers, it leant heavily against the neighbouring building like one of its patriots against a friend upon leaving.

Inside, it was dingy. The few windows were hazed with pipe smoke, the floor was filthy, ale-soaked sawdust over rotting boards, and the whole scene was lit by thick candles that burned fitfully on each table.

At one such table towards the back of the tavern, sat Aric Bastian. He hunched, elbows on the table, nursing a third tankard of ale and a grudge.

A pirate and a mercenary, Aric had hired the services of himself and his ship to a baron whose land was on the coast further north for the past month, protecting the baron, or more importantly the baron’s grape-growing fields, from raiders hired by one of the man’s rivals. Aric had not been overly concerned with the politics as long as he had gotten paid and the good wine grapes had remained unburnt.

It had all gone very well, until the baron had made a truce with his rival and no longer required Aric’s services. Not only had Aric not seen a coin of the promised reward, but also the baron had reported him and it was only the fact that the Kahoku Kai was the fastest ship on the seas that Aric was currently decorating a table in a tavern and not the end of a noose.

Some people, Aric reflected as he drained his tankard, had no morals whatsoever.


[It's official - I am in love with my MC *dorks*]

[ruth-the-sleuth.livejournal.com]

I can't remember where, but there's a prison somewhere than makes jeans called "prison blues," and I kind of want some.

[trainwind.livejournal.com]

That's amazing! How badass would that be...

[theratwhispers.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :D I'm suprised that this plot came out of me at midnight.

[captaintwitchy.livejournal.com]

Strung out on cheap cigarettes and no sleep, Juliet and Michael stepped out into the glorious morning air. Michael had suggested that they head into town for breakfast, as usual he had no practical food in the house, just a freezer full of cheap pork joints he’d picked up at the market a few weeks earlier. Of course, Michael had no idea what to do with a pork joint, other than put it in the oven and hope for the best, so these large lumps of meat were mostly pointless. Besides, he had argued as Juliet searched around the room for her knickers, pork was a terrible Sunday breakfast. It wasn’t that Juliet disagreed with this, quite the opposite. Her silence was simply the result of feeling horribly awkward, a feeling that haunted her continuously these days.

[thatssorad.livejournal.com]

She sighed.

It was another wonderful night in paradise, filled with drunkards, bright lights, loud music, and the inevitable one or two men who felt it perfectly alright – in fact it’s almost expected – to give their waitress a tiny tip but a large helping of unwanted physical affection. If she could sanitize herself in an acid bath after work, she probably would.

Tonight, the bar was packed tightly with all sorts of bodies, twisting and grinding on the medium sized wood dance floor to the sounds of an eighties cover band. It was hard to believe that forty-some years later, people were still grooving to eighties music. Do any of these people even remember the eighties? Were they even born yet? she wondered from beside the bar as she watched groups of young people, who couldn’t be much younger than herself, doing “The Swim” to an edgy, heavy guitar laden version of Rock Lobster. Like David Bowie, The Beatles and Led Zeppelin, it all survives the decades. But why did the eighties have to follow suit as well?

A couple of people caught her eye, swaying their hips and pressing their bodies together sensually at the far end of the floor. It was hardly the kind of music one would (or perhaps should) get that close to, but everyone else was so involved in their own partners and artificial nostalgia that no one but her cared. On a night like this, she shouldn’t have time to care, but so far the cozy neighborhood bar wasn’t turning much of a profit on drinks. So she stood there, arms crossed over her black uniform blouse, watching everyone else have fun.

“Hey, Chloe?” asked a familiar voice from behind her. She turned to find a very panicked co-worker, face slick with sweat, his usually neatly kept curly hair was unruly as though he’d been running his fingers through it.

“What’s the matter, Sam?”

“There’s a woman who locked herself in the bathroom. I can’t get her out. Jackson can’t get her out. We can’t find the friend she came in with. Anyone who goes in there, whether they're there to help her or not has been berated, not to mention she's puking something fierce. If we can’t get her out, there’s a possibility she’ll really hurt herself in there and continue to alienate the other customers.”

“Okay…and what do you think I can do about it?”

“Well, besides the fact that you’re a woman and it’s not odd at all for you to go in that particular bathroom, you have a way of making people see things your way.”

She scoffed. “Oh yeah, after they’ve already had a firm grip of my rear end.”

“Well, if you think it’ll help to offer her a little squeeze…” he said, his voice giving a hint of exasperation.

She laughed softly and set down her serving tray, untying her apron and pushing it out of the way. “You’re such a pig, Sam.”

“Yeah. Well. I’m not the one reaching for your rear end. You going to help me or what?”

She sighed and nodded, resigning herself to the fact that this night was going to end with vomit on her somewhere. “Yeah sure, show me where she is.”

[mteson.livejournal.com]

I was about to add the girl I lost my virginity to to my friends list on Facebook.
“Add Friend.” Still staring at me, daring me to go forward.
I clicked the button. “Molly will have to confirm that you are friends on Facebook,” the website blared back at me, and maybe I could send her a personal message to break the ice? Message? Huh. I hadn’t thought about it. Should I be sending a message? Would it be okay to not send a message? If it were any random college friend or high school acquaintance, or any of the thousands of people I had met through my lifetime, it would be a total no-brainer - I could just add them and wait for the confirmation and move on. But this was different. The circumstances were…weird? Not weird. It didn’t end badly or anything. But you know, they always tell you there’s something special about the girl you lose your virginity to. And there is, you can’t deny it. I just felt like the situation required a little more than just a blind add.
But the problem for me was that thinking about it made me feel like I was a really ridiculous person, because here I was at one in the morning internally debating one of the most asinine questions of “netiquette” I had ever heard. “Netiquette” - the word itself made me feel like a complete tool. That’s the kind of word they use in “The Internet For Dummies” to tell senior citizens not to type in ALLCAPS because people will erroneously believe you’re shouting at them. Still I didn’t ignore the reality of my situation. The truth was that the politics of all this social networking crap were straight out of a bad Seinfeld episode. I had to think about the clues like a detective and figure out the right play.
Really, it hadn’t ended badly. But it was certainly out of the ordinary. You always think that the girl you lose your virginity to is going to be your high school or college sweetheart, your first girlfriend, your prom date. Molly was none of those things. It wasn’t that she was a bad girl or anything, for all I know she was as sweet as apple pie. But this is the thing. Molly didn’t go to my school. She didn’t live in my town. She didn’t live in my state. And the first night I laid eyes on her was the night before everything went down. And the last time I saw her? The night everything went down.
Here’s the rub. Molly was a girl I met on the Internet.
I know, I know, gross.

[lfvoy.livejournal.com]

She pulled her knees back up to her chest. "Did Mom ever tell you how Aunt Patty died?"

Sean sighed and leaned his forehead against the top of the windowsill. "Yeah. Couple of years ago. After I heard about it at school."

"I've never heard about it."

"Mom probably wanted to make sure you had, before anyone at school said anything. She wants you to believe her version of the story."

"There's another version?"

"More than one." He picked his head up from the windowsill. "Clary, for goodness' sake, come on back inside. I'll tell you, but not while you're on that roof."

She crawled across the roof to his window, letting him help her across the sill into his bedroom. He closed the screen behind her, but left the window open. The breeze felt good in her hair. She settled onto the floor where she could still feel it.

"Did you know there are people who don't even believe the storm is coming?"

"What?" Clary was incredulous. "How can they not believe it? You can see it, right there in the numbers —"

"Numbers can be faked, and there's only the astrophysicists' word about what they mean in the first place." Sean sat down on his bed, facing her. "There are a lot of people who say that they have different numbers, or that the interpretation is wrong."

"Do you believe them?"

"No, I believe Mom and the observatory."

"Why would Mom worry that I wouldn't?"

"You don't believe what you can't see," he answered. It had become a family joke. "One of the biggest arguments against the storm is that nobody can see it."

"But that doesn't make sense! It's coming at the speed of light, so we won't see it until it's here."

"I know that," he replied. "Anyone who thinks it through realizes that. But there are a lot of people who just cannot wrap their heads around the idea that every time we look at the stars, we look into the past." He shrugged. "Some of the people who do understand still don't buy into the idea of astronomers as fortune-tellers."

She frowned. "It almost sounds like they don't want to understand."

"Do you believe we're going to die, Clary?"

"Yes," she answered.

"Why?"

"Because the storm is coming."

"That's what I mean! If you don't believe the storm is coming, then you don't have to believe we'll all die in nineteen years. Some people see no reason to live if they're just going to die."

She shook her head. "But we all would die anyway, sooner or later."

"Yeah, but some people don't like to think about it."

"What does this have to do with Aunt Patty's assassination? Are you telling me the people who killed her weren't just jealous because she figured it out first?"

"Oh, Clary." He closed his eyes. "They weren't jealous. They were angry."

She drew her knees up again, leaning against the outside wall. The breeze in her hair was making her shiver now.

Sean shook his head. "They were angry, and they were scared. Patty was saying things they didn't want to hear. They thought that if they'd kill the messenger, they'd kill the message."

"But they didn't succeed."

"No," he said. "They didn't. That's because, for once, Dad believed her. He wouldn't let the media bury the announcement. It killed him, too."

"He didn't die of a broken heart?" It had seemed so romantic, even if it was about his sister instead of his wife.

"He died from a heart attack, Clary." He shrugged. "I guess you could say his heart broke. But not like that."

[lfvoy.livejournal.com]

Talk about a twist in that last sentence...! Wow.

[inugrlrayn.livejournal.com]

Yep. They said fanfic was fine on the forums. :)

[hireadd.livejournal.com]

My prologue... I need to write more. |D


One could call our world peaceful.

The world itself, and the state of the affairs occurring on its surface, if you will. We live in an age where all things, good and bad, come to pass with relative ease- good or bad, everything flows by. The government remains the same, impassive and unchanging, unweathered by time. Revolutions start and revolutions end; there is no war, nothing altered.

We write here of one revolution, presently in progress. We write here of an attempt at change.

* * *

It is the age of Hyder and Samon, and influence of the continent Nebula has spread from its great city Vipul to cover the entire world. At the head of the government that has ruled Nebula for as long as it matters stands the Divine Marduk, a spiritual guide for the nation and world. All has flourished under her great reign, owing greatly to her powerful influence over more or less everything of relevance, including the world's strongest corporation, TemuJin.

There are only two cities in the continent of Nebula, and beyond their borders almost nothing. The one most controlled is Vipul, residence of the Divine Marduk and CEO Adia Temujin; the one in which we begin is Udile, where many people of great importance live, and none so important as Astra.

* * *

Here is a boy with a simple, forgettable story: a father working to fuel the machines of TemuJin, a mother running a small bakery on her own on the streets of Udile. He is sixteen.

Here is a boy with a sadder, but just as common story: All of the above, but the father is dead now, and he's leaving his mother to take that father's place, to work under a man named Sitara Inai until he meets the same fate.

Here he is now, signing the papers that will give him his master's name.

Astra Inai is drafted and shipped out less than twenty four hours after the medics declared his father dead.

[ohendless-night.livejournal.com]

Oh! I like where this is going...

[ohendless-night.livejournal.com]

i like it, a lot.

[ohendless-night.livejournal.com]

There were bugs.

It was impossible to be rid of them. They crept, they crawled. Their little legs, moving across her skin, itching where they’re small mouth filled with razor teeth bit. Leaving welts in their wake that she was powerless to avoid scratching. The itching was consuming, it was obnoxious. Trailing up and down her skin, ravaging her senses. Her nails, filthy, dirt-encrusted, she scratched. Helpless to stop, even though she knew she shouldn’t. it only made it worse. They were attracted to the scent of her blood. Red angry welts split open, from daily exercizes in scratching. The bite wounds split open, spilling blood that ran down her arms, her shoulders, her back, her legs. Small rivers of blood. It was an aphrodisiac for the bugs.

There was darkness.

The sunlight couldn’t penetrate. She dwelled in an abyss, a small stone room. A cell. One window, barred closed with thick vines. Veins of sinew, living of their own accord with no sunlight to feed them. They bloomed midnight flora, shades of grey. Charcoal, and blacks. Two moons lit the sky. One always in Harvest. One never full, never satisiated, always teasing with the hint of hope. A garden rolled away from the window, the cell, the tower she found her existence in. a midnight garden of hopelessness and loss. The baying of wolves lay beyond the horizon. She had never seen them, never laid eyes on the creatures, but her instinct remembered them. The bugs crawled, and she scratched.

There was loneliness.

No one but her. No inkling of how long she had been here, alone with the bugs that slowly devoured her. She caught them, squished them between her fingers. Felt their backs POP, felt the miniature explosions of their innerds between her digits. Felt the oozing of her own blood spill from their corpses. Each one a small victory. Each one, one less that fed on her. But their numbers never diminished. No, they seemed to grow fatter in number. How long had she been here? The ground was covered in calcified bug remains, some dead from her doing, some having died from another source, their little bug legs pointed skyward. Dead on their backs. How long until she would be the same? No one came for her. And yet, she was never hungry, the sensation, the urge long forgotten. She couldn’t remember food, the delicacy of food, the comfort it brought. Nor did she know the pain of hunger, the crippling pang of her stomach turning on itself. She knew none of this. Loneliness was her companion.

Loneliness, and bugs. The vineyard, and the moons.

Her voice had died in her throat long ago. No one to talk to. Except the bugs. And the moon. And the garden outside her reach.

Only the wolves spoke to her now. And she was too afraid to call back to them.

[amarra-jade.livejournal.com]

Kenza was sitting on a log in the middle of the forest, contemplating what her parents could possibly have meant when they told her she was banished “until she was ready to return,” when a lanky youth with red hair and freckles came riding up on a pig.

“A pig?” interrupted said lanky, red-haired, freckled youth. “Why a pig?”

Because you can’t afford a horse.

“Oh,” the youth replied, slightly disappointed. He dismounted from his trusty steed and approached Kenza. “Why, hello, fair maiden!” he greeted her. “I am Tarnell the Terrifying. How may I be of service to you?”

“Terrifying?” Kenza repeated. “What’s so terrifying about a dork riding a pig?”

“For your information, I happen to be a great and powerful warrior! I strike terror in the hearts of all who oppose me!” Tarnell unsheathed the sword at his hip and waved it around for dramatic effect, but only succeeded in dropping it on his foot. “Ow!”

“More like Tarnell the Terrible,” Kenza remarked.

“Why, thank you, milady!” replied Tarnell as he hopped around on his uninjured foot.

“That wasn’t a compliment,” said Kenza. “Anyway, unless you can somehow get me back my powers, which I seriously doubt, I’m going to have to very politely tell you to buzz off.”

“Such fire and spunk! I love that in a woman.” Tarnell grinned stupidly, causing Kenza to roll her eyes. “What are these powers you speak of, milady?”

“Okay, first of all, stop calling me ‘milady’. Secondly, I’m a goddess-- or at least I was, until about an hour ago.”

“Ooh!” Tarnell exclaimed. “I know who you are! Long have I admired your beauty, Kenza, Goddess of…um, what exactly are you goddess of?”

“Chocolate,” Kenza replied automatically.

“Chocolate?” Tarnell repeated. “Indeed? That’s a fine thing to be goddess of, if I do say so myself! I’m quite fond of chocolate!”

“Yeah? Well, I’m not very fond of idiots, so kindly do as I asked and buzz off.”

“Perhaps you could accompany me on my quest until you recover your powers!” Tarnell suggested eagerly, as if he hadn’t heard a word Kenza had said.

“Quest? What quest?”

“My quest to save the world from evil, of course! Fighting the wicked, protecting the innocent and all that jazz.”

“Um, no thanks. I don’t help mortals. I torment them for the sheer fun of it.”

“Oh, come now! Everyone loves a good adventure! Besides, how are you going to manage to torment anyone without your powers?”

Dammit, Kenza thought. He’s got a point. Maybe he’s not as dumb as he looks.

“All right,” she sighed. “Let’s go save the world.”

“Huzzah!” cried Tarnell. “Climb aboard my noble steed, mil-- Kenza, and away we shall go!”

Kenza eyed the pig for a moment and replied, “Uh, thanks, but I think I’d better walk.”

“Very well. Away, Ferdinand!”

“Ferdinand?” repeated the pig. “You named me Ferdinand?”

Yes, I did. And animals don’t talk in my story, so if you talk again, I’ll change your name to Bacon.

Ferdinand grunted in protest, but obediently began plodding off toward whatever adventure awaited him, Tarnell and Kenza. It would take them quite a while to reach it, seeing as how pigs weren’t the fastest of animals.

~*~

I'm in love with Tarnell. And Ferdinand. :D

[veedub.livejournal.com]

from chapter 1, Resident Aliens:

In any case, I have only one memory of the three of us being together, and this was when I was about eight years old and they had already decided to call it quits. I was in boarding school in Buckinghamshire, and the two of them visited me and took me on a picnic in the woods near the school. This was a wonderful forest straight out of fairy-tales, at least in my memory. Huge ancient trees with the sunlight slanting through in the afternoon, stretches of lawn dotted with "fairy rings" of darker grass (actually due to the decaying of mushrooms growing in a circle, but to my delighted eye proof that the fairies were real and danced in the moonlight only a few hundred yards away from my school). So my father's presence was connected somehow with the appearance of magickal beings. He was a magickal being to me, which was hardly fair to my mother, who had the burden of raising me, but distance really does lend enchantment. I could mythologize him to my heart's content and dismiss my mother's very broad hints on the subject as the insidious wiles of an evil sorceress. This theme was developed in great detail later on when I became a teenager. Doesn't every girl who wants to be a Real Princess see her mother as the Evil Queen and her father as the Prince who will rescue her and carry her off to a new magickal life? And I had the qualifications to be a Real Princess: blue eyes, naturally curly hair, and prettiness. Not to mention the Evil Queen.

But things never work out the way you expect.

Shooting Holmes excerpt

[elfinessy.livejournal.com]

The car they sent for him had blacked out windows. He couldn't remember travelling in a car with blacked out window before. As he watched the familiar buildings pass by, the streets painted with a collage of people, he wondered why anyone would need blacked out windows in a Mercedes. A Limo he could understand - it was possible to get up to a lot of nonsense in the back of a Limo, he knew that from experience, and it was mostly nonsense you wouldn't want the rest of London looking in on. But what the hell kind of trouble was it possible to get into in a Mercedes?

[sitdownshutup.livejournal.com]

Chloe opened up her journalism notebook and stared at the blank page. Her feature story on the musical was due tomorrow, and so far, she had nada. She carefully drew eighteen balloons across the top of the page and lettered each one.

“Happy birthday to you.”

So far, being sixteen was not all it was cracked up to be. Chloe certainly didn’t expect the glamour of the sweet sixteen parties that the preppy MTV set got. No fluffy pink dress; no mile-high cake; no car waiting outside for her, wrapped in a huge bow.

But, so far, the day hadn’t been like the movie Sixteen Candles, either. Although the hue of Chloe’s red hair was Molly Ringwald-esque, her family had not all forgotten about her birthday. Only her mom. Well, her mom didn’t really forget; she had just left for work before Chloe’s alarm went off. Chloe’s father made a mountain of chocolate chip pancakes and cut them into little hearts, just how Chloe loved them – when she was nine. Evidently Chloe’s father hadn’t believed it when she announced she was off sugar until she lost the five pounds she’d gained over Christmas break.

Chloe wasn’t sure what she expected to happen on this birthday, but it seemed like a milestone bigger than being legally able to drive her parents’ scratched up minivan to the mall. She hoped she’d feel more… mature. Stronger. More confident. But when Chloe woke up on the Monday morning of her sixteenth birthday, she felt just the same. Skinny and awkward. And dreading going to school.

The best present Chloe had received so far was an e-mail from her brother, Donnie, in Iraq.

“Just remember,” he’d written, “these are the worst years of your life.” She could envision her brother’s easy grin along with these words. “Just think… in just a few short years you will be free of that hellhole.”

Donnie was referring to, of course, Holy Cross High, or Holy Crossed Legs, as the obnoxious public school boys called it (and the girls who went there). The irony was, of course, that there were few girls who passed up dates with boys from the local public school. Boys from Jefferson High School had more access to the liquor and drugs that certain Holy Cross girls craved – girls like Shawna Strong. And those girls were rumored to be very, ahem, grateful for the favors boys showered on them.

[hillstart.livejournal.com]

wow. i love this too! beautiful writing - it drew me in completely :)

[netbug009.livejournal.com]

NOW I KNOW THIS. XD I have a ton of fanfics I could be working on, but noooo. I had to dig for an original plot. XD

Oh well.

[inugrlrayn.livejournal.com]

I was planning to do an original plot. I changed my mind two days before NaNo started because I got this weird idea and I can't stop thinking about it.

Best of luck with your fic!

Nearing the end of Chapter One:

[bubblewrap-xo.livejournal.com]

He pictured himself back at the crime scene; the smell of god-only-knows-what decomposing in the dumpsters which lined the alley; the rustling noise made by the rats as they scampered up and down in search of food; the body lying on the cold ground, surrounded by the pool of scarlet blood which spread from the single bullet hole in the centre of the victim's chest. A wallet was found in a jacket pocket, along with what looked like a brand new cell phone and set of car keys; this clearly wasn't just another robbery gone bad, and whoever had pulled the trigger was obviously not desperate to make it look like one. They had, however, taken care not to leave anything behind, making the job one hell of a lot more complicated for whatever lucky individual was assigned to investigate it.

Dale pulled the cord to turn the light off and rolled onto his side, telling himself that things would look better in the morning, before drifting off to sleep.