I remembered it was Wednesday and I had to post this when I woke up. Then I forgot it sometime between getting out of bed and opening my computer until hours later when I saw KL’s post. Ruh Roh! Good thing I eventually remembered.
Last week I gave you all an excerpt from For by Grace. Well I finished the edits on it, so it’s not a WIP anymore. It’s really not a WIP anymore because those were the final, final, final, FINAL edits on it. It’s going to print. May 1 there will be a cover reveal for it! So keep on the look out for information about that. It’s honestly my favorite cover yet. =P
This week, I’m working on editing a novel for Tammy Morea. It’s her first novel, a YA piece and is awesome to read. But because I’ve been working on that, I haven’t been working much on my own pieces. I’m not taking on an edit of 1 chapter a day of Ashes Fall, so I can hopefully get through that. It still needs a few rounds before I’ll even send it to my editor. I’m currently on chapter 10. I’m also on a blog tour! *cue the music* Forever Burn is on a blog tour right now, which is the first book in the series with Ashes Fall. Sarah Hart was kind enough to write a review and post for me, so you can head on over to her blog and check it out. There’s also a few other reviews, here and here! They’re all great and awesome. There’s also a change to win an ebook of Forever Burn, so be sure to enter!
I have 15 sentences from the start of chapter 10. I’m specifically leaving out the why in this because I don’t want you to know. =P so you’ll have to suffer with not known why they are doing what they are doing. Anyway… 15 sentences. If you’ve never participated in WIPpet Wednesday, here’s some things to know. We post excerpts from our WIP (work in progress). Each excerpt correlates with the date somehow (hopefully) or it’s the start of a new piece — which reminds me, I could have posted the 2 sentences of the new thing I semi-sort of started. Anyway, we post an excerpt, we link it all up here with all the other awesome WIPpeteers. And then we go and read the other awesome WIPpeteer posts. We comment, because we’re all comment whores, and then we impatiently wait for next week to happen (assuming we don’t forget about it like I did).
So this week, from me, you get 15 sentences from chapter 10 of Ashes Fall. I added up all the numbers: 4 + 2 + 2 + 0 + 1 + 4 = 14. But since I’m a firm believer that everything has value, 0 now = 1. =P so there!
Here’s my WIPpet
James couldn’t handle it anymore. It felt like someone was taking a dull knife and trying to slice her head in half, starting just under her right eyebrow and moving over the top of her head. Every two or three seconds, it would pulse and drive her insane. It had been worse since they left, getting periodically more and more painful for each hour she had driven.
She had pulled into the back of a gas station and told Lily to sleep while she stayed awake until daybreak. Once it was late enough in the morning, James ditched Max’s car. She and Lily hitchhiked back to the nearest city and wrangled a new one out of an unsuspecting dealer. She had two hundred dollars left to get them to Wyoming, and they would need most of that for gas. She started west again, drove for twenty minutes and then doubled back around going east. They were fifty miles east of Norwich, skirting south to avoid the city, and on track to Wyoming—so much for the day long drive. The sun in her eyes amplified the pounding in her head as she drove. The radio in the rundown car was broken, but James honestly couldn’t care less. The noise would probably make her want to scream. Lily remained utterly silent the entire eight-plus hours they had been in the car. Daylight had struck her like an anvil, and with it only being early afternoon and having been awake for the better part of two days, James had to stop.
Oh, I KNOW that headache, all too well.
Once, I took the children to an informal unschooling gathering in a neighboring state. We went for a hike in the late morning hours, and, after, I planned to take them to an armory museum we’d heard of. During the hike, I started to get a migraine, and it gathered steam as we walked.
It was stupid to try for the museum. My sense of navigation is perfectly tuned – to lead us in random directions! Yup, we got lost, and my head was pounding sickly. It wasn’t remotely safe to keep driving.
I found a pharmacy and parked the car. Went inside and bought OTC pain medication – which didn’t stay down. We sat there, in a strange town, for 45 minutes. The headache was so bad, I couldn’t turn around to look at the kids; couldn’t even lift my eyes to the rearview mirror. Breathing was excrutiating, and all I could manage…
Yeah, that was a day.
You’ve captured that feeling, and desperation, well!
And I wish I had used your “Everything has value” reason for my fifteenth line of the day! =)
Lol well James has a headache for a different reason but she doesn’t know what that reason is yet.
Steal my reason next time!
Ugh, the headache for reasons undefined…that’s the WORST, because the reasons are never EVER happy ones!
I’d steal it, but I didn’t see it until AFTER I posted….drat!
Mwahahaha…I already know why. 🙂 I promise not to spoil it.
I can’t wait for FbG. I know my SIL will want it, and it looks like it might be out in time for her to get it to read on the plane when she goes to England. Yay!
If it’s not, let me know because I’ll probably have an ebook version before it goes live
Cool. I have to check, but I think the timing is right.
Yikes! Your descriptions of James’s headache are BRUTAL. She has such a load on her shoulders, with caring for a silent child and low on money and unable to stop and rest. Very vivid scene here – really makes me feel for the character!
Yeah–they are brutal and they get worse. Thanks!! I like this scene because of lily who is silently sitting there through it all yet is the root cause of everything.
I’m curious as to how they wrangled the car away from the dealer, and why the round-about route to Wyoming. Obviously they’re avoiding someone. And, btw, it made my head hurt. I don’t often get headaches, but you’ve captured that feeling very vividly.
Lol James has a particular gift that came in handy with the wrangling. =P
Great snippet with loads of tension. This tripped me up briefly: “The noise would probably make her want to scream.” I had to go back and reread to realize that if the radio were on it would drive her crazy. But since it’s broken, that not an option. Maybe a sentence expressing relief instead?
Thanks!!
Sounds like a brutal headache. A “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy” kind. And with that long drive too… You are torturing poor James! Good writer. You get cookie. 😉
Yay! Is it snickerdoodle?
You know, I’ve never had a snickerdoodle. So, sure!
OMG they’re amazing! I make really good pumpkin ones
Reminds me of the drive up the Alcan. We had some roooooough days.
=P
Yeesh, that is some headache. I don’t envy poor James! I’m also curious about the round-about drive to Wyoming. It must be really necessary for her to do that with her head throbbing so badly!
It is =P thanks for stopping by!