I spent five glorious days with my babies and family up in the cold Montana weather. I say cold, but it really wasn’t that cold. When there’s no snow on the ground and it’s the end of November, something is seriously wrong. I witness and participated in the baptism of my two youngest Godsons who are now nineteen weeks old.
Secondly, I spent yesterday, 100% all day, relaxing and doing absolutely no work. It was glorious.
I apologize for not getting around to anyones WIPpets a few weeks ago. Time seriously got away from me with NaNoWriMo, class papers being due (a nice and hefty 20 page research paper), Thanksgiving on a Tuesday where I ended up cooking unexpectedly and a death at the church. It’s been a cray ride. I also apologize for not doing WIPpet last week. So this week! Since it’ the last month in December, I’ll give you two WIPpets.
I posted one last week, just on my author facebook page, so some of you have already seen it. But it is one of those posts that I love. Secondly, for my actual WIPpet, I give you twelve sentences from chapter 8, titled Animaniac.
If you would like to join in WIPpet Wednesdays, all you have to do is create a blog post with your current Work in Progress, that somehow correlates to the date. Mine is twelve sentences for the month of December. Then you go to this linky here and link it up with all the others. And remember, we are all comment whores, so if you read someone’s WIPpet, make sure to leave a comment.
WIPpet 1
She pulled into the parking lot and looked around for the suspect and saw no one. Instead, she saw a group of kids standing on the sidewalk across the road, staring at something. Grace parked the cruiser and got out, shuffling over to the kids. She cocked her head at them and wondered why they were out of school before she turned to look in their direction.
Sure enough, a man in bright red pants, a blue polka-dotted shirt, a rainbow afro wig and shoes at least twenty-sizes too large was running down the street with a crowbar in his right hand. Grace sighed and shook her head, taking a second look at the suspect.
She bit her lip and glanced at the kids before starting to run after the runaway clown. Grace’s boots pounded on the sidewalk as she started to catch up with the obviously inbred idiot who tried to break into a car in the middle of the daylight in a busy parking lot in a clown costume. She huffed as she sped up to catch him more quickly.
Children and parents were lining the sidewalk at the commotion. Grace had the fleeting thought that someone had sent out a mass text to everyone on the block, telling them to come out and catch a good show. She drew in a sharp breath and shook the thought as she caught up with the suspect. She was amazed at how fast the inbred idiot could run in his shoes, and the fact that he didn’t trip in them. Had that been her, it would have been no contest.
WIPpet 2 (the twelve sentences one)
Planting her feet on the ground and glaring again at him, she walked him back to the car—a direction he was willing to go—and pushed him onto the cruiser. She gave him another pat down and then stood him up, looking him up and down.
“What’s wrong?”
The man shook his head.
“What is wrong?”
Again he shook his head.
“What’s your name?”
He shook his head and opened his mouth, a bumble of sounds and noises coming out. Grace stepped back and narrowed her eyes, realizing for the first time that the man couldn’t hear her. He was completely and totally deaf. He hadn’t even had enough hearing to learn how to speak. Grace bit her lip and shook her head.
Technically, she wasn’t supposed to handcuff him.
Thanks for joining!! Hope to see you all next week. Oh! And yes, I did finish NaNoWriMo–now I just have to finish the novel.
Great excerpt Adrian I’m intrigued. Nice twist at the end. 🙂
There’s a whole scene before hand on her tackling and fighting with him! Lol. Wish I had room to put it in the excerpt.
Maybe share it next time? 🙂
It’s too long. It totals about 2k words.
Shame *sighs* Oh well, guess I’ll just have to wait for the finished book. 🙂
I’m hoping for it to be out next December! I really need to finish writing it though. =P
That would help lol!
This is the clown? He’s deaf? Oh man! Now that’s an unexpected turn of events. Seems Grace is thinking the same.
haha yeah, he’s deaf. I took sign language in college and participated a lot in the deaf community in Seattle, so it needed to end up in some book at some point. She was totally clueless at first about it, and now she just doesn’t know what to do with him.
freaky clown with a crowbar? WEIRD!
haha RIGHT?! needs to be a choice in the game of Clue–or so I’ve heard. =P
LMAO!! The clown was a deaf guy?? Oh! Oh! That so reminds me of my old coworker who passed away. Long time ago, he carpooled to work with a group of deaf guys. He’d occasionally go with them into a 7-11 when they went to buy snacks or whatnot. One time the cashier was kind of rudely talking about the guys and was having a hard time understanding what the group was trying to communicate. So my coworker chose that moment to speak for the group and communicate to the cashier. He said the look of shock on the man’s face was priceless.
yeah. I was at a school event at a bar one time and it was really noisy, so a friend of mine and I started to sign to each other. There was a guest preacher there and he was watching us for about an hour. Then my friend came up to me to ask what kind of beer I wanted (it was easier than spelling it out), so she moved in close and verbally asked me–we’d agreed through sign that it was her turn to get it. So she left to go down and get the beer and the guest preacher guy came up to me and goes, “I sat there for an hour trying to figure out which one of you were deaf, and it was neither of you!!” So funny!!
Two very intriguing snippets and so vivid! Bet that was just what Grace wanted, an audience watching her take down a crowbar wielding deaf clown!
bahaha totally what she wanted. Also–this one is based off a true story. One of the cops I worked with told me about it. The only difference is that there was no crowbar and the guy wasn’t deaf. But the cops I worked with dealt with a lot of deaf guys (Seattle is a hub for the deaf community), and they told me lots of stories like that. So I thought it needed to be added in. =P
Well they do say that truth is often stranger than fiction. The deaf guy, the crowbar, the clown outfit are all really great details and make the scene really come to life.
Thanks! It’s totally stranger than fiction.
WIPpet 1- Yeah. I might have had to gawk at that one. 😛
WIPpet 2 – Oh, man! Icky situation. It really would be unfair to cuff him, but what if he uses his hands for something more violent than a few nasty words?
He did do something more with his hands before she cuffed him. Legally she can because if that. But if he hadn’t hit her then the ADA specifies she can’t cuff him. =P
I’m glad he hit her, then. Now he can’t strangle her. 🙂
Lol true true.
I remember once, while working as a cashier at a Mc’Ds, having a lady and her daughter come in using sign language. ACK! That would have been a disaster (at the time, I only knew the sign alphabet, and not well). Her daughter ended up ordering for her, and I’ve gained a serious awe since in many instances of what children of people with limitations go through.
yeah, when I took ASL there was a lot about hearing children of deaf parents. My prof was mostly deaf and had 5 girls. He was very specific in not wanting to ever have his children translate for him.
It’s got to add a lot of stress to the family dynamic. On a sillier note though… I wonder if kids sometimes play pranks on their parents because they figure their parents can hear what they’re telling other people? 😉
Oh they do! My prof told us a ton that his kids played on him