Snippet Sunday: November 29, 2015

Welcome to Snippet Sunday on Darkling Dreams!

Where writers come together to share a few sentences (8-10) of their current project — whether it’s a recently released novel, a WIP (work in progress), or an older manuscript that’s being revived. Intended to hook readers, gather feedback and build an author’s fan base, Snippet Sunday is the FB group that does all three.

In honor of me taking a dive off the deep end into more insanity for the month with NaNoWriMo, I am continuing my snippets from the fantasy novel I am working on for NaNo, Darkness Becomes Her. Though I have had a total author crisis and am realizing that title works so much better with a book down the line in the series. So guess what? That title is probably changing soon. To what though, I have not a clue yet. Let’s just say my snippets will be from Book 1 of the Dark Heir Chronicles now. (If I ever figure out that new title, I will change this, but we all know how titles go…)

Previously on Sunday Snippets: Four year old Heather was being dragged, bound and gagged, through the manor home of her kidnapper’s in a magic filled realm towards the fate that is to befall her now at the hands of he woman clad in black. Now she is been taken down to the lowest level of the manor, the dungeons, and into a rather terrifying workroom, where she was thrown in a cell.

Skipping ahead just a tiny bit from last week’s snippet, moving past Heather’s desperate pleading to be let go, and now getting to the revealing parts. Heather speaks first. (Some sentences may have been creatively punctuated to try to fit the ten sentence limit. I’ll admit, way over this week again, but I haven’t been over in a couple weeks and it was too good to cut off.)

—-

“W-What do y-you w-want with m-me?” she asked in a shaking voice.

The woman stopped what she was doing and turned back towards the cell. She swept back over to the bars, her cloak fluttering out behind her as she walked. Heather shrank back against the wall as she stopped at the bars, whimpering like a scared pup in a thunderstorm. The woman reached up and flipped her hood down finally, revealing her features: dark, forest green eyes that flashed wickedly pierced Heather’s hazel gaze, and straight, jet black hair that came past her shoulders fanned around her. Her features were sharp and angled, almost chiseled, and dark red lips were pulled back in a terrifying, satisfied grin as she looked smugly down at the cowering child.

“You wish to know what it is I want of you?” she repeated. Heather nodded tentatively, looking up at the woman in fear as she curled up on herself.

The woman grinned. “It’s quite simple. I want a Heir, and you, dear, fit my requirements. Unlike the rest of those failures I trained, you have what I know they did not.”

Heather’s eyes widened. There…There had been others before her? In this very same position? What…What had happened to them?

“W-What others?” she asked quietly, tentatively.

“Twelve others. All failures when it came down to it. Some of them started out rather well, but then fell to their own vices.” She sounded disgusted by that fact, and not at all pleased. Her tone had taken on a dark edge, an angry one. “Others merely would never have what it would take to be my Heir. They were worthless when it came down to it.”

“B-But if you h-have them, w-why need m-me?”

The woman scowled for a moment down at her, before a gleeful, twisted expression lit up her features. She knelt down so she was level with Heather, her nose wrinkling up at the smell around her yet. Disgusting, pathetic mortal. She would have to do something about that before she began; but the fact that the child, as scared as she was, was asking questions was the sign she wanted. There was a curiosity in the girl, a curiosity that could be manipulated into a liking for something she didn’t want. It would only take one trip, one shove over the edge, and she would have her hooked and molding just how she wished.

“Simple. They failed my requirements, so I had to dispose of them. They are all dead,” she answered with a sweetly sick voice, like she had enjoyed their deaths.

—-

This story is not yet on Wattpad because it is my baby that I hope to publish one day, and if no one will publish me, I am self publishing. But it’s also not on Wattpad because it’s in first draft phases yet. So there will be no “if you wish to read more…” And I do technically have a cover made but since my little crisis in changing the title…that’s going to change now, too.

However! If you wish to read anything else that I do have finished, you can hop on over to my profile on Wattpad and check out what I have to offer. I love to hear any and all feedback on my work as well. Comments are greatly appreciated, as are the reads.

And if you’re looking for some other great snippets of fellow authors,

hop on over to Facebook and check out Snippet Sunday!

Snippet Sunday: November 22, 2015

Welcome to Snippet Sunday on Darkling Dreams!

Where writers come together to share a few sentences (8-10) of their current project — whether it’s a recently released novel, a WIP (work in progress), or an older manuscript that’s being revived. Intended to hook readers, gather feedback and build an author’s fan base, Snippet Sunday is the FB group that does all three.

In honor of me taking a dive off the deep end into more insanity for the month with NaNoWriMo, I am continuing my snippets from the fantasy novel I am working on for NaNo, Darkness Becomes Her. Though I have had a total author crisis and am realizing that title works so much better with a book down the line in the series. So guess what? That title is probably changing soon. To what though, I have not a clue yet. Let’s just say my snippets will be from Book 1 of the Dark Heir Chronicles now. (If I ever figure out that new title, I will change this, but we all know how titles go…)

Previously on Sunday Snippets: Four year old Heather was being dragged, bound and gagged, through the manor home of her kidnapper’s in a magic filled realm towards the fate that is to befall her now at the hands of he woman clad in black. Now she is been taken down to the lowest level of the manor, the dungeons, and into a rather terrifying workroom, where she was thrown in a cell.

Picking up right where I left off from last week’s snippet. (Some sentences may have been creatively punctuated to fit the ten sentence limit.)

—-

She screamed against the gag again, blubbering and sobbing uncontrollably in her terror, so terrified now that she could feel a warm liquid seep down her leg, indicating that she had soiled herself.

The woman didn’t even pause as she shoved the door open further and hauled Heather inside, dumping her in front of the chains hanging from the wall. She sneered in disgust when she smelt the putrid scent of the urine and pulled out a small knife from inside her cloak, bending down to her and making Heather scream at the sight of it again. Instead of using it on her, she roughly turned her around and cut through the rope binding her hands together before she yanked each arm to the chains and clasped them around her wrists. The cold metal bit into her stinging wrists from the rope burn of too tight binds, and they clattered loudly against the stone, the sound piercing through her.

Once she was chained up, the woman stood back up and swept out of the cell, banging the door closed behind her and locking it — not that she really needed to lock it, the child wasn’t going anywhere. Heather continued to weep as she watched the woman walk away around the table and towards the cupboards. Her shaking was making the chains rattle and since they gave her enough movement to move her arms a little bit, she pulled her knees up tight to her chest and wrapped her little arms around them, pulling the nightgown over them to try to keep warm in the damp, cold cell.

When she finally realized she could move her arms around, she reached up and pulled the gag off her mouth with shaking hands, letting it fall around her neck, the wet material cold against her skin. She looked up to the woman as she watched her open one of the glass paned cupboards and take out a vial with something black swirling within it.

—-

This story is not yet on Wattpad because it is my baby that I hope to publish one day, and if no one will publish me, I am self publishing. But it’s also not on Wattpad because it’s in first draft phases yet. So there will be no “if you wish to read more…” And I do technically have a cover made but since my little crisis in changing the title…that’s going to change now, too.

However! If you wish to read anything else that I do have finished, you can hop on over to my profile on Wattpad and check out what I have to offer. I love to hear any and all feedback on my work as well. Comments are greatly appreciated, as are the reads.

And if you’re looking for some other great snippets of fellow authors,

hop on over to Facebook and check out Snippet Sunday!

Snippet Sunday: November 15, 2015

Welcome to Snippet Sunday on Darkling Dreams!

Where writers come together to share a few sentences (8-10) of their current project — whether it’s a recently released novel, a WIP (work in progress), or an older manuscript that’s being revived. Intended to hook readers, gather feedback and build an author’s fan base, Snippet Sunday is the FB group that does all three.

In honor of me taking a dive off the deep end into more insanity for the month with NaNoWriMo, I am continuing my snippets from the fantasy novel I am working on for NaNo, Darkness Becomes Her. Though I have had a total author crisis and am realizing that title works so much better with a book down the line in the series. So guess what? That title is probably changing soon. To what though, I have not a clue yet. Let’s just say my snippets will be from Book 1 of the Dark Heir Chronicles now. (If I ever figure out that new title, I will change this, but we all know how titles go…)

Previously on Sunday Snippets: Four year old Heather was being dragged, bound and gagged, through the manor home of her kidnapper’s in a magic filled realm towards the fate that is to befall her now at the hands of he woman clad in black. Now she is been taken down to the lowest level of the manor, the dungeons.

Skipping ahead a couple paragraphs from last week’s snippet, they have now reached the door at the end of the hall and gone inside. (Some sentences may have been creatively punctuated to fit the ten sentence limit.)

—-

Once inside, the woman lit another fireball in her hand from what seemed like thin air to Heather and she tossed it around the edges of the room, lighting fire torches spread sporadically around on the walls. With the room now lit up enough to see, Heather’s eyes widened in terror at the scene before her.

In the middle of the room was a table with restraints attached to it, the wood dark and even darker in some places like blood had stained and soaked into it. Lining the walls to her right were a series of cupboards and drawers like one might find in a kitchen — some of them had open doors on them and she could see a wide variety of things inside that she couldn’t even place: jars, pouches, sharp instruments, and much more filled them.

Hanging to the side of one cupboard was a collection of small knives and daggers, along with various other odd looking tools, all of which were wicked looking. To one wall was what looked like a desk, journals and papers stacked neatly upon it.

If those things weren’t enough to make her heart pound and her body tremble, what was on the left side of the room was. The whole side of the room was a cell, like a holding cell — the iron bars were black and foreboding, stretching across the width of the room completely. On the wall inside it was a set of chains attached to the stone and hanging down. The barred door to the cell was left open, and that was where the woman was dragging Heather to.

—-

This story is not yet on Wattpad because it is my baby that I hope to publish one day, and if no one will publish me, I am self publishing. But it’s also not on Wattpad because it’s in first draft phases yet. So there will be no “if you wish to read more…” And I do technically have a cover made but since my little crisis in changing the title…that’s going to change now, too.

However! If you wish to read anything else that I do have finished, you can hop on over to my profile on Wattpad and check out what I have to offer. I love to hear any and all feedback on my work as well. Comments are greatly appreciated, as are the reads.

And if you’re looking for some other great snippets of fellow authors,

hop on over to Facebook and check out Sunday Snippets!

Snippet Sunday: November 8, 2015

Welcome to Snippet Sunday on Darkling Dreams!

Where writers come together to share a few sentences (8-10) of their current project — whether it’s a recently released novel, a WIP (work in progress), or an older manuscript that’s being revived. Intended to hook readers, gather feedback and build an author’s fan base, Snippet Sunday is the FB group that does all three.

In honor of me taking a dive off the deep end into more insanity for the next month with NaNoWriMo, I am continuing my snippets from the fantasy novel I am working on for NaNo, Darkness Becomes Her. Though I have had a total author crisis and am realizing that title works so much better with a book down the line in the series. So guess what? That title is probably changing soon. To what though, I have not a clue yet. Let’s just say my snippets will be from Book 1 of the Dark Heir Chronicles now. (If I ever figure out that new title, I will change this, but we all know how titles go…)

Previously on Sunday Snippets: Four year old Heather was being dragged, bound and gagged, through the manor home of her kidnapper’s in a magic filled realm towards the fate that is to befall her now at the hands of he woman clad in black.

Picking up right where I left off from last week’s snippet. (Some sentences may have been creatively punctuated to fit the ten sentence limit.)

—-

The woman reached down and grabbed Heather roughly by her arms once more and she cried out in panic again, scared to death what was to come. The woman held her palm out in front of her like she was offering something to someone and suddenly, a glowing orange fireball lit in her hand. Heather’s eyes widened in disbelief at the sight of the flame in her hand. It didn’t even touch her skin, it just hovered in her palm, crackling and flickering like a real flame.

With a toss of her hand, the fireball launched from the woman’s palm to a crevice cut out along the stone wall leading down the stairwell. As soon as it hit, the crevice caught fire and a tail of flames traveled all the way down the staircase, remaining lit the whole way as if someone had lit a match to a trail of gasoline.

The firelight flickered along the walls, creating eerie shadows as the woman dragged Heather down the stone stairs — the farther down they went, the colder the air got, and the more damp and musty it became as well. Finally, they reached the bottom of the stairs and she saw another long, dark hallway. The second they touched the hallway floor, torches at precise intervals along the way lit one by one with a pop and crackle. Each torch was next to a doorway, all of which were closed, heavy wooden doors. There had to be at least a dozen doors lining the hall, along with one door at the very end of the hallway facing them directly.

—-

This story is not yet on Wattpad because it is my baby that I hope to publish one day, and if no one will publish me, I am self publishing. But it’s also not on Wattpad because it’s in first draft phases yet. So there will be no “if you wish to read more…” And I do technically have a cover made but since my little crisis in changing the title…that’s going to change now, too.

However! If you wish to read anything else that I do have finished, you can hop on over to my profile on Wattpad and check out what I have to offer. I love to hear any and all feedback on my work as well. Comments are greatly appreciated, as are the reads.

And if you’re looking for some other great snippets of fellow authors,

hop on over to Facebook and check out Sunday Snippets!

Author Crisis

Yes I have currently hit an author crisis. My first biggest crisis that hit me like a ton of bricks.

You see, about a week ago, it suddenly hit me that the title of the first book in a series I’m writing — a title that took me forever to come up with and finally just clicked one day, a title I adored and loved — no longer works with the book.

Well, it doesn’t work with this particular book.

I’ve come to realize it works better with a book later down the line in the series. But that also leaves me title-less on Book 1. As of right now I’m simply calling it Book 1 of the Dark Heir Chronicles.

I had a few ideas on what I could rename it, wanting to keep it semi close to what the title originally was. Only I wasn’t getting that right click to it. Except, now I think I’ve finally had that click.

The new title came to me out of the blue as I was about to go to bed a few days ago or so. (I’ve seriously lost track of time and days lately, they all blend together with lack of sleep and stress.) I keep tossing the idea around in my head, debating, but I think I’m sticking with it now.

Of course, this sudden crisis and title change leaves me having to redo the cover I made for this book what feels like eons ago now. And I can’t remember what font I had used on the cover…

*Sigh*

It’s like starting all over almost. The little crisis actually made me panic for a day or so. And it came at one of the worst times, too, during NaNoWriMo.

(Which… I’m not going to go there on how behind I am in that already. It’s bad, really bad. Though I have written during both my lunch breaks at work. I just…haven’t typed the words up yet. I’m still really far behind though and need to get moving on that and the notes I want to write for it. I was going to do it yesterday after work, but got side tracked catching up on Sleepy Hollow before the next episode came on.)

So now that I may have solved my author crisis of titles, I still have the crisis of being behind on word count. Along with other writer unrelated problems, that’s actually about to get worse next week, too.

I better go get a game plan, and soon.

So It Begins

Well, it’s official, I’m a crazy idiot.

Remember me saying a week and a half to two weeks ago now that I was still watching a tug of war take place in my mind over doing NaNoWriMo or not? And how I predicted I would make up my mind at 11:59pm on October 31st to take the plunge and say “screw it”?

Well… I wasn’t too far off on that prediction.

Only about twenty minutes before that prediction did I take the plunge and signed myself up for NaNo.

Now, mind you, don’t forget this is me trying to write 50k words in a month on top of working long hours five days a week, the holiday season, other stress and home occurrences that need taken care of in this time frame, and many others things that I am sure are going to pop up.

I told you I was crazy.

This is no longer a descent into madness like Camp NaNo was. As a good friend put it, this is now an ascent into a higher level of insanity. Considering my life is already madness and insanity right now. I’m just opening my welcoming arms to more insanity, like the crazy author I am that someone got addicted to NaNo.

(Seriously though, when you work retail, the real meaning of the holiday season is literally gone out the window and you are sick of it two weeks before Thanksgiving already. It’s ludicrous and honestly is already driving me insane. Has been driving me insane for the past month already! You know it’s bad when you start twisting the lyrics and swearing to Christmas songs in your head as your are setting the stuff up in your store because you are already tired of seeing it. And it’s only November 3rd. I am so screwed.)

And so far, this plunge hasn’t been running too smoothly. November 1st I spent the day literally blog hopping and multi-tasking the whole day, minus having a work meeting. So I got nothing written that day. Yesterday I managed to put in a little over a thousand words before going to bed at 5am after I knocked some other things off my to do list. And I had meant to get up to 3k by midnight yesterday so my gap of below goal wasn’t too much and, well…

To put it nicely without going into a rant or more, it just didn’t happen after certain occurrences. So I’m still around 1.2k at the moment and a good 3k or so below goal. With no full day off till Saturday again. (I was supposed to have Wednesday off, but now that got ruined, though I only work a middle shift of 3.5 hours which really isn’t even worth it.)

I’ve also come to find that in the past month or so of off and on writing for this novel that I did not keep up with updating my notes on it. I need to sort through a bit and add a piece for the filler chapter I had to write to get myself back on track. A chapter that is complete crap and is either getting a total rewrite in revisions or is getting cut. Except it solves a problem I created, soooo…

Well, that’s a dilemma for rewrites, not now. Just gotta keep going forward, after I get myself sorted out again.

I really should have planned this better instead of that last minute hasty plunge. Oh well, at least I did have the next five chapters or so planned out already to go off of. Just need to make a few minor tweaks and I’m ready to roll. So it’s not too bad yet, right?

If I stop procrastinating by doing other things on my never ending list… Which, coincidentally, this blog post was on that list.

I need a new system to work with.

Snippet Sunday: November 1, 2015

Welcome to Snippet Sunday on Darkling Dreams!

Where writers come together to share a few sentences (8-10) of their current project — whether it’s a recently released novel, a WIP (work in progress), or an older manuscript that’s being revived. Intended to hook readers, gather feedback and build an author’s fan base, Snippet Sunday is the FB group that does all three.

Welcome to November, everyone! My favorite day of the year — and month — has sadly come and gone. Now it’s on to complete madness through…January I’d say. The holiday season in retail, the holidays itself, plus inventory at the start of 2016 is not going to be kind to me. And I’m the doo-doo bird that just signed up for NaNoWriMo on top of that! I’m crazy, right?

Well, in honor of me taking a dive off the deep end into more insanity for the next month, I am switching my snippets back to the fantasy novel I am continuing to work on for NaNo, Darkness Becomes Her. Though I have just had a total author crisis and am realizing that title works so much better with a book down the line in the series. So guess what? That title is probably changing soon. To what though, I have not a clue yet. Let’s just say my snippets will be from Book 1 of the Dark Heir Chronicles now.

The last time I left a snippet from this baby of mine was back in June, the 28th to be precise. (Yes, I looked, mainly because I want to know where I should pick up from.) I left off ending with Chapter 1 months ago, now I am going to start with a few pages in on Chapter 2.

Previously on these snippets: My protagonist, Heather, a young four year old child was kidnapped from her home in the middle of the night by a woman clad in black. Whisked away from her home into another realm full of magic, she is now bound and being dragged through the dark halls of this woman’s manor towards the fate that is about to befall her.

If you wish to remember any of these snippets, I started the sharing of this story on this date here. And now, starting up with Chapter 2. (Some sentences may have been creatively punctuated to try to fit the ten sentence limit. I’m way over this week, I’ll admit that. I’ll try to be better next week.)

—-

The woman didn’t even pause for a second as she started to drag Heather down the hall the led further back into the manor. The hall steadily got darker, with more rooms branching off to the side, all with closed doors now. They rounded a corner before coming upon another stairwell that led down; this one was ominous, completely stone and somewhat damp smelling, walls on either side of it making it claustrophobic, torches lit the entrance of it on either side of the wall, and the air in front of stairs seemed to shimmer and flicker.

She stopped in front of it, dropping Heather to the ground in a heap where she continued to cry, too scared now to even think of running. The woman waved her hand in front of the stairwell and the with a soft crackle, the shimmering air suddenly dropped away like a waterfall and a cold rush of air greeted them from the stairs below.

Heather shivered and whimpered, glancing up fearfully at the entrance to the stairwell, it reminded her of all the bad guys in Disney movies that had a dungeon where they locked up the heroes.

But a sound soon caught her attention instead.

From behind them came a low, menacing growl and sharp nails clicked against the stone floor, coming closer. A moment later, two blood-red eyes appeared out of the darkened hallway as a beast rounded the corner and stepped into the torchlight.

Heather screamed against the gag as the huge wolf-like creature came into sight, her eyes as wide as saucers. The wolfhound snapped its jaws near Heather’s face, saliva dripping off its sharp teeth, and hackles raised. She screamed again, shaking violently and the woman merely chuckled.

“Cruor, stand down.”

The wolfhound obediently sat back on its haunches, its vicious eyes still locked on the terrified child though. It was bigger than her, much bigger than her, probably about the size of a young foal. A low snarl was emanating from its throat yet, a sound that made her cringe and want to scramble away.

Tears streaked down her face, soaking into the cloth over her mouth; her eyes were red and puffy, her face pale, and her entire body shaking in terror.

—-

This story is not yet on Wattpad because it is my baby that I hope to publish one day, and if no one will publish me, I am self publishing. But it’s also not on Wattpad because it’s in first draft phases yet. So there will be no “if you wish to read more…” And I do technically have a cover made but since my little crisis in changing the title…that’s going to change now, too.

However! If you wish to read anything else that I do have finished, you can hop on over to Wattpad and check out what I have to offer. I love to hear any and all feedback on my work as well. Comments are greatly appreciated, as are the reads.

And if you’re looking for some other great snippets of fellow authors,

hop on over to Facebook and check out Sunday Snippets!