The Word ‘Miss’ – Part 2 (Snippet Sunday 4.30.17)

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.

The madness that is the first Camp NaNoWriMo of 2017 is over, and this author is proud to say she made the win! Not only that, but after three years of working on this novel I can officially say I have FINISHED the first draft of Fated to Darkness! Ahhh! I can’t believe I’m finally saying that! Now it’s time to work on the concordance so I can start editing next year. Squee! In the meantime I’m going to work on Clockwork Heart and Rivers of Black. Since I’m hitting a point in FtD that I don’t really want to share from it anymore, I’m going to jump back to sharing from Clockwork Heart this month. Part of my motivation to finish the short story/novella/whatever it ends up being. This story is a steampunk, fantasy, modern-cross kind of genre. It’s still a WiP and I only have the first chapter completed – so far – so please excuse an errors and suggestions are welcome.

This week’s excerpt picks up right where I left off in last week’s snippet. Eric had just finished up with this line: “Yes, I did already miss her. The word ‘miss’ can have more than one meaning though. It can describe an action, but it can also describe an emotion or feeling.”

And now for the seventh peek at Chapter 1…

~*~*~*~

Lavinia blinked slowly. “How?”

“Think of it like this…” His lips pursed and he held up the flower, waiting for the next breeze to catch it and carry it away. As it skittered off in the air, Eric tried to reach out and snatch it back, but missed. “That is the action of missing something. I tried to grab the flower back but my hand missed and caught nothing but air. The emotion of missing is more like loneliness, or a deep ache in your heart. When someone dies or goes away, you miss seeing them and talking to them, you miss their constant presence and everything about them that used to fill a spot of your heart, because now you are without them. It’s not a physical motion, but an internal emotion in that sense.

“I miss seeing her every day and talking to her. I miss laughing with her and helping her in all the ways she would let me when it came to her Traveler’s duties. I miss her cooking, her kindness, her determination and fierceness. Most of all, I simply miss my mom like a knife to the heart. Does that make sense?”

She thought about it for a moment. “It is like loneliness?”

“Yes. In a sense.” He waved his hand whenever she looked at him for explanation. “I would probably end up making it harder to understand if I described what I meant.”

~*~*~*~

Well she was understanding… Darn English language.

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Due to the fact this is a new WiP, I do not have a cover or blurb yet, neither is it posted to Wattpad at this time. So there will be no “if you wish to read more…”

However! If you wish to read anything else that I have out for free, you can hop on over to  my profile on Wattpad and check out what I have to offer. Or if you wish to read my debut release, Embermyst, you can find out more about that in the tabs above. I love to hear any and all feedback on my work as well. Comments are greatly appreciated, as are the reads. You can also find me on my Facebook author page to keep up to date with all that’s going on in my writing.

And if you’re looking for some other great snippets of fellow authors,
hop on over to Facebook and check out Snippet Sunday!

Final Days and Final Chapters

This is it.

In more ways than one.

The final days of Camp NaNo are here. Only three days left to write to get the win. Now is the time to push hard and commit yourself to losing sleep if you still have a long way to go. (I’m not the only one who does that, right?) Now is definitely the time to panic and make a mad dash for the finish line as you curse to yourself for procrastinating so much earlier in the month.

My brain to me: If you hadn’t procrastinated so much and stuck to your self-imposed day off work goals, do you realize how many words you could have had by this time? Do you realize how far you’d be in Clockwork Heart too?

*Dead stare* Unfortunately my brain has a point. I really did slack this month on Camp. If I had stuck to my self-imposed 5k word goal days on the days I have off work, I would have had 60k alone just from those days already, 70k by the 30th. And that wouldn’t be including my word sprint days or any words I wrote on work days.

Sixty thousand words! If I had just held myself more accountable throughout the month, and stopped hesitating and being so unsure about finishing the novel. But no, I essentially screwed myself this month.

The funny thing is… Okay, maybe it’s not funny, but more like a distant sobbing moment of yelling at myself. Anywho, I’ve said throughout this month I had hoped for a repeat of last year’s Camp NaNo in April where I did 61k in a month. My Facebook “On this day blah-blah years ago…” throwback post ended up showing me my win status from last year’s Camp NaNo in April today, when I did that 61k.

I looked at it and just started sobbing internally, wishing I could have done that again. I validated two days early last year, with that 61k, and somehow managed 128 pages and completed six and a half chapters, plus starting a new one.

I’m nowhere close to that this year.

I wonder if part of my reluctance this month to write was not just because I was going to finish the novel and that both scared and excited me, but also because I hate splitting my NaNo project into two separate novels. It’s weird to me to do that. I don’t know why, I’m just strange like that, and a bit of an OCD nit picker.

Even though I didn’t get to up my goal at all this month, I’m more than likely still going to run into the issue of needing a thousand to two thousand words of…something to hit goal.

Maybe…

I don’t know for sure. Right now the only thing I know for sure is I want to rip my hair out on this final chapter. It’s…ugh. I don’t even have words anymore except a fluent, colorful string of curses and some screaming.

The chapter is worse than sucking now.

It still feels fake and forced, and there’s still no bang to it or tension like I envisioned. The scene in my head is not flowing out through the fingertips in the slightest. It’s maddening, it’s infuriating. I’m so damn frustrated over this chapter that I was inches away from deleting it to start over Wednesday night.

And I don’t do that. I don’t delete to start over. That’s what editing is for.

Believe it or not on top of the this total hell week of work — no it has not gotten any better at all, let’s just say that by Wednesday I had more hours on the clock than my boss, and I’ve still got one more shift tonight — I did manage to do some writing Wednesday night with a friend, about a thousand words I think. And…

Well, the writing went something like this:

-*Is writing*
-*On the final chapter of Book 1*
-*Nothing is going according to plan or how I can see it in my head*
-*Mentally starts to throttle both my main characters*
-*Whole chapter feels forced, fake, and non-directional; hate every bit of what I’m writing*…
-*Keeps writing anyways because that’s what you do*
-*Starts to think I’m finding the groove finally and getting on track*

Five minutes later….

-*One main character says something they shouldn’t, and AREN’T, supposed to make known*
-*Starts swearing like a sailor*
-*Bashes head off wall*
-*Throttles characters even more*
-*Stops writing and leaves lengthy ranting note to rewrite the whole damn thing because I give up on this chapter because it royally sucks monkey balls*

Yeah…

I’m that frustrated with Chapter 41.

Never before have I been this fed up and frustrated with a chapter. Never before have I wanted to delete something so badly and start over with it. Never before have I said I’m skipping the chapter and moving on to the next one because I don’t do that.

But guess what?

That’s exactly what I’m doing for the first time.

I don’t know why this chapter is so hard to write, but it is driving me insane. Is it because it’s the final chapter of the book? The big cliffhanger ending and the final show down? Is it because I know if the ending is no good then no one will want to read Book 2? Is it because I need it to be perfect because it’s the end of the first book?

Whatever the reason is for this chapter being so damn hard I am still ripping my hair out and screaming over it. It’s a miracle I didn’t throw something (like my laptop) Wednesday night when I got to the point of giving up on it. I was ranting up a storm.

One friend offered to take a look at the chapter and give me any pointers or opinions, and surprisingly — after a lot of hesitating — I finally agreed. I mean, I’ve never showed a whole chapter of Fated to Darkness to anyone before. This story is my heart and soul, this series is my heart and soul of writing. I was terrified out of my mind to show it to someone, especially completely unedited, and especially because it sucks monkey balls in my eyes.

But perhaps that was part of my problem. I’m so close to it and in knowing what it should be, that I can’t see what it really is. So eventually I agreed and sent the chapter to her for a fresh set of eyes. To my complete and utter dumbfounded shock, they actually liked it. That for a first draft they found it pretty good, and with coherent thought.

I was…speechless.

Hell, I’m still speechless over that.

Granted, they didn’t know the full context of the rest of the book since this was the very end, so it’s hard to give more specific pointers or opinions, but just the fact that they said they liked it and it was pretty good for a very first draft with no editing yet blew me away. I will admit it lessened my frustration and doubt a little. It lifted my confidence just enough that I debated on continuing to write the chapter as it was with my character’s blunder to see where it went, but I haven’t. I’m reluctant to let that train continue because I know she was not supposed to let known what she did.

It can’t happen. Just can’t.

So that leaves me back at square one on wondering what to do about the chapter.

Another friend suggested two things: Either keep writing and see where it leads me, or stop and write another version of it where the screw up moment doesn’t happen.

Writing a second version of a chapter is something I’ve never done before. I’ve always been reluctant too because I think that makes for a double headache in the editing phase, and I also believe that if your second version happens in the middle of the book, it can royally mess with details all throughout the rest of the book. That was a maze of confusion and editing nightmares that I did not want.

If I end up rewriting and changing some things in edits later, fine, I’ll deal with the out of place or missing details then, but I’ve never wanted the hair pulling of multiple options to edit with.

However, for the fact this is the final chapter of the novel and a second version wouldn’t affect anything more than the Epilogue perhaps, I’m toying with the idea of writing a second version just to see what happens. There’s a chance the second version and first version could both have the parts I need combined to be what I’m looking for. I think I’m starting to lean toward writing a second version just to see where it takes me.

Even if it’s complete and utter shit too at least it’s words written for Camp and provides me with more options or ideas for when I come back to it in edits. I mean, once I finish the chapter it will sit for a long time before I reach it again, and by then I might have fresh eyes on the crap I wrote and not find it as big a pile of crap as I think it is now.

Who knows, and I won’t know until I get to that point.

She also gave me another piece of advice that I think I need to print and frame and hang where I can see it every day:

BoCFoK!

Butt on Chair, Fingers on Keyboard.

(Read the link, it’s like a mini pep talk. Which is exactly why I need to print and frame it. Thank you, P.T.)

Right now though I still need 5,669 words to hit goal for Camp, with only three days left and one more work shift to go. So I better put my butt in the chair and my fingers on the keyboard as soon as I can. I’m hoping that final 5.7k of words will entail only Fated to Darkness, but I’m not sure the characters will manage that, and I don’t want to be dragging things out just to make that happen. On the other hand, I still don’t know what I can finish with if I need more words because I’m reluctant to do a thousand or so of Clockwork Heart this late in the month.

I think what I’m going to do is skip forward and write the Epilogue to see how that goes, and to put some distance between myself and Chapter 41. Depending how many words are left at that point I’ll go back and try to write a second version of that last chapter. At the very least I’ll skip the hard part of the chapter right now and write the very end of it, because I know exactly how that part goes down. I’ve known how those final pages end since the very beginning of this novel. I can at least write that part without issue I know, and then find a way to tie it all together in edits.

But as soon as I finish the Epilogue and that little bit, I have officially finished the first draft of Fated to Darkness, Book 1 of The Dark Heir chronicles.

I’m oh so close…

Now I’m just praying the Epilogue doesn’t give me as much trouble as Chapter 41 has, because I know it’s going to be a bit tricky to write as well. Cross your fingers for me and wish me luck for smooth sailing on the Epilogue because this is it.

This is the final days of NaNo, and this is the final chapters of Fated to Darkness. If my next post isn’t a declaration of a win and the completion of this novel, then my dear followers, do smack me.

Tea Party (Wednesday Words 4.26.17)

Welcome to a piece of Wednesday Word’s flash fiction on Darkling Dreams!

A good friend of mine, P.T. Wyant, is doing a blog post every Wednesday called Wednesday Words with a new prompt for a bit of flash fiction writing, just to get in the habit of writing something, anything. (Even if said flash fiction is complete garbage at the time. Garbage is better than nothing though, right?) If you’re looking for some inspiration yourself or just something to aimlessly write, then go check out her blog for this week’s prompt!

With that being said, I am going to share what I came up with for this week’s flash fiction Shard based off a three word combination prompt. So here is my very rough around the edges minute of inspiration based off her prompt. I’d love to hear what you guys think of it!

(Please excuse any errors you may see, I said it was rough around the edges.)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Tea Party

Darcy skipped over to the garden patch and reached in to pluck the garden gnome from his post next to the tulips. Then she skipped to her left and plucked the green and brown ceramic turtle from his home by the decorative rocks. Tucking them under her arms she hummed her way back to the plastic table and chairs set up in the center of the backyard.

She set them each on their respective chairs then took her own seat with a giggle, picking up the kid-friendly teapot to pour an imaginary cup for each of them. “So how has the week been for the two of you?” she asked.

The reply they gave was only heard in her head with the power of her imagination, but she smiled all the same to the turtle.

“Oh that’s great, Hooper! It was a big rainstorm we had the other day. I knew you’d like that.” Darcy then frowned and looked to the gnome. “What’s the matter, Grumpy? You didn’t have a good week?”

The gnome stared with a fixed disgruntled expression and Darcy’s face fell.

“Rocco did it again?” she whispered. “I’m sorry, Grumpy. You know he can’t help it. He’s just a puppy. At least the rain washed it all off though, didn’t it? You got a nice bath!” She beamed for a second, then frowned slightly once more. “Oh… I’m sorry. Rocco doesn’t mean it.”

Silence fell between the trio as Darcy sipped at her imaginary tea. The squawk of a crow grabbed her attention after a moment and she looked up to see one streak across the yard overhead, landing in a nearby tree. It preened its wings and a black feather floated to the ground.

Darcy got out of her chair and scurried toward the feather, bending to pick it up before holding it up to the crow in the tree, head tilted all the way back. “Excuse me, Mr. Crow!” she called, “I think you dropped this.”

The bird cocked its head at her, staring with beady eyes for a second. It squawked and flapped its wings.

She frowned in confusion. “Oh? You don’t…need it? But it’s yours. Why don’t you need it Mr. Crow? Doesn’t it help you fly?”

Mr. Crow hopped along the branch with wings out, rustling the leaves as it continued to stare down at her.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

A series of caws left its beak this time before it pushed off and glided into the sky, flying away over her house and out of sight. She watched the crow leave before waving goodbye to it with a smile, starting to skip back to her tea party as she tucked the feather into her hair.

“Goodbye, Mr. Crow, and thank you for the gift!”

---

Now you can find this flash fiction work and others on my profile on Wattpad! Click here for my profile and go dive into a sea of Shards of Imagination!

Five More Days

Five more days.

There’s just five more days left to the first Camp NaNoWriMo of 2017.

Remember on Friday I had said I had a huge writing sprint of 8.2k words and had caught up to par and even surpassed it again, even finishing the chapter I was on? Remember that I was excited and confident that I’m oh so close to the end now?

Heh, yeah, I’m not excited anymore. And I’m no longer at par. Once again I’m 2k below, and my odds of getting any word count added until possibly Saturday or Friday night is slim to nothing.

*Sigh*

It’s been a rough weekend, and yesterday started five days of work hell. (Our assistant manager is on vacation which leaves three of us to run the store, and more hours than I want because of NaNo.) What makes it even worse is all the shifts I got are the long ass early afternoon till close. The shifts I don’t ever get a damn thing done at home with. Why I get all the closing shifts and the other keyholder gets all the openings is beyond me. I don’t see how that’s fair but whatever.

I am ending up with one opening shift instead of five straight days of closing, only because they needed to switch shifts with me due to previous commitments that were overlooked. But switching the shift also leaves me with even more hours, as well as two long ass back to back close and open shifts that always kill me.

So, yeah, I’m not expecting to get any words written until Friday or Saturday, which then leaves me three days — not even — to write 6,811 words.

I know it’s doable for me if I can do 8k in a day, but I also know from experience by Friday I am going to be so worn out that my motivation and energy to write is probably going to be non-existent. Which means Saturday will pretty much be a bust day more than likely, and I’ll have to write all that on Sunday.

And did I mention there might have to be some other things I do that weekend to help get ready because there are only three free weekends before the camping season starts for me.

In other words, I’m starting to worry, and stress — more than I already am over too much shit, and panic.

Five more days, and 6,811 more words.

And four more work days of hell. If they’re anything like how yesterday’s shift went, I am done.

It’s not just the stress and frustration dragging me down on writing again either. I started the final chapter to Fated to Darkness on Sunday — not the Epilogue, but the final number chapter — and I could see it in my head as this tension-filled, edge of the seat, drama and action extravaganza. I could see it perfectly right after I had finished Chapter 40 last week, when I was on a roll.

I should have said fuck sleep and kept going when I was on the roll last week.

This chapter is…sucking now.

It feels like I’m pulling teeth and everything feels almost…fake. There’s no real tension to it, I can’t even tell where the damn dialogue is going. I’m essentially drowning in this chapter and not getting where I wanted it to be. It doesn’t have an ounce of the bang I wanted, and I want to rip my hair out and throw it across the room.

Quite honestly, I want to just skip it and go write the Epilogue, but I don’t do that.

Maybe it’s the last few horrible days getting to me that has stunted how the chapter was supposed to go. Maybe I’m writing crap because my emotions are crap right now.

I don’t know, but the frustration and lack of excitement to it now is certainly not helping the fact I’m running out of time to get the NaNo win.

I’ll be glad when this week is over. I think I’ll be glad when NaNo is over, too, and I don’t normally say that. And I’m about ten seconds away from just hitting delete on his post instead of publish. Am I just ranting instead of talking about NaNo and writing because I’m fed up and have no one to talk to?

The Word ‘Miss’ (Snippet Sunday 4.23.17)

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.

The madness that is the first Camp NaNoWriMo of 2017 has begun! Who else has plunged into the madness with me? I’m spending the month FINISHING Fated to Darkness and then using the remaining words of the month to work on Clockwork Heart. The tentative plan I would like to do is finish and publish Clockwork Heart this year. Since I’m hitting a point in FtD that I don’t really want to share from it anymore, I’m going to jump back to sharing from Clockwork Heart this month. Part of my motivation to finish the short story/novella/whatever it ends up being. This story is a steampunk, fantasy, modern-cross kind of genre. It’s still a WiP and I only have the first chapter completed – so far – so please excuse an errors and suggestions are welcome.

This week’s excerpt picks up right where I left off in last week’s snippet.

And now for the sixth peek at Chapter 1…

~*~*~*~

Lavinia fell quiet, then asked, “When did your mother go missing?”

His expression fell, letting the flower lay on his chest while he gazed up at the cloudless sky. “In one week’s time it’ll be a year. I miss her…”

“But she is already missing.”

Eric paused, looking over to her with a furrowed brow. “Huh?”

“You said you miss her, but she is already missing, so did you not already miss her?” Her head tilted ever so slightly.

The confused expression he wore gave way to that sort of light bulb realization he had described to her once. Eric shook his head and sat up. “Yes, I did already miss her. The word ‘miss’ can have more than one meaning though. It can describe an action, but it can also describe an emotion or feeling.”

~*~*~*~

The English language can be such a tricky thing, can’t it?

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Due to the fact this is a new WiP, I do not have a cover or blurb yet, neither is it posted to Wattpad at this time. So there will be no “if you wish to read more…”

However! If you wish to read anything else that I have out for free, you can hop on over to  my profile on Wattpad and check out what I have to offer. Or if you wish to read my debut release, Embermyst, you can find out more about that in the tabs above. I love to hear any and all feedback on my work as well. Comments are greatly appreciated, as are the reads. You can also find me on my Facebook author page to keep up to date with all that’s going on in my writing.

And if you’re looking for some other great snippets of fellow authors,
hop on over to Facebook and check out Snippet Sunday!

Gaining Momentum

We are officially in the home stretch of April’s Camp NaNo madness. Only nine days left. Yesterday the site officially announced that validating had begun, and to those who don’t follow NaNoWriMo that means that there’s no more changing your goal. It is set in stone now so if you’re slacking, you better light a fire under your butt and work like mad to come out with that win.

Validating is essentially the proof that you did the work throughout the month. If you’re using Camp to write it means you have to copy and paste every single word you wrote that month into the little box they provide and click validate so it can compute the number of words to prove you haven’t lied on your word count.

(Which is exactly why I write everything for NaNo in a separate Word doc. It makes it that much easier to copy and paste at the end, and that much easier to update your word count during the month.)

Then if validating accepts your progress as a win… Voila! You get a nice big winner badge, banner, gold star, and goodies! Not to mention the satisfaction that you made it! That might be the best part about the win.

(I’m not quite sure how validating works for anyone who’s used Camp to edit by page numbers, or an X-number of hours put into working on writing-related projects that month. That part is still really knew to me and I’ve never used it.)

So with only nine days left to the madness, where am I sitting at now?

On Tuesday’s post I was sorely failing in all accounts for NaNo. I was below par by 5k and I had blown every single day off I had in a four day stretch for writing.

Before I went to bed Tuesday I forced myself to write. I had a little help from a friend who wrote with me, and I also had a little bit of motivation in the form of a snail-mail letter bribe if I hit 2k before I went to bed, and that eventually got me going. Needless to say, I ended up making the 2k before I crashed around 4am.

Wednesday was my final day off, and my last chance to get some serious words written. Of course, it’s also my Shard day, and I had a couple errands and menial chores I needed to run as well. Unfortunately. That meant my writing didn’t start till late afternoon again, but once I got started…

There was literally no stopping me. The apocalypse could have started and I would not have stopped writing. I was on fire, the words were just rolling right off my fingers, bleeding over the keyboard. You would have had to pry me away with a crowbar, kicking and screaming bloody murder, to get me to stop writing.

At the start of Wednesday I didn’t think I was going to catch up to par, I was still 4k below once midnight hit that evening, even with the 2k I did the night before. I expected at the most to get maybe another 2k or so and then that would be it.

So boy was I blown away when my final numbers showed I had managed to write 8.2k in twenty-four hours by the time I crashed for bed Wednesday night — which was again somewhere around 4am.

Not only did I catch up to par, I passed it by 1.2k again. I’m still caught up to par right now, and I haven’t done any writing since late Wednesday night thanks to work and exhaustion. (Granted once midnight hits I will drop 800 words below par again, but I have a nice, free, undisturbed night tomorrow after work, and I am going to use it.)

You know the best part about my 8.2k frenzy?

Chapter 40 is finished.

I am one chapter closer to the end of Fated to Darkness.

I’m on the final chapter, and after that is completed all that is left to write is a short Epilogue. The first draft of Fated to Darkness will finally be completed after almost three years.

I have no words. None.

The range of emotions coursing through me over that fact are unreal.

I will finish this novel this month. I won’t get to bump my goal up any now because I struggled so much in the beginning of the month, and I won’t be getting to write anything in Clockwork Heart for the month more than likely — at the very most it might be one or two thousand words, if that. I’m not going to have a 60k month like I did last year in April, but I will be finishing this novel, and right now that is all I can ask for.

Nine days left. Only 8,750 more words to validate.

April’s win, here I come. My momentum and motivation are back, baby, and I can see the end of the novel that much closer within my reach.

Windows of Life (Wednesday Words 4.19.17)

Welcome to a piece of Wednesday Word’s flash fiction on Darkling Dreams!

A good friend of mine, P.T. Wyant, is doing a blog post every Wednesday called Wednesday Words with a new prompt for a bit of flash fiction writing, just to get in the habit of writing something, anything. (Even if said flash fiction is complete garbage at the time. Garbage is better than nothing though, right?) If you’re looking for some inspiration yourself or just something to aimlessly write, then go check out her blog for this week’s prompt!

With that being said, I am going to share what I came up with for this week’s flash fiction Shard based off an occurence prompt. So here is my very rough around the edges minute of inspiration based off her prompt. I’d love to hear what you guys think of it!

(Please excuse any errors you may see, I said it was rough around the edges.)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Windows of Life

“Mom! I’m home,” I called through the house as I shut the front door. I didn’t exactly expect an answer so when no voice greeted me back I wasn’t surprised.

Setting my book bag down by the door I wandered through the downstairs, looking for my mother. The floor was quiet though, dark with drawn drapes. I threw a couple of them open, fading light playing off the floating dust particles in the room. In the kitchen I frowned to find there weren’t any new dishes in the sink and the bowl of cereal I had left out on the table when I skipped out that morning for school was hardly touched.

I sighed as I took the bowl of dry frosted flakes and threw the rest out to the animals out back, then put the bowl in the sink and started for the stairs. “Mom?” I called again.

My foot hesitated on the first stair, hand gripping the railing as I took a deep breath. I always feared what I would come home too. Would I find my mother actually functioning by eating or reading or watching TV on the rare days she was doing better? Or would I find her laying in bed upstairs once more, barely having moved the whole day?

Or, worse yet, would I find her dead?

I let out the shaky breath I was holding and ascended the staircase. My eyes glanced over the box of books in the upper hallway, frowning. My mother had refused to leave the encyclopedias on the shelf in her room after my father died. She claimed it reminded her too much of him, too much of how he came alive when he was teaching a class at the university. One day, in a fit of hysterical crying, she had thrown every book off the shelves in their bedroom, and since then they had laid dormant in a box in the hallway.

My mother never wanted to see them again, but that didn’t mean I wanted to part with the set. It was almost all I had left of him now after she broke or packed up every other reminder. She claimed it was too painful to leave it sitting out, but to me it was like she was trying to forget dad ever existed.

I picked up the box of books and moved them into my bedroom, hiding them under the bed. Out of sight, but never out of mind. Maybe later I could read the inscriptions of quotes he wrote on the inside cover of every book he ever owned. Maybe later I could let myself feel the pain again.

A deep breath dropped my shoulders and I started down the hall before I could think too much on the subject. It was easier to deal with my mother if my mind was devoid of every emotional thought.

“Mom?” I asked softly as I stopped at her door and rapped on the wood. A tiny murmur greeted me this time and relief flooded my veins.

Today was not the day I would find her dead.

Pushing open the door I walked in, peering through the gloom to find her huddled up under the covers, staring blankly at the wall. I hated that look on her face. It was like she had become a shell of a person. I wanted to hide from the world and grieve too, but I couldn’t, because if I did then there would be no one left to take care of her, and no one to maintain this house or whatever life they had left here. I hated that she got to be the grieving, deadened one and not me. I was the child, she was supposed to be the strength for both of us. She was supposed to comfort me.

“Have you eaten anything today, mom?” I asked, shoving aside the resentful thoughts.

She didn’t answer, only slid her glassy gaze toward me before looking back to the wall with a sigh. I frowned.

“I guess that’s a no… Have you been out of bed yet?” She shrugged and a pinch of anger bloomed in my chest. “Mom… You can’t keep-” I bit my tongue before I could finish that sentence, knowing it would only fall on deaf ears, then let out a breath. “Never mind. I’m going to go make dinner and come get you when it’s ready, then you’re going to take a shower while I’m doing my homework. You didn’t take one yesterday.”

My mother gave a weary incoherent mumble and turned over in bed, facing away from me. I stared at her for a second before turning away to go start a load of laundry and cook dinner with a heavy heart.

I hadn’t just lost my father on the night of that fire, I lost my mother too.

---

Now you can find this flash fiction work and others on my profile on Wattpad! Click here for my profile and go dive into a sea of Shards of Imagination!

Could’ve, Should’ve…Didn’t

How do you write a blog post when you have absolutely nothing writing related to talk about?

The answer is I don’t know, but I guess I’ll figure it out as I go because that’s exactly what I’m doing right now.

You would think that because I’ve had the last four straight days off work that I should have a ton of words written and be done with Fated to Darkness and have moved onto Clockwork Heart. You would think that I should have done 20k or more in these past four days and be close to goal, or upping it.

But no. You would be wrong.

Very, very wrong.

Four straight days off. FOUR! And I haven’t written a single word.

Why? Why, me? Why do you do this to yourself?

It’s Camp NaNo. You are supposed to be WRITING.

(Yes, I am yelling at myself.)

*Sigh*

In my defense — or maybe this is my excuse, which, *slaps self*, bad me! — it has been a fairly busy four days. Saturday was spent catching up on everything I didn’t finish the beginning of that week thanks to holiday madness. Sunday was Easter of course which meant spending time with family and apparently it also meant coming home sick that night with a splitting migraine. Monday was a friend’s birthday so that meant I had to spend time with them, and I was still feeling a bit iffy that morning. And today…

I don’t know what happened to all of today. I think I pretty much screwed my own morning and afternoon. The evening was spent at the hair dresser where I got my first ever coloring. (I got highlights, and it’s amazing how stunned every single hairdresser was I had never done any coloring with my hair before. I was like a star. LOL) But let me just say… AHH! I love it!

*Clears throat*

Anywho, as I was saying…

My four days off were pretty much screwed. I know I should have had writing time in every single one of them, but it just…didn’t happen. (Well, except maybe for Easter.) I guess I really am just making up excuses now, because I know I should have been writing Saturday night after I finished things and settled down, and if I had been up a bit early on Easter I could have written something before leaving and ending up sick the rest of the night. Monday I could have done some writing before I went to bed, and today I should have done some before my hair appointment.

I could have, I should have on all accounts, and I…didn’t.

I’ve pretty much completely failed at Camp NaNo this time around.

You know what the really scary and disappointing bit to this is though?

Facebook does those “on this day so-and-so years ago” memory posts and do you know how many words I had last year in April on the 11th?

40,131 words. Forty thousand, one hundred and thirty-one words.

In just over a week I had managed 40k last year.

This year?

*Snorts*

I’ve just barely broken 13k and we’re almost three full weeks into this month. It’s half over already! And I’m below par by 5k, about to be 6k at midnight. I haven’t written a word in a week.

Like…

What the hell happened to me?

Did I just completely and utterly fall apart this time around, or… ??????

Like… GAH!

I don’t even know anymore.

The good news is I have one more day off before I go back to work, which means if I really light a fire under my ass, I can pull off probably 8k words easily, especially if I write a lot before I crash tonight too. And I’m pretty sure there’s someone who can light the match for me… The same person who is already glaring at me from the virtual world, and threatening me playfully in a way that I can’t tell if its bluffing or not — and I’m not sure I want to find out, and who also may or may not be ready to chase me with a sword as my Muse instead of the ever so popular…

Okay, well, maybe not chase me. That would defeat the purpose of sitting and writing, but the gun in that photo might turn into a sword instead pretty soon. Or a whip. Or… Yeah, I’m going to stop imagining what she might have the capability of pulling out to make me write. I really can’t tell if she’s bluffing. LOL.

The bad news is as of right now my “At This Rate You Will Finish On” date is May 12th, I need an average of 1.3k words a day to win on time, I won’t be bumping my goal up anymore this month like I had hoped, and after this last day off I will essentially be screwed the rest of the month because our assistant manager will be going on vacation now, which again means more flipping hours I don’t want right now.

Go. Figure.

Nothing like a closing in deadline and running out of time to make me write, right?!

…..

Gods I hope so. This novel was supposed to be done in the first week of NaNo.

A Good Right Hook (Snippet Sunday 4.16.17)

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.

The madness that is the first Camp NaNoWriMo of 2017 has begun! Who else has plunged into the madness with me? I’m spending the month FINISHING Fated to Darkness and then using the remaining words of the month to work on Clockwork Heart. The tentative plan I would like to do is finish and publish Clockwork Heart this year. Since I’m hitting a point in FtD that I don’t really want to share from it anymore, I’m going to jump back to sharing from Clockwork Heart this month. Part of my motivation to finish the short story/novella/whatever it ends up being. This story is a steampunk, fantasy, modern-cross kind of genre. It’s still a WiP and I only have the first chapter completed – so far – so please excuse an errors and suggestions are welcome.

This week’s excerpt picks up right where I left off in last week’s snippet. Lavinia had asked him if he was close to his mother, and this is his reply.

And now for the fifth peek at Chapter 1…

~*~*~*~

“Very,” he answered softly. “After my father died she was all I had left, save for my grandmother. She cared for me and raised me best she could despite her job. Did you know I had no idea what a Traveler was, let alone that she was one, until only a couple years ago?”

His gaze flickered to her and Lavinia shook her head slowly. “I did not.”

“I didn’t know. Then one night, while my grandmother was watching me because my mother was away on one of her business trips, she came home in the middle of night unexpectedly. The commotion downstairs woke me up and I wandered down to see what was going on. My mother had gotten into a tight spot on her trip, a run in with some pirates, and she had come back hurt.” His eyes became distant, staring at the flower with a mistiness clouding them. “I panicked to see the blood staining her side, ran out demanding to know what had happened to her. My grandmother and her had shared one loaded look before they finally sat me down and told me everything while my grandmother patched her up.”

“Did she tell you what the run in was over?”

Eric shook his head. “She refused to tell me that.” A chuckle spilt from his lips. “Probably because I was swearing up and down I would give the scallywag a good right hook to the jaw to teach him a lesson for hurting my mother. I was fifteen at the time. That was… Geez, that was almost four years ago now.”

~*~*~*~

Every time I picture that scene of Eric fuming over a pirate in my head I can’t help but chuckle.

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Due to the fact this is a new WiP, I do not have a cover or blurb yet, neither is it posted to Wattpad at this time. So there will be no “if you wish to read more…”

However! If you wish to read anything else that I have out for free, you can hop on over to  my profile on Wattpad and check out what I have to offer. Or if you wish to read my debut release, Embermyst, you can find out more about that in the tabs above. I love to hear any and all feedback on my work as well. Comments are greatly appreciated, as are the reads. You can also find me on my Facebook author page to keep up to date with all that’s going on in my writing.

And if you’re looking for some other great snippets of fellow authors,
hop on over to Facebook and check out Snippet Sunday!

Falling in the Black

Camp is…sucking.

And right now that’s putting it lightly.

So far nothing this month has really gone to plan, or even close to how I had hoped it would. The last several days are no exception to that trend.

Exhaustion has been my constant companion since Tuesday’s work shift. I have trudged through the last several days with bleary, burning eyes and a complete lack of focus in most times. Somehow I’ve managed to not royally screw anything up in my exhaustion, but I’ve definitely done and said some delirious things.

Thursday was supposed to be a day off for me, and I was looking forward to it because I could hopefully sleep and try to get somewhere on Camp again. And then… Walking into work on Wednesday morning changed everything, again. For once I can’t blame it on my boss, but I can attribute this one to my DM (District Manager).

Apparently him and my boss held a conversation something along the lines of this before I came in that day:

DM: How are you doing for Easter? How is payroll? Do you need more hours to bring more people in?

My boss: We’re in good shape.

DM: What about payroll? Do you need extra hours? What are [Daelyn’s] hours like this week?

My boss: About 30.

DM: Take another 10-15 hours and give her another day.

*Sigh* Thanks, man. I so wanted an extra day. Not.

At the very least, my boss let me choose which day I wanted to work — Thursday or Saturday. I definitely did not want to work Saturday knowing how much madness THAT was going to be, so I took Thursday and screwed over every plan I had once more. Unfortunately, I also ended up with a longer shift today thanks to those extra hours our DM gave us.

So not only was I disgruntled over that the rest of Wednesday, that night looking at my email I also received some bad news that I feared hearing one day. I’m not going to go into it yet — I don’t have the heart or decision to talk about it yet — although I will have to eventually because it does involve my publishing. I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty upset and stressed over the news. I feel like a fish out of water, uncertain and worried.

As a result of those extra hours, exhaustion, and now more stress, I’ve finally fallen below par for Camp. Yesterday I was only 13 words above par, and since I didn’t manage to write anything in my bleary-eyed state, I’ve officially fallen below as of today.

I know I’m not going to get anything written today with work, and right now I have no idea how tomorrow is going to go. There’s other things I need to address now.

The bad news also shook my enthusiasm for writing, and its taken my heart out of it right now. In a way, it affects the tentative plans I had for Clockwork Heart, the other novella I was going to work on this month. The one I wanted to finish and release this year. But now…

Now I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do with it again. For the second time this year. (It’s like the universe is trying to make me doubt myself, and it’s working.)

Right now I guess all I can do is force myself to write for Camp and figure out what options I have left, but that doesn’t bring back my motivation and confidence, that doesn’t help me make a decision. A decision I don’t have all the time in the world to think over and make. A decision I really don’t want to make during Mercury’s Retrograde, but will have to.

None of this now is going to help me figure out where I’m going from here. I think I’ll be lucky if I make my Camp goal this month, no upping it this time. Or if I find my heart for writing again. I can’t even honestly describe what I’m feeling and thinking now. I’m falling in the black.