This hasn’t been the best week for me for writing. But it hasn’t exactly been the best week for me in terms of emotional wellness, either, so I’m not beating myself up about it. I’ve still made more progress this week than in the preceding month, so that’s something.
My summerwrite word count currently stands at 3,209, which isn’t that great a showing for the first week, but it’s still makeupable. The Hero Factor is now over 60,000 words long, which officially makes it novel-length, and I’m rounding third base and heading into the home stretch. Still, I expect the home stretch to encompass at least another 25,000 words, so I’ll still be at this one for a while.
And because sharing helps motivate me to keep going, here’s another snippet of yesterday’s output.
Michael slept. So did Taggart. Michael slept the sleep of the righteous and wounded. Taggart, the sleep of the drunk. Thea had more patience for the former.
Taggart had at least managed to stay conscious long enough to help her get Michael home and into bed, where she had helped him drink a sleep-inducing potion so that the Clurichan could help him heal. By that time, the adrenaline, or whatever was keeping Taggart upright, wore off, and she was forced to help him to bed. She could always count on him to let her down. It was her one, true constant. Thankfully, a loyal subject at the bar told her what was happening in time for her to keep him from getting Michael killed.
Her head pounded inside her skull. She’d been getting headaches ever since her magic was taken, and they were getting worse. She feared what they meant, feared that she was becoming mortal. She felt older. She wondered what it would be like, to grow old, ugly and diseased, fading slowly until she was no more? Hugging herself, she shuddered, and prayed she could restore magic to Fae kind before any of them were forced to find out.
She stood on the roof, savoring the early evening breeze, trying to clear her head. Trying to decide what to do. If they proceeded as planned, they were most certainly walking into a trap. After Ceredwyn’s audacity at siccing her henchmen on Michael, how could she expect them to believe otherwise? By all rights, Thea should call off this charade and declare the attack an act of war. Still, there was not yet proof that Ceredwyn had been behind either attack. It was possible that her guards were simply overzealous in trying to please her… especially if the rumors of how she rewarded them were true.
©2008 by J. M. Bauhaus
I love the first paragraph of this. Really evocative, both of what must have gone before and of Thea’s emotional state.
Thanks! Yay, feedback!
And yeah, Thea’s not a happy fairy princess.
That’s about where I stand for wordcount too. Great excerpt; I love the opening. Maybe I will post one, too, and see if it helps motivate me as well.
Thanks! Somehow, even the possibility of feedback keeps me going.