Summer is Here!

Status of my Life: Been taking a break. Some of my stuff has been getting killed and I'm having a hard time deciding what to do. Quit? Take a step back? Keep on no matter what other intelligent authors say? Go back to bed? Go to the pool? Play tennis? Make a card? Yeah, I did all those things at least twice over the past three days. Sometimes writing can't dominate everything.


I cannot express how happy I am to be home on a Wednesday without taking a sick day. I love summer! And I know it's Wednesday, but I wanted to post something that I wrote as a little teaser on the QueryTracker site. If you haven't been there, you simply must go now. Click on the little FORUM button on the far right and join the writing forum fun!

This is something I completely made up on the spot for a line that was tossed. We had to use the first few words and then it's free game after that. I have the character in my head--he exists on paper too--and I even found a picture of him already. But that's a whole new issue for another blog entry. I'm thinking about ways to torture him...and this was the first one that I came up with.

***

When everyone stared, I knew that I'd broken one—or more—of the insane rules at this place. Maybe it was the rod in my eyebrow. Or the stud in the lower left corner of my lip. Or maybe the facial hair I hadn’t had time to shave because I'd only been awake for approximately seven minutes.

Looking around the cafeteria, it was definitely all three. Every pasty face turned toward mine was hairless, studless, and rodless.

"Mr. Harper."

Fantastic. The Warden. "Yes, sir?" I tried to pour as much confusion into my voice as possible.

"Your shirt is not tucked in."

***

Reading: THE LAND OF THE SILVER APPLES by Nancy Farmer