Okay, I’m scrambling to write Secret Legacy’s draft and to prep for the retreat I’m teaching this weekend with my agent, and to ship out all the prizes I’ve announced so far. Sooooo….
Bear with me, and I’ll announce the winner of the Godiva Lollies soon. You guys were wonderful with your helpful insights into your Dark Legacy experiences. I cherish each and every comment, and they’re all helping me as I craft the sequel!
To keep my blog friends happy, I’m sharing a very brief, very early excerpt from Secret Legacy’s opening. This is the recurring dream sequence that will drive the entire book, and it will change/be tweaked over time as I write the rest of the book (at the moment I’m tweaking daily, as I write/rewrite each subsquent scene). But I think you’ll get the idea ;o)
And before we jump into the excerpt, as promised here are a few tidbits from the iTunes Playlist I’m building as I draft the story. These are a few of Sarah’s songs (in no particular order), since the excerpt is hers.
Some of these play better at the beginning (the dream sequence I’m excerpting a piece of). Some work for her relationship with Richard Metting (who is re-introduced in the scene followng the one you’re seeing the beginning of below). Some will be resolution songs for the end of the book, once there’s a Happily Ever After to celebrate. Some are for other story devices I can’t reveal without spoiling the surprise ;o)
But whatever they’re for, so many of you said you’d like a peak at my first stab at using playlists to keep characters in my head even when I can’t be in front of the computer writing them, I wanted to share. More to come throughout the month!
Sarah’s Songs (a short list of the full series) — Several commenters mentioned not being familiar with my at-times obscure music choices ;o) Click on the song titles–I’ve added links to YouTube videos, so you can get an emotional feel for Sarah ;o)
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- Bring Me to Life (Evanescence)
- Criminal (Fiona Apple)
- I Feel You (3 Doors Down)
- Scarborough Fair (Simon & Garfuncle)
- Windmills of Your Mind (Sting)
- Color Me Free (Joss Stone)
- Youth of the Nation (P.O.D)
- My Immortal (Evanescence)
- Fallen (Sarah McLauchlan)
Secret Legacy DRAFT Excerpt
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NOTE: also posted on my NANOWRIMO.COM page–where I’m recording wordcount progress on my draft throughout the month.
Again, let me know what you think as we progress through early draft excerpts. I’m all ears ;o)
Secret Legacy
Working Draft
Chapter One
There was beauty in the ocean’s violet blue quiet. A sense of elicit belonging to the darkness waiting for her below.
Cool channels of nothing wrapped Sarah Temple in the dream’s velvet. The promise of freedom lured her deeper into the still-clear water, beckoning her when she would have given into the fear.
Current caressed her as it charmed, beguiled, seduced her into believing that this could finally end. It was the believing that propelled Sarah forward. Need pulled her deeper than ever before. So deep, the others who fought to control this, to “save” her, meant less than nothing now.
She’d sworn not to come this way alone. But they didn’t understand. They didn’t believe this was her only chance. They’d believed keeping her safe was more important than finding the truth that would end the torment the dreams had become.
A rush of anger shimmered around her, slipped inside her, propelled her through the dream’s ocean. The tempting taste darkness, of death, slid across her tongue. She drank the dream’s venom with greedy gulps. Heat consumed everything with a hopelessness that dripped from her body like tears.
She fought back panic. This was the only way. This is why she’d come alone. The others would have dragged her back to safer water, because this place in the nightmare meant death. They all knew it. But she’d had to come. She had to endure. Light waited for her beyond.
Streaks of red waited for her in the deeper water. Bloody ribbons of it, forming a trail for her to follow. She would get there this time. She would silence of the soul-deep cry that always dragged her back.
The cries were an awful sound she could no longer block, even when she was awake. They were clearer in the dream, always beginning as a whisper as she waded into the waves. Then as she swam, they built into a cry that threatened to rip her heart apart. Now, in the deeper water, the loneliness of them was an impossible weight, dragging Sarah closer to the nightmare’s black heart.
It was a baby’s cry, she realized for the first time. No, it was the whimper of a little girl’s pain. No! It was the shriek of a woman full grown, betrayed by every indecent thing that had been done to Sarah. By Sarah herself.
It demanded that she hear. That she understand. That she conquer the water’s quickening darkness as the last of the ribbons of violet and blue and red that had protected her, guided her, disappeared, collapsing into an absence of light, then an absence of water.
Hate welcomed her as her feet found solid ground. Hate that wanted to consume her and the light she sought. Her legs weak, her head pounding, she staggered down an endless, twisting tunnel. The never-ending cries that owned her every waking and dreaming moment grew louder, taunting her. Calling her.
Doors were closed on every side. Locked doors, refusing her entry. Exhausted, Sarah collapsed, but the dream wasn’t done with her. It shifted, and she was floating once more. Through the endless tunnel that was really a house that was really a maze. Each turn lead her back to where she’d begun. Never forward. The screaming grew louder.
No way out. Only terror ahead. Until the shrill cry was suddenly coming from Sarah herself.
It had been hers all along…
Tags: Excerpts
dun dun dun…
XD I love the playlist and the excerpt kind of just makes me wanna go raid your computer and grab the manuscript (unfinished or otherwise) I’m kind of impatient like that!
Good play list, it includes several of my longtime favorites!
Interesting excerpt…
Pat Cochran
Hmm. Only a couple of those songs are familiar to me.
I really don’t know many of those songs; recognize a few titles though.
LOL! Told you my music tastes can be eclectic/bordering on the obscure at times ;o)
I’ve gone back and added YouTube links to the videos of the songs, so you can listen and get the feel for what I’m doing with Sarah’s emotional arc.
I’ll be adding lists for the other point-of-view characters in the book, and even for the key relationships, throughout the month.
Enjoy!