Thursday Tasters - The WIP Struggle

Being an author can drive you crazy.

See Exhibit A.

                                                                         Exhibit A

And it can be stressful.

See Exhibit B.

                                                                  Exhibit B

And sometimes you want to give up.

See Exhibit C

                                                                    Exhibit C

So why do we continue to torment ourselves to write even more stories?  Because it's a beautiful crazy, it's a wonderful stress, and the voices in our heads won't let us give up.  I love being able to create stories even if I struggle all the time with plots, characters, and even my own insecurities.  I always think I can write better, have better stories, be better at, well, everything. 

Writing is an organic career.  Every book I try to get better.  I'm learning all the time.  I wish I was a faster learner, but c'est la vie.  Thursday Tasters is there to put our work out there, to keep us writers motivated, and my first one up is from my WIP titled "One More Time".  It's a time travel story about a girl, Henrietta, who comes to 2015 from 1794.  She's found by Micah John, a man who is able to count cards and uses his ability in an effort to fleece casinos.  Currently, he's gotten into trouble with a casino boss and now has to make restitution.  Henrietta's appearance is unexpected, unwanted, and yet he can't deny there's something about her he finds fascinating.  
                                      +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Lightening zapped overhead, charging the atmosphere.  It made him jump and with one more deep drag, tossed the cigarette away.  The hair on his arms stood up and for a moment, everything felt like it stood still.  The air became thin, but not like it had felt suffocating in Beaumont’s grip.  No, this time everything pulled and stretched and flattened, all at the same time.  His lungs compressed, his nostrils flattened, and a buzz roared in his brain.  He cried out from the sharp pain and slammed his hands over his ears, trying to block out the weird distortion that was turning his insides to mush. He looked up and realized he was under an electricity pylon and the hum from the volts grew louder and louder, making him wonder if his eardrums had busted.  A second later, lightening hit it, causing the thing to explode with a tremendous boom which had him flying back to land in an ungraceful heap.  Thousands of sparks cascaded down upon him, and he flinched at the small brush burns. 

And then all was still. 

The hum was gone, but then so were all the lights.  Quiet descended and he pushed himself up to glance around.  No traffic lights, no street lights, nothing.  He stood, not sure what to do, because something was different.  Everything was…off.

A whimper had him twirling around, searching through the darkness of the alley, but he couldn’t make anything out.  So he walked over to his car, opened the door, clicked on the battery, and turned on the lights. 

A girl.

She hovered against the wall, eyes wider than they should be.  Blue maybe, or green.  It was obvious she was terrified.  He didn’t blame her one bit.  The damn exploding transformer had scared the shit out of him too.

“It’s okay,” he called out.  “It was just lightening.”

She didn’t say a word, just stared at him like he was some sort of monster.  He gave a self deprecating snort.  Maybe he was.

                                              +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++  

Thanks for reading!