It’s Sunday, and on Sundays I like to do fun things that tend to slip by the other six days of the week. Here’s a fun meme one of my newer Twitter friends, Anna Meade ( @ruanna3 ), tagged me in. This was an easy one, because I’ve already done the work. (Love that.)
Seven paragraphs from my latest WIP, BLISS HOUSE, a mystery about a haunted house in Virginia:
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This sound was inside the house. Not rhythmic, but insistent. Someone running. And a voice, but not a happy one.
Jillian told herself that she wouldn’t be afraid. Her father had said he would be here, watching her. She pushed back the light cotton blanket, and slipped into the robe that smelled like flowers. The top of it seemed to mold to her body, while the skirt floated behind her making her feel graceful. Graceful. Why hadn’t her mother said anything about how much better she was walking? First, the cane had gone, and now, she had almost no pain at all.
She stepped out into the hallway and looked up to where she thought the sounds had come from. Moonlight filtered through the clerestory windows at the top of the house, tracing criss-crossing shadows everywhere. Maybe there were people from the party who had stayed behind, hiding upstairs. The idea disturbed her, but she also found it thrilling. She hadn’t been around so many people in a very long time.
The footsteps stopped.
“Mom?” Jillian said. Her voice was small, but sounded loud to her own ears in the openness of the hall. But what if I am afraid? Across the gallery, she saw the faint glow of a nightlight beneath her mother’s door. She had a sudden urge to run to her mother’s room and climb in bed with her, as she had when she was a very little girl. Back then, her father was always there, his comforting, solid presence balancing her mother’s warmth.
She had two choices: to run and hide in her mother’s room, or her own; or to go upstairs, alone. She pushed the thought of the round room out of her head. These noises were different. Definitely not children.
Was someone whispering to her? She strained to hear her own name, but couldn’t make out the words.
_______
I’m tagging seven other writers who I think might be tempted to give you a peek at their own works-in-progress. Plus, I’d like a peek, too.
1) J. Alex Greenwood (@pilatescross )
2) Paige Crutcher ( @PCrutcher )
3) Jen Talty ( @JenTalty )
4) Liana Brooks ( @lianabrooks )
5) Bill Cameron ( @bcmystery )
6) Keith Rawson ( @keithr34 )
7) J.T. Ellison ( @thrillerchick )
Here’s what they have to do:
1. Go to page 77 of your current MS/WIP
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines, sentences, or paragraphs, and post them as they’re written.
4. Tag 7 authors, and let them know.
Or some variation thereof. I’m naughty like that, and love to break the rules. Well, really I like to see other people break the rules. I live vicariously.
Okay, Posting my WIP here–
The smell of fresh paint from the office still lingered in Jackson’s nose. He would have preferred to still be smelling the perfume of his cute neighbor, but paint worked almost as well.
He had been pushing his partner, Katie Bateman to decorate their office and she had finally relented. So the walls had gone from boring white to chocolate mocha. His sisters would be proud. Actually, it was the identical color he had in his dinning room, which had become more of his office away from his office.
“You’ve got a shitty grin on your face. What did you do this morning?”
“Just happy you finally let me paint the office.”
“You’re such a girl,” Katie said. “You’re smooth Chocolate-Whatever-Paint isn’t going to act as some kind of truth serum so our clients will tell us why they are really hiring us.”
“Maybe not, but you have to admit it looks and feels so much better than the stark white walls.”
“Anything is better than the 1960’s wall-paper in my house. When are you going to come over and rip that shit down and paint my walls some pretty cocoa color?”
“I told you I’m not going to do it. I’ll help you pick stuff out and hire someone, but I’m not your handyman.”
“You are handy,” Katie said.
“Har, har. You’re a funny girl.” They sat in a parking lot of the Savings Back across from the local P&C on Route 9 just outside of Saratoga.
Katie was sitting in the driver’s seat thumbing through the file they had compiled this morning. “According to our client, Miss Belinda Montgomery should be in the bank.”
“But she’s not.” Jackson pulled out the piece of paper from his pocket with the license plate of the sedan that had been parked by his house and set it on the dashboard. “Don’t you think its weird that someone hired us to find this girl two days before my neighbor asked me to check on her?”
Ooooh! Nice cliffhanger, Jen!
ooohhhh! i like, i like!
I totally lost this in my mentions list, Laura, and had to track it down but it was totally worth doing so! This is great, thank you for sharing! 🙂