Of Collaborating Chaos and other things...

It's been a busy week filled with vacation plans, car problems, and other exciting things happening in the great wide yonder. Things like marriage equality in California, and an epic filibuster to stop an anti abortion bill from passing in the Texas State Senate.

ROW80 is on it's hiatus for right now. I believe it picks up again in another week or so. However, even though, ROW 80 may be on a break, I am not. I'm still plugging away at my various projects: The Undying ones is flowing along, I've updated my two fanfics, and I've started re-writing The Dancer.

It killed me to start rewriting it after I had made so much progress - but here were just some things in the original that were bugging me even though my beta's loved them. Namely the profession of the hero. I felt like a relationship between someone like that and the heroine was just too far out there, and probably would not attract many readers. I feel bad for saying that because I've been encouraging another writer friend that she should write what she wants, and not worry about if it's popular or not - however, what she's writing is way more popular than what I was trying to do, so she'll have a much easier time finding an audience. I am consoling myself with the idea that I can always go back to the original idea if this rewrite does't work out.

A friend has talked me into joining a writing group she came up with in a moment of brilliance. It's a round robin - one author writes one chapter, and then the next author picks up the next chapter where the other author left off, and so on and so forth. Currently we are still looking for more authors, and we also have a poll going on that will decide what we're going to write (sci-fi is  in the lead at the moment!) You can wander over here to Collaborating Chaos to check it out!

And now, it's time for what you've all been waiting for! WIPpet Wednesday! Since today is June 26th, I'll be sharing 26 more lines from the Prologue of The Descendants (the blog formatting actually makes it 27, but I swear it's 26 in the original document!) This bit picks up a few paragraphs after last week's WIPpet:

“Well,” Adam sighed, breaking the silence. “Since story time is over with, we should let this one go to sleep.  Goodnight Kiddo, I’ll see you in the morning.” He leaned over to give Vivian another kiss on the cheek, and then left the room quickly.

Vivian twisted so that she was curled up on her side, her hand still wrapped around the necklace her mother had given her. An idea occurred to her and she turned to the woman still sitting on her bed, “Bree, d’you think that maybe, if the girls were still around, they could bring my Mom back?”

“There are stories that they could do wonderful things; they say that they could bring the rain during a drought, and make crops grow, and, yes, even bring back life... but they’re just stories, baby girl.” The smile she gave Vivian was small and sad.

“I know, but Uncle Mike says that the girls are older than the Bible.”

“Okay...”

“And Mrs Flora says the Bible is real - so if it's real then maybe the girls are real.”

“Sometimes stories are just stories, kiddo.” Bree shook her head and tweaked the girl’s nose. “Goodnight, Vivian.”

“Goodnight.” She sighed and closed her eyes, but as soon as she heard Bree’s footsteps fade away down the hallway, she opened them and crawled out of bed to her window. Even though her room was on the second floor, she had discovered that if she pressed her face against the glass just so she could see the porch.

There she could see her dad sat on the porch swing, a spot her mother had always enjoyed, while Uncle Mike leaned against the railing nearby. Bree stepped into view and Vivian could see her lips move as she said or asked something. Her dad looked up, replied, and then buried his face in his hands, his shoulders slumping. Bree sat next to him and rubbed his back, as if to soothe him, like Vivian’s Mom had sometimes done to her when she wasn’t feeling well, and Uncle Mike laid a hand on his shoulder.

Vivian had suspected that he had left today because he had found another lead, but, apparently, it had not panned out.

None of them ever did.

She took a breath, trying to ignore the lump in her throat; she was so tired of crying.

She returned to her bed before the adults could see her watching and hugged her stuffed dragon to her again.

And as an added bonus, here's 6 sentences from the end of Chapter 6 of The Undying Ones:

“I said that you and I are the only ones here!” He walked towards her confidently, his head held high as if he believed he owned the castle and everything in it. “Now tell me what you are doing here before I have my men throw you back in the ruins where you belong!” Now that he was so close Mattie could see he had a scar poking up above the scarf he had tied around his neck and tucked into his shirt... there was only one Undying One she knew of that had a scar like that. One man who had had his throat slit and lived.

The King.

Be sure to check out more WIPpet Wednesday posts over here.