I’ve been tagged again! We interrupt this Christmas blogging extravaganza so I can step up to the 7/7/7 Challenge, which the wonderful Melanie hit me with.
The rules:
- Go to page 7 of your WIP
- Go to the seventh line
- Share seven sentences
- And tag 7 more writer-bloggers to continue the challenge.
I have four current WIPs right now, but only one of them is more than seven pages long! I got an idea for a New Year’s holiday story far too late to do anything about it this year, so I started that; I’m going to try to continue the Christmas flash fiction I wrote the other day, so that’s another one; I quite literally started What We Need #3 yesterday, but it’s only about 900 words long so far; and I’m sitting on the completed first draft of What We Need #2 while I write #3, before I head back to work on the first rewrite.
So, from What We Need to Decide:
Once they’d eaten, they broke camp. Nina stowed their packs in the cab while Paul piled all their bedding in the back, then they disassembled the tent together. Though they’d only done this a few mornings, they hardly had to speak to get everything done. They pulled the tarp over everything they had in the bed of the truck to protect it from the weather, then Paul kicked some dirt over the ashes of their fire and scattered the stones he’d arranged the night before as a fire-break. It wasn’t absolutely necessary, since he wasn’t trying to hide that they’d been here, but leaving a string of campsites behind him made him feel a little desolate. Erasing them as much as he could before he left erased them from his mind as well–they were part of nature again, and not places he’d slept.
Sometimes he thought it was foolish, but he did it anyway. If Nina thought it was foolish, she never said.
I did not plan it that way, but it actually turned out to be a pretty self-contained excerpt.
And I shall tag:
- Gaia B. Amman @ Page Turners with an Italian Soul
- Tina @ All of These Prompts
- Jess @ In Desperate Need of Words…and Caffeine
- Bronwyn @ Can You Vague That Up For Me?
- Aimee @ To the Barricade!
- Athena @ One Word at a Time
- And I was totally going to tag Eve, but Melanie already did. You’re double-tagged, now, lovely lady. We want to know what you’re up to.
elena johansen 
Elena, I loved everything about this post, starting with the fact that it is a commercial break from your Christmas blogging extravaganza, hahaha! I also really enjoyed reading your excerpt which, as you mentioned, stood alone really well. It definitely made me want to read your story and get to know the characters better. What an awesome detail that Paul erases evidence of their “string of campfires” even though he doesn’t need to.
Thanks for tagging me! This 7/7/7 challenge is cool in its randomness and I wish I could but I’m too bashful to write a post with an excerpt from my WIP. If it’s okay I’ll post my 7 lines as a comment here:
“Three weeks,” Mikey answers
“Did I say that out loud?” Eyes still glued to the PS4 game, Mikey nods.
Am I losing it?
Did I say that out loud, too?
What about that?
Mikey nods and chuckles. I’m not sure if he’s laughing at me or at his game.
***
Everything that I was, I was because of my father
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Even if you’re “too bashful” to post it to your blog, thanks for indulging us. Internal monologues are fun, and now I want to know why the narrator isn’t sure what they’re saying and what they’re not.
And thanks for the compliment on my excerpt!
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Oo! This sounds like a very intriguing book from the little excerpt you gave. I’m quite interested to know what’s going on in the rest of the book now. Why are they camping in the woods? Are they running from someone? I’m so curious now!
And you’re totally right. That was an awesome self-contained excerpt. I wish mine was that self-contained. :p (Though, I suppose that’s not my style. hee hee)
What genre is your novel, may I ask?
P.s. Thank you for doing this! It was great seeing a piece of your work. ^.^
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Thanks for tagging me! I like getting share my work, even in its roughest-of-rough drafts. Though honestly I don’t feel like there’s that much wrong with this section, aside from my tendency to abuse adverbs. They’ll get cut later.
Anyway, What We Need to Decide is the second book in (what will hopefully be) a trilogy of post-apocalyptic romance. I released the first one, What We Need to Survive, a few weeks ago. It’s suitably standalone-ish, because I only had a vague idea of what might happen next if I wanted to go on, but as I framed in the outline for NaNo this year, it all came together and now I’ve got #2 drafted and I’m starting #3…if they don’t work out, then neither will get released and WWNTS will just be itself.
If that makes you want to read it, awesome, I’m trying to get my work out there for people to enjoy, and if not, take my self-promotion with a grain of salt. I’m not much for pushiness in publicity!
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You’re very welcome! ^.^ I’m glad to have tagged you. Definitely a treat.
I’m the exact opposite of you. I never want to show people my work. :p I’m so self-conscious of it, but it’s a necessary evil in the writing business.
Oh! You self-published? That’s really cool. I don’t think I could do that. I’d be far too nervous and wouldn’t have any clue what I’m doing. So, I definitely commend you for that. Don’t you have to be kind of pushy when it comes to getting your book out to people? *knows nothing about self-pub*
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You do, a little. Sometimes I feel like I’m shouting into a void, but I’m very new, so not many people are paying attention yet. But that’s fine, because if my work is good, then people will find it. Word-of-mouth, and non-pushy self-marketing. Lots of people don’t like seeing endless self-promotion, and I know that because I’m one of them! So it’s a fine line, and even worse because the line is going to be different for everyone. I’m choosing to err on the side of caution.
As for not knowing what I was doing, the whole year I spent writing/rewriting WWNTS, I was also devoting time to researching the self-publishing process, and reaching out to other authors I found along the way for advice. It *is* a lot of work, and I suffered some frustrations and setbacks, but ultimately it feels amazing to know that I was capable of that kind of follow-through, that I didn’t let the hurdles turn me away.
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Ah yes! I think that’s one of the many reasons I couldn’t personally self-publish. I’d be too afraid to be pushy and then I’d never get my book out there.
That’s so cool that you stuck with it! Just another thing to commend you for. ^.^
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Thank you for tagging me 🙂 And that sounds like an interesting book!
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Thank you! Looking forward to yours, if you choose to share! 😀
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I did it: https://alloftheseprompts.wordpress.com/2015/12/17/the-777-challenge/ 🙂
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I just saw! Yay!
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