Self-editing webinar – members only
Hello folks
We’ve got another self-editing webinar coming up on 6 July at 19:00 (UK time.)
If you want to submit some work for me to RIP APART WITHOUT MERCY then:
a) Mwah-hah-hah. I look forward to feasting on your bones
b) Please give me a chunk – maximum 300 words – in the comments below. Please include your name (or I’ll just use your Townhouse handle.) Also the title of the piece, and just one short sentence telling us what kind of book it is. (Plus something about the set up of the snippet, if we need to know.)
I won’t be able to use everything. In the past, I’ve been able to get through 3-4 pieces in the hour.
Please don’t submit your work below if you’re not a JW member: we won’t be able to use it.
Please also don’t submit your work unless you are comfortable having it discussed publicly, cos public discussion is exactly what’s gonna happen.
All clear? Yes? No?
Yes! Tremendous. Look forward to seeing you there.
Working title: Parallel to Macbeth (historical fiction told in alternating father/daughter viewpoints–worried about male perspective and italicized first person thoughts inside third person point of view)
From Chapter 2: Forres, Scotland (Spring 1053)
With preparations inundating the castle, Iain was thankful to be leaving. Battle tactics were his expertise, and in Scone, the war council would listen. He knew he could count on support from Glamis and Fife. In Forres, however, respect was superficial. Around the King, Catherine’s aura lingered, determined to see his ruin. Mercia looked more like her each day. This morning when he lifted her from the floor, Catherine stared back. He rolled his neck and shoulders as he neared the royal cabinet.
Ghosts of the past still hovered, fertile from accusations spewed in dying breaths. Iain’s chest tightened. Forced by father and king into such a marriage. His throat dry and hands damp. Months of screaming tirades. Iain stopped before the king and bowed.
“Your highness.”
“Trouble in the village?”
“Yes, my king.”
“Our hearts ache for dear Mercia. How does she fare? Give us an account.”
Iain felt the weight of the assembly. “My liege, I request to speak privately.”
“As you well know, Lord Lennox, the best way to stem gossip is to speak openly.”
Time had not been kind to Duncan. Wrinkles, moles, and weakness gave away the power he grasped with skeletal fingers on the arms of his judgment seat. Pray tell, good King, of your great wisdom—father of a son kidnapped by a self-serving thane you so foolishly loved.
Iain bowed and spoke. “After our preparation at the forge, we went to the home of my guard, where Sister Áine brought Mercia to help care for the dying widow. We spied two Norse warriors moving in and disrupted their plans.”
“Then why was Mercia covered in blood?”
“Norse blood from my sword, Good King, not Scottish.” Her virginity’s intact, my liege—unblemished for your son.
Judith Wilson. This comes towards the end of You Were Never There, a women’s fiction novel which turns bleak.
Alice is trying out a new partner after her old one has left her, but it doesn’t go well.
The hatred in Alice’s stare forced him to step back away from her and the car. He stumbled on the grass wondering whether to run away or stay.
‘I can’t leave you on your own here. What will happen to you?’
Struggling up from the ground, using the car as support, she opened the driver’s door and leant over to the glove compartment. She pulled out an old cigarette lighter of Harry’s, pleased that his smoking habits were finally going to come in handy.
She pulled off her scarf and tied a couple of knots in it. Unscrewing the petrol cap at the side of the car she placed the scarf into the tank and stood there poised with the cigarette lighter.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Well I don’t want the car any more. I don’t want anything to do with Harry.’
‘Don’t do this Alice. There’s no point.’
‘The car’s yours now Matthew.’
She struck the lighter, held it to the scarf and watched as it caught light. Turning her back she walked away along the road, glancing back as Matthew thought about grabbing the scarf, but knew it was too late. He ran the other way, judging his life was more important than an old car.
Alice was far enough away by the time it exploded, to escape any injury. She kept on walking. ‘Even though I’m scared of the world outside the car, I deeply and completely accept and love myself.’ She tapped her left hand with the fingers of her right hand.
She stopped her chanting long enough to pull out her mobile phone and call her mother.
‘Mum. Can you come and pick me up?’
She gave Maggie brief details of where she was and collapsed into the gateway of a field.
Janet Savin. Book Title: Music for Three in a Time of Revolution (Vol II of 2-vol novel set in Prague 1989)
Opening 300 words in first scene entitled “Refugees”: East German refugees transiting through the West German embassy in Prague, (just up the street from the American embassy) to the West. That explains the police presence.
xxx
When Katherine turns into Tržištĕ, the scene stops her in her tracks. Just up the street, people are milling about, and there is a low roar in this normally quiet corner of Malá Strana. Whatever can it be? The autumn light casts her shadow long, weights the question with foreboding. She starts up the street, and the agitation becomes more palpable with each step. Civilian dress gives way to khaki uniforms. Stationed in front of the American Embassy is a heavy police detail.
Katherine freezes.
Whatever has planted the Czech police in front of the American Embassy?
Comrade Director Freimann has arranged a three-month extension of her original residence permit, and continues to promise the long-term one. But despite the assurances of her fellow teachers that he honours commitments to the letter, Katherine’s interviews with Communist bureaucrats has felt increasingly like trying to negotiate a suspension bridge. Now, confronting the Czech police, it threatens to give way beneath her.
What if they make her open her shoulder bag? Can they do that? Whether they are allowed to search an American citizen, she is uncertain. One thing is certain: the samizdat in that bag, the human rights communiqué, the black-listed manuscript mean repercussions. For Irena, for Lenka. For Katherine herself. A trembling hand goes to the rough jute, a protective instinct – of the contents, of her friends.
Do I wait? And tomorrow? If the Embassy closes? Got to get this out of the country. Deep breath, shoulders straight, on up the street. Stomach churning.
An officer with a beer belly and a knife blade nose opens her passport, scans her face. She pastes a smile on, thinking of her protectors, Michal, Jarek. ‘I have a lawyer friend…’ Cudgel fingers flip the pages, feral eyes inspect the permit, back to the passport,
Correction, para 4: K’s interviews with Communist bureaucrats have felt…
Love Is – contemporary romance/women’s fiction set in 2016.
The following is the opening of chapter one. The hero is late for a meeting with his ex-wife set up to resolve problems with access to his four-year-old daughter whom he has not been allowed to see for three months. He knows his wife will do anything to stop access permanently.
Owen had been awake most of the night thinking about today. Now he was late. Apologising to his fellow passengers, he squeezed between their rain-sodden shoulders and headed for the exit. He pressed call on his mobile, held it to his ear, leapt from the bus, and landed in an oily puddle rank with city grime. Ignoring his soaked feet, he clamped the phone to his ear again, expecting she’d cut him off. Margaret was not a patient woman.
‘Margaret? Sorry – are you still there?’
She was, and her voice hissed at him with the ferocity of an angry cobra. ‘You’re late.’
‘I’m sorry. I –’
‘I’ve had enough, Owen. I’m going –’
‘No. Please don’t! That’s why I’m calling – to explain. Please give me five minutes more.’
Frantically, he looked for a gap in the traffic. Wiping the rain from his forehead, pressing the phone hard to his ear, he strained to hear her reply. Silence. So he continued: ‘I’m at Trafalgar Square, only minutes away.’
The rumble of a passing brewery lorry filled his ears.
‘Sorry. What did you say?’
‘I said –’
The lorry’s brakes squealed loudly. What had she said? He transferred the phone to his other ear. ‘Margaret, are you still there?’
She sighed impatiently. He knew that reaction. Any second, she would repeat her intention to leave. I must stop her. He jumped behind the lorry, his timing typically terrible. It moved off again, showering his legs to thigh height with dirty spray from its rear wheels.
‘Shit!’ Oh, Christ. Margaret. ‘Margaret? Sorry… I wasn’t swearing at you. I just got soaked by a lorry.’ Not waiting for her answer, he blindly sprinted into the road. A taxi’s brakes shrieked.
‘You got a bleeding death wish?’ the cabbie shouted.
Margaret said something.
Awaking the Magic by Karen Tucker – a Middle Grade fantasy/alternate history novel in which Aelwen wants to be trained as a bard, but her father wants her to marry to seal an alliance. Her elder brother Macsen is training to succeed their father, but her younger brother Bleddyn hates her and is very much the disaffected teenager. Her parents are discussing her future, and she overhears from her sick-bed. Derwen is the bard who would train her:
“I feel I’ve failed them both. Macsen is so good. He works hard, he gets on with everyone – he’s learned everything you’ve taught him and more. What went wrong with the other two?’
I bristle. What does she think is wrong with me?
‘Aelwen’s actually a lovely girl, once you get past the prickliness,’ Father says. ‘If that was addressed, she’d get on fine at Court.’
Oh, goddess! Is that what they think? I swallow a sudden lump in my throat.
‘You know she wants to be a bard.’
‘Yes. Derwen seems to think she’d a good student.’ Yay for Derwen! ‘But we need this treaty with Idwal, and I can’t see a way to refuse his son’s offer and still make the alliance. These rumours of raids along the coast worry me. We may need all the friends we can get very soon.’
‘I know. But I can’t help thinking that Aelwen would be a talented bard. She has a voice like a nightingale. Even Bleddyn calls her the little blackbird.’
‘Yes, but you need much more than that to be a bard. You need diplomacy and leadership skills, for a start. Charisma and knowing how and when to be friendly and relaxed, or firm and assertive, are just as important, whether you’re dealing with Kings and nobles, or warriors and hunters.’
There’s a pause. I can almost hear my parents making the connection I just made.
‘So why don’t we ask Derwen to give her some training in the bardic skills of leadership and diplomacy?’ Mother says. ‘Heledd suggested it the other day, but I haven’t had time to really think about it since then.’
Yeuch. Boring! That’s not what I want to learn, at all! Disgusted, I turn over and put the pillow over my head.
This is the opening page of Enjoying the View, a contemporary women’s fiction WIP set on one of the smaller of the Channel Islands where transport is still limited to bikes, horse and carriage and tractors…
Abi heard the clattering of the hooves long before she saw anything. Mixed into the panicked pounding, she could hear something else. It sounded like splintering, the sound of smashing wood. She grabbed at the brakes and screeched her bike to a halt. If that horse was attached to a carriage, she was in trouble. A bolting horse with a fixed object attached just behind its tail wasn’t a good mix. And she was on one of the narrowest lanes on the island.
On the opposite side of the track was an open field gateway, on the corner where the lane bent to the left. Could she get there in time? The idea of ending up mangled in the metal framework of her bike didn’t seem a good option, so she dumped it against the grassy bank and ran.
Crossing the lane, her feet kicked up sandy dust, coating her canvas slip-ons. Once on the other side, she had a better view of what was charging down the lane. A massive bright bay, its head and tail both held high, with nostrils wide and eyes white enough with fear to match the chalky-pale markings on its legs as it shot blindly towards her.
It looked like one of Mrs Calhoun-Dunn’s horses. The big gelding they called Havoc. Thankfully not harnessed to a carriage, but he was trailing something behind him, something which smashed against the solid grass banks to either side of the lane as he ran, aiding his panic.
As Abi threw herself to the side, sheltering behind one of the granite field posts, the horse seemed to mirror her, jinking in the same direction. For one horrific moment, she thought he was going to go right over her. She held her breath and closed her eyes.
Ah. Sark then. I think they use golf carts now, like in The Prisoner. . .
Many a happy summer spent there, haven’t managed to get over there for a few years (haven’t managed to get anywhere for a while, obviously!!) – but not being able to go crystallises the thought that I will go again, when things settle down.
Betty Williams – ‘A Fight for a Life’ – Memoir
We all mucked-in so it didn’t take long to get the van unloaded. As soon as everything was safely gathered in – mostly being carried upstairs – we enjoyed an ad hoc supper with the removers.
When it was time for them to leave, they hesitated and hovered awkwardly in the door way as Mum reassured them, “Off you go, no need to be concerned, we are well used to dealing with this griminess, thank you for all your help”. They hesitantly and most apologetically had to leave us there. It was now a clear and bright, night; so they could easily find their way back across the moors.
After waving them off and their lights had disappeared around the bend; we were finally on our own and in the dark – except it wasn’t dark. We were mesmerised by the bright, white moon that seemed to be smiling down at us. We gazed up into a clear night sky and saw the biggest, brightest display of stars ever. That brilliant moon had lit up the entire moorside and endowed everything with a ghostly silvery glow – maybe it wasn’t so grim here after all.
We went back inside and stood looking at each other; Rosemary was holding her kittens, safely tucked under her chin, Bryan chomping on the last of the bread and me watching a huge spider crawling onto its web to see what all the noise was about – ugh!
I jumped as my mother actually started laughing, she laughed so hard that at first I thought she had gone mad, but then I saw she was actually laughing with tears of released emotion. Seeing this we all joined her and we became delirious too – we laughed at the ridiculousness of this place; we laughed at the absurdity of our last few years, the bad luck, the violence, the sheer hell of it all. We had thought that things couldn’t get any worse, so how the hell had we ended up here, in the middle of nowhere, in a condemned cottage surrounded by chicken shit and feathers?
The True Purpose of Vines – Giovanna Siniscalchi – Historical romance set in Portugal, 1870. An Englishman reluctantly travels to the Douro Valley, where he falls in love with a Portuguese winemaker. When Phylloxera strikes the vineyards, he must choose between his lifelong goals or helping the unruly woman save her lands.
Griffin watched the road for the monstrosity that would take them to Braganza. The posting inn’s courtyard brimmed with passengers — a young couple clutching a mucky toddler, two youths not older than eighteen, an old lady with a straw hat the size of a wheel of cheese, some farmers and their produce.
Julia kissed his cheek. “Are you sure about this?”
Griffin squeezed her hand. “This is the fastest way.”
The sounds came first — shouting, groaning, laughter, and the rumble of hooves. He shut his eyes — the diligence neared.
“You can change your mind. You don’t have to do this on my behalf.” She bit her bottom lip, swollen from his kisses. “We can walk the rest of the way.”
He would ride the bloody Portuguese mail coach. For her. “You are tired.” His resolve faltered when the mass of wood and hooves poked their line of vision with the delicacy of a blind ox in a crystal shop. When it stopped at the post, Griffin groaned. The diligence resembled the unsuccessful mating of a stage coat, a crate, and an omnibus. Three rows of disgruntled animals chomped their bits, stomping their feet on the dusty ground. The lead horse, his front leg raised in the air, could as well be a shaggy Irish Setter preparing for the hunt.
“All aboard!” The coachman howled.
As Griffin helped Julia climb to the outside bench, his ears burned as if his peers back at the English Factory were watching, shaking their heads, their mouths grim lines of disapproval. He helped Julia to the bench behind the driver’s box and dropped on her side, shuffling to the left, so he didn’t touch the cheese-hat woman.
The coachman’s whip flew precariously close to their heads, and they took off. Thankfully, the movement diffused the smell of sweat and poultry.
Julia gifted him with a brilliant smile. Griffin sighed, bringing her closer to his chest. Perhaps the diligence wasn’t altogether bad.
Lisa Maree. Shearwater Bird. Scene Two, Chapter One set in 1955 in Western Australia. Historical Fiction.
“Elisabeth?”
I don’t answer.
“I’ll give you an hour, then I’m coming in,” Mum says softly from the other side of my bedroom door.
I still don’t answer.
My life has turned upside down today, and I no longer stand right side up. Over several weeks, I’ve spent my spare time making the evening gown that hangs on my wardrobe door, with a similar sort of devotion to da Vinci creating a Mona Lisa from a blank canvas. The emerald creation is full-skirted and made of satin. For as long as I can remember, I’ve dreamed of having such a dress. In my imagination, the soft fabric has caressed my skin as I’ve twirled, over and over, on hardwood floors, while breathing evenly and slowly with Tom’s hand gentle on my back. I’ve imagined dancing by candlelight, while his smell intoxicates me and makes my body heat rise. But, as the sun sets on this hot February day, I stand and stare at the dress, and my eyes grow wet from a well deep within me. I cover my face with both hands, my knees buckle, and I collapse to the floor whispering, “Tom drowned.”
I don’t hear Mum enter, but she’s lying on the floor beside me, and her hand soothingly strokes my hair. “You’re a strong woman, Elisabeth. You’ve always been strong.” She leans in, and her lips kiss my forehead. “When your dad came home injured after the war you showed courage well beyond your years.”
Mum wants me to say something, but I want to be alone in this room where childhood memories and secrets live. I look at the painting that hangs on the wall; I’ve often wondered whether the woman pictured is carrying anything other than flowers in her basket as she walks beside a stream enveloped by cherry blossom trees. If she were real, I’d speak to her now. I know she’d give me the best advice. She’s at peace with herself and the world.
Mum continues to talk. Her words are like bubbles that float and dissipate; my thoughts are elsewhere. But I listen when she says, “You’ll get through this, Elisabeth. I’m here for you. Just like you’ve always been here for me. However long it takes, I’m here.”
Mayflies. The First and Last.
The beginning of the second book of my story where my protagonist wakes after a trance-like state.
Drifting, enveloped in rose gold and cerulean warmth, thoughts and memories slip by easily: in our cavern, my foster-father lifts me to touch the three gems that give our home its name; the scent of windswept summer grass and flowers in the water-meadow at Quaryk’s farm; the look of the oak as it shudders to a stop in the grass, and his face; the scent of salamanders and the play of their muscles; the eyes of the old king boring into mine; and again and again, being dandled on Ma’s knee, the firelight playing around the walls…
… and now, a break, a jolt, a disturbance in such lovely being. Light batters my eyelids – what? Sounds filter in … do I know them? Memory thuds back, shattering my limbo.
I open sticky eyes. Seagulls are crying and there’s apurr and wash of waves, a soft song of wind lifts my hair, and last year’s seed-heads rattle and scratch. Almost blinded in the light of a dull, spring pre-dawn, my nose is suddenly aware of sea water and chilly open spaces.
Shivering, I move, looking around, using rusty muscles that have been locked for months. There is the great crack, still raw around the edges, that I tore in the earth to swallow and bury the old, dead Tree. Now this is an inlet of the sea, the beach and meol inundated, gone. Reeling, I remember and dread the terrible power locked into the seemingly innocent stone that is now a part of me. Nothing has ever prepared me for this. Its vast power simply spilled out to my friends after I reunited the two halves of the stone, and the Darkaans it killed never stood a chance, but the stone can’t see the evil in this.