Weekend Writing Warriors 10/19/14: You're stuck with me

Good morning peeps, or afternoon, or evening, wherever you are! Welcome to my post for Weekend Writing Warriors. For the next week or two I’m going to stay in the current chapter for my paranormal story tentatively titled Night Shift. Devorah and Kazimir are still sitting in the wooded area well behind the burning synagogue. She’s trying to get her head around Kazimir’s insistence that she disappear from her old life in order to join the Crossers, the group of demons who also work for the Light. Collected excerpts for this story are here. 

She asks Kaz where he expects her to go if she can’t return home. Adrael is the angel they’ve talked with before; he’s their liaison with the Light. I have edited this to fit WeWriWa’s guidelines of no more than 8 sentences, so if anything doesn’t read quite right, that’s why.

Kazimir cleared his throat then said quietly, “Well . . . you’d stay with me.”  

I got to my feet, set my hands on my hips and snarled,  “How convenient, I should have seen that coming.”  

He rested his arms across his knees. “Everybody thinks I always have an ulterior motive. I’m the only person you can stay with, sunshine. I don’t know anybody else trustworthy because Crossers don’t generally interact with each other outside of training to avoid drawing attention to ourselves. The angels strongly prefer that neophytes don’t drift from teacher to teacher because, again, that might draw attention. So unless you want to see if Adrael has room on his cloud, you’re stuck with me.”  

Don’t forget to visit the First Page Review bloghop. The idea is simple. On your own blog, post your first 1,000 words of something you're writing or have written then sign up on this page, linking your 1,000 word post. Visit other people on the list and read theirs, then leave a comment to let them know if you liked it, what worked, what didn't, and if you'd keep reading.

And thanks for visiting me here today. It’s nice of you to take some time to stop by :-)

Weekend Writing Warriors 10/12/14: Why do you hold back?

We’re Weekend Writing Warriors, the neat little writers blog hop where authors post eight sentences from a work of theirs, published or not, live on their blog by 9 am US Eastern time Sundays. Then we all hop around to each other’s blogs to cheer on protagonists, boo at antags, worry that lovers may drift apart, hope that potential lovers find each other, and so much more. We have some dedicated writers here!

Skipping ahead a few lines in my paranormal novel, working title Night Shift. Kazimir has explained to Devorah more about what being a Crosser is like. He tells her, again, that she really needs to just disappear from the life she knew before. In this excerpt, she refers to her brother Joe who said he was joining the police department. That’s a sore point with Devorah and her mom, since her dad was likely killed because he was the police chief.

However, things have happened to Devorah that made her realize Joe needs to follow his passion, just as she is driven to join the Crossers on the promise that she would find out who really murdered her dad. So she defended Joe’s decision to their mom. She didn’t know when she agreed to join the Crossers that she might be expected to abandon her family and friends. Collected excerpts for this story are here.

Now that I thought about it, Kazimir did say something days ago about leaving my old life behind. But dealing a blow like that against Mom and the rest of my family wouldn’t be fair. Did I really believe that making sacrifices wasn’t about the person giving up, but about those on the receiving end? I made a pretty speech or two in Joe’s defense and everything I said applied to myself. The greater good; that was wonderful and all, but wouldn’t make Mom feel any better. She didn’t have a say in this. Maybe I could somehow let them know I was all right. “Why do you keep holding things back from me? Is there a way to let my family know I made it out of the synagogue fire?”

Poor Devorah, things have really hit the fan ;-) Will things get better or will she continue to struggle with nasty surprises?

Thanks for coming by. I love all of your comments!

Weekend Writing Warriors 10/5/14: A second chance is not free

We’re Weekend Writing Warriors, the neat little writers blog hop where authors post eight sentences from a work of theirs, published or not, live on their blog by 9 am US Eastern time Sundays. Then we all hop around to each other’s blogs to cheer on protagonists, boo at antags, worry that lovers may drift apart, hope that potential lovers find each other, and so much more. We have some dedicated writers here!

Continuing with my paranormal novel tentatively titled Night Shift. Collected excerpts for this story are here. Kazimir has explained some of the basics about being a Crosser, saying that while Crossers have permission to do what’s necessary as demons, there is a caveat. I like how this excerpt plays out as is, so I’m leaving it at six sentences.

“The source of the Light--God, the Holy of Holies, the Eternal One--expects you to genuinely regret everything you have to do as a demon. We’ve lost some good Crossers because they couldn’t regret some of the little things and then some of the big things, and then they turned full demon. I’ve been doing this for a long time and I can tell you that while it’s hard to live on this edge, Crossers have something demons don’t--hope. If you realize you’ve gone too far, the Light will accept you back without conditions. The Dark might offer you a second chance but you’ll pay dearly for it.” He wasn’t quite successful at suppressing a shudder.

This guy has more backstory than you can shake a stick at. I like Kaz but I refuse to let him take over ;-) A couple of scenarios have revealed themselves to me in which Kaz and Devorah get separated for extended periods. I like that as it will give me the chance to really focus on Devorah, who is after all the POV character in a first-person-POV story.

Thanks so much for visiting today :-) I love all of your comments.