Weekend Writing Warriors 2/02/14

Well well, it’s finally February! I am *so* excited to leave January behind! Not just because so much of the U.S. had such terrible weather--and it was terrible, some people lost their lives in the blizzards and extreme cold--but the good news is that Weekend Writing Warriors turns one year old! :) Having recently gathered a bunch of comments from you, our wonderful readers/participants, we are thinking about some kind of celebration. Stay tuned to the WeWriWa main page!

On to my sentences. This scene has kind of come full circle, because immediately following last week's excerpt would come the part I posted as my first snippet from this story (working title Night Shift) here back in November. 

So--Devorah has left Kazimir on the floor in her entryway, where the angels healed him. Feeling a bit guilty over shooting Kaz, she brought him a pillow and a throw from the sofa. The next morning, she finds him sitting up and in the middle of reciting what sounds like a prayer. She starts to leave but he calls her. She apologizes for shooting him. [Creative punctuation is in use ;-) I’m sorry for running over the limit a little, but I condensed as much as I could without losing important parts.] 

“I was hoping you’d shoot me,” Kazimir said. 

I came all the way down the stairs. “What?”

“I wanted you to go into your own Dark side; I needed you to see that anger and hatred can drive even you to do demonic things.” 

“You . . . egged me on to make me shoot you? I could’ve killed you, and you manipulated me!” 

“Yeah, and yeah. You almost did kill me, but then you asked Adrael to help me--there’s no way I’d be completely healed by now without his help.”

I didn’t know what to make of him; he pushed me to shoot him, knowing I could have sent that bullet into his head as easily as his leg. “Selfless, or just determined to prove you’re right about me?” 

“What’s the point of being right if I’m dead? Everybody’s got a price--you get it now?”

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. For more excerpts from dozens of other writers, hop back to WeWriWa--you won’t be sorry you did!

To all our long-term participants of WeWriWa, thanks so much for making this blog hop tons of fun. To our new peeps, we hope you’ll be comfy enough to stay--there’s no wearing out your welcome with us! :) 

Weekend Writing Warriors 1/26/14

Staying with the scene I’ve been posting from the last couple of weeks, Kazimir provoked Devorah into shooting him. As soon as she does, he drops his demon illusion. Horrified at what she’s done and not sure if she wants Kaz to live or die, Devorah calls the angel Adrael. Adrael finds Kaz unconscious, shot in the thigh. She questions if he deserves to die after taking the rabbi’s soul to the demons. Adrael tries to explain the larger issues going on; he speaks first. 

“Rabbi Abbatoy did his best to guide his congregation to the truth as Judaism sees it, while Kazimir and his Crosser friends have been able to help weaken the Dark across all boundaries. So, while neither man is more important or more holy or more deserving than the other, one was a servant of a single aspect of the Light and the other is a servant of the Light in all its complexity. That is the best answer I can give.”

“So it kind of comes down to numbers, Kazimir can help more people, is that it?”  

“That is one way to think of it. Good and evil, as humans understand them, are not clear-cut and linear--there are very many shades of grey.”

“I was taught there’s a difference between right and wrong--both Judaism and Christianity say so.”  

“And there is such a difference. Sometimes, however, it’s one of those shades of grey.”

(Collected excerpts from this story are here.) 

Got a story, published or not, you’d like to share? Visit the Weekend Writing Warriors homepage, (for this weekend only, we’re using http://www.wewriwa.blogspot.com/ because of maintenance on the regular site) sign up and post 8 sentences from your work. Then come back every Sunday to blog hop all around and read some pretty cool excerpts. It makes Sunday better than Saturday!

Weekend Writing Warriors 1/19/14

Heya. Would you guys make sure you answer WeWriWa's poll? As we're coming up on our first anniversary, we want to see what our participants feel about our blog hop. If we can make it better, we want to do that but we need some idea of what participants want.

WeWriWa programming note: Since we'll be having a little maintenance work done on www.wewriwa.com, there is a possibility that at some point tomorrow Jan. 19th, the page may go offline. Don't despair, for the time being we've set up a mirror page on www.wewriwa.blogspot.com just in case.

Last time, Kazimir showed up at Devorah’s house, apologizing for having attacked her rabbi friend. She’s furious with him. He offers her a gun and tells her to even things up. As she hesitates, he morphs his appearance: his head becomes skeletal with a large brow ridge, his fingers become elongated and bony,  greenish-yellow scales appear on his arms and neck, and his eyes become completely black —yikes!

Devorah grabs the gun, swallows her revulsion and crouches next to him. They exchange a few comments; she says she’s wondered what it’s like to smell somebody’s fear.

“Fear makes demons strong,” Kazimir said, “and hate makes us stronger still. All the hatred you’re aiming at me fills me like a long, slow orgasm.”  He grinned, showing long yellow teeth in a gargoyle face. 

My stomach threatened to heave. I squeezed the trigger; the shot seemed hideously loud. He fell sideways, away from me, his own face crunched up in pain.

I dropped the gun and scrambled to my feet. Dear God, I’d just shot somebody!

(Collected excerpts from this story are here.) 

Be sure to visit the Weekend Writing Warriors homepage for links to snippets from some pretty cool writers. I'm pretty picky about what I read and I've found several stories I can't wait to see more of every week. We range from lighthearted and romantic to sci fi, and historical. It's like being in a library, only better, 'cause you get to interact with the authors!

Requiem for a library

I went to the central branch of my local library today, hoping to do some research for my story Night Shift. I'm looking for information on Assyrian and/or Babylonian ritual. This is the sort of thing my library, IMHO, used to excel at -- books on subjects that were not well-known. Back in the 80s and into the 90s, I used to "lose" hours in that building. I'd get caught up looking through book after book, utterly absorbed in all that knowledge. Well, no more. Today visiting the library was more like visiting a morgue.

I had heard several months ago that the library closed its second floor and put a lot of its books into the closed stocks, because they didn't have the staff to take care of a large circulating collection. I don't question that. I'm well aware that public libraries across the country have had to cut hours drastically because they don't have the funding for staffing.

Still, there's a difference between hearing that and going to the rooms where the shelves are only 10 - 20% full and there are huge gaps in the Dewey numbers of the few books that are on the shelves. The mythology section is reduced to books on Judaism, Islam, Christianity and Buddhism. A section about religious history only had books relating to those same religions (and a couple other books).

There was nothing on ancient cultures. Honestly.

Time was when I could wander the aisles, picking up a book here and another there, and skim through them to find out if they had any info I wanted. Sometimes I would just photocopy a few pages rather than check the book out; sometimes I would come home with 6 or 8 books. The library was my portal to everywhere and everywhen. I found books on subjects I had no idea existed. You know what I mean? And I'm only talking about non-fiction; in the fiction areas, all those stories just waiting for me to find!

Today I spent about 15 minutes in the library and left empty-handed. Except for a strong sense of loss. 

My options are to try to continue online research on my own; go down to whichever college libraries I can reach by bus and try to explain what I need; or use the public library's "Book a Librarian" service where they match you up with an expert librarian for all of one hour at a time.

I don't blame my library at all. I blame politicians who repeatedly cut funding for institutions like public libraries. It's times like this I am ashamed to belong to a society that lets this happen. But have you noticed how the politicians always appear in expensive pinstriped suits? There's always money to bump up their salaries, isn't there?

My library has become a kind of anti-TARDIS, much smaller on the inside than it appears on the outside. I wish I knew some hotshot author who could pull some strings somewhere to help with research like this! What about the public library where you live? Have you been there lately? Does your town still have one? What are some of your favorite library memories?

Image By Raysonho @ Open Grid Scheduler / Grid Engine (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Weekend Writing Warriors 1/12/14

Heya. Would you guys make sure you answer WeWriWa's poll? As we're coming up on our first anniversay, we want to see what our participants feel about our blog hop. If we can make it better, we want to do that but we need some idea of what participants want.

Hello again peeps. Hope you’ve recovered from bad weather, if your area had any. Did you know parts of Niagara Falls *froze*? Don’t laugh at me next time I complain about the cold! J

Last week in my story Night Shift, Devorah was devastated to learn that Kazimir did go after the rabbi, as he’d told her he had to. Later, he shows up at her house apologizing. He’s weakened and sits on the floor leaning against the wall as they talk. Unable to forgive him and horrified at the sort of things Crossers do, she tells him she can’t go through with joining him. She doesn’t hold back letting him know how furious she is. Kazimir reacts to that this way:

(Collected excerpts from this story are here.)  

He pushed himself up a little straighter. “I can feel how much you hate me. I hate me too at times like this.” Slowly, he reached to his ankle and slid a small revolver out from its holster, which he then put on the floor in front of me—.38 Special, probably. “Tell 911 I dropped the gun and you picked it up. Make it an eye for an eye.” 

I blinked at the gun. God, it would be so simple. 

Be sure to visit the Weekend Writing Warriors homepage for links to snippets from some pretty cool writers. I'm pretty picky about what I read and I've found several stories I can't wait to see more of every week. We range from lighthearted and romantic to sci fi, and historical. It's like being in a library, only better, 'cause you get to interact with the authors!

Full scene from yesterday 1/5/14

I’m posting the full version of this scene because the bits posted for WeWriWa don’t show the full impact of Kazimir’s action on Devorah. Some of that doesn’t come out till later, but this is where the impact is felt most strongly. Keep in mind, this is Draft 1 with minimal editing.

Devorah is talking to the angel Adrael in the cemetery where her dad is buried. He was the local police chief, recently shot dead though the case is unsolved. As this part opens, she’s talking about trying to reach the rabbi before Kaz does. (my angels have eyes that look like mosaics or stained glass windows, hence the reference to “crazy-colored”)

I tried to push away from Adrael. “Maybe I can get there first! I have to try!”  

He kept his hold on me. “Kazimir will already be there. He cannot forgo that promise. It is better that you don’t see.”  

“I’ve got to do something, don’t you understand! I can’t stay here!”

The angel let me go. One tear slid from his crazy-colored eye. “I don’t know how he intended to do this but I’m positive you will only be hurt more if you rush to the house. You can’t help the rabbi now.”  

“I’ve got to try!”

Eyes blurring, I ran as fast as I could to my car. As I tried to get the key into the ignition, sirens started up, low at first. More joined in. Out across the cemetery, just above the tree tops, a thick line of gray smoke drifted up, tinted pink in the sunset. My hand froze. I sat staring. “You lousy bastard, how could you?” My voice sounded shrill even to my own ears.  

“Devorah,” said a soft voice from the passenger seat. “You’re in no condition to drive.” An almost-solid hand eased the key out of my limp fingers. 

"Maybe he's not gone yet, maybe I can still stop him. Give me that damn key!" 

He held it out of my reach. "Daughter, by the time you could arrive at the house, Kazimir will have made certain the rabbi's body has given up his soul and he will have taken possession of it. I'm so very sorry it came to this."

I hit the steering wheel. “No!” I repeated it, shouted it, until Adrael gently pulled me toward himself. Tears, anger, and frustration burst out of me with sobs so deep I could hardly breathe. I pounded on his shoulder.  

After a minute or so I forced myself to stop. Sobbing like a schoolgirl wouldn’t help anything and it didn’t particularly make me feel better. I moved back then rubbed my eyes. My tears stained Adrael’s t-shirt.

“Sorry, I need to get a grip on myself,” I murmured.

“No need to apologize. One of the purposes of an angel is to absorb tears.” Compassion filled his face.  

“What about fury? Because I’ve got a lot of that too.”  

“We help transform fury to love. But I don’t think you’re ready for that at the moment.”  

Now that it was full dark outside, Adrael emitted a very soft glow. I guess maybe I’m never going to wake up. My life’s just going to be this Dan-Brown-in-the-Twilight-Zone thing from now on. “You’re right, I’m not. Can I have my key? I’ve got to be sure that really is the rabbi’s house. You can come with me. In fact, I might like it if you did.”  

He smiled though it was subdued and held the key out. “I hoped you would want my company.”

As it turned out, I couldn’t get very close because of all the emergency vehicles. Once I could see flames dancing on the roof of the rabbi’s house, the urge to jump out of the car and run over there evaporated. I really couldn’t help him now. All the officers knew me by sight. They’d tell me if they’d found anybody inside. But it didn’t matter if his body was there. I scrubbed away fresh tears. I wished he was simply dead. I didn’t know how I could live with myself, knowing the truth of what really happened to him.

“I need to go home and wash up before I go to Mom’s. I may spend the night there. She’s going to need a lot of support. I have no idea why I’m telling you that.”   

Adrael held one of my hands between both of his, enveloping it in fleece-soft warmth. “Devorah, again, I’m so very sorry this happened. Trust your heart to make the right decisions. If you have need of me, simply call me. No one else will be able to see or hear me. Know that I am never far from you.”  

“You know what, that helps. Thanks.”  

He smiled again.  

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Can I just say that I'm kind of hating Blogger? Extra blank lines, not enough lines, wtf?!

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bogenfreund/356014489/">bogenfreund</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">cc</a>

Weekend Writing Warriors 1/5/14

Happy New Year, everybody!

Sticking with the story I started for NaNo 2013, working title Night Shift. You can find previous excerpts here. Previously, Kazimir admitted to Devorah that he was forced to promise to bring the demons a soul, her dear friend Rabbi Abbatoy. The angel Adrael  has said something that leads Devorah to believe Kaz has in fact gone after the rabbi. Terrified for her friend the rabbi, she runs to her car. The second speaker in this excerpt is Adrael.

The goofy placement of semi-colons is so the excerpt fits WeWriWa's guidelines :-)

As I tried to get the key into the ignition, sirens started up, low at first; more joined in. Out across the cemetery, just above the tree tops, a thick line of gray smoke drifted up, tinted pink in the sunset. My hand froze and I sat staring; my voice sounded shrill even to my own ears. “You lousy bastard, how could you?”

“Devorah,” said a soft voice from the passenger seat,“you’re in no condition to drive.” An almost-solid hand eased the key out of my limp fingers. “Kazimir will already be there, he cannot forgo that promise. It’s better that you don’t see.”

You know, I think I'm going to continue this scene Monday. It loses impact chopped up this way. It's important for readers to get a better sense of how this affects Devorah. Maybe by then I'll have figured out how to turn off this effing touchpad! And y'know, I just love seeing y'all come by :) 

Be sure to visit the Weekend Writing Warriors homepage for links to snippets from some pretty cool writers. I'm pretty picky about what I read and I've found several stories I can't wait to see more of every week. We range from lighthearted and romantic to sci fi, and historical. It's like being in a library, only better, 'cause you get to interact with the authors!