By Order of Victoria Fry: I Must Share My Work

I've met a lot of lovely people through my Pinterest addiction, especially running a few group boards. I'm proud to call a number of women who are MUCH better bloggers than me friends, like Mandy Wallace, whose pins to her excellent articles for writers pop up daily on my feed, and Victoria Fry, who put a lot of effort into making a training video for writers who want to use Pinterest for their work, including myself, Mandy, Kristen Kieffer of She's Novel and Jenny Bravo of Blots and Plots as examples.

And then Victoria had to go and tag us to take the 7/7/7/7 challenge. It's a simple idea meant to encourage sharing of works-in-progress. The challenged pick their WIP, turn to the seventh page, count down to the seventh line, share the next seven lines, and then tag seven other writers to share their own. It's completely optional to the tagged, and it's okay to tag fewer bloggers. But I've never been one to step down from a challenge.

The only issue is, which WIP? I've got, well, many. I am not the best at reaching that fabled "The End." I get distracted or bored, or I realize things that need fixing that overwhelm me. It's bad. It's why I decided that instead of writing a new novel this NaNoWriMo, I'm going to work on finishing two of the old ones. I just can't bring another baby into the world while continuing to neglect the older children, so to speak. I decided to finish up my novels from NaNo 2012 and 2013: The Business of Being Dead and Trickster's Gambit. And since Victoria posted samples from two works for her 7/7/7/7 challenge, I'll go ahead and do the same.

So without further ado, please enjoy these samplings and hold the tomatoes 'til the end of the reading.

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The Business of Being Dead (this was the end of the chapter, so there were only 6 lines), a paranatural urban fantasy about Hannah MacIntyre, recently deceased, assistant grim reaper, and undead herder. Dave is the sock-eating bogeyman who discovered her dead:

“Okay, okay, let’s go,” Dave said, waving her over. She took one last look around before joining him in front of the open door. “Ready?” She nodded with a lump in her throat. Ready or not, she had no idea what she was doing. As Dave took her by the hand, she questioned the wisdom in trusting a strange, inhuman creature who showed up in her bedroom, told her she was dead, ate all her socks, and was about to lead her through a black portal to the unknown. She didn’t get a chance to change her mind as Dave stepped into the blackness, pulling her in with him.

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Trickster's Gambit, a fantasy western about James Proctor, conman and wizard/illusionist. Helen is the soon-to-be victim of an unfortunate magical accident:

“Oh it is now, ay?” Helen scowled. “I remember you now. You were running a Find the Lady stall and picked my pocket when I wouldn’t play. I thought they hanged you.”

“I didn’t break out from any jail, if that’s what you’re implying, Miss Helen. Hangin’ was the plan, but your kind sheriff took pity on a poor, old, desperate fool. Think you could ever find it in your heart to forgive me yourself?”

She continued to scowl.

“What was your name again, Mister Man of God?”

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And now it's my turn to pick the unfortunate victims dear friends whose WIPs I'd love to see samples of.

M.J. Ravenhill at The Ravenhill Express
JR at Bobo the Bard
A.G. Carpenter at A.G. Carpenter
Abner Senires at Abner Senires
Lillith at Eclectic Little Dork
and Anna Humphrey at The Muse's Lair

Tag, y'all!

edit: Updated JR's link to her new Tumblr instead of her old blog.