It's Friday

Well, not a bad week at all and I have until 5:30 to write today! It will be coffee over at Kate's shortly and I won't have to hold my head down since this week's total so far is 7000 +. :-)

Yesterday I was lucky enough to have lunch with a friend, who's an agent. Yes, I am very lucky. We brain stormed over August Rock and the critique I had done on it. Some the items are easily fixed but one item, the part of Toby by 13 yr. old ghost, is a little more problematic if I'm trying for the UK market. It could fly with a ghost but it may limit the market too much yet Toby's chapter's are some of the strongest in the book. How to alter the work keeping Toby's story intact.......two strong possibilities emerged. So while I work away on A Cornish House hopefully the subconscious part of my mind will resolve the Toby problem. By the way she had absolutely no problem with an American heroine.

Reading through fellow racers blogs this week, I noted the A. Writer was willing to put her writing out there for comment early. At a previous coffee we have discussed whether you are a shower or a hider.....most being hiders. Me too but one of the best exercises that I have ever done was prompted by Julie Cohen's, http://www.julie-cohen.com/blog, first page challenge. I posted both the first page for August Rock and the few words that I had written for A Cornish House. The process involved putting in your thoughts about the page and your motivation for the words. I shamefacedly had never looked that closely at my on work. I wrote and edited but never looked at the whys. I let myself off as I am rediscovering my craft after years away from fiction. The best part of the exercise was other people's comments, http://lizfenwick.blogspot.com/2006/11/first-page-challenge.html. In particular for me those of Laura Vivanaco of the blog Teach Me Tonight, http://teachmetonight.blogspot.com/.

So thinking about all of this made me think now 45,000 or so into A Cornish House would it be a good idea to throw the first page out there again and challenge my fellow racers and anyone else to do the same???? Any takers? I was also thinking I would enjoy seeing my fellow racers styles (some are published so there styles are out there so to speak but some of us aren't).

Herewith the first page of A Cornish House:


The car coughed to a halt and lurched as the trailer pushed it further on the dark lane.
“Shit.” Madde thumped the steering wheel.
“What?”
Madde turned to see Serena rubbing her eyes; her blond hair in spiky disarray and the new tattoo on her arm peeking out from her tee-shirt. Double shit thought Madde. They couldn’t be far from where ever the hell Carnew was but now that Serena was awake she could hear her complaints already. She turned the key but no sound emerged from the engine.
“Are we at this God-forsaken place?” Serena stretched.
“Errr, no. The car died.”
“What?”
“The car died.”
“I heard that but where are we?” Serena was now sitting straight.
“Don’t know.”
“Christ.”
“Mind your language.” Madde ran her fingers over the wheel.
“Hah, fine thing to say. I just heard you swearing. What’s wrong with Christ anyway?”
“We’ve been down this road before.”
“No we haven’t.”
“Don’t be pedantic.” Madde rubbed her hands over the back of her neck. She could feel the rigid tendons. “Serena, I’m tired I’ve been driving for hours and arguing isn’t going to help.”
“So?”

I haven't put my comments in the text like last time as I thought you might like to read it first with out my thoughts and then read my thoughts so they don't prejudice your own.

I am trying to set up tension with the setting - dark road-dead car. Also the conflict between Madde and Serena is right there and crucial to the whole of the book. Also that Serena definitely doesn't want to be where she is. I wanted Serena's stroppy voice to come through and Madde's restraint.....I hope all of this shows and makes you want to know more - like why they are there and who they are and who they are to each other???? Well, that's my hope any way. Let's here what you have to say......I think.