Happy Wednesday! I took a sick day yesterday due to the annoying cold my kids helpfully shared with me. The problem with a day “off” was that it left me more time to read the news. I’m trying to keep a balance of enough to stay informed but not enough to end up miserable and anxious. I mostly succeeded.
I seem to be better today, so I’m back to editing. If I can get two more chapters done by the end of the week, I can put the first part into my beta readers’ hands as soon as they’re ready. That will leave me with just a few chapters at the end to tidy up, and those are mostly done because I wrote this almost backwards.
Today’s snippet comes from back in the first chapter of Keeping the Faith. Micah is getting his classroom ready for the school year to start, and he meets one of his new coworkers. (Note: Micah uses gender-neutral pronouns here because he doesn’t know her, but she’s definitely a woman. There’s a reason why I chose to write her this way, which is complicated and would take a while to explain.)
WIPmath: First day of February, something from the first chapter.
The light, cheerful taps on his door startled him, and he looked down from the chair he was standing on. A young person stood in his doorway. They were dressed in neatly pressed trousers and a collared shirt with the top three buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up. They had very short hair gelled into spikes, wire-framed glasses, and shoes with a bit of extra shine. The person was slim but curvy in the hips and chest. They were smiling but seemed a little nervous.
Micah hopped down from the chair and turned off the music. “Hey there,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
They stuck out a hand. “I’m Jude Lily. I just moved in.” They laughed, their voice a warm alto. “In many ways. I’m the new general music teacher.”
“Micah Forbes. Sixth grade language arts.” He took their hand and noticed the slight hesitation and the smallest slip of the smile.
Recovering, Jude accepted the handshake. “I saw your light on, so I figured I’d see who at least one of my neighbors will be.”
“I knew they’d hired someone, but I wasn’t on the committee. I think I remember seeing your name on the staff list, though. This your first job?”
Jude nodded. “How’d you guess?”
“You’re overdressed to get your classroom in order, for one thing.”
Cringing, Jude replied. “This is how I always dress.”
Like what you read? Be sure to check out the other entries and add your own. Just post a bit of your WIP, connect it to the date, and link up with us. Many thanks to Emily Witt for giving us this space. Happy reading and writing!
Ah, I loved the getting-classroom-ready days. Jeans, t-shirts… 🙂 Hi, Jude! (really, really wanted to write ‘Hey, Jude’, but, well…) I like them already. Of course, you know I’m looking at every possibility here for Micah.
😀 I think you’ll like Jude. I’ll post more next week, I think. My main concern is making sure the story itself contains enough clues about who Jude really is. I obviously don’t want to give spoilers here, so I’ll have to be careful what I post.
It’s so tricky after a while to find stuff to post that isn’t a major spoiler.
Yes! This novel is particularly bad. The only reason I was willing to spoil the Really Big Thing is that it’s on page 1 in the story, and it’ll be in the blurb anyway. But so much of this is tying up everyone’s stories, so I can’t say too much. I can post more about the orange tabby, LOL.
Micah seems a lot more comfortable than the last snippet I read, and that makes me happy. I want to get to know Jude better, especially that hesitation in the handshake.
Yes, like anyone, he has good days and bad ones. So sometimes he’s barely holding it together, but others, like in this scene, he’s enjoying meeting a new friend.
Very, very interested to see where this goes.
😀 Jude is definitely very important to the story.
Pooh on being sick! I say we boycott being sick for the new few years. What do you say? With me?
Oooh! The way you ended that… Why do I get the feeling Micah just stepped in it, deep
LOL! He may have.