Drumbeat

Happy Wednesday! Last week until yet another summer camp, and this time I’ll be volunteering. So I may take breather next week. Meanwhile, my older child just turned 14! Younger child turns 12 on Sunday. They just had their physicals, and both are nearly done growing. Estimated height for older child: 6’2″. Estimated for younger: 5’2″. They find this hilarious and awesome.

On to the WIPpet. Sigh…this novel is going to destroy me. I’ve been feeling conflicted about my genre and my place in it for a long time, which I don’t think is helping. It’s a long story, probably a whole separate blog post. I’ve talked to a few friends, but I’m no closer to a real solution aside from “finish what I’ve agreed to write and then move on.” Well, yes, but that doesn’t solve the problem of having to write it. This novel is exactly why I prefer writing single POV, but…genre expectations plus the precedent I’ve already set for the series. ‘Nother sigh.

Anyway…this is from the same chapter as the last snippet of Drumbeat. Jamie has woken from a nightmare about running away from his mother’s abusive boyfriend. I’ve mentioned before that Jamie grew up couch-surfing homeless and ended up on-the-street homeless at 15. This is not because he’s gay. I wanted a different narrative from the common “kicked out for being LGBT.” Not that it doesn’t happen, but it’s not the only reason, y’know?

WIPmath: 8/9/2017 = 8 + 9 + 7 = 24 sentences

It happened sometimes, the nightmares of getting away from—what number boyfriend was it again? More than five, less than ten. Jamie had lost count. He was the only one who ever hit Mama. They’d planned their escape for weeks, and even so, he’d nearly caught them. Jamie was lucky he got out with only a black eye and a few bruised ribs.

He’d looked for Mama for ages after that, but no one would tell him where she’d gone. She’d been too afraid to tell him her whole plan just in case something slipped. Months of searching for her, then searching for his father. Surviving any way he could until he got to the Lighthouse, so sick he could hardly stand and afraid it was more than just the flu. He was damn lucky it wasn’t.

Only Sage knew all of it. He was there many nights when Jamie woke, drenched in sweat from re-living the terror of that time. He knew and didn’t judge, just held Jamie until he stopped shaking. Sage wasn’t the same kind of monster. He’d never hit Jamie, no matter what the others thought he was capable of. If he’d ever beaten him, Jamie would’ve been out the door sooner. Or so he liked to think.

That kind of violence wasn’t Sage’s way. Everything he did was softer, gentler. The kind of thing that lulls a person into feeling secure. Even when he touched Jamie in ways that made him uncomfortable, it was always that same tenderness, almost a vulnerability. All fake. Jamie had nightmares about that too.

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 Wrayburn for giving us this space. Happy reading and writing!

Sorry I missed last week. We were on vacation. This week, my kids are away at camp, and the house is eerily quiet.

I’m no longer posting from Leaps of Faith because…it’s LIVE! Today is its “book birthday.” It also happens to be my 20th wedding anniversary. We’re going out for sushi and to see Wonder Woman later.

I’m technically supposed to be getting about 1/3 or so of Drumbeat written during Camp NaNo, so I’m back to using that as my WIP. I think I’ve introduced both Cian (hot Irish dancer who is also deaf) and Jamie (adorable drummer with a  zillion piercings).

A little background for the snippet: Jamie grew up homeless (couch-surfing variety, not on-the-street variety). He left home at 15 and eventually found his way to his cousin’s family. Here, his mother has a slightly more stable living situation, and Jamie’s visiting her in Rhode Island. (Geographically, this is not that far from Boston.)

WIPmath: 7/12/17 = 12 sentences

Jamie tried not to judge his mother’s church attendance; she was a born-again, and she maintained that it helped her stay clean, so he didn’t question it. He didn’t have any memories of her when she’d been using, so he had no idea what did or didn’t help her. If church meant so much to her, it wasn’t his place to tell her his feelings on the matter. But he wouldn’t be welcome in the church she attended, no matter how much they embraced and accepted her.

He pulled into the crumbling parking lot behind her building. A group of preteen boys were there, laughing and shoving each other. One of them had a bag full of bang-snaps, and they were tossing them at each other’s feet and shouting. A woman with a toddler in a stroller passed by and glared at them before going back to her loud conversation on her cell phone and pushing the stroller with her free hand.

Jamie pressed the buzzer, and his mother let him up. He ascended to her fourth-floor apartment and opened the door. Inside, it smelled like a combination of cooking food, her cat’s litter box, and stale cigarettes. For Jamie, those were all familiar, comforting in the same way as his mother’s embrace when she put her arms around him.

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 Wrayburn for giving us this space. Happy reading and writing!