Excerpt

I gave in and re-started my NaNo novel and things are progressing much better now. I feel in control of my story and having done all that noodling in the first three days, I have some good background material to use for flashbacks, or just as character notes for myself. I'm at 18K and feeling pretty good. Hoping to hit 25k by Wednesday night, which should be do-able - so long as I don't oversleep like I did this morning. Lost my whole per-breakfast writing hour.

So, since I don't have much to blog about (nose to grindstone and all)I thought I'd share a tantalizing little bite of the new WIP...

So far it's called 'Untitled YA Project' but I'm working on a more permanent title along the lines of 'Following the Taillights'.

Please bear in mind this is a very early draft, and I'm only giving you a couple of pages here...

CHAPTER 1
Lucy

The darkness is absolute. For a moment I’m not sure if my eyes are open or closed. I strain to push the lids up, but they are already wide. It’s dark. Not a pinpoint of light penetrates the space I’m in. Something covers my mouth and nose, making breathing difficult. My lungs burn for air, but I can only suck tiny mouthfuls through whatever smothers my face.

I turn my head, crying out as a magnificent bolt of pain shoots through it. I waver on the edge of consciousness for a moment, wavy gray lines wafting across my vision. I struggle to keep my wits, what’s left of them, about me, fighting the darkness that threatens to crash over me. When I’m certain I won’t pass out, I reach out my left hand, trying to find something to hold onto. My fingers play over some small objects, pebbles perhaps, that skitter away beneath my touch. I reach further, wrapping my fingers around them. Prickles of pain course through my fingertips. Not pebbles. Glass. Small, sharp shards of glass. Safety glass, perhaps.

Using my scored fingertips, I drag myself forward, an inch, maybe two. A huge weight behind me pins my legs to the ground. I can’t move them, can’t even feel them. I raise my head and see light. Not a lot of light, but light. Red light, bright at one end, dull at the other. I know what this is. I do. I can hear my heart thumping in the side of my head, can almost hear the gears of my brain creaking as they try to make sense of this weird red light.

A taillight. I let my throbbing head drop as a reward, a surge relief passing through me at this small achievement. It is a taillight. But why is it up there? What is up there? And if that’s up there, where am I? The questions whirl dizzyingly around my skull. What day is it? I struggle to remember. What did I have for breakfast? My eyes fix on the taillight, broken I realize, staring at it as if hypnotized. That’s why it’s brighter at one end.

More light. White this time, sweeping in an arc across me. I blink, dazzled by the brightness flooding over me. All around me I see fragments glinting in the new light, tiny jewels strewn across what I can now see is a road. The yellow line is inches from my nose. Why am I lying in the middle of the road? I try to drag my other arm forward, wanting to raise myself on my elbows for a better perspective on the world. It won’t move. Pain rocks through my shoulder, my chest and courses up my neck into my still aching head. The heavy metallic scent of blood hangs over me. When I glance back down at the road, I see the yellow line is smeared with red.


So, what do you think?