Hey, word-nerds.
Here’s what I want you to do, if you’re comfortable with it. Some of you are presently in the midst of writing or editing stories — in particular, a great heaping helping of you ARTFUL MOTHERFUCKERS are probably knee-deep in the word slurry of NaNoWriMo now — and so I think it’s time to share a little teeny tiny sliver of the work.
Just a taste.
An amuse-bouche.
*smacks lips*
Take a sentence from the work and post it in the comments below.
I’d say to choose a favorite sentence, but I don’t want to hem you in too much — also possible you’d choose a sentence you feel that you just can’t get quite right (and if you are seeking help with said sentence, feel free to ask for exactly that).
So, go, deposit a sentence below.
If, again, you’re comfortable.
*stares*
*smacks lips some more*
*drools*
Tina Hammond says:
“Nothing says ‘classy’ like a well-dressed companion dog,” Red explained.
I write a paranormal romance series which features a blind woman who can hear the thoughts of her dog, Red. This is a line from Blind Luck: Team Red, book 6, my WiP.
November 10, 2014 — 10:11 AM
Kem Royale says:
Cool.
November 10, 2014 — 10:33 AM
Kem Royale says:
Dog Coco zips behind Jenny. [Coco has high-tech earmuffs strapped around her head to prevent sonic deafness from the abundance of sound waves from electronic platforms and ether transmissions.]
November 10, 2014 — 10:12 AM
Irina says:
One [of the fluorescent lights] is flickering, but when Seran points at it imperiously it sizzles and steadies.
November 10, 2014 — 10:15 AM
hearts_longing says:
I wish I had that ability. On-the-fritz fluorescent lights reealllly bug me!
November 10, 2014 — 12:21 PM
Mikey Campling says:
Don’t ask me what it was like on that first night – I’m not sure I can give you an answer.
1st sentence of wip.
November 10, 2014 — 10:21 AM
Dan Schwent says:
It smelled like an ash tray someone threw up in so I sprayed some air freshener on it and put it on.
November 10, 2014 — 10:22 AM
whimsyandmetaphor says:
I’d like to say great image, but I’m not sure that’s quite the right word. Well done, anyway!
November 10, 2014 — 10:45 AM
hearts_longing says:
College laundry strategy?
November 10, 2014 — 12:22 PM
milkaholicclown says:
haha sounds about right!
November 10, 2014 — 5:12 PM
tedra says:
Gross, but catching.
November 10, 2014 — 12:56 PM
Eric says:
He was going to starve to death in front of a table full of food, and he hadn’t even had sex yet.
November 10, 2014 — 10:31 AM
JD Savage says:
One of the woodchucks next to him, Aural, shouldered Trundle aside before plunging his pike into a demon coming over the wall.
November 10, 2014 — 10:35 AM
Cameron says:
The fortunate were glassy-eyed with fever, their minds too far away to fear the creature; others cowered, quaking behind thin sheets, shrinking from the walking corpse.
November 10, 2014 — 10:36 AM
J. L. Stibbards says:
“Each morning started with one mug of bullet proof coffee, aka non-prescription adderall, because small children smell exhaustion.”
November 10, 2014 — 10:40 AM
Jeannie Leighton says:
It was not my intention to start the day with a body at my feet but intentions are, I have discovered at times, not so well met,
November 10, 2014 — 10:42 AM
tedra says:
This is either a really good fantasy or a really good who-done it. I’m banking on a who-done it. Good job
November 10, 2014 — 1:00 PM
Jenni Stibbards says:
And immediately I want to know what happens next. Great sentence. ^_^
November 11, 2014 — 7:29 AM
Andrew says:
He could have sworn he had been in possession of his thumbs when he heeded his need to sleep, but perhaps not; some things are easily mislaid.
November 10, 2014 — 10:43 AM
Peg says:
Great choice! I want to read this.
November 10, 2014 — 11:09 AM
Stephen Dunscombe (@cythraul) says:
Amazing. 😀
November 10, 2014 — 11:53 AM
Damon Griffith says:
Wow. I really want to know what’s going on here.
November 10, 2014 — 1:14 PM
lalouziane says:
Before the stampeding herd reached them, Var’s whip flew through the air driving them apart.
November 10, 2014 — 10:45 AM
whimsyandmetaphor says:
“What a pertinent question,” Vathlin said, laughing.
Not actually in my current WIP, but it will be eventually; I put it in and then took it out because I decided I wanted to save it for a really significant moment.
November 10, 2014 — 10:47 AM
Mark Kappe says:
The supposed serving wench lay unmoving on the floor atop a bearskin rug, a thin stiletto blade next to her curled fingers; the white fur had already absorbed much of the assassin’s blood.
“We are unharmed,” the monarch said, in response to the unasked question.
November 10, 2014 — 10:49 AM
Lynn Johnston says:
Way to leave me wanting to read more. 🙂
November 10, 2014 — 12:26 PM
Elaina M. Roberts says:
The tension in the room just left the orbit of ‘pissed off’ and traveled straight to ‘what the fuck were you thinking’ galaxy.
From a WIP set in a scifi-lite world.
November 10, 2014 — 11:00 AM
Sofia Grey says:
Love it!
November 10, 2014 — 11:59 AM
Damon Griffith says:
Nice.
November 10, 2014 — 12:58 PM
Kem Royale says:
Super badass stuff you wrote. I want to grow up to write like you.
November 10, 2014 — 4:23 PM
Elaina M. Roberts says:
Thank you, Sofia, Damon, and Kem 🙂
November 11, 2014 — 11:27 AM
The Glitzy Faery says:
I was having trouble starting, but your post on beginnings gave me a kick start. It’s now this:
“Rosalinda stopped dead. The lights were on in her house.”
OK, two sentences. Sue me.
This is also a big deal because it’s set in Victoria Phoenix, AZ, and not everyone is familiar with how to actually turn on electric lights in a house yet.
November 10, 2014 — 11:06 AM
Luke Spry says:
TRUST ME
November 10, 2014 — 11:07 AM
hearts_longing says:
My hackles shot up at this…. Sounds ominous (though I could be projecting.
November 10, 2014 — 12:24 PM
Peg says:
“Instead, I heard a sort of hum and in this hum I was able to pluck out notes of thought the way a musician could hear notes in a symphony.”
November 10, 2014 — 11:08 AM
Davide Mana says:
“There’s a bathroom at the end of the corridor,” she said. “Hot water, soap. Wait.”
She stepped behind the screen and came back with a dark blue towel, neatly folded. She placed a straight razor on top of the towel, handed me the lot. The nicely worked silver handle of the razor was warm. “Don’t have a soap brush,” she smiled. “Sorry.”
November 10, 2014 — 11:09 AM
Katherine Hetzel says:
Gant reminded Mikal of a rat; sharp features, sharp intellect and a talent for sniffing out rubbish.
November 10, 2014 — 11:13 AM
hearts_longing says:
Love this!
November 10, 2014 — 12:24 PM
Lisa Oliver says:
Oh I like this 🙂
November 10, 2014 — 5:15 PM
JD Brophy (@PD4Bananafish) says:
The idea of kudzu binding me to Kendra, choking off ambition, tethering me to Burdock buried under the ivy, Ozymandias drowned in green, though I have no works for anyone to stumble upon, creeps me out big time imagining what it would be like to stay in town, keep working, settle down, and it is at this moment when I am tangled in thoughts that knot literal with figurative that Kendra moves her chair up against my chair and entwines her fingers with mine and puts her other hand on my chest and massages like she’s witching her aura through my breast plate in feelers to take root like runners and incorporate my heart as growing medium, transmogrifying it into so much blood meal to feed the daughter plants that will sprout from me, and I wish I didn’t picture my heart as a giant strawberry, but I have, and memories of working the garden with Mom mix with Mom’s dictum to treat girls like I would my sister, which looses so many emotional coils that I cannot stop the vision of my very being as a mutant trunk planted on a chunk of broken planet like the disembodied land fragments on the Yes Fragile album cover, so bent on survival through expansion to reach out from this place for more, more, God, please, more than this, that I explode in tendrils that wriggle out into the starry sky to blot out starlight, a vegetable Cthulhu dragging galaxies toward the black hole of its beak-jagged rictus like a horrid baby bird unquestioning what or how, only seeking, seeking, hunting and clutching and pulling to feed this insatiable appetite that will consume the universe until there is no me left, only thou and we, and “I am he as you are he and you are me and we are all together” from “I Am the Walrus” intrudes as Kendra stands and pulls me up and leads me over to the chaise lounge that Paula and Greg have abandoned, and I comply wordlessly because there is no me, and when she bears me down and lies atop me and I submit to the animal mechanics, my body responds automatically, even though locking lips with Kendra gives me the sensation that I cannot speak yay or nay because I have somehow swallowed myself like the ouroboros, and I get an image of myself as some inverted meat puppet controlled by the hand that undoes my pants and gets me hard despite my horror at realizing I think I am maybe having a bad trip, and the stimulation works as Kendra grunts with me and we cleave into that other beast until all I want is to come so we can disentangle because I have some work to do on myself to get back to normal, but then none of that matters because the animal roars inside me and I sit up and lower Kendra on her back and thrust until the chair is a nuisance we kick away as we rut in the dirt, and I know we are making noises loud enough to alarm Paula and Greg but I don’t care because I have to finish this if I hope to have any chance of getting myself back, and I don’t care if the guttural sounds I hear are hers or mine or ours, from pleasure or pain because the animal is out, and when I do come, it feels like something deep inside my skull ruptures as well, and searing light bleeds through cracks so that my exploding head lights up the campsite, and everything becomes so bright I imagine it is a conflagration so huge it is visible from space, were there anyone there orbiting over this very point, but there is nobody on Skylab right now anyway and no manned missions underway—
My protagonist narrator’s acid-trip free-association mind riff that references Ozymandias, Cthulhu, & Ouroboros in a run-on.
November 10, 2014 — 11:16 AM
David Wilson says:
Nice, you might want to add in some semicolon to vary up the structure. Just remember that both sides of the Semicolon need to be complete sentences in themselves.
November 10, 2014 — 1:29 PM
Richard (@RaW_writing) says:
‘Is not every tear a tiny prayer of some sort?’
November 10, 2014 — 11:24 AM
sheilasstephens says:
That’s lovely.
November 11, 2014 — 3:01 PM
Amy Lewis says:
“I had that kind of panic you get when you hear a snap after a fall, and you don’t know if it’s a twig you fell on, or your own leg twisted under you.”
November 10, 2014 — 11:25 AM
laughterinbetween says:
It reminded her of Indiana Jones, and for a brief moment, she got swept away in a bodice-ripping fantasy about a young, chiseled Harrison Ford bursting into the office to reclaim his treasured hat.
November 10, 2014 — 11:27 AM
gaeliceyes says:
LOL. Now that’s a fantasy I can get behind.
November 10, 2014 — 12:50 PM
tedra says:
Oh my gosh!
November 10, 2014 — 1:03 PM
lizfielding2 says:
A few people had turned when the door opened and the chatter died away until the only sound was the low thrum of a double bass
November 10, 2014 — 11:28 AM
Robbie Walters says:
What happens when the lessons we learn don’t make us safer, but make us easier to destroy?
November 10, 2014 — 11:31 AM
Evelyn says:
That is a damn good question. I’ve actually asked myself that quite a lot, lately, watching the different lessons people take away from the same event.
November 10, 2014 — 11:59 AM
Kem Royale says:
Intriguing.
November 10, 2014 — 4:26 PM
Evelyn says:
The next morning was cold and drizzly, drizzly enough so that the mist gathered into drops that plopped off the edges of roofs and dripped off the tips of tree branches.
(WIP is a middle grades novel, and the protagonist is a smart, observant, mildly introverted 10-year-old girl. This is how she sees things, how she thinks.)
November 10, 2014 — 11:31 AM
strongmekachan says:
The town was very much a reminder of how I felt. Dead on the inside, emotions boarded up behind thick plywood and plenty of obscene graffiti.
(I cheated. It’s two sentences.)
November 10, 2014 — 11:39 AM
Cari Hislop says:
Brilliant! I want to read more. The ‘obscene graffiti’ is like a cherry on top of a sundae.
November 11, 2014 — 3:12 AM
Jason Fryer says:
Wrapped in a warm tangle of sex and angel’s wings, Swan wakes to screaming.
November 10, 2014 — 11:44 AM
Alison DeLuca (@AlisonDeLuca) says:
Love the W’s. It makes me form a half-kiss as I’m reading this – lovely!
November 10, 2014 — 12:18 PM
Jason Fryer says:
Many thanks! Alliteration is my friend XD
November 10, 2014 — 4:51 PM
Tami Droese says:
Today wasn’t the day to overindulge in Moët, Ambien, and Jack Herer—my mind craved the sweet slumber medley—perhaps I’m still too chicken—I need a pedicure first.
November 10, 2014 — 11:45 AM
Miriah says:
An alien had taken up residence in his brain. Why wasn’t he freaking out?
“We are one chord temporarily enmeshed.”
“Not helping.”
November 10, 2014 — 11:55 AM
tedra says:
I bet this book will be funny.
November 10, 2014 — 1:11 PM
Luke McKinney says:
This is a call to arms and legs and cruelly censored genitals.
November 10, 2014 — 11:58 AM
Stephen Dunscombe (@cythraul) says:
I want to know. 😀
November 10, 2014 — 12:22 PM
Ro says:
“If it were anyone other than Slash, I’d say fuck it, let’s stay in… But I have to admit that I’ve had a thing for him since I was a kid. Other girls had Backstreet Boys and N’Sync on their walls. I had Guns N Roses, Metallica and Pantera! I wished so hard that James Hetfield would come and take me to Prom.”
November 10, 2014 — 12:10 PM
Rachel says:
The firelight flickered and danced, oblivious to the threat, distorting the man and giving him a convoluted and fluid look.
November 10, 2014 — 12:12 PM
Jon Chaisson says:
I look at the cassette itself; obviously he’s taken an old store-bought album, erased the print and taped over the top notches, and recorded over whatever was on it…he’s scribbled ‘Billow’ in a thin sans serif font with a Sharpie…that’s as lo-fi as you can get.
November 10, 2014 — 12:14 PM
Alison DeLuca (@AlisonDeLuca) says:
I love this. Lo-fi – excellent!
November 10, 2014 — 12:17 PM
Mike Voss says:
Sensing the knight’s reticence, Dog smiled, not the bright and inviting one he’d displayed a number of times already, but a more rueful and close-mouthed twist that told of his own lifetime of holding back until he knew a man better. “You don’t trust me, of course.”
Nothing much, but I don’t think I’ve got anything flashier just now -:) From a novelette that will be part of the Foreworld series on Kindle Worlds.
November 10, 2014 — 12:14 PM
Stephen Dunscombe (@cythraul) says:
Instead, I composed a text message: At this time and date, Lieutenant-Colonel Wilfred Gagnon of the First Armoured Squadron of the Governor General’s Foot Guards is hereby ordered to shoot his goddamn cannon at the fucking dragon!
November 10, 2014 — 12:15 PM
hearts_longing says:
I confess. I laughed so hard at this.
November 10, 2014 — 12:30 PM
Stephen Dunscombe (@cythraul) says:
… I may have bounced up and down a couple of times in response to your comment. 😀
November 10, 2014 — 12:34 PM
saucyruthie says:
Nice. If this is representative of the whole, I want to read it. We ought to have included book titles, too.
November 10, 2014 — 2:19 PM
Lynn Johnston says:
I second that!
November 10, 2014 — 3:27 PM
Stephen Dunscombe (@cythraul) says:
Sadly, it has no title yet. I have draft titles whirling in my head, but they’re all kind of awful.
November 10, 2014 — 11:18 PM
dangerdean says:
Read this and figured you must be Canadian. 🙂
November 11, 2014 — 1:49 AM
Stephen Dunscombe (@cythraul) says:
Correct! 😀
November 11, 2014 — 6:36 AM
gaeliceyes says:
Loving this so hard. Whatever is happening here, I really want to read it. Hope I get a chance! What great dialogue.
November 11, 2014 — 9:31 AM
Stephen Dunscombe (@cythraul) says:
I hope everyone gets a chance. 😀
November 11, 2014 — 12:45 PM
th3ind3p3nd3nts says:
You go through the events of the past few days and of your life, you remember stealing Wonderbread as a child. You have stopped shouting for help.
November 10, 2014 — 12:16 PM
Alison DeLuca (@AlisonDeLuca) says:
“My future includes chaos, Fort Knox, and lots of explosives.”
November 10, 2014 — 12:17 PM
hearts_longing says:
I NEED TO READ THIS BOOK
November 10, 2014 — 12:29 PM
Mike Voss says:
I’m ready to watch the movie 🙂 I’m pretty sure Bruce Willis is starring!
November 10, 2014 — 12:32 PM
Alison DeLuca (@AlisonDeLuca) says:
Thanks so much! I’m 60K in – it WILL be finished by the end of December. I’m on a mission!
November 10, 2014 — 6:13 PM
MichaelDouglas Jones (@MJonesStudio) says:
They do not sleep, these minds of men; they chatter and shake like tin tops in a hurricane.
November 10, 2014 — 12:19 PM
Jamie Greening says:
He didn’t have time for symbolism, or for a discussion of deutero-canonical literature of questionable origin and historicity, because he was nearing asphyxiation.
November 10, 2014 — 12:23 PM
Cari Hislop says:
I love this. You pack quite a punch into one sentence. I’m going to spend the rest of the day wondering why he’s being asphyxiated…is he being murdered? Choking on his dinner? Is he locked inside an air tight vault full of valuable books he won’t be able to read because he’s running out of air? Curiosity kills!
November 11, 2014 — 3:27 AM
mbawden2014 says:
“Of all the lily-livered, booby-brained, weak-willed pathetic pieces of pseudo logic I have ever heard IN MY LIFE!” she bellowed, “That is the rock-bottom worst! “
November 10, 2014 — 12:27 PM
hearts_longing says:
The sounds of fine dining clashed nicely with the darkness, sticky stained floor and smell of vomit and urine.
[While in a seedy pub, one of the main characters has cast an aural illusion to mask the hideous singing of the resident drunk. WIP is steampunk-ish with bits of magical fantasy thrown in.]
November 10, 2014 — 12:28 PM
Alison DeLuca (@AlisonDeLuca) says:
You fit smell, touch, sound, and sight here. Great job setting the scene for all senses!
November 10, 2014 — 2:10 PM
Lynn Johnston says:
“Nataya says I should only trust people to the degree that I understand what they want.”
“Sometimes you’ve gotta have a little faith.”
“Faith is the adoption of a belief in the face of insufficient data. A logical error.”
“It’s also a way to get sufficient data. To see if something is true.”
“That’s not faith, that’s a hypothesis.”
“Fine. Let’s hypothesize that we’ll come up with a better plan once we have more data. The only way to get more data is to let them bring us in.”
More than one sentence. 🙂 Conversation between my hero and the curious AI who’s the brain of the ship he’s in.
November 10, 2014 — 12:32 PM
Kem Royale says:
“Faith is the adoption of a belief in the face of insufficient data. A logical error.” Wow! Powerful and poignant. You go girl!
November 10, 2014 — 4:33 PM
Holly says:
Making this comment in the nicest tone of voice she can manage and means nothing more by the statement than a friendly reminder: Don’t forget to cite your sources.
November 10, 2014 — 5:09 PM
Lynn Johnston says:
Thanks for the feedback, Holly. What source would you expect me to cite in this passage? Has someone famous already stated this sentiment on faith in similar words?
November 10, 2014 — 5:47 PM
Holly says:
Descartes, Locke, William K. Clifford and William James. The ideas surrounding human belief have been under discussion by philosophers for hundreds of years. Your character is heavily paraphrasing these ideas. It’s an idea we’ve all heard at one time or another, which is why it’s so familiar in a back-of-our-mind way. Here’s a dandy little website from the nice folks at Stanford. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-belief/
November 10, 2014 — 6:01 PM
Lynn Johnston says:
ROFL! I was just trying to figure out how an AI might define faith by observing humans. Thanks for the references, Holly. Looks like some great reading that will help me think deeper about one of my story’s themes. 🙂
November 10, 2014 — 7:04 PM
Lynn Johnston says:
Thanks for the encouragement, Kem! 🙂
November 10, 2014 — 5:44 PM
Catherine says:
They listened to the new version of the song, with their vocals blending, twisting and turning together, rising and falling, leading and following.
November 10, 2014 — 12:34 PM
Janiera Eldridge says:
It wasn’t the throwing up he found erotic, but the humiliation that I had to do it after every time he made me gorge on food.
November 10, 2014 — 12:37 PM
brucearthurs says:
She asked, in a voice frightening for its utter calmness, “What exactly is it you need to lie to me about?”
November 10, 2014 — 12:40 PM
Mike Voss says:
Okay, I don’t need to read anymore today. Something in this just agrees with me utterly! Possibly because I recently read something similar, I think. Partly ‘cos it’s just very cool. I want to have written this sentence -:)
November 10, 2014 — 12:58 PM
tone_milazzo (@ToneMilazzo) says:
God sat His butt cheek on the sofa arm.
November 10, 2014 — 12:41 PM
milkaholicclown says:
cool
November 10, 2014 — 5:28 PM
kkellie says:
From my novel SOULLESS:
To my ersatz readers, I offer the following proposal: bear with me a little longer and I shall give you, in Chapter Three, a first-hand account of the day Tuck the Fuck nearly tore Eric Chance a new one.
November 10, 2014 — 12:44 PM
terrierwhisperer says:
Felixia hangs her head low in respect to Ronny’s decision, but is quick to raise it back up. It surely is not her place to lead, since she is part of defense maintenance, but her nerves of steel have fended against any and all misfortune. He puts his trust in her.
Damn dude, I have no idea how I am going to end up making a novel with these weak words. Somehow I will, lol.
November 10, 2014 — 12:48 PM