But that changes today. Today, I'm going to institute a new feature. I'm going to post the last paragraph I wrote each day. It'll keep me thinking about putting fresh content on this blog, and hopefully it will torment you all and make you want to read my books, so when we finally sell one, you'll be all OMG WANT TO READ IT CAN'T WAIT FOR RELEASE DATE.
First one's free. Then you gotta pay, kid.
So here's the final paragraph or so I wrote yesterday during my new energetic burst of writing-fu. (Bear in mind that this is all rough draft stuff, so parts of it are guaranteed to suck.):
Ordinarily, the sharp arc of his falcon’s-beak nose and his prominent front teeth – so distinctive and unexpected in the face of a king – made her fight to contain a smile. It was improper for the First Princess to grin like a dolt whenever her father looked her way. Today, though, she had no trouble maintaining the solemnity required by the court when Thutmose looked upon her. She straightened and dropped her gaze from his angled fierce-bird face beneath its imposing double crown. But there was no place on the Pharaoh’s person where her eyes might comfortably rest. They skittered over the glittering Eye-of-Horus pectoral on his broad chest, over his strong sun-browned hands lying still and sure on the arms of his chair, over the intense white of the long pleated kilt which fell like poured water over his knees to his sandals. And there her eyes rested at last, on the Pharaoh’s feet (and even they were like the feet of a lion), too shame-heavy to rise when the voice of Thutmose filled the room.
“Hatshepsut.”
She flinched.
“Hatshepsut, my daughter. This morning I received a report from the Temple of Amun that worried me greatly. I wonder if you can guess what this report said.”
I love the line about how there was no where for her eyes to rest. Nicely done!
ReplyDeleteEh, it's all right. I'm really not thrilled at all with the first 20,000 words of this book (and I've already re-written then twice.) At this point, I just need to get something down so I can get to the point where I really hit my stride, which usually happens around 30K words. Then I'll know exactly what the tone of the entire book should be like, and I'll go back and rewrite the entire first quarter of the book.
ReplyDeleteThis is always how I do it. The first quarter always gets trashed during revisions.
What I posted here isn't representative of my usual quality but it's what I wrote, and at least I wrote something useful! ;)