The past few days of my life have been filled with literal shit (seriously. There is a clog in our pipes and nasty stuff comes up in our bath tub), so I thought it might be fun to share a tiny bit of the novel I’ve been working on for NaNoWriMo.
This is from Chapter 1 of the novel I’ve temporarily titled The Vessel. It’s a Lesbian Paranormal novel. The main character, Lydia, was just dumped by her now ex-girlfriend and instead of sitting home lamenting her situation she’s decided to walk to the local liquor store to stock up before she and her band leave for a gig in the morning.
~*~
She settled on walking to the liquor store a block away and getting some Fireball whiskey. The night air was chilly when she stepped out into it and she wrapped her jacket tighter around her. Above a million stars were visible and as she walked she had fun picking out the Big Dipper and Orion constellations. Well. Doing so gave her something to focus on that wasn’t the chasm in her chest that was deeper and wider than the Grand Canyon.
As she walked past a wooded area the leaves on the trees rustled loudly. There was no breeze, the air was perfectly still. It wasn’t that making the leaves talk. Lydia’s skin crawled and she instinctively reached up to play with the quartz crystal necklace her mother had given her. She’d told her it was for protection, and that Lydia should never take it off. So she didn’t. She wore it every minute of every day, even in the shower. It was one of the few things she had left of her mother and wearing it made her feel closer to her anyway.
Her eyes scanned the trees looking for any signs of movement. Her fingers nervously played with the crystal as her heart thundered in her chest. She swore someone was watching her. She could feel their eyes on her. But the leaves made no more sounds. Whatever it was had either been on it’s way out, or was being incredibly still and just waiting for her to turn away. The liquor store was only a few blocks away. She could still make it. Not liking the feeling in her gut, she decided to sprint the rest of the way there. It would be just like her to get dumped, decide to get drunk, and then deal with something unsavory on the way to get alcohol.
The neon lights of the Budweiser sign in the window never looked so comforting as they did now. Only when she was safe inside the door did she allow herself to stop and catch her breath.
The Life Of A Raven 