Revisions, revisions, revisions! Also an excerpt!

[naomi_jay]

I carved another chunk out of the revisions on SILVER KISS this afternoon. My aim is to have the second draft done by the end of September, and I'm on course. I'm slowly working out the problems I was having with that difficult secondary character, as well as clearing up the many, many typos caused by the Search and Replace adventures.

Then I got bored and popped open Wild, which as loyal readers will know, is a great big bloody mess of a first draft. But I love it. I love it with the same deep and unholy love I usually reserve for Matt Berry, and I will make it good if it kills me. I've worked through the first two chapters, switched the location from America to England (Liverpool, to be exact), changed a few names, polished up some prose, and my God but I have fallen in love with this story all over again. Deep and unholy, I tell you. So in honour of that renewed love, here's a Saturday Snippet:

 

Lizzie jolted awake in a cold sweat, the howl of a wolf ringing in her ears. Breathing fast and shallow, she rolled over and saw Harris stretched out in the bed next to her. He was snoring lightly, one arm thrown across his face, the other hanging over the side of the bed. The herby, musty smell of cannabis clung to him. The bed covers were jumbled around his legs, leaving her body bare and exposed to the cool rush of air flowing through the open window.

            Trembling with some emotion she couldn’t name, she slipped from the bed to stand at the window. Night winds tickled her naked skin, tugged at her tangled curls. It seemed to whisper to her, wicked whispers of forbidden pleasures, of thrills and highs far greater than anything mere drugs could provide.

            She gripped the windowsill, listening to the darkness. Every one of her senses seemed heightened, driven to fever pitch by that vivid dream. She’d tasted change. A soul-deep, bone-melting change.

            This is the drugs, she told herself, digging her nails into the wooden sill. Too much coke and an over-active imagination. Just go back to bed, go back to sleep and in the morning everything will be normal.

            She closed the window and turned away. Silence fell in the dark room. It was abruptly shattered by a deep, melancholy howl.

            Dogs, Lizzie told herself, frozen in place. She couldn’t turn back to the window, couldn’t move towards the bed. One of the neighbours’ dogs. Probably chasing a cat or something. Something normal.

            The bedroom window overlooked the parking lot and, beyond the lot, the cluster of houses that made up Toxteth’s residential area. Streets and alleys, inadequately lit by flickering burnt orange streetlights. Ordinary. Familiar. A landscape she saw every day of her life and one that had no place for wolves. And all she had to do prove that to herself was look out the window.

            She counted to ten and turned around.

            She screamed when she saw the shadow in the parking lot.

 

Comments

[catephoenix.livejournal.com]

Well, being a native Scouser, you just made my day.

[naomi-jay.livejournal.com]

Cool! I went to university in Liverpool - I have so many great memories of it.