A Meme For Your Thoughts?

Oh, I got tagged for one of those fancy writer meme things that’s going around.  I feel so… so included!  Jmmcdowell was kind enough to include me in her list of tagged writers for this.  You should go read the excerpt she posted from her own WIP (Work in Progress, for the just-now-initiated), Death Out of Time.  I’m looking forward to getting more of her work at some point.

So, for the Lucky 7 Meme, I’m supposed to:

1. Go to page 77 of your current MS/WIP
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines, sentences, or paragraphs, and post them as they’re written.
4. Tag 7 writers and let them know.

Okay, I’m going to start with my list of tagged people.  One that I would deeply love to tag with this won’t be because she just had a baby last night and I know she’ll be running between the new baby and frantically trying to get any sleep for the next little while. I don’t want to stress her out and besides, I doubt she’ll have time for blogs for a little while.  But she knows who she is and if she decides she wants to join the fun, she should consider herself tagged.

1. Justina Williams
2. Shannon M Howell
3. Phyllis Moore
4. Sean
5. Tanya Spencer
6. Meredith Mansfield
7. Julie Gabrielle Anne

Okay, I’m looking forward to seeing their excerpts  Now, to follow the rules myself, sort of, in my own special way as usual.  This is from Bound, as I don’t want to use the later books in the trilogy (I hate spoilers, really, even when it’s not my writing).  I confess, I didn’t count the lines/sentences, I started a little before line 7, and you’ll all just have to live with that. It does start on page 77 though, I promise.  I like this part though. Hopefully you will too.

*    *    *

Fay wasn’t sure if what she wanted to do was within her grasp, but she had to try. Reading a trace was usually something that required a pair working together, but she didn’t want to ride further without some idea of what had left this trace. She closed her eyes and laid her fingertips on the pulsing yellow in front of her, ready to yank them away at once.

A very faint sense came to her, wind redolent with scents. Buoyed by this success, she pushed it aside and let another come to her, a bounding feeling. Running, she thought, the one who left this trace was running through the forest. In wonder, she pushed that aside too and let something else come. Dirt, between toes and claws. An animal, she realized, not a human, and probably a predator. She pushed that away but then nothing replaced it, though she was still aware of the things she had already sensed.

She knew she should feel good to have even gotten that much, but it wasn’t enough. Though she knew the creature had to be magical in nature to leave a trace, she hadn’t gotten anything that would tell her what it what it was. She needed more. She could not rush them into the situation blind. She ignored the tingling in her fingertips and place the rest of her hand, the palm and full lengths of her fingers down in the trace. It was like a floodgate opened to her. A torrent of sensations blazed through her, fleshing out the things she had seen. The scented wind became the telltales of prey it could hunt, deer, squirrels, rabbits and others. The running became the lower vision of a beast, leaping through the undergrowth, darting around trees, snapping at a rodent startled into movement by its passage. The feel of dirt became the give of soil under four feet as it pounded through the forest. There was more though, beyond those sensations and visions, close enough to know that she could get more than these purely physical sensations, but not close enough to read.

The tingle was racing up her arm and her fingers felt flayed but she pressed down hard on her hand, clawing her burning fingers into the dirt, and then it was there, the more she had wanted. Thoughts ran through her mind, their tenor marking them clearly as not her own. It’s real prey was close, not these pitiful things that were no challenge. It raced through the forest as the midday sun warmed its back through the occasional break in the canopy overhead. The creature knew that the old man would be destroyed this day.

*    *    *

So, there you have it.  Now to head back to writing The Nine.

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~ by Julie on March 31, 2012.