Yeah, I’m late. No wait! I’m early! Sunday! Snippet Sunday! It’s still alliterative.

From Bitter NIght, since it’s coming soon:

Her gaze ran over him. He was maybe seventeen and cute beneath the ugly uniform and acne. His face was still curved with baby fat, but in a few years he was going to be a lady-killer. She felt her face hardening. In a few years, he’d be a tempting target for a witch. He blanched at the sudden violence in her expression and took a step back. She heard his heart start to race and smelled the sour scent of fear. In a minute he’d pee his pants.

Fuck. She grabbed her change and the coke cup and went to fill it. She leaned her hip against a bolted down chair and studied the floor until her burgers were ready. No danger here. No danger here. She repeated it to herself, hoping Todd would feel it and believe. When he plopped the two grocery-sized sacks on the counter, she grabbed them without a word and strode out the door.

And now, your turn. Bring it on. Show me what you’re working on.

I remember reading somewhere as an undergraduate an essay by a writer. Someone had approached him and asked him what he needed to be a writer. His reply, slighly flippant, was “first you have to like words.”

Here’s the thing, as flippant as that might sound, it’s very true. And I LOVE words. I love to learn new ones (I get words of the day from dictionary.com) and I pay attention to words in books and look them up. I have dictionaries of very specific kinds of words, like the one called Home Ground for land and water masses. I have a Describer’s Dictionary. And I have a a Visual Dictionary so I can details right. And it goes on. I love to flip through them and read them.

Today, in revisions, I got to use the term: oriel windows. Isn’t oriel a lovely word? And it’s perfect! No, I”m not telling you what it is. Go look.

I know you’ve heard this from me before, but as I get into rereading this book (aka Crosspointe 4), and remember I’ve made a point of NOT going back and revising or reading, but have written it straight through, so this is my first real reading of it as a whole, I can say this:

Holy KRAP Batman! It doesn’t suck! I like it so far. Even the the necessary info-dumping background bits aren’t as heavy handed as I feared. Whoohoooo!!!!!

And some of you have asked, so explanation: This was going to be called The Traitor King. I thought it would focus more on one of two characters. But it took a left hand turn and that title just doesn’t fit. I think Cursed By Sylveth, which was the original title of The Turning Tide might work better, but not sure if that makes me happy. I will be trying to figure it out as I revise and then later when my betas read and tell me things.

I can go into more detail, but that might be spoilicious for The Turning Tide, so if you have questions, ask them, then I’ll answer them in a spoiler warning post. KK?

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