Teaser Tuesday: Kissing and Swearing

So it appears to be Tuesday again. Sorry guys. I have had All the Things happening to me lately: I have job interviews and finals and last classes and I met Tamora Pierce this weekend (!!! I promise you this will be a blog post) and I've won some writing contests and had readings to do and oh my goodness my brain might explode if I have to process one more thing right now.

Therefore, I have a teaser for you again, but it is the kind of teaser I know you guys like best: the kissing scene kind of teaser. Huzzah!

So, Maire has just attempted to beat up the Secrets Man, without much success, and he has in turn threatened Caleb's life if she doesn't do what he wants her to do. Then this happens. Enjoy!

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And then she bumped into Caleb before going in to dinner.

“Well, hello then,” he said, giving her his wide, cheery smile.

Maire could only gape up at him as suddenly she found her heart leaping into her throat. She felt strangely like she’d walked directly into a brick wall. There he was, whole, healthy, safe, and it suddenly occurred to her how terrible it would be if she lost him. How disastrous it would be if this boy, this sweet boy who seemed constructed solely out of smiles and good humour and kindness, were wiped out of the world by anything, least of all by Maire’s own carelessness. 

“Maire?” he asked, and she blinked at him, only just barely able to keep herself from continuing to stare. “Have I got something on my face?” 

She just shook her head, but then she furrowed her brows in as a strange, stupid idea formed in her head. Her eyes flicked up and down his face, from the quizzical expression in his blue eyes down to his chin, then up again, settling on his mouth. His shirt collar was hanging open, like the Secrets Man’s had been, and before she could stop herself, before she could tell herself that this was a terrible idea, she reached up on tiptoe, grabbed his collar to pull him in towards her, and pressed her lips to his. 

Caleb stumbled backwards, nearly sending Maire off balance, but he reached out an arm to steady her before she fell. She was just about to pull away, her thoughts screaming that this was a terrible idea and that she’d best run away right that instant, when Caleb tightened his arm around her. The gesture became not just one meant to keep her from falling; it became a proper embrace. And he kissed her back, then, his other hand coming up to brush her cheek. 

Maire felt herself leaning in to him even more, giving herself over to the kiss, and that was when she yanked herself away, stumbling backwards, her heartbeat pounding in her ears. She stared at him as he collected himself, as he let his hand fall back to his side now that his fingers were no longer settled against her skin. 

“Maire,” he said softly, blinking at her, “what-”

“Oh, bollocks,” she said, and she turned and ran, hardly thinking of where she was going.

 

Teaser Tuesday: Unexpected Friendships

Hello, dear blog readers! It's Tuesday, isn't it? I'm sorry. It's midterms week. And while this is my last ever midterms week (at least as an undergrad... I could always change my mind and go to grad school sometime...) (also LAST EVER MIDTERMS WHAT EVEN) and therefore relatively light in terms of workload, I still have lots to be getting on with.

So you know what that means, fair readers! It means a teaser. Here is a shiny new scene from my senior project, The Long Road Home. Maire was a bit ill the night before due to scarfing down her dinner after not having eaten properly in months at least, and Caleb helped her out. She still doesn't want him telling anyone about it, though.

I hope you enjoy this!

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“You didn’t have to kick me,” Caleb said, his voice quiet. 

“You were going to tell her about last night,” she snapped, noting that he looked rather like a defeated puppy but not quite caring. “I don’t want her thinking I’m weak.” 

“She wouldn’t toss you out on your ear after one day if you were ill-”

“I can’t afford to take that chance.” 

He tilted his head to the side then, looking puzzled, but she did not explain; instead she gave him a pointed look and turned away, walking further into the kitchen. Elizabeth greeted her with a “good morning,” a small plate of food, and another mug of tea. Maire made herself smile in return, even though the food made her nervous, before heading for an empty table at the back of the kitchen. 

It did not remain empty for long. 

“Eat slowly, remember,” Caleb said, sitting down across from her with his own half-finished breakfast. 

He smiled casually, then picked up his fork and began finishing off his egg. 

“I’m not going to shake you, am I?” she asked. She eyed her breakfast warily – she didn’t want to waste it, she could think of few things that were worse. But just then, with the memory of last night’s illness, eggs and porridge had never seemed less appealing. 

“Not a chance.”

“I can look after myself, you know. I don’t need saving.” 

“I’m sure you can,” he said, looking up from his plate. “Doesn’t mean I can’t help. Stick with the toast today, it’d probably be best.” 

Maire resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him, and suddenly she felt like something cold and hard had sunk into her chest. She wasn’t teasing Michael about all this. Michael wasn’t here; she’d never tease her brother again. 

She took small bites of the toast, chewing slowly, half afraid to swallow anything, but that cold weight in her anchored her, and even after she’d been forced to accept Caleb’s toast as well, she did not feel like vomiting any of it up. She turned to her tea, hoping the warmth might melt the cold out of her enough that she could work that day, when Caleb dragged her plate across the table towards himself and began eating her portion of porridge. 

“Oh, I see how it is,” she said, not quite certain whether she wanted to shout at him or burst out laughing. “You’ve only been kind to me to steal my breakfast.”

“No sense in wasting it,” he said with a shrug, his blue eyes bright with laughter. “You won’t be able to enjoy all this for a few days yet, so, in the meantime-”

“You’ve decided to help yourself.” 

He nodded, incredibly pleased with himself, and returned to her breakfast. 

“Caleb Monaghan, you are incorrigible,” she said, rolling her eyes and sipping at her tea. 

“Coming from you, I’ll take that as a compliment.” 

“It wasn’t meant as one,” she told him.

“Oh, I’m sure it wasn’t. But I’ll take it that way all the same.”

Maire shook her head, falling silent as she watched him finish off her breakfast. She’d never met anyone with whom it was so useless to argue; not even her father had had such a relentlessly cheerful manner of refuting everything she said. It was strange, speaking to someone so very optimistic. And yet at the same time – whether from the tea or Caleb’s smiles, she couldn’t quite tell – the hard, cold lump in her chest had eased somewhat.

Blind Speed Dating Writing Contest!!

So, this week's post comes to you a day early, because I am a part of Cupid's Literary Connection Blind Speed Dating contest!!! I am already in the agent round, so this post is for HONORABLE MENTION ONLY, but I thought I'd also enter the kissing scene competition portion of the contest because, you know, kissing scenes are fun.

So here is the kissing scene from my manuscript A TERROR OF DARKNESS. Avar, a werewolf, has just helped chase off some Parisian guards who want to arrest Rose and, well, chop her head off (this is the Reign of Terror, after all). Enjoy!

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“You saved my life,” she breathed. He grinned at her.

“You seem so surprised.”               

                                                                                        

Rose could not stop herself smiling; her breaths became short, giddy laughs. He was there, standing in front of her with that silly smirk on his face, there, solid, real, when she thought she would never see him again.

“You came back.”

“I came back,” he repeated with a nod. “I-”

He broke off, dropping his eyes for a moment, and when he looked up again he stepped in towards her, raising a hand to brush her tousled hair away from her face. 

“I finally found someone I could never run from,” he said. 

Words Rose could not say caught in her throat, tangled in surprise and wonder and something she could not define.  His hand, still resting gently against her cheek, tilted her face towards his, and he kissed her. 

At first, his lips were feather light and hesitant on hers, and for a moment Rose was convinced that she had never woken from those fevered and unattainable dreams. But no, it was real, beautiful in its impossibility, and her hands found his shoulders, pulling him closer to her. The cold, tight feeling that had lodged her chest after he had gone melted in an instant, chased away by his hand at her waist, his fingers in her hair. Rose gave herself up entirely to that moment, that kiss, letting everything else slide away, except the thought that for once in her life someone needed her as much as she needed him. 

Avar pulled away, letting Rose catch her breath, but she felt even more giddy with every fresh gasp of air. He looked guilty, but she could not stop smiling, hardly able to believe the strange and wonderful thing that had just happened. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I should not have presumed – we are – different, we cannot-”

Rose shook her head, silencing him. 

“None of that matters,” she said, her face an inch from his. “Remember? We are not so very different, you and I.”

And she reached up and kissed him again, his arms wrapping securely around her. None of that mattered; their differences were imaginary, and no one could tell her otherwise, not anymore, not ever, and especially not in that quiet little alleyway, a deserted street at the heart of Paris. Just then, for those silent, stolen moments, they were all that mattered, the only two players in a perfect and precarious world of lovely dreams.

About The Book

Hello All! So, my awesome summer intern friend Ari tagged me in her last blog post. I think this one is especially interesting and useful, so I am going to pounce on it (... a week later... sorry Ari... I might talk about Doing All The Things on Thursday...) I hope you guys are interested too!



1. What is the name of your book?

A TERROR OF DARKNESS

2. Where did the idea for your book come from?

Heh, this is kind of a long story. When I was a sophomore in high school, I was sitting with my friend Erin on a bus in the dark, on the way back from our annual band/chorus trip, and I said I'd been mulling over a retelling of Beauty and the Beast with a werewolf in. She thought that was awesome, so I wrote it on and off for a while. I finished it and started working on a sequel.

Then I went to college and asked a professor how one goes about publishing a novel. She introduced me to a student in the other section of her Intro to the Essay class - Kody Keplinger - who taught me how to write a query letter and told me that, seriously, I needed to cut my book in half if I wanted to actually pitch it. I managed to get it from about 163k (!!!) to 100k (!), and then I queried it. I got some interest, got some feedback, and then decided it needed to be reworked. I puttered around for quite a while, trying to find a good way to fix all the problems in the ms.

And then I rewrote the entire thing from scratch. The only thing that's stayed the same from the beginning are the central characters, who I love beyond reason, really.

3. In what genre would you classify your book?

YA historical fantasy. This might be a point of contention for some people, since there are werewolves in my manuscript. I do see this in the realm of fantasy rather than paranormal, however. In most paranormal books, I think, the werewolf/vampire/evil rabbit character has to keep that identity a secret, and there's an introduction to that secret world for a normal human character. Whereas in fantasy, elements of magic - in my case, a magical creature - are simply present and accepted in the world. Does that make any sense or am I losing my mind?

4. If you had to pick actors to play your characters in a movie rendition, who would you choose?

Um... well... Ben Barnes as Prince Caspian looks rather like Avar, I think... although that random kid I sat next to on the Tube once was a dead ringer for him. He was also wearing a fez, too; so much the better.

5. Give us a one-sentence synopsis of your book.

Seventeen-year-old Rose must break her family out of the most feared prison in Paris before they face the guillotine, with only the help of the werewolf who got them all into trouble in the first place. 

6. Is your book already published?

*grins hopefully at the Literary Powers that Be* Someday, I should hope!

7. How long did it take you to write your book?

Um... about five years, I think? Although that's from "initial idea" to "manuscript as it is now," not how long it actually took me to physically write anything. That I don't remember.

8. What other books within your genre would you compare it to? Or, readers of which books would enjoy yours?

Well, my query letter compares it to The Scorpio Races and A Great and Terrible Beauty, because that kind of mixture of reality, history, and fantasy is what I'm really gunning for when I write.

9. Which authors inspired you to write this book?

Well, goodness. Libba Bray to an extent. I think I was initially inspired by wanting to write my own version of Beauty and the Beast. After that, my obsession with the French Revolution and my love of the characters carried the project.  



10. Tell us anything that might pique our interest in your book.

It's a kissing book. *grins*




All right, there it is! Some information on A TERROR OF DARKNESS. I tag... anyone who wishes to complete this tag! (I know, I know... but d'you know All of Those Things I mentioned? I ought to go do them now. Until Thursday!)

But WHY is this a kissing book?

Hello all!

So, I was sort of blown away by your responses to my last teaser. Wow guys. You really liked it? (And I'm honestly not trying to fish for compliments here. I'm just astounded that you seem to enjoy something I am MAKING UP COMPLETELY. Let me reiterate: when it comes to the romantic scenes, I have NO IDEA WHAT I'M DOING.)

I will tell you honestly how I wound up writing that scene. (I swear this has a point.)

Step one: sitting on my friend Anna's floor, writing away for once as she's doing homework. Hit 45k. Also hit that scene. Instant roadblock.

Step two: after rather a while of agonizing over it, write the scene. Inform friend Anna that it is terribly difficult. She offers to lend romance novels for research.

Step three: realize I did it all wrong. Complain to roommate Katrina. She offers to read it over. Go NO NO NO NO NO.

Step four: rewrite it. Stare at it for rather a long time. Fix it again.

Step five: Roommate Katrina reads it, declares it acceptable, and I can keep going. Whew.

A lot of agony went into only about four hundred words. And why? It's only four hundred words. I'll probably tweak it again. It's not even really the most important thing going on. It's a subplot.

And yet at the same time, it IS the most important thing. It's what everybody looks for, what everybody talks about. THE HUNGER GAMES is a completely different genre, but the point still stands: what did people talk about all the time? Not whether Katniss was going to beat the Capitol, but which boy would she choose?

So what is it exactly about the romantic subplot that draws us all in like moths to very bright lights? Is it the "living vicariously through books" element? In genres like fantasy, sci fi, paranormal, and dystopian (I am waiting for spell check to recognize that "dystopian" is in fact a word), is it the necessary human, relatable connection that allows us to enter the rest of the author's world? Both? Neither? What?

Some might argue that in YA that romantic subplot is especially necessary because that's all teenagers care about, but I would beg to differ. There do exist teens who do not give a damn about romantic relationships (*raises hand*). And there are teens who care more about other things, who put their time and effort into other aspects of their lives, even if a romantic relationship is something they have.

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm as much of a sucker for a good romantic subplot or heck, even just a romantic plot sometimes, as anybody else. I was raised on Disney movies, thus I am a hopeless romantic of the worst variety. I'm asking these questions of myself as much as I am anyone else. Why do we place so much importance on these things?

I was having a conversation with said roommate Katrina - I was going into writing another romantic scene and doing some more agonizing about it, because that's what I do. I said "one of these days I'm going to write a book that hasn't got any romance in it at all so I won't have to deal with this nonsense." And she immediately said that no one would read it.

Of course, I instantly thought of two of my favorite books - INKHEART and THE THIEF LORD - that have no romance going on in them, but really, those would probably be classified more on the MG end of the spectrum than the YA end, wouldn't they?

So my question is this - would you read such a book? I doubt I ever will write such a thing, because, as I said, I am a hopeless romantic in spite of all my complaining. But I'm curious. It would probably be a tough sell, but would there be any interest at all? Why or why not?