Friday, June 15, 2012

Accepting a Challenge

Last week, my writing partner-in-crime went on vacation. And she forwarded on to me a number of "blog assignments." Even though I love her dearly, I am only taking up one of the many challenges. But it's the scariest one, by far. 


She gave me the:



Lucky Me. 


So, this is a writing challenge: to look into my current manuscript and put a very random part of it out there. Here are the rules:



Here’s what’s required:
  • Go to the 7th or 77th page of your work in progress.
  • Go to the 7th line of the page.
  • Copy the next 7 sentences or paragraphs. Remember, they must be as they are typed.
  • Tag 7 authors.
  • Let them know they’re it.
So this is one of those challenges that I am going to try--and it's super scary. The writing you are about to see is unedited. It has never seen the end of my red pen. I wrote it about a couple weeks ago. I write with a 'closed book' meaning that I am not apt to show anyone what I write until it's all the way done. Except for this little bit. 

You are about to see what's on page 77. Starting at the 7th line. And you're getting 7 paragraphs, because it's dialogue. If it wasn't dialogue, you wouldn't be getting so lucky! 

Easy? Well, for you it is. You just have to read it. And it's not going to make sense at all

So let me set the scene. It's early fall in 1946 in a living room at a farm in Wisconsin. Len & Antoinette are fighting about their daughter, Del, who is about to come down the stairs and make a life-changing announcement. 

  "She has to get up soon, Len. She can't keep moping around.
I don't want to keep doing her chores."
     "Patience, dear. She's suffering a great grief. Give her a
bit of time."
     "Time! I've given her four days. How much time does she
need?" Antoinette voiced bitterly. "I'm not surprised, you know.
I don't know how she convinced him to go out with her in the
first place. He's much better than she deserves."
     "Antoinette, she just found out from her father that her
boyfriend proposed to her rival. She's dealing with enough hurt
without your critical words."
     "Is it really true?" she asked in the grocery store gossip
voice, "did he really propose to Susie Hudson?"
     "Yes, and he even had her father's blessing. The Hudson's
couldn't be more pleased with the match." Len leaned forward in
his rocking chair. "That boy toyed with and broke my daughter's
heart. I could kill him for that. Wring his neck like a little
snake. . ."
     "Come now, Len, there's no need for such angry words. I'm
sure it isn't his fault. I'm sure Del did something to deserve
it."

I would tag other authors, but I don't know any others with a blog (that they admit to!). So you get the privilege of reading and savoring. 

Lucky you!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I like it.
Wish I had time to sit and actually read a book.