Post a Bit of What You're Writing

[PapSett]

It might be fun to post a few paragraphs of whatever project you are working on right now. Here is a random selection from my 'Healing Hearts':

As the van came closer to the exit, Hannah glanced at Jesse; the windshield wipers were keeping rhythm with an Elton John CD and the air conditioner was pumping cool air into the van, but there were beads of sweat standing out on Jesse’s forehead, his knuckles white as he gripped the dashboard. “You OK?” Hannah asked gently, and he swallowed hard before nodding.

“I gotta do this.” He gulped. “It’s not going to get any easier.” Hannah slowed as they approached, flipping her turn signal on. “Stop.” He breathed. “Pull over, please.”

“Jess, I can’t…” she glanced in the rear view mirror, and saw that there were no cars behind them.

“Please.” Jesse repeated, and she slowed further, pulling off on the shoulder of the ramp, putting her hazard lights on. Jesse stared out the window into the rain; the guardrail was dented and twisted, but whether it was from his accident or another there was no way of knowing. He dug into his pocket and pulled out his key ring, now with only a couple keys left on it. There were two fobs on it, a leather one with his initials monogrammed on it, and a small, clear plastic horseshoe with a four-leaf clover encased inside it. It was the horseshoe he removed from the ring, looking at it for a very long time. “This was my mom’s.” he said quietly, the muscles of his jaw working rhythmically. “She had it on her keys the night she…” His voice caught in his throat and a single tear ran slowly down his cheek. “The night she died. It sure didn’t bring her any luck.”

“Jess…” Hannah said softly, touching his forearm. He shook his head, swiping the tear off his cheek.

His fingers tightened around the charm. “I’m OK.” He said after a pause, then he lowered the window. “I guess she saved the luck for me, huh?” he kissed the bit of plastic. “Love you Mom.” He whispered, flinging the key ring out into the grass in almost exactly the spot he had been cut from his car not so long ago. “OK, Hannah, we can go now.” He sighed, raising his window.

[Baldwin]

Well, yesterday I finished a tv script and submitted it to the competition linked in the thread on that topic. Here's a snippet:

BELINDA: Does she look like the Antichrist to you?

WILLIS: What?

BELINDA: Over there, the banana woman.

We see Theresa Maginot, wearing her yellow fleece, looking in windows on the other side of the mall aisle.

WILLIS: The hot-looking woman?

BELINDA: She's not hot, she's Deke's first and third wives.

WILLIS: Who the hell is Deke?

BELINDA: My ex-husband, and that woman's third and fourth husband.

WILLIS: How does that happen?

BELINDA: She married some poor schmuck, he divorced her, she married another one, he divorced her, she married Deke, he divorced her, Deke married me, divorced me, married her again, and divorced her again.

WILLIS: So, she's available?

I'm taking the rest of the week off, helping friends work on a house this weekend, and then getting back to work on an unfinished screenplay. Here's a piece:

RUDY (fondly): I love your smart mouth. You actually make fishing interesting.

MARILYN: Really?

RUDY: Whenever I smell bass, I think about you and I get hot. Marilyn, you make me feel like I was maybe 56 again.

They both toss their cones carelessly behind them onto the pier. Rudy half rises from his chair as he touches Marilyn's face tenderly.

MARILYN (Gazing into his eyes; an intimate, throaty murmur, husky with lust and some exasperation): Jesus, Sweetie, why can't your fucking wife die already?

Then the penguin shows up.

[iampunha]

"Your baby is gone," I said.

She slapped me across the face. "Don't give me bloody excuses! Just give me back my child!"

"Your baby is gone," I said.

"So we can travel back in time sixty years, help some random woman who got raped, but I can't have my baby back?"

"No," I said.

"I could jump to back when I was pregnant," she said, "and then come back."

"That would undo --"

Both of her hands reached for my neck, her body lunging. I dodged, and her weight carried her to lie face down on my bed.

"I DON'T CARE ABOUT THEM, I CARE ABOUT MY BABY!"

I'll be jumping off from there when I do my weekly writing session later today.

[CrashMyBicycle]

Well, technically, right at the moment I'm writing character background articles, but this is the regular story, about vampires, that I'm taking a little break from to write them. It may help to know that this takes place at a grocery store, though you could probably figure that out:

Jeremy turned to leave, only making it a few feet before the man’s hand caught his arm in a sure, tight grip, pulling him back. “Dude!” he said sharply. “Let go of me before--”

The man did not let him go, but pulled him around to face him, fixing him with a gaze that seemed to melt the words in his mouth. He was extremely handsome, to the point where Jeremy couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed it before -- bright blue eyes, dark hair that turned up at random at the ends and features that looked like the kind of thing that inspired artists to carve people out of marble. He didn’t look like the normal weird drunks or pot-stupid college students that normally came in to buy Doritos at 3 in the morning -- he was the kind of person you saw in movies, not in real life. “My name is Christophe Feuilly-LaMarche. What is yours?” he asked, in a voice that seemed to brook no refusal.

“Jeremy,” he whispered, feeling confused, tired suddenly. “J-Jeremy Myers.”

“Jeremy,” Christophe repeated. “That’s a pleasant name.” He smiled softly, reaching up to touch Jeremy’s face. “I’d like you to come home with me. Will you do that, Jeremy?”

“I...I’m working,” he said, feeling completely addled, knowing he should be running, should be hurling expletives at the man, but finding he had no will to do it. “Still working, for another three and a half hours.”

“I do not see any chains holding you here,” Christophe said, his voice washing over Jeremy like warm, pleasant water. “You are a free man. What I want to do is not work--not at all, much easier, much more pleasant.” He smiled again, looking very pleased with himself, as though he spoke absolute truth. “And perhaps you will find you never have to come back here. So, come along now,” he said, offering one hand to him as he took the shopping bags out of the cart with the other.

Jeremy shivered, trying to resist, his mind screaming at him as he took Christophe’s offered hand. “N-need--help with the bags?” he managed, feeling drunk, like he couldn’t make enough connections in his head to think about anything.

[TV time]

The other day I was visiting with a woman I know, and she said something to the effect that she didn't understand men. At first I thought I was mumbling again, but then I realized that she wasn't talking about me specifically but my gender in general.

I just shook my head. She is another of those females that is under the impression that men have depth and that there is something to understand regarding men. This concept must come from watching day-time television or reading Harlequin Romances or something, because nothing could be further from the truth. We men have no depth.

Let me try to establish this with an analogy which may help make my point. In the swimming pool of life, we are the kiddie pool....No, no, I take that back. We men are not the kiddie pool. We are that little depression you walk through that is filled with highly chlorinated water before you actually go out to the pool. That's how shallow we are.

I tried to explain this to my wife one night when she was saying profound things like "What is the essence of our relationship?" and "Why of all the people in the world, did we manage to pair up?" (I should point out that these days she doesn't sound quite so romantic when she asks that last question - Which reminds me, why do women insist on talking about these strange topics at 2 a.m.?). However, she was having trouble understanding my explanation and said it was probably my fault. And I believe she had a valid point. It was partly my fault. "But when we were dating you were deep," she said hopefully.

I told her she wasn't exactly accurate. I pointed out that when we were dating she thought I was deep because, a) She loved me; and b) I would say phrases that I had memorized from the bumper stickers on cars in front of me in traffic going over to her house. And I have to admit I probably did sound very intellectual when I said things like, "You know, Chicken Little might have been right, after all!" or "What if they gave a war, and nobody came?" I never knew what the phrases meant, but I bet they sounded deep.

"How could you lie to me?" she asked. "You never gave a hint..."

"Actually I did," I pointed out. "Didn't you ever pick up on when I randomly said things like, "Visit Wall Drug," or "I've seen Old Faithful" or "Stay in Amarillo tonight?"

"I just thought it was a sly and possibly a sexy innuendo that I just didn't get, and I thought it just showed another level of your depth."

"But I have no depth," I tried again to communicate to her. "Men have no depth. We are the shallow sex. Give us a beer and the remote control, and we are completely happy. Given enough beer we may not even need the television to go with the remote control."