Category: #CleanWIP

It’s Friday! Here’s the scoop on #CleanWIP Relaxed Fridays.

Featured image is a minor adaptation of a photo by Aaron Burden.

It’s Friday! Here’s the scoop on #CleanWIP Relaxed Fridays.

Photo is a selected portion of a larger photo by Mohamed Ajufaan.

Laurean Brooks ~ Journey to Forgiveness is the book I wrote and dedicated to my parents. It is loosely based on their lives (romance) in 1938 Chicago. Witty and sassy characters, goofy ones–but all interesting–grace the pages of this heartwarming story of a mission trip to rebuild a small town after 5 tornadoes destroy homes. A time when the last of Chicago’s gangsters were captured. Or…were they?

It’s Friday! Here’s the scoop on #CleanWIP Relaxed Fridays.

Incidentally, we started off this Relaxed Friday article with a cute kitten in a tree photo but we’re going to move quickly forward to a thousand zombies and tortured metal. Let’s get this Friday party started with an excerpt from Time For Blood. This work-in-progress is part of The Blood Series by Michael Lynes and it’s expected to be released November of this year.

“Ow!” He let go of the handle and began rubbing his arm. “Okay, I get it. . .the air stinks like a thousand zombies and our door is all beat-up. Plus, the whole place is a wreck, and it’s pretty spooky in here.” He gestured toward the scratches and dings along the doorjamb. “But look. . .whoever wrecked this place might have tried to break in, but as far as I can tell the door hasn’t been forced. Second, besides the locks, we also have a little magical protection on the space. Even if the Undead had managed to break down the door, I don’t think they would have gotten past that.” I nodded reluctantly as my heart began to slow. “So let’s go in, grab what we came for, and get out. No muss, no fuss.”
He turned back to the door and inserted his key, unlocking the deadbolt. He reached to turn the knob. Before he could touch it, the door swung open without a sound. Pearl’s hilt jumped under my hand and her light flared sun-bright. I felt my heart stop. A howling wail filled the air and scores of dead-white arms erupted from the darkness. The door disappeared with a shriek of tortured metal as it was ripped it from its hinges. We sprang back, drawing our swords as zombies surged through the shattered doorframe.

Laurean Brooks shares with us today from Beneath A Macon Moon.
“Born with a silver spoon in her mouth” described Jaela’s life to a tee; but if her mother’s behavior was any indication, Jaela’s perfect world was about to shatter. The late afternoon sun slanted through half-closed blinds, glinting off the ballerina atop the music box. As a child, Jaela found comfort in the melody. The music box had not been wound since Dad died. The compulsion to hear it grew until it overcame Jaela’s fear of invoking bittersweet memories.
She picked up the box and wound it. Beautiful music flooded the room. Jaela hugged it close and waltzed around the room, soaking in the tinkling melody of “You’ll Be In My Heart.” 
When the music died, she dropped the lid. But it would not close. An envelope, folded to fit the interior, was wedged in the music box, preventing it from closing.
Who had put it there, and what did the message say?

Scott R. Rezer shares from a work-in-progress.
Anger had gotten the better of her, but now she tried to bring it back under control, difficult as it always was when talking to her brother. “And because of it, I almost spurned a chance for happiness simply because the man I fell in love with is a commoner. Do me the favor and don’t bother to lecture me, Anton, about marrying a man beneath my station, for in all truth, he has more nobility in his common blood, than you or I have in ours.”
He wagged a finger before her face as if scolding a defiant child. He clenched his pipe between his teeth. “If you do this, Johanna, if you marry this commoner, this haberdasher, you do so without my blessing. And in so doing, you give up everything—your title, your wealth, the security of everything you’ve ever known—and for what? Love? Life needs a few more assurances than simple love.”
“If love isn’t enough, Anton, then none of those things hold any meaning. It’s a pity you have forgotten that, or maybe, you never did.”

It’s Friday! Here’s the scoop on #CleanWIP Relaxed Fridays.

Photo by Earl Chinnici captured January 3, 2013. #FlashbackFriday

It’s Friday! Here’s the scoop on #CleanWIP Relaxed Fridays.

Photo Earl Chinnici December 18, 2014

Arthur Daigle shares with us a short piece from William Bradshaw and Urban Problems:
“Hello!” an echoing voice called out. It took Will a few seconds to spot a pit dug into the trail. It had been covered with a thin wood board coated with dirt, blending in perfectly until some unwitting person stepped on it and broke through. Whoever was trapped in the pit called out again, “Is anyone there?”
“We hear you,” Will replied. He thought about who could be trapped in the pit, and then covered his face with his hand. “Excuse me, but are you the puppet person who came to warn us?”
“Yes, that’s me,” the puppet person replied. He had an echoing voice, like he was speaking inside a box, but he still sounded friendly. “I don’t wish to be a bother, but I was wondering if you could lend a hand. This pit is proving a tad inconvenient.”
“See, this is why I don’t like you guys making so many traps,” Will told the goblins. “We get an ambassador—”
“President,” the puppet person corrected him from inside the pit.
“A president comes to visit and he ends up in a pit!” Will shouted. “We either need to cut back on the traps or have someone around to keep them from catching innocent bystanders.”
“It’s not like we killed the guy,” Mr. Niff protested. He leaned over the pit and asked, “You’re alive, right?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Exasperated, Will said, “Just help me get him out.”

Laurean Brooks shares from To Trust Her Heart.
Amanda Wilcox marched through the door of Tyler Law Office, fuming. She’d wanted to look her best for the interview. But when she started across the street, a dark-haired man in a sporty convertible, sped by and splattered mud across her buttercream trench coat. How she’d love to give the inconsiderate bum a piece of her mind!
The silver-haired receptionist welcomed Amanda and sent her directly to the attorney’s office. “Good afternoon, Miss…Wilcox, is it?” The attorney’s penetrating gray eyes raked her before he looked down at her resume’.
Amanda’s breath caught when she recognized him a the man who had slung mud all over her. “Yes-s.” Should she reprimand him and thereby kill her chances of obtaining a position as his secretary?
She needed this job. As a young widow, she was penniless. Her philandering dead husband–his body found in his mangled sports car along with that of his young secretary–had gambled away all their assets. She even stood to lose their home.

It’s Friday! Here’s the scoop on #CleanWIP Relaxed Fridays.

To crank up this party, let’s visit a WIP of Scott R. Rezer: The Haberdasher’s Wife, expected to be released in the spring of 2020.

Josefa pulled harder on his hand. “I’m thinking there will be a much better gift waiting for me at the end of this hunt as a reward for bringing me out in this frigid cold. Am I right?”

“I guess that depends on your definition of a reward,” he said and sprinted past her as the falling snow began to thicken, laughing. Josefa squealed with delight and ran after him.

We encourage our frequent contributors to let loose on Fridays and share teases and news from both works-in-progress and published books. Here’s some fun from Journey to Forgiveness by Laurean Brooks. (A heartwarming, emotional romance.)

Jenny looked up and met the gaze of the luggage thief she’d encountered in Kankakee.

His cerulean blue eyes danced with mischief as he flashed his pearly, white teeth. “I never did get your name.”

“Get away from me!” she hissed.

He persisted. “Sorry we got off on the wrong foot. Do you think we could start over?”

“Over my dead body!” Jenny glanced toward the Ladies’ room. Where was her aunt when she needed her?

“Now, we wouldn’t want that,” he breathed. “You’re too cute to die.” His eyebrows pulled together. “You don’t really believe I wanted your vanity case, do you?”

His brows arched when she didn’t reply, but he pressed on. “How long will you be in Chicago?”

She glared at him, her heart racing. “None of your business.”

A stout middle-aged man approached the table and the unwelcome guest hovering over her. “Are you ready to go?” the man asked her obnoxious intruder.

“Be right with you,” he replied before turning back to Jenny. “Who knows, sweetie, we could meet again. I’ve heard that good things come in threes.” He winked, then swaggered out the diner door.

It’s Friday! Here’s the scoop on #CleanWIP Relaxed Fridays.

Let’s kick off the party like it’s 1938 with this excerpt from Journey To Forgiveness by Laurean Brooks.

Where was Austin? She’d seen him leave a minute ago.
Something stirred inside the church bus. Jenny flattened her back against the metal building and inched closer for a better look. Her heart hitched when through the open bus door she spied Austin through the open door of the mission bus, kneeling before the strongbox. He reached into it, scooped up a stack of bills from the mission fund and counted them. He returned some of the money to the box, stuffing a larger roll into his shirt pocket. The metal lid slammed shut. Jenny fled back inside the the shelter, tears streaming, and her heart pounding against her ribcage.
Tears streamed down her face. The man she loved was a thief!

Let’s drop in on Will and Domo. (This time we’re visiting William Bradshaw and Fool’s Gold.)
“This is a new level of weirdness even for you, Will,” Domo said.
“I’m just gardening,” he replied. “Why does everybody act like I’m biting the heads off dolls?”
“That’s something the guys would accept, even appreciate. This just plain doesn’t make sense. Why are you growing food when you get it for free?”
Will leaned the hoe against the fence and wiped sweat off his brow. “I thought it would be a nice gesture to the innkeeper.”
“I don’t follow you.”
Will pulled his king contract out from his pocket. “My contract lets me eat free anywhere I go, but I always go to the same inn since it’s the only place nearby. The innkeeper feeds me three free meals a day, and it’s got to be costing him a bundle. It won’t be so hard on him if I grow some of my own food.”
Domo stared at him. “Is this that ‘fairness’ thing you keep going on about?”
“What’s wrong with thinking about other people?”
Domo pointed his walking stick at Will. “You were taken off your world and tricked into being our King. You don’t get paid. Three quarters of the planet’s population hates you. You’ve almost been killed dozens of times. What’s fair about that?”
“Nothing,” Will said. “But just because other people aren’t fair to me doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be fair to other people.”

It’s Friday! Here’s the scoop on #CleanWIP Relaxed Fridays.

Photo by Catalin Sandru

With permission from the author, we’re again eavesdropping on Will and Domo to start off our theme-free Friday. The author, by the way, is Chicago-born and raised Arthur Daigle and the fun exchange below is from William Bradshaw and War Unending.

“You’re up early,” Domo said to Will.
“Blame Vial. The boys said you had some mail for me?”
Domo held up the stack of letters. “I was just finishing with it. Let’s see…hate mail, hate mail, you may already be a winner, death threats. The University of Eastwich granted you an honorary expulsion. You got an anti-invitation from Kervol Ket.”
Will stopped in front of Domo. “I know I’m going to regret asking, but what’s that?”
“You know how good old Kervol got married?” Domo asked.
“He married Princess Marisa Brandywine?” Will didn’t try to hide his surprise. He’d once held the princess prisoner. He didn’t want her, and his attempts to return her to Kervol had been rebuffed. Brandywine was the most annoying person Will had ever met, which considering he was surrounded by thousands of goblins was saying something. It amazed him that someone even as stupid as Kervol would marry her.
“Shocking, I know,” Domo said. “Anyway, the lady’s expecting their first child, and Kervol sent out invitations to celebrate the birth. He sent you an anti-invitation. You’re not supposed to attend the festivities, and the only gift he’d like is to hear you died in a horrible accident involving a potato peeler. Basically he’s rubbing it in your face that you’re a social pariah.”
“Charming.”

How about a little more eavesdropping? This time from the opening scene of Scott R. Rezer‘s Shadow of the Mountain: A Novel of the Flood. Not to worry, we always get the author’s permission before spying on their characters.

The sudden cry of a woman in travail rent the stillness of the air. At the sound, Noach tensed and stood uncertainly, turning towards the tents of their small settlement. The waiting had grown agonizingly long; the birth of children often did so—especially with firstborns. His nerves frayed with the waiting, his body as taut as a drawn bowstring. Death was too often an unwelcome shadow at the miracle of birth.
Soon, he thought. It will be very soon now.
—And then what, old man, whispered the voice of his own nagging doubts. This one will be born, and then there will be others. Men will multiply upon the earth. In time, there will once more be rebellion and bloodshed and wars. Sin will have its due.
“No,” he breathed vehemently. “There will be peace and harmony at last in the earth.” It was a familiar argument he had often waged against himself in the past nine months. The outcome was always the same.
—Is that what you think? Have you learned nothing? Men are incapable of such nobility: only of evil and more evil.
“This time it will be different—it must be,” he said. His hands balled into fists at his side. “The errors of the old world cannot be repeated. They cannot; they will not.”
—Oh, but they will, his own malevolent thoughts whispered, mocking him with laughter. Open your eyes, fool, and look around you. The errors of the lost world are but beginning anew. Death hovers, eager to devour the sinful. Watch; and wait. Listen for the cry of this child for which you await so desperately. It will be the lustful cry of sin being reborn into the world. And there is none born of men who can ever change it.
“Of men… no,” Noach whispered, smiling, remembering another, far older, promise. “But of a woman…”

It’s Friday! Here’s the scoop on #CleanWIP Relaxed Fridays. Let’s drop in on Will and Domo from William Bradshaw and a Faint Hope, book 2 by Arthur Daigle to kick off the party.

Domo walked around the chair and studied it. “What’s this?”
“This,” Will said proudly, “is what we humans call a chair. It’s the latest fashion where I come from.”
“That was either sarcasm or proof you shouldn’t do standup comedy,” Domo said. He poked the chair and watched it wobble. “Doesn’t look like woodworking is your thing, either.”
“No, but if I want a chair this is the only way I’ll get it. I can’t get one from the nearby human villages, what with me being broke and them expecting money for doing work.”
“Scandalous the way peasants behave these days,” Domo said. “We do have our own carpenters, you know.”
Will filed down the leg some more and tried sitting on the chair. The legs still weren’t even. “I thought of that. I asked four goblin carpenters to make me a chair. I wanted a bed to replace the pile of rags I have to sleep on, but I figured I’d start by asking for something small.”
“And?” Domo prompted him.
“Chairs shouldn’t have more legs than centipedes.”
The four dysfunctional chairs Will had received (and burned as firewood) weren’t proof that the goblins hated him. Quite the opposite, they liked and even respected him. That didn’t change the fact that goblins were stupid and crazy. When asked to make something as simple as a chair, they felt the need to make improvements. While he couldn’t actually sit on the chairs, and they’d looked like they were dreamed up by an impressionist painter and built by a one-eyed, drunken chimpanzee with arthritis, Will could at least take comfort in knowing there was no malice involved.

Speaking of birds, here’s a little teaser from Joanna McKethan‘s Stone of Her Destiny – Kenna, the heroine, is learning falconry from Lane.
“There now, ye see? He’s all yours. He’ll love you forever. Don’t mistake him for a pet, all lovey-dovey; they are always and still, birds of prey. But they will be faithful. Remember that.”
“Oh, I thought Bonnie Blue was a lady.”
“No, remember Bonnie Prince Charlie was a man,” he said, teasing.

We’re not quite done with the party.

“I had no beginning. I will have no end.” The voice rose up from the seated figure, whispering into the void. He lifted his gaze, focusing on the formless zenith. His right eye was a spinning orb, half Darkness, half Light; the other was a piercing shade of blue. His robes too were ever-shifting, at once light and dark and all-colored, patterned with the same mystic symbol. “The words are indistinguishable, and meaningless.” ~ from Michael Lynes‘ latest release, First Blood (The Blood Series Book 2), which released November 1st of this year. More specifically, the excerpt is from the third chapter, Time.

We’re on a roll. Let’s enjoy one more teaser before the weekend.

Carrie picked up the bag and walked to the door. When they were outside the general store, Aunt Em stopped her. “Did we get any mail?”
Carrie reached into her skirt pocket and handed over the stack. Josh’s aunt frowned at the letter on top. “What does Miss Leah want with Josh after all this time? I’ve a good mind to toss this in the wood stove.”
Carrie’s thoughts exactly. “No, we can’t. The letter belongs to Josh. He has a right to read it.”
Aunt Em snorted. “You would have to remind me. It’s temptin’ to accident’lly drop it along the way. Leah’s hurt Josh enough. I don’t want him hurt any more. ~ from Laurean Brooks‘ Not What He Ordered