Pictures, Update and a snippet! (Patreon)

The last few weeks have been busy. I went on a writing retreat with 8 other authors. We stayed at in old victorian in Forest Grove, Oregon and it was really nice. Not only did I get a 25,000 words on the re-re-write of Curses, but I got to meet some new writers, and talk shop with old friends. Talking shop is a huge boon and I learned a lot during our long weekend. (Kendare, one of the authors pictured, has a new book coming out soon. If you haven't read her stuff, take a look. After I read Anna Dressed in Blood I basically tracked her down and made her be friends with me.)

It was really nice to have a little breathing room. Of course, for the sake of balance, that means I came home to chaos. School starts soon for us, so Smalls went to a few days of Running Start, which lets him try out Kindergarten. Plus he started soccer, and Bigs, who has been at football practice all summer, started official football practice and this week has two-a-day practices and WHAT IS THIS MADNESS? (I grew up with soccer. We don't do "two a days.") It was also Small's birthday, which means family descended in all its glory. Most of my family is wonderful...but not all. The "not all" parts make me very tired, even if they are on good behavior. Then part of one of my molars just...fell off. Which is not ideal, especially since I don't have health insurance right now. It's okay--I'm not in pain, and that tooth was mostly filling anyway, but now I get to have a crown, which is expensive. My husband, who does have dental insurance, but is currently topped out, woke up to tremendous tooth pain this morning and had to schedule an extraction of two wisdom teeth that he was trying to put off until his insurance reset.

Let's just say I'm very, very grateful that my mom is currently living with us and can help out with all of this madness. Ugh.

So, Curses. This will be the fourth complete rewrite of the book, and I hope the last. (I'm not counting all the partial rewrites, because UGH.) I think this one will stick. Up until this draft, Curses was going to be the "cleanest" book I'd written. (Which means no real violence, cursing, or sexy times.) This was not intentional. I'm certainly not against "clean" (for lack of a better term) young adult books. Readers have varying tastes and thresholds for things, and there should be a variety of books to chose from. I just tend to land on the upper end of the YA spectrum, which means blood and bad words and sex. So far in this draft, I blow someone up by chapter two. There's blood and glitter everywhere. It's pretty great, if I do say so myself. 

Because I'm trying to write this book as quickly as possible so that I don't lose my Fall 2020 publication date, I'm not sure how many East Bound posts you're going to get. We'll see how it goes. Until then, a snippet of Curses!

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“Do you think they’ll actually get married?” Merit stepped around a puddle.

Glendon thought for a moment. “Who can tell? Some people thrive on drama—they need a tempestuous love life. Whether or not it burns out?” He shrugged. “It’s hard to say.” He kept his eyes on the rooftops for a moment, both of them deep in thought. “You were quiet today. Did you want to talk?”

This was one of the things Merit liked about Glendon—he wouldn’t think different of her if she spoke or if she kept her own counsel. He wouldn’t judge her for anything she said. He simply listened, and Merit had realized that it was a rare trait. So she told him about her tea with her mother. He already knew about the circumstances of her curse, so she didn’t have to go over that again, thankfully.

After she was done, Glendon paused at a food cart, getting them a cone of roasted almonds. He handed the paper cone to Merit after he’d taken a few for himself. “Lady Zarla is a complicated woman. I do think she means the best for you, Merit, it’s just that as parents, well, sometimes what you think is best is not what your child actually needs. It’s hard to not let our own wants and desires color our vision of our own children, understand?”

Merit nodded thoughtfully as she popped a salted almond into her mouth.

“And with your curse…there’s a lot of guilt wrapped up in that, I think. If you’re cured and everything turns out all right, she can stop feeling bad.” Glendon shook his head. “That makes her sound selfish.”

Merit held the almonds out to him. “No, I understand what you mean.”

He carefully picked a few. “I’ll help, if you’d like. Host a few events. Introduce you to promising suitors.”

She smiled at him fondly. “I’d like that.”

“Consider it done—”He looked up as there was a loud clatter. A crowd had coalesced in front of them, people jostling and shouting. “Stay here, Merit.” Glendon Charles was a large man—tall and broad shouldered. He easily pushed his way into the knot of people. Merit of course followed.

When they finally made it through the mass of people, Glendon put an arm out to stop her. A human man kneeled in the middle of the cobblestones, a ring of space around him. At his feet Merit could see shards of glass and a cork stopper--at first she thought from Caen’s bloom. That was the tincture she saw the most because of her condition, so that was the first that came to mind. Surely this man was one of the cursed? Except she’d never heard of the bloom having this sort of effect.

The man was clawing at his cheeks, his eyes wild. Red welts carved his skin from where he’s fingers had already been.

“What’s wrong with him?” Merit asked Glendon, but a woman next to her answer.

“He’s gone goblin,” she said, her voice sad. “Told him no good would come of it. That power’s not meant for the likes of us.”

Merit couldn’t quite make sense of what the woman was saying but any questions died on her lips as the man started to howl. His face contorted, scales appearing, his voice becoming a rasping gurgle. His nails grew to claws, puncturing his skin. Blood flowed down his cheeks as his spine bowed back. 

Glendon grabbed Merit then. “Everyone get back!” He practically dragged her along the cobblestones. She looked behind her, desperate to see what was happening. They made it a few yards when everything went bright—a sharp white light that made Merit close her eyes. Sound disappeared, seemingly sucked right out of the air. She hit the ground, skinning the fat of her palms and her knees. 

Merit pushed herself up, her arms shaking. Her breath rasped in her ears, the sound loud in the muffled quiet. The air around her sparked, feather light specks of glitter flitted down like snow. Next to her she could see Glendon’s lips moving, his face etched in concern. She ignored it and stood, turning to see what had happened to the man.

There was blood.

So much blood.

The startling white of bone against the gray of the street.

But she couldn’t make sense of it. Just impressions of color as her brain refused to put the picture together.

Glendon tore her away then, moving her around the people still sprawled on the ground. The people screaming silently as Merit’s ears were still not working.

She lost track of the streets the wove through. Glendon pulled her along and she followed blindly. When he stopped it was so abrupt that she ran into his back. He waved down a hack, one of the hired conveyances pulled by mage-drawn creatures. Her mother had one of these, a creations so delicate it looked like a unicorn built from spun silver. This one was a practical thing—wrought iron in the vague shape of a horse. Glendon argued with the driver, eventually reaching some agreement as he shoved her inside.

Once they were in, they both collapsed onto the seats. Glendon handed her a handkerchief from his pocket, using a finger to draw a circle, indicating her face. She wiped her forehead, the snowy linen coming back smeared with red. Merit folded the cloth to a clean side, wiping her nose, cheeks, chin and lips. She was surprised by how steady her hand was. Finally sound started easing back in.

“What was that?”

Glendon rubbed a hand over the back of his head, staring at his own palm when it came back smeared with blood. He cursed. “Trouble. That, Lady Merit, was a whole lot of trouble.