Sneak Peak - The Blood of Life (Patreon)

Earlier this month, I took a week off from work and attended an online writing retreat. I've been working on edits to Scars of the Golden Dancer, but I needed a break away from the book. Instead of finishing edits on the novel, my goal for the retreat was to outline The Blood of Life. This is the novella I plan to write about the characters from "Loving You is Wrong."

I went into the retreat with some great news too; "Loving You is Wrong" won a Leo Literary Award! I'm so happy the judges felt the story was worth honoring, but that doesn't mean I can write a novella based on this story. The piece itself is short, and while I've had some ideas I want to explore with the characters, I still had many questions going into the retreat to answer for myself. I have been scribbling down notes for the book the last few months, but I had yet to develop a coherent plot. As you can read in my post about outlining, I did have the intro scene I shared previously, and I also had an ending for the book I had written. Between these two points though, I just had rough ideas.

I dived in, and after a week of dedicated work, I finished the retreat with an outline for the book spread out over eight chapters. I wrote some key segments for the book to help me understand what I was doing. As part of that, I rewrote the intro. I still need to finish Scars before I can write this book, but I plan to write the first draft of the book by the end of the year. 

I'm excited by this project, and I plan to use what I learn here to write a sequel to Scars of the Golden Dancer titled Shadows of the Spotted Swordsman. That assumes The Blood of Life doesn't go from being a 35,000-word novella into a full-blown novel. Still, with the plan I've got in place, I think I'll be able to write this much quicker.

Also, I'd like to share the new intro I wrote for the novella.

It’s been a hundred years since that night, but I remember it as if it was only yesterday. The fangs that sunk into my neck and stole my life away are forever burned into my mind. I cannot forget that moment, that feeling of helplessness. I was his prey, and nothing more. To him, I was a vessel to be drunk till it was dry and then tossed aside unwanted and unneeded. He cared not for what happened to me afterward even though he must have known what his curse could do.

He was sloppy, That’s why they found him and killed him. As for me, he left me where I fell, on the road to my family’s estate. Whoever buried my lifeless body didn’t do their job right and perform the rituals to stop the curse, because in the cemetery is where I found myself when I awoke the next night, hungry and desperate to feed, forever changed.

The first ten years were hell as the hunger ripped at me and I did things I will never wash the stains away from. The next ninety were miserable suffering spent trying to gain control of myself, trying to understand who I had become. You would think in hundred years someone would have realized I wasn’t dead and dug up the plot, but I guess when everyone you know dies, there’s no one left to ask questions. Maybe my parents didn’t believe what the gravediggers told them when I escape from the coffin because the headstone is still here. Maybe they knew I would someday need closure.

“Was he a relative of yours?” asks the priest from the church the graveyard is attached to. He’s carrying a lantern for both of us.

“You could say that,” I say, leaning down to touch the stone, running my black furred digits across my name. “I owe him my life.”

“I heard he died suddenly, violently,” says the priest.

“He did.”

The priest comes and places a hand on my shoulder. “You should come to the chapel and pray, my son.”

“I can’t father.” I look up at the old wolf looking down at me in his vestments. “I just can’t, but if you could say a few words for him, and all the family, I’d appreciate it.”

“Of course, I’d be happy to. The family were all red foxes like you?” he asks.

“Yes indeed.”

If my request to pray out here in the dark of night seems odd to the priest, he chooses not to say anything. Maybe he knows who I really am, maybe he doesn’t. I don’t plan to stay long enough here for it to matter. He prays for the souls of my parents, my sister, and me. He doesn't ask why a fox in his late twenties is pining over tombstones for people who died long before he should have been born. Instead, he says a blessing and reads by lantern light from a prayer book he produces. I mouth the words with him and bow my head.

When he’s done, he looks at me. “Peace be upon you,” he says.

“And to you,” I say, “and thank you for this. I’d like to be alone now.”

The priest nods and walks back to the church and the rectory. When he’s gone, and I’m finally alone, that’s when I let myself finally cry, the tears of blood dripping onto the ground. I never did find out the name of the man who cursed me, but I wish I had. I’d have cursed him to hell then if I could have, but it’s been too long to be angry anymore. Now I just have sadness and a dull ache from a hunger I can never truly satisfy.

Tonight, I prefer to starve.