Pre-Nano Update and Other Schtuffs

Those who may have noticed, I didn’t post an excerpt on Sunday.  I had every intention of doing that, I was distracted with some shopping and cooking.

The cooking made the missed night well worth it.  First off, I made my homemade spaghetti sauce and that took a while to get perfect.  Plus why I needed to do some shopping.  Secondly, I braised 10 pounds of chicken leg quarters for broth.  That required my attention after dinner was over.

I now have eight pints of some delicious chicken brother to set back for cold weather.  I just may borrow mom’s huge stock pot, buy some quart sized mason jars and set us up with some homemade tomato sauce.  It would be a good idea so all we’d need to add is meat and pasta.  That’ll be another day.

For now, we are staring down the dark and dank throat of NaNoWriMo.  I’m both nervous and excited.  I want to start writing this strange, and I hope, funny novel.  Dark of Duck (I may just drop the ‘of’ and just call it Dark Duck) is supposed to be funny and I’ll be listening to a lot of Mel Brook’s movies and other comedies, including some of my favorite sitcoms.

It’ll be more for the turn of phrases and puns to help hold up the descriptions of the antics of the goofy minions that bungle the orders given by their demon possessed leader.  The MC, the demon-possessed duck, will have other problems, such as a snarky wife who really runs the show, and a flamboyant hero who’ll come traipsing through to thwart his attempts at domination.

I have done some thinking on this, however.  If Dark Duck is to have this much trouble, then he’s got to have either a very young demon or a low-level demon who is more of a mischief-maker down in Hades.  So, we can imagine the conversations these two must have.

Now, should Dark of Duck peter out, I do have back up to complete the 50k word count.  I still have more stories to write to add to last years NaNo novel.  It needs at least four or five more to make it a decent length then a bit of Segway between each story to tie them together while letting them be stand alone stories.

The Sunday excerpts will resume this weekend.  They’ll be mostly from my NaNo novel.  If I remember, I’ll make daily posts about my progress.

Good luck on Nano!  Have fun and don’t sweat the details.  That’s for after NaNo.

Sunday Excerpt #excerpt #amwriting #fiction

For those who are wondering what is going to happen next, you are about to see.  Sunday has come again and that means a new excerpt to read.

Looking back, I think I ended last week’s excerpt a paragraph or two too early.  My apologies if this one seems a tad disjointed.  It wasn’t intentional.  My main concern is keeping these excerpts short to tantalize.

As hinted, this one is picking up where we left off last week.  Mindy is taking care of Jason as he wakes up from his forced nap.  Then, Sabrina comes back from her meeting with Reyna and gets to talk with her captive.

He sounded like he was in pain when she finally peeked around the door.  Mindy’s heart went out to him, but she couldn’t let any of that show.  Not now.  Not when there was so much at stake.  Sabrina wasn’t the only one being controlled by the Society.  But, she couldn’t think about that right now.

Listening to him groan again, she slipped into the room with the steaming cup and the bottle of aspirin.  She barely made a sound as she walked over to the bed and set down the cup.  After clearing her throat, she spoke softly and masked her accent.  ”Lay still, my friend.  You’ll make the migraineworse if you thrash and look at the light.”  Then, once she was sure she had his attention, she added, “I’ve brought you something to help lessen the pain.”

The look Jason gave her was just shy of pure malice.  He bared his teeth at her and flattened his ears against his skull.  She stood in shadow with just a little of the dim light from the hall highlighting the silver-gray of her tail and the dull sheen of the damp coat she still wore.  ”I don’t fucking want what you got, bitch.”

Mindy shrugged.  He could deal with the headache his own way.  She did what she was asked to do.  There was no way she was going to force the antidote on him.  As she turned to leaved, she spoke airily, “Your loss.  When you decide you want to end the headache, there’s aspirin and tea on the table.  Enjoy!”

Whether it was a hidden streak of malice or by accident, she let the door shut loudly which elicited a snarl of pain from Jason.  She stood and listened, smirking to herself before heading back to the living room.

It was only three in the morning.  Barely.  As much as she wanted to get some sleep, she had her own work to do and not a lot of time to do it.  Just thinking about it made her wish she hadn’t found Sabrina in the practice room.  But she just knew that her feline friend could help her, too.  She hoped, she could.

###

Hours later, Sabrina returned. Her entrance was quiet, with the exception of the click of the locks as the bolts slid into place. The apartment was quiet.  Only the faint tick of the clock and the sounds of the neighbors waking up were heard over the soft snoring from Mindy where she dozed on the couch.

Peace and quiet at long last. She thought as she sat down at the table and gazed out the window at the cloudy sky. I hate having to put my friends to the test like this, but I have to figure out who I can trust the most. I don’t know if I can trust her. And Reyna… I’m not so sure about her, now, either.

“Nothing is what it seems,” she whispered to herself.  Sabrina glanced at her sleeping friend, wondering if she could trust her as much as she used to.

Thinking about her past, and all she had lost, she nearly choked.  She did own Gerin a lot.  He gave her a place to call home, a family, if she wanted to call them that, and education, and a job.  Of sorts.  Assassination wasn't exactly a job she wanted even if most of the ones she killed deserved it.  What she found with Felix made her happy.

Another sound in the apartment brought Sabrina out of her thoughts. In the bedroom, Jason had finally awakened and was wrestling with the sheet that was covering him. Somehow, it had become entangled in his legs and was keeping him from standing. Just as she got to the door to peek in, the fox fell back onto the bed and was cursing at the sheets wrapped around his legs. The sight of it was funny, but this was no time for levity.

Before entering, Sabrina made sure to pull her hood up so her face was hidden by the shadows it cast then pushed the door open. The reception she received wasn’t surprising. Jason was furious at being drugged and caught in a set of sheets of all things. Somehow, it seemed quite humorous to her, and a chuckle escaped before she could stop it.

“What are you laughing at?” He asked with a growl while tugging the sheet free from his feet and standing. His eyes flashed with his obvious anger while he patted his person to find his weapons. They weren’t there. Mindy thought ahead and removed them.  She knew he’d look for them when he woke up.