Snippets

So how many people realized that my post yesterday was about Friday, and it was actually Thursday? Oy! That just goes to show you how crazy my last week or two have been! =)

Yesterday's quiz was fun for THURSDAY but now we need something else for the real Friday. And I feel bad for Friday, like I ignored him or brushed him off. Poor Friday.

So to make it up for Friday, let's do something REALLY fun.

Writers, today is for you. I want you to share a snippet in the comment section of a novel you're writing just for fun, or a novel you wrote a long time ago, or a novel you play around with but know more than likely you'll never consider for publication. Does anyone have something that like?

I did, but I actually wrote something new in that regard last night. I've been in limbo waiting for various news the last few weeks, and now that my revisions for my Christmas novella are finally done and approved, I needed a creative break. Writing with no pressure!

So, I sat with my laptop in the dark and penned a few pages of a novel I'd LOVE to write but know I can't. Mainly, because of the research involved. I know NOTHING about the character's career, and to do the novel justice, would have to spend months researching. It's not a practical move for me right now, but who knows, maybe one day!

Here's a little bit of it....


Dust fairies shimmered and danced inside the beams of sunlight pooling on the hardwood floor, staining the glossy surface with liquid gold. Mechola Heber watched, envious of their easy rhythm. No instructors calling commands, no competitive glares. No pressure, no reviews, no protesting ankles. Just dancing.

Mechola caught her own gaze in the floor-to-ceiling mirror as she bent into a stretch, one pink-slippered foot tucked against the barre. Madame Odette would be in to start rehearsal soon, no doubt arching her thin black eyebrows in silent surprise that Mechola was the first to warm-up. But today the walls inside her sorry excuse for a shared two-bedroom apartment closed in, and while the dust fairies mocked Mechola with their grace, their presence remained preferable to the incessant litany twirling through her brain with much less elegance. Failure. Failure. Failure.
She leaned forward and rested her forehead against her raised knee, then switched legs and performed the same stretch. Her hamstrings didn’t argue anymore, in fact, most days Mechola wondered if her ligaments and muscles had turned to pure rubber. Gumby Girl, they nicknamed her in junior-high school, when she showed off her skills in gym class one morning before she knew better.

Had that only been ten years ago? It felt more like a lifetime—a lifetime of early mornings, crash diets, bloody toes, and solitude. And for what?

Mechola used to know.

The all too familiar thump of a cane sounded against the floor, and Mechola flinched. She straightened from the barre and curtsied to Madame Odette, head bowed. “Good morning.” Mechola might have graduated from the School of American Ballet and perform within the New York City Ballet company, but respect was demanded—and rarely given—by Odette.

A snort and a slight incline of her chin was the only response the instructor gave as she whisked her way across the floor to her position at the head of the room. One by one, Mechola’s fellow dancers filed silently inside, lining up at the barre and stretching as she’d done. Odette tapped a rhythm with her cane as they moved through the grossly familiar warm-up, one Mechola could do in her sleep and often did, at least in her dreams. Eat, sleep, breathe ballet. She saw the bumper sticker once when she was in second grade and thought the idea sounded heavenly.
Now it just felt cold.

“Did you see last week’s review?” Aimee Norton’s black bun barely reached Mechola’s shoulder as they bent into a plie.

Mechola stared at her reflection in the mirror as she crossed her feet into third position and plie’d again, working to keep her traitorous expression from revealing her emotions. Cold. Cold. Cold. She’d read the review, all right, and leave it to Aimee to point out the only black and white type that could make Mechola see red.

She switched to fourth position and made sure her next plie went deeper than Aimee’s. “I don’t care to read reviews anymore.” True. “One person’s objective opinion doesn’t change anything.” Liar.