When you find yourself hanging by your ankles over a vat of acid as often as I do, the time you used to spend panicking and terrified is now just time to think. In my case, about why on earth that happens so damn often.

People think I’m just the damsel, that it is my job to be kidnapped and used as bait to start yet another epic fight between hero and villain. And while it does kind of suck to be reduced to such a role, in my opinion it’s better to let everyone think that than them really knowing the truth. The truth of who I am, what I am and what I can do.

“What’s the matter, Mary?” The voice pulls me from my thoughts.

I open my eyes and instinctively look up. The motion is small but still enough to send me swinging slightly, just like a pendulum. My shadow skims the surface of the pool of acid just a few scant inches below the tips of my long, thin, mouse-brown hair.

“Mary, Mary,” says my captor, seated in a chair safe distance from the edge of the acid-pit. One leg is crossed over the other, giving me hints of the red lines in the soles of his boots as he bounces the foot up and down impatiently. “I don’t expect you to scream any more, but it is too much to expect a little banter from you before your hero shows?”

Anyway, to share a sample, here’s my rough-and-definitely-unedited prologue.

Liverpool, England. 1927.

I died in a pool of blood on my bedroom floor. My throat had been torn open and the boy I thought I loved – that I thought loved me – was responsible for it.

My mind should have been nothing but thoughts of betrayal, of mental cries of anger, but while those things were there it was another thought that held sway over my dying mind. As my killer swallowed down the life that bled out with each slowing heartbeat, my thoughts were of my mother.

More specifically, how angry she would be when she saw the mess.

As is understandable, I was not the most coherent person at that time.

I had fought him the entire time, and the signs of the battle were everywhere. Books had been knocked off shelves and the collection of figurines my grandmother had given me – eighteen in all, one for each birthday – lay cracked and broken where they had fallen.

Around me lay the shards of the full-length mirror that had shattered when he had thrown me into it, all its pieces like the countless flakes of a twisted snow angel created by my death throes.

Even as more of my life seeped out of me, pushed out by each slowing heartbeat, I struggled. Pathetically, it was true, but it was enough for Thomas to lift his head from my throat and laugh. I tried to answer him but he was sitting on my chest, making it even harder to form my dying breaths.

More hot tears leaked from my eyes as he lowered his mouth back down to my neck and continued to feed. Both my hands scrambled about, trying to find something, anything, to get him off me, to let me die without anymore of his violations – or even better, save my life. Finally my right found purchase, fingers and palm bleeding as they curled around the sharp edges of a large shard of glass.

I made one desperate slashing movement above me and Thomas howled in pain; I slashed again, harder, emboldened by the sounds he made. He lifted his head so I could see my handiwork: one thick gash on his neck, and another along the cheek I had often touched, along the high cheekbone I had often thought was a mark of his perfection.

“You… you little…” Thomas began but did not finish. Above me, his eyes focused on the blood that was dripping from his face and onto mine. The blood that fell into my mouth and that I, with disgust and effort, automatically swallowed.

“Bastard,” I spat out, my first word in some time. “I hate you.”

“And I love you!” he replied excitedly. The words that had once thrilled me now terrified me. How could he say that to someone he was killing and enjoying killing so much? “You have given me the most fantastic idea!”

What idea could he have had? I suddenly felt even colder than I already was.

Unfortunately, the terrifying idea that came to my dying mind was nothing compared to the horrors that would await me with his actual idea.

He raised his left wrist to his mouth and bit into it, just like he had done to my neck earlier. Then he forced the bleeding limb against my mouth, holding my nose to force me to swallow.

As his blood – it tasted so strange, not like any blood I had accidentally swallowed while alive, or drunk since my death – trickled down my throat he explained his plan. “I love the way you fought me, not like all the rest. It was such a shame that your defiance was not going to last. But then you, in all your cleverness, had to show me how to continue our wonderful little game. I knew you would be special and you proved me right.” He smiled down at me although his eyes did not focus, clearly too lost was he in his little fantasy world. “Do you understand, my sweet Viola? We’re going to play this game forever. You are going to be just like me. Forever.”

My scream of horror was muffled by his wrist and the blood that had already started to transform me.

For the past two days I have been listening to Guillotine by YADI and after listening to it once or twice a story started bursting from my head like Athena. It’s a glimpse into the background of a minor character from another work.

I’m still working on the first draft but here’s the beginning of the story. Please excuse the draftiness.

She had not killed in some time.

Why should she have to when she had plenty of humans willing to kneel before their queen and offer their blood, humans who proudly displayed the scars on their wrists from her delicate nibbles as proof of royal favour?

She did not have to kill now, either. At least not personally.

She could have sent in a small army of humans armed with their barbaric guns. They were more than willing to sacrifice themselves for their queen and her consort.

Or she could send in her people to complete this task. They were stronger than humans and could easily overpower those monsters in the traditional way.

But she did not. Even with her rusty killing skills, even if she had to do it alone, it was her consort they had taken. Thus it was going to be by her hands, her fangs that he was going to be avenged.

Anyway I am finally back to working on Winterheart and thought I’d share a tiny bit from the first part, which was written at the start of November. I hope you enjoy it.

“The queen of the snow bees lives up in the clouds, the thick black ones like over there. Although sometimes she has a castle high on the mountains. From the sky, or from the mountain – wherever she is, it’s always very high up – she looks down at us and what we are doing, and she sends the little snow bees down to us to spy on us and report back so she can learn about us.”

By this time Kyle and Gabrielle were sitting on the window seat, where Annabelle had joined them; all three teenagers were listening in rapt attention, and even Beatrice was silent, humming no more.

“At night, during the winter, she comes down to earth and wanders the streets. She looks through the windows at all the happy families and all the sleeping children, and she envies us all.”

“Why’s that, Nan?” asked Annabelle.

“Because we are warm, and we are loved. Those are two things that she is denied thus she wants.”

Anyway, I realised that I have yet to post any NaNo snippets, so here we go! The rough, unedited opening paragraphs of Winterheart – I have warned you. Also known as the scene that made me go “so apparently my novel is about evil snow”.

It was going to be a very white Christmas that year.

The snow that fell from the clouds hanging ominously above London was not heavy but it was continuous. Indeed, there was not a time when someone glanced out the window and did not see at the very least more than a few flakes of snow fluttering down towards the thick layer of cold white that covered the streets and the roofs of the houses and cars that lined them.

If it was possible, people stayed inside, wrapped up warm and gathered around the heaters and fireplaces that were available to them. Those who were unfortunate enough to still have work and errands to run – as life does not stop simply because of snow, especially when it was only a few days until Christmas, and thus there was still much to be done – bundled up as much as they could before braving the cold weather outside the safety of their homes.

But it was as if something was looming in the air that warned people to stay inside if they absolutely had to. Not just because it was cold and perhaps not the safest time to drive, but that there was something out there that just simply was not right. Something worrisome, something dangerous, something that could only be avoided if one stayed inside and did not look at the countless white flakes that danced in the air, riding the small breezes as if only they were allowed to enjoy the cold season.

As if it was only safe for them. Or perhaps unsafe because of them.

I have enough WIPs going at the moment, so I am not going to be starting anything any time soon. Well, not gonna start anything properly. But sometimes you just gotta scribble something down just to get it to shut up. I find prologues are good like that.

So, have a scribbly prologue, as an early Christmas treat. It’s very rough, but it sort of shows what my brain leaks out when I try and keep it shut. I’ll try and put up the beginning of Lionheart later in the week.

That night, a hero died.

His battlefield was not some strange and sandy place, some country on the other side of the world. No, his battlefield was his home, that place he had chosen to protect, and had risen up out of the darkness to protect those who could not protect themselves.

The battle had raged on the tops of roofs, that spot out of reach from the common person. It raged in the early hours of the morning, when every, it seemed, other sane person had long since turned off their lights and gone to bed.

This was insanity, and he knew it. But somebody had to do it. Somebody had to go out there, face hidden from the world and save it while it slept. Well, perhaps not the world, but this city at least.

The fight was brutal, blows coming thick and fast. Sometimes he landed them, and sometimes they were landed on him. One blow – was it lucky? Not for him at least – struck him on the corner of the eye, and he staggered, just for half a second.

But still, half a second was still half a second too much. It was just the opening his opponent had been waiting for, and both sides knew it. A few more blows and he was flat on his back, staring up at the person who had defeated him. A boot pressed down against his throat kept him from struggling too much, although it did not keep him from trying.

The victor reached behind them and withdrew the gun. The hero closed his eyes – it was not cowardice, he told himself in his last moments. Nothing he had done these past thirty years was cowardice.

“Take a bow, Nightshadow.”

The gun went off, and there was one less hero protecting the streets.

As you can sort of tell, I didn’t win NaNo. I started off pretty good, actually being about a day ahead. And then I had camp, and that meant I lost about four/five days of writing time. I had a second overnight camp (but that still equals two lost days when you factor in prep-time and “oh gawd I am tired *snores” the day after) and then I got sick a little while after. So I kinda gave up, and set a new goal.

So all in all, I wrote about 25 000 words in 20 days. That is omgexcellent for me – the most I have ever written in a full month is 20 000 words, and my average is about 12 000. Now I know I can write so much more than I did before, which hopefully means I can keep doing it and finish the drafts for The Circled Green, Lionheart and Bones sooner than I otherwise would have thought.

Anyway, have one last teaser for The Circled Green (if you haven’t read the others, follow the teasers tag back a bit). I wanted to pick something with Aurora, but this is one of the earliest scenes that wasn’t all wrapped up in other stuff. Also, Ciar appears. Whether he is being less creepy is all up to you.

And yes, I know Aurora is weird at times, but just bear with it. Also bear with any errors or awkward sentences, as this is unedited NaNo stuff we’re talking about.

Grandmother Adelaide would kill her if she found out what Aurora had done.

Not only had she gone out without permission, completely missing out one of her lessons with her governess, she was not riding side-saddle as a lady ought to. Her hair was loose, she did not wear a hat, and she was galloping as fast as she could handle the horse.

And if that was not enough to earn her grandmother’s wrath to the point of murder, the fact that Aurora was wearing trousers to do all this would most definitely have done so.

So she ran. Away from Adelaide and her restrictions. Away from a world that forced her into tight corsets and huge skirts. Away from a world that discouraged her from so many things that she wanted to do, instead guiding her towards simple things like marriage. And children.

She rode so fast that the world was a blur of greens, all different shades from light and dark, blended with browns and greys of rocks and tree trunks and branches. The only thing that was truly visible was the back of the horse’s head, a warm brown colour, and his twitching ears. The world was spinning around her and she was afraid that if she stopped she would find herself in some far-off place, like India, having ridden all the way around the world.

Something dark dashed in front of her, and the horse reared up, panicked. Aurora shrieked and tried to hang on even as it did its best to throw her off. Hands reached up to grab her and pull her off. With one last scream she surrendered, and found herself flying through the air and towards the reaching hands. She twisted and turned, trying to escape their grasp but all she managed to do was to turn over and meet them, face to hands.

The world froze like that, with her seemingly suspended in the air forever. The only real thing in a vision of blurry and messy colours, waiting for the world to start up again so she could continue to fall.

It did, and down she went. The hands took hold of her and then there was nothing.

 
When the world returned, Aurora was not lying on the hard ground. Something was soft beneath her. Soft and moving.

She pressed her hands against the earth on either side and pushed up just enough to look down – and gasped. It was a man, a beautiful man, and he had cushioned her landing with his body. He had to have been the hands that were reaching for her. He had not been trying to pull her off to hurt her, she realised belatedly. He had been trying to save her.

Everything was completely inappropriate – the way she was dressed, the fact she was touching him, the way she was touching him as a whole, legs and stomach and chest all matching up and pressed together. At the very least she should have got up and off him, but she was struck by the way he looked and could not bring herself to move even one more inch away.

She had never thought a man could be beautiful. Women were the ones who were beautiful, like her. Men, on the other hand, were handsome, just like her father. That was the way things should have been, and yet it seemed completely and utterly wrong to call this man handsome. The only word that seemed right was beautiful.

He had striking, high cheekbones, and lips that shocked her with the inappropriate thoughts they caused her to have. His skin was tan but unmarked, the same even colour throughout without a single hint of blemish.

His eyes, when they opened, were so dark a brown that looked black and indistinguishable from the pupils. Even in the brightness of the day they looked like shadows – deep, out of place, and drawing Aurora in even as she fought to look away.

Inside her chest, her heart skipped a beat.

The only spot of colour that did seem bright was the hair, bright as fire, of a young woman already visiting a grave marked by a towering angel. A young boy, perhaps eight years old, seemed to be with her, although he was far more interested in exploring the graveyard itself and seeing all the symbols on the headstones than he was in actually mourning.

Nathan blinked. The red-haired woman was no longer at the angel, but one row forward. Perhaps he had been wrong, just so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he assumed the woman was here to mourn his wife as well. When she was alive, his world had revolved around Sorcha. He was young, and she was beautiful, and they were in love. Then they had one beautiful daughter, whom Nathan saw as a second sun to revolve around.

They had been so happy. And then, it was just him and Aurora, and they were not.

Sorcha was buried beneath the angel in the middle of the graveyard; the statue wore her face. In its arms it held a baby, wrapped tight and held close to its chest. The real Sorcha was deep below, in the cold ground, her arms wrapped around the babe that they had wanted so badly and that had taken her life.

It was not the baby’s fault, of course, but there were still times that he could not help but wish that she had never fallen pregnant that second time. Then he would still have a wife, Aurora would still have a mother, and none of this difficulty concerning the decision to remarry would ever be needed.

The woman had moved across the graveyard towards the exit by the time Nathan reached Sorcha’s grave. The boy was still wandering between the rows, moving closer and closer with each passing second. His expression as he looked at Nathan was one of curiosity and confusion, as if he wanted to speak to him but had no thought of what to say.

“Cinaed!” called the woman. “It is time. Come!” The boy immediately darted across the graveyard with childish impunity. She looked too young to be his mother – she could only be two or three years older than Aurora – so perhaps she was his sister. No matter what the relation, she took the boy by the hand and led him away, leaving Nathan alone amongst the silent dead.

He stood there, not speaking a word for several minutes. The church bell rang the hour, and he had to wait until the sound subsided to speak the words he had finally found.

“Dear Sorcha,” he began. A breeze, oddly cold for the summer’s day, blew through the cemetery and he found himself struggling for the words he had decided upon. “I am so sorry, can you forgive me for this?”

He could picture her now, imagining what it would be like if she were somehow able to hear his words and answer back. If they were at home she would be sitting in her favourite chair in her sitting room, and looking out the window that opened to the west while she did her needlework. It would be the late afternoon, and the setting sun would paint everything the colours of roses and gold.

One of my main characters is meant to be a creeper. He has been watching the female lead for two years through windows etc. and under heavy glamours. He obviously is obsessed (another character points this out just prior to the following snippet, and tells Ciar what he really should do… and provides visual aides) and has plenty of free time on his hands.

It is meant to be disturbing, and I think I succeeded, considering I really wanted to get out of his POV and felt like I needed to take a shower afterwards.

Anyway, feel the creepy.

He raised a hand towards the window, and on the other side of the glass the catch began to turn. Once that was unlocked all it would take to open it was a push; the window opened inward, allowing both the night and Ciar to enter without even a sound. The rug was soft under his bare feet as he crossed the floor to the bed; had there been any sounds of movement it would have muffled them, but he was light as air.

He stopped short of the edge of the bed, taking in the sight of what lay there. Still asleep, Aurora lay on her back. Her hair was arranged around her hair like a halo, and Ciar found himself wishing that it was not dark. The moments before she blew out the lights were always the best: the candlelight gave a touch of warmth to her fair skin and made her hair look like burnished gold.

If she was sun, moon and stars to her father, in Ciar’s eyes she outshone them all – he truly did see her in hyperbole, in all the words the poets would use, and without irony. He meant what he thought and never stopped to consider otherwise.

This was the closest he had ever got to her. He was close enough now to see the way her lip curved. The length of her eyelashes. The way her chest rose and fell as she breathed.

She looked so peaceful, just lying there, asleep, that he could have stayed and watched her until the night started to lighten and become dawn. But that was not what he had come here for – he was not going to watch any more. Although the temptation was strong to touch her cheeks, trace the outline of her lips, he forced his hand to move upwards. Past her nose, past her eyes, until it hovered just above the centre of her forehead.

It’s 8.50am, I am sitting here at my house with Rebekah and we are writing away. Well, I was writing away, but I have finished my prologue and needed to check something. So, in the meantime, have a really really really rough prologue to tide you over, and also as my first snippet.

Make sense, no?

She had fought for two days, but ultimately she had lost. In the end death would always emerge triumphant. And this day she was its prize.

“They will come for me,” she croaked. Her voice was as dry as her mouth, her lips cracked like the earth at the height of a hot summer. “They will come for me. Soon.”

Her confidant in all her secrets, the ageing cook of her husband’s household, watched Sorcha struggle to sit up. Her hair, that soft white-blond colour that one usually sees only in very small children, was matted against fair skin slicked with sweat. Her blue eyes were still bright with the fever that continued to ravage her body.

The pregnancy as a whole had been hard on her, her slender figure becoming even more waif-like as her growing stomach swelled further. But even as the child acted more like a parasite and she its host, Sorcha had endured, aglow with talk about how this one would be a boy and how she loved him already. She felt it in her heart, she had said.

The birth had been worse. Much worse.

The babe – it was a boy, after all – had died not long after entering this world. Tiny and weak it lay there, silent as the grave while his mother wept and wailed, begging unseen people to help her, for someone to come and save her baby.

“I really should have known not to have made a bargain with them,” Sorcha said. Sanity had finally returned from the hold of the fever, although only to let her say goodbye. “They never just grant boons with no consequences. Why should I have been any different to them?”

“You had no choice, my lady.”

“I did, I did. But were they really choices? Even if I had known of this… condition… it would have meant abandoning one child at the very least.”

“My lady?”

Sorcha stiffened, grasping into the bed linen that covered her. “Did you hear that?” she asked, ignoring her servant’s previous question.

“Hear what?”

Sorcha closed her eyes but did not relax into her pillows. “The Bean Shìth is calling. I can hear the song, I hear what she says.” Her eyes opened and fixed upon the west-facing window. “Aye, I hear you. I will come, but not just yet.”

“Please, Sorcha, hold on.” She spoke as a friend and confidant then, the keeper of lifetimes of secrets, and not as a servant. “For the sake of your husband, for the sake of your child!”

A bitter smile crossed Sorcha’s face at those words. “Everything I have done was for his sake, and all of this – this ending, this beginning – was for the sake of my child. Just not the child you speak of.

“I speak of her now, though. They will come for her, sooner or later. She may be ignorant of the truth, but they will not be. They know of her, and the only thing that keeps them from her is me.” She paused for breath, so far gone now that even speech was tiring. “The burdan falls to you now that I have failed. Protect her, keep her safe. You know the secrets – I have taught you them well.”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Promise me you will keep her safe, as safe as you can!” A plea, a demand, a hope. “Please!”

“I promise, my lady.”

“Good.” With a sigh, Sorcha finally sank back into the voluminous pillows that supported her. “Aye, aye,” she said softly, tilting her head slightly in the direction of the open window, “I hear you. Soon, soon.”

There was a knock at the door then, and the cook jumped. She was not supposed to be here with her alone, but Sorcha had ordered the holy man out for now. She had things she wanted to say in private, and no one would ever make her waver on that decision.

Sorcha smiled. “Let my lovelies in. It is time for me to say farewell. For now.”