page meme


The page 58 meme:

Pick the nearest book to you. Turn to page 58. Skip down 7 lines to the first full sentence. This describes your life so far.

From Riveted by Meljean Brook:

“Less than an hour remained until first watch began.”

I do feel as if I’ve spent an enormous amount of my life just waiting around…

The rules:


1. Go to page 77 (or 7th) of your current ms

2. Go to line 7

3. Copy down the next 7 lines – sentences or paragraphs – and post them as they’re written. No cheating.

The last time this was going around I was slowly, painfully working on Shivery Bones and I still am (sorry to say). I refuse to post the same excerpt, so I went back to the novel I was working on before that, Carmina. There’s no page 77, so here’s page 7. Carmina and Susan are speaking. Carmina is the one speaking that first line.

“Do you realize how rare it is for anyone to confront their own demons?”

“No. I confronted mine, and Jeremy confronted his, but I can’t speak for anyone else.”

“I can.” All humor drained from her voice and face. “I don’t just make them see and feel what they’d rather not when I sing, you know. I see and feel it along with them.”

“How awful!” Susan had been an empath all her life, buffeted by the unguarded emotions of others, and sometimes their thoughts. “Why do you keep singing?”

Carmina’s vivid eyes grew bleak, her face exhausted. “I can’t help myself, darling. I am compelled whether I wish it or not.”

Here’s a meme I picked up from shalanna (who didn’t follow The Rules either. :-D)
The Rules:
Go to page 77 of your current MS.
Go to line 7.
Copy down the next 7 lines/sentences and post them as they’re written.  No cheating.

 

The current MS. being Shivery Bones, the one I am editing since I’m not writing anything new at the moment…

Here’s page 77, but not line 7.  Hey, I’m a writer.  I find it impossible to post something without context, so you’re getting the whole paragraph starting from line 4 and ending where it would have if I started on line 7 at the end of the next paragraph.  They are posted as currently written, however.

In this scene, Juana in 14th century Cordoba, Spain, is dying of consumption and has no one reliable to care for her four-year-old son, Estevan.  She has just asked Fraile Diego Gonçales, a traveling friar, to care for the boy, and has been coughing up blood.

“Mama’s all right,” she told him in a strangled voice, and reached for the wooden ball he’d let drop. “Here’s your ball, sweetheart.” She let him off her lap, and cleaned her mouth and hands with the cloth as best she could. Estevan took the ball, but a vague worry wormed through his heart. He stole anxious glances at her.

The friar studied them long and hard, his face at war with itself: pity, chagrin, compassion, irritation. Finally, in a dry voice, shaking his head, he asked, “Why would you trust such a precious boy to a stranger like me?”

 

ETA:  There’s something about posting that makes all the icky stuff show up.

 
“Mama’s all right,” she told him in a strangled voice, and reached for the wooden ball he’d let drop. “Here’s your ball, toy, sweetheart.” She let him off her lap, and cleaned cleaning her mouth and hands with the cloth as best she could. Estevan took the ball, but a vague worry wormed through his heart. He stole anxious glances at her.

The friar studied them long and hard, his face at war with itself: pity, chagrin, compassion, irritation. Finally, in a dry voice, s Shaking his head, he asked, “Why would you trust such a precious boy to a stranger like me?”

Pick up the nearest book to you. Turn to page 45. The first sentence describes your sex life in 2012.

The nearest book to me is a blank journal. Page 45 is like every other page in the book. That would be blank.

Reaching slightly further afield I pick up Rapture in Death by J. D. Robb:

Eve awoke with the cat stretched over her chest and the bedside ‘link beeping.

That sums it up nicely also.

How’s your sex life?