kelly said

Hello! Thank you for joining me for Six Sentence Sunday.

These six pick up a little bit further from where we left off last week with CHOMP (my YA horror NiP), where Penny and Luke were riding the school bus home when a military convoy curiously blasted through the stop sign, skimming past the nose of the bus.

Later that evening…

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Running never used to hurt. The pins holding my leg bones together kept transmitting hot flashes of electricity though, reminding me again of how my life had changed. At least adrenaline had turned me back into a sprinter. Sort of.

The thundering feet and slobbery grunting at my back was gaining on me.

“Luke!” I screamed, run-hopping across the moon-lit field separating our houses.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Excerpt CHOMP © 2010 Kelly Said

What’s chasing Penny? Will Luke hear her cries for help? hehe! *rubs hands with glee* Well, that’s what I’ve been working on, slow but steady.

Thank you so much for reading! Please wander around to see what some of the other #sixsunday participants have revealed.

Also, as a friendly reminder, Wednesday, December 21 is the last day to comment to win a free copy of Fangtales, a YA vampire anthology that includes my short story, Sanctuary.

28 Comments | In: CHOMP, FANGTALES, Horror, SANCTUARY, Six Sentence Sunday, writing | tags: FANGTALES, SANCTUARY, YA. | #

Thank you for joining me for another Six Sentence Sunday!

This week’s sample continues from CHOMP, my YA horror WiP.

To recap from last time, Penny was hoping her popular sister would be kind and give her a ride. Instead, Penny wound up getting ditched by the clique and is now forced to endure the bumpy ride home on the bus with her brooding friend and neighbor, Luke.

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Luke offered me his forearm and I gladly took it, leaning into his strength, letting him practically carry me to the bus.  His hands slipped under my arms, boosting me up the three tall stairs so I could pivot on my good leg and plop down on the seat behind our driver, Gil.

I managed a faint smile for Luke, feeling it falter a little when his eyes bored into mine so intensely. But he blinked and turned away, leaving my curiosity raging as he walked down the aisle past the four other students to take his usual seat – alone, at the back.

Gil jolted the bus into drive then slammed the break, cursing as a military convoy rushed through the intersection.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Excerpt CHOMP © 2010 Kelly Said

Thank you so much for reading!

I hope you come back to take a peek at my special announcement on Wednesday

In the meantime, I’ll be roaming around, reading the other #sixsunday entries.

26 Comments | In: CHOMP, Horror, READING, Six Sentence Sunday, writing | tags: READING, YA. | #

This #SixSunday post is a blast-from-the-past, from my NaNoWriMo 2010 (hehe!) YA horror WiP titled CHOMP.  In this scene, my main character, Penny, is defending her best friend against her sister’s clique.

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“Have fun riding home with The Lurker,” Megan snickered from the back seat.

“Don’t call him that,” I snapped, tightening my fists, hating how my sister’s friends had to mislabel everyone.

Luke was not a lurker.  He was a brooder.  A subtle difference that my sister and her friends would never understand.

I glanced back to see him by the open door of the bus, brooding, over me it appeared because his eyes never left my face.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Excerpt CHOMP © 2010 Kelly Said

Not so fun getting ditched by your sister and her friends, and Penny will remember this later on in the story. Especially when the military’s CHOMPer’s start hunting down the townsfolks, Penny will have to decide whether to risk her own life to save her sister, or leave her behind to save herself.

22 Comments | In: CHOMP, Horror, NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, Six Sentence Sunday, writing | tags: NaNoWriMo, YA. | #

Today is a time of reflection for me. I find my birthday usually prompts this feeling inside, like the beginning of a new year. Well, it *is* the beginning of a new year ~ for me and everyone else born on September 14th, hehe!

So I seized this opportunity to look back at my early writing days, when I first started to believe in the idea that I could successfully string words together in a way that would hold someone’s interest. Back to when I dared to submit the first chapter of my YA werewolf novel.

That was in June of 2010.

Well, I was not successful in my first attempt at ‘serious’ writing. hehe! The critiques I received were honest and showed me everything I was doing wrong. They also helped me collect great advice about learning the craft ~ there is no better “how-to-write” instruction manual than reading a published author’s work. In fact, I learned that the more you read, the more you learn diversity in style, world building, voice, pace and word choice.

So I shelved my werewolf story, because I knew, at that time, I didn’t quite have the skills to master telling that story in the way it deserved. 

I started reading. A lot. And… differently. Something in my analytical mind *clicked.* This is how you insert backstory, this is how you weave in strands of tension, this is how you draw everything to a conclusion.

And during those book-wormish days, I still kept writing, planting my ideas down on paper to cement them into reality. My “someday I’ll find the right way to explain this mess of characters and events” file.

October 2010 rolled around and the writing forum I frequent was hosting a Halloween short story contest. A picture prompt inspiring us to write 5k words or less. I titled mine THE LIGHT SHAPER. It didn’t place in the contest, but in my mind it was a success, because it was the first story I wrote that had an ending.

My confidence high, in November 2010, I signed up to participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). A huge challenge, fifty thousand words in thirty days. (Yeah, something that hippopotamus-large deserves the magnitude of being fully spelled out, lol!) I took every last scrap of those thirty days and wrote a 50k (+) YA horror novel I titled CHOMP. Yeahhh, I spewed forth a *mostly* coherent story, but it’s nowhere near novel status. Not yet. It needs some work. But the experience of committing to a single project from start to finish taught me that I have the ability to write at a rapid pace and produce something of decent quality.

December 2010, I answered a call for submissions and began writing SANCTUARY, a story that, at it’s earliest stages, featured a MC named Kyle and an idea that perhaps, maybe, he’d wind up hiding a vampire in his basement. After many proofreads, I discovered the name Kyle wasn’t working for the tone of the piece, and the idea of hiding a vampire in his basement biscuit-bulged the story beyond the 5k word limit. I gave it to two trusted forumites to beta read and hit “send for submission” on January 14, 2011. Expected date of rejection, May 31, 2011.

So I took those months to work on other things, a revamp of THE LIGHT SHAPER revealed a novel ambition I titled, JULE. Also, MINER MISTAKE, SLEEPING BEAU and a bevy of others were born.

April 12, 2011 appears on the calendar and I receive an email from the editor of Fangtales. I’m in. I’m in? I’m in! Accepted! Someone I don’t know, in another country, read my story and liked it enough to include it in Wyvern Publications Fangtales Anthology! This is the same publishing house that produced the Dragontales Anthology, featuring Justin Carroll’s CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR, short listed for the British Fantasy Awards.

Fast forward to present day, Wednesday, September 14, 2011.

The Fangtales proof has been received, reviewed by yours truly and returned to the publisher. I got to see my name in lights, so to speak, hehehe! And now, I’m about a month away from the anthology’s expected publication date. I feel like I’m floating on air, because when I look back at the progress I’ve made in one short year, I’m so totally pleased!

Which makes me excited for what I might accomplish between now and next September 14th. 

Thanks for wandering in and looking back with me

4 Comments | In: CHOMP, FANGTALES, MINER MISTAKE, NaNoWriMo, SANCTUARY, SLEEPING BEAU | tags: FANGTALES, NaNoWriMo, SANCTUARY, vampire, Wyvern Publications, YA. | #