"Some of us are called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice for their duty. For those like me, that sacrifice is not the giving up of the lives that we have.
It's the giving up on the lives we know we might have, if we could but stretch our arms wide enough to outreach the grasp of the Fates, just once."
~~~
Hi! Welcome to Pitch Slapped. I'm February Grace, and this is my little corner of the blogosphere. Above all other kinds of writing, I love nothing more than spinning a good love story.
My first two manuscripts (one a novella, one a full novel) are both what I guess you'd call "Witty Women's Fiction" if that term is still in style this week. My style is really much more "old movie" romance than Sex in the City so I'm not sure what you'd call that exactly...
I've also had a lot of fun writing romance into science fiction settings- specifically as part of a long running series of stories written with a small group of friends online. The above quotation was taken from a chapter I wrote in one of my favorite plot arcs there.
~****~
Here is an excerpt from my novel ms (currently in revision) Hopeful Romantic:
“You were awfully quiet tonight, when Skye and DarkRogue were talking about the wedding this weekend.” Benjamin typed, finding once again he was saying the words softly aloud as he did so, willing them to reach her beyond the screen.
Hopeful Romantic: I’m happy for them. Honestly I am.
“But?”
Hopeful Romantic: Benjamin…
“But what, Annabeth? Do you know something about,” he was about to ask a question, but decided against it. He detested gossip, and he didn’t want to risk asking her to betray a confidence should she know something about the couple, one or more parties to it, specifically, that cast doubt on her view of their future.
Hopeful Romantic: Yes. I know a bit about love. Or about what I thought it was.
The cursor stayed where it was for a long moment but he didn’t respond. He knew the pattern of her thoughts and the words she used to convey them well enough by now to know for sure she had more to say.
Hopeful Romantic: They’re absolutely crazy about each other.
“Is that a bad thing, really?” he asked. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never really been in love before.”
Hopeful Romantic: Skye and Rogue, they’ve got an awfully long way to fall.
“They’ve already fallen, that’s the point. Quite far.”
Hopeful Romantic: Yes. Quite far.
She typed nothing more for several minutes, and finally he tried to gently prompt her to continue. “Annabeth?”
Hopeful Romantic: Here.
“What’s the problem with falling that far?”
Hopeful Romantic: Simple laws of Physics, Benjamin. You know all about those.
She knew that Physics was something that he spent a lot of time thinking about during his daily walks.
“Yes…?”
Hopeful Romantic: The higher the altitude from which you fall, the higher your velocity when you smash into the pavement.
Something in her words made his chest ache. A gnawing sensation twisted his stomach.
“Surely someone with as positive an outlook on life as you have and as,” he thought a moment; sure of what he wanted to say but unsure how he should say it. “Someone with as…romantic a soul as yours still believes in true love? The one true love that lasts for all time?”
Hopeful Romantic: I did. Once.
Now he was truly perplexed. “Did?”
Hopeful Romantic: Past tense.
“What made you change your mind about it?” Suddenly, he really needed to know. He had started to ask himself all kinds of questions lately about what love was, or could be or was meant to be. Questions he’d come no closer to answering on his own but somehow when he figured her into the equation, the answer seemed suddenly and easily clear. It seemed a very easy answer to reach when he thought about her.
Hopeful Romantic: Things happen. They change. Or you change.
“Everyone changes, but surely not so much that everything you’ve had is lost?”
He waited for her to reply, growing more nervous by the second when he didn’t immediately see the words Hopeful Romantic is typing a message pop up at the bottom of the window.
He could picture her now; sitting just as she had in the picture he’d seen of her, with her hands folded demurely in her lap. She was likely looking down at them, thinking, willing her fingers to type a response that she wasn’t sure she felt safe in giving.
They’d had other conversations like this before on a wide variety of topics. Family. Experiences from childhood. It amazed Benjamin always that despite the fact he was a decade younger than she was that their experiences growing up were so much the same.
She understood him in a way that no one had ever before.
He was trying to understand her in the same way and most of the time he felt he was successful. At other times she felt like an elaborate puzzle or a game of Chess; he’d make a move and seem to be closer to his ultimate goal but then she’d counter it and he’d be left to rethink his position again.
When it came to this particular subject however and this one only, he found time and again that the walls she’d built over a lifetime to keep the world at a safe distance were without foothold, impossibly steep, and stretched straight up into the cloudy blue heavens.
He gave up waiting for her to respond and simply continued along his own internal line of thought. “I have always pictured myself getting married eventually.”
Hopeful Romantic: Unwise.
“Why would you say that? He typed back, curious why someone with a username as, well, seemingly self-explanatory as hers was would say such a thing.
Hopeful Romantic: Because, London, I.
She slipped into calling him by his username, which told him a lot about her state of mind. She only did that under two conditions: when she was teasing him, or when she was truly getting flustered.
The cursor stopped moving. It continued blinking, but no additional words appeared.
”Annabeth?”
Hopeful Romantic: Benjamin, this... this isn’t easy to talk about.
“It’s all right,” he leaned forward in his chair, moving closer to the computer screen and keyboard in a subconscious attempt to be physically closer to her. He felt an overpowering urge to comfort her, though he could not have said why. “You don’t have to hold back with me.”
Hopeful Romantic: Maybe we should just stick to polite topics like music, books and how much my writing sucks.
“It doesn’t…I keep telling you that but you never seem to believe me,” he typed. He shook his head insistently, wishing that she could see the determination in his eyes. “I am interested in knowing you, Annabeth. I don’t want to only talk about the weather and what we’re writing. Not.”
Hopeful Romantic: Not?
“Not anymore." He ran a hand back through his hair as he tried to think how he wanted to word what he said next. “Friends get to see all sides of each other, if they’re truly friends. Not just the neat and tidy bits shown to the rest of the world.” He tilted his head, deep in contemplation. “That’s called wearing a mask. I hope it’s something that you won’t feel that you need to do with me.”
The cursor blinked at him mockingly as he forced himself to give her a moment to think before he continued.
“If you don’t want to talk about this anymore, I will respect your wishes. If you ever change your mind, then you can always tell me later. If you can never talk about what’s made you feel this way, then I’ll understand.”
Hopeful Romantic: I will never get married…
He waited.
Hopeful Romantic: …again.
*****
I'll be updating this page from time to time, so please stop by again!
In the meantime, please feel free to take a look around! There are links to longer excerpts from my work in the sidebar- as well as links to my art, interviews with other writers (unagented, like most of us!) and bits here and there about other things I find amusing, and most of all things I hope convey, at their heart, a feeling of romance- no matter the topic.
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Thanks Tessa for hosting this blog-hop! |
Stay tuned for updates and thanks again for hopping by!
~bru
