Welcome back to Snippet Sunday. Thank you so much for stopping by. Please make sure to leave a comment (if you're so moved) and to visit the other awesome authors at the Snippet Sunday Facebook page > I'm taking a break from Out Of Time, my short story. For CampNano, I've been working on Gold Digger, an 1880s California historical which I'd like to share. This scene takes place in the Sierra mountains. Winnie is my protagonist who has run away from a marriage of convenience to learn how to dig for gold - a fantasy she'd has since she was a child. She's been in the mountains for almost three months by this point. “Baaaaah,” Becky trotted around from the other side of the cabin. The bear swung its head towards the ruckus, startling the goat who stumbled to an immediate halt. Winnie’s heart lodged in her throat. Quick as lightening, Becky turned and bounded away. Winnie backed up quickly, not wishing to have her back to the bear. And promptly tripped over the stool that held the remnants of her afternoon tea. The tea pot shattered into a thousand pieces, and Winnie’s legs got tangled in the stool’s feet. As she came down hard on her ass, Winnie noticed three things in that split second. Pieces of broken ceramic dug into her and she wished she had on her layers of skirts instead of these thin men’s pants. The shotgun stayed in her hands and miraculously didn’t go off. The bear charged towards her.
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Welcome back! It's #SnippetSunday time again and I'm continuing with Out of Time, a story that follows a young woman searching for a lost family history. In the haunted town of Benton, she discovers that past and present memories overlap, and that ghosts aren't always what they seem.
Last week there was one person who guessed what was going on. I think this week and next will be a surprise to most. Well, maybe not? It's hard to pull one over on savvy readers and authors! Please make sure to visit the Snippet Sunday Facebook group and read the other snippets posted by authors. They're all amazing and include a variety of genres. Without Kayla willing it, the woman brought her face closer to the mirror, bringing it so near the glass that the exhale of her breath left a hint of condensation. Kayla saw brown irises, specked with green and shades of yellow. Short, thick eyelashes rimmed the eyes, permanently highlighting them in dark brown. What gorgeous eyes. “Why, thank you; I’ve always thought my lashes were too short.” The woman pulled back from the mirror. Kayla’s surprise at getting a response did not reflect on the woman’s face. Instead, she looked calm. She pulled her hair back, thick strands so unlike Kayla’s own, slipped through her fingers. She straightened her shift, and Kayla felt the coarseness of the fabric as if she touched it herself. “I thought there was someone there,” the woman continued. “What’s your name?” Welcome back! It's #SnippetSunday time again and I'm continuing with Out of Time, a short story I wrote for an anthology contest. I'll learn by next week if I'll be one of two newbie authors to be selected. But hey, if I'm not, no worries as I will definitely release this story. I love it! And it also ties nicely into the world-building of my current series.
Please make sure to visit the Snippet Sunday Facebook group and read the other snippets posted by authors. They're all amazing and include a variety of genres. Out of Time follows a young woman searching for a lost family history. In the haunted town of Benton, she discovers that past and present memories overlap, and that ghosts aren't always what they seem. Her fingertips touched a delicate doily. She’d have to get a manicure next week when she got home. How the hell had her nails gotten so bad? There was dirt logged under most of them. Her hands balled into fists, hiding the offending objects. A ring. A simple band of gold wrapped around her ring finger on her left hand. What the? I’m dreaming. I have to be dreaming. She looked up and was stunned to see a different face looking back at her in the mirror: big brown eyes, long wavy hair. She wore an old-fashioned shift, plain white, light cotton. The ties in front had come undone and it rested asymmetrically on her shoulders. The face smiled, as if in on a secret. Welcome to my next installment of #SnippetSunday. Please make sure you visit the Snippet Sunday Facebook group (here's the link) to read other amazing authors!
Out of Time follows a young woman searching for a lost family history. In the haunted town of Benton, she discovers that past and present memories overlap, and that ghosts aren't always what they seem. Last week, Kayla was thinking about Adeline, her great-great-great-great Aunt, wondering if she had made it to the town of Benton so many years before. I love this next part of the story and I hope you like it, too. Her head hurt, a deep, dull pain. Her eyes opened but squinted to keep out the light. Blurry. She was off the bed, her feet shuffling across the floor. When had she put on socks? She stood in front of a dresser, her hands steadying her sway as a stab of pain shot through her temples. She hadn’t had a hangover like this since her college days. I don’t remember drinking last night. Her eyes opened more, now better used to the daylight coming into the room. She leaned on the dresser, her hands resting on dark, solid wood. She must have been really tired the night before because she didn’t remember it being such a dark wood. I LOVE to sit at my computer on a Sunday morning, coffee in hand and slippers on the feet, and explore what #SnippetSunday authors have to share. The Snippet Sunday Facebook group is a supportive community of authors who share eight to ten sentences of their work every week. Make sure to stop by and see what they have to share! Here's a link to the group > And thank YOU so much for stopping by! Out of Time continues from where I left off last week. I cheated and posted a wee bit more than ten sentences - but it's the end of this part. Next week's snippet shifts into a new scene. Hope you enjoy! Apropos of nothing, how the heck did this week go by so quickly??? And tonight we're even losing more time because of Daylight Saving Time. It never made sense to me that it was called DST - in the spring and summer we have plenty of sunshine. Shouldn't DST be in the fall and winter when the sun's appearance over the horizon is shorter? We should be saving as much daylight as we can. See? Get my thinking? :-) She sighed and looked out the window at contemporary Benton -- she didn’t know what she could possibly find. There was nothing here anymore. Nothing here but ghosts. Kayla changed into her pink long johns and crawled under the covers. Opening her tablet, she pulled up the picture of the letter she’d found in Virginia City. Was the mentioned ‘Addy’, her Aunt Adeline? It was a common name in those days, but when Kayla had first found the reference, she knew this was her Addy. However, now that she’d had time to think about it, she wasn’t as sure. Kayla zoomed in until ‘Addy’ filled the screen. She traced the letters with her finger. “Aunt Adeline. What happened to you?” She reread the letter a few more times, trying to find other clues she might have missed. Eventually her eyes began to close. Giving up, Kayla turned off the light and settled down for the night. It's #SnippetSunday time! Thank you so much for stopping by. The Snippet Sunday Facebook group is a supportive community of authors who share eight to 10 sentences of their work every week. Make sure to stop by and see what they have to share! Here's a link to the group > This week I'm continuing with my short story. Out of Time follows a young woman searching for a lost family history. In the haunted town of Benton, she discovers that past and present memories overlap, and that ghosts aren't always what they seem. Before coming to Benton, her trip to Virginia City had been fruitful. For the past five years Kayla had searched for clues to her great-great-great-great aunt’s true story. Family legend held that Adeline Montgomery nee Smith was a prostitute. She’d married, escaped the whore houses in Virginia City, and then moved to Bodie, the infamous, rowdy mining town in the eastern Sierras. Her life did not have a happy ending. Depending on which family member was telling the story, Adeline, or her husband, or both of them were killed by Adeline’s pimp shortly after leaving Virginia City. Kayla had found clues throughout the years – mentions in newspapers in Virginia City, tax records of someone named N. Montgomery, but the clues still didn’t make a whole picture. During this trip, she’d found a letter from 1884, written from one lady-of-the-night to another. It referenced a woman named ‘Addy’ who had moved to the boom town of Benton, California to live in happiness with her new husband. Benton was remote and close to Bodie. Could this be where her aunt and her husband had ended up? Welcome back! It's #SnippetSunday time again and I'm continuing with the short story I posted last week. Please make sure to visit the Snippet Sunday Facebook group and read the other snippets posted by authors. They're all amazing and include a variety of genres. Out of Time follows a young woman searching for a lost family history. In the haunted town of Benton, she discovers that past and present memories overlap, and that ghosts aren't always what they seem. A jackrabbit bounced across the road, skittering off into a ditch. Benton used to be a thriving gold and silver mining community. Now the only residents were the owners of the town who maintained rough camping facilities for adventurous travelers, and the seasonal help who ran the inn for those tourists who preferred a bed and four walls. The main draw to Benton were the eight hot springs maintained for camping and inn guests. She shut off the car, taking a deep breath when she opened the door. It was so quiet that the cooling car, with its pops and sighs, was louder than the insects and the birds. No cars passed, no people spoke, no music played. She ignored the sliver of…something…that traced down her spine. She’d never been here before, but the dry, chill air smelled like a memory; a memory she couldn’t quite picture. It stood there at the edge of her vision, teasing her. And then it was gone. Oh lordy, lordy, lordy. Can't you see this man on the cover of a historical novel??? He looks exactly as I imagine Olivier Duchon, my gold-mine manager who goes up against my lawyer when one of his men is injured the mine refuses to pay-out. I haven't written this novel yet, but now I have a visual to inspire me. I'm expecting to release it in early 2019. Luke Evans IS quite a Tuesday treat. Not only is he delicious to look at but he has a fantastic singing voice. I'm sure this is because he had lots of practice on the London Stage before transitioning to Hollywood, playing in Avenue Q, Rent, and La Cava. Here's a fun clip from the Ellen DeGeneres Show > He's currently staring in the new TNT show, The Alienist. According to TNT Drama, "The Alienist is a psychological thriller set in 1896 about the hunt for a serial killer responsible for the gruesome murders of boy prostitutes that have gripped New York City." Obviously not a rom com but it's received good reviews. Please leave a comment if you've seen it! Let us know what you think. Have you seen the live action Beauty and the Beast? Luke plays one of my favorite villains of all time: Gaston. He is amazing in the part because he brings a humanity to Gaston that makes him almost believable; certainly believable within the context of the fairy tale; especially believable when compared to all the other characters, including Belle. If you haven't seen the live action Beauty and the Beast because you were afraid it would ruin your experience of the animated version? Put your fears aside and SEE IT this week! It's on Netflix. Then come back here and let me know that I was right, hehe. Or hell, let me know I was wrong. :-) For your visual delight, Luke has been in the following movies that I would see: The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies as Bard (2014) Dracula Untold as Vlad (2014) The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug as Bard/Girion (2013) The Three Musketeers as Aramis (2011) Immortals as Zeus (2011) Robin Hood as the Sheriff's Thug (2010) - you get a two-fer treat with this one as it stars Russell Crowe Clash of the Titans as Apollo (2010) Where you can find Luke on social media: Welcome to #SnippetSunday! Thank you so much for stopping by. Please make sure to visit the other amazing authors who have shared their writing with you. Click here to go to the Facebook group >. Today I'm sharing the opening of a short story I submitted to a contest this past week. Out of Time follows a young woman searching for a lost family history. In the haunted town of Benton, she discovers that past and present memories overlap, and that ghosts aren't always what they seem. The autumn sun burned in reds and golds as it set behind the desert mountains. Benton Hot Springs, an almost ghost town off California Highway 120, only six miles from Nevada, was home to approximately thirteen and a half souls, according to the welcome sign. Kayla was there to find answers. Looking around at what was left of the town, she wasn’t sure she’d find them. Weathered, wood buildings slumped in between sage bushes. Half-walls and crumbling stucco hinted at structures that had been. The shell of an old general store still stood, with no-trespassing signs affixed to the plywood covering where the windows should be. There was a cemetery high on the hill overlooking town. Kayla would hike up there tomorrow morning to see if she could find the tombstone of her great-great-great-great Aunt Adeline.
On Wednesday, July 26th, after an afternoon at the Marjorie Russell Textile Research Center in Carson City, Nevada, I headed up to Virginia City. I’d never been there before--I knew there’d be a few old buildings, maybe a museum or two. I figured I could do some research on gold mining, and submerse myself into the atmosphere of the old west.
I checked into the Gold Hill Hotel (supposedly the oldest hotel in Nevada) on the outskirts of town. I’d booked a room in the older, original part of the hotel, thinking it would be more interesting to stay there than in the more expensive, recently built addition. Now, before I go on, I have to confess that I’m a ghost and haunted-locations fanatic. I frequently try to book haunted rooms in haunted hotels when I’m traveling. My family laughs at me (lovingly, I’m sure) whenever I whip out my cell phone to try to record an Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP). I watch the shows. I even thought of joining a local ghost-hunters group. So yes, I was excited that I’d be staying in ‘Rosie’s Room’ at the Gold Hill Hotel. It was a haunted room, with videos on YouTube to attest to the haunting. The hotel was quiet when I arrived. My car was the only one in the parking lot. The place was quaint and my room was, well it was small and pink. There were a few small bug carcasses showing through the thin canopy above the bed. As a good friend later pointed out, the canopy was doing its job. The floors in the room were slanted—I wish I’d had a marble as I would have videotaped that sucker moving from one side of the room to the other. Proof of ghosts. The room was old, it had character, and I was excited to stay there for the night. “My shift is over in a few minutes. You’re the only one staying here.” I looked at the blonde hotel manager, a woman about my age. She held the room key towards me. “If you need anything, well, you probably won’t need anything. The owners live across the way. If there’s an emergency, just go out onto the balcony and yell. Hell, if there’s an emergency, dial 911.” “Uh, okay.” I couldn’t decide if I should make a joke or cancel my reservation. I went out onto the balcony that overlooked the 2-lane highway leading to the heart of Virginia City. A ferociously loud motorcycle drove past. I heard Blondie behind me come out onto the balcony. “It really is safe. I’ve been here five years and nothing’s ever happened.” Ah, shit. Well that’s tempting fate, isn’t it? I took the key from her hand. “Are there any places open for dinner in Virginia City?” I’d come this far so I might as well stay. Plus, if anything did happen, I argued with myself, I’d have a great story to tell. Assuming I survived. By 8 PM I was back at the hotel, having eaten enough at a place in Virginia City to last me until the next day. I went downstairs to the lobby to write and camped out on an old wooden table. There truly were no other people, which was good. I had the whole hotel to myself. With no one there, no TV, no radio, I thought I’d crank out thousands of words, sitting at that wooden table. But my ears were more active than my fingers and every cricket outside and every drip-drip-drip of the faucet in the bar held my attention. I walked around and peaked out the windows into the darkening light. The huge orb spider in its web stopped me from cracking open that window. Drip-drip-drip. I felt like Jack Torrance. All I needed to complete the scenario was a wife, a child, and a drinking problem. After forcing out less than a paragraph, I made my way back up to Rosie’s Room. It was time to face the haunting. Sitting there alone, I decided there was no way in hell I was about to do an EVP session. Or invite anything, anyone, to come visit with me. The only thing I could do was lock my door (there were three locks because, yeah, it’s safe), tuck myself into bed, and hope for the best. I left the light on in the bathroom. Eventually I fell asleep, waking up an hour later to some noise, imagined or not. Eyes wide open, I listened for the noise again but didn’t hear a thing. I fell asleep again. Then woke again, repeating the pattern until morning. Did I ever see anything? No. Feel anything? No. Sense anything? No. However, I sure as shit did not get a good night’s sleep. I was going to spend the day tooling around Virginia City, playing tourist, and I knew I’d be too tired to drive home that night. So guess what I did? Booked another night. Because, why not? I was in a different room, an even smaller room, but it wasn’t (supposedly) haunted. There were also other guests staying at the hotel and I heard them moving around, making alive noises. I slept deep and well that second night. If I go back to Virginia City, which I'm sure I will, I'll stay again at the Gold Hill Hotel. It was an experience and I'm sure there are more to be had at that there hotel. |