Share an excerpt of your daily grind?

Teylu walked the crescent path, a curved trail that spanned the western perimeter of the village. Domed tents glowed with golden firelight. Plumes of smoke curled up into the night sky. He caught the delicious smoky scent of roasting bird and the sweet, delicate smells of corn cakes and the sharp, biting smell of chili. His stomach gnawed, but not with hunger. He still had the queasiness from the night he swallowed the black stone. Now that he thought of it, he hadn’t eaten anything since that evening.

He had turned down the small sliver of quail meat Ixtil had offered them on the way back and didn’t eat any of the blackberries that sat sweet and succulent in Namala’s red earthen bowl – a treat to her guests. The only thing that had passed his lips was water, which temporarily cooled the burning sensation still sitting in the pit of his stomach.

Teylu stopped. The moon burned with the brightness of the sun. Teylu didn’t remember it ever being so bright before, not even when it was full and hanging like a ripe mango fruit. The cool air felt good upon his skin and the soft breeze upon his chest soothing. His skin had crawled, as though ants were moving beneath his skin, when Namala searched his face, trying to read the signs of what was wrong with him now.

“You are different. Something is different now,” Namala muttered. “Was something done to you?”

I would really read this book! I didn't get much of a sense from this excerpt, but when I went to your profile to look at the excerpt there, I thought it was swell. Keep us posted, please!

Catherine

I liked this! Is there another excerpt to come?

Catherine

http://www.brennan-design.com/nano.html

I love the way you set the tone of your setting in this. There's definitely a feeling of mistrust from the institution, which is understandable, but it's excellent to see it introduced in the small things.

As management heaped new requirements onto the team, they'd become a sundae made with twenty-two scoops of ice cream. The team had splintered and bickered, trying to avoid being the one left with clean-up detail. Worse than the melted ice cream that remained uneaten were the areas where someone tried to clean their plate. The result was predictable. Vomit left for others to clear. It had taken Riva six months to finish cleaning up that project and had resulted in her almost canceling the family vacation to Paris.

Yay, day one! This passage was cute, I liked the way it came out. I didn't anticipate Christian was going to be such a sulky-pants, but it's making for some amusing interactions.

"He spotted Tayla right away. She was crouched down in a surprisingly graceful position, reminiscent of a baseball player sliding for home with one leg out and the other tucked under. Her head was so close to the pavement that to a stranger, it would look as if she were listening for the vibrations of an oncoming train. Camera clutched in her hands, she was taking pictures of the tracks and the trees surrounding it, facing him but not paying him any attention at all.
“We actually have to be in St. Louis before dark,” he said pointedly.
Tayla looked up in surprise, dark eyes peering over the camera. She opened her mouth to respond, studied his face for a second. A small frown formed. “What’s up with you? Road trip’s are supposed to be fun, get you all excited. You look like someone peed in your cheerios.”
“You did. You peed in my cheerios.”
“Cause I made you walk?” She rolled her eyes at him, her tone flippant. “Get over it, son. You walk all over the city. A few blocks was not going to kill you.""

I'm not too thrilled with what I've written so far (although maybe I'm just being too hard on myself), although to be fair I wrote it at about 2 in the morning. Still, I feel compelled to share.

So here's my favorite clip from the first 1300 words of "An October Story":

"She had called me nerdy. To quote the great Mike Skinner “I reckon, I could well be in.” I was certainly at least safe to pontificate on my undying love for the Chicago White Sox for a couple minutes without reprisal. She wasn’t a sports fan, but I wasn’t a chemist. Her name was Katie. We had met at a mutual friend’s house party in Logan Square. I had cornered her in the kitchen (what is it about house parties where everyone ends up in the kitchen?) complimenting her taste in beer as an excuse to start a conversation. The conversation shifted to us regaling each other with our stories of studying abroad in London and travels through Europe, lamenting the current political climate and trading names of favorite bands. When I got enough liquid courage in me, I awkwardly asked for her number and MySpace user name so I could find her. To my surprise, she quickly managed to find a pen and a scrap of paper and thrust her information at me. And here we were merely a few weeks later- which had admittedly seemed somewhat of an eternity- even given my glacial pace in making stabs at dating. "

~Steve

Elevators are extremely creepy. (That might just be the fear of heights and closed spaces talking...)

Anyways! Excerpt from Untitled 2 (I think this is 2. I forget. I have three Untitleds I'm writing -.-;)

I sort of roll off the bed and stand up. I walk to the tray that's been shoved through the door and look down on it. I'm not sure what it is. Normally, food in here is halfway recognisable, but I have no idea what this is. Some sort of lumpy casserole stuff. It’s morning, so I don’t really understand what this is supposed to be. I pick it up, along with the spork they hand out for us to eat with. Forks, even plastic ones, are too dangerous. I asked one of the nicer guards in one of my random fits of talking, and he told me the points on the forks are too long to be safe. That'd be a sad fate- stabbing yourself to death with a plastic fork in the state jail's psych ward. A lot of the people who might do that would probably be in here until they die anyways. A danger to society.