This year I combined NaNoWriMo with my Paranormal Circus erotica under glass project. It’s been a struggle for me to find the time to write (under glass or otherwise) but NaNoWriMo has forced me to make it a priority again, and I feel better for it. Writing every day is a sometimes frustrating, often difficult thing for me, but I always feel better when I’m doing it.
So yay!
I’m at about 21,000 words so far, so I thought I’d press pause for long enough to share an excerpt from this, the first of what will be a series of interconnected paranormal circus stories.
This story actually began as a “She’s on the Bottom” story. Alexa Piper offered me the following image to use as inspiration for a story:
I tried and tried but I just couldn’t pull together a story from that image. I ended up with some porn without plot… but no story. And then Em Shotwell had a love letters blog event in February that I participated in and I found the seed of a plot for this story. So that is where I began when I started writing for NaNoWriMo two weeks ago. The story has gone off on a huge tangent since then, and turned into a novella (so far) instead of the short story I’d originally envisioned.
And of course it’s still a first draft, but I see a lot of potential in this creature — I can’t wait to see what kind of beast it grows up to be 🙂
Without further ado, here is a short excerpt:
Ben met her at the gate, and when she saw him there—the sun setting behind him, ringing him in a golden halo—her breath stuck in her chest and she stopped walking for a moment to catch it and begin breathing like a normal human being. Honestly, she chastised herself. It’s just Ben. But there was no just about Ben. Not now. Not ever.
As she came to his side his smile was brighter than the sunlight and was more contagious than the Spanish Lady. He put his arm around her, and with his hand at the small of her back, ushered her around the ticket taker and into the fairgrounds. Perks of being with the show.
The midway was the same as the night before, the same as always. Same sights. Same sounds. Same smells. But everything felt touched by the magic of the sunset. Everyone seemed happier. The air felt warmer. Cheesy, but true nonetheless.
“I think therefore I am,” someone said as they crossed her path and Maggie smiled. Tonight wasn’t for thinking. Tonight was for feeling. For acting. For magic.
I have more explicit excerpts, of course I do, but I thought for a change I’d go with the romantic-y bit… I mean, as romantic as an excerpt that mentions a pandemic that killed millions of people can be.
