Writing

Some days writing come easy. Others it’s a fight from beginning to end. Yesterday was a fight. Today is a little easier.

I don’t have a lot of things to share. If you’re interested I was featured on Ilona Andrew’s blog yesterday. It’s pretty cool when you get recognized by an author you’ve been following for a while and whose work you enjoy.

Here are a few snippets from my current work in progress. I’m trying to remind myself of why I started this book as it’s been a bit of a tough few weeks otherwise. (It’s a romantasy. Not one of my current series)

Handsome Devil

The Astra considered them with the sort of cold calculation of a predator examining potential prey. Like he was determining whether the morsel of meat he’d get from their bodies was worth the exertion it would take to bring them down.

“Who’s that?” Jon asked.

Ember and the Astra stared at each other, too busy to bother with a response.

Seeing Ember wasn’t going to answer him, Jon squinted at the Astra. “Who’re you?”

“Will. You. Shut. Up. Please.” Ember hissed.

Did the grounder have no sense of self preservation? Did he not recognize the danger they were in?

Menace poured off the Astra, filling the room until she practically choked on it. She got the sense of balancing on a tightrope extended over an endless abyss. One stray move and they would tumble down.
She didn’t think it would take much. The Astra before them reminded her of some of the men and women who served her father. Those who’d seen a little too much and were broken by it. They healed at some point but came back slightly wrong in the head.

Good people, for the most part. Just slightly unhinged.

It was impossible to put her finger on what gave her that feeling. The Astra hadn’t done anything yet. Just leaned broodingly. He wasn’t even armed that Ember could see.

Despite that, she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were in grave danger.

For all the threat radiating off him, the Astra was a handsome devil. Golden blond hair whose strands had been bleached white by the sun paired. His skin equally golden. Deep set hazel eyes under a pair of straight, fierce eyebrows. His jaw was square and covered in stubble. It gave him a slightly unkempt look. If her cousins had been here, they would have fought for a chance to spend a night in his bed. The danger he exuded simply an appetizer to the main course.

For her part, Ember preferred bed partners slightly less likely to kill her. Another way she differed from that side of the family.

“Yes, Jon. Listen to your friend. She’s quite wise,” the Astra purred.

A chill crept up Ember’s spine. She really was not a fan of the way the Astra was looking at her right now. Ravenous. But not in a want to take your clothes off right now but rather a murderous kind of “I might eat you” kind of way.

Her hind brain screamed. “Danger. Danger.”

Ember sensed Jon looking at her. She cut him off before he could speak. “Don’t say my name.”

Waste lander

“Again with the rudeness. Is that a waste lander trait or are you just special?” Jon snarled.

“A bit of both, probably,” Ember confessed, following him.

Waste landers were known for being hard. They had to be to survive in the conditions they did. When even the land itself was against you, there wasn’t a lot of room for softness. She wasn’t as bad as some of the people she’d grown up with. Her cousins would have put a knife through Jon’s eye if he spoke to them the way he did her.

Then again, those were the same cousins that tried to bury her neck deep in a sand dune when they were twelve. Maybe that’s why she turned out the way she did.