Who had a beautiful bright warm sunny day on Saturday? I did I did! 😀 Our warmest day this month. Insects are starting to wake up, birds are deliriously happy, daffodils are screaming their yellow heads off–ah, spring!
It was so nice out today I couldn’t even come inside to put together another Weekend Writing Warriors excerpt until evening. But here it is! You may recall that previously, Devorah and her mentor Kazimir were asked to trap the demon known as Thaumiel. They set up said trap in the basement of a synagogue. Last week, something unexpected happened. This week, I’m skipping ahead a little.
You can find previous excerpts here. Today’s excerpt has been modified to follow the rules. And please remember to go back to the WeWriWa home page to find links to wonderful excerpts from a wide variety of stories! If you can’t find something here to love reading, you’re too picky 🙂
Cracks opened in the floor; the continuous shaking threw me down. Rumbling and the sounds of things falling got louder. Somebody lifted me, but rather than feel my feet on solid ground, I kept moving upward, fast enough to make me light-headed. An awful crashing went on below as my feet dangled into nothingness. The swaying was worse than the boat trip I’d taken when we got caught in a storm. Cold wind raked across me, making it hard to get enough air into my lungs and making my whole head burn.
I thumped onto the ground, snow flying into my face. I gulped air and my skin tingled painfully as it began to warm. Thaumiel’s terrible bellowing echoed in my head, his blazing eyes seemed to hover in front of me. I rubbed my eyes then looked around—close by, Kazimir struggled to rise to one knee.
Want to know what went on when Thaumiel was caught? You’ll either have to wait till the book is published or volunteer to be a beta reader! 😉 I’m adding worldbuilding details but it can be hard to work that in without it looking like it’s worked in, you know? Plus trying to avoid the “as you know, Bob” syndrome. Non-writers think writing is easy; heck, I used to think that too. What a rude awakening, LOL!
the authorial owl 
It doesn’t look good for Kazimir! What the heck happened? 🙂
Yeah. Writing winds up being a whole lot of work once we get past that fun–creative stage. Ha!
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Between Kazimir and Devorah, he’s the one who came out in worse shape, but hey, he can heal himself! Thanks for stopping by, Reesie.
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Sounds like the plan has gone horribly wrong!
Yes, writing is very hard work – but when it works (and your snippet works really well) it feels really good.
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“wrong” is a relative term, depending on which side you’re on! Thanks very much for the kind comment, Peter.
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I guess the trap didn’t work as planned then. That can’t be good 🙂
And everyone thinks it would be easy to write a novel (“You write? Fascinating. I’ve got an idea for a novel I’ll get around to one day…”) but so few get far enough to realize how hard it is. Oddly enough, the worldbuilding part is my favorite.
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Hi Ian! Things did not go as planned, but not all of it was bad for Our Heroes. I may allude to that in later excerpts. It’s always nice to see your name.
I love worldbuilding too. That part’s as much fun as work. Sometimes I get caught up in that and forget about the plot, LOL!
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I take it their plan didn’t work out and now they have a ticked-off demon on their hands. What fun! 🙂 At least they survived, so far.
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They have survived, if a little worse for wear. You can’t have everything, after all! Thanks, Christina.
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Perhaps they went into this a little under-prepared? LOL!
And, yeah, writing’s not for the faint-hearted. 80K+ words don’t write themselves, right?
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Well they *thought* they were prepared, but demons are not known to be cooperative!
Dialog is the easy part of writing for me; the plotting part and the great prose part are what have to be dragged out of me, often leaving nasty red claw marks!
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Things just never go the way we plan, right? Great snippet, and it seems like you are doing fine with your god-like world building powers!
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Thanks so much! There’s more worldbuilding to be done, and the stuff between all the dialog needs to be spruced up, but it’s gong in the right direction.
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Well, everyone knows what they say about plans. Still they seem to have survived, which means they can try again!
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Thanks Caitlin. They may need to try again, or maybe not.
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Wow, you’re doing great on the world building! Fantastic snippet. 🙂
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Why thank you, Heather. There’s more details in the full chapters, of course, though I’m sure some things could still be added or fleshed out better. But that’s why it’s called a work in progress!
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Ah, spring… it certainly is tempting! The snippet was great, I really loved the feeling of disorientation and panic. I wonder what went wrong! Great snippet!
Also, I’d volunteer for Beta reading! 😉
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Be careful what you ask for, Amy, I may take you up on that!
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Holy cow, great wordsmithing!!! So visual! Great snippet!
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Hi Sara, and thank you so much, I really appreciate that enthusiasm! 🙂
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Lots of people think writing is easy. After I’d written a couple of non-fiction programming books, I yearned for something more creative and my wife suggested I write a romance because anyone could write one of those. Not exactly…
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LOL! Ed, I’m glad you decided to pursue creative writing anyway!
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Wow Marcia! The phrase: ” and then all hell broke loose” has nothing on this. Absolutely terrifying!
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Why thank you Kim, that’s very kind of you 🙂
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