Excerpt from My NaNoing

I've amazed myself as I NaNoing along. One weeks gone by and I'm on Chapter 7. Should be on chapter 8, but I'll take what I got since it's about 8000 words more than I usually produce in a week. Got my 500 words in this morning even though I got up late because I read until 2 AM. Whatever, I decided I really liked how Judi Anne Lucca wakes after being hijacked onto a space trip.

 

Waking Up

7

The cold sent her shivering until her hands could barely clutch the ax, but Judi Anne kept splitting wood. Crack. Snap. Scream. She wasn’t alone. The wood chunk she slammed the ax into jumped off the chopping block. Judi bent over to pick up the pieces and groaned. Every fiber in her body cursed with pain. Her mother would wash her mouth out with home-made lye  soap. The burning flowed down or up into her throat. Judi had no reference points in the darkness. Her eyes refused to focus.

The smell of puke invaded her nostrils. “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.” A voice near her yelled. “Have mercy on me. I’m dying. I’m dying.”

Screams. Shouts. Shrieks. Moans. All assaulted Judi’s ears, but she kept chopping kindling even as her own muscles pulsed with pain. Raise the ax high. Slam it down. Each whack jarring her body until her shoulders rose off the bed.

Bed? Am I dreaming?

The smell and noise surrounding her cut too deeply to be a dream. She tried to raise her arm, only to bump it against some wall. Judi brushed her hand down. She moved her leg to the same side. The smooth wall seemed to surround her.

Like I said, I like this ... so I'm wondering if it'll turn out to be one of the darlings I eventually kill with a red pencil ... I do know it'll get edited because, for one thing, I haven't described the setting from her childhood farm. And, yes, it's important. Judi's anachronistic skills are going to save her when she and her class get captured by terrorists.