Yay! My first blog tag! (Happy dance.) This tag was created by the amazing Nate Philbrick of "You Write Fiction" and passed onto me by the equally amazing Hannah Heath. It is exactly what the title says. You share five pieces of dialogue from your latest work in progress, and then tag five other bloggers to do the same.
So before I could get started I had to pick a work in progress. That's right. I have more than one. I know, I know. It's a terrible habit. I can't help it. If story ideas were lightning, I would be...a lightning rod, I guess.That sounded a lot wittier in my head. Anyway, I have three partially written stories to choose from at the moment, and by a careful, rational process of elimination, taking into account... Oh, who am I kidding? I did eenie-meenie-mynie-moe. And I picked my oldest work in progress, a novel I've been writing on and off for about two years.
My working title is "Little Sister". It falls broadly in the YA dystopia genre, and the main character is a female soldier who is struggling to compete with men and earn their respect while still maintaining her femininity, a dilemma which I have personal experience with and which is severely underrepresented in fiction.
So without further ado, here are five of my favorite pieces of dialogue in the story so far. I'm not sure they'll all make the final cut, so I'm glad I have this opportunity to share them with you anyway.
"God, grant me patience. Or duct tape. Whichever is handy right now."
"You don't know what creative cursing is until you've been cursed at by a drill sergeant who's fluent in four languages and hasn't had real coffee in six months."
"You listen hard, kid. Listen to everything, especially the things they don't say. Just because a lot of stupid people are willing to die for a cause, don't assume that cause is moral. Don't let the cheering crowds drown out the screams. Listen hard, and make sure you know exactly what you're fighting for."
"A small fire. I said a small fire."
"They're distracted, aren't they? God, girls are so picky."
"I've lived my whole life in a war zone. You never get used to it. You think you have. You think you've seen the worst, and nothing can hurt that bad ever again. But then you fall in love, or you have a baby, and all of a sudden you have so much more to lose."
And that's all she wrote. For now. I hope to finish the first draft in another six months, and then it's editing time. I hope you're all going, "Ooh, I want to read that book."
And now to pass on the blogging joy. I choose... (Turns in a circle with her eyes shut.)
Tyler Miller (The Black Cat Moan)
She's Novel
Kaitlin Hillerich (Ink and Quills)
K. M. Weiland (Helping Writers Become Authors)
Lily Schreiber (Fairy Tales of an Author)
Just click on their names to see their blogs. They are all really cool people and awesome writers. And if you don't have a blog, feel free to share some snippets of dialogue from your stories in the comments section below. It would make my day.
See you again real soon.
