All posts tagged: writing excerpt

Fiction Friday: Breaking & Entering

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By Leslie Lindsay Here we are at edge of Slippery Slope.  Our female protagonist is breaking into her first love’s home with his wife.  Oh…don’t do it!!  [original fiction.  Copying or reproducing is strictly prohibited].     “Steve?” I call out, my voice timid, unsure.         No answer.        “Hello?  Anyone home?”  The lights are on, the television blares, the puppy…he’s got to be here.         Numbers bloat out of my Steve?” I call out timidly, my voice squeaking. head, like pop-ups on a computer screen.  An orange eight.  Sixteen.  An aqua-blue twenty-four dances in front of me.  His address.         I stiffen as I glance around the house, removing my gloves.  I should leave.  This is wrong.  I wipe my hands down my pants.  Wetness develops under my arms.  I breathe out and try again, “Steve?  Are you here?   It’s me…Annie.”         The puppy barks.  A sharp squeak.   He leads me to the stairs.  I twist my head to the dining room as I pass by, noting the color on the wall.  Buttered yellow.  I …

Fiction Friday:

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By Leslie Lindsay Another excerpt from my novel-in-progress.  Plowing ahead!  Remember, this is original work–women’s ficiton.  Enjoy!  Thinking about Annie—about her life now—who she is, who’s she’s become.  A wife, a mother.  Pregnant? Could that be just another illusion?  I mean, I knew she had kids—two of them to be exact—and Beth, well all she ever wanted was what Annie had.  It was like a bad joke; a twist of fate I wasn’t expecting.  Annie had everything she ever wanted—children, a home, an education.  Joe.  I wince.  An impediment to my goal.  Annie.     And all Beth wants is a baby.  With me.  I rake my hands through my hair.  Pregnant.   How can that be?  I always assumed Annie and I would have children someday.  It was one of the reasons I fell so hard for her.  I pictured us having kids together—nurturing, maternal Annie.  If anyone was cut out for the job, it was her.  What more could I want—a wife who was a nurse.  Maybe a school nurse, who would place Band-aids on skinned …

Fiction Friday: Calling You

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By Leslie Lindsay Here’s something I have been working on this week.  It’s from my novel-in-progress.  Remember this is fiction and not intended to represent anyone real, living or dead.  Like my work?  Great.  But please don’t take it without asking.  Don’t like it?  Well…what can I say?!          The day drug on.  Silence gripped my soul.   The tick of the wall clock pounded behind my eyes, a network of vessels and synapses reaching for an impasse.  Everyday numbers rambled through my head.  29-39, 25-30.  Counting by tens, by 5’s.          Counting on you.         Desperate for a human connection, my fingers itching to dial, “just tap the numbers into the phone,” I scolded myself, shaking my head.  An electronic device, the abstraction of numbers rattling in my thoughts.  How can a phone be a connection to the living, breathing world?  Something so inanimate, yet so alive with possiblility, the promise of a relationship.           A time so emotionally charged, the arrangement of the digits so frightenly familiar, though they have not been dialed in …

Fiction Friday: The Green Sprout

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By Leslie Lindsay Okay–better late than never, right?!  I have been working on chapter 3 revisions of my novel-in-progress with writing partner (in crime), Christine B.  This darn chapter is the bane of my existance.  Partly because it’s so long (over 20 pages; and so many words I lost count around 5,000).  It was also a challenging chapter because there is actually a teensy bit a truth to it.  (You know us writers often write for catharsis, right?).  So, after about 4 go-rounds on it, I present you “The Sprout:”  [Remember, most of this is fiction.  It is not for stealing.  Or borrowing.  Or claiming as your own.]  He pulled the Volvo into a parking lot, put the car in park and came around to open my door.  I recalled her words again: When a man opens the door of a vehicle, it’s because the car, or the woman is new. “We’re here.  One of my favorite places to eat.”  Vibrant yet chipping paint coated the tiny building.  Your basic college dive.  “The Green Sprout?”  I twisted …