First Chapter

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In one week, my book will be available to you! As a bit of a teaser, here is the first chapter:

Kissing

February 2102

The day I found Beth’s journal, Sebastian broke up with me for the last time. Or I broke up with him, depending on how I chose to tell the story.

That Monday morning began with a case of the common fight shared between mother (my lovely mom) and daughter (me). I told my mom I hated her. I certainly didn’t mean it. I wasn’t one of the teenagers who regularly used the “h” word to describe the person who gave birth to me, but Mom had made me so angry. To hear those words come out of my mouth surprised her just as much as it did me. We were fighting about Sebastian—my boyfriend, when I can call him that—and how much time I spent with him. Mom told me weekly that I needed to slow down my relationship, but I fought harder against her this time. I had just received a chip from Ryan telling me that Sebastian had gone back to Kinsley Stewart, and that made me angry.

Don’t even get me started on Kinsley Stewart.

I knew there was no need to continue fighting with Mom about Sebastian if he went back to ignoring me like he did last time he got back together with Kinsley, but if I told her that, she’d be proven right. Seeing the look she gave me as I walked out the apartment door was satisfying, if only until the guilt hit my stomach. I didn’t want to hurt Mom as much as I wanted to win the argument.

On most days, my brother Chester and I would take the same pod to school. He went to Palin Middle School, while I was a proud fighting bear at Bramble High School. Though his school was two miles farther from home, Mom preferred us to go together so that I can make sure he gets there on time. Of course, she received a chip as soon as the school registered his brain chip, but Mom was old-fashioned like that and preferred me to see that he got into school with my own eyes. She didn’t know that I put on the next chapter of The Turn of the Millennium as soon as the pod door closes behind Chester and never actually saw him walk inside.

The Turn of the Millennium was my latest favorite show. My best friend, Ryan, didn’t get the show and could care less about history. True, the show was a bit like school at times, but at least it wasn’t Ms. Sydney droning on and on about the Great Depression. The music on the show was cheesy—clearly meant for an audience much older than high schoolers—but I loved to watch anything about the 2000s. The Turn of the Millennium was narrated by Noveb White, a 70s crooner whose slicked back hair is the color of his name. On the show, he was always dressed in a corny gold blazer, though he at least changed his outlandish bowties between episodes.

As the pod arrived at Bramble, I turned off Noveb White and unthinkingly replaced it with my music. I don’t really like silence: it tempted me to think about Sebastian. I don’t want to think about him right now.

But apparently I had to think about Sebastian, as he was the first person I saw when I started walking towards the school building. I wish I had taken the time to dutifully watch Chester walk into his building this morning as that would have delayed me enough to have avoided seeing Sebastian altogether. I thought about turning around when I saw Sebastian, but just when I made up my mind to do so he spotted me…and waved. I turned pink, or at least I assumed I did because my cheeks were hot. I raised my right hand wiggling my fingers just enough to qualify it as a wave. It would never have won me any points with the judges at a beauty pageant. My hand felt like lead, but I didn’t want to ignore his gesture because people were watching.

As I waved, I heard the clicking of heels coming up from behind me. These heels were attached to long, tan legs: the long, tan legs of one Kinsley Stewart. Unlike Kinsley, I had short legs paired with a long torso. My skin was a toasted light brown color—my favorite attribute about myself—but my eyes were too wide and dark for my tastes.

If I had been pink when I saw Sebastian, I must have at this point turned red. Kinsley was the one Sebastian was waving to, not me. While I was glad that he hadn’t seen my wave, I didn’t like the fact that I was so easily overlooked by the boy who until last night I assumed was my boyfriend. I wondered whether he would even notice me if I walked right past him.

As I was thinking this, I was thrown once again. As Kinsley passed me to reach Sebastian, he leaned toward her and gave her a quick kiss on the lips, a move strictly prohibited by the Bramble High code of conduct. The forbidden intimacy was quickly followed by Sebastian’s lingering hand on her nearly bare shoulder.

The two gestures were certainly sufficient confirmation for the chip I received from Ryan last night. Couldn’t Sebastian have had the courtesy to officially end things with me before kissing her ten feet from the front door of our school? Was it not enough for him to choose her over me? Did he have to rub it in my face?

I was already thinking about what I would tell the school gossips. I’d tell them that Sebastian and I had come to a “mutual understanding.” That sounded very mature and amicable. I just hoped I wasn’t pressed for the details, as I might get tripped up in my lies. For the moment, I turned up my music as loud as it would go and tried to think of something, anything, to distract me.

Thankfully, I was soon at the door of Ms. Oscar’s classroom. As I passed through the doorway my favorite song by Eminem turned off with a quiet click. It might sound strange that I listened to music old enough to have been my great grandma’s favorite in her teenage years, but my love of the 2000s extended to my music preference.

I would have continued to listen to my music in class if I could, but this was one place it wasn’t allowed. The minders were smart enough to know that we wouldn’t do our school work if we were allowed to access our chips. Instead of watching videos internally via chip, we have to view all our lectures on our desk screens, so the minders could do what they did best: monitor that we’re on task. We even had to use old-fashioned ear buds for audio, so they wouldn’t have to worry about us overriding the lectures on our chip audio input. Mom told me in her day when chips had first come out they didn’t have the technology yet to block them. Many of the students then would sit in class and listen to their chips instead of the teachers. That was before minders, too. I guess teenagers have always been one step ahead of their elders when it comes to technology.

As I walked past the rows of desks in Ms. Oscar’s classroom, I headed to the back row where Ryan was already seated. She nodded to me as I slid into my seat, and I could tell from the curious yet sympathetic look she was giving me that she wanted to bring up the one subject I had tried and repeatedly failed to avoid. At the moment I would have actually rather discussed geometry or even the latest choose-your-own-adventure episode.

“Amala, how are you doing?” Ryan leaned over and whispered with a pitying look. I just shrugged at her. We had stayed up late last night chipping, so she already knew every feeling I could express about Sebastian. Well, everything before the kiss I had just witnessed. Now knowing that I had no way of denying the truth of Sebastian’s betrayal, I felt even worse. I guess I still carried some hope last night that his betrayal was just a rumor.

Thankfully, I was saved from having to answer Ryan by Ms. Oscar. Usually I disliked how punctual she was with starting class, but today it was a desired respite.

“Now, class, it’s time to turn to your screens and begin your work. I expect you to get through your math and English lectures before lunch.” Why Ms. Oscar had to remind us of this protocol every day, I didn’t know. Perhaps she was reading from an invisible script, or even monitored herself, and not allowed to collect her measly paycheck if she didn’t repeat these lines each day.

“Kaysah, Ming, and Ryan, you all have math tests today, so come up to the front, please.”

I was grateful that I didn’t have to begin Monday morning with a math test, but I was feeling a little bit guilty that I kept Ryan up so late last night chipping about Sebastian when she had a test the next day. Ryan said she didn’t need to study more but we both knew better. I turned to my own math lecture, putting in my ear buds. I was thankful they didn’t have cords like the ones I saw in The Turn of the Millennium. I think that they would really get in the way.

On my screen beside the video of my math lecture, I had my math eNotebook open. Around the geometry proof Professor Larry had me writing, I was doodling a continuous border of flowers. Apparently calling our math lecturer by his first name, Larry, allows us to relate more to him. His outfit, a red and gray striped sweater over high-waisted pants, circa 2089, makes the task more difficult, though. I’m thankful that Ms. Oscar hadn’t walked by to see my embellishments—it’d be hard to claim that the proof that two triangles are congruent required the floral decoration. There were too many sharp angles in math.

As Professor Larry wrote the next step of the proof on his screen, he called out my name. Of course, my name is not in the original video, but it has been added for my benefit to make sure that I’m paying attention. Got to love technology, right? I was a bit behind the 16-year-old class’s average in math, but I was okay with that. If I had tried harder, perhaps I could move through the lessons at a quicker pace, but I didn’t really see the benefit of getting to Algebra II any faster, because that was the last math class required before graduation. If we finished early, we just got the “reward” of continuing our math studies.

After Professor Larry’s lecture and English with Ms. Julie Anne, Ryan and I headed to the cafeteria for lunch. We quickly clicked our music in sync, listening to the latest release from Restra, Ryan’s favorite band. Ryan and I had been friends for a few years, and though things sometimes got tense between us, we’ve been able to remain BFF for over two years. As we sat down to lunch, Ryan looked at me expectantly. I knew the conversation would focus on Sebastian and me.

“So, Amala, are you going to confront Sebastian about what we heard?” Ryan blurted out quickly, sounding almost excited about the plight of her best friend’s latest relationship. She must have been holding it in all during her math test and English lecture.

At that moment, we both turned our heads towards the serving line, as our attention was drawn by a big clatter followed by laughter and shouts of “Peg-leg Ming is at it again!” Ming, a fellow year 16, had tripped and thrown her plate of mashed potatoes and pinto beans under a nearby table where several popular kids were seated. She was busy scrambling under the table, rescuing the few beans that had sloshed off of her plate. Ming had a bad leg that made her walk with a pronounced limp, though she was often “helped” in her clumsiness by her classmates who liked to trip her.

Ryan was only momentarily distracted. “I told you Sebastian was a jerk from the beginning,” she said, taking a sip of her watery apple juice. I remembered nothing of the sort, but hindsight was 20/20, right? In fact, it was Ryan and her boyfriend, Tate, who had convinced Sebastian and I to get together in the first place. But Ryan and Tate broke up last week, and ever since then, Ryan has claimed to have known both Tate and his best friend Sebastian were jerks all along.

“Who cares, I never was that into him,” I say to shut Ryan up. Actually, it’d be truer that he wasn’t ever that into me.

(c) 2011 Ronnica Z. Rothe

What It’s All About

So, as my publication date approaches (2 weeks, Lord willing!), here is the blurb for my novel:

“It is 2102. On one of the worst days of her life, Amala makes a discovery that will change her life forever. In a world with little use for paper books, she finds tucked away behind a dusty bookshelf the journal of a teenage girl written in 2001. Although over 90 years separate the two teenage girls, Amala soon learns that navigating the difficult waters of adolescence and life transcends time, but more importantly, she uncovers a valuable story about faith in an uncertain world that resonates with her own experience.

Young adults are certain to appreciate the fresh, authentic writing style taken from actual teenage journals and the candid way challenging, relevant issues are addressed.”

I submitted the FINAL and complete copy for printing yesterday. So close to being done!

Writing Update: 2nd Draft Complete

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a writing update, but it’s been a pretty boring few months, writing wise. Editing is like that, I suppose. Don’t get me wrong, I actually prefer editing to writing, but editing doesn’t allow the same kind of breakthroughs.

Actually, finishing my 2nd draft, I feel even worse about my novel than I did the day I finished it.

Yes, you heard that right…I finished a complete edit of my novel Tuesday. It feels good to have that done, especially since I will now be setting down my NaNoWriMo novel for a few months to work on something else. During this time, I’ve also asked a few people to read my novel and provide some valuable feedback…it desperately needs a fresh set of eyes on it!

To be honest (and not because I’m the self-deprecating type, because I’m not), I don’t think I have what it takes to be a professional novelist. I believe that I can hone my fiction-writing skill through practice and guidance, but I don’t think I’ll ever have “what it takes.” I lack an eye for detail and the natural art of storytelling.

That’s okay, though. Becoming a professional writer was never my goal. It will hopefully continue to be a hobby that I enjoy.

I’m still on track to have this self-published in time to be under the Christmas tree for my family. The Journal–that’s the official title, as the working title referred to 2 journals, one of which never existed–will be available to you on Amazon in paperback as well as in ebook format on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.  It’ll definitely take a few more edits before then, though!

So what’s next for me? Non-fiction. I’ve always wanted to write a Christian living book, but couldn’t think of any area that needed yet another voice. But one came to me when I was talking to some friends Monday, and I’m going to run with it. I might run into a wall with it in 2 weeks, but it’s a worthy pursuit to see where the trail leads.

And yes, I realize my full name is in that picture. Not like it was hard to figure out before…how many Ronnicas do you know? But now that I’m publishing, It will be a detail that will obviously be out there.

Self-Publishing

I mentioned Tuesday that I think self-publishing might be for me.  Of course, I’m open to changing my mind, but this is the path that I’m heading down at the moment, and I’m excited about it.

I love that self-publishing is so easy to do.  Especially with eBooks–a few clicks, and you can offer your book worldwide for any price you want.  But even with print books, it’s not too difficult.

Another plus of self-publishing? I maintain control over how it’s branded.  Though my book clearly presents my beliefs, it makes me a little sick to think of my novel that I love dearly branded and marketed as “Christian fiction.”

Sure, I likely won’t make as much going this route, but that was never a goal of mine.  I’d never want to quit my day job for writing…the thought of “having” to write is not appealing at all.  Writing (whether blogging or writing novels) is a hobby for me, and I want to keep it that way.

But why don’t I consider going through traditional publishing channels first?

I’m not opposed to it, and may do a both/and sort of thing (it’s possible to quit self-publishing at any point), submitting queries while getting my novel ready for self-publishing.  At this point, the next step is the same either way: I’ve got a lot of editing to do.

Just take a look at this sentence I found in my novel:

“Then I’d have to tell him that I really liked to look and touch stuff that was older than me, even my grandma.”

Umm, yeah.  I definitely have some work to do.

Final Writing Update

You read the title correctly. It’s also the reason why this wasn’t posted earlier…I didn’t want to update you again before I was done.

From the beginning of NaNoWriMo–or at least from the point on November 1st when I realized that writing 50,000 words was doable–I hoped to finish before Thanksgiving.  I’m flying out Thursday morning, and I knew it would be a more pleasant time with my family if I didn’t have to worry about word counts.

And I did it.  Egged on in part by the success of others (nothing like a little friendly competition) and the joy of writing this story, I completed it.  At just over 50,000 words, it’s a medium-short length for a Young Adult novel (which it is).

Though I completed the story, it’s far from complete…I have a lot of editing ahead of me!  I’m going to take about a month’s break  from it while I go back to my last work in progress, to try to turn that idea into something that I can work with.  I have several more ideas floating around in my head, and even if none of them ever see the light of day, I hope to enjoy writing them.  I look forward to continuing to wrestle with my writing to make it my best, even if it never is “good enough.”

Writing Update #2: Addicted to Reading AND Writing

Clearly, the writing has finally caught up with my blogging, as I didn’t get this update up as early as usual (nor did I blog over the weekend!).

Week 2 of NaNoWriMo was much harder than week 1, which makes sense since week 1 was easy.  Monday and Tuesday were especially hard, but then a new character showed up.

I can’t believe things can pop up on you like that when you’re writing, but they do.  And this character is probably my favorite so far.  I’m glad she came by, because she made writing much easier!

Because of the Readathon for Hunger and babysitting, I went 48 hours this weekend without writing.  By the end of that time, I was really missing my characters and the world I created.

The main thing I’ve missed out on this month has been reading.  Since I did that a lot this weekend, I want to read even more (it’s addictive, too!).  I want to do both, and I think I can, by being diligent.

My NaNoWriMo word count is now at 33,208 words which is still well ahead of where I’m supposed to me.  After some research and some more writing, I have realized that 50,000 is a reasonable word count goal for this first draft (instead of the 75,000 which was my original thought), so I’m going to allow myself to slow down, aiming to write only the 1,667 words suggested.

At this rate, I hope to be done by the day before Thanksgiving.  Since I fly to Kansas to visit family on Thanksgiving and will be there for the rest of the month, this is great timing.  I can do a lot of reading then, or maybe I’ll move on to another novel idea!

I’m SO thankful my SIL convinced me to do NaNoWriMo…I’m loving it!

Writing Update #1

Today is the 8th day of NaNoWriMo, known as November 8th to most people.  So how am I doing?

Better than I ever expected.

I honestly thought that I’d struggle with reaching the 1,667 words each and every day.  Based on past experience, I expected that to take me about 2 or 2 1/2 hours.  No, more like 1 1/2, which was refreshing.

Plus, except for yesterday (when I didn’t try very hard because I didn’t need to), I exceeded the 1,667 words/day guideline, and a couple of times I even ended up getting into the 4,000+ territory.  Saturday after the sleepover I wrote on and off throughout the day, even going to a write-in at a local library.  It was great to meet other crazies.

So going into today, my word count is 20,750 (or about 83 pages).  I’ve never written that much of anything, and it feels good.  At this rate, I’ll reach the 50,000 word goal the weekend before Thanksgiving, but we’ll see about that.  Since I realized how easy and enjoyable that writing can be, I decided to aim for 75,000 words, as that’s a more realistic length for my novel, and I’d love a completed first draft at the end of the month.

Another surprise this week has been a couple of plot twists that came.  Going into this novel, I knew the introduction and where it will end up, but I didn’t know how my protagonist gets from point A to point B.  I’m really surprised at what happened, and how organic it came.  Plots and characters really can speak for themselves, and I look forward to seeing what else they have to say.

So, the long and short of this update is that I’m now addicted to fiction writing.  Obviously, I’ve loved writing this blog, but though I’ve attempted it before, I never really got into fiction writing.  I still have no idea of pursuing it as a career, but I could see myself doing it, and that’s something totally new to me.

Golden Dreams

Do you remember when I asked you for words so that I could spin them into a story?

No?  Perhaps that’s because that was 4 MONTHS ago, when I was still knee-deep in taxes.

So, about that…here goes.

You know those nights where you remember more than one dream?  Tonight is one of those nights.

In my first dream, I am dancing in a golden wheat field with my husband (that I don’t have), when I fall down a small hill caused by erosion.  Of course, this causes me to exclaim something vulgar, “Abominable, scrumtrulescent goofball!”

Yes, I tend to be verbose in dreams.

Next thing I know, I am in a discussion about antidisestablishmentarianism with Betty White, Edward from Twilight, and Mark Wahlberg.  They are surprisingly astute…I’d love to have another conversation with them.  You’d be surprised to hear the technical words they are throwing around…perhaps I should suggest to my History of the Church and State professor to invite them as guest lecturers (well, except for Edward).

After that, I am sitting at my kitchen table, eating an insipid noodle dish.  All of a sudden, my biology professor is there and anointing my head with oil.  Then he starts blabbering on and on about something controversial: abortion, same-sex marriage, or the war in Iraq.  It’s all a little unclear…what do phenotypes have to do with any of those?

Slam!

“Ms. Thomas, did you have a good nap?” I hear my biology professor–the same man who only moments before was anointing my head–say.

“Wha, huh?”

“I believe you may have been dreaming about the abominable snowman, perhaps?”

Photo by bernat

Okay, Okay, Okay

Several of you have mentioned our fun little word game.   I haven’t been up for it, but I think I’m ready to wow you again with my fiction improvisational skills.

It’s been a while and some of you are new, so here’s how it goes. You name a word–any word within reason (please nothing technical or vulgar!)–and I’ll use all your words in a single story.  Just leave your word in the comments on this post. (No April Foolin’ here.)  Feel free to be as offbeat as you wish…only helps to propel the story in some interesting directions.

I don’t know when I’ll write the story, but I’ll at least give you a couple of days to give a word.  I’ll let you know when it’s closed.

To see what I’m talking about, here are some past stories you’ve helped me create:

Assumption

Blind Date

Frankenstein and Rock ‘n’ Roll

Words Sting

(And I promise I didn’t mean to put them in alphabetical order…that was the order I found them in, promise!)

So, what’s your word?