This is from the novel I have out on submission, Dissection. It's when my main character, Syd first gets to the teen psyche ward. I'm going to explain one thing. The sound effect SNAP! Sometimes counselors will give cutters a rubberband, the thick kind that go around produce, to wear around their wrists, and instead of cutting, they snap the band.
So here is an excerpt from Dissection. Tell me what you think.
As Astrid showed me to my room, I asked, “How
long do I have to be here, anyway?”
“Seventy-two hours minimum. The rest depends
on you. When you can be trusted not to hurt yourself, and are weaned off of
your rubber band bracelet,” she gestured to my wrist, “you should be able to
leave.”
I walked into the room and recognized a bag
sitting on the bed—my purple duffel bag from home. I tore through it just to look
at familiar things. None of my newer clothes were there, the ones I’d purchased
when I wanted to be “new Syd”, which was fine with me because I hated “new Syd”.
I began unpacking my stuff and putting
it into the closet and chest of drawers in my room. When I reached the bottom,
I found a package of gummy worms. Someone had taken the time to pick only the
red ones out and pack them up for me. Someone knew me well. I wondered who it
was.
“We have a hair dryer, flat iron, curling
iron, and shavers, but they’re locked up and may only be used under
supervision. So if you need them, let the staff know. I’m going to leave you to
get settled,” Astrid said. “I’ll come to check on you in a little while.”
A “little while” meant exactly fifteen
minutes. As a cutter, I was on what they called “Extra Vigilance” observation. This
meant that someone was checking up on me every fifteen minutes, like clockwork,
which annoyed the hell out of me. It also meant I could go outside, but only if
a staff member went with me.
I surveyed the room. My parents had brought
things to make it feel more like home. There were family photos taped to the
wall, my favorite astrology book. On the bed sat a stuffed dog I’d never seen
before. There was a card next to it. I opened it up and it said, I didn’t want you to miss Chewy too much. Love,
Bryce. Stupid, sweet brother. I wondered if he was still dating that
backstabbing bitch, Haley. I wonder if she helped him pick out the stupid dog. It
made me want to rip its head off. Instead, SNAP!
On the dresser sat a package of plastic
glow-in-the-dark stars, another card sat beside it. This one said, Wasn’t sure if you’d be able to see the sky
from your room~Zach. P.S. Hope you like the gummies. Wow. The gummies and
the stars. It made me smile, then made me feel horrible for how I’d treated him
the last few months.
Astrid popped in, scaring the hell out of me. I
nearly jumped out of my shoes. “How we doing in here?”
“Fine.” I continued to put my things away.
“Take a few minutes. I’ll come back in a
little bit and grab you for lunch.” Fab.
I lay on my bed and stared at the stark white
ceiling, regretting every decision I’d made the last few months, David, Lacy,
Zach. The E, the pot, the cutting. Being friends with Grim. I felt like I’d
been sucked into a vacuous void, floating in darkness, like Cassiopeia, not in
control of my limbs—just spinning deeper and deeper into the vortex.
Walking uphill
This is from the novel I have out on submission, Dissection. It's when my main character, Syd first gets to the teen psyche ward. I'm going to explain one thing. The sound effect SNAP! Sometimes counselors will give cutters a rubberband, the thick kind that go around produce, to wear around their wrists, and instead of cutting, they snap the band.
“Fine.” I continued to put my things away.
I was checking out my sales on Amazon today. They're not astounding of course, but I am appreciative of those who have purchased and read my book.
New England has supported me a lot, I'm sure with help from fellow 2k12er Gina Rosati and her amazing librarian friend, Laura.
Doesn't it make you feel good? I took a couple days away from my novel after finishing, and now I'm at the point where I'm reading it aloud, and I must say, I like it.
I also did a lot of football research. I mean, I know a lot about football, which is why I wrote a football story in the first place, but I didn't know names of passes, or anything about Powder Puff, or what a college coach does in the off season. 
The Archmage is a sequel to
the novel Just Cause, starring the super-speedy Mustang Sally along with
the rest of the Just Cause superhero team. In it, I explore the use of magic in
a superhero setting. In this case, a character named Wolfgang Frasier has been
slaughtering other mages around the world and taking their power for himself.
He’s gotten so powerful that there is only one other mage remaining besides
him, the hero Stratocaster, who is a member of the Lucky Seven hero team that
Sally trained with at the beginning of Just Cause. If Frasier manages to
kill Stratocaster, his power becomes absolute and he could plunge the entire
world into darkness, becoming its total ruler. This is, of course, his goal.
Sally and the other heroes have no choice but to try to stop him, even though
his power is so great that he can call armies of the dead out of the ground and
turn anyone captured to his side. There’s a nifty bit of time travel thanks to
magic going awry that sends the team back to the 1870s, and of course some
great intrigue and epic, cinematic battles. At the same time, Sally’s
relationship with Jason is growing much more complex and suffering growing
pains all its own.
LHP is an imprint I created
specifically for the release of my novel-length work and collections. I didn’t
want to simply release them under my own name as the publisher because with
such a wide variety of genres under my belt, I wanted something to tie them all
together. This way, if someone buys The Archmage, likes it, and looks to
see what else LHP has to offer, they might discover Blood on the Ice or Pariah’s
Moon or Troubleshooters.
