Tuesday, June 3, 2014

WIPpet Wednesday: "The Hammock"

So, I'm officially JuNoWriMo-ing this month, although I'm not gonna be a WriMo poster-child. I hope to have the first draft completed by the end of July, and I'll be editing a little as I go so it's not quite so overwhelming to do it all at once. (Shhh ... don't tell anyone!)

This WIP, currently dubbed Draft1, is a companion novel to Slave Again. It happens during the same time frame and involves two characters, Hannah and Simon, who were briefly introduced in Slave Again. They are two North Koreans who found refuge in China and eventually returned to their homeland. Things didn't necessarily turn out as they hoped.

***

With the chickens clucking out back and sunlight streaming in through the small window, Hannah slept. She dreamed of swinging in Mrs. Stern’s garden hammock, the sun warming her all the way to the center of her being. Enveloped by its rays, she didn’t need any blankets. The heat itself wrapped around her like a protective quilt. The pain in her leg was gone, her stomach was full.* Inside, she heard the murmured prayers of the Secret Seminary students.

A finger stroked her cheek, and a sudden, delightful chill pricked at her neck like a light breeze. She reached up and touched his hand, closed her eyes, and breathed in his familiar masculine scent intermingled with the garden perfumes. “Shouldn’t you be in there with the rest of them?” he asked. His voice was distant, muffled somehow. She couldn’t tell if his tone was accusatory or not.

She strained her ears. Inside the house, her comrades interceded with fervor for the people of North Korea, for those trying to escape, for those in prison camps. “We should go inside,” she whispered. She made a move to get up, but her body was too heavy, the heat itself weighing her down. “I can’t,” she admitted.

“I know.” She heard the smile in his voice as he lay down beside her. Waves of heat danced up her back as he pressed up against her, curled up into her, wrapped his arms around her. The hammock swayed, but there was plenty of room for them to share. She had never been so close to him before, but it was familiar, like a cup of Mrs. Stern’s sweetened tea, just the right temperature, perfectly flavored, the familiar smell instantly calming her center. His fingers stroked through her hair. Her head rested on the soft spot between his shoulder and bicep. “I want to stay here,” she whispered. “I don’t want to go anywhere."

“Me, either.” His lips brushed against her ear, the sensation of that first kiss shooting tendrils of heat and comfort that eventually settled deep in her belly.

When Hannah woke up, her pillow was soaked in tears, and she shivered from the cold.
 
***

These six paragraphs (for the sixth month) sum up basically the themes of Draft1 [working title].

Blog Love: Huge thanks to K L Schwengel for hosting the WIPpet Wednesday blog hop, where authors post snippets from the current Works In Progress.

*Calling All Green Thumbs: *I wanted to put something about what kind of flowers were in the garden and what they smelled like. This is east China in the late fall. The garden is tended by an American. Any ideas? I'm more of a veggie gardener myself and probably couldn't identify more than a dozen flowers by name.

Random Fact: On Thursday, my husband and I are celebrating our ten-year anniversary!

20 comments:

  1. You set such a lovely, vivid scene here. I really have a sense that I'm in a skilled author's hands as I read. Great use of the senses to evoke a mood as well.

    I especially enjoy your excerpts because I don't often read about North Korea, so in that sense it's a bit exotic.

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  2. Ahhh such a lovely scene...right up until she wakes up. You really draw the reader into their tender moment, even if it is just her memory and wishful thinking.

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    1. I suppose I could have left out the part about it being a dream, but you all might have pulled an intervention on me.

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  3. I'm SO HAPPY to see Hannah and Simon (and to hear that you're working on their story), but that's just heartbreaking. *sigh*

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    1. I'm glad they get their own book too. Initially I wrote more of them into Slave Again and it eventually grew beyond the scope of one book.

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  4. I adore highly sensory scenes like this one. Incredibly, beautifully vivid. And the way it shatters at the end is heartbreaking.

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    1. Thanks, Amy. I really wish I knew what a Chinese garden in the fall smelled like :)

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  5. That was a beautiful and sweet scene, but man oh man is that ending like a punch to the gut!

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    1. Ah, thanks Christina. I feel sorry for her too.

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  6. Comment, take two:

    I can't rememr my first comment, but it was something along the lines of, "How awful to wake up to that." Only a little more sophisticated than that.

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  7. Loved the excerpt and would love to read the finished book! I can't, however, tell you a thing about plants in China. Sorry!

    Happy 10th Anniversary! That's a milestone for sure!

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  8. Hmm, a lot of the plants we think of as normal ornamental flowers here in the US are imports from China and Europe... You could probably get away with most anything, but a jasmine is always likely. All but one variety are native to Asia. Also chrysanthemums...

    It felt like a dream. Her inability to focus on "him" just the sense of him... But it was done well. The dream felt ethereal, sublime even. Loved it, Alana.

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    1. Eden, I love what you say about the sense of him, not the him actually. :) And I can't ever see the word chrysanthemum spelled out without thinking of the Anne of Greene Gables movie :)

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  9. Definitely a sweet dream and rude wakening. More, please!

    I'm a day late, but hope your anniversary was even more wonderful than your combined wildest dreams!

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    1. Thanks, Shan! We actually celebrated our anniversary Friday instead of Thursday, so your wishes were right on time. :)

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  10. I was reading this thinking, "Oh, man, hammock, sun, company, this sounds blissful!" And then I got to the last line and that was just so sad! Why do you toy with me, Alana?!

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    1. O, sorry for toying... Wait, not I'm not. :) j/k

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