"Future Tense" at 8K

I'm moving along at a steady pace, 1K a day. I know I can't count on being able to sustain that day in and day out for the next few months, but boy oh boy, it's nice to day dream about a first draft in under 3 months.

Now, I know lots of writers who can write at that pace and my hat's off to them. I know that's not me in the same way I know participating in NaNoWriMo isn't me either. Writing fast and furious just doesn't work for me. And after 5 completed novels, it's good to be able to know what my own best process is.

There are so many 'experts' and so many 'how to' books out there. They would have you believe that there is a right way to get it done.

There is a right way.

Only, you have to work it out for yourself.


Here's a little snip from the work in progress, when Matt talks to Amara for the first time, after he interrupts someone attacking her several days before in an alley.

"Are you following me?" she asked, dark eyebrows slanting over darker eyes.

"I didn't. . . I'm sorry. . . No." I knew I sounded like an idiot. Drawing in several deep breaths, I tried to center myself as if this were a sparring match at the dojo. My pulse slowed down to something approaching calm. "Thank you for giving this back." I hefted the sweatshirt.

Her shoulders relaxed and her forehead smoothed out. "You didn't have to do what you did, you know." She shrugged. "I owe you."

I shook my head. "Right place, right time." It was only a matter of luck that I had been there in the first place. "The guys who hurt you. Who are they?"

She looked away and then back at me again. "Nobody." She inched back to her chair. "I have to get home."

"Wait."

A jolt shook through her. "What do you want?"

"I don't even know your name."

She turned to her books and packed them away. The silence of the library stacked up between us. "Amara. Amara Guzman."

Something clicked inside me. Amara Guzman. Okay. "I'm Matt Garrison."

"I know who you are," she said as she squared her pack across her shoulders with a slight wince.

I stood utterly still, staring at her back as she walked out of the library.

"What? Wait," I said.

She paused and turned to face me by the door.

"How," I said, the breath hitching in my throat, "how do you know my name?"

Her laughter knocked me completely off balance. I couldn't reconcile that bright sound with my image of her as a victim, not just in the alley last week, but twice more in my visions.

"Your sweatshirt, idiot." She shook her head, her smile widening at my confusion. "It's embroidered on your sweatshirt."