This will be part of something larger that I have in mind:

Pushing the mattress inside the hide-a-bed, George rubbed at his aching back. His mouth watered in anticipation at the smell of bacon. He pulled his worn bathrobe tight against his sunken chest, not wanting Annie to see. George picked through a battered case, pushed under the sofa the night before, looking for clean socks and underwear. Sniffing the underarms of the faded shirt he’d worn the day before, he decided it could pass one more day’s wear. No sense giving Annie yet more work.

George maneuvered his way between the bookshelf, overflowing with papers, and the counter. Sliding behind Annie, he tried to squeeze his way to the bathroom. Pushing a wisp of lank hair off her damp forehead, she smiled wanly at him. She looked even more pale and drawn this morning than usual.

“It won’t be much longer,” he said, resting his hand on her back.

My first drafts come out very quickly. Get the story down and get out. I’m very much a pantser. Engaging the senses is one way to pull a reader in to your story. So for today’s prompt, write a scene that engages the senses of the reader.

A day behind again. Eep, doing things after work with friends on weeknights really affects my writing time. I need to find a more effective way to balance a personal life with a creative life. This weekend looks to be insane too. My son is moving back home, so I need to prepare a room for him. This means packing up boxes of books and the computer. Aak. And I still want to write every day. Someone tell me I can do it.

Here is yesterday/today’s exercise (and this might just wind up included in my WIP):

The SUV responded to the extra exertion of my foot against the gas pedal, surging around the corner. Trees huddled close to the road on my right, almost brushing against the car. Water dripped steadily from the mist drifting off the cliff on my left. The only sound was the swish of my car tires on pavement.

A piercing siren wrenched my thoughts off Drew and his delicious neck. I did not need company right now. And especially not human company.

Easing off the gas, I pulled over. Fingers curled tightly around my steering wheel, I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to breathe. I hadn’t remembered to take in any air since running out on Drew, leaving his bleeding body behind. Appearing human right now wouldn’t be easy.

Powering down the window, I stared at the lean form of the officer striding toward my vehicle. I toyed with the idea of sliding out of my vehicle and forcing him to run. Rubbing at my face, I once again tried to force oxygen into my lungs and convince my chest to pump with a semblance of life. Shuddering gasps racketed through me.

“License, please.” He stood with legs splayed, one thumb hooked casually through a front belt-loop, a vision of masculine power and strength. My canines itched with the need to consume blood, and my neck muscles twitched in anticipation.

How fast can you run, I thought. Loosening my death grip on the steering wheel, I pulled my license out of my pocket and flicked it through the window at him. If I made eye contact with him, it would be over before it began. And he wouldn’t have a chance at survival.

His blunt fingers caught my license in a deft move. He glanced at my photograph and stared at me comparing the image to the reality. Resisting the urge to lick my lips, I stared rigidly at the road ahead, my hands once again gripping the wheel.

“Registration. Going a bit fast, don’t you think,” he said as I handed them to him. “This is a dangerous section of road, especially in this fog.”

“Yes.” Just give me the damn ticket and get out of here. While you can. If I used any additional force to encourage him to leave, the touch of his mind would be enough to drive me over the edge.

“Is there a reason for the rush?” He tapped the edge of my license against the envelope holding my registration. The thwap of plastic against plastic shivered along my nerve endings.

“No.” I shook my head in a single sharp gesture. Almost unconciously, my nostrils flared, drinking in his musky aroma. It would smell so much sharper if he ran. Pungent, tangy. Delicious. “I just didn’t realize.”

“Wait here, please.” He turned abruptly, headed back for the cruiser. The wait stretched out interminably, allowing my mind to turn over fresh images of Drew, the red blood running down the front of his shirt, gave me time to savour the memory of the fear in his eyes.

Time to think of what that lean officer’s body would look like sprinting down the road in front of me.

“All right. You can go.” He handed me back my documents, slapped the palm of his hand against the roof of my car and disappeared back into the night.

Just in time too.

Another necessity for enriching stories is character development. Often we think characters would (or should) act in a certain way with another character. I’ve heard that doing character interviews is supposed to help–finding out favourite ice cream flavours, um, and stuff. You can tell I’ve never interviewed a character before.

But another option is to free write a scene for your characters within the world you already created for them. For example, imagine them a week before your book starts and show us one of their conversations. Or write a scene that doesn’t exist within the current time frame. Or you could take a minor character and show a conversation they have with a completely random person (like a bank teller). This can reveal information that you might be able to incorporate into your WIP as well.

Exactly what are you supposed to do when you find a body in your bed? Samantha wondered that the day she came home and found one curled up on her perfect comforter. Dark stubble graced his chiseled chin. But he was obviously dead. The trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth and pooling under his chin left no doubt.

Robert. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been clothed, lounging against the bar with one meaty hand around a beer bottle. Glancing sideways at him, Samantha found a booth as far away from him as she could get. She didn’t want to see him. Or talk to him either.

Now he lay dead on top of her bed. Samantha sighed and dialed 911. At least she didn’t have to worry about talking to him again.

In thinking of an adventure I had this past weekend, my mind kept going back to the phrase: “I didn’t expect that”. I thought to use that for today’s prompt, but it didn’t have enough zing. I played with it in my head, wondering how to create conflict in one sentence. And here is today’s prompt:

Exactly what are you supposed to do when you find a body in your bed?

Just a tease from my current WIP, completely re-written.

Hunting should probably be my first priority, but a tepid glass of blood would have to sustain me until I found out if Trog had died trying to protect me. At least Nikolai had a well-stocked kitchen. I leaned again the cool granite counter top and gulped down the liquid. Licking the inside of the glass to get every drop of nourishment, I waited for the blood to spread healing through my ravaged body.

As I set the empty tumbler on the counter, the clink of glass against rock sounded loud in the empty room. I had to force myself to move before anyone else arrived. Piercing pain shot through my head as I crept toward the front door.

Do you have to monitor everything I do? I knew Nikolai wanted to ensure my safety, but it only made me irritable.

Seeing Dante leaning against the door frame waiting for me came as no surprise.

“Pulled babysitting duty, did you,” I asked. He gave a non-committal shrug of his shoulders, pushed himself upright and yanked the hood of his sweatshirt up over his forehead.

“I volunteered,” he said. “I knew you’d rather I came with you than Blake.”

Thanks, I said, grateful that Nikolai had finally given me a small sign of trust.

Re-writing work in progress is one of the hardest tasks for a writer. We need to detach ourselves enough from our words to see which ones work. And which ones are just darling.

In the writer’s toolkit, one way to get around this is starting from scratch. Take a scene and re-write it, but without your original copy as a template. I did this for the first section of my current WIP and it made it much stronger (although there are still some issues).

So for today’s prompt, take a scene (preferably from your own work) and re-write it. Remember, no peeking while you do this. It will help you trust in your own voice and get to the bones of the story.

“Oh my god, I’d totally do Carlos if he asked me,” Mindy said. She gulped too quickly at her margarita, almost spewing it back out on the table. Tabitha had that affect on her. In an attempt to look cool around her, Mindy often found she said and did things she regretted later. “It’s probably a good thing for me I don’t really know him.”

“I could introduce you,” Tabitha said, straw poised, ready to swoop into a matching raspberry red drink. “I totally think you should.” Using her straw as a weapon of mass pointing, she waved toward the door.

Where Carlos stood, in all his dark haired splendor, eyeing the room.

“You know Carlos?” She might not have mentioned his name if she’d known. Now she needed a way to take back her comment without looking stupid. Raising his arm, Carlos waved and muscled his way towards the table.

Mindy’s stomach dropped somewhere around the area of her knees and she checked behind her, but no quick escape existed. Or slow one for that matter.

“Hey Tabi.” Carlos grabbed a chair and straddled it. He stared at Mindy, and she felt a blush start in her navel and work its way slowly up over her face. “So introduce me to your beautiful friend.” Apparently he didn’t notice the violent scarlet colour of her skin.

“This Mindy. You should, you know.” Tabitha wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, picked up her drink and sauntered off without even looking back.

At least this should help the cool factor, Mindy thought.

We’ve all had a situation where a word or action changes a relationship. This can be a game changing activity (like adultery) or a small comment in the wrong place that changes how another person views us.

For today, imagine a scene where a casual comment is made that changes a relationship forever–you know, the kind of remark that on the surface shouldn’t make any difference, but the underlying issues are such that the comment isn’t percieved as casual and the wrong/right impression is made.