Land of Hills and Valleys: more snippets

News: I finished the first rough draft of Land of Hills and Valleys this week.

Also: it’s a mess. But I’ll fix it.

Seriously, though, after having had such a hard time with writing this winter, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the notion that I actually finished a manuscript. And the good news is, I’ve been having ideas as I go along for things that need to be changed and jotting down notes to that effect—so hopefully I shouldn’t get too stuck anywhere in the second draft.

Since the second half of the manuscript is equal parts (A) spoilers and (B) a mess…as I think I mentioned earlier…I couldn’t find too many shareable snippets; but here’s the few that I came up with:

The room quieted a little, and I heard the subdued rustle of everyone leaning forward to look past their neighbor or stretching to see over the heads in front of them. I felt the suffocating sense of shame for him, felt the desire to melt into the floor as strongly as if all the eyes had been focused on me instead.

*

Robert Herrington had patted my hand and told me not to distress myself overmuch; Carol had practically squeezed the blood from my fingers and told me not to be an idiot; if I adopted a point of view somewhere about the middle I ought to be all right.

*

The full realization of the fact seemed to go through me for the first time like a cold breath of wind, and my lips felt numb for a second. “Or did you know that already? Did they report to you?”

An eyebrow went up at that, but still his reaction wasn’t one of either alarm or violence. He only came a little closer to me and peered straight into my eyes for a minute as if to be sure I wasn’t suffering from shock or fever or something else unbalancing.

*

Tony was still muttering under his breath, things I wouldn’t repeat but had to agree with.

*

Here under the canopy of trees it was almost dark, but we were sheltered from the rain, with only an occasional splat of water from a branch hitting the windshield. Tim guided the truck around a climbing hairpin bend, the noisy engine sounding like it was laboring at the elevation, and then pressed his foot on the accelerator up the length of a straight slope. At the top of the incline he turned off from the last vestiges of the petering-out track, threading a gap between two tree trunks. The truck tires clawed at the long wet grass and we skidded a little, and I sat up straight on the edge of my seat as if that would help keep our balance.

as they say, to be continued…