The Never-Ending Scene Blogfest

Brenda Drake is hosting an intriguing blogfest called The Never-Ending Scene Blogfest. The challenge is to post a 500 word scene that ends with a cliff hanger.  So, I've chosen a scene from my WIP, Haven. Here is my entry to the blogfest, hope you enjoy:

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Without waiting for the woman to pay any more attention to me, I push off the wall and charge toward the exit. I knock her to the ground as I bolt outside. A vast wilderness greets me. Aged trees with flaking bark tower over me.

I’m not going to stop to find out where I am. I keep heading in the only direction that makes sense, away from the deranged psychopath with the needle. Rain buckets down, but that’s not going to stop me. Branches claw me as I push through the foliage.

A twig snaps behind me. Whoever was at the door must be up and chasing after me.

A low inhuman growl wafts across the field. There's something else out here. The mud squelches as it approaches. I hate my life.

I force myself to my feet and run. There's only one thought in my head, and that's to get the hell out of here. The creature's roar echoes around me.

I turn my head. My feet catch on a twisted tree root and send me crashing to the muddy earth.

I strain my eyes trying to see whatever's out here stalking me. The rain obscures my vision. Briefly, I catch a glimpse of it between the trees. A warped, misshapen creature caught somewhere between a man and a wolf. Jagged silver quills protrude all over its body like a pincushion. Its glowing yellow eyes are smouldering beacons in the darkness.

It takes half a second for the terror to hit. I bolt.

Its warm breath brushes the back of my neck. I run faster, trying not to slip in the mud. No matter how quick I move, it's right there behind me. It's toying with me. This is how the poor girl in those horror movies must feel.

Every muscle aches. The icy air rushes painfully into my lungs. What's the worst that can happen if I just stop and play dead right here? The creature utters another bowel-shaking roar, but it doesn’t come from behind me.

A building comes into view. Out here in this wilderness I would have expected a small hut, but it looks like a decaying house, and the closer I get, the more buildings come into view. I skid to a stop and dart my gaze around, trying to find the creature.

Everywhere I look, things are ancient and withered. Nature has crept over man’s artifice, strangling some houses with foliage. Others have collapsed under the pressure of disuse.

The disturbing graveyard of a town pales in comparison to the massive stone edifice crouched behind it. A gothic structure built out of dark grey bricks. Vines claw their way up its sides as if trying to drag the towering megalith down into the very earth on which it rests. Tall spires erupt from the rooftop at bizarre angles, seemingly without reason. Even in the growing daylight, the building remains darkly ominous.

A tall fence constructed of the same dark bricks surrounds the massive structure, with iron spikes on top that stretches towards the heavens.

“Welcome to Haven,” a voice whispers in my ear just before I’m hit from behind and darkness takes me over once again.

It can be done...

What? I hear you wondering. Well, I just got back from the movie Daybreakers (and by the way, I absolutely loved it) and that movie just proves that an overused topic can still have a fresh and intriguing twist added to it. And for all those out there that haven't heard of the movie (well, you should have) it is a great "Australian" made vampire movie.

I hear gasps of horror. Surely there's no other way that a vampire story can still be original. You guessed wrong. The twists this movie plays up is the question of "what would happen if the world was over run by vampires and humans were a rare commodity".

Sitting through this movie made me ponder some questions that I have been asking myself in regards to my vampire novel, Haven. I hate to say it, but I seriously need to do a rewrite (and focus less on the vamp school thing). I've had a great idea to alter the setting, which will probably take a lot of work, but I've never been more motivated in my life (and all because of a movie... that actually shocks me too).

Instead of a school for Haven I've decided to turn the location into a Boot Camp. What does that sound like? A boot camp for vamps... where everything's back to basic training for these new recruits. I'm not changing because one person doesn't like the setting, I'm changing because my gutt is telling me something.

Do you ever feel like this, where something has inspired you enough to decide that a major rewrite of your story was necessary, or even been inspired enough to write something that you would never have thought about before? Or, am I just going a bit crazy?

P.s. Tonight I'm over the moon, after getting back from the movies I found out that I've been accepted into uni to study to become a teacher... Yay me...

Fight Scene Blogfest...

Around the blogosphere there are several blogs out there posting a fight scene, so here's mine from Haven:

Her blows come quick – and hard – knocking me back into the fleshy wall of the crowd. The many hands assist me back to the centre ring. The circle tightens. Their chanting sounds like an eerie tribal drumbeat warming up for the big sacrifice.

“Fight! fight! fight!”

Music blares in the background. Deep bass reverberates through the warped wooden floorboards with a lead singer who sounds like he’s chewing on tin foil. I’m surprised I can still hear all the taunts my opponent keeps screaming at me.

“What are you waiting for?” the girl hisses. Her porcelain skin makes mine look tanned in comparison. She could be Snow White with that long, raven hair, not a strand out of place, even after all of her sudden movements. “You started this. It was just between me and her.” She extends one long finger towards my best friend, Alex.

Alex watches from the sideline. This is getting to be the norm. Whenever we go out, she always gets in trouble and I’m the one to fix it – usually with some bloodshed.

I don’t know what Alex did to piss off this poisonous cow, but I wasn’t going to stand by and do nothing.

“Come on, Scar,” Alex calls, running her hands through her long bleached hair, which was overdue for another dose of peroxide. Her lanky physique and plastered on makeup makes her look eighteen even though she’s my age, which might explain the bottle of beer in her hand.

I shield my face from her punches. Who says girls only slap and scratch? It all comes down to waiting for an opening. She is fast, almost as fast as me. I look up at her. It’s getting difficult to maintain my balance enough to strike back. Of all the fights I’ve gotten myself into, I have never regretted any of them, though I’m starting to with this one.

I duck under a right hook and seize my chance. There’s always an upside to being short. I launch an uppercut and knock her pale ass to the ground. Before she has a chance to regain her feet, I pounce.

A single word roars through the room. “Scatter!”

The tight circle breaks and chaos erupts. The girl beneath me shoves me aside and springs to her feet. The need to fight still blazes in her eyes, but there's something else emerging as well. They change to a deep crimson. I stumble back, trying to suppress the cold fear swimming in my guts.

I Did It...

What did I do, I hear you ask. I actually got of my butt (I've been really comfortable lately that I didn't want to change anything), got me a synopsis and entered Haven into a contest...

Now comes the waiting...

And, I'd better say a big thanks to my brother who submitted it since I was at work when the contest opened and apparently it closed 90 seconds after opening.

Well, since I've taken this step, I might as well go all the way and actually start submitting it (I hear gasps of shock... I know, I'm shocked as well)... I guess I'm no longer going to be a closet (well, bedroom to be precise) writer anymore.

What is Haven?

There are a lot of things Scar doesn't believe in - magic, monsters, a passing grade in history. That all changes the night of her fifteenth birthday (well, except the passing history thing) when she finds out her whole like has been a lie. She is dragged into a world of darkness - a world where the creatures of the night are real. Told she isn't human, she is forced to attend a school designed for vampires, witches and werewolves.

Now she's learning brand new things. Breaking a witch's Frisbee can really piss them off, challenging a werewolf to a foot race is a bad idea - if you want to live, vampires can hold serious grudges and throw mean left hooks, and the hardest secrets to keep are often the most crucial.

But she has a secret. She is a Dhampir, part-human, part-other, masquerading as a vampire.

When Scar starts seeing visions of attacks, the students begin to disappear. After a video surfaces of her at one of the crime scenes, making her the prime suspect, her very survival might be at stake. Now she must race to prove her innocence before her true nature is exposed.

The only problem is, she's not entirely sure she's innocent.

HAVEN is a complete 75,000 word young adult urban fantasy novel and is FIGHT CLUB meets HARRY POTTER with vampires. It will appeal to fans of BUFFY and SUPERNATURAL.