I’ve noticed that I have this… habit… when I’m working on a story. I get to a certain point – usually a cliffhanger – and I want edit it, package it up, and post it as part one of whatever. I think a lot of this is because when I first started writing, seriously writing, in high school, I would pass off my notebooks to my friends in between classes. They would read them and then they would have all sorts of feedback waiting for me when lunch time rolled around. Posting up fanfic chapter by chapter on various sites probably doesn’t help matters either, because as soon as a chapter is up, within 24 hours there’s usually a review sitting in my inbox. We live for feedback as authors, and when instant feedback is so easy to attain, it’s really very hard not to give in, split up that book, and get it.

Don’t worry – I’m staying strong even though the struggle is very very real at the moment.

Today is April 26th, so I’ll be sharing 12 paragraphs from the Undying Ones. This scene is actually set before last week’s scene, and I may have shared it on my old blog. In it, Rordan and Talesin are showing Mattie around the village – and chaos ensues.

A little girl opened the door in the back of the house. She peered into the darkness, a determined look on her face, before jumping down the steps that lead to the garden and bolting along a little path that ended at a small building at the very back of the yard. Mattie felt her blood run cold at the sight of the child. She knew what Talesin was going to do – he was going to scare her like she had scared the drunkard – and suddenly she felt like the monster the drunkard had thought she was. She wanted to stop it, to cry out and warn the girl, but Rordan was strong, and he held her back easily.

The girl had almost reached the door of the building when Talesin stepped out in front of her. “Where are you going?” He lowered his voice to a growl. “I thought I told you not to come back here!”

The girl shrieked at the sight of his mangled visage and ran back towards the house, a dark stain spreading across the skirt of her nightgown as she went.

“Good one!” Rordan clapped his brother on the shoulder when they reached him, a grin spreading across his twisted face – well, as much as he could grin.

“Thank you! That one is always fun to mess with!” Talesin bowed then turned to Mattie, “See? Didn’t we tell you this would take your mind off of things?”

She smacked the back of his head. “Idiot!”

“What? What did I do now?!”

“She’s just a child!”

“Her parents probably fill her head with stories every night about us and the castle! Villagers always do!” He defended himself. “Even if I hadn’t been here she probably would have been scared by something else! An owl, a rat, a bush! Anything!”

Mattie opened her mouth to continue to scold him, but the back door to the house banged open, filling the yard with bright light. The three Undying Ones turned to find that the child had summoned her mother to her defense. The woman stared at them, her jaw hanging open for a moment or two in surprise, and then she screamed. The windows of the houses nearby began to open and other villagers popped their heads out of them, looking for the source of the commotion.

“Run!” Rordan cried. They dropped the bags of stolen food they had been carrying and bolted through the garden. A door to a nearby building opened as they passed, spilling light across the ground as they ran past. Mattie caught a glimpse of an old man staring at them in puzzlement as someone – the father of the girl she assumed – fired his crossbow into the air above their heads and shouted after them. The bolt landed with a thud in the ground just in front of them and she nearly tripped over it in her desperation to avoid the villagers.

Uh-oh.

To read more WIPPet Wednesday posts, go here.