Grey Angel (7)

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Grey Angel (5)

Grey Angel Again

The Bibliophile's Devotional

I have a dear friend with whom I periodically exchange books, articles and academic ephemera. Today in the midst of deliveries of food, hand sanitizer and catnip, came this book. With this thoughtful gift a long-standing personal dilemma has been resolved.

I have been looking to keep this little grey blog focused my quest to publish Grey Angel, my novel. Pandemic reflection and quarantine news are not serving that quest. But a daily dose of selective literature will surely spark something resembling literary at least once or twice a week.

I hope you will look forward to my meanderings sparked by The Bibliophile's Devotional.

Today's bon mot from Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier.

"At the first gesture of morning, flies began stirring."

"Inman, a confederate soldier wounded at the battle of Petersburg, wakes up in a hospital ward. Flies buzz around the long wound in his neck that after months has finally started to heal."

Thank-you, Don. 

. . . and a grateful bow to the book's author Hallie Ephron "the best, friendliest, hippest librarian you ever met."

Grey Angel (1)

Grey Angel (10)

Grey Angel (0)

Melaten - Cologne, Germany

I had a dream the other night. Standing in a town square with a crowd waiting for the shroud-draped statue to be unveiled. And then, there it was, this statue I have had in my blog queue for several months. I guess it was time for the reveal. A Grey Angel.

Grammarly

There are lots of sites on the web to correct your spelling, add or subtract commas and, heaven forbid, locate the evil passive voice. I go with grammarly even though I employ some punctuation usages they do not agree with.

Careful though, as with any "know-it-all' algorithm, grammarly has its detractors. I agree that writers can get lazy when an authoritative website gives its imprimatur to our well-crafted phrases. To avoid such slavish bowing to the cyber-gods, read this article before turning over more that 12.7% of your creative talent to a bot grammar bully.

On the other hand, who knew how many times you or I were using "just" or "very" or "really." No, really, just really, very often, really!

Scribophile

There are lots of writing schools, writing workshops, writing communities on and off the web. I just happen to prefer Scribophile. The basics are simple. You earn points by offering critiques of other member's work. You then use those points to post your own work in chunks of 3,000 words or less at a time.

At Scribophile you can post anything from poetry and flash fiction to short stories or chapters of your novel. I am currently reposting the first ten chapters of my novel - Grey Angel. This round of posting comes after a course of new editing invigorated by my recent online immersion in manuscript submission.

You can also participate in forum discussions on all aspects of writing or join groups that focus on a particular topic. I belong to groups aimed at Magical Realism, Novel Chapters and TLC - Tough Love Critiques. Be careful not to use these alternative activities as pencil sharpening. The site is most useful when you post your own work and write reviews for other writers. Though the periodic contests can be fun.

Let me know if you join, I'm always happy to lend a blue pen to a friend's words.

Grey Angel - First Page

GREY ANGEL

Chapter One (first page)

The water was searing cold. At 5 a.m. no one had drunk from the silver metal fountain for hours, the water had taken on a throat-numbing chill. David felt the frigid outline of his esophagus as he swallowed, he could sense the upper reaches of his stomach as the cold rush swept the oxycodone tablet down. The clock was running, in less than fifteen minutes the first warm wave of the opioid would wash over him.

He turned from the brightly lit, empty emergency room and passed through the oversized gurney doors out onto the ambulance bay. Beyond the protecting pergola the vacant parking lot was wet from a passing spring rain, he walked slowly across the staff lot towards the stairs that led to the larger upper visitor’s parking area.

A distant observer might have wondered at the age of the man climbing those stairs. Was he 70? Or perhaps 80? What arthritic disease so wracked his body that he had to haltingly and carefully ascend the staircase?

Thirty-four-year old David Iverson reached the threshold of the upper lot just as the rising sun cast a pink glow across the damp tarmac. The pavement rose evenly across several hundred feet to a stand of maple trees at the upper edge of the parking area. Up there at the top, a path led through the grove to a small corner park and his neighborhood beyond.

David began a slow, measured walk up the incline. With each step, he added a few centimeters to the length of his stride and felt the deformed muscles of his lower back stretch as he transferred his weight onto the upslope leg. This dawn ritual relieved some of the accumulated stiffness from his desk bound midnight shift spent sifting endlessly through patient charts.

He was no more than half way up the empty lot when he first noticed the figure under the trees. Too early for the local dog walkers and there weren’t any homeless in this part of town. The man was a bit too deep in the shadows to distinguish; the dawning light had not chased away the shaded area under the stand of trees quite yet. As David moved closer, he momentarily thought the man was part of the shadows beneath the trees, a not quite a fully formed figure. A few more steps and he realized the murky effect was enhanced because the stranger was dressed entirely in grey. Grey slacks, grey jacket, even grey shoes and wait what?

Were those really?

David stopped just short of the tree line.

“Very nice,” David said, in a voice tinged with mirth not quite laughter.

“Could you be more specific?” said the shadowy figure.

“Nice wings?” David replied.

The stranger came forward out of the shade and there standing just under the lowest boughs of the tree was an angel. To be more precise – an all grey angel.

Grey Angel - First Paragraph

Paragraph icon from Free Icon Library

The water was searing cold. At 5 a.m. no one had drunk from the silver metal fountain for hours, the water had taken on a throat-numbing chill. David felt the frigid outline of his esophagus as he swallowed, he could sense the upper reaches of his stomach as the cold rush swept the oxycodone tablet down. The clock was running, in less than fifteen minutes the first warm wave of the opioid would wash over him.

Coming soon, the entire first page and that's all you get of Grey Angel. Want more? You'll just have to wait for a publisher, just like I wait and wait and wait.

Of course, I didn't mean you, you can have more.

Grey Angel - First Sentence

The first sentence. An author's first and perhaps only chance to hook a reader. There are readers who stand in bookstore aisles and read only the first page, the first paragraph, the very first sentence before deciding whether or not to read on and perhaps purchase.

Here is the first line of my novel - Grey Angel.

The water was searing cold.

What is your initial reaction?

Yes, I have had feedback from several beta readers. And yes, some of them have asked if 'searing' doesn't imply hot not cold. Searing is defined as extremely hot or intense. I have considered using a less forceful word. But I am resisting the change because the juxtaposition does get nearly every reader thinking - just how cold is searing cold? So cold that it burns?

I won't make you wait for the whole first paragraph, here is the next line.

The water was searing cold. 

At 5 a.m. no one had drunk from the silver metal fountain for hours, 

the water had taken on a throat-numbing chill. 

Grey Angel - The Hook

You gotta have a great hook. You gotta have it ready when anyone asks: "What's your novel about?" It has to draw their attention but it must be short and quick. It's a hook after all.

For a couple of years my novel's hook has/had been:

"David meets an angel. Things get very dark, very quickly."

Recently, I have been working on all aspects of actually submitting my novel to agents and publishers. Part of that task was to rework and refine my query letter, synopsis and hook. Here's my current hook:

"The angel is here to grant a supernatural ability. 

Of all the possible gifts, David is offered - death."

Wanna you think?

Good? 

Could be better? 

You're hooked!

Resurrecting a Blog

I am once again focusing my literary abilities on my novel, Grey Angel. To that end I am just finishing a course on manuscript submission, agents and publishers. A week four assignment suggests establishing an "Author's Platform" on social media. First recommendation - a blog.

It just so happens I have this little grey blog with over 1300 posts. Seems like a good place to begin. So once again dear readers, I relaunch this blog with yet another new focus - my writing. Expect my first sentence, first page and first chapter to follow soon.

I will begin with a recommendation. If you have a partial or whole manuscript lingering in a drawer somewhere, you might consider the course I am taking: The Writer's Workshop at Authors Publish. It worked for me, if only to provide motivation and polish to what I already had languishing in my "to-do" folder.

Four weeks of focus on:

                                        Preparing Your Manuscript for Publication

                                        How to Craft a Query Letter

                                        Publishers & Agents

                                        The Mechanics of Submitting

If you're interested, subscribe to the free newsletter which will get you an announcement of the next course offering. BTW, the newsletter is full of up-to-date information on publishers open to submissions.

Yes, there are many similar courses out there. If you've taken one, add a comment and let me know your experience.