Fiction Friday, New Excerpt from, My Own Enemy Novel

Todays Fiction Friday is a second excerpt from My Own Enemy. This one was so fun to write, I was able to bring my past characters back and go back to my beloved fantasy world, Graphice. I also introduce I new character. He is the son of my Queen Luna and King Samuel. Now his name is Stephen in the excerpt, it is a debatable name and I'm still deciding if it will stick or if I can come up with a better one.

Anyway, here you are with one of my first scenes back in the beautiful land of Graphice.

Excerpt from, My Own Enemy

(Sequel to Realm of Graphice)

Trouble Maker

“You must learn to control yourself!” Ulrica’s aged voice corrected with much agitation, as Samuel rounded the corner to enter the large study. 

He came in to find Ulrica slouched in one of the leather backed chairs, a book lay open on his lap but his head rest in his left hand as the other held his eye glass. Stephen stood before him a few feet away, a mess of wood and colored beads at his feet, his hands folded behind his back. Stephen turned to see who had entered and lowered his head more in shame at the sight of his father. Samuel came to Ulrica’s side as the man sat up more in his chair, letting out a sigh. 

“What is it this time?” Samuel muttered with a groan as he lowered himself into the opposite chair next to Ulrica’s. 

The old man seemed irritated and tired as he waved at the wooden mess. “It seems frustration with arithmetic is manifested in the destruction of tools.” 

Stephen’s pale cheeks burned red against his golden curly locks as he glanced up at his father, “I am truly sorry.” He stammered out.

Ulrica exchanged a glance with Samuel then allowed an odd smile to creep up his face, “But it remind some of someone I used to know.” 

Samuel stood, sending Ulrica a knowing smile as he came closer to Stephen. He lowered himself to his son’s level and looked up into the deep blue eyes, “Stephen, you must understand, anger does not bring any resolve to anything. It does not fix our issues, it does not help our issues, and it does not even assist in us relieving our stress from the issues.” 

Stephen glanced up at his father and smirked slightly as he glanced at the pile, “I may have to disagree with it not helping relieving the stress, for father it helped in the tiniest bit on that part.” 

Samuel laid a hand on his son’s shoulder, “Oh, Stephen, you understand what I am speaking of.” He turned to the crumbled pile of wood and beads, “Stephen, look at this mess.” The boys eyes turned to it in a gloomy way. “Rather then this pile assisting you, it merely makes your arithmetic more challenging for you to accomplish your assignment, and you now must put this at expense for the arithmetic tiles and beads are more costly then you may believe.” 

~

Let me know what you think! 

Any name suggestions for Stephen?

-Melody

Fiction Friday, Excerpt from, My Own Enemy Novel

Hello all! Glad you came over for more Fiction Friday! This is a interesting excerpt to my current The Realm of Graphice. Not the official name, but the current projects name. In this one I am incorporating the real world with my fictional world Graphice.
work in progress. I finished the first book in this series about a month ago. This is the sequel to

In this excerpt my main character, Ember, is learning how to survive and live in the real world after growing up in Graphice. He is also discovering strange ability he has developed. You will get a good look at his new power in this excerpt. It's still in the making so there is a lot to work on. Let me know what you think of the whole ability/power thing!

Excerpt from, My Own Enemy
(Sequel to Realm of Graphice)
Seeing into Graphice

  “Ember, what are you doing!?” Alex hollered back at him as they ran through the street. 

Ember had come to a stop suddenly and was clutching his fists to his chest. He could only faintly hear Alex continuously yelling at him as he doubled over feeling the radiating pain coming from his hands and wrists. A continued rhythmic pulsing of pain. The light was fierce, forcing him to shut his eyes tight as he fell to his knees holding his wrists against his chest still. 

“Em! Come on, what’s wrong?” Alex’s voice yelled louder above him. Ember forced his eyes open, he stared at the pavement before slowly bringing his eyes up to face Alex who stood over him. “We have to get out of here.” He hissed as he stopped, pulling Ember’s right arm up. 

“No!” Ember managed to gasp out as he fought to pull his arm away from Alex, holding the burning flame against his chest. 

Alex leaned back, “Not that again.” He grumbled. “Can’t you move?” 

Ember closed his eyes again, “I- I don’t know.” He whispered. 

Shuffling came from behind them. Ember could make out the sound of foot steps. “We have to go now.” Alex whispered as he pulled Ember up by his shirt, “I don’t care how you feel.” Ember let out a groan managing to contain the scream that wished to come out as he kept his fists closed tight, allowing Alex to drag him through the ally. 

Slowly he tried pulling his hands away from his chest as they ran. He gasped as he pulled them out, watching an expanse of blue and silver mixing with the flames dancing about his hands. He kept running, opening and closing his fists slowly, watching it spread like a web. In the glass like web he saw an image. Tall strong and beautiful a woman with delicate blond hair stood draped in a rich blue gown, an artfully created crown rest among her golden strands. She stood before an open window, a man by her side, his broad shoulders and tall manner coming off as powerful and great, he too wore a golden circle on his head. He had a hand around the woman were they stood, silent and still as they stared out the window. 

Ember tripped, he tumbled onto the concrete hands slapping into the harsh gravel. The image blurred and disappeared as it mixed with the rocks. The sparks flashed as his hands began to bleed from the scrapes. “Let’s go!” Alex yelled as he stooped and whipped Ember back to his feet pushing him towards the truck at the end of the road, doors open already. 

Alex practically dragged him to it, shoved him inside and tumbled in after him, slapping the door shut. Elliot was in the drivers seat and quickly threw the gear in reverse and began turning to leave the ally. Alex was panting as he pulled himself off Ember and onto a seat. Ember’s hands still sparked as he stayed on the ground, burying his fists into his coat as he gasped for breath. 

“You know what? You are one of the weirdest guys I have ever met.” Alex huffed.

~

So what did you all think? It is a little different. This is my first Fantasy novel, so this is all a little new for me. Especially the magic power aspect. Any tips on creation powers and forces? 

Come back next week for more Fiction Friday!

Fiction Friday: Excerpt from, Heart Wars: Guest Author!

I have a really great treat to share with you all this week. My dear friend, Lauren, has graciously allowed me to share some of her work here on the blog! We wrote this book over the past July and enjoyed doing it immensely. We did have to kill one character, which the process nearly killed us both. Of course she made me write the death scene. ;-) If you check out last times post, I added a scene from it that I wrote.

Here is her excerpt, it is written as a girl's diary so it is a very neat point of view! These characters have been working on putting on a Pride and Prejudice play together. Our main character, Christina, received the role as Lizzie Bennet. While Aidan, our other main character, has the role of Mr. Darcy. Hope you enjoy!

Excerpt from,  Heart Wars

Proposal Practice

Author, Lauren Michelle 

Dear Diary,

   Day 3. We worked the proposal. Need I say more? Oh, ok, you're right. I should. So, I think I have pretty well confirmed that Aidan is a totally awesome guy. Since when have I been talking like that? I don't care. Ok. So he smiled at me when I came in, and read these lines with the perfection that I had pictured when reading the book but had never seen played out to such perfection. Maybe it's because they were being said to me. Maybe it was because of who was saying it.

"In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." As he was speaking he reached for my hair, and allowed his voice to crack a little.

"Aidan!" Our director screamed. "That's not in the script! Do you want this role or not?" He smiled mischievously glanced down at the script.

"Oh, I'm sorry, ma'am, I could have sworn it was in there somewhere." He kept his perfect British accent and winked at me. I blushed and couldn't stop the smile that formed.

"Begin again! Get it right, Aidan!" She looked down at the script. He looked down at his own and made a note. I glanced down at it. It simply read 'hands off while you're acting'. He began again. I felt my face flush and knew I had turned red as I tried to repress my excitement while he read. When it came to my turn, I must have looked really funny when I was excitedly rejecting his proposal.

"Christina! Stay in character!" The director screamed. Aidan shrugged, and I began my line again, but this time with a rather forced, but effective, serious face, along with a certain measure of cruelty. He protested, with his face as much as with his words. At first I was just reciting lines with a straight face, but I had seen the movie enough times to know the part by heart, so pretty soon our scripts were on the floor and our eyes were doing as much of the talking as our mouths, his pleading and mine sad, but screaming in anger. I looked over when we had finished, and our poker face director was even smiling. All of the other actors had been joking around and eating snacks during this part of rehearsal, but now they were sitting there, mouths open a little- whether they were full of food or not. When we had finished, they erupted in cheers and clapping. Aidan playfully grabbed my hand and we bowed.

"You were incredible. Sometimes I honestly thought you were serious." He leaned in a little and whispered. 

"You did wonderful too. And no, I wasn't serious." He looked over at me and squeezed my hand a little harder, and my heart skipped a beat. So maybe I would be a good Lizzie. Maybe the best yet. 

~

Wasn't that fun? I just loved getting to read these as she wrote, it was so much fun seeing my character's written from another person's point of view. I was in charge of writing Aidan's point of view. Overall it was crazy fun and a great learning experience!

See you next week!

-Melody