Skip to main content

thumb-twiddling tuesday

It has been one week and four days since I've last written a word.

Well, I have written plenty of words -- on this blog, on facebook, at work, in my checkbook register, and with the electronic pens at Speedway and Kroger and Walgreens and such, after entering my pin number.

But I have not written a word of my yet-to-be-titled-and-properly-worked-out novel in eleven days, or two hundred and sixty four hours.

I do, however, have the perfect opening line of what will some day become my query letter when I look to get an agent; you know, the moment in time just before I'm published and bankrupted by libel.

So... here it is, the opening line:

Laurel Lancaster's closet is over-full of skeletons.

Damn. It sounds so much cooler in my head than it looks on the page.

Laurel Lancaster's closet is overly full of skeletons?
Laurel Lancaster's closet is overflowing of skeletons?
Laurel Lancaster's cloest is overflowing with skeletons?
Laurel Lancaster's closet is fucking full of skeletons.

Question: Who has read The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing, or any other compliation of short stories (think Alice Munro, The Beggar Maid) centered around the same character -- so that it reads almost like a novel? If so, what do you think of this structure?

Back to thumb twiddling while I await your answers.

Comments

Jm Diaz said…
Full of fucking skeletons is more of an attention grabber, but you'd have maintain that voice through the novel. Otherwise, just leave it at full of skeletons. Its cleaner and doesn't seem over dressed.
Travener said…
How about "Laurel Lancaster's closet has more skeletons than a Capuchin crypt."?
Jim,

"Full of fucking skeletons" makes me wonder what dirty deeds are going on in that closet!

Travener,

Laurel wouldn't get that reference, though Amber enjoys it.

Popular posts from this blog

in which i have a birthday and a giveaway

The blogger as a child. p.s. it's my birthday. And people at Starbucks like me. (I did get this for free, but it was not for the benefit of my blog.)  (Obvi, it was a gift .) There's a cupcake in that box! There's a hazelnut latte in that cup! In other news, I'm having a 100 Followers/ It's my birthday giveaway. You should enter. I'm giving away the following goodies: 1. A $25.00 VISA giftcard. 2. An original poem, which will be hadwritten and autographed on pretty paper. It might be about love, about being a writer, or maybe the winner will be able to choose the topic. We shall see. This giveaway is a bit seatofthepantsspice. 3. A frame from my wedding day. In fact, this very frame: 4. A mystery. The fourth goodie will be a surprise until you open the package! 5. The whopper: I will dedicate a karaoke song to you, personally, and put it on my blog, vlogger style. If you want to enter this smashing contest: leave a comment. 1 entry if you follow and comme...

love at first sight blogfest, or, go eat a heart-shaped cookie

Courtney Reese is hosting a love at first sight blogfest, in which writer's write about the icky love stuff. Check it out -- there are already a ton of entries over there. Okay, so my scene isn't really love at first sight for my mc, Laurel (in fact, she doesn't even want it to be) but this is the first time she interacts with her second love interest, David.  Read! Enjoy! Critique!      A sea of southerners filled the lobby of the movie theater. David Winter stood at a neon orange podium in the center of the throng, his head throbbing. He tore off one ticket stub after another, pointed the masses in the appropriate direction. The work was monotonous. Most of the patrons were lost in conversations with one another, and they paid David the same lack of attention that he showed them. He tried not to grimace at the giggling teenage girls, the smug looking guys in gold chains, the overweight middle aged couples: all annoyed him equa...

First Page Blogfester

Preface: TGIF. It has been a day. So. I'm participating in the First Page Blogfest in which writers around the blogosphere post the opening 24 lines of their WIP. (In a "real" book, this is the approximate amount of work that would appear on page 1!) This blogfest is being headed up by Kelly over at Kelly's Compositions . Please check out the other entries and leave them a comment on their work. My own WIP will be featured on Roni's Beta Club next week, and I chose an excerpt from the beginning one chapter one for critque over there, so today I'll give you the true beginning: the opening lines of my prologue. Here goes nothing. My working title is A SAD SONG IN A FLAT KEY Genre: Literary Fictionspice Prologue May 2005      Laurel sits Indian style. She faces the head of her bed and tries to focus on Cafe Terrace at Night, pretending it is priceless artwork instead of a cheap replica. She counts the tables first, and the...