Tag: excerpt

Posted in Uncategorized, Updates, Writing

Sneak Peek Week: February 2023

Posted on by Hayley Green

Photo by Joakim Honkasalo on Unsplash

Hello Family, Friends, and Fans!

Are you ready for another excerpt of Poseidon’s Pearl? Or are you here to listen to my writing troubles? Either way, you’re in the right place!

Keeping up with this blog thing is fun, though I do want more interaction. I think it’s about time I started posting on Twitter again. But I digress.

Snippet from Poseidon’s Pearl

In this excerpt, the King of the Atlantic Kingdom is Prince River’s uncle, Aquarius. Aquarius heard that River brought home a female in mating form (a little twist on my merfolk world, since I am not into tentacles and fins and other such things you may find in more avantgarde erotic works. But if that’s what your cup of tea is, enjoy it!) when he was betrothed against his will to the Princess of the Pacific Kingdom, Ripple.

Aquarius is trying to get River to spend some time getting to know Ripple, while River is only interested in seeing his little sister, Penelope. who is in the dungeons as an insurance policy that River will return to the Atlantic Kingdom and obey Aquarius’s rule. The first speaker is King Aquarius, followed by Prince River.

It’s time to meet Princess Ripple of the Pacific Kingdom!

Prince River’s Point of View:

“I want you to apologize to Ripple. She was devastated when she heard that her betrothed had another woman he loved enough to bring home. And then I want you to ditch the girl and marry Ripple. You could always invite your mermaid. Remember that your behavior reflects badly on Ripple’s name, bloodlines, and willingness to marry a half-breed like you. Not to mention the scandalous rule you will have when people hear about this. So, let’s keep this under fins and respect Ripple’s sacrifice.”

“Penelope first.”

A nasally female voice reached my ears as two hands with razor-sharp nails embraced me from behind. “Why? I’m right here. Besides, I’d love to meet the little fish. I bet she’s darling.”

I stiffened at this strange female’s touch. She slid around to face me, never once breaking physical contact. She was pretty, with angular features and long, blonde hair. She wore a red pigment on her lips and dark black pigment around her eyes. In other situations, I might have found her attractive. But if Aquarius liked her, that alone was a good reason for me not to like her.

“Ripple.” I inclined my head to acknowledge her.

“Such a warm welcome! I know this isn’t ideal, but the fact that I can overlook the other female in your life, as long as you’re discreet about it, is a tremendous offer.” She stroked my cheek with three fingers, making sure her fingernails showed the promise of their ability to draw blood.

Writing Troubles

This past week I lost my motivation to keep drafting the sequel to my Dragons Within short story. I had changed my goals from writing two chapters per week to writing a thousand words per day on any project. Unfortunately for me, this meant my brain took the opportunity to work on whatever I wanted to work on, and thus I lost all motivation to write the first draft of The Last Pyro (working title).

But writing two chapters meant pushing myself too hard, as I also have school papers to write and other responsibilities, habits, and life changes that needed to be addressed as well. My goal of writing two chapters per week was a first draft in an eight-week timeline, and I’m not there yet with my writing muscle or my ability to do everything without burning out.

For reference, I wrote the first draft of Poseidon’s Pearl in three months, as the first novel I had ever completed that I felt was good enough to edit and pursue publication options for it. This one is the second novel I have ever attempted with the intention of publishing it.

Because I had turned my focus to a daily word count without a specific project in mind, the urgency to write The Last Pyro was lost, and my brain made the excuse that as long as I wrote a thousand words per day whether it was blog posts or journaling instead of my fiction projects, I was still meeting my goal.

So I modified my goals. One chapter of The Last Pyro needs to be completed each week, regardless of how many words I write per day. The word count is just a secondary measurement of how productive I am writing-wise and can be an indicator of burnout.

The urgency is back! I tricked my brain into cooperating with my goals again! (Cue the meme that stated the irony of the two “o”‘s in the word “cooperate” insist on having separate distinct sounds.)

Thank you for supporting me and my writing journey.

Until next time, F3’s!

Posted in newsletter, Updates, Writing

Sneak Peek Week: January 2023

Posted on by Hayley Green

Photo by Joakim Honkasalo on Unsplash

Hello, Family, Friends, and Fans!

As a part of my goals for 2023, I decided I would do weekly posts on the 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th, and, if applicable, the 31st of the month.

Here’s the catch: instead of making every post a “Writing Quest Update,” I have decided to make each week a different theme.

  • 3rd of the month: Writing Quest Update. Features updates on my personal life, my writing life, and my professional life.
  • 10th of the month: Sneek Peek Week. You will receive an excerpt or snippet from something I am working on, and I will talk about some struggles I face while writing.
  • 17th of the month: Reading Fling. This will include a list of things I am reading and book recommendations.
  • 24th of the month: Accountability and Productivity Proclivity. This will feature my goals and progress toward them as well as productivity methods and resources.
  • 31st of the month (when applicable): Frivolous Fun. I will post a fun poll, meme, or question just for laughs.

Snippet from Poseidon’s Pearl:

Leading up to this quote, the merman Prince River has been away on a trip and has returned in need of help. He saved a human from a riptide and needs help keeping her safe. So he goes to his best friend since childhood, Harvey, who agrees to help River.

This excerpt shows a little about River and Harvey’s dynamic.

*** Subject to change when published

River’s Point of View:

I breathed out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Harvey.”

“Anything for his Royal Highness,” he called from deep inside his room. He preferred not to have bioluminescent jellyfish, just the algae.

“I thought I told you not to call me that, sarcastic or otherwise,” I said, a smile stretching my face. It felt good to be back home.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Royal-pain-in-my-ass.”

Writing Troubles:

I started the draft of Poseidon’s Pearl back in 2017. I went on to start and stop a couple drafts before buckling down and writing the 62k manuscript in 31 writing days. These days were not consecutive, and it took me three months to pen the first draft. This manuscript was the first novel-length project I had outlined and written to completion. But I had no idea how to edit.

For years I tried a bunch of different editing methods, interspersed with some life events that left me with long stretches of time that I didn’t write.

But then, once I figured out a method that worked for me, I dove head first. I went from the third draft to the fifth draft in about a year. But I neglected drafting other projects in favor of focusing on schoolwork, Write of Passion, and dealing with the dung bomb that was my life.

This means that my creative writing muscle was atrophed. That is, I could no longer write for hours on end, churning out 1,000-2,000 words per day. Now, getting 500 words of fiction is a challenge.

Lesson learned: I need balance between drafting and editing works so I don’t have to start from the beginning in terms of my creative writing muscles.

Thanks for supporting me! Until next time, F3’s!

Posted in Updates

Writing Quest Update: September 2022

Posted on by Hayley Green
Photo by DJ Johnson on Unsplash

Hello Family, Friends, and Fans!

This past month has been a struggle.

Challenges

I have been working hard on an intense class for school that is a writing workshop. The good news? I am getting some valuable feedback on my novel Poseidon’s Pearl: Book One of the Poseidon’s Object Series. The bad news? The class is a lot of work, so I have to put the assignments first over my second editing pass of the full manuscript.

Not to mention, my mental wellness challenges have flared up for the past couple of weeks, draining my energy so my productivity has gone down in an effort to be kind to myself and let myself heal.

Even though I’ve had some challenges, I have been making small steps of progress in other areas.

Successes

I am working, slowly, on re-structuring Write of Passion so my team doesn’t burn out again and hopefully we can continue to publish journals and anthologies for your reading pleasure. It won’t be up and running any time soon, but I am working on it.

Secondly, even though this class is intense, I am working ahead so when I have completed all the work for class I can do on my own, I will just have to do the week-by-week assignments and will have more time to write. Plus, I am getting invaluable feedback that is helping shape my novel.

I discovered a new emotional arc for my characters in Poseidon’s Pearl and am going to revise the work to emphasize this aspect. I am in no rush to publish, but I am working on making the work as good as it can get.

Finally, this blog post is a miracle of itself, that I took the time to write it and post it. I was half-planning on a social media annouccement that this month’s update wouldn’t happen, but instead of writing that, I wrote this update.

Thank you for reading my life updates! I have a treat for those of you who have made it this far: I’m going to share a short excerpt of Poseidon’s Pearl also known as PO1. Enjoy!

Sienna:

After taking a deep breath, I decided I would go for a swim to relax and gain some mental clarity. I toed off my shoes and headed towards the water. I loved the feeling of the warm sand between my toes. The ocean felt like bath water at this time of year, at the end of dry season, when heat still permeated the air. I dove under when I was waist deep.

Something changed as I swam forward. Before I knew what was happening, I felt the water pulling me deeper, tossing me around, and dragging me out to sea.

A riptide. The sting of the salt when I opened my eyes didn’t bother me. I struggled, trying to get my bearings and figure out which way was up so I could ride the current and get a breath of air.

My heart pounded in my ears and throat as the need for air burned in my lungs. Involuntarily, my mouth and nose opened. I breathed in nothing but water. My body tried to cough the water out but that just made me inhale more.

This was it. I was going to die.