I'm still not at the point where I want to post up the entire first chapter, actually I'm creating a game plan for how I would like to go about promoting my novel before I release. I'm still striving for a June release date and am seriously pushing forward these past few weeks in order to make that possible.
Right here, I'd like to take a moment to say how incredibly amazed I am with myself. Deciding to go the Indie way has made me have more faith in myself and boosted my self-confidence up tremendously. It is a very good feeling.
Now, to those of you who have chosen to follow me without reading any of my writing...I thank you. And here is a tiny snip of my writing style. The first few paragraphs of Shattered Soul:
Life. Life’s a bitch and then you die. So, fuck the world and let’s get high.
That was my motto.
I’m not sure where it came from or where I first heard it. Hell, I could have read it off a bathroom stall somewhere for all I know. My point is this, it doesn’t matter where it came from; it stuck with me, becoming my answer, my solution, to everything.
Until she came into my life, which was when things began to change for me.
I remember the first moment I laid eyes on her. First period, Algebra II with Mrs. Gilbert. I’d been sitting in class, doodling on a crumbled piece of notebook paper with a borrowed pen, biding my time until I could reach the water fountain in the hall. The date was April nineteenth, and I’d wake-n-baked that morning, testing out the potency of my new bag before celebrating on four-twenty, the unofficial holiday of every stoner.
The classroom door had opened and I hadn’t bothered to look up to see why. I’d been too consumed in making the swirls of smoke rising from the burning joint I had been drawing look realistic to care.
“Oh, yes, I almost forgot.” Mrs. Gilbert had fretted. “Class, we have a new student. This is Ali Carson; she comes to us from Charleston, South Carolina. Please make her feel welcome.”
I picked that moment to glance up from my all-important smoke swirls to check this new girl out and was dumbfounded.
She was the closest thing to an angel I had ever seen. I remember blinking a few times to see if she’d disappear, and actually questioning myself on whether or not my new bag had been laced with something which was just starting to take effect. But, she hadn’t disappeared, and my bag hadn’t been laced with anything.
She was real.
I stared at her for what seemed like an incredibly long time, allowing my eyes to slowly drink her in.
“Hi,” she uttered with an awkward wave to no one in particular.
Mrs. Gilbert had motioned for her to sit at the only available desk, which was in the second row from the window, two seats from the last desk, and kitty corner from mine. I watched her as she walked, unable to remove my eyes from her angelic face. Right before she had sat down, her eyes had flickered to mine as if she could feel them on her, and she’d smiled faintly.
I had smiled in return, but a second too late, she’d already sat and given her full attention to Mrs. Gilbert at the front of the room.
Now, two and a half weeks later, Ali Carson still consumes my mind like a thick cloud of smoke consumes the fresh air in a clam-baked car. I struggle daily to find the courage to talk to her, to do anything besides stare.
And there you have it, my intro to Shattered Soul. I hope you enjoyed it!
