Snippet Sunday: Rain In The Lake District

Today we're in a different spot in our manuscript, in the midst of a storm in the Lake District.

He had played enough chess for a lifetime. Gabriel had decided, against his better judgment, to go on out into the storm, to photograph English weather at its worst. It might make for a decent picture. So he got warmly dressed, borrowed an oilskin trenchcoat from the house, and took one camera with him, leaving through the front entrance, covering his head with the coat’s hood. The rain was still coming down hard, the wind driving it down on the lawn before him, which was drenched with two days worth of rain. At least we’re on high ground, he gratefully thought. He walked down the path, heard thunder in the distance, felt the rain pelting him. Crossing the small stone footbridge, he looked at the stream below, an angry torrent in the rain instead of a gentle brook. He photographed it, and moved beyond, passing into a meadow. The plants and grasses were thoroughly soaked.

Snippet Sunday: World Domination

Today we're going with another piece from the manuscript, with Gabriel and Terry trapped at their lodgings in the Lake District, with not much to do but playing chess...

Terry smiled. "Care for a game?" he asked, as if seeing an easy mark.

I must be bored out of my mind to play that, Gabriel thought to himself. He came over regardless, sat across from his friend, and looked at the line of pawns. He glanced up at Terry, who seemed to smile in a way that indicated he knew something Gabriel did not. Oh, why not? “What are we playing for?”

“Nothing much. Just world domination.” Terry laughed.

“Oh? Just that, huh?”

Snippet Sunday: As Punctual As Ever

Changing pace from our recent features with our lead characters getting all hot and bothered for a week or two. Here we have Gabriel meeting up with his colleague and friend Terry, a writer and historian. They're on assignment in the Lake District.

                    “Hello there, Terry,” Gabriel greeted his friend.

                    “Hello yourself, you young bastard,” Terry said with a grin, his Scots accent as distinctive as ever. He rose from the chair, extended a hand, and Gabriel shook it, smiling.

                     Gabriel made a show of looking at his watch. “As punctual as ever, I see,” Gabriel remarked, teasing him.

                    “Some of us didn’t have that far to come, so we left late,” Terry replied with a straight face. “Helen sends her love. She’s busy marking papers and terrorizing the second year students. She’ll come down next weekend. Have you eaten?”

Six Sentence Sunday

Today we have another passage from Same Time Tomorrow, this one set in the Lake District in Great Britain, during a storm. During the story, Gabriel is on assignment as a photographer in the area for a few weeks, spending time working with a colleague and friend, a writer named Terry. Terry is something of a rascal, which of course makes him fun to write.

In this scene, the storm is just starting to influence the area, and it has already cut off phone contact to the outside world.. Terry and Gabriel find themselves stranded for awhile at their lodgings, where they find themselves trying to stay occupied as the weather goes from bad to worse (this is England, remember, so rain's to be expected)...

            “It’s a couple of days of downtime. And it’s not as if we’re stranded. There’s plenty of food, some good company. This isn’t going to turn into the Donner Party, you know.”

            Gabriel laughed. “That’s disgusting, Terry.”

Six Sentence Sunday

Today we have another Six Sentence Sunday blog from Same Time Tomorrow, this set earlier in the book, with Gabriel meeting a friend and working partner in the Lake District of England....

Cumbrian Mountains, Lake District

“Hello there, Terry,” Gabriel greeted his friend.

“Hello yourself, you young bastard,” Terry said with a grin, his Scots accent as distinctive as ever. He rose from the chair, extended a hand, and Gabriel shook it, smiling. He made a show of looking at his watch.

“As punctual as ever, I see,” Gabriel remarked, teasing him.

"Some of us didn't have that far to come, so we left late," Terry replied with a straight face.

Six Sentence Sunday

It's been awhile since we've done one of these; we thought we'd take a short portion from an earlier chapter in the book, featuring Gabriel on his own, walking in the Lake District in England on a stormy day. Enjoy, and let us know what you think.

There was a bright flash off to his right, accompanied by a loud boom just afterwards. Across the meadow, just twenty or thirty feet away, at the tree line, a  stray bolt of lightning had hit a large tree. He could see its path down the trunk, a zigzag pattern reaching down the bulk of the tree. There was a groan, almost as if the tree itself was calling out… and then the tree started to give way. It tilted, pitching forward, away from Gabriel. He watched as it broke away from the roots, the trunk slamming into the ground, the air filled with electricity and the peculiar smell of burnt wood.