snazzy snippets: the 16 edition

My friends Alyssa and Emily co-host what is called Snazzy Snippets! Here’s a bit about it:

It’s an opportunity for writers! Every two months, we post a prompt or question for you to share a snippet of less than 500 words. It’s designed to let you have fun, analyse your work on a smaller level, or just write something to join in.

The prompts for this edition are as follows:

Now, as you all know from my 777 Challenge, I have a hard time choosing snippets to share with you, but since you were all so lovely about what I shared in that post, I’ve decided to give this a go! And here is the snippet I chose, from ROTI. This snippet is from page 16, but also introduces a new character! So I am winning all ’round here. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!

I walk as fast as I can to the train station, and I check my phone as I do. There’s a text from Tara.

I’m at home. Just come by as soon as you get off the train. I have food for you. Ily.

I slip the phone back into my pocket just as the train pulls up to the stop. I jump on, grab the nearest window seat, and settle down for the hour long train ride. And then I see him.

His purple hair is the first thing that catches my eye, followed closely by the red and white spotted bowtie around his neck. He’s in black chinos, a white button-down shirt, a black vest (open), the bowtie, and those black square-framed hipster glasses that everyone loves at the moment. His Chucks are the exact same colour as his hair.

He’s perfect.

Ah, I absolutely LOVE this character, and he really is all kinds of perfect (especially for the main character). I love writing about him, and this is the WIP that I have left by the wayside for FAR TOO LONG. Reading this snippet makes me want to jump back in and finish it. Which I really should.

I hope you liked my little snippet, and that I have piqued your interest about this character, and the book he comes from! <3

hello, 2016

Hello, 2016. I can’t believe you’ve already been here a week.

Last year I subscribed to Happy Mail (from A Beautiful Mess), and I received a gorgeous package filled with stationery cards/postcards/shopping lists/cool shit each month. In December, they sent me a piece of gold paper, with “2016 Goals” written on the back of it.

And I asked myself: what are my 2016 goals? Do I have any? Do I even want to have any? (Goals can be persnickety, to say the least).

The only goals I could think of were the following:

1. Finish current WIP (which has been thoroughly neglected for many a month now).
2. Write another novel (because there are far too many ideas floating around my head).
3. Get an agent (this is not easy. This is hard. And scary).
4. Work in a bookstore (also hard. No one EVER LEAVES THEIR JOBS AT BOOKSTORES).

And that was it. I mean, two conceivable goals (numbers one and two) out of four isn’t too bad, and to be honest, I want to do those things anyway, without a goal setting thingamajig. The other two are more or less dreams, rather than goals because both of them depend a lot on chance and circumstance.

Wouldn’t it be lovely if all these goals came true (is that what goals do? Come true? I don’t know, but I’m going with it)? I think so. I think so very much.

But I’m also not going to pin my happiness on these goals, because I don’t think happiness should hinge on successes, rather on the small joys like seeing your cat use his cat cave for the first time (which happened mere hours ago), or finding that out of print book you’ve been wanting for ages, or trying on a dress you think won’t suit you and realising it’s the dress you’ve been waiting for your entire life.

Goals are all well and good for motivation, but that’s where I’m leaving them. I’ll try and do all these things. I may succeed in some, I may fail in some others. But they’re more of a reminder of the things I want, and the things I want to do, rather than the things I base my self worth on.

I do hope they come true, though. Because dreams are like that. They ache and want to come true for you.

Do you have any goals for 2016? What are they?