Tag, I’m it—twice!
There’s a Lucky 7 meme going around the writing blogs right now. The rules are simple:
Go to page 77 of your current MS.- Go to line 7.
- Copy down the next 7 lines/sentences, and post them as they’re written. No cheating.
- Tag 7 other writers.
The pool of the untagged must be shrinking, since I was tagged twice on the same day, first by Jalisa Blackman, writer of amazing steampunk and intrepid werewolves, and a few hours later by Lorraine Paton, who recently joined Six on Sunday and immediately hooked me with a passage from one of her romance WIPS.
This double tag was a blessing, since I wasn’t sure which MS to use, and now I don’t have to choose.
I decided to go for seven lines instead of seven sentences—the window on this blog is narrower than Word, so you’ll just have to trust me.
This first one is from Full Metal Librarian, a drawer novel I’ve been parceling out six-sentences at a time each Sunday.
It’s set in a skewed future where people hide behind Security Doors equipped with laser cannons, a half-cyborg Press Corps will do anything for the next big story, and librarians (like our narrator, Clyota) are paid only slightly less than junior high school teachers, but have better weaponry.
Clyota’s mother was posthumously convicted of mass-murder, and in this passage, someone is trying to steal a box that she willed to Clyota.
Dramatic, no?
“What?” Christina twisted around to stare at me. “Are you crazy?”
“If this is the same guy who overrode my Door, I need to ID him. Please, Christina. If he tries another code, shut off the alert. Then unlock the Door, get the box, and lock yourself in the bathroom.”
“Jesus God,” said Christina, but gave the order.
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These next seven lines are from my almost-completed WIP The Pigeon Drop.
A group of ex-cons are searching for the family of their dying boss and mentor, a reformed huckster whose best chance of survival is a bone marrow transplant from a close family member. Unfortunately, the man has spent most of his life hiding his past and isn’t about to help them dig it up, even to save his own life—and it looks like someone else is willing to kill to keep them from finding a donor in time.
“Konrad, Vince,” she said, going to the table, “If you’re done eating, I’ll show you what I’ve found so far. The rest of you have another job to plan.”
McRae chuckled. “You heard the lady. Saul, Cassie–a loan shark outfit is trying to intimidate Rhonda into handing over Blaine’s money. I want you to find Rhonda’s boyfriend and ask him about his debts–and about a couple of collectors named Celeste and Montague.”
“How ’bout it, big guy?” said Cassie with a sultry flutter of eyelashes. “Wanna go flex those muscles of yours?”
“Can I wear shoes?”
I could explain the shoes . . . but that’s not in the rules.
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My seven victims writers—all of whom have, I believe, at least seventy-seven pages of manuscript available and haven’t been tagged yet*—are:
1. Lyra
3. Averil
4. Teri (who put her seven the comments)
5. Downith (who has responded to the challenge over at her place)
6. amyg
7. Sherry (who put her seven in the comments)
Tag, guys—you’re it!
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*If I’m wrong about either the number of pages you have available or the tagging, feel free to ignore all this. If not, feel free to ignore it anyway, but hey—you’ll get a blog post out of it!
Earful of Cider 