Halfway There

Hello Kittens!

Happy Halfoween! In honor of this spooky celebration, here is one of my favorite kill scenes, from one of my all-time favorite movies, Thir13en Ghosts.

(It’s not Halfoween if someone isn’t getting bisected)

While I was drumming up ideas for my blog post, I kept thinking of the fact that we’re halfway to Halloween. It might just be me, but I feel like everything is “halfway” lately. My kid is always halfway clean. I’m halfway done the laundry (meaning it’s sitting in the washer, slowly drying). My jobs are halfway done at work. The bottle of wine is halfway finished (don’t worry, I have more).

Not only are things in my daily life constantly in a state of being halfway done, but so are my WIPs. It starts the same with every book; Inspiration strikes and I feel like a fucking genius. I write like crazy, staying up late and waking up early just to get in a few more words. And right when I get halfway done (Usually around the 30k mark), I start to peter out. I lose the drive and the excitement of starting a novel and start dawdling along the long path to finishing a novel.

I wish this was a  post compiled with useful information on how to make yourself finish your book, but it’s not. Instead, this is my sneaky way to get advice from YOU.  So far, I can only write if I set up awesome treats for myself. While that works some of the time, I find myself just going for the treats (new books or chocolate, mostly). What do you do to motivate yourself to finish a book? Me and my folder full of halfway-finished MSs would like to know.

To make things a little more fun – it is Friday, after all – I’m going to post a section of one of my halfway stories below. I’d love if you did the same in the comments. But be warned….I will stalk/bother/annoy you until you finish it.

So, submitted for the approval for the Midnight Society,  I call this story EAT OF MY BODY.

(MC Ember is in a kitchen, getting ready to cook for a dinner party with her mentor, Chef Anthony.)

“Anthony, I’m so pleased you were able to make it.” A deep, smooth voice booms from a doorway I never noticed.

Chef’s grip tightens on his own set of blades. “I never had much of a choice.”

The owner of the velvet voice steps into the fluorescents. He’s Italian, like Marco and Anthony, but he’s in his fifties at least. Silver threads his black hair and he’s wearing a black suit that looks like it costs more than the fancy sports car we took to get here. He walks toward me, not bothering to hide the fact that he’s thoroughly checking me out. “You must be Ember. My name is Dante, and this is my home.”

“You live here?” I ask. “In the middle of the woods?”

He nods and drags his fingertips along the island. “I think you’ll find the rest of the Warehouse a little warmer than the steel prison your Chef loves so much.”

“Dante, can you give us a minute? I haven’t had the chance to ask Ember to fill out the paperwork.” Anthony casually unrolls his knife set.

Paperwork?

“Ah yes, the paperwork. She can do it now. I have a pen.” Dante reaches into his suit and pulls out a black metal pen. He slides it toward me.

“Ember, I need you to sign a nondisclosure agreement.” Chef pulls out a single piece of linen paper from the suitcase and puts it on the island. “I’m afraid you need to sign before we can tell you about our plans for today.”

“Uh, okay?” I take the pen and paper. I skim over it but none of it makes sense. “Let me guess – there is no fight club?”

Neither of the men laugh.

I scrawl my name and push the paper toward Dante.

He glances at it before folding it up and sliding it into his suit jacket. “Perfect. They’re all yours, Anthony.”

They?

I look around the room but it’s just Dante, Anthony, and I. Dante tips his head at me before he leaves the kitchen, whistling the opening bars to some famous opera as he goes.

“Well that was fucking weird,” I say once Dante is gone.

“Ember, I need to show you something.” Chef comes around the island and takes my elbow. He leads me toward a walk-in cooler that I only imagine is brimming with incredible ingredients. He pauses with his hand on the cooler door. “Can I ask you to do something for me?”

“Of course.”

“Please don’t scream.”

I snort. “I’ve seen hanging pigs before. It’s okay.”

Chef pushes the cooler door open and we step inside. I was right about the ingredients. All the produce I could dream of lines the shelves of the cooler. I have to stop myself from reaching out and running my hands along the rainbow of vegetables to my right.

We walk further into the cooler, the light fading the further back we go. I squint at a table that’s pushed up against the back wall.

“Is that what we’re cooking tonight?” I look up at Chef.

He nods.

We take a few steps closer and suddenly I understand why Chef asked me not to scream.

Lying on the table, is a naked, breathing woman.

That’s it for me. Now show me your words below or I may actually have to finish this thing.

X,

Jenna