Boot Hill: Chapter One Excerpt

I have returned with a slightly edited excerpt from Boot Hill, as promised. It won't be too long, because I'm afraid of piracy on the Internet (and I just know that people can't wait to steal my absolutely mind-blowing ideas, haha!), though I will include a link to my friends-locked LiveJournal account, where you can read more (if you have an LJ account, that is. If you don't, and really, really want to read more, just post here and I'll email some of it to you). Though I highly doubt that will be the case.


Not even fatigue coupled with absolute weariness could persuade me into slumber, though it certainly proved to pass the time if even a little bit. Just as I began to fall into a state of dozing, however, the entire train lurched forward in a violent convulsion. The coach itself jerked wildly and independent of the other cars in line, hurling me from my seat headlong into the bottom metal lip of the bench directly in front of me, then sideways into the aisle. An earsplitting screech of the train wheels grinding off the track—yet still somehow managing to move forward—burst into my ears, drowning out the screams of my fellow passengers and ominous creaks of metal bending and tearing from their fastened positions. I clutched my forehead and curled my body into itself on the floor of the train coach, unable to hear my own gasps of pain amid the chaos. Tightening my upper arm against my ears, I made a feeble attempt to shield my ears from the deafening screeches. My body slid across the wooden planks, powerless to take control of myself or anything around me. I wasn’t the only one; others experienced a similar fate, and I could have sworn half the car-load of passengers had nearly fallen on top of me during their forced disarray.

It couldn't have been more than a few seconds before the squealing quieted and instead, the quickened gallops of what I could only attribute to horses approached the outside window of the train coach and faded just as fast in passing toward the steam engine. A terse whistle followed by an enthused holler shot through the thick chaos and my stomach turned in dread.

For more, please click here.

Excuse my destruction and subsequent resurrection of Word Drop Soup. Some issues arose and I felt the need to remove my blog in a fit of rage and madness. But, I have returned. I will mostly be using this to post tiny excerpts for my writing works in progress as well as little character blurbs, art, etc.

For those of you who don't really know, I wrote a western fantasy novel for National Novel Writing Month called Boot Hill. 50,000 words of it, anyway. For those who are interested, I have provided a synopsis for the masses.

Boot Hill: A common name for the burial grounds of gunfighters, or those who "died with their boots on."

Welcome to Corulin, a country where magic has dissipated, the monarchy's hold is loosening and turmoil has sprouted amid its civilians. Among them is Lindsay, a talented doctor who has inexplicably ceased to age as a young adult. Rumors that the once free-flowing but ominous magic is within Lindsay's bones all but casts him from the city he was raised and into the Splinters, a place where lawlessness abounds and gunslingers and thieves control the already stagnant economy.

Under the guise of a traveling doctor, Lindsay searches for answers, though with few results. On a train to his next destination, however, Lindsay finds himself face-to-face with a trigger-happy gunman by the name of Finch, who seems to know more about the doctor than he's willing to let on. Both curious and petrified, Lindsay seeks to learn the truth from the gunslinger--at all costs.

I'm pretty happy with that synopsis as of now. You may or may not be wondering what "costs" Lindsay goes through to find out about his 'illness' but you can use your imagination for the time being :D

As a side note, gunslinger Finch is incredibly sexy.

More to come: A tiny snippet from chapter one.