#WIPpet Wednesday - The WAG and The Scoundrel (snippet 2) #amwriting
So, it's the 27th July, 2016, or (2707/2016)=691, but that's too many words, so I halved it, thusly 346 (rounded up, plus the last little bit so it wasn't entirely left dangling in anticip-) words of my work in progress, The WAG and The Scoundrel, which is a white-collar crime mystery (ish) / romance (ish) (LGBTQ). It's the first book in the Gray Fisher Series, which is a spinoff of Hiding Behind The Couch. It's scheduled for an October release. :o
In the scene below, Gray's at home alone, and he's trying to figure out his feelings about...everything!
Here's the WIPpet:
It was as well Gray had steered clear of the spirits. The time was fast approaching two a.m., and the ten bottles of Belgian wheat beer - which he'd bought on the premise they'd last out the week and then finished them in one sitting - had made him morose. But for once, his misery hadn't dumped him in the deep dark hole of Life After Jean.
He pondered on that awhile, trying to decide if he felt guilty - which he didn't - and then whether he should feel guilty about not feeling guilty.
Guilt-free, ethereal, divine.
Two a.m. in the reality of a drunken Gray Fisher was a twilight zone in which he could communicate with the dead. Not all of them, thank goodness. There were quite a few he was glad were on the other side of the curtain, including his philandering father - a phrase he'd tried out in the full array of Scottish accents for it sounded much better than in English - but when a light dose of alcohol had softened the edges of the world, blurring the boundaries, Gray felt Jean's presence, he was sure of it, or as sure as he was of anything.
He'd talked himself hoarse, telling Jean all about Will and his dogs. Five days had passed with no contact. No phone calls, no text messages, and he wasn't online. Gray didn't know if that was atypical or not. What was atypical was that he was paying attention, hence his lack of frame of reference.
He was worried about Will, which was...promising, and his pleasure at being worried appalled him. But then, how could he not be pleased, when his concern indicated that, in spite of his doubts on other matters, Gray believed Will had been truthful about his mum.
"I disgust me," Gray admitted to Jean, or to his semi-comatose common sense. He was still a long way from sober but not quite as far into drunk as he had been an hour ago, when he began his one-person séance. "It's so petty. Why do I care if he's bluffing about..." He didn’t know what, or why. He had no logical explanation for the feeling.
Thanks for reading!
Deb x
Ten bottles of beer? Just one usually has me feeling fuzzy and morose, though I'm a lightweight.
ReplyDelete"the deep dark hole of Life After Jean" sounds like it has quite a story in itself attached to it.
I've got to admit, I'd be on the floor on less than half of that, especially of Belgian wheat beer. I may have to, um, conduct some further research...
ReplyDeleteHahaha! I may have accidentally "researched" exactly how many martinis it takes before I'm not particularly fun company anymore. I definitely don't want to find out how many of anything else it takes.
DeleteFeelings are such a complicated mess. I love it.
ReplyDeleteGreat snippet
Thanks, Fallon. :)
DeleteOh why, I don't know what to think at the moment. Gray in his drunken state is letting out his emotional feelings towards Will. This comes across very well in your narrative.
ReplyDeleteExellent.
Shalom aleichem,
Patricia
Thank you, Patricia. :)
DeleteBelgium Wheat Beer is my FAVORITE! And before I got pregnant and lost my ability to handle alcohol, I could have done about 5 of those before forcing myself to stop so I wouldn't accidentally puke anywhere.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, back to the WIPpet, being drunk and overly emotional are definitely a combination to avoid, especially when drunk onlining is involved. I loved following his thoughts throughout his drunkness because it's very much like being drunk, can't stay on one thought too long without it switching & then going back and forth etc.
Great snippet.
AJ
It's my favourite, too! I think I could probably reach around four or five before the puke factor kicked in. I'm thinking maybe in the final version, Gray might not have done quite so many bottles in one go - he's not that much of a drinker. Maybe he was exaggerating to impress?
DeleteThank you for your lovely comments, AJ. :)
I'm not a beer drinker... though I can handle a HälfteWeiss better than most (SO not a fan of hops); thing is, don't wheat beers tend to have a higher alcohol content than most?
ReplyDeleteAlso, unless Gray drinks a LOT normally, ten beers in one sitting is more likely the cause of an ambulance call (as well as hallucinations of the dead and lots of visions of bright tunnels of light as one comes close to joining them) because of alcohol poisoning. Though... if he's got a tolerance...
As always, though, technical details aside, you really get into the emotional heart of your characters. So many threads here....
Thanks, Eden. :)
DeleteResearch into the Belgian beer is...ongoing. ;)