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Time again for Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday!

I'm continuing for a few more weeks with my YA coming-of-age mystery, Shades of Blue. (You can catch up on the earlier excerpts here.) As promised last week, here's a scene where JoJo and Sam are talking about his real dad who left when Sam was a toddler.

Photo by Torsten Bolten, AFpix.de, via Wikimedia Commons

“My mom didn’t seem like she’d been drinking as much as usual when I went to tell her goodnight, and she kept saying how much I was starting to look like him, then she got out her yearbook so I could see for myself. It said under his picture that not only was he quarterback for Pine Grove, he was a High School All-American signed by Florida State.”

“Do you really look like him?” I asked.

“Yeah, except he’s a lot bigger. He’s got blond hair like me, and our chins are the same shape. You know, that was the first time I ever saw a picture of him, and he didn’t look like a guy who would run off and desert his wife and kid. He looked like he’d be kinda nice, and you should see how pretty my mom was in high school.”

I’d always wondered if there was more to the story about Sam’s dad than we knew, but unless he suddenly decided to come back someday, I didn’t see how we’d ever find out the truth.

I'm guessing they do find out more about him, what about you? Of course, you could always go buy your own copy of Shades of Blue here and find out. ;-) Please also check out the other Snippet Sunday folks and the Weekend Writing Warriors. Something for everyone among these talented writers!

~Stay true to yourself and your dreams will come true!

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Silver Linings

Time again for Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday!

I'm continuing with my YA coming-of-age mystery, Shades of Blue. (You can catch up on the earlier excerpts here.) This scene skips ahead a bit and needs some setup. JoJo has just discovered that Sam's step-father beats him and molests his step-sister Britney, and that Sam's mom drinks and takes sleeping pills. Sam is afraid he'll be sent out of state to live with his grandmother if the authorities find out everything, and he makes JoJo promise not to tell anyone. They talk it all through and Sam admits it's part of why he's been avoiding her for the past week. She tells him he'd better not ever keep anything from her again because he's her best friend and she's missed him. When she says that, Sam gives her the same look he gave her a few days earlier when they were wrestling and she thought he'd been about to kiss her. That brings back the horror of what she's just gone through with Chip, and this is how she reacts. (Creative punctuation alert!)

He put a hand on my shoulder and turned me around to face him, then he said, “What’s wrong, JoJo, you’re shaking.”

I was, and I couldn’t stop.

“I just . . . I don’t want things to change between us, Sam. We’ve been best friends since we were five years old, and that’s the way I want it to stay.”

He looked at me a few seconds, then he touched my cheek and said, “You’re a lot more than a friend to me, JoJo, I think you know that.”

I knew it as well as I knew that he was gonna kiss me and I was gonna let him this time, even though I was terrified.

He leaned toward me with his eyes slowly disappearing under his eyelids, and as soon as our mouths touched, I knew everything would be okay. All I could think of was how soft his lips were and how much I liked the way they felt against mine. Sam’s kiss completely erased the memory of Chip’s tongue in my mouth, and I made up my mind about something—what Chip had done didn’t count. This was my first kiss, and I refused to think otherwise.

More next week. Or you could always go buy your own copy of Shades of Blue here. ;-) Please also check out the other Snippet Sunday folks and the Weekend Writing Warriors. Something for everyone among these talented writers!

~Stay true to yourself and your dreams will come true!

See all my books at my Web site
Follow me on Twitter
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Aftermath

Time again for Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday!

Continuing with my YA coming-of-age mystery, Shades of Blue, (You can catch up on the earlier excerpts here.) this scene takes place immediately following last week's snippet when Sam rescues JoJo from Chip Wiley and she realizes just before she passes out that it was a trap to get Sam out there so Chip and his two friends could gang up on him. Warning: creative punctuation used!

When I opened my eyes again, Sam was smoothing the hair away from my face and saying my name over and over in a tear-choked voice.

“Don’t cry, Sam, I’m okay.”

He cried harder.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner, JoJo.”

When he raised his head to look at me, I saw his bloody nose and cut lip and started to cry too, then we hugged each other until our tears slowed and he took out his handkerchief to wipe my face with it.

“JoJo, did he . . .” he started, then he stopped and looked at me with fearful eyes, but I was too ashamed to meet his gaze.

“No, he just put his filthy hands on me and made me . . . touch him,” I said, scrubbing my palms on my jeans and staring at them in disgust. “I don’t think they’ll ever feel clean again, and neither will I.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Yes I did, I led you right into their trap.”

Come back next week to see what they plan to do about it. Or you could always go buy your own copy of Shades of Blue here. ;-) And please check out the other WWW and SS bloggers. Something for everyone among these talented writers!

~Stay true to yourself and your dreams will come true!

Follow me on Twitter: @JoyceScarbrough
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Wait'll I Get My Hanes on You

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday!

Continuing with my YA/coming-of-age/mystery Shades of Blue, this snippet takes place a short while after Sam leaves JoJo's house after last week's excerpt.

It almost seemed as if Sam had been about to kiss me or something when he was on top of me. Where had that come from? We were best friends, and that was the way I wanted it to stay.

At least I thought I did.

I went to my window and looked across at Sam’s house, but his shade was pulled all the way down and his window was dark. I don’t know how long I sat there hoping for some sign of him, but I fell asleep and was still there when Mama came in to tell me goodnight.

I dreamed about Sam that night, but the only thing I could remember in the morning was him standing on the creek bank yelling something at me, wearing nothing but his Hanes one-hundred-percent cotton, size 30-32 briefs.

And I had absolutely no idea how I knew anything about his underwear.

Poor JoJo is so confused, and things are about to get a lot worse. Tune in for another snippet next Sunday, or you can buy your own copy of Shades of Blue here. And please check out the other WWW and SS bloggers. Something for everyone among these talented writers!

~Stay true to yourself and your dreams will come true!

Follow me on Twitter: @JoyceScarbrough
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Why Didn't I Go Pee When I Had the Chance?

© Emmet and Edith Gowin, Etherton Gallery

Welcome back to Snippet Sunday and Weekend Writing Warriors!

Here's another snippet from my coming-of-age/YA mystery, Shades of Blue. (You can catch up on the earlier excerpts here) Sam and JoJo have been best friends since they were kids, but puberty changes everything. This scene takes place while they're watching a movie together in JoJo's living room. Sam grabs her foot during a scary part and makes her squeal, then they start wrestling. He has her pinned down and is threatening to tickle her if she doesn't do what he says. She skipped her chance for a bathroom break and is afraid she'll wet her pants if he tickles her, so she has no choice but to agree to his demands. His first one is that she has to read The Lord of the Flies, no surprise since he's always trying to get her to read more books. But his second demand is a lot different.

“Say you hate Chip Wiley and that I’m your favorite football player.”

“Fine, I hate Chip Wiley, and Sam is my favorite football player.”

He smiled, then his expression slowly changed to one I’d never seen on his face before. It felt like his eyes had mine locked in some kind of tractor beam, and I could feel his heart pounding against my chest. Or maybe it was my own heart, because it sure seemed amplified a hundred times louder than normal, and it felt like a giant hand was squeezing my chest. Sam’s hipbone was sticking me in the side something fierce, and I truly thought I might pass out at any second.

“Let me up right now, Sam, I mean it.”

His expression changed again to something else I couldn’t read--like fear and embarrassment mixed with anger--but he let me up and scrambled to his feet.

Don't you hate it when your bladder betrays you like that? Tune in for another snippet next Sunday, or you can buy your own copy of Shades of Blue here. And please check out the other WWW and SS bloggers. Something for everyone among these talented writers!

~Stay true to yourself and your dreams will come true!

Follow me on Twitter: @JoyceScarbrough
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Puberty Raises Its Ugly Head

Hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving and didn't overindulge like some people (who shall remain nameless) seem to do every year. I had a pretty great week considering I finished the prequel to my first novel that I'm redoing as a trilogy. :-) I'm really excited about it because it's unique in that it features a middle grade novel, a young adult novel, and a new adult novel. More about it later.

This week's Snippet Sunday post from Shades of Blue takes place while Sam and JoJo are swimming at the creek with a bunch of kids from school during Spring Break. A loud-mouthed jerk named Chip Wiley snaps JoJo's bathing suit top and breaks it, so she's swimming in her T-shirt. Chip starts teasing her about putting some Band-Aids on the mosquito bites on her chest, and Sam is not amused.

Sam’s eyes turned a strange dark-green shade, and he walked over to the rope swing where Chip and his two moron friends were taking turns. Without another word, Sam hauled off and punched Chip right in the stomach. I almost swallowed a minnow when he did it.

Chip’s eyes got real big and his mouth kept moving the way it always did, but for once nothing was coming out. Danny and Freddy did what morons do best—laughed like a couple of hyenas. Sam said something to Chip I couldn’t hear, then he dove into the water. When he came up next to me a few seconds later, I was still gawking at him for punching Chip.

“Come on, JoJo. Let’s get outta here.”

Hmm... Sam and JoJo have only been best friends until now, but it looks like "the times they are a-changing" thanks to puberty. Wonder how JoJo will take it? Stay tuned to find out. Or you can just buy you own copy of Shades of Blue here.

~Stay true to yourself and your dreams will come true!

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Snippets, Wishes and New Releases

Cover photo by Tieshka Smith/Mom of Three Photography

Yay, I finally made it back to participating in Snippet Sunday just in time to reintroduce my novel, Shades of Blue. This book was still just a WIP the last time I did a Snippet Sunday post, but I finally got my butt in gear and finished it! It's another one of my coming-of-age/YA/mystery/whatever-the-hell-Joyce-likes-to-write books that didn't fit neatly into any genre, but I love the story and refused to change it just to fit in (kinda like me and all my characters!) I decided to publish it myself and couldn't be happier about the decision.

My first snippet is from the opening of the book so that everyone can meet Sam and JoJo, the young couple so perfectly depicted by the photo on the cover.

The day I saw the bruises on Sam’s back, I knew his stepfather was beating him. I also knew somebody needed to kill the SOB for it. I just didn’t know who, when, or how.

Looking back on it now, I realize Sam had already been acting strange for a while that year. I thought it was just some kind of hormonal craziness he was going through from being fourteen. Then I saw the bruises.

Of course, I’d known Sam was different from other boys since the day he’d moved in next door, when he was just a little five-year-old blond kid staring at me through the fence. He always seemed older than me, even though our birthdays were only two days apart.

I hope you'll want to get to know these two precocious teens a lot better as they deal with some very adult issues, as if growing up and falling in love isn't hard enough.

And now is the perfect time to buy your own copy of the Kindle ebook! Not only is it on sale right now for 99 cents, when you use the link below, you can enter for a chance to win a $400 Amazon Shopping Spree! No purchase necessary to enter or win, but every purchase supports the Make-A-Wish Foundation via the Amazon Smile program!

Go here to purchase your copy of Shades of Blue. Just scroll down and click on my book cover, and don't forget to fill out the Rafflecopter form to enter the giveaway. Buy a few more books while you're there since every purchase helps to make a sick child's wish come true! :-)



~Stay true to yourself and your dreams will come true!

Visit Joyce's Web site
Follow me on Twitter
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