Sunday, September 16, 2012

No Turning Back Chapter One Running Away

My debut YA novel is now available as an e-book!  (Paperback will be released Sept. 30)  Here is the first chapter if you would like to get a preview.  Ordering details are in the right column.

No Turning Back
By Kim Flowers

Chapter One Running Away


Ash wondered what kind of punishment a seventh-grade dropout runaway would get.

She’d been on the run for two days, walking through woods and fields.   Her feet and muscles ached; she told herself to stay strong and ignore the pain.  She didn’t feel like a juvenile delinquent, but according to her probation officer she was.  Oh well.  She just wouldn’t get caught this time.

The morning was much warmer than the night had been, and she stuffed her jacket into her huge gym bag.  After hours of scrambling over fallen logs and pushing through thick foliage, she reached the end of the trees she’d been walking through.  Cornfields lined with tiny plants bordered both sides of a two-lane highway.  Buildings and houses stood in the distance.  

Ash looked at her watch.  It was 3:30, so other kids would be out of school, and she needed to get a few more supplies.  Her shoes squished in the damp dirt as she walked through a field toward the road.   

Her heart beat faster as she approached the town.  She hoped that passing cars would think her blue bag was full of homework or something.  She slunk into the first convenient store she saw for toothpaste and toilet paper, avoiding eye contact with the cashier.  On the way outside she glanced at a newspaper stand to see if she was really in the town she should be.  She smiled at the huge print that read “Clerksville Times”.  Right on schedule.   

When she jogged across a busy intersection and turned down a side street, the rumble of traffic was replaced by the drone of lawnmowers.  Somewhere an ice cream truck chimed.  She lowered her head so that her light-brown hair covered her face as little kids zoomed past on skateboards and bikes.  Ash couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have one of their happy lives. 

After an hour of walking through side streets and alleys, she decided to risk walking down a main road.  She needed to ditch this town.  A supermarket loomed ahead with a large group of trees behind it and Ash quickened her pace, knowing she’d found her way out.

 As she walked down a row of cars in the parking lot, a beat-up, tan Ford Escort rolled up beside her. The engine sputtered.

“Hey, do you need a lift?”

Ash looked out of the corner of her eye.  A man with sandy hair and wrinkled clothes drove the car.  His hands rested loosely on the steering wheel and looked like they were smudged with grease or ink, especially his fingernails. 

“No,” she said, as her chest tightened.  She walked faster, staring straight ahead.

“Come on, get in.  I’ll let you drive,” he said.

“I’m not even that old,” Ash said without meaning to. She clamped her mouth shut.

“You’re tall for your age, huh?” the man asked. “I bet that means you’re more mature, too.”

Ash rolled her eyes.   She sauntered a few rows over to her right, ignoring the cars and people surrounding her, and headed to the store entrance.   Going inside to get this man to leave her alone would probably be worth wasting a few minutes of time.

But then the car was in front of her, turning diagonally in the parking lane until the man stared her in the face with narrowed eyes.  Ash froze. 

 “It’ll be a lot easier for you if you just get in the car,” he said.  “No one will believe you when I throw you in the back and say you’re my runaway daughter, Freckles.”

A jolt of fear coursed through her for the first time.  She squeezed between two vans and sprinted past the remaining rows of vehicles, gripping her bag with both hands. She circled the building and ran past dumpsters and through a smaller parking lot in back.  The woods were just a few steps away.

Then she heard the man curse and she was on the ground, her cheek skidding across pavement, caught by her left ankle.  Her bag flew into the grass; she clawed at it desperately, but the man gripped her like a vise. With a grunt, Ash flipped onto her side and kicked him in the face with her other foot.  The man jerked back, pulling off her shoe, as blood gushed from his nose.  Ash lunged for her bag and darted into the trees.  She could hear the man yelling, but he didn’t seem to be chasing her.  She ran until his cursing faded, crunching painfully on rocks and sticks with every other step.  When she’d gone far enough, she sat beneath an oak tree with shaking hands.

“Calm down,” she muttered, breathing heavily.  She took out her only other pair of shoes, shoving the unmatched one in her bag.  No matter how many times she told herself to expect to meet freaks on the run, it never prepared her for when one showed up.

But Ash couldn’t sit around forever; she had to get going.  She edged around trees, ducked under branches, and shoved her way through bushes and weeds.  Her face was sticky with sweat.  The scent of flowers filled the air as she toiled in silence. 

When the sun went down Ash still walked, using her wind-up flashlight to show the way.  She looked at her atlas; if she kept walking south, she shouldn’t reach another town for quite a while, and that was fine by her.  Finally, as her steps turned into staggers and stumbles, she collapsed in a clearing.  Wrapped in a blanket and using her bag for a pillow, she curled up on the ground to sleep.

****

Ash woke up way too late—around nine a.m.—and ate a granola bar.  She put the empty wrapper back in her bag and took a few sips of water.  She had to conserve supplies, but also knew that not eating or drinking enough would be dangerous.  Ash walked through fields all morning, and saw nothing else around except a few houses and groups of trees in the distance.  She felt like she was walking in the middle of nowhere, but knew there was a road in the distance because once in a while a car would drive from one end of the flat horizon to the other.  She headed to the nearest group of trees for cover when she got close enough that the people in the cars might notice her. 

After a small lunch, she spent the next couple hours hiking through the woods.  In mid-afternoon she reached a clearing but hovered at the edge, unsure if she should go further.

The clearing was actually a yard, and a two-story gray house with blue shutters stood in the middle.  The paint was faded, and one window had a piece of cardboard duct-taped over it.  A driveway coiled south, but Ash couldn’t see the road.  She wondered if the place was abandoned.  This would be a good spot to take a break, and there might be something useful inside.

After several minutes of hesitation, she walked across the overgrown yard and peeked into a dirty pane of glass.  She could see a brown couch and an old TV.  The next room was a kitchen with a table and two chairs. Ash walked to the back of the house and gasped; a rope ladder swung in the breeze, hanging from a second floor window.

Ash just had to climb that ladder.  She could reach the bottom rungs without a problem, but couldn’t pull herself up because her bag was too heavy.  Unwilling to abandon her supplies for a moment, she dragged a small log over from a woodpile beside the back door and used it as a stepping stool.  As she climbed, the bag cut into her shoulder and made balance wobbly.  She launched herself inside, falling to the hardwood floor with a thump. 

Two dressers, a desk, and a toy box were stacked in front of a door to her right.  Two beds stood ahead; one of them had an old stuffed animal on it. The heads of both beds rested against the east wall, across from the barricaded door.   At the far end of the room was another window that overlooked the south end of the house.  There was also a bathroom.  When Ash looked inside, she saw a chair shoved up against yet another door.

Something felt very wrong.  Ash turned to go back out the way she’d come in, but then grit her teeth and dove under one of the beds.

The top of the rope ladder was scooting across the window sill. 

Ash watched in indignation as a small boy dove into the room.  A girl followed, stumbling because the entire rope ladder was now wrapped around her leg.  The kids wore old clothes and carried school bags.  The girl’s waist-length, tangled hair was dark brown; the boy’s was reddish-blonde and shot out all over his head.  They both had bruises on their arms.

Ash slid out from under the bed and strode towards them.

“Get out,” she demanded.  “This is my spot.”

The kids froze.  “Who are you?” the girl asked.

“This is my hideout, I found it first.” Ash said.

 The boy giggled.  “We live here.”

“Oh.”  Ash felt her face grow hot.  That made more sense than that somehow every runaway in Indiana was migrating to the same creepy house.

 “I’m Kevin Webster, and this is my sister, Dayna,” the boy said.

 “What are you doing here?” Dayna asked, unraveling herself from the ladder.

“Leaving.”  Ash said.

“You can’t.” Kevin stretched his arms.   “They’ll be back any minute.”

Ash sighed and walked closer, ready to push them out of the way and tell them to mind their own business.  But the girl, Dayna, stepped in front of the window and stared up at her. Ash stopped a few steps away.  There was something about Dayna’s dark brown eyes that seemed both wise and melancholy.  As Ash gazed into them she felt like she was falling and didn’t know why.  She shook her head, breaking the trance.  These kids obviously had it rough, but that wasn’t her problem. 

“Did you run away from home, or what?” Dayna asked.

“Of course she did,” Kevin said.  “Your parents are bad, aren’t they?”

“No.”  Even that was too much.  Ash’s chest constricted.  “If you live here, why do climb in and out through the window?”  Her face burned.  She shouldn’t be asking questions.

“We weren’t supposed to leave today,” Dayna said, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed.  “But we’ve been stuck at home for a week; we didn’t want to stay here and clean everything again.”

“I don’t blame you,” Ash said.  “Where did you go?”

Dayna and Kevin looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

“School,” Dayna said, as if there were no other possible answer.

Ash smirked.  These kids were even younger than she’d thought.  “I have to get out of here.”

“Wait,” Dayna said.  “At least let me get you something to eat.” 

Dayna walked into the bathroom, and Ash could hear the chair that blocked the other door scraping across the floor. 

Kevin sidled over to Ash.  “I have some cars and dinosaurs.  Do you want to play a game?”

She shook her head and looked at her watch.   

He stepped closer.  “So . . . you ran away from home?”

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and edged toward the rope ladder.  Surely he wasn’t thinking of turning her in. 

“Do you think we could go with you?” Kevin asked.

Ash laughed; she hadn’t expected that question at all.  “No.”

An engine rumbled outside and Kevin rushed to the south window.

“Oh, great. Mom and Dad are back,” he said.  “We got home before they did, though, so we shouldn’t be in trouble.” 

 A door slammed downstairs, and a man started yelling.

Kevin ran to the bathroom.  “This isn’t good,” he said.  “I have to go help Dayna.”

“Uh, okay,” Ash said, backing up further.

“Why didn’t you do your chores?” the man demanded.

Dayna screamed.

Ash reached the other end of the room.  This was too much.  She threw the rope ladder out the window.

Kevin hurried over and grabbed her arm. “Wait, don’t leave.  I’ll be right back.”

“I have to go,” she said, peeling his fingers from her skin.

As Ash climbed down the rope ladder and ran away, she heard Kevin shouting curses behind her.  


Friday, August 3, 2012

"Death Panel" free short story download August 12!

Just a few more days until my first short story is available for free through Queerteen Press!

I want to talk about the brief history of some other stories I have coming up later, too.  It's been really interesting for me to track the journey's of some of these.

"Cane and Able" will be released for 1.99 on 1-13-13.  I wrote this in 2009 and it received an Honorable Mention in the 78th Annual Writer's Digest Writing Competition.  I had only been back into serious writing for a year, and this award was a sign that I was on the right path, and that my writing might actually go somewhere behind my computer.  I will probably make a few minor edits, but for the most part it will remain intact.  Also, my dad was in the hospital when I found out about this.  I got to show him my award, but he never got to witness my first paying short publications, and won't get to hold my books in his hands.  I am glad he saw that I was doing something with my lifelong dream, though.

"Smoke Break" started out as a short story for the writing course I took through Long Ridge Writer's Group.  This was rejected by several editors, and by the comments I received on the last one, I think it's because the story is misunderstood.  I was told people wouldn't think the story is "funny", they wondered why my MC hates someone who he doesn't actually hate, and they asked if a manager would really turn a blind eye to an employee smoking weed in the parking lot.

Yes.

The story is about a bigot trying to convince his co-workers about the upcoming Race Wars, and is not supposed to be funny, but a reflection of some of the screwed up conspiracy theories I have actually heard people talk about in good ole Indiana!

Now "Death Panel" . . . this is a dystopia about a world in which the worst fears of of certain conservative groups come true.  Only 9 more days!

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

More Short Stories!

I found out today that my short story "Smoke Break" is scheduled to be released as a free download on Nov. 11!

Also, I have a story called "Cane and Able" which should be available sometime this year for $1.99. 

Both will be e-format through Queerteen Press!

Thursday, July 26, 2012

"Death Panel" cover, blurb, and excerpt released today!

My short story "Death Panel" will be coming August 12 as a free download through my publisher, Queerteen Press.  To check out the cover and read an excerpt, go here!

http://www.queerteen-press.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=49

I am very happy with the input I was able to give on the content of the cover, with the suggested edits, and with having the option to give away a free story! 

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Free Short Story releases next month!

My short story "Death Panel" will be available as a free download through my publisher Aug. 12! 

This story has a journey of it's own, too.  I wrote the first draft in 2009, before I knew I would ever get pregnant and have a son called James.  The main character of "Death Panel" is a blond-haired, blue-eyed 18-year old named Jimmy!  After multiple revisions and several editor rejections, I decided to go through yet another round of editing and share this story for free.  I will post ordering details when they are available!

Friday, July 6, 2012

Guest Blogger on Dear Teen Me!

Today I am a guest blogger on the web site Dear Teen Me, where writers send letters to their teenage selves, complete with pictures.  To see mine, click here, and make sure to check out other writers' letters too!

http://dearteenme.com/2012/07/06/dear-teen-me-from-author-kim-flowers-no-turning-back/#more-3607

Saturday, June 30, 2012

The Divide

The Divide -- January 2013! (Queerteen Press)
I still have some major editing to do, but my YA Dystopia, The Divide, will be available in e-book and paperback in January!  I'm just as excited about The Divide as I am No Turning Back, especially because this book took much less time than No Turning Back to write. (I started NTB when I was 11, and now I'm 31!)

There was still an interesting journey that I took with The Divide.  I have loved dytopian novels since high school, and I first got the idea to write one when I was 22.  The idea for this book was formed then, but I never got any further than the title and a page or two of notes.  But last year there was a prompt for a summer contest on one of the writing forums I go to, Writer's Digest Sci-Fi/Fantasy.  The contest never ended up happening because there weren't enough entries, but The Divide officially became a short story.  Early this year I decided to turn The Divide into a novella.  I quickly realized as the words poured out of me that I was actually writing an entire book.  I joined Camp NaNoWriMo this month hoping to help me finish. I already had 20,000 words written, and with the motivation of Camp I wrote 35,000 more!  I think my ending needs major work and I'll probably have to add a couple more scenes to flesh things out, but I have never written a first draft so fast, and never had the scenes just pour out of me like they did with this book. 

I will post more details here when I have them, and also try to make more of an effort to post more often here!

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Another New Young Adult Book

On May 21, fellow writer Paul Swearingen released his new book on Amazon, called "You Can Believe It."  Read below for his description of the book:

One day, Dane woke up, but no one else did. Or so he thought.

But the neutron bombs hadn't killed everyone, as just when he was getting used to being alone in the world, two sisters showed up to change everything again. And yet they weren't the only ones to survive, or to die, and change his world, as he was to find out.

Set in the very near future, "You Can Believe It" is suitable for ages 12 and up.

To purchase this book and to see six more of Paul's books, go here:


http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Swearingen/e/B005GUKN60

Friday, May 18, 2012

New YA Books

An anthology featuring a fellow writer, Kelly Said, called "Tidal Whispers" will be available on June 4!

And I've been so busy lately that I forgot the book I've been waiting for, "Insurgent" by Veronica Roth, is now in stores!  Must read it.

Another book I want, this one an e-book, is "Yokai" by fellow writer R. Weinstein, which you can find on Amazon.com.

What books do you recommend?

Friday, May 11, 2012

Ok, I'm Back for Shameless Self-Promotion

I have some great news!

First of all, an opinion piece I wrote called "The Grande Ole Lies" will be published in Moot Magazine's June 9, 2012 issue.  I have another idea which I'm going to write for their July issue called "America as Dystopia".  If accepted, it will be my first non-gay related publication!  I really like this magazine and hope to be a regular contributor.

In other news, my YA novel "No Turning Back" has also been accepted for publication!  I have dreamed about this day for years.  I think I'm still in shock!  I've signed a contract and am waiting to hear from an editor.  But I have already been told that I probably won't need to make too many changes and that the book is well-written;  what every writer wants to hear!

Also, now that I have an actual YA publication coming out, I think I can try to attract a YA audience without feeling like a total creep. 

The Journey of "No Turning Back"

I began the first draft of "No Turning Back" when I was eleven.  Except it was called "Marooned" and the characters were different: 3 boys and 1 girl.  In this version, runaway kids build a boat and sail it off the coast of Maine until they reach an island.  This was definitely inspired by some video we watched in 6th grade about Maine, and apparently Gilligan's Island.  Then I realized that 11-year-olds building a boat to sail the ocean was ridiculous and started over with "Running Away", which had a lot more of a Punky Brewster feel, and included an "orphan's truck" which chased after my characters like a dog catcher.  I handwrote about a hundred pages in that draft, but I think I lost it a few years ago.  My favorite memory of that draft is when the kids find a homeless man, "an old man, about 40", who hobbles around using a stick as a cane. You can see where I had previously written that the man was 30 and erased it! 

At age 12/13 I wrote another draft with new characters and ages, including 4 of the 5 characters that exist today.  Somewhere in this time period the title changed to "No Turning Back".  I remember the day I thought to myself that I couldn't wait to meet Ash(ley), Dayna and Kevin, and then realized they didn't exist.  In these drafts, there were times that I would write certain scenes and then feel guilty and cross them out.  These scenes always involved Ash and Dayna. 

In high school the 5th character was added, but he was only mentioned once or twice.  There were many times I stayed after school on days I didn't have to work, and spent an hour in the weight room and an hour in the newspaper classroom, transferring my book from typewritten form to the computer.  I also decided that I should be a Christian writer, and the biggest theme in the book became Ash's conversion of Dayna and Kevin to Christianity. I still had to keep deleting scenes where Ash and Dayna got a little too touchy-feely.

In my college "year" I did some editing, thinking my book was ready for publication.  At this point I had rewritten the entire book in pencil, typewriter, and computer format at least ten times.  At age 21 I sent a query and sample chapters to a Christian publishing company, even though I was now an out lesbian and didn't consider myself Christian anymore.  At the time I just couldn't picture my book written any other way.   My query was returned, the chapters unread, with a form letter saying I needed an agent.  I had no idea how to find an agent, and was under the mistaken impression that an agent required payment up front, so my writing suffered for several years after this. I didn't know who to go to for help; I didn't know how to learn what to do.  Sometimes I would start a new idea, but it would fizzle out.  Sometimes I would half-heartedly read over "No Turning Back", and then quit again.  Sometimes I wrote a short story in which everyone died tragically mid-plot.  But I did keep reading.

At age 27, I found the Writer's Digest Writing Forums.  I had been trying to get into writing again, and had lost all the files to my old version of NTB, so I started over from scratch, with no preaching.  I also started experimenting with different genres, so my first visit to the Forum was to Sci-Fi/Fantasy, even though I don't really write in those genres! (I like to read them, though.)  I have learned SO MUCH through that group!  But I didn't want to limit myself to only one group, so have also visited Absolute Write, and read a lot, and took a course through Long Ridge Writer's Group.

At 29 my wife and I had a wedding ceremony, and I also had a baby boy.  My son inspired me to stop being afraid of submitting my work.  I realized that after all this time of telling myself to wait until I was "ready", the time had come and I was ready.  I got my first non-fiction pieces published just a few months after deciding to make real submissions. 

(Paragraph edited to take out spoilers) I also decided to just write a certain scene to get it out of my system.  And when I wrote the scene, I realized that the missing piece to my story was complete. 

After at least 40 agent rejections, I began researching small publishing companies.  According to what I have read about the writing market, the book I wrote has a very small chance of being considered "marketable" by a mainstream publisher, both  because of my character's ages (8 to 13, which is usually considered Middle Grade, but I wrote the book as YA) and because of some sexual orientation factors.  When I saw the web site for a press devoted to LGBT fiction for YA, I knew I'd found a place that might give me a chance.  And now they did!

The novel I began writing at age 11 will be published a few months after I turn 31.

I plan on finishing my next book, "The Divide" in much less time!

Tuesday, February 21, 2012