Somewhere Over the Sun

I wanted to write a post for you today that began with “Let me tell you a story…” and then proceeded to tell a story. However, I’m going to shelve that very vague idea for now. Later this week there should be links added to my Virtual Book Tour section. Tonight/today, though, I give you a part of the book that I cut out from the final version. This was actually going to be the very beginning of the book. You can read another deleted mini-scene here.

You were wandering idly down your local bookstore, letting your fingertips lightly graze over each book’s spine. The books shivered under your touch, feeling the fleeting tingle of hope, the promise of being purchased and read, much like humans feel the fleeting tingle of hope and the promise of being loved when their spines are gently grazed by an interested fingertip. But each of those books had to sigh in disappointment when your fingers left without a goodbye.  One by one, they exhaled as soon as you were gone, and so many books sighed that a slight breeze rushed across the aisles of stacked books and caused you to shiver, right as your finger fell on this book.

Update: Right before falling asleep, of course, I realized that my readers might be interested in knowing why I cut this from the book. After all, I like it enough to post it on here. It’s actually a paragraph I enjoyed very much. But it wasn’t strong enough for the start of the book. My editors both agreed that starting the book by talking directly to the reader wasn’t captivating enough, so I left the whole breaking the fourth wall thing for later on, when there is more grounds for a relationship between Alan and his readers.

Sunset

A very pleasant sunset out behind my brother’s house. My parents, sister and I had four chairs facing the mountains, some music going and a beer or two. Still no clouds or extravagance, just the Earth rotating the sun out of view in pretty fashion. Sunsets like these are why I take at least a weekend out of the year to focus only on watching the sky light up.

I’m almost constantly exhausted now. But there’s only one more sunrise, and then it’s back to a regular sleeping schedule. I hope you’ve been enjoying these posts, dear readers. When this little mission is over with, I’ll get back to writing about my book and what’s going on with that. I’ll leave you with this paragraph which I cut from the book during the first round of edits. Enjoy.

My leg muscles flexed and twitched and generally did whatever it is fast-moving legs are supposed to do; they responded to neural impulses and clicked on nerves and pushed me forward through the cool September night air. Dear reader, with your mouth itching to smile and your eyes needing to see, do you ever do something just to do it, just because something inside you tells you it needs to be done?