author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

I got too tangled up yesterday trying to figure out how to get my characters from There to Here, so I just skipped straight to Here instead. "Here" would be a chapter I've had in my head since mid-October, one I've been looking forward to writing for some time. Skipping ahead to it, I risk using up some of my "candy." (You know. Candy-bar scenes. The stuff that's pure fun to write--as opposed to those necessary scenes that are sort of a chore and will need a lot of work before anyone will be remotely more excited to read them than you are to write them.) On the other hand, eating one candy-bar does provide a temporary sugar rush that can last me for another 2000ish words. And it's better than getting bogged down for days in the land of "I don't know what happens next."

So I got started today writing the chapter where Jet assassinates the city council dude. I got through the first couple point-of-view blocks, and then I called it a day. I'd reached my word count goal for the day, and I wanted to stop while I still had candy left to look forward to. Stop in the middle of an exciting bit and you'll look forward to getting started the next day.

Lia turned to lock the door behind them, then followed Jet down the stairs and out into the night. It was not quite midnight; a bulging gibbous moon was just beginning to think about setting. That moment's glance skyward was enough to lose Jet in the shadows. The assassin moved like an assassin ought, noiseless and no more noticeable than the play of shade and dark. Lia hurried toward the place she'd last seen her and breathed a sigh of relief as Jet seemed to materialize before her.

Jet barely spared her a glance. "I said, keep up."

She let them out of the Sunspring Valley neighborhood and into a long stretch of grassy empty lots. Come next spring, the bulldozers would arrive and the next development would start being developed here. Ahead of them, about a mile, was the squat skyline of Silberne. Like many sprawling municipalities that constellated over the two hours of highway south of Mapleton Ridge, Lia's current home was named after the natural features its residents wished it had but had in fact dug up or torn down in order to develop the town. The burn, or creek, itself was mostly gone; what was left of it snaked weakly in from their left as they made their way toward the city center. Jet stepped over it as though it were a crack in a sidewalk. Lia got her toes wet and nearly lost her balance. She left a spreading stain of fresh black spraypaint in the water.

They reached a tall building on the edge of the town where the field they were in ran out. Jet abruptly stopped, hunkering down amidst the dying rye-grass. Lia followed her lead.

"Now," Jet said, "here's the plan. Listen up and do exactly as I tell you, and everything may just go the way it ought."

That's not where I stopped. But it seemed a good length for an excerpt. Today's writing took me through Jet getting into the building; tomorrow's will see her onto the rooftop and then off it once more.