#3 Baby Slushpile: AMELIA AND THE OTHER WORLDS

Rigby trots into the room, ears flopping with each step. I stop breathing and my legs go weak. I close my eyes, heart pounding, then look again. My dog grins at me, mouth open wide and tongue hanging out.

            This is impossible. How can Rigby be alive? I held her head while the vet put her to sleep under the maple tree two weeks ago.
            None of this makes sense. I was outside with my family raking leaves and came in for a drink. All of a sudden, colors blurred and the floor fell away. Now I’m here, in a room that mostly looks like my bedroom, but is the wrong color with different furniture. And Rigby in front of me, wagging her tail so hard her whole butt shakes.

            I collapse to my knees, wrapping my arms around her. She whips her tail and covers my face in slobber as I hold tight. With Rigby’s wet nose pressed into my shoulder, I stare around this cream-colored bedroom. The desk is new with huge, heavy books neatly stacked next to a super techy looking tablet. The polished wood furniture all matches and the poster taped to the closet door isn’t my skateboarding poster, but a long math equation.

            “Rigby,” I say, my tears soaking her brown and black fur, “how are you alive?”

            I bury my face in her neck and suck in deep, slow breaths like you’re supposed to do when you’re so scared you might completely freak out. If I were the type to get out-of-control scared. Which I’m not. Or at least, would never admit. I cling to my dog, afraid to let her go. Afraid she’s not really here.
             Rigby twists to lick my face, her brown eyes steady on mine. I stand with one hand resting on her back, my eyes darting around. More books are piled on the bed stand where a framed photo of Rigby as a puppy should be. On the desk, a chunky pen with a gun trigger and a thin screen on the side lies near a notebook.

            Then I see it. Held down by a corner of a heavy book is a page of notebook paper.

Amelia,
I am YOU from a parallel world.  I know this seems irrational, but it is accurate.

I must investigate your world, as I have no record of it.

I will switch you back home in a few minutes.
In all truth,
Amelia

            Another me? I sink to the floor, my back against this bed. Rigby curls up practically in my lap. I rub between my eyes and read the letter again. How can there be another me? And where is the other Amelia—is she in my world right now?

            She wrote that she’ll switch me back in a few minutes. Back to my world where Rigby is dead.  


I jump up. Before that happens, I have to find a way to convince her to let me return to visit Rigby.

#2 Baby Slushpile: SOL OF A GLADIATOR

A baby’s cry.

            Grall was sure that’s what he’d heard.  In the depths of the coliseum a person became accustomed to various cries of pain or despair.   Prisoners, men broken physically or mentally, called out in the night.  Spoils, the women given to victorious fighters to do with whatever they saw fit, cried out often.  The beasts, crazed by captivity and seclusion, howled and cackled.  Even Grall, though the proud young guard would never admit it, sometimes fought back tears that came in the dark.  Over time, one could learn to block out the sound completely.

            But the cry of a child, an infant, a sound that had no place in this world, could not be ignored.

            Grall made his way slowly down the roughly carved stone hall, unenthusiastic in his search for the sounds origin.  He knew what was expected of him when he found the child.  His stomach clenched at the thought.

            “I don’t need this.” he thought aloud, his voice barely a whisper.  “I should be in bed.”  In truth, only minutes before he had lain wide awake, willing dawn to come and give him a reason to abandon his tossing and turning.  With the day came his duties; blessed menial tasks he could lose himself in, briefly forgetting his loss.

            Grall had come to the coliseum only a few months before.  He had been a guard in the city until he refused to participate in a drill using live captives.  His protests changed nothing.  The captives had died regardless and he had yet again angered his captain; the man that controlled his fate.  As punishment he had been transferred to the coliseum, a post feared by guard and soldier alike.  Far more than the danger and brutality, what inspired dread for the post was that, for all intents and purposes, the coliseum was a closed system.  Be you slave or guard, once you entered it, you probably didn’t leave.  He had begged his captain, promising him utter obedience.  But for the captain it had become personal.  Grall had made it personal.  It mattered not at all that Grall’s young wife had just given birth to their first son.  Neither did it matter that he would probably never see either of them again.  Even if he managed to be one of the few to live long enough to see retirement, his son would be grown with children of his own. 

            He had been all for packing their meager belongings and making a run for it but his wife’s 
cooler head had prevailed, as always. They lived in the middle of the empire, two week’s hard ride in any direction from free lands if they had a mount, which they didn’t. She wasn’t yet recovered from a difficult childbirth, still weak and sore. Most importantly they had a brand new baby. In the best of times the road was no place to raise a child, and they would be in hiding. “No,” she had answered stoically through her tears, “you will go to the coliseum. You will send us your pay. I will raise our son.”

#1 Baby Slushpile: COVETED

Chapter One: Wingman

Present Day

Caleb learned long ago being friends with Martin MacMurtry required two things, inhuman patience, and a tolerance for impromptu fashion shows. The first remained a struggle, but the second he'd mastered by the fifth grade. Reloading a failed level of Angry Birds, he snickered as Martin left to change clothes for the fifth time.

“Worse than my sister. I mean, come on, we passed ridiculous twenty minutes ago.”

“Hey!” Martin’s voice carried into the living room, along with the rustle of cloth and the clatter of hangers. “There is absotively nothing wrong with taking pride in one’s appearance.”

He hiked an eyebrow, glancing up from waging war against the international pig threat. Did he just say, “Absotively?”

“Posolutely.”

Caleb shook his head, returning his focus to his phone as he stretched out over an expensive-a** leather couch. Martin called it Ashley, which worried Caleb before he found out it was a brand, and not his friend naming the furniture. “What I said still stands. What, were you a runway model in another life?”

“First I’m not just changing clothes. These are strategic choices.” Martin’s words preceded his reentry, his fingers fumbling with the belt around a pair of three-hundred-dollar tattered jeans. “Second, your sister wishes she dressed this good.” He held his arms out and struck a pose, the kind in magazines where it’s clear the guy takes himself, and whatever he’s modeling, way too seriously.

“Uh huh.” Caleb took in Martin’s shirt, a pale pink button-down with a silver fleur-de-lis insignia on the lower left-hand side. “If by dress you mean kick a unicorn until it vomits sparkles all over you.”

“What?” Martin glanced down, running his hands over his chest. The metallic finish of the fleur glinted in the sunlight. Realization crossed Martin’s face. “Pink is a manly color.”

“So’s robin’s egg blue, I hear.” They’d spent the past hour on Martin’s ‘strategic choices’.  Caleb still had on the jeans and a black Spiderman t-shirt he’d worn to school. It was just a movie. “You ready yet?”

Martin gestured at himself while checking his reflection in the floor-to-ceiling window nearby. “You can’t rush perfection,” he drawled.

“I’m not—I’m rushing you.”

“Oh, you got jokes.”

“It’s already eight, so light a fire under it.” Caleb ended his game and shoved his phone into his pocket. The stupid black bird wasn’t exploding when he needed it to anyway. “I don’t plan on being out all night.”

“One second, funny man.” Martin pulled a familiar patch of black felt from the closet near the front door. He may as well have drawn a gun for the way panic kicked around Caleb’s insides.

“Not the beret!” He sunk farther into the couch.

“Oh yeah.” Martin adjusted the hat on top of his I-wish-I-were-Brad-Pitt haircut.

“Don’t, man. I’m begging you,” Caleb muttered from under the pillow he’d pulled over his face. If he couldn’t see the beret, this wasn’t happening and the hat wasn’t real, waiting for him, mocking him. 

Baby Slushpile Winner Critiques

So maybe I got a little too excited about our Critique Partner Dating Service.  So excited, in fact, that I completely forgot to post the Slushpile winning excerpts yesterday, as I had promised.

If it weren't for the confused questions of a reader in the comment box last night, I would probably STILL not have remembered.

Oy!

At any rate, the five excerpts will post shortly.  Put on your best critiquing hats and have at it!  The entries are diverse, which always makes for more enjoyable critiquing.

Winners, please remember to critique a minimum of two other entries.

My apologies for dropping the ball!  All this right after I discover I'm actually left-brained.  I think my brain is laughing at me.

Authoress's Critique Partner Dating Service!

I've decided, instead of letting you know that it was "coming up", to just go ahead and launch it.  So here it is--a direct result of the many emails I've received over the years asking how to find critique partners:  AUTHORESS'S CRITIQUE PARTNER DATING SERVICE!

This comes with a disclaimer, and here it is:  Finding good critique partners really is like finding good life partners.  Just because you both write fantasy or you've both been writing for exactly three years or your first names both begin with "N" doesn't mean you're going to be a good fit.  Relationship is a huge part of this, in addition to artistic vision and the ability to "get" each other's work.

So keep in mind that, as you seek people to swap work with, things may or may not work out, and that's okay.  What I'm offering you here is a springboard; a chance to get your name and your needs out there in the hope that you may click with someone.

Here's how it'll work (PLEASE READ THESE DIRECTIONS CAREFULLY):

• Starting at NOON EDT TODAY, the bot will accept your Dating Service Entry.  The submission window will remain open for 24 hours.
• Submit your entry HERE.
• Up to 100 entries will be accepted.  Even if we only get 2 entries, though, I will still post them.
• Please format your entry EXACTLY as outlined below, for ease of browsing.  Please note that the word count for these entries will be limited to 100.  

TITLE: (Put your screen name OR your first name here; NOT a title. Full name NOT NECESSARY)

GENRE: (list ALL genres that you write)

Then, in the body of the submission:

EMAIL: (PLEASE use (at) instead of "@"!! Like this: Authoress(at)Chocolate.com)

I'm working on my {1st/2nd/47th} novel.

{And here's your "pitch about me" -- a sentence or two that will express who you are and what your goals/dreams are.}

• All entries will post on Wednesday.  You may browse the entries and contact anyone who seems like a potential match.
• YOU ARE NOT OBLIGATED TO CRITIQUE THE WORK OF SOMEBODY WHO CONTACTS YOU.  NEITHER IS ANYONE OBLIGATED TO CRITIQUE YOUR WORK SIMPLY BECAUSE YOU CONTACTED HIM.  This is simply a little jumpstart to creating new friendships that could potentially become critique partnerships.
• I will remove the entries after one week.  Simply because I don't think it's wise to keep this information up for longer than that.  

So, how does one approach this?

I would definitely not send an email that says, "Hi! Let's be critique partners.  I've attached 2 of my novels for you to critique; what would you like to send to me?"  Instead, a simple "Hi! Let's get to know each other." will do.  You can both take it from there and see what happens.

To clarify the above, here is a sample entry:

TITLE: Authoress

GENRE:  YA/MG SFF

EMAIL: Authoressmail(at)gmail.com

I am working on my seventh novel.

I'm agented by the fabulous Josh Getzler and I'm currently off caffeine. I'm a grammar nazi and my critiquing strengths lie in sentence structure, clarity, and dialogue. 

(You can write whatever you want about yourself.  Not to "sell" yourself, but to give a glimpse of who you are and where you're at in your journey.)

Clear? Questions below!