TMOD Teaser

Lately, it's been difficult to carve out time for me to sit down and productively write. It takes a little bit of time for me to get to that mental space I need to be in to actually write something worth saving. And typically, after work, I'm a little too sleepy to think straight, let alone put together sentences that would ever make it past a cursory round of revision.

That being said, I'm making more time. I'm writing more, and working on a project I am extremely enthused about! I'm calling it T.M.o.D. It has a real title, but I love it too much to share with the world until the first draft is complete and the novel is somewhere closer to finished. I posted a little synopsis on the Pinterest page for the book:

Winter, 1949, upstate New York. Four boys (James, Theo, Scottie, and Lewis) live in the cluttered attic of an old dormitory at an ivory university. They have ambition and art; all that's missing is the money. In walks Lucie with her romantic ideals, treacherous wit, and surprising air of serendipity. Happening upon a mysterious journal filled with a wondrous tale of forgery and fortune, rapacity runs rampant among the artists. Nothing is more deadly than desperation.

This book is very aesthetically driven. It deals with art and passion and jealousy. It's dark, romantic, and exciting. Or at least I'm hoping that's what it will be! The entire plot has been fleshed out in detail, as have the characters and settings, and I am so excited to start writing it in earnest.

It's been a while since I've shared any of my writing, so I thought I would post a quick snippet from chapter one. The draft is still rough around its edges and in the early stages, but here you go...

Chapter 1

The ghosts of Bramwood were especially noisy on Thanksgiving. Heavy wooden staircases, banisters as thick as tree trunks, creaked in the cold; doors left slightly ajar swung on the slightest midnight breeze. The library was abandoned, chairs untucked and books splayed open on tables. Paintings in polished gold frames stood sentry at the end of empty halls. 

The college was draped in rumors and mythology that ranged from absurd to illegal, and the leering mountains that pushed in dense winter fog only added weight to the stories. But it was when the campus emptied out during the holidays that the whispers were the most believable. Shadows were substantial, the darkened windows of empty classrooms looked bleaker. Even in the storming snow, the thick ivy continued its slow advancement of smothering the strong but cracking campus. 

Only a pocket of life drummed on in the late November evening. At the corner of the green and gray campus was the warm, dusty attic of South Dormitory, the sole source of sound on a night of such desertion. 

When the sun set, the room illuminated bronze. Lamps, scattered on the floor and balanced on stacks of ruined textbooks, were lazily lit. Four boys filled the low-ceilinged room. Three sat on a tattered couch, passing back and forth watered down booze and a single, stale cigarette as they listened to the fourth fuss over a new score on the sagging piano that had been wedged in a corner. The thing was terribly out of tune, and the pedals stuck, but the sharp-shouldered boy playing it still somehow managed to make it something impressive. 

A camera clicked, as bleary-eyed and spontaneous as the photographer holding it. From the end of the couch, Theodore Grady captured the scene of his friends, red-cheeked and laughing over one another.