So, I’ve been tagged by my dear friend Rebecca Hamilton for The “Look” Challenge! The way it works is this: You take your current manuscript and find the first instance of the word “look”. Then you post the surrounding paragraphs as an excerpt of the book on your blog. Lastly, you tag five more blogging authors who you think would be a good choice for the game.

For this, I’m using the current draft of Frostwalker. It’s still in edits, but I’m using the last “finished” draft. Let’s see what we find!

Jake no more wanted to enter the shadows in their new form than he had in their earlier shape. Yet, when his steps began to fail and he found himself stopped at the edge of darkness, he would probe deep between the shadows and very nearly into the woods themselves.

The woods he didn’t fear, but the darkness between the trees was hard for him to look at. When he stood there in the dim light, he would peer into the darkness. He found himself looking away, almost without thought, his eye settling on some brown and frost-shriveled weed or a fallen tree limb nearby.

Tonight, as before, Jake turned for home. The spell was broken and whatever called him from the Light no longer drew him. He was cold and tired. The weeks of broken sleep were taking a toll on him.

Hmm… That makes way more sense in the context of the full chapter! This is actually the final three paragraphs of the first chapter and the previous paragraphs explain that Jake is standing in a field, amid the shadows of a forest’s edge – a forest he has an irrational fear of entering. But, in an effort to adhere to the spirit of the game, I’ll leave it as it is. Perhaps I’ll do a full sample chapter at some point in the future – stay tuned! 😀

Also, if you want to be notified when the book is released, pop on over to the Frostwalker page and sign up for a notification email. I promise, I won’t be using your email address for any other purpose than a single email to let you know when the book is available!

Thanks for stopping by!

It’s hard to pick only five from all the fine authors I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in the past year, but here are the folks I’m tagging for The “Look” Challenge:

J. Scott Sharp

Noree Cosper

Rebecca Berto

Jess Fortunato

Rebecca M. Senese

Enjoy!