The novel you are about to read is a work in progress. What I am posting here is the raw, unedited draft – complete with typos and mistakes… The finished project will be vastly different. I started this project in 2011 and it stopped working on it abruptly to let it cook for a while…
While I’m writing a much better version, you can read the old draft while the new one is being completed. Essentially, you get to read a version free, and if you liked what you read, you can purchase the complete polished version from book retailers everywhere.
I begin writing this before I wrote and published my first book. The writing is far from my best… but there’s a story here, kids. The title is a working title. And again, I stress this is a very rough draft, cringeworthy (at least to me) to read in some places, but I thought this would be a fun way for you to read a developing work, and then read a finished product.
Enjoy...
Chloe was the first to arrive for the Monday evening class. Though the walls were white washed and minimal, there was nothing sterile about this classroom. There were no student desks. The room was furnished with sofas and loveseats and coffee tables, two recliners with end tables, and a few living room chairs. The overhead lights were not turned on. The room was lit with lamps. The only traditional furnishings were the teacher’s desk and the Smartboard at the front of the room. There were no proper educational prints hanging, just a few posters of novels: Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and a poster for a production of The Crucible. There was a laminated paper with the title “Classroom Rules,” and under the heading it read “If I have to go there, you don’t belong here.”
Chloe sat on the sofa that was front and center and let her book bag fall between her legs. It was only seven-thirty. At the back of the room, faint music was coming from a pair of computer speakers plugged into an Android. Chloe went to the phone and touched the screen. Mason entered the room. “Strange song.”
Chloe was startled by the sound of Mason’s voice.
“Sorry,” he smiled, “didn’t mean to frighten you.”
She pushed the bridge of her glasses to the top of her nose and momentarily froze, then relaxed. “It’s okay. Sorry, I didn’t mean to touch your phone.”
He smirked. “You totally meant to touch it.”
Chloe laughed and relaxed, “Okay, I did. Sorry, though.”
“It’s okay.” He dropped his bag on the desk. “Do you know who Devo are?”
She shook her head no.
“What’s your favorite kind of music?”
She shrugged, making her way back to the sofa. “I don’t really listen to much music.”
He crinkled a brow. “You totally look like a girl who listens to music.”
She smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “Well, I don’t really. Not much.”
