1st Sunday Snippet: Fins

Happy Labor Day weekend. Hope y’all are doing something fun. I just finished canning 10 pints of pickled green beans & 10 ½ pints of wild berry jam…er…syrup—kinda messed up on the pectin. I can’t believe it’s September already. Where did the summer go? What did I do all summer? *scratches head* Oh well, I love fall, because life seems to settle down and my favorite holidays are just around the corner. But as things slow down, my writing is picking up. I’m currently revising my first mermaid novel, finishing up an adult Christmas novella, and starting a new contemporary YA series. Yeah, I’m crazy. I’ll be keeping my posts fairly short and won’t be doing Friday Fictioneers anymore (even though I absolutely love doing flash fiction).

With that I’m also taking a break from writing this month because we are putting in new floors & my house looks like a construction war zone—NOT conducive to creativity. I’m going to use this time to can, cook, & freeze food I’ll need to eat when I get back into my writing next month. I’m also planning to spending time with friends and family who I’ll be ignoring come October 1. Being a writer is about balance. Sometimes you need to step away from the computer and fill your life with the things that feed that creative spirit.

Today’s Snippet is from the YA mermaid novel. Lorelei just woke up in the Temple of Atlantis where her spirit is trapped in a new body. The priestess has ordered her to be put in a tank.

***

It took a total of three rounds of swimming before I realize that the burning in my throat and lungs have long ceased. I’m breathing underwater. A mixture of calming relief and fiery panic fills every cell of my body as I inhale a lungful of water. As I slowly exhale, I note the small bubbles trickling out of my nose. It’s as refreshing as taking the deepest breath of air first thing in the morning.

“What the hell?” I say, my voice echoing through the tank as if I were inside a large room and not underwater.

I look at the faces lining the outside of the swimming pool-sized aquarium. Smiles break out on each of them, some are even laughing—not at me, but for joy. I gaze up toward the holy lady and Lucian. Both are clapping and look generally pleased.

How can they be happy about this? And what’s in this water that allows me to breathe it in like air? I look down at my body and gasp. My head spins in a woozy spiral.  I’m naked from top up, but that’s not what shocks me. It’s when I see the perfect set of tail fins on the end of my scaly “blanket” that I faint.