Grrr! I’m almost finished my edits, so why can’t I bring myself to actually finish?!

I’m on the final chapter, but it’s like there is something in my actual way. I don’t get it. I’ll edit a little, then I’m like, “Ugh. I don’t want to look at this anymore!” What about you, Dear Readers? Do any of you get to the point where you’re almost finished a project, then you lose all steam and forward momentum? Let me know in the comments below.

 

Here’s another excerpt from Into the Realm: The Chronicles of Carter Blake, Book I:

 

I found myself walking down a darkened street. I was a bit disconcerted to learn I was back home. And, the street lights were out. My feet crunched over bits of broken glass. The moon came from behind a cloud, and I learned the street name was Jackson St. A couple blocks to the East, the familiar green of Leone Riverside Park. ‘I’m home in Baltimore. How?’

I walked closer, and spotted a young woman in a circle of brightness cast from a street light. She dodged an attack by from a hideous monster with a yellow infused skull. Jellied blackish ocher masses sat where eyes would be on a human. Just below a dark hole in the center of its skull was distended jawbone filled with rows of tiny, shark-like teeth, pointed and serrated. A pallid green tubular tongue protruded from its maw. Silvery blue saliva dripped to the ground and burned into the concrete.

A strong wind kicked up, bringing with it the scent of rain. The young woman risked a quick glance up at the sky. Thick, grey clouds roiled in from the east. An empty beer can bounced up the street, its clang hollow and sad. The world lit up as if by an enormous camera’s flash. Two seconds later, the air was rent by an eruption of sound. A gentle plopping came as the first cold droplets of water hit the ground. As the wind picked up, the pitch of the rain changed. What had been soft, and gentle turned into harsh, loud and drumming.

Her hair clung to her face as water dripped from her jaw and ran into her eyes. She swiped her t-shirt across her eyes in a hurry and pushed her soaked hair back from her face.

The creature’s corpse-white skin sloughed off, revealing ropy bunches of grey muscle and bronze stretches of tense tendons and ligaments. It spread its arms wide and howled. The creature’s shattered arm-blade reformed. I ran to milieu, intending to aid the woman in some fashion.

The creature raced up onto the sidewalk and leaped into the air, its arms open wide. When it reached the apex of its leap, and gravity began to reassert itself, her rising foot caught the hideous thing underneath its jaw, severing its protruding tubular tongue. It crashed to the ground, whimpering in pain, a cancerous orange fluid pouring from its mouth. She held her right arm straight out from her body, hand open and waiting. “Come to me,” she said. I stopped, and waited. Nothing happened. She dropped her arm. The creature’s noises changed from pain filled to enraged. It whirled its legs around and spun to its feet.

Once more her arm rose. “Come to me!”  she thundered.

Faster than I could process it, a tinkle of shattering glass could be heard and instant later, a high-pitched whistle came through the downpour.  The whistle grew louder as a pure white streak of light rocketed through the air. Before my stunned eyes, a pure white sword, the twin to the one at my hip, slapped into her open palm. She angled the white blade across her body in a middle guard position.

The monster paused, seeming to consider her. It was hard to tell with the inky ocher spots instead of eyes. It opened its mouth and waggled the stump of its tongue at her. The woman’s lip curled in revulsion. The creature sprang into motion, swinging its blades, trying to eviscerate the young woman.

She blocked each strike. The creature swung high with its right arm-blade and came at her in the opposite direction with the other. She ducked the high swing, blocked the low one and raised her knee to parry its abrupt kick at her stomach. It attempted to slash its weapons across her neck in a scissors motion. She ducked and thrust her sword at its middle. The monster dipped its arm-blades downward, deflecting her thrust into the ground. Rather than try to pull the sword from the ground, the young warrior kicked above the crossed arm-blades, catching the monster in the remains of its face.

Its head snapped back and it crashed to the ground, arms going wide. It did a kip-up, kicking its legs outward and flipping itself back to its feet. Before it could recover from its flip, the young woman gripped her sword in both hands and slashed down at the creatures right shoulder, separating the limb from its body. Orange fluid fountained out from the stump and its howl overcame the crash of thunder.  It reeled back.

She bent and picked up the severed limb. The monster, whatever it was, whirled on her, hate radiating off it like heat from an iron stove. The young woman stalked the damaged creature, determined to finish it.

A familiar man yanked her back against him just as the creature’s arm-blade came within a hair’s breadth of decapitating her. ‘Robilar?’ He released her. She blocked the creature’s return swing with the white sword. She drove its own arm-blade deep into its chest. The monster stared at her, shock evident on its skull-like face. Its arm fell away from her white blade. The warrior swung her arm out to the side, then swung back to the left, cutting the creature’s head from its shoulders.

She looked over, and locked eyes with me. “I’ll be here for you when you need me. That’s how I roll.”

Other stuff you may like to read:

• Grrr!!!!! (akiracels.wordpress.com)
• THE SWORD DANCE – Chapter 2. (shirokaya.wordpress.com)
• The Slaughter sword. (shortymonster.co.uk)
• Sinner: The Dark Side (Part 5) (herofantasyfiction.com)
• http://ltkelly.com/2013/09/18/guest-post-by-chrinda-jones/
• http://robonwriting.com/2013/09/06/bookbub-indie-savior-or-donald-trump-in-sheeps-clothing/
• http://kevinrau.blogspot.com/2013/03/hero-malice-is-nearly-ready-for-release.html
• http://thewritingbean.wordpress.com/2013/08/03/fairies-pixies-and-peri-peri/