Monday Mentionables: A Sneak Peek at my WIP

I've been taking a break from revising the sequel to Beacon of Love and revisiting the Young Adult book I drafted last summer. It's funny - people ask where story ideas come from, and here's the truth about this one: I was sitting in the hair salon trying to think of the oddest combination of story ideas I could come up with. I knew I wanted to write a YA, but I wanted it to be different. I thought, OK, what about Shakespeare set it in an alternate universe? That's different, right?

And that was how What You Will was born. I'm calling it "Twelfth Night meets Fringe," because that's as much of a description as I can manage right now. I wrote about 50K words over the summer and then left it alone. When I opened the file again about a month ago, I was happy to see that I actually had something to work with, and I didn't hate everything on the page (LOL). It's been really refreshing to look at a new project, especially one so different from the contemporary romances I've written the last few years. I like writing in first person present tense, and I like trying to capture the teenage voice.

It's fun and different and we'll see how it goes. In the meantime, here's a blurb and the opening scene. What do you think?

When seventeen-year-old Shane is transported to an alternate universe as the result of the September 11^th attacks, she decides to either find a way back to Earth or, failing that, a way to transport her twin brother to join her. But part of Shane's plot involves disguising herself as a male and taking an internship with a powerful young politician she soon develops a crush on. When he asks Shane to send romantic messages to a gorgeous entrepreneur, she must decide whether she’ll reveal her true identity to the guy she's falling for, despite the risk of losing her internship and her chance to investigate the innermost workings of her new world – and any chance of finding home or her brother again.

September 11, 2001

 Every single part of me hurts.

My arms, my legs, my back, my feet, my head. My toes. The hollows in my ankles. Nerve endings in my earlobes I didn’t know I had. I have this weird feeling like I’ve been broken apart and put back together again, but wrong. I try to open my eyes, but all I see is black. All I can remember is a few fragments of color. A clear morning. The bluest sky. My cigarette burning down to my fingertips because I’m staring above me and thinking I’ve never seen a plane fly so close to the earth.

Then nothing except this God-awful pain. What happened?

The plane hit me.

That makes sense. I saw it above me. I saw it turn over and then nose-dive toward the ground.  I should be dead, fried into a million tiny pieces. Or if I'm not dead, then I'm so badly injured I’m in shock. I blink once, twice, look at my fingers and wiggle them in front of my eyes. I press two of them to the soft spot of my neck and wait to feel a pulse. My tongue darts out and licks my bottom lip. I don't feel dead. I move one leg, then the other, then all ten of my toes, and glance down to realize my leather boots are gone.

Someone touches me, and I flinch.

 “Hey.” The voice is gravelly, almost not a voice at all. But when I turn my head to the left, I see a man lying next to me on the ground. His face is covered with ash and blood and I wonder if I look the same.

 “Hey,” I croak in response.

 His fingers clutch my arm, and I flinch again. Where are we?