BIAW - DAY 1

I'm in a BIAW (Book In A Week) challenge. As if NaNoWriMo isn't enough. My personal challenge is 3,000 words a day. So, it's almost the end of day 1, and I have finished 3600 words (a bit of a future cushion always helps.) I've started a new book, I'm always at my best at the beginning. This one is tentatively titled Life sucks, and no, it's not another vampire story. I recently completed and submitted a YA novel called Pull My String. While waiting - hoping- I'd get a bite, I decided to do another YA. And, while the original was not supposed to be a series, I thought, why not use the same school, setting and characters? Why reinvent the wheel? So, this one takes place a few months after PMS ends, and one of the minor characters, a gay junior named Neill, is the antagonist for this book.
Anyway, here's the beginning:
Chapter 1
The first day of second semester should mark the beginning of the end. In a good way. The school year’s half-way over. I know we still have to wear boots and heavy coats, and the clouds in a sky more putrid and gray than blue promise there are more blizzards in store before there’s even a hint of spring. The negative temperatures eat at the end of your nose and there is absolutely no reason for us to be standing here at the foot of the staircase instead of following the other students up to the entrance to Farrington High School.

With first semester finals out of the way there’s supposed to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Not a wind chill ripping through my guts that matches anything January can throw at me.

“I just want to be normal,” Carl says again. “Is that too much to ask?”

For Carl to be normal he has to dump me.

Even bundled in that bulky down jacket with the cap pulled down to hide his hair and ears, the sight of Carl’s big body leaves me feeling loopy. Maybe I didn’t think we could really be a forever couple, but I do love him.

He can’t be abnormal. If he’s abnormal, what does that make me?

I try making a joke. “We’re not abby-normal.” Stupid, and way below my usual standards. The cold stings my face, turning every sound I make into frozen clouds that hang in the air in front of my face, stinging my cheeks and growing larger with every word. “There’s nothing wrong with us, except we’re standing out here freezing our butts when we should be inside.”

He shakes his head. “My uncle says it’s a choice I have to make. He did, and it worked for him. I’m going to try. You can handle this, Neill, you’re strong. I tried, you know I did. But I can’t deal with this anymore.”

Strong? It’s ten below and snowing and every word he says leaves me ready to melt out here. “What’s not normal is denying what you are. What about us?”

“There is no us anymore. I won’t be gay anymore.”

Just like that. As if he can turn the way he feels off.

Maybe he can.

“I’m tired, Neill. I’m tired of being a homo, faggot, or fudge packer and having my mother crying and praying because her son’s on the fast track to hell.”