I’ll be posting excerpts from my 2008 National Novel Writing Month project, Racing Heart, every Tuesday in November. I have comments turned off, not because I don’t want your feedback, but because I can’t afford to think too much about what I’m doing at this point – I hope you understand. 🙂
I’ve stumbled onto a secret – getting away from my house is key to being productive. I’ve been spending most of my time at the university library. Not only is it comfortable and quiet, I can’t access the Internet without a username and password and I’m not going to take the time to obtain a guest pass because quite frankly? IT’S REFRESHING. And because I’m not being distracted by the ‘net, I’m getting a whole lot more done.
This week will be hectic, writing wise. We’re leaving to go camping Thursday afternoon, so I’ll have to write in the mornings and pack for our trip in the afternoon. Yes of course I plan on writing Thursday morning, I’m on a roll. *smile* I’ll also get up early at the campground and use their recreation area to do my writing.
I’m nothing if not flexible.
How is your project coming along?
Please remember, this is straight from my rough draft – I’ve done virtually no editing. 🙂
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Prologue
“Crash on turn two.”
Even though Julie had been braced for such a call, all the muscles in her arms tensed up.
“Roger.” She replied through the headset in her helmet.
She glanced at the traffic in her rearview mirror. A long line of cars were right on her rear bumper. She was still in the lead, but how long would it last?
“Stay high, stay high!” the female voice barked at her.
“How bad?” Julie said through clenched teeth.
“A blown tire, debris everywhere and he’s having trouble keeping the car from spinning out.”
Julie glanced again in her rear view mirror, Kent’s car was so close behind her, she could see his eyes behind his visor.
“Three car pile up! Watch your speed. Caution is out.”
Julie eased up on the accelerator and watched the needle plunge to 150 mph. “Who crashed?”
“Drive low!” the voice barked.
Julie, trusting her crew chief, immediately went low. Though she had slowed down, she was still going nearly 80 miles an hour. She narrowed her eyes at the sight of the huge wall of smoke ahead of her. She knew from past experience that it was best to just plow ahead. If she slowed down too much, the cars behind her would hit her.
“Talk to me,” Julie growled into her headset. She had entered the cloud and her visibility had been reduced to zero.
“Hang tight, hang tight,” her crew chief yelled.
Julie’s hands tightened even more on the steering wheel. Her palms adhered to the hot, sticky steering wheel cover.
“Oh Jesus,” said the voice.
Julie’s heart tripped and she focused all of her energy into looking past the smoke. She could just make out two shadowy shapes in her peripheral. She jerked her head to gauge their distance and swerved sharply to the right.
She felt, rather than saw, the shape whiz past her.
Julie immediately dismissed the first obstacle and concentrated on the second. It was far below her and didn’t pose any immediate threat. She issued a soft sigh of relief and eased her car further up the track.
“Wow, that was …” before she could squeeze the last part of her sentence out, her body was thrown to the left and her shoulder smashed into the safety cage. Before she could process what had happened, her car was suddenly spinning wildly out of control.
“Straighten out and go high,” the strained voice sounded in her ear.
Julie reacted instinctively. Her eyes remained wide open and began to water. She didn’t dare take the time to blink. She knew too many drivers who had been in serious crashes simply because they had blinked one too many times.
“Cars right on your tail, speed up,” her crew chief instructed.
Julie again simply reacted to the voice. She pressed on the accelerator and the car shot forward. The back of her head bumped against the headrest.
The race car jerked free of the smoke. Julie blinked in rapid succession and in the split second it took her to regain her focus and breathe, the front of her car smashed headlong into the wall.
Julie had a faint recollection of someone saying something in her headset before she blacked out.
Write From Karen 