Excerpt

I was editing just now, and I thought that maybe some of you would like to read an excerpt of my newest book, "Shades of Grey." I've been talking about it on here, and I thought some of you might want to get a taste of what I've been talking about.

Also, I've been royally bitching about editing, mostly editing the tenses. The book was originally written in past tense, but since I've started really going back and fixing it, I realized it's so much more personable in present tense. So now I'm going back and painstakingly changing everything into present tense.

The excerpt I'm giving you is still in the original past tense, so you'll see what I'm going through, changing it to the present.

Enjoy!

I pulled myself out of my thoughts and back up onto the window. I took three more quick shots, my shot-group surprisingly tight despite the fact that I couldn’t brace my weapon.

Three more men went down. Their friends yelled in rage and the onslaught of bullets started once more. The throb in my left hand was almost unbearable. I was bleeding more than I’d first thought—there was a puddle of blood on the carpet beneath me. I grabbed the pillow off the bed and ripped the pillowcase away. I tore a strip off the end and wrapped it around my hand.

I pushed myself up again and fired two shots out the window.

The first shot hit home; the man went down with a scream of pain. In the millisecond between the first and the second shots, something sliced through my right ear.

Flames ate through my earlobe and I felt warm blood running down the side of my neck. I pulled the trigger again and the shot went wild.

I hunched against the wall and flinched when I touched the space where my earlobe used to be. Time to get out of here, I thought. I’m Vincent-fucking-Van Gogh already; I don’t want to lose anymore body parts.

I leaned out the window once more and wasted the last two in the magazine. They both went wild, the throbbing in my head and hand distracting me.

I reloaded the magazine on the way to the bathroom. Bullets were still hitting the front of the building, shattering the tiny amount of glass that hadn’t already been shattered.

As I crawled out the bathroom window, I heard a new voice screaming in pain and a half-smile lit my face. Maybe my last shots hadn’t gone as wild as I’d thought.

Hope you enjoyed it!

Please comment on it...feedback is absolutely necessary in the editing process!

Thanks!