Favorite lines you've written

DWSTXS · Jul 26, 2009

“So, buddy, what’re you in for?” the man leaned in closer to him and asked, while chuckling at his own joke.
Husker debated whether or not to answer the man who’d sat down next to him at the bar. He’d seen him earlier, down at the other end of the bar, sitting alone, and when Husker had sat down, the man had raised his glass towards him and nodded in salute. One drinker’s nod to another. Like they were in the same brotherhood. The brotherhood of Tuesday early afternoon drunks. One and the same. They were here, so they must have roughly corresponding hard-luck stories. Now, the man had moved down the bar to join him, so he figured the man had decided that they’d have to share and compare miseries.
“Get lost, mister.” Husker said without even glancing to acknowledge the man. No sense in giving him the idea that he cared one whit about his problems or his camaraderie.

Sary · Jul 26, 2009

“Wish she prayed a little harder,” I thought as we slid down the last gravel slope toward the campsites. “She might have prayed up something more comfortable than a polyester/rayon blend.” The fuchsia sweatpants were making me sweat and their elastic bands dug rings into my ankles. I figured I’d be like a tree trunk when these things were done with me. You’d be able to tell how many days I’d been wearing them by the number of rings they carved into my legs. I was up to six, so far.

groovyville · Jul 26, 2009

"Experience has taught me that hiding something only makes it fully accessible to
evil and utterly invincible when used against good."
- from The Dreamer

kaybee2 · Jul 26, 2009

I wrote this one today:

He stares at me as if I'm completely mental for a moment and then starts to walk away, but I can still see his face.

"Crazy friggin' bitch," I hear him mumble.

But his mouth doesn't move. His mouth. Doesn't. Move.

Red walks up and takes hold of my right arm, noticing my shocked expression as Andrew leaves the room. "Holy shit," I mutter, my words shaking.

Red's eyes are wide with slight concern. "What is it?"

"I can read minds."

Raynfall · Jul 26, 2009

"And whenceforth does a book have value?" I asked, overriding Doley's protests. "An old book isn't worth anything because it's old. The value of a book comes from being read. So what makes this book valuable? It's the people who read it; the monk in the ashram, the curious student in the library, the soldier on the battlefield, the explorer in the jungle. The book gains value by virtue of the places it's been read." I waved the aging, leather-bound volume around as I spoke, making Doley wince. I think each conceived threat to the book was causing him physical pain. "So, if you think about it, I'm just making it more valuable."

"Nothing worth anything lasts long around you without bursting into flames, Gavin," Doley grumbled, staring at the book with worried eyes. "At the very least someone's gonna shoot a hole through it."

A fan of this one right here.

BlackMagic528 · Jul 26, 2009

"Why was she being scolded by a dead nun in the middle of the night?"

Charlie Horse · Jul 27, 2009

There was a pause, then a snort, then a chuckle, followed by a full-blown cackle. “You think it’s that easy? That I only need to feed on your fear to maintain my power over you? Think back Joan. Think back to how easy it was to impose my will on you the first time we met. Back then everything that transpired was exactly as I had planned. And now nothing can be done to thwart my plans from coming to full fruition.”

Joan snickered. “Did you say ‘thwart’?”

Kurtz · Jul 27, 2009

That was a long time ago. Ten years ago from the marks in the tree, carving those marks now the only use of his bronze sword. Blunted against the bark. A few more months and he would have to sharpen it again. Find a rock in the surf, a fun hour, looking at his bearded and wild reflection in the soon newly gleaming bronze.

It's not that good, just the best bit of the story I wrote last night. I think it's mostly a retelling of Sophocles.

soapdish · Jul 27, 2009

It used to be a little security leak like this was just a drop in the bucket. A blasphemous rumor might spread a few thousand miles--then fizzle out.

But now, with the Internet and camera phones, blaspheme traveled at the speed of light. These days only seeing was believing--the stupidest mortal phrase she'd ever heard. Seeing wasn’t believing. Seeing was confirming. Only believing was believing.

extortionist · Jul 27, 2009

This is long and it still needs some (that is, a lot of) work and the story itself is a mess and driving me insane but still I like where it's going.

He related the story of Henri Bernard, the renowned French author. Peter liked him, he said, for having remained a rebellious outsider his whole life. He'd written very little. His primary novel, a short meditation on the violence and futility of human life entitled Disasters in the Sun, was his only work to be widely printed, the others remaining cultural cornerstones and critical masterpieces unknown to all but those they'd influenced. He'd met with all the artists who'd drifted through or settled in Paris, all the Joyces and Hemingways and Becketts, and had claimed once to have drunkenly fought no less than half of the world's great authors in the streets of Montparnasse. In his forties he abandoned the French language entirely and began to write solely in English—a move he loudly proclaimed but never justified. Many guessed it to be simply a tactic to provoke outrage from his peers and others saw it a reaction to the empty decadence of Parisian life but no one claimed anything with any certainty. His work became more infrequent and more blasphemous as his life progressed, culminating in his attempt to rewrite Paradise Lost. He took to updating all of the language, replacing obsolete words, removing or changing many allusions and reorganizing sentences for clarity. "Of Mans First Disobedience" became "Sing, heavenly muse."

Critics at first refused to touch the book and the literary world was consumed with outrage. Many authors who had deified Bernard publicly renounced him and began to question the value of even his early work. A few lingering futurists who lived on controversy praised the book but they were drowned out or ignored by the world until a pair of unknown academics desperate to make their names examined the work seriously and found much to talk about. A deep subversion of Milton's theology and gendered hierarchical view through simple, subtle word changes. A narrative unhesitatingly sympathetic to Satan and deeply critical of God and Christianity. An attack on Milton's inadherence to revolution and a humanist call to arms. A work for its time and all times yet.

But these critical studies came lately and weakly, the first five years after Bernard's death and largely rejected by the literary community, though it would eventually form the theoretical basis for a small but ever-growing contingent of Bernardian scholars and writers. Bernard himself had died at the peak of his infamy, having fallen ill—as one could fall vaguely ill in those days—just after his Paradise Lost was published. He'd taken suddenly to his deathbed and stayed there in silent repense alternate with anguished loud delirium which ever diminished as he weakened until on his final day he did not move or wake at all but briefly to pen his final bitter farewell to that apostate world, a short note stating only, "Lycidas is dead, dead before his prime."

LOG · Jul 27, 2009

[[Still working on this particular piece of dialogue]]

"So Master, do you have a story to share?"
Khetez looked up from his soup with a bemused expression, they stared at him across the fire at him in silence for a heartbeat.
"...I once had carnal relations with a Vampiress inside of her coffin."
Four jaws around the campfire hung open in shock.
"Oh! And she didn't even bite me," Khetez smirked.

Tiz_Mee · Jul 28, 2009

Here's a couple non-sequential lines from my teen vampire WIP.

Her seductive voice teased my ears, starting a chain reaction of pheromones gone wild.

I threw the can of Red Bull at him with enough force to blow a hole in the side of a submarine.
He caught the can with ease and pointed it back at me. “You don’t have to be such a pansy about it.” :tongue

“And you owe me twenty bucks for that,” I said pointing to the can in his other hand.
“Twenty bucks! For jitter juice? Damn economy. It’s going to hell.”

AMCrenshaw · Jul 28, 2009

Wrayth sat next to the woman and looked at her and eventually linked their arms gently. Tesher did not respond with words, but she did relax. Wrayth told her a story of how a prince, coming to save a princess from an evil thing, fell down some stairs and broke his nose. The evil thing laughed so hard that the princess ran free.

— Ran free of who? Tesher asked.

Wrayth smiled.

Cute.

ABekah · Jul 28, 2009

This is from Inheritance Inn, an inspie romance that I was working on last night. The couple was floating in tubes down the Guadalupe River.

There was nothing like trying to impress a woman with warm, sticky bird poo in your hair.

Stew21 · Jul 28, 2009

Something new I'm working on.

Detour sign. Damn it! I bite into my donut, as I execute a perfectly illegal turn - stupid downtown one-ways and construction. At that lawlessness a horn blares at me and I startle. I know I know, I'm a wicked woman driver who has no business on the road. So sue me, you prick. A geometric chunk of chocolate icing lands on my massive belly. I swerve to avoid the cars going the right way, as several small crumbs sprinkle onto my lap. This one-way isn’t going to get me to my parking garage and I have to get the niblets of chocolate icing off my elastic-panel khakis before they leave tell-tale gluttonous matron smears all over me. I reach for the big piece of chocolate, wanting to pop it into my mouth. It peeks from under the seatbelt that lifts and separates my now-massive two ton breasts better than any maternity bra on the market. I would risk a collision for that sweet nibble of chocolate. But I can’t reach the chocolate and drive at the same time. Another curse forms on my lips, but is pushed away by the now overwhelming thought that I must have a kosher dill. When I finally get parked the first thing I'll do is go into that little deli on Tenth.

groovyville · Jul 28, 2009

Excerpt from a first draft of my WIP Dreamstorm:

"Stone benches stood like old men under the arches. No doubt they had seen better days,
when lovers would curl up under the arches and spill their innermost secrets. But for now, the benches held their secrets with a stony silence, beckoning the girl in their midst to sit on one of them and to share her secrets as well. "

PKinley · Jul 28, 2009

From my YA paranormal romance novel:

This from the guy who tried to pick me up by saying I smelled like a bathroom.

LOG · Jul 28, 2009

A excerpt from a scene from my Novella for the Summer Challenge:

"Hello everyone! I'll be your personal tor-trainer, for the duration of our journey," She smiled, all her teeth were sharpened to points.
No-one made a sound. Heartbeats went by...
Finally, Vuisa let her grin fall as a small pout occupied its place. "No sense of humor at all in this generation. The last bunch thought that was hilarious..."
'They're also all dead,' Maefe kept that thought to herself.

lucidzfl · Jul 28, 2009

It may come as a surprise to many, but the reality is that there really is no beginning and consequently, no true end. There is life and there is death. And the secret is, that those who truly experience either, are incapable of explaining it to anyone else.

Not a line from a chapter but more what I wrote when considering the mood of my MC transitioning from one major section of the book to another.

Raynfall · Jul 28, 2009

"Are you okay?" Hawk asked him quietly.

"What do we do when we're not okay, Hawk?" He answered tiredly. "What do we do when our whole world is washed away?" He turned over a stone in his hand. "We pretend the bad things never happened. We latch on to the last connection we had to our simple, peaceful lives, as though we can go back some day if we just hold on to that last connection." He stared at the rock, then clenched it tightly in his fist. "That's all we can do in the face of a reality that's too cruel to believe in."

Mhm. I like exploring psychology.

C.bronco · Jul 28, 2009

"The world is winding down/
And we are falling off/
One by one."

angeliz2k · Jul 29, 2009

Technically, it's only two sentences:

I sent the gifts to Marie and Angelique with a joyful note that said almost nothing in the space of two pages: I was well, Charles was well; I had gone for a long stay with friends in Versailles and apologized for failing to send any word; I had come into a bit of money and thought of them first and foremost; I missed them desperately and hoped they were as well as me; the old house on the Rue du Jour had been partially vacated for my use; one room was taken up entirely by my wardrobe, which Angelique would adore to look at; I had seen a wonderful play at the Comedie-Française last week but couldn’t recall the name of it; the weather was becoming golden and inviting, and I would love to walk around Paris under my parasol in the May sun if only to be seen; Charles was being particularly good to me, and I hoped the directors at the theatre were being good to Marie as well.

With that, I blithely commended them to God, despite having not confessed in nearly eight months, and signed myself “La Soleil” with a flourish.

Charlie Horse · Jul 29, 2009

Unlike Joey, the man had white hair. Not the kind of white hair sported by old people or professional wrestlers, but the kind that was white because it was especially set aside for those with more wisdom than the average person.

Melenka · Jul 29, 2009

Jasper entered, smelling of cigarettes and cedar and resolve.

Charlie Horse · Jul 30, 2009

Joey turned back to his torch-wielding horde and shot them a look of disgust.

“Can someone please stop the zombies from fighting over that alleycat?”

Favorite lines you've written

Mr Mojo Risin...

Jesus Only! <3

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee

Master of the Darklands :-)

Speaking in metaphors

Fix up, look sharp.

writing

the obscure

Lagrangian

iz bossy . . .

...

Jesus Only! <3

Lagrangian

Back from the dead

I have plans...

never mind the shorty

Speaking in metaphors

Better is the enemy of done

Speaking in metaphors