Well, it’s another Friday the 13th, and I’m gonna do something I almost never do (I’m superstitious): I’m going to post an excerpt from a work in progress.

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Ahem.

Here’s the deal: I’m going to post THREE 250 word excerpts from three different beginnings of the same book, and in return for YOUR critiques/thoughts in the comments, I’ll donate!

• If you comment on the blog post with the number of your favorite excerpt (or none at all), I’ll donate $1 to Crits for Water.
• If you critique an excerpt, I’ll also donate $2 more, up to $6 ($2 for each)
• As I’m not made of money (sadly), this Freaky Friday will end on Sunday at midnight, EDT, or when my donation reaches $100. Whichever comes first.

So come on guys! Spend my money and, HOLY GUAC, HELP ME. I’ve had this genius idea for over a year now, but I can’t seem to get the beginning right…which means I keep stalling on writing it. I love the concept behind the story, though, so let’s make some magic!

Drawing by Red Dragon Ace on Dev Art (click on the photo!)

The Pitch: Only Reimi’s father has ever believed Rei could play major league baseball. When he’s kidnapped by the King of birds right before she’s about to try out for her high school’s baseball team, she drags her sisters through the torii gate into the Spirit World. Reimi will save him no matter what, even if that means bargaining with demons…or battling with the gods themselves.

Excerpt 1

“Ohayo,” Rei’s mother said, smooshing rice in her hands.

“Morning,” Rei responded.  She snatched the rice ball as her mother finished shaping it.  Sliding onto a barstool, she set her elbows on the counter and bit into the triangular snack with relish, pleased when her mother wrinkled her nose.

“Elbows off the table.  And don’t take one without asking,” her mother ordered in Japanese.  Rei narrowed her eyes as she chewed.  Her mother’s jet-black hair waved across her shoulders, out of its usual practical bun.  It was odd to see her like that.  Even though she wore a regular cardigan with her favorite large, glittery butterfly broach over her heart, the hairstyle made her appear almost…casual.

And if sixteen years of trudging after her mother as the woman took her from ballet recital to vocabulary building exercises to Let’s Origami! had taught Rei anything, it was that her mother was not casual in the least.

Rei giggled, then reddened as she spat out several grains across the immaculate granite.  Reaching across the sink, she tore off a sheet of paper towels and wiped up her mess.  “Sorry, mom.  Itadakimasu.”

“That is more like it.  I didn’t raise you to—”

“—turn into a stereotypical, ungrateful American.  Yes, thank you, mom.  You’re doing a fab job with me.”

Her mother clicked her tongue and went back to packing Rei and Juri’s lunches.  Next to the rice balls went the small hot dogs cut to look like cute octopuses, a spoonful of spaghetti, a strawberry, and a handful of pickled Japanese radish.

The God of the Sea, Susanoo.

Excerpt 2

Mukashi mukashi.

A man shifted at his dying mother’s bedside.

“You are not what you think,” she murmured.  Her words gurgled in her throat like a child blowing bubbles into a glass of chocolate milk.

The man glanced out the window.  A sea of high rises and haze.  His hand tightened around bedsheets damp from humidity and sick. “I am exactly what I think.”

His mother grappled for his wrist.  The shrieks of cicadas nearly drowned out her words. “I have…lied.”

She turned her head to the side, nodded at the door.  The man stood and strode towards the opening.  He shook his head at his father and the Shinto priest.  Not yet, he mouthed.  His father slumped and blinked at the warped wooden floor.  The man slid the door shut.

He padded back to his station.  “Even if you have lied, I do not deserve to know the truth.  I have dishonored you and your sacrifices.  I am incapable of providing for your daughter-in-law and your grandchildren.  I—”

“You are wasting the last few moments you have with me on apologies.  Repeat them to my ghost over the next forty-nine days.  Perhaps it will keep me from haunting you later.  For now, listen.”

The man’s brow wrinkled.  His mother’s skin, always pale, was papery thin, so white against her dyed black hair that it could have been porcelain.  Blue veins popped from her temple with each haggard breath.

He shut his mouth.

“Your father cannot have children.”

The man jerked.

Excerpt 3

Japanese flew out of everyone’s mouth like the barrage of beans Rei’s father had tossed at their entryway to welcome spring earlier in the week. Licking her lips, Rei shifted her weight to the other leg and glanced along the long table to her mother.

She ticked her eyebrow, and Rei nearly collapsed. If she shifted out of the traditional Japanese seated position anytime soon, her mom’d kill her. Which sucked. She hadn’t been able to feel her feet for the last five minutes. And the thin cushion protecting her legs against the bamboo mats did pretty much nothing. Rei had no clue how her mother managed to sit for hours and hours, back ramrod straight, when she practiced her calligraphy.

“…very interested in a new”—unintelligible Japanese—“definitely excited about your dekopon, chichi.”

Rei swirled a piece of raw tuna in her soy sauce. Farming. Again. Her father and brother, Jinichiro, had talked about nothing else for the last, oh, three days since Jinichiro’s family had arrived from Osaka. Not that she didn’t like her dad’s J-Oranges. The dekopon were possibly the most delicious thing on the whole planet, exempting maybe chili dogs. But with harvest season in full swing, getting the oranges picked, organized, weighed, and matured was all her family breathed.

And really, even the most delicious food in the world tasted like crap if nothing else broke up the monotony.

So she stuffed the tuna in her mouth and chewed, glancing across the table at her oldest nephew for some solidarity. Sandwiched between his mother frantically pouring everyone drinks and Jinichiro’s nonstop-farm talk, the ten-year-old had to be bored.

All right guys. So let me know–which one do you like? 1, 2, or 3? Or none? And feel free to critique the excerpts, too.

Spread the word, folks, and let’s change some lives