The Bubble Gum Scene

One of my favorite write-related memes says, “Be careful or you might end up in my book.” There’s a particular scene in one of my Svatura books that is an excellent, and ridiculous, example of this.

A little history first…

I wrote most of the Svatura series books while in the middle of my MBA program. It was a cohort style program, and I became really close with my classmates. We still all try to get together often. My cohort was very support of my writing. I had many fun, and interesting, discussions with them about the story lines, the process, and the business of writing (it was an MBA group after all).

When I was mid-first-draft on Hyacinth (book 2 of the series), I was at dinner one night with several of my MBA friends. We got to talking about the book and I was trying to come up with some new supernatural powers for the big fight scene. My friends “helped” me out by joking around. I don’t remember all the goofy ideas tossed around that night, but one stood out as the silliest.

Bubble gum.

They joked that there should be some kind of bubble gum power. We laughed like only close friends can, but I went home that night and wrote in a small scene–just a mention really, an omage to good friends and fun–involving…you guessed it, a bubble gum power.

 

Excerpt:

The Louisiana tribe didn’t wait. A terrible sound arose from behind them. Birds flew out of the surrounding woods. Suddenly trees and rocks were hurtling through the air, launched by a telekinetic if she had to guess. The projectiles weren’t even halfway across the field when Ellie thought, “Jason, you’re up.”

Jason, a young Vyusher whom Selene had known since he was a cub, crushed them into dust with a flick of his thoughts. She paused, impressed with the young man’s power and control.

She was returning her attention back to the fight when her body was wracked by a horrible itching, as though thousands of bugs were crawling beneath her skin, leaving a burning, tingling sensation in their wake. It took every ounce of her self-control to keep from picking at her skin.

At the same time, she was vaguely aware of a large mass of something large and gooey-looking heading their way. The mass, which resembled a huge bubble of pink chewing gum, was almost upon them when it slammed into something. Selene could barely focus, but it appeared as though the blob had hit an invisible unseen wall. It smeared out and upward, oozing along whatever unseen force it’d encountered.

Griffin’s shield. Relief rushed through her as the mass halted in its tracks, but her satisfaction was short lived. The urge to claw at her skin was becoming unbearable. She could see others around her scratching madly, drawing blood even, and wrapped her arms around her stomach to keep from doing the same. Somewhere in the recesses of her consciousness, she heard a sound like yelling, but the sensations consuming her body had her full attention.

 

Hyacinth and the other three books of the Svatura series will be released with my publisher, The Wild Rose Press, soon. Dates are still TBD, but all 4 books will come out 1 a week for four weeks. Check back for details.