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Need beta reader for first few pages--literary fiction

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Lyricarol's picture
Lyricarol
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Joined: 2012-02-08
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Hi All!

I've been hard at work on my literary novel, "Milkweed". The central character is a woman with PTSD, but she doesn't  know it. She functions well, as long as she stays away from her family, but of course, that's not going to happen. Soon, I'll be looking for beta readers for my first chapter, but only the first three pages to start. After all, if they don't work, no one will continue reading it anyway. laugh

I'm also willing to do the same for others. 

Aside from that, in the other forum for fiction others (the literary/women's thread), I'd love to talk shop with other literary/general fiction writers. I'm lonely!

See first page:

 

It was warming up. Soon the height of summer would eddy and coalesce on sweet afternoons. Lake Champlain would be placid, mauve and soft. At dawn, the sky would look like butter, creamy with just a little yellow.

“Hello? Solly?” Someone was calling through the screen door of her back porch. She thought she recognized the voice. She paused for a moment, ear cocked toward the door, puzzling through an inventory of  friends.

As a child, Solly had often heard a similar voice, only younger. At night she listened to it from her bed beneath his, whispering hoarsely to her two other brothers in another set of bunk beds. They could run away. We'll freeze to death. They could go to Audrey in the city. Don't be stupid, no one ought to go to the city. They could get some money from Ma's purse. Or they could sell their comic books. Don't be stupid. Don't be stupid. Shut up. Just shut the fuck up--before Dad hears you.

It was past noon. A warm, early summer Saturday. Out from under the ice and snow of North Country winter, Solly was hanging around the house in panties, the over-size pink T-shirt she had slept in, and a pair of white cotton socks--each with a hole in the heel, one as big as her elbow, the other about the size of a surprised eye.

The voice in her back-porch stairwell, throaty but mild, called again. “Solly?”

A minute ago Solly lived  inside the perfect egg of her life. A minute ago, when Solly heard the car door in her driveway, she thought it must be Joey, the elder of her two teenage sons, returning from work for some forgotten article. A minute ago, she was safe and content. A minute ago, the perfect egg of her life began to crack. 

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