Hi everyone! How are you? I hope OK. Here in the UK we’re just about coming to the end of our Indian summer. It’s been a very warm, dry September which is great for me as I hate winter and I want the warmer weather to last for as long as possible!
But at the same time the evenings are drawing in and I’m not used to that yet! It’ll be even worse at the end of the month when the clocks go back. 😦 Anyway, that’s my moan out of the way.
For today’s WIPpet Wednesday I thought I’d share with you 14 paragraphs from my WIP which I’m calling Teaching Mr Leavis. Thank you to all those who helped me come up with the title BTW – you know who you are! My WIPpet maths goes like this: 1 + 10 + 2 + 1. OK so I played around with the date a bit, but that’s what WIPpet Wednesday is all about!
To give you a bit of context this scene takes place BEFORE last week’s excerpt. Rebecca and her friends are at a nightclub. Rebecca has already had an encounter with Jonathan Leavis at the club. She’s seen her friend and colleague Nick (from the school where she teaches) there too, who she likes. (She’s not keen on Jonathan!) Although she’s seen Jonathan, her friends have shown up and everything is going OK until this happens:
Two men were standing facing each other with their fists clenched, looking as though they were about to engage in fisticuffs. When Rebecca saw who the two men were, her mouth fell open. It was no less than Nick and Jonathan Leavis. What on earth?
‘Isn’t that…’ Michelle trailed off.
‘Yes it is,’ Rebecca replied. ‘Why are they arguing?’
‘Maybe they’re arguing about you,’ Karen piped up in Rebecca’s ear.
‘Get real, Karen,’ Rebecca said, then wondered for a moment if she might be right. But that couldn’t be so. She shook her head as if to clear it from troubling thoughts, and she and her friends watched engrossed while the argument between the two men continued. While she couldn’t hear clearly what was being said, Rebecca could tell from their body language that Nick and Jonathan were incandescent with rage at each other.
‘I won’t!’ Nick’s shout reached her ears. He looked as though he were about to turn around and leave, but Jonathan caught his arm and forced him to turn back and face him.
‘You coward!’ Jonathan yelled. He shook his head and turned his face away from Nick for a moment. Bu this proved to be a bad move. Jonathan was caught off guard as Nick landed a punch on his chest, clearly winding him. Although Rebecca couldn’t see well in the half-light of the club, Jonathan’s face looked almost purple. Nick turned to leave again and Rebecca watched, biting her lip with tension, as Jonathan rushed at him, pushing him over.
‘Why doesn’t someone do something?’ she muttered. But it seemed that everyone was enjoying watching what was happening too much to intervene. It looked as though Nick and Jonathan were going to get into a full blown fight. Someone was going to get seriously hurt. She shook her head. Standing up and ignoring her friends’ protestations, Rebecca left the alcove and weaved her way through the crowds of onlookers until she had reached the space where the two men were.
Saying nothing, she walked into the centre of the space and positioned herself so that she was standing in between them. Her lips pursed, she glared at them.
‘What are you doing, Rebecca?’ Nick asked, pulling himself up off the floor. It was the most he’d said to her for days. His face was red and she noticed that his eyes were bloodshot. He sounded annoyed.
Rebecca felt a hand on her arm. She turned to see Jonathan, a calmer, serious expression on his face.
‘Yes, Miss Engleton, this is between Nick and me,’ he said.
‘Maybe it is,’ she replied. ‘But you’re about to hurt each other. Couldn’t you at the very least do it outside and allow the rest of us to continue with our evening?’ She paused, looking from Nick to Jonathan and back again. Jonathan’s face was as red as Nick’s, if not more so. But his eyes were their usual dark hue.
‘Better still, cut it out,’ she said finally. ‘I really don’t want to have to be the one to call the police or worse still an ambulance.’
Hoped you enjoyed that! As always your comments are welcome. WIPpet Wednesday is open to anyone who’d like to share a bit of their writing. So if you fancy doing that just post a bit of your latest work on your blog. Then add your name to this. Don’t forget to check out the offerings from the other WIPpeteers.
Thanks goes to K. L. Schwengel for hosting. 🙂
Elaine Jeremiah 
Good for Rebecca! I like her confidence. I have to ask, though, were they fighting over her? 😀
LikeLike
Actually no. All is revealed at a later stage in the story. But not yet… 😉
LikeLike
Even better to get more of your writing! Brilliant excerpt 🙂
LikeLike
Thank you Mishka! How did your launch go yesterday?
LikeLike
Pretty smoothly! Think I’m starting to get a handle on it now 😀 Thank you so much for asking 🙂
LikeLike
You’re welcome! I need to continue promoting ROTH really. Had a bit of a break from it since I got back from holiday. What I really need are reviews on Amazon, so I think I need to continue to push for that. 🙂
LikeLike
Incandescent with rage – I love that description. I also like the way you pulled your reader into the scene with all that tension. Easy to see why she felt the need to intervene! I look forward to learning more about the book, and like Emily, I want to know what they’re fighting about 🙂
LikeLike
Thanks Melissa! Glad you appreciated the excerpt. As to what they were fighting about… all will be revealed later on in the story. 😉
LikeLike
Hehehehehe fisticuffs. Hehehehe.
Sorry. Ever since performing Oliver in year 8 the word fisticuffs gives me the giggles.
I love the way you build tension here! 😀
LikeLike
Ha ha it’s funny how words and phrases stay with you over the years. Glad you appreciated the excerpt! Thanks for commenting. 🙂
LikeLike
Love the characterization even in the excerpt. So, the UK changes the clocks too? I thought that was only a silly American thing that most people around here hate.
LikeLike
Thanks Charles! Yes the UK does indeed change clocks – twice a year. An hour forwards at the end of March and an hour back at the end of October. And I have to say I didn’t know you Americans changed clocks either!!
We get a bit fed up with it here in southern England. Reason being that the clocks going back in October is really to give the people in the north (i.e. Scotland) more light in the mornings. There are plenty of people that would like the UK to stay on British Summer Time all year round (me included!).
LikeLike
Oh we do. I’m surprised people don’t know because we tend to complain every time we set them back. It’s not pretty. Although Arizona never changes the clocks . . . we make no sense over here.
Here it was done to help farmers with their work hours. So you’ll usually see a few ‘damn, farmers’ on American social media when the time comes.
LikeLike
Sounds like you guys appreciate about as much as we do lol!
And it’s pretty much done over here to help the Scottish farmers too.
LikeLike
I love it! I’m assuming there’s more to this than meets the eye. It doesn’t sound like a fight over Rebecca at all. They clearly have a history. Now I’m curious as to what it is!
LikeLike
They do indeed have a history and no I’m not telling you what it is! *gives an evil grin*
Glad you liked it! I’ll probably post more of the scene next week – it was a bit long to share all in one go lol. 🙂
LikeLike
Good for her for intervening! I love how sassy she can be. I really want to know what this fight was about, though.
LikeLike
Mmm well as to the reason for the fight I’m not sharing it! Not yet anyway…
Yes, I love that about Rebecca too. It’s how I’d like to be. 😉 Glad you liked the excerpt and thanks for commenting!
LikeLike
Her intervening seems like such a teacherly thing to do, lol. It reminds me of a good friend of mine, an English and history teacher, who went on vacation in Greece. A man actually tried to steal from them, and she slapped his hand and shouted, “NO!” like reprimanding a student. This had the same undertone for me. You can take the teacher out of the classroom, but…
LikeLike
Interesting that you say that, I hadn’t really thought of it that way, but it makes sense. Glad you appreciated the excerpt and thanks for commenting. 🙂
LikeLike
I like Rebecca more and more each week! She’s brave to get into the middle of a fight like that. Not sure I would ever do that one.
LikeLike
Ah thank you – so glad you like Rebecca. It just so happens that I like her too! 😉
LikeLike
I’m with Rachel. I’m giggling over fisticuffs, too. It’s just a word I don’t normally see used any more. At least not here in the states. This scene is so real, the way everyone just stands around and watches and no one wants to get involved. I love that Rebecca steps in and tells them to take it outside.
LikeLike
OK well maybe I’ll cut out fisticuffs… not actually sure how much it’s used here in the UK now either. I will investigate!
Glad you liked the excerpt. 🙂 Yes, I think it is what people tend to do when confronted by a volatile situation. It’s far more interesting to stand and watch than to actually do something about it!
LikeLike
Nice job, Elaine! And I finally bought Reunion of the HEart. I’m looking forward to it!
LikeLike
Oh yay! *smiley happy face* Thanks Alana, hope you enjoy it! 🙂 Glad you liked the excerpt too.
LikeLike
HAHA!! Okay, I have to join the fisticuffs wagon, but it made me smile and took me directly to Oliver. I totally forgot about the word until now. Although I do agree, if the word isn’t used much in the UK anymore, perhaps it would be best to replace. For us Americans, you can see we all saw it as amusing. But I’m sooo glad I caught the unedited version!!
I’m glad Rebecca had the nerve to step in and stop the fight. Go her!!!
LikeLike
I changed it lol! I can kind of see how it might make you think of Oliver, though I haven’t really seen the film, only bits of it.
Anyway, Rebecca is quite feisty. Her character is actually really fun to write. Glad you like her!
LikeLike
I watched the movie a loooong time ago, but I have the soundtrack and love the music, and there’s a song in there where some boys are introducing Oliver to his new life and home, and there’s a specific line where the boy says ‘wha? Fisticuffs?’ The way it was sung made me want to sing out loud to that part every time I listened to it. 🙂
And now… I want to listen to that song!
LikeLike
Aw… well I’m glad I helped to make you want to sing! Generally I wanna sing when I’m happy. 😀
LikeLike
Me too! I will gladly be-pop to a song in the car and look like a fool, not caring at all that I’m drawing attention from other passengers in their cars. Look and laugh, I don’t mind giving some free entertainment while I’m boogying to good music!!
LikeLike
‘Boogying’. I like that word. I know what you mean, I can be in a car singing away quite happily lol. Generally not with the windows down though, I can get a bit self conscious!
LikeLike