NaNoWriMo Revisited: Clips from the Real Thing

I've been getting some requests lately to share the 50,000-word novel I drafted in November, and while I'm sure everyone thinks I'm just putting them off (maybe I am), I really do want my words to be read eventually.  However, I feel like revealing your newborn projects to too wide an audience can be dangerous, hence why I've only given the manuscript to two people for feedback so far.

I do appreciate that a number of people -- including some of my lovely family and friends who read this blog -- would like to see proof this thing exists.  And I'm excited to share a few pieces, so I've asked those two aforementioned friends to give me a couple of their favorite passages.  Over the next couple weeks or so I'm going to take those excerpts, polish them up where necessary, and post them here for your consumption.

I hesitate to characterize this as a "young adult novel."  It just so happens to be about a young adult.

Click on the jump below to read it.  As always, feedback is welcome!  Thanks to Tyson for picking this one :)

Sitting cross-legged on the bed, staring numbly at the Something Corporate poster on her wall, Mariana focused intently on the audible parcels of newscasters’ greetings, car commercials, previews for CSI: New York.  She had entered a state of clarity where minutes passed easily, her mind felt empty, the minute sounds of the house flowed in and filled her consciousness.

Finally, the television fell silent and Mariana strained her ears to make sure she could pick out each of her parents’ snoring.  When she felt certain they were both asleep, she hefted the duffle bag onto her shoulders and crept out of her room, careful to keep her body pressed to the sides of the hallway and stairs to avoid creaky floorboards.

Though Mariana had never snuck out of the house while her parents slept, she had snuck in past curfew enough times to know how to maneuver the back door closed in silence, how to muffle the sound of a car door closing, and that exceeding eight miles per hour in the driveway generally led to getting caught.  She paused for a moment to thank herself for getting her exhaust system repaired the month before, then she threw her bag in the backseat so she wouldn’t need to slam the trunk.

Once the house was out of sight Mariana lowered the gas pedal to the floor and watched the shadows blend together on either side of her.  She rolled down the windows and turned up Dashboard Confessional on the radio.  Those breaths of fresh air felt like the first she had taken in weeks.

All the way to Doylestown, Mariana sang along with the radio at the top of her lungs, delighting in long moments that were her own and no one else’s.  Most of the traffic lights along the way blinked yellow — it was after 11:00 — so she just stepped on the accelerator and watched as life sped by her windows.