#TOPWIP
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✅ Book two is printed out ready for a second round of revisions... 👀✍🏻 Right after I send a few queries for book one... #AmEditing #AmQuerying #TOPWIP
A pale mauve ring binder, closed, on a green leather desk - the camera looks into the top. It's full of paper, with little numbered post-it notes marking where each chapter begins.
August 5, 2025 at 8:00 PM
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#WIPSnips 👀✍🏻 #TOPWIP
And after a time, though she couldn't remember how she got there, she was alone and still in her old bedroom, in the shadowy light from the streetlamps outside, breathing the faint scents of acrylic paint and varnish and the patchouli oil candles she used to burn. Her fingers searched for the door bolt, but found only sharply splintered screw-holes, and the key wouldn't go in the lock from the inside a coin was glued over it. She took off her boots, pressed her toes into the thick carpet, and stood at the mirror, a black spectre.
July 19, 2025 at 11:47 AM
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#WIPsnips 👀✍🏻 Go on then, why not? Here's the whole first page of #TOPWIP!
Josh yanked open the passenger door of the wrecked Jaguar and peered in, and as the recovery truck rumbled away, he wondered if he'd made a terrible mistake. She was a sorry sight: the driver's side a rugged landscape of dents and scrapes, the door jammed shut, two windows smashed, one alloy wheel bent out of shape. The floodwater had mostly dried out, but a foul damp smell lingered over a nasty brown crust on the seats and floor. He stood back and scratched his chest, considering, as the blazing sunshine coaxed a curl of steam out of a broken window. She'd been in a bad way when he bought her, nine years ago. This was even worse. And it had cost him a hundred and fifty quid just getting her back here. The whole interior would have to go, and fast; he'd need to check everywhere for rust, too. Then there was the engine... He lifted the bonnet. Condensation and silty residue covered every surface. He'd have to drain the tank, the oil... Take everything apart, clean it up, re- grease the seals... Maybe it wouldn't be so bad - at least he knew what he was doing this time. She was a beautiful car. Beautiful but broken. The bodywork would be the hardest part, but he could live with a few battle scars. He thought of Sophie and her black eye and aching embarrassment. It was nearly gone now only the faintest shadow remained, like a dusting of smudged make-up after a long day - but still, every time he noticed it, he remembered how she'd survived against the odds; how when all had seemed lost, she'd been brought back to him. He grabbed his tools and an armful of old towels from the garage. When he came out, Leah stood in the street, in short shorts and a tight green vest, staring at the car in dismay. "Woah," she said. "I'm really sorry." Josh unscrewed the oil cap. The stuff inside was pale and milky. "It's a'right. Luckily, I know a great mechanic." He winked. "You're gonna fix it up?" "I've done it once; I can do it again." "You weren't busy running a business last…
December 12, 2024 at 10:43 AM
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#WIPsnips 👀✍🏻 #TOPWIP
"You know nothing about me," Leah protested again. "Or maybe you just need help finding yourself." He licked his lips and leaned close, eyes sparkling. "Now, you said you want something from me what could it be?" "Nothing," she said, and closed her jacket. He laughed a lazy, superior laugh, seeing through her again. "Nonsense. I wonder what's made you want it so badly and me a perfect stranger... I expect you're wondering if I made you want it, or if that's all on you..." She wasn't wondering that at all - but now she did. She clenched her teeth, thrilled and furious at once, and desperately tried to find something smart to say.
December 11, 2024 at 10:19 AM
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So, to #TOPWIP (which is the second book in my romance/suspense trilogy): I completed the first draft at a surprising 94.7k words (I thought it was going to be short!) and I need to get it below 90k…
December 5, 2024 at 3:01 PM
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#TOPWIP chapter 7 (of 22) edited! ✅

Which I think means it's time for my #editingprocess megathread to immigrate from the other place...

Tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow.
December 4, 2024 at 5:37 PM
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#WIPsnips 👀✍🏻 #TOPWIP
Much of the church's architecture was still intact: the pillars, the balconies both sides and behind, the cavernous vaulted ceiling with its dark spidery ribs like interlocked fingers. Remnants of carved stone figures, uplit in red and purple, adorned the pillars and stood in niches between the stained glass windows.
December 4, 2024 at 2:10 PM
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#WIPsnips 👀✍🏻 #TOPWIP
Josh studied the envelope - the hand-scrawled address, the London postmark - and leafed slowly through the photos again, stomach tight, searching for meaning.
December 3, 2024 at 11:51 AM
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Well. I smashed a plate today, and got an unexpected £400 car bill, and I've got a random twitchy eyelid that's driving me INSANE.

But the sun shone, and I finished rereading the first 6 chapters of #TOPWIP in prep to get back into editing from ch7, and I get to spend the evening with family. 🥰☀️
November 28, 2024 at 4:48 PM
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#WIPsnips 👀✍🏻 #TOPWIP
The smell of this place - aged and smoky, chemical and aromatic - provoked feelings she'd long forgotten, in a vivid blaze of nostalgia. The apprehension. The excitement. The feeling of pride and belonging, against the dread sense of perpetual need. Her year away seemed like a distant dream.
November 27, 2024 at 1:35 PM
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#WIPsnips 👀✍🏻 #TOPWIP
"What did she want?" Josh sighed, putting groceries away and wrestling with his thoughts. He hadn't trusted Leah for years - this was no time to start, and he wouldn't put it past her to just make stuff up. He wouldn't put anything past her. "Nothing. Nowt that matters. Just shit-stirring." Sophie's smile faded. "Has Gray told her things about me?" "No, no. Don't you worry. Leah loves drama - if life gets too quiet, you can bet she'll find a way to create it. All we have to do is rise above it." He dropped into a chair. "I just wish I didn't have to bump into her, here there and everywhere. She's like a bad smell..."
November 18, 2024 at 3:59 PM
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#WIPsnips 👀✍🏻 #TOPWIP
A sound like an almighty clap - like some part of the building cracking open - made her jump like she'd been hit. Her heart pounded and her confidence faltered. What was that? The connecting door began to open behind her and she rushed on, toward the noise; flung open the door into the main room of the club, and froze.
November 17, 2024 at 1:14 PM
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#WIPsnips 👀✍🏻 #TOPWIP
Sophie's life is falling apart and Mum's getting ready for the village event of the year.

Fun fact - waaay back in the first draft, the potato looked like D***ld Tr**p. The world was a different place back then.
before long the mud and the rejects were gone, and the table was spread with picture-perfect fruits and vegetables, almost sparkling clean, along with jars of lush green herbs, purple chive flowers and yellow marigolds, and a huge, deformed potato that Mum insisted looked like Shrek. Then she hurried off to mass, leaving Sophie alone with her breakfast and her thoughts.
November 6, 2024 at 5:11 PM
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#WIPsnips 👀✍🏻 #TOPWIP
She hesitated, shaken. Hot fingermarks stung her face. "Just a little," he coaxed. Frightened, fuming, she cut herself a small line - as small as she thought he would allow - and sniffed it. The rush began almost immediately. She pushed the tile back as he laughed with satisfaction - but she kept the razorblade tucked between her fingers.
November 2, 2024 at 4:01 PM
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#WIPsnips 👀✍🏻 #TOPWIP

I feel like maybe this snip needs a bit of context...

Naaah, I'll just let you wonder!
Five minutes later, they were walking through the grand double doors into a red-lit, chessboard-tiled foyer, then through a narrow, mirrored lobby, where reflections of the two of them stretched away both sides into oblivion, and if Josh looked left, he was walking with a thousand angels; right, a thousand devils. And then they emerged in the club's main room, and he stopped and looked up, mouth open.
November 1, 2024 at 4:37 PM
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#WIPsnips 👀✍🏻 #TOPWIP
She arrived in The Fox to find it decked out with pumpkins on the bar and bats hanging from the beams. Josh was sitting at their usual table. But his shoulders were hunched and rigid, his fingers white on his pint, and as she moved closer she saw that the seat opposite him was already taken.
October 31, 2024 at 12:04 PM
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#WIPsnips 👀 #TOPWIP

First draft stuff, this...
#amwriting #amediting
She turned to the window and looked at the street below. She used to stand here sometimes and watch the audiences queuing - hear them chanting her name, just as they had chanted tonight. A movement caught her eye; a hunched figure in a doorway across the street, that straightened his broad shoulders suddenly and turned his face up towards her, then stepped out of the gloom. She withdrew quickly and pushed him from her mind, then stripped in the half-dark, letting her clothes pool at her feet, and fell into bed.
October 29, 2024 at 12:08 PM
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#WIPsnips 👀 From #TOPWIP - in fact there's a chance all this week's words might come from this one chapter!
"Or is this what you wanted?" He drew the blade slowly, lightly across her throat, slicing the skin. She squeezed her eyes shut, riding the wave of pain and terror, body rigid, hardly breathing.
October 28, 2024 at 2:15 PM
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#WIPsnips 👀 #TOPWIP

Didn't think I was going to have this one, but there it is!
October 19, 2024 at 1:15 PM
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If I may say so myself... My act one climax for #TOPWIP is 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥💥💥💥💥💥💥

#amediting ✍🏻 #writingcommunity
October 18, 2024 at 12:48 PM