Dressing up

After drying off and embracing sobriety and dressing up in 1920’s outfits we’d worn in last year’s version of Guys and Dolls, we collapsed in a corner after dancing to retro music and resumed our discussion about the perfect junior year.

The Princesses

From Pride & Princesses by Summer Day

As I told you, Mouche and I had lain low as transfer students and couldn’t believe how unlucky we were when Teegan, Freya, Brooke and Tory were expelled soon after we were politely shown the door at the Los Angeles High School for Young Bitches. Oh, did I say bitches? I meant young ladies. The Princesses were fairly considered to be the most evil teenage girls Sunrise had ever produced; two sets of non-identical twins with plans to take over their new school, safe in the belief that since their fathers owned half of Sunrise, the school was theirs for the taking.

Shop or Store

Oh, that’s something else you should know about me. I was born in England and sometimes I use British-isms like ‘tidy’ and ‘lolly’ and ‘shop’ instead of store.

Uggs

    ‘It’s true, this place is a mess, but at least I remembered to stack the cupboards with fresh food from the market,’ I said, as Mouche and I grabbed our sweaters and pulled on our Uggs  in differing shades of caramel and pink...

Summer Day: PRIDE & PRINCESSES Chapter 3 Girl History

Summer Day: PRIDE & PRINCESSES Chapter 3 Girl History

Sunrise High School

Most people spend 96 seconds viewing blogs (apparently), I think that's just long enough to read the name of the fictional Los Angeles school my characters attend...and this.

You Love Him

Unedited Draft (scene between Mouche and Phoebe - this made it into the final draft, albeit in a different part of the chapter...)

Mouche glanced at me sceptically then looked at our prospective boyzamples and said, ‘Yes, no, yes, no, no way, yes...’

    ‘But this should be a realistic guide to dating at Sunrise High and an expose of just how few guys are the total package.’

     ‘Package meaning?’

     ‘Intelligence, kindness of heart, personality...’

     ‘How about tall, dark and handsome like Mark Knightly,’ I ventured. ‘Although, when he came into class he seemed very arrogant and rude,’ I qualified my reckless remark, but Mouche was too quick.

     ‘Oh my goodness!’

     ‘What?’

     ‘You like him. I can tell. I mean you more than like him!’

      It was hard to lie to Mouche.

Unedited Draft

From P&P 2009 draft (unedited)

"Mouche dragged me back into the pool. We lounged under the night lights on Wednesday’s huge, plastic, floating goldfish. Mouche dragged me around with her until we were playing whirlpool and before we knew it, we were having a water fight about whose ideas ruled..."

(The characters in my story go swimming a lot! I've been reading over an earlier (unedited) draft of Pride & Princesses (written in 2009) and I'm going to post some sections over the next few days, mostly parts which weren't (for whatever reasons) included in the final draft. I'm not sure anyone could ever tell another person how to write a novel (although many have tried!) but it's an interesting process to look back on how a novel starts in the drafting process and how it finishes up.)