Catch Me if You Can Blogfest!

So, Kristina over at KayKay's Corner is having a blogfest! I'm so into these right now it isn't funny. :)

Here's the challenge:

Post the first 550 words (or less) of your WIP on your blog for feedback as to whether this would catch an agent's eye.

Be honest! :) Here we go.

Prep schools aren’t exclusively for the preppy. Us poor schmo types migrate to places like Harrington Dove Academy to escape the greatest horror of our seventeen-year-old lives.

Our parents.

My roommate and I had the pleasure (that’s dripping sarcasm, thanks) of cheerleader suitemates, and I woke to the sound of two, tone deaf voices telling me to ‘putta ring on it.’ Harrington’s dorms were radically liberal, what with girls and guys on the same floor (‘just asking for…you know,’ per my mother), but the suites were same-sex. And thus, the young Beyonce’s on the other side of the shared bath. Though I try not to believe in stereotypes, these girls confirmed every one I’d ever heard about pom-pom pushers.

And (apparently) they liked to sing at eight in the morning the week before break. I cringed at a particularly loud warble and wondered how much booze they snuck by the resident advisor last night. Or with her help. Our RA wanted to be legal as badly as a border-crossing immigrant.

By quarter past nine, they were quiet (passed out? dead?), and I rolled out of bed to pack. I pulled onto the highway around eleven, cursing the sprinkles dotting my windshield. Mom hadn’t called back after last night’s fiasco, but I wasn’t surprised. She didn’t know how to check her texts without help, and forget Dad. He was hopeless when it came to cell phones.

I passed a caravan of senior citizens using the left lane for sightseeing and set the cruise control with more force than necessary, Gorilla Gluing my eyes to the road as I passed. Honestly, I didn’t trust myself not to snarl at the lead driver of what had to be a Henry Ford original.

Thick, gray clouds were marching across the sun, and I set my windshield wipers to their max setting about ten minutes later. My mother’s phantom voice sliced through my brain (‘you never see the water until you hydroplane, Katherine’), so I turned down the music, flipped my cruise off, and moved into the right lane. But I was not happy about it.

When the elephant-sized drops let up, I hurried to set my cruise again. It was far too dark for the middle of the day, but I didn’t care. I just wanted out of this car. A horn blared, and I looked in my rearview mirror.

“What’s the problem, mister?” A flash of lightning lit up a flouncing shape to my left. Maybe a deer? I checked to see if anyone swerved for it, and the honking sounded again. I sat straighter and tugged at the seatbelt crossing my body.

It happened very fast.

Headlights blinded me.

Something smashed into my chest.

I screamed once.

And to think this all started with a silly, little dream.

That's it!

As of last Tuesday, I've decided to pull my college-age story back to junior year of high school. I've gotten this suggestion many times by many extremely wonderful authors, but held out. Boy, never again! Jennifer at YA Audiobook Addict made the suggestion of a boarding school, and love her heart, it's a fantastic idea. I've always thought of this book as YA, but setting and the age of my characters bumped against it.

Plus, if I completely revamp, I may be able to resubmit to agents who passed on it. Am I wrong on that? Hmm...anyone with experience, help! I don't want to wind up 'that person.' You know, the one Janet Reid blogs about where she posts a picture of Meredith Barnes giving the camera the stink eye? Yeah, you know the one.


Thanks for reading! What do you think? All/any/every feedback is welcome. And check out the other blogfesters. :)


-Marie