Blogfest: Show Me the Voice!

Wow! Another awesome opportunity -- Brenda Drake is hosting a fabulous blogfest/contest.Find out more here! Basically, we post our first 250 words of our finished manuscripts on our blogs for critique and email them to Brenda. The top 20 will be judged by agent Natalie Fischer (whose blog is awesome -- check it out here).

Here are my first 250 words! The contest is all about the voice, voice voice voice, so let me know what you think of the delicious voicey voicyness going on. (Voice is starting to sound like a very strange word...)

The manuscript is called FAKE.

My father holds my diary open in his palm.

“‘Dear Diary,’” he reads. “‘Tonight at dinner I crossed my fingers behind my back while Dad said Grace.’”

I stare down into my lap. A cameraman breathes down my neck. I can feel the lens focusing on me like little bugs crawling on my skin.

“‘It felt good,’” Dad continues, “‘and Dad didn’t even notice.’”

I allow myself one blink. He wants me to cry, to repent, to beg for a light punishment. I won’t give him the satisfaction. I won’t give them the satisfaction.

“‘I’m too smart to be in this family. Not blind enough to believe what they want me to believe.’” He slams the diary shut. “Jenny-fer.”

He always says my name like it rhymes with “Lucifer.”

“What?”

“Look at me.”

I’ve never seen so many lines on his forehead. The light from the sunset filters through the blinds and highlights his puffy combover and his graying eyebrows. A camera pokes over his shoulder.

“What you wrote in this book is evil,” he says. “It’s very, very evil and I want an apology.”

Can’t see straight. The pressure in my chest warps my vision. Can’t even think. I stopped writing in that silly diary months ago. I’ve found a better outlet. I won’t make this mistake again. When I don’t speak, his eyes flash. His sausage-like fingers grip his desk. A vein twitches on his forehead.

“You need to pray,” he says, holding out his hands. “If you pray, Jesus will fix you.”