The Lucky 7 Meme: My Turn

38 Replies

My writer friend Lara Schiffbauer has tagged me for The Lucky 7 Meme.  Thanks, Lara!

These are the rules:

1. Go to page 77 of your current MS/WIP
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines, sentences, or paragraphs, and post them as they’re written.
4. Tag 7 authors, and let them know.

So it appears the Lucky 7 Meme is somewhat like a zombie virus for writer-bloggers, except more fun and with less calling out for brains.

Here’s an except from the first draft of my work-in-progress, an eastern fantasy novel.

With a last look at the tomb behind him, Shao Feng came down the stairs. He took the reins of his horse from Jinhai.

“If they were here, there’s no sign of it,” he said.

“It was perhaps worth the look, sir,” Jinhai said. “Every search must begin somewhere.”

“If only we knew a good place to begin it.” Shao Feng put his helmet back on and mounted his horse. “We’ll keep riding south. We’ll post signs at the inns and in the towns. Someone will have seen them. And maybe we’ll have some luck on the road.”

It’s quite first drafty, but I suppose it will do.

Now to choose Seven Samurai a new Lucky Seven:

  1. Laird Sapir
  2. Sheila Pierson
  3. Karen McFarland
  4. Tami Clayton
  5. Gloria Richard
  6. Liv Rancourt
  7. Emmie Mears

If you want to play and your WIP doesn’t have 77 pages, I’m sure 7 lines from page 7 would be fine 🙂

38 thoughts on “The Lucky 7 Meme: My Turn”

  1. lwsapir

    Thank you Mike… *groan*…. 🙂 I’ll get over my fear of my own mediocrity, danggit, and I’ll post my 7 lines…lol. (And I’m glad I’ve got 77 pages written!)

    Love your excerpt. Can’t wait to read more!

    Reply ↓
    1. Mike Schulenberg Post author

      I think your fears are unfounded. Besides, people know it’s just for fun and a brief excerpt from a first draft, so no worries 🙂 When I was tagged, it sounded fun and I was like, “Hey, cool. Free blog post.”

      And thanks! That’s actually from a scene I’m probably going cut, but the basic situation will remain the same.

      Reply ↓
  2. Lara Schiffbauer

    So, I want to know who they’re looking for and where “they” went. Hmmm…. That’s the thing about the Meme – totally leaves you hanging and wanting more! Glad you didn’t mind the tagging too much! 😉

    Reply ↓
  3. sheridegrom - From the literary and legislative trenches.

    So right – an easy blog. Book reviews require a minimum of 10 days counting reading the novel, writing the type of review I want to be my signature and finding pictures, etc. Then for my ‘Sounds of Silence’ opinion pieces – those are research based – nothing I’ve done yet for a blog has been down and dirty. And, I love the premise of it being fun and a great lead in to wanting to read more of what you’ve written.

    Reply ↓
    1. Mike Schulenberg Post author

      I know what you mean. A decent blog post is usually a lot of work, and this one was a nice change. The hardest part was that I could only tag 7 people–it was hard to choose. Hopefully more of the WANA112 will get tagged, so anyone who would like to do a Lucky 7 Meme post will get a chance.

      Thanks for dropping by, Sheri 🙂

      Reply ↓
  4. Catherine Johnson

    Leaving a tomb behind is very intriguing and I love the names. I look forward to hearing more about your story.

    Reply ↓
    1. Mike Schulenberg Post author

      Thank you very much 🙂 I still have a lot of work in front of me, but I’m excited about what it has the potential to become.

      I’d be interested in sampling some of your work, if some is available.

      Reply ↓
    1. Mike Schulenberg Post author

      Thanks for visiting 🙂 I would’ve liked to have been able to tag more of the WANA112 people, but maybe some of the ones I did get will pass it on to some of the others. It was pretty fun.

      I don’t currently have a title that sticks…I just generally think of it as “my eastern fantasy novel” for now.

      Reply ↓
  6. Barbara Forte Abate

    Well of course this is crazy-cool fun, having a peek into what ya’ll are up to with your pages. That all those “7’s” landed us in the midst of an immediately intriguing scene in your WIP is almost too much of a tease though 😮

    Reply ↓
    1. Mike Schulenberg Post author

      Thanks! I was rather fortunate in that the section called for is less rough and awkward than some of the other stuff, and that the seven lines made a tidy little excerpt. Lucky 7, indeed 🙂

      Reply ↓
  7. Kirsten

    I love the excerpt, and that the names already give the story an eastern flavor. ‘Every search must begin somewhere’ is a powerful thought!

    (And you have no idea how narrowly you missed getting this tag from little old me!)

    Reply ↓
      1. Kirsten

        Muw-ha-ha-ha.
        Okay, my cackling needs work. But check it out, I tagged you anyway, just for fun.
        Not sure what people do when they get tagged twice, but if we’re lucky–truly lucky– we’ll get to read another excerpt. 😉

        Reply ↓
        1. Mike Schulenberg Post author

          Wellll…maybe I could grab what’s on page 7 if it’s not too awful. I’m not sure who I could take that hasn’t already been tagged…the Lucky 7 Meme has been zipping back and forth among the members of my tribe like bullets in a Matrix action scene.

          Reply ↓
  9. Tami Clayton

    Thanks for the tag, Mike! Working on putting out my crappy first draft lines as we speak. Though in my own inadequacies with wordpress, I can’t figure out how to get the Lucky 7 logo on my post. 😦

    Reply ↓
    1. Mike Schulenberg Post author

      You’re welcome, Tami 🙂

      Hmmm…it should be just like adding any other image, once you save the logo to your hard drive from my blog post. Have you been able to download the jpg file? I can email it to you if you need it.

      Reply ↓
      1. Tami Clayton

        I haven’t been able to download it on my mac for some reason. Sending it via email would be great considering I could easily spend a great deal more time trying to figure it out. Thanks!

        Reply ↓
  11. sheilapierson

    Mike – I loved reading your lines, and was excited you picked me to continue the Lucky 7; Unfortunately, it hasn’t been too lucky for me. Every attempt I’ve made at getting this done has turned upside down me! I appreciate you thinking of me, though 🙂

    Reply ↓
  12. Karen McFarland

    Hi MIke! I got your message Monday but I was hiding out for the day with a book and yesterday I was frantically trying to write a post for today. 🙂 I finally figured out a way to leave a message on a WordPress site so I’m good to go.I can’t believe I got tagged by two people at the same time. That’s crazy. So I’m gonna have to beg off my friend. But I really appreciate that you thought of me. But your page 77 looks quite interesting. How brave of you to post it. I know what you mean about very first drafty. But it looks like it’s coming along. Keep up the fine work Mike! 🙂

    Reply ↓

  14. Pingback: The Liebster Award: My Turn | Mike Schulenberg

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