19 Days Left!

Happy Friday Bloggers and Fans!  We broke into the teens on the countdown to learn the first round results from Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award for THE SAVANNAH SYNDROME (TSS)!  And we made it through the week, which means one more post tomorrow and we're off on Sunday!  Check back tomorrow for the Weekly Writer's Prompt from writersdigest.com, it's a doozy...  Check out my personal blog over at jzimmerman324.weebly.com to read the final two episodes of the short history of my life and what has led me to be a writer and, specifically, what led me to write TSS.  So here is page five from TSS, with prior pages being given in the previous blog posts.  Remember, for just $2.99 this wonderful story can be gracing your Kindle bookshelf and you can read it all at once!  To purchase your copy today, click here, otherwise, enjoy page five:

"undressed, flinging her previous days clothes in the growing pile near the door.  She brushed her hair and her teeth.  She had run out of toothpaste a few months ago but she still used the tooth brush to remove the feeling of plaque from her teeth.  She stared at the stranger before her.  She still refused to see herself as a “young woman,” some days she still felt like the ten-year old girl who had to learn to survive on her own when her mother never returned from that last trip to the city.  She no longer knew her age.  She had never worried about counting the days after she realized she was on her own.  She never really thought about it.  Each day was a blessing, a testament to her will to survive.  There were times when she felt isolated and lonely, but she had all her friends:  the trees, the grass, the sun, the wind, the walls of the fort, the bricks that would whisper their stories to her at night.  But she could not ignore the transformations that had overcome her body.  Her breasts had developed more than she ever thought they would on her diet, which consisted almost entirely of oysters, fish, berries, pecans and figs, and the occasional bird or squirrel.  She had long ago killed all the raccoons on the island.  She drank rain water for hydration.  That was it.  No dairy, no milk; which luckily she had drank plenty of those during the first half of her life so her bones developed somewhat strong.  She pulled the brown shirt over her shoulders and curves, down her thin waste.  The pants came up next and she noticed her legs were beginning to become stubbly again.  She still liked to keep her legs shaved, though the razor she used was pretty dull and it was a painful process.  She twisted her hair in a tight bun and secured it with a long metal pick.  It was sharp.  That was her last line of defense.  She hoped she would never have to use it, because she always feared the situation that would have to be unfolding for her to have to resort to that last desperate measure.  Her enemy would have to be practically on top of her for her to rely on that weapon.  She had subsequently forgotten about its effectiveness over the years of isolation.  That lack of discipline would cost her in the"

And yes, that was one long paragraph...

My favorite steeple in SAV, and the tower
the River Colony rings their alarm from, as
depicted in TSS.