The Prologue

I was fooling around on my Hotmail account when I found this link to "Blogger." Wondering what it was exactly, I clicked the link and the next thing I knew, I was creating a blog. It was the design aspects that pulled me in -- have you seen how many gorgeous backgrounds there are?? When it came to the part where I had to name my blog, well, I chose to name it after my novel I'm working on, and that's the story of the birth of this blog.
I want this to be a way to encourage myself to keep writing, and help keep writer's block away. I have a feeling this will distract me as much as it will encourage me, but I figure if I spend less time on Facebook and more time blogging, then it'll all even out in the end. 
I'll post parts of my novel, as well. 
My novel I actually began when I was only twelve. I heard of the book "Lovely Bones" and decided I wanted to write my own after-death novel. The first draft of my story was not half-bad for the writing of a twelve year-old, but I abandoned it none-the-less. I realized that the story was going to be about the romance of the two main characters, and that being only twelve, I should wait to write the story until I had a better idea of how romance goes. That, and I forgot about it.
The ironic thing is that I know no more about romance now, six years later, than I did when I was twelve. I've never dated, not once. I've turned down all the guys who've asked me out because I thought (and still think) that they were all weirdos. I guess I'm just waiting for the right guy, and until then, I have Jake, the main male character in my story.
I dug up my story from my old computer files last November for this writing challenge called Nanowrimo (aka National Novel Writing Month). The idea is that you sign up online then attempt to write a whole novel in only one month. Since I had school to think about, I set a personal goal of 10,000 words instead of a whole book, although I only wrote about 5,000 in the end. The beginning of my story this time, which I will refer to as my second draft, was rough to say the least, but by now I had started to get an idea of where the story was going; what the plot was, who the characters were, where it was set. When I had to write an IWP for my Writer's Craft course the following March, I dug up my second draft and polished it. This is the draft I have now. So far, I have about 18,000 words and I'm continuing to write it. It's just something to do in my spare time, for fun. 
Now I'm sure you're sick of reading my story's life story, here's the prologue to New Wings:

Prologue

“The stitching came together well Mary, thank you.”

“It was no problem sir. Glad to help out on such a busy day.”

My sight was blurry. I squinted and blinked, but nothing was clear. My hearing was off, but I could make out voices.

“Sir, she’s waking.”

“Please fetch Jake; he must be here.”

High heels clicked and faded away. I could only see light, shadows and rough shapes, but I could tell there was a figure standing in front of me. As he came towards me, I realized I was lying in a bed of some sort, with my head propped up by pillows. The figure stopped by my feet and suddenly two large ovals appeared behind him. I blinked hard and opened my eyes again. My sight was coming back; those ovals were... wings?

“What the –” I tried to say.

The figure cut me off, apologizing, and the ovals disappeared behind him. I rubbed my eyes, wishing to wipe the imaginary pictures from my mind.

The high heels returned, followed by the sound of rubber soled shoes. I opened my eyes once more to reveal a clear picture of a young man, followed by a lady, walking into the white room. This man stood out from the man by the foot of my bed and the woman because he was dressed in jeans and a navy t-shirt, while the others wore white doctors’ coats. When the two figures reached the male doctor, the figured turned to the woman and spoke softly. On his back were two large white shapes. I rubbed my eyes again, but this time they saw clearly from the beginning. Two wings emerged from his shoulder blades, tucked and folded neatly behind his back.

“Oh my gosh...” I whispered. My voice was growing stronger and the young man heard me.

 He approached me and smiled. “Hello there.”

“What’s going on?” I said as I tried to lift myself into a sitting position, but my arms gave out before they could hold me, and my hands brushed against something soft as I fell back against the bed. I reached behind my back to find something I wished I didn’t: feathers.

“What the hell?!”

The man beside me grabbed my hand, stopping me from touching them again.

“Please calm down –” he began, but I cut him off.

“Calm down? Calm down?!” My voice was raising and my body was shaking. “Is this some sort of cruel joke?! Where am I? What am I doing here? Do my parents even know I’m here? When they find out, they’re going to kill me!”

The man looked in my wide eyes and said, “You’re in Heaven.”

*~*~*~*

I was never taught to believe in Heaven. My parents were both atheists who thought that you should live as much of a full life as you could when you were alive, and when you died, well, you hoped for the best. Maybe you’d end up a ghost or maybe you’d be reborn as a monkey, but the point was that you didn’t end up in Heaven or Hell. People couldn’t be sorted into the simple headings of “good” or “bad,” then shipped off to a land of gods or a fiery pit.

Personally, I was never quite sure. When I was little, I loved to look at the pretty angels, with their gowns and feathery wings, in shopping mall windows and atop trees. I especially loved the gowns they wore. The first gowns I ever drew, crudely with crayons, were on beautiful angels with long hair and halos. Later, the wings and halos would be dropped from my drawings, sophisticating them, but back then that’s where I thought gowns belonged: on the angels of Christmas.

Maybe something would have turned out differently if I’d truly believed in a God or Heaven, but something tells me it wouldn’t have. My life was one way, one story, and that’s what led to my situation. My death had little to do with God.