I tend to ignore blog challenges. They remind me too much of chain mail and other 70’s schoolyard games, but this one for writers is a bit cool. Plus I’ve been tagged so many times to play along that I’m starting to feel like a grump for not joining in.

Here’s how ‘The Lucky Seven’ works:

• Go to page 7 or 77 in your current manuscript (fiction or non-fiction)
• Go to line 7
• Post on your blog the next 7 lines, or sentences, as they are – no cheating
• Tag 7 other authors to do the same

Except I’m going to ignore the last directive because everyone I know has already been tagged, and I kinda like the idea of breaking the chain. Can’t help it. It’s the bah humbug in me.

So here we go. This is from page 77 of my current work-in-progress, scheduled for release by Penguin in 2013. Enjoy!

Callie picked at a loose thread on the hem of her shorts. ‘I’m all right. Things just aren’t going as smoothly as I’d hoped.’

‘It was always going to be hard, going back. You’re braver than me. I still haven’t visited where Des was killed. Mum and Dad and Ross go all the time, for his birthday and at Christmas. They put flowers by the tree and talk to him like he’s still alive, but I’ve never been able to do it. I don’t want to remember him there, all mangled up. You’re probably the same with Hope and your gran’s farm, not wanting to remember.’

© Cathryn Hein 2012