I have exciting writing activity coming up, as I’m going on my annual Stonehenge Circle Press writing retreat this weekend.  Organized by one of my writer friends, a small group of us are getting together for a long weekend to do some workshops and spend some concentrated writing time.

As part of the retreat, we’re also collaborating to write a Beauty and the Beast novella (with some twists!)  We each took on a chapter or two, mostly from the point of view of different servants.  We’ll discuss at the retreat and smooth out fitting our different parts together.

I wrote one chapter from the librarian’s point of view which I may share later…but today I thought I’d share the beginning of Chapter Two, when the prince becomes cursed.  A familiar if unnamed character is to blame for it all…

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He really should not have been rude. Kind-hearted as I am, dedicated to the highest principles of Goodness and Niceness, I normally try to rise above that sort of thing. But some rudeness simply cannot be borne. For the good of the rude person, naturally. And I always act for the good of others. I’m sure he’ll thank me someday.

The whole little affair began for me on a snowy, blowy night. Just the sort of night for cozying up to a nice cup of tea, for petting an adorable pink kitten, or for wandering about in the snow disguised as an old crone, testing souls.

I pulled my carefully tattered cloak around me (so much goes into tattering a cloak just so, for that truly decrepit look—it’s an art form) and shuffled up the long walk towards the main doors of the castle. I pride myself on my cronish shuffle. And I never go to a castle’s backdoor. You don’t meet any princes that way, and I obviously have not time to waste on the souls of the common folk. They just don’t have that royal touch, you know.