Every author has their favourite

Asking an author to pick their favourite character or book is a lot like when parents are asked if they have a favourite child. Yes, it really is. The characters are real to me. They've lived in my head and been part of my life for a long time. They exist beyond the pages of books you've long since closed. Whilst your kids grow up and may go off to university, mine are still very much around and they never age. It isn't the same, but the situation and sentiment are similar.

To be honest, once I write a book I sort of forget about it. The book's details, per se, as in, the words. Phrases. Quotes, Narrative. Not the characters. Just the fine details. Not purposefully, it's just that I move on quite quickly because of having two different series open. There are always tears once 'the end' is typed. Writing a book is a process. It's draining, cleansing and therapeutic. It also signals the end of a partition of my life, because I will have 'lived' inside that story almost exclusively (except for Tuesdays and Fridays when I run errands and cheat on the manuscript with other manuscripts). Still, it seems that with each book I learn of new errors I committed, bad habits, etc leading me to believe that with each book my writing improves. I'm told from strangers and loyal readers that they have seen each book get better than the one before. Let's hope so. Authors want to improve with every publishing contract. I want my writing to top the one before in the sense that I'm being refined. My craft should be getting craftier. Get it? Okay.

I had no plans to blog tonight, but in going back to Gap Year and reading some portions for my late night writing sprints for book three in the series, I was somewhat taken by the last chapter. I don't remember writing it. Is that strange? I was sucked in by the clear cinematic scene unfolding before me. Heavens above, how I would love to see this in film. Sam is so clear to me here. Her anger, pride and that spirit people have said they love about her, just unfolds. I have no recollection of writing this chapter, so it was like stumbling on it for the first time. Maybe it's because of where I am right now on 13 July 2017 or because I just fell in love with these characters all over again, but at the moment, this is my favourite chapter of my favourite book. So yes, I do have a favourite.

If you liked this excerpt and haven't read Walden School,
I encourage you to give it a try.

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Chapter 23 of Gap Year
Walden book II

    “Down.”
    The girls lowered themselves.
    “Up.”
    They responded to the order, many of them quietly groaning.
    “We will spend the entire two hours doing press ups if necessary.” McAllister stood in
front of the meticulous rows of junior and senior girls with his hands behind his back overseeing the orders.
    “Down.” Pause. “Up.”
    Phin was standing to one side. “Straight backs, girls. You’re doing press-ups not a mountain climbing drill.”
    Sam rolled her eyes. She couldn’t wait to get to practice and now they were all being punished with press-ups.
    “Down,” McAllister said. The girls went down. “Hold.” Collectively, the group followed the order and within seconds, several of them were shaking. “Hold it, Andrews.”
    “Yes, Coach.”
  There was silence as McAllister watched the team remain in the plank position. He looked at his watch. “When I say there is no talking during sprinting drills, that is exactly what I mean. Is it not?”
    “Yes, coach,” the girls replied.
    “This is not social time; this is football practice. Two and a quarter hours, five days each week you are here to train, not chat.”
    “Sir, I’m sorry, sir, I was talking about the drill!” A junior offered.
    “Quiet, Claybourne.”
    Moira looked over at the five junior players to her left and shook her head.
    “If you have a question, then you ask your coach, not your teammates.”
    “Sorry, sir,” she said as her arms shook. Annette Claybourne’s eyes were closed and it
was clear her upper body strength wasn’t adequate for the punishment.
    “No talking means what, Claybourne?”
    “No talking, sir!”
    “Indeed it does.” McAllister looked at the girls again and then stared at his watch for
thirty more seconds. “Right. On your feet.”
    All five juniors let their bodies fall to the ground, whilst the fifteen seniors immediately
stood up.
    “Coach said on your feet.” Moira grabbed two juniors by their arms at the same time,
including Claybourne. “Now.” She snapped her fingers at the other three and signalled for them to stand up. The team captain was not happy.
    “Back in your lines and we’ll begin the sprint all over again. There will be no talking this time. If you have a question, put your hand up and either myself or Coach Phin will answer it. Am I made perfectly clear, Claybourne?”
    “Yes, sir.” The formerly enthusiastic girl who nearly tripped over her own laces on the first day was now rather sullen and embarrassed that the entire team was punished for her transgression.
    “Moira, see to it the team is lined up properly. Let me know when you’re ready to try again.”
    “Yes, sir. Right, girls. Two lines on either side of the goal down there. Quickly now!”
    The team jogged toward the goal with McAllister and Phin watching. “Every year,” McAllister said as he checked his watch. “Every year a junior does something silly and the whole team gets punished. I think the rest of the season will be very concentrated now.”
McAllister looked over at Moira, who put one hand up in the air to indicate they were ready.
    “The first two girls from each line will jog to the centre line. Soon as you cross, sprint the next length down. Touch the line and then jog back to the centre, then finish from centre to the line a sprint. It’s jog, sprint, jog, sprint. The next girl will go once you slap her hand to indicate you are finished. Is all of that made very clear, Claybourne?”
    “Yes, Coach,” the girl replied from the distance in a tone kept respectful, despite the repeated calling out of her name.
    “Good.” He looked at Phin. “You can stand down by the goal and watch that end. I’ll stay here.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    When Phin was in place with his stopwatch, McAllister blew his whistle. Sam and Moira were the first in each of their lines and took off running, but were stopped by McAllister’s whistle not long after. Like a well-trained athlete did, Moira stopped instantly and looked over at him.
    “Samantha Holloway, jog the first bit.”
    She exhaled and rolled her eyes. “I am, sir,” Sam replied across the pitch. Moira looked at the junior and shook her head as if to tell Sam to keep her mouth closed.    
    “Both of you back on the line,” McAllister ordered.
    The senior team captain stared Sam down as they jogged back. McAllister put the whistle to his mouth and blew it again. The senior and junior took off again, but he shook his head as he watched Sam. Her speed didn’t change one bit. She was sprinting the whole way, and it was because Moira was in the lead. This wasn’t a competition and it shouldn’t have bothered Sam that the senior was completing the exercise quicker, but it did.
    “Well done, Moira,” Phin encouraged as he watched her jog back toward the centre line.  
    “That’s it, prepare.” He said it just as Moira’s boot hit the centre line, her head ducked down and her speed increased instantly as she sprinted back to where she’d begun. Phin’s attention turned to Sam, who was still mostly sprinting back toward the centre line when she was supposed to be jogging.
    “Slow down, Holloway.” Sam didn’t listen. She sprinted the entire way back and slapped the next girl’s hand to signal her to do the exercise.
     McAllister watched Sam get back in line. She met his eyes as she breathed in and out deeply. It was difficult not to think of Coach Wiley right then. She had many moments with Coach Wiley like that—the stare down between coach and athlete. Sam knew she hadn’t done what McAllister told her to do and by the looks of it, he wasn’t going to call her out at that moment. But McAllister didn’t let things go. That much she knew.
After the sprinting exercise, the girls had five minutes to hydrate. Sam waited for McAllister to call her over or to say something, but he didn’t and she felt a little uneasy.
    “Right, Phin is going to take the defenders and two keepers on that side of the pitch to work. I want the rest of you off the pitch over here doing blindfolded passing, except Samantha.”
    There it was.
    “Come with me.” He turned and walked in the opposite direction.
  Sam left her water bottle on the polished wooden bench and swallowed the mouthful as she walked with him.
    “I did what you said,” she explained defensively.
    “Get on the line.”
    She held her hands out. “Sir.”
    “You will run this drill until you do it exactly how I’ve told you to run it,” he said as he
turned around.
    Sam stared back at him and shook her head as she started toward the goal. “It’s a
sprinting drill. What is there to understand?”
    McAllister’s face said it before his words did. “Come here. Tell me why you don’t
backchat me, especially not on my pitch or during my football practice.”
With obvious reluctance, Sam obeyed and put hands on hips. “Because . . .” this was
hard. Sam had a lot of pride and didn’t want to say the one or two reasons she thought were correct.
    McAllister helped her out. “One, because I am an adult. Two, because I am your coach. Three, because I am a Walden teacher. Four, because you are a pupil.” He rattled them off without even thinking and the look on his face made it clear that he didn’t like having to tell this kind of thing to a girl who ought to know it herself.
    “The issue with you is attitude, young lady.” McAllister folded his arms across his blazer and consequently, his whistle. It was like a subtle way of saying he was in teacher mode because the whistle was covered up. “You can give an incredible performance on the pitch, Samantha, and then the next minute it’s erased by foolish arrogance.”
Sam put her hands on her hips and started to look away, but remembered that wasn’t allowed so she kept her eyes on McAllister’s general presence.
    “Exercises are about doing as I tell you to do, which in this case was to jog, then sprint, then jog, then sprint. It is about trust. I’m telling you to trust there is a reason I have told you to vary the speed of your running. Secondly, it is about skill. You need to know the difference between jogging and sprinting and when it is not only appropriate, but strategic to do either one. You cannot sprint the entire game.”
    “Some people can,” she retorted.
    “Those were not my instructions.” He looked at her briefly and seemed to realise something. “You were racing Moira.”
    Sam shrugged.
    “Shrugging isn’t allowed here and you know that fine well. Yes sir, or yes coach.”
    “Yes, sir,” she bitterly replied.
    “You’re too busy competing with everyone else to concentrate on building your own
skills.”
    Her eyes darted to McAllister and her countenance changed. “What the bloody hell is that
supposed to mean?”
    “That is an order mark, Holloway.”
    Sam exhaled. “I’ve already had two, sir. Now I’ll have to see the Headmaster.”
    “I think that’s precisely what you need.”
    “Sir.” Sam wasn’t desperate, but the look on her face made it clear she was concerned.    
     “I’m not disciplining you across my knee in the middle of the football pitch. You will do
fifty press-ups and then you will run the drill for the next hour or however long it takes until you do it the way I want it done. Then, you can explain to your Housemaster why you received an order mark this afternoon.”
    “Sir, please.” Sam tried to appear like she wasn’t pleading, although she was.
    “Fifty press-ups.” McAllister blew his whistle and Sam stared back at him, hands still on hips, not moving. They stared at each other for the longest ten seconds in existence, and then Sam got on the ground. “Body straight, Holloway.”
    Sam corrected her posture and continued, all the while counting in her head. After thirty, her arms were tired and her speed slowed down significantly.
    “Twenty more.”
    She gritted her teeth and pressed through with the integrity of speed and precision she knew McAllister expected. On the fiftieth one, she refused to collapse on the ground. She was stronger than that.
    “Right, back on the line and wait for my signal.”
    McAllister held the whistle near his mouth as Sam went to the painted line near the goal.
    “This time do as I tell you, Holloway. Jog to the centre line and then stop.”
    “Bloody fecking git,” Sam muttered quietly. So now he was making her take it one length at a time to be sure she obeyed the drill precisely.
    He blew the whistle. Sam did as she was told but the look on her face was pure irritation.   
    “Now sprint back to the goal as if your life depended on it.” He blew the whistle and Sam deliberately delayed her start. She did run fast, but it wasn’t a proper sprint. When she reached the line, she breathed roughly and turned away as she paced.
    “Samantha, on the line. You’re running it until I’m satisfied you’ve mastered the drill the way I want it, not the way you think it ought to be run.”
    McAllister was right. It was about attitude. This was about breaking her expectation down from personal competitive perfectionism into basic trust and skill. That was something she struggled with since the first day of practice. Everything began and ended on McAllister’s team with the basics. Sam hated the basics. She wanted to move on.
    He blew the whistle and Sam took a slow jog to the centre line and then turned around when she reached it. She waited for the whistle and then sprinted back toward the goal and stopped.
    “I want to see a lot more energy than that. Your jog should be confident and purposeful. Your sprint should be determined and unstoppable.” He blew the whistle again and watched to see if Sam would heed his direction. She did, mostly.
    “Again.” He blew the whistle but this time Sam didn’t run. “Holloway.”
    “You already gave me an order mark. What’s the point?” She breathed roughly. McAllister dropped his whistle against his chest and signalled her over. She didn’t want
to talk and she was certain her manner emulated how she felt. “Look at me.”
    She shook her head slowly as she avoided eye contact on arrival. “Why? I’ve already let you down.”
    McAllister remained there with his arms folded and his voice was firm, but instructive.
    “You have not let me down, Holloway, you’ve been disobedient.” Her eyes finally raised to him. “I’ve told you how to run the drill and I expect you to do it. When you stop for a reason other than an injury, you’re being selfish with my time. There are far more things I would like to develop in you than breaking your will. You’re a better athlete than this.”
    Sam flapped a hand and walked off. “I don’t even know why I’m here.”
    “You’re not running away.”
    “You’re right, I’m not,” she called over her shoulder. “I’m walking.”
McAllister followed her in a very calm manner, but a pace that showed displeasure. “You
don’t turn your back on your coach. Ever.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her close. “Do you understand me?”
    Sam stared right up into his eyes and she could see the passion he had for the words he’d just spoken. The boundary had been tested and she just found out where it was.
    “Don’t ever do that to me again.”
    It was all Sam could do to keep her chin from quivering. Someone cared enough to call her stupid behaviour out and even pursue her when she felt completely undeserving of mercy in all her disobedient reluctance. She had respect for that – but he would never know.
    “Get back on the line,” he said calmly as he pointed.
    She stared at him in a challenge, but it only lasted a few seconds and then she stalked back to the line. McAllister watched her and then when she was there he blew the whistle. Sam took off and as soon as she hit the centre line, he blew the whistle to ensure she only paused long enough to turn around and sprint in the other direction.
    “Push yourself, Holloway. The sprint is you being chased. Get moving.”
    “Shut up,” Sam mumbled.
    McAllister blew the whistle again to signal returning to a jog as she turned to run back
toward the centre of the pitch. “Now slow it down. Your jog is not a race, it’s a pace.”
    “Git,” she said under her breath.
    “Five more sets.” Sam looked at him with an unbelieving expression as she ran in place
of backchat this time. “I said until I was satisfied. I’m not satisfied.” McAllister blew the whistle again to signal a change in pace but instead of Sam telling him where to go, this time she let it burn inside of her.
    Mentally, she had to separate herself from the anger of feeling like a failure and pretend like the ground beneath her feet was the cause. It needed a good beating. She pumped her legs and set her stride to the appropriate speed that McAllister had described to her twice already. The spikes at the bottom of her boots pounded into the ground with every step as she ripped them out of the grass and replanted them, pushing herself further and further toward the painted line.
    “Yes. That’s it. That’s what I’m looking for.”
    Now Sam didn’t want his validation. She didn’t want compliments. She didn’t even want to be on the pitch at the moment. Praise for submitting herself to doing the drill the way he wanted? No thanks. Afterward, she bent over to stretch her hamstrings briefly. Her thighs were bloody burning like sunburn. McAllister turned and blew his whistle three times loudly to signal the whole team was to run over to him.
    “Phin, how did my defenders do?”
    “Good, sir. I think we need to continue working on it tomorrow though, because concentration seemed to be lacking.”
    The cluster of girls near to the Deputy Head Boy didn’t make eye contact with McAllister. They knew he wasn’t amused.
    “Focus and concentration are far more important that footwork. Yes?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    He checked his watch again. “Right. Take two laps and then get along to the dormitory to shower and change before inspection. I expect better from all of you tomorrow. You’re dismissed.”
    When the laps were finished, Moira tugged on Sam’s shirt. “You have two order marks in less than three days?” Sam nodded in reply and the team captain glanced over her shoulder. She didn’t want to ask how Moira knew. She was a senior. “Tell him you’ll take a strapping and he’ll withdraw the order mark. But you have to ask for it. Humbly.”
    Sam nodded again but she didn’t want to appear desperate. With a glance at Walden’s football coach, she couldn’t help but feel like she let her old one down. She hated apologising. She wasn’t even sure she knew how to do it. Another order mark would mean seeing the Headmaster for a caning. That was a good reason to learn how to apologise on the spot. Sam walked back to McAllister and Phin as the others grabbed their matching water bottles and monogrammed bags before departing in clusters toward the school.
    “Mr. McAllister.” Her stomach dropped when McAllister looked at her. It was as if he’d been waiting. “I’m . . . sorry.”
    “You’re sorry for your backchat, your lack of effort, your refusal to run drills the way I wanted you to run them, or you’re sorry because you now have an order mark?”
    Why was Phin still here? “All of it,” she replied shyly.
    He was there with his hands behind his back just like Mr. McAllister, as if he had some right to be part of the conversation. He wasn’t part of it earlier, so why was he part of it now? Phin wasn’t a teacher; he was a Prefect who just thought he had every right to be present for the continued chastisement.
    “I don’t have time to put athletes across my knee during the two and quarter hours of conditioning and skill-building I’m supposed to be instilling into you right now. If you disrespect me on my pitch, then I will deal with you on the pitch appropriately, but when you cross a line that shows me you have something deeper needing to be dealt with, that’s when I give out order marks and consider alternative methods.”
    “Could I take a strapping later?” she blurted out.
    Phin looked at McAllister briefly.
    “You want a strapping from me instead of an order mark.”
    Sam’s face felt hot but she could only hope the redness was invisible. “Yes, sir.”  
    McAllister stared at her, and then, “Phineaus, you can pack up.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Once he left, McAllister spoke again. “This is not a bargaining system, Samantha.” Thanks a lot, Moira. You sure made it sound like it was. She closed her eyes briefly. “Sir,
please.” Vulnerability was usually a dirty word to Sam, but she was a little desperate. “This has been the worst week,” she admitted against her better judgment.
    “Induction is supposed to be challenging.”
    Sam exhaled and looked down at the ground as if to wish herself away somewhere else. “It was more than that.”
    “Teachers and Prefects aren’t accustomed to backchat. Not here.” He paused long enough for Sam to raise her eyes. “I certainly am not accustomed to it on my football pitch.”
    She nodded gingerly and after a beat, she admitted the elephant standing beside them. “I was competing with Moira.”
    “I know you were, and you thought my correcting your interpretation of the drill was a criticism on your worth as a footballer.”
McAllister was annoyingly spot on, and Sam looked away.
    “This isn’t about you. It’s about the game.” Sam’s nod of agreement was small as if to match her resistance to admit how right he was. “Isn’t that what you came here for?”
    For the first time since Coach Wiley walked down the cobblestone path and left her there, Sam felt like someone knew the posture of her heart. Football tended to have that affect on people; it certainly had that hold on Sam. Her passion for the game ran deep and wide, and anyone who got that, got Sam.
    “Yes, sir. That’s why I’m here. For the football.”