I
love writing stories and I find longer ones, novels or novellas more
satisfying, but it does take me a long time. My last one “Slurry”
was published as an e-book in 2012 but I had been working on it, off
and on, from 2007.(You can find it here: Slurry Web Site)
My
current novel, “Terminal One”, was started in approximately 2010.
I say 'approximately' because pinning down the true beginning of a
story is a bit like finding the source of a river.
Anyway,
“Terminal One” now has a beginning, an end, a structure of eighteen chapters, and forty-something thousand words. So all I have to do now is
knock it into shape and fill in the gaps...
It
begins as follows:
It
took only 90 seconds from weaving down the pavement singing ‘Running
Bear’, at top volume but in the wrong key, to being pinned up
against a lamp post with life petering out to the sound of sirens.
There was no pain but the angle from which he could see his feet was
unprecedented. Thoughts came at random but none of them were good.
Shards of milky bone like stalagmites, strangely gleaming in an
unexpected light, frothing with scarlet life, darkening on meeting
the air.
Screams
un-screamed, dreams undreamed, precious youth leaking and spilling on
to the pavement.
How
to waste a life in a trice. A life full of promise, a life full of
love, a life full life. Vibrant, fit and full of hope. There couldn’t
have been much in it. Six inches here and fifteen centimetres there.
Small margins, large consequences. Some things happen despite their
improbability. In fact it happens all the time but you only tend to
notice when it leads to really bad shit. This had. Really bad shit.
You can read the whole of the
first chapter here:Terminal One Chapter One
Chris Fewtrell
Moorside Writers
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