Tuesday, June 26, 2007

this thing I do when I'm not knitting

I'm just tinkering with the last few missing pieces of this thing I've been writing. I wrote the last chapter the other week and it's just the middle that needs planting and pruning. Very difficult to explain how wildly exiting this is. I'm almost ready to make the big push and send it off to try to get myself an agent. Bloody hell!

Actually, even if no-one ever wants to publish it, I happen to have a printing press in my airing cupboard and an enormous box of type under my bed, so it could still happen!

So, I thought I'd let slip a little taster of the book to you. Please feel free to ignore it. The basic premise of the story is four guys who were in a band together when they were young, getting the band back together even though they broke up in horrible, horrible circumstances and never wanted to see one another again. A strange logic, but it makes for some funny scenes. Or I think so, anyway. This little snippet takes place after they've agreed to get back together for a one week trial - at the end of which they're going to be the wedding band for an unfortunate couple, but that's a whole 'nother chapter.

This is just meant to be a little taster of the book. It may seem a little disjointed, but to explain those involved - Eric is one of the four in the band and may well be the biggest pain in the arse in the world. Bic and Innes are two of the other three band members and they've just rolled out of a bus and slogged up a mile-long driveway to get to this huge country house where they're going to be practicing for the next week and entertaining 150 wedding guests the following weekend.

After about fifteen minutes – long enough to irritate Eric we reasoned but not long enough to let the chill all the way in - we picked up the bags and ambled towards the white stone steps that led up to the grand entrance of this country pile. I was aware that Innes was humming something beside me, but I couldn’t make out just what it was – something gloomy at any rate.
“Funeral march,” he said gravely when I turned to ask him, humming a few more bars for clarification.
I listened carefully and realised his mistake. “Innes,” I said solemnly. “You’re an arse. That’s not the funeral march, it’s the theme from Starwars.”
He did a quick mental listen and decided I was right. He immediately dropped the battered case and swept an imaginary light saber from the equally imaginary light saber belt at his waist. He had to drop the case, since he needed one hand for the light saber and one to hold in front of his face to do the consumptive breathing bit. “You will embrace the dark side, Bic,” he said, sweeping his light saber in what could only be described as a vaguely menacing manner. “It is only a matter of time. Eventually, all will worship the Dark Lord.”
I dropped my own bag, since I needed both hands to be on my hips as I faced my enemy. “Never,” I cried. “I will resist the call of the dark side as long as there is breath in my body.” My light saber was now extended and in my right hand. We circled one another around the abandoned luggage, lunging and parrying with all the accompanying noises you’d expect from an imaginary light saber fight. And it was brilliant. Utterly, amazingly brilliant. I felt lighter than I’d done for ages, certainly lighter than I had at any point since I found that bloody letter on my windscreen. Things couldn’t be that bad when I was having this much fun. They. Just. Couldn’t.

I got in a few imaginary thrusts and slashes with the imaginary light saber and it began to look like I was winning the fight. As I should be, since we all know the dark side cannot be allowed to flourish. Heads other than Eric’s began to appear at windows all over the place, but I couldn’t bring myself to care and judging from the size of the grin on Innes’ face, neither could he.
“Die, Jedi scum,” Innes wheezed out from behind his hand and lunged at me, but I caught him with a spectacular imaginary light saber thrust to the chest and he fell dramatically to the ground, to lie there twitching.
I extinguished my pretend light saber and knelt before my bested foe. “You fought well, O-Wheezy-Wan,” I said, “but I could not let your evil live.”
“Ach, well,” Innes said grinning up at me from the gravel. “Win some, lose some.”

I'm at my voluntary job tomorrow all day so I know I won't have any spare energy for posting and that's why two posts today. Spending the day with groups of five-year-olds who think that if they say 'excuse me' they can then all magically talk at once tends to make for a fantastic, but tiring day.

Let me know what you think of the wee snippet, won't you?

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