Okay, okay. The rewrite is moving into the home stretch. It really is. I'm pretty sure it is, only it’s taking longer than I wanted. It was meant to be finished this week and the delay has not been too good for my nerves. For my attention span. For my patience. It’s been a week of feeling defeated by my own story, but I'm pretty sure victory isn’t too far off now. Next week. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be next week. I hope it's going to be next week.
So, as I make a push to get this final, final, final draft finally completed I thought I’d use this week to share something with you. As things stand, what follows are the first 900 or so words my second novel will start with.
In more ways than I can really express right now, I hope you like it.
Things are getting hectic, they always do at this time of year. It’s like being trapped on a merry go round that refuses to slow down. Every time we ask someone to apply the brakes, it only accelerates. Sure, there are festive lights and catchy tunes circling around us, but this close to the event horizon of Christmas Day it all starts to get out of hand. The music deafens us. The motion makes us feel ill. The horses under us start to leer and grin as it all lurches past our control.
There are cards to write, presents to deliver. There’s food to hunt and gather, sometimes against shoppers who are racing against the exact same clock as us to the exact same shelf for the exact same final box of stuffing. The season of goodwill can get pretty nasty down a supermarket aisle.