grenville - the writing book - exercise 1.13

grenville – exercise 1.13

Write a paragraph using each word in this sentence as the first word for each of your sentences.

***

‘Write your name here please.’

A cross marked the spot she indicated. I scrawled my name hurriedly across the page, glancing over my shoulder, the boat was pulling out of the dock but she didn’t seem to be concerned, instead she took her time to process my paper work.

Paragraph after paragraph, she read aloud the warnings, rules and regulations that I must adhere to if and when I finally got across the border.

Using her stamp she secured my passport and waved me through, I sprinted for the dock but it was a wasted effort, the boat was long gone and it was the last one of the day, twelve hours, fourteen minutes and 32 seconds until the next boat; a night spent in the derelict terminal loomed ahead of me.

Each passing minute made it harder to relax, the hands on the big dirty clock face ticked off my crimes, ticked off the penalties I would pay, ticked off the time I would spend behind bars if caught.

Word of the day toilet paper, this morning before I left the secure pod, and ventured across the city to the docks, to make the last attempt at escape, the word I smeared with my crap was ‘impending’.

In and out, that’s what he promised: the job was supposed to be clean, leave no trace of suspicion and I should have been sitting pretty.

This, it turns out, is what he meant by clean: I had to get my arse of the platform and clear of authority before day break.

Sentence me they would, to a life of hard labour and grovelling, I could not, no actually I would not go down: I promised the kid I would be there to collect her, and god damn it to this god forsaken hell, I would get there: I had the money and the means, I just had to keep the smarts.

As the sun rose over the towers across the bay an alarm rang and suddenly everyone was on their feet, sleep crusting their eyelids and backs rigid with incrimination: no one is innocent here, we’re all running to or from some demon or another.

The heavies burst through the glass doors, red pin pricks of light trained on every forehead in the place: no one dared move a muscle; the slightest twitch could set off a massacre.

First they interrogated the women, so typical; always assume it is the women that will lead them to their prey: what the numbskulls didn’t get was that in this day and age, we women are the first to learn about self defence.

Word to the wise ones, teach your heavies to think outside the box; I dropped to the floor, tore the outer wrapper off the explosive device he had me hide inside my boot, just in case he said, and hurled it into the face of the nearest thug.

For a split second the terminal appeared to hang in mid air, and then an almighty roar tore the place apart, metal and glass flew everywhere, the thugs dove for cover and everyone else that had something to run from, well they ran.

Each time something like this happens to me I immediately think of my nice quiet childhood, I grew up in such a mild mannered family, my poor mother must be turning in her grave seeing how her good little girl turned out.

Of all the times I have blown something up, for me to blow up the dock, this time I couldn’t have picked a better time; the boat cruised into the harbour just moments before the whole place caught alight. I threw myself on board and screamed at the captain to get the hell out of there; he hesitated for only a second, then the flames burst into the sky and he gunned away from the dock as fast he could, which was pretty damned fast, these speed cats nowadays shit all over the ferries of my childhood.

Your blood pumped through my veins thick and fast, as we crossed the bay the captain threw a thousand questions at me and I answered them as best I could but my mind was elsewhere, all I could think of was getting to you, making sure you didn’t have to spend another minute of your time out there alone, you saved me once, now it was my turn to repay the favour.

Sentence, it’s a funny term really, we all serve a sentence in some way or another, mine was served waiting for you, for most of my life I didn’t even know I was waiting, but now that you exist, I can’t imagine life without you; and you, over there at that school, safe from the military and chaos we call the earth, serving a sentence of your own, half of your blood living inside of me, poured into me the day of your birth, keeping me alive through this hell that separates us, but now, as promised, one last job for the government, the cash is in our hands and I’m coming, I’m finally coming to get you, my beautiful daughter.

grenville - the writing book - exercise 1.12

Kate Grenville – the writing book

Exercise 1.12 - Eavesdrop on a conversation


‘He said to come over right away.’ Person 1 whispered.


‘Did you go?’ Person 2 asked intrigued.


‘I haven’t seen him in years!’Person 1 exclaimed.

***

'Tomorrow never comes'

It’s raining and the bus is late. Her fingers nervously twist the rings on her left hand, her friend alternates between casting anxious glances her way and peering along the street, hoping the bus will arrive soon. Tomorrow the sun will shine, the engines will run smoothly and buses will come and go. This she knows: life always goes on, regardless of the minutiae of individual lives. Tomorrow she will have her morning coffee, shower, dress, and go about her day as though nothing were different. Today everything is different and nothing can ever be the same again. Tomorrow she will know this still and she will pretend all the same.


‘Number 106?’ her friend asks.

She shakes her head; ‘No.’ The bus pulls to the curb with a screech of brakes and belches out exhaust fumes. She coughs and thinks that maybe she should turn around now. Go home, cook dinner and then tomorrow everything will be the same.

Only: she will know the difference.

‘Number 102?’

She looks down the street, yes, that’s it. She tells herself to go home. Her feet stay rooted to the spot. She agrees with herself, she should go home. Her feet climb the stairs and her hand passes her fair to the driver. Her friend follows her and pushes her into a seat close to the front. She shakes her head and goes to the back of the bus.

The bus pulls out from the curb; her plans to go home are left by the roadside, choking in the fumes. Its six o’clock: he said to come straight away but that was at ten o’clock this morning. She decided to go at four o’clock this afternoon. She hasn’t seen him in years. She tells herself it is already too late. She decides to get off at the next stop. Tomorrow she will go to the markets and buy mango's, she will make mango mouse for dessert and forget about today. Tomorrow she can still save herself.

Her fingers thoughtfully twist the rings on her left hand; they slide over the knuckles easily. Her friend glances anxiously out the window, her eyes darting between glass and hand, noting the removal of the rings. Her friend says nothing. She slips the rings into her purse and rubs her thumb over the indentation left behind. Yesterday she felt naked with her rings left absentmindedly on the bathroom counter. Yesterday she had her morning coffee, showered, dressed, kissed her husband goodbye and went about her day because nothing was different. Today everything is different and nothing will ever be the same again.

‘This is it.’ Her friend stands up and pulls the cord. The bus lurches to a stop and they climb down. She looks at the address scrawled across the scrap of cereal packet. They walk across a busy main road and down two or three quiet streets. The house is the second on the left.

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ Her friend asks.

She shakes her head, ‘No, but will you wait?’ her friend nods and crosses the road to sit at a park bench.
The house is the oldest in the street. There are paint cans by the garbage bins and a ladder propped against the side of the house. Boxes are stacked in a neat pile down the driveway and she can see the tail end of a bicycle but there is no car. Her mobile phone rings, a distant buzz from the depths of her hand bag. Inside she sees movement behind the makeshift curtains, the shadow moves past the front window, toward the front door. All thoughts of tomorrow slip through her fingers. The figure in the doorway is the only yesterday she cares to remember.

She pushes the gate. Today is finally here and tomorrow, well you know what they say about tomorrow.

getting started - a novel in the making

from first draft manuscript to published novel , a novice novelist’s journey from go to woe, or woohoo-frikin-hoo! (depends on the outcome really)

well actually it is now the fifth draft manuscript, i actually wrote the first four manuscripts while completing my literature degree but now that the degree is almost at an end, i am free to go back over all those texts i’ve merely skimmed, and actually partake in some of the writing exercises

and so, because i can, i will.

without further ado, join Kate Grenville (in text below, not in flesh) and I on our journey

the writers book – a workbook for fiction writers

Chapter 1

getting started

Grenville provides all kinds of exercises and commentary on how to get off to a great start and the first exercise she details is the opening line.

how to hook the reader. each and every time i start a new draft for elysium i play with the opening line. i am yet to reach that place of happiness. here are all six different opening lines from all five drafts of elysium. the first is from draft five, i wrote it yesterday.

‘At first glance Angel Grace thought this life would be routine, much the same as the one before, she soon realised, nothing much about life could be considered routine.’ Elysium, draft five, copyright2010

‘Angel Grace has lived and died many times. At first glance she had thought this life was routine, much the same as the one before, she soon realised nothing about returning to earth could be considered routine’ Elysium, draft five copyright 2010

‘The days of the dying are long. From well before dawn till well after dusk they stretch, snapping back only once the darkness of sleep has fallen.’ Elysium, draft four copyright 2010
‘Angel lived in a perpetual bubble of waiting, waiting for the next terrible thing to happen. Which was stupid really, all the terrible things she could possibly imagine had already happened.’ Elysium, draft three copyright 2010

‘Mid stride Chelsea Dell’s mobile phone rang interrupting her rhythm, the vibrating in her pocket a distraction she didn't need’ Elysium, draft two copyright 2010
‘The gates opened on a whisper of wind, beyond which was a brilliant sunlit day.’ Elysium, draft one copyright 2010

looking back over the six it is hard to decide which is better, if i have improved at all. what each revision has done is allowed a deeper study of each character, how they are introduced into the story and what their role in may be. each revision has also helped decide where the story begins and who should tell the tale. the passages the follow each of these opening sentences have all survived the fifth draft.

the second exercise Grenville suggests is improvisation, such as free writing for 60 seconds, self portraits within the moment, starter lines such as ‘I remember’ and ‘Yesterday I’ and dream recall(Grenville, p.13). the exercise i will tackle is ‘describe a character’

Joslin Gee is 33 years old and she is the middle child in a family of three girls. Sara is older, tall and beautiful, kind and caring. Chelsea is younger, short and cute, snappy and quick tempered. Like most middle children, Joslin is neither here nor there. She is not tall or beautiful, she is not short or cute, her manner is mild and light. Joslin has a close bond with her father, Gabrielle Dell, they love to garden, in fact they run a landscaping business together. The business is well known in the small suburban circles which they live and work. Mostly upper middle class, mostly professional families much like Joslin’s family. Crest Haven is that sort of city, suburban and close knit, everybody knows everybody, as long as you come from the same side. The city is divided into north and south, if you are a northerner you mix with other northerners, if you are a southerner you stay down south. The city circle is as good a place to meet as any and it is here the two sides co-exist. Joslin avoids the city, but that is not to say she does not mix, Joslin and her husband Dan live in the east, as do her parents and her sisters. Joslin has a little old fixer upper that Dan dreams of renovating; the house is nestled amongst the hills, in a cool and quiet valley, and they live a cool and quiet life.

Joslin Gee is a central character from elysium. i have high hopes for her development as an  'every woman’. Grenville provides many more exercises; i will not detail them all although i do invite you to share one you may have attempted.

getting started is a point in the novel that is often the hardest, this point in the novel writing process however was not hard for me. i have been an avid writer and reader since childhood, i have countless journal full of teenage angst to prove it, and i had always had it in mind to write a novel or two (or twenty as the case may be).

when elysium at last leapt from my day dreaming mind and onto the page it was unfortunately due to tragic circumstance rather than a great motivation to write. i was awoken early one morning to a phone call from my sister telling me that my three year old niece, Breezy, would not wake up. this was November 2005. from that very moment our lives were turned inside out with grief, blame, guilt, love, and the whole gamut of human emotion. unbeknownst to me at the time, this was my ‘getting started’.

to begin at the beginning, as Grenville says ‘is just about the hardest place to start’ (p.2) but as it turns out for me, the start was the easiest, it happened quite naturally with the eulogy i wrote for Breezy.

the months following  slipped by in the haze of grieving, i started a new journal and thought endlessly about Breezy but i did not write much. then in february 2006 my brother in-law died, aged 38 years, of an aneurism, while at work. one minute he was smiling, laughing and chatting, the next he was still and silent, never to say goodbye .

this new blow to our family finally opened the floodgates, i sat down at the computer and started writing, i paid no attention to what i was writing, i went with my gut and the words on the page took on a life of their own. i did not resurface for close to three months. in june 2006 i had draft one complete. today it is july 2010 and draft five is awaiting.

the beginning was not the hard part,

knowing when to stop is proving to be much trickier.