It is 20:00hrs of November 1. Which means National Novell Writing Month 2013 is but four hours from its second day of thirty.
At ten o'clock this morning my Mac was on the desk and waiting. I had not written a word. I was cradling a cool cup of tea, leaning against the kitchen counter. My mind was working overtime, skimming through a psychedelic collage of images and scenes and dialogue that changed perspective and narrative faster than I could blink. It's not that I didn't want to write the story, it was the fear of the journey.
A journey that will absorb me like a great movie does, except the experience may last days, months, sometimes years. Absorbed to worlds with characters larger than life and twice as real. So real the only way out will be to do their story justice. The needs of groceries, housework and personal relationships fade to black.
Leaning against the counter with my cool cup of tea is like waiting to be parachuted into Jurassic Park long after it was overrun by velociraptors.
Here's part of what transpired after I survived the landing. This is not the beginning, it is about chapter three. First draft caveats and all that, as it was written:
The apartment is open plan on the ground floor. A kitchen and living room. David Ford presides over a clear plastic kettle as it vibrates around a boiling [tumult]. He pours water into three cups, stirs and places them on a counter. He carries two of the cups into the living room, a barely discerned imbalance to his gait, his left leg.
He hands a cup to Daniel who is seated and wearing the dark grey suit he wore to his wedding. His only one. He cradles the cup in both hands and continues staring beyond a slender urn set on the coffee table. Angela had been adamant she never wanted to be buried. She never made her wishes formal, just joked about it. It was the thought of the mud and worms.
There is a brown leather sofa, covered in complementing cushions neatly patterned and aligned. On the floor beside the sofa is an identical pewter urn - Molly. Her father is upstairs. Nikolaj is packing the last of his daughter’s possessions. The sound of his footsteps above move between carpet and sanded floorboards.
What’re you going to do with them?
Daniel’s eyes shift across to his friend, back to the table. Find them, he says.
Bins considers this. The ashes. He clarifies.
The footsteps above break their pattern, approach and Nikolaj descends the stairs, a small suitcase in either hand. He aligns them side by side by the front door and takes his waiting cup from the kitchen counter. Steps around the table and sits amid the cushions on the sofa. He is wearing a grey shirt beneath a dark cardigan, dark jeans and shiny shoes. He is taller than Bins. Blue eyes and cultivated beard, dark hair swept to one side with his hand. A poetry in movement. He addresses Daniel. Is there nothing of hers you would like to keep?
Daniel shakes his head. She is your daughter.
She was part of your life. A statement. Nikolaj’s voice is accented amid smooth English. The two men are diametric. Daniel is two inches short of six foot, lean, not unattractive, not in the same league as the father of Angela’s child.
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