I have been working on something new - a magical realism set close to my home. I got the chance to get to a writing retreat last weekend and I got a good bit of the start of it completed - if you ever get the chance to go on one, do! Anyhow, this is the opening chapter: I'd love to get some feedback on it. I don't need a line edit, this will change a lot between now and publication, and will have a copy edit
Specifically for those who know my work
Too like the opening of Waters and the Wild? The story is very different. And if they are similar, would it be a problem, do you think?
And for those who don't
Can you get a clear (ish) picture of the setting. Describing is my bug-bear and these glens are never easy to capture, twisty little things that they are
Does the irish 'voice' engage you or put you off?
And, I guess, does it hook, do you like it, all that craic.
Jo x
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“A UK city beginning with L,” said Alexander Armstrong, seeking one of the three possible jackpot options.
Jim absently rubbed Snoops’ ears, in the spot where the collie liked. “Lisburn.” Snoops cocked his head, and Jim nodded sagely. “Always go for a Northern Ireland answer. They’re always pointless.”
The answers came up. Liverpool. Well, it was never going to be that. Lincoln. He wasn’t even sure that was a city. And London, with a giggled admission that the two contestants didn’t know any other cities starting with L. He watched the three rejected answers. The lowest was Lincoln – a city, he’d learned something new today and that showed he was still alive. Sure enough, there was Lisburn. Pointless. And Londonderry, if he’d had thought of it. Alexander Armstrong wished everyone goodbye, as he always did, following the formula: the same things said, in the same order. Already Snoops was getting up, trying to herd Jim as he would any sheep.
“All right,” Jim said and through the hall into the kitchen. From the wooden coat shelf by the back door he lifted down his coat and pulled it on, ignoring the dog as he turned in a circle. Silly antics that Snoops should have grown out of and showed no signs of doing. Jim thrust his cap on, grabbed the blackthorn stick that he’d to increasingly use, and opened the backdoor. “Come on, then.”
Scoops ran to the gate which led from Jim’s driveway, connected to the village at the other end, into the glen behind the house. He reached the gate in eight steps he could do in his sleep and lifted the latch, letting Snoops run ahead. There was no need to call the dog to his side; he knew the glen as well, if not better, than Jim himself.
Jim followed, strolling along the path which ran into, and then through the glen. A steep hill opposite, coated in autumn leaf-fall and curled-up ferns, hid the waterfall at its other side. The drumming sound was constant through the glen, and his own Glen House. It was the sound Jim both fell asleep and woke to.
Competing with the drumming, a river ran fast to his right before forking to go around the house. A low run of stones forded the start of the fork, giving the village – such as it was, blink and you’d miss it for sure – its name. Jim stayed on the path, leaving the hill to Snoops who ran up, seeking who knew what, a constant movement through the bracken and ferns. A wooden bridge, spanning the river just before the pool at the foot of the waterfall, offered an alternative to the ford with its slippery rocks, and Jim chose this, taking his time; even on the boards, he had to be careful with his footing.
He paused on the bridge, waiting for Snoops to make his way to him, the nightly walk just as familiar, as much as a ritual, as anything Alexander Armstrong could say. From here, having rounded the hill, the lower waterfall dominated the scene. It crashed into the pool, the foam visible in the falling evening. In another half hour it would be dark, where a month ago it had still been light. He hated the shortening lights, hated doing this walk in the dark but hated even more to admit that. Once or twice, though, over the autumn, he’d followed the path in the other direction, into the village, not quite facing Snoops’ betrayed look back.
Today, though, the light was just enough to see where his footing was and he decided to climb a little further up, following a set of wooden steps which hugged the cliff face framing the waterfall. Spray hit his face as he passed closer to the fall, reminding him why he did this walk even with the need for a stick and careful steps. It wasn’t just for Snoops; something inside him came alive with the sound of the waterfall and the chill spray misting his face.
He climbed past the first pool. No swimmers tonight, although they were mad eejits who’d turn up at night and in the middle of winter when the water was pure Baltic. Jim liked the pool as much as the next man, he’d spent most of his summers as a lad in and out of it, but this new fashion for swimming all the time, outdoors, and talking about endorphins and whatnot made no sense. The swimmers filled up the little carpark at the other entrance to the glen and, half the time – although he hadn’t had the heart yet to tell them – the girls getting changed weren’t able to hide themselves as well as they thought they did. He’d yet to decide if that was good or bad for tourism – for sure, as a lad, he’d have seen it as a bonus.
He climbed doggedly. Snoops ran past him on the steps and was out of sight in moments, only the occasional swish-swish in the bracken, as the dog explored from right to left, showing where he was.
The night was coming on rightly now, and Jim turned to go back down, giving a sharp whistle that should have brought Snoops to him, but the dog didn’t come. Beside Jim, the second pool was empty, only the drum of the waterfall breaking the night. On the road above, at the top of another flight of steps, the odd crunch of a car’s wheels could be heard.
“Snoops!” he called, not liking the quaver in his voice but since the accident – referred to only as the collision by the police, as if there was any doubt about whose fault it was – he was acutely aware that if he fell no one would know except Snoops. Some nights it was a comfort to think about it but… if he was gone, who’d fight for his Joan? Or Lauren? Or the babies that weren’t even recognised as people, who were just dead pieces of meat inside his daughter’s body, three weeks off birth?
The thoughts brought bitter bile with them and he wanted only to get back to Glen House and slam the door. Keep everyone and everything out. Damn the dog. It wasn’t like him, and that made Jim climb again, afraid, with a piercing cold, that the dog had been hurt. Without Snoops there’d be nothing except Pointless and dinners from the village until people decided Jim was coping all right and he became just the subject of whispered conversations about the ‘poor old man, his wife and daughter, and then the dog, too.’ Avoided, as if he’d spread bad luck, like a Jonah.
Suddenly, Snoops let out a bark, loud and sharp in the darkness. Not a yip, not in pain, but a good solid, and alive, ‘I’ve found something’ bark. Jim didn’t care about the steps, or the chance his stick might slip, or the night, just that Snoops was okay. He followed a second bark to where the dog stood, near the top of the steps, the white flash on his tail wagging to and fro showing Jim.
“What is it?” Jim asked. He took a step forward, but a sound stopped him. A small sound, a stunted babble. Maybe a fox cub, abandoned? But Snoops would have gone for it, Jim knew; he’d seen more than one off before.
Jim stepped past the dog and stooped down, pushing the long grass and brambles back and there, in the glen, under a tangled bower of ivy, lay a baby, wrapped in a single white sheet, its hands balled up in fury.
Specifically for those who know my work
Too like the opening of Waters and the Wild? The story is very different. And if they are similar, would it be a problem, do you think?
And for those who don't
Can you get a clear (ish) picture of the setting. Describing is my bug-bear and these glens are never easy to capture, twisty little things that they are
Does the irish 'voice' engage you or put you off?
And, I guess, does it hook, do you like it, all that craic.
Jo x-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“A UK city beginning with L,” said Alexander Armstrong, seeking one of the three possible jackpot options.
Jim absently rubbed Snoops’ ears, in the spot where the collie liked. “Lisburn.” Snoops cocked his head, and Jim nodded sagely. “Always go for a Northern Ireland answer. They’re always pointless.”
The answers came up. Liverpool. Well, it was never going to be that. Lincoln. He wasn’t even sure that was a city. And London, with a giggled admission that the two contestants didn’t know any other cities starting with L. He watched the three rejected answers. The lowest was Lincoln – a city, he’d learned something new today and that showed he was still alive. Sure enough, there was Lisburn. Pointless. And Londonderry, if he’d had thought of it. Alexander Armstrong wished everyone goodbye, as he always did, following the formula: the same things said, in the same order. Already Snoops was getting up, trying to herd Jim as he would any sheep.
“All right,” Jim said and through the hall into the kitchen. From the wooden coat shelf by the back door he lifted down his coat and pulled it on, ignoring the dog as he turned in a circle. Silly antics that Snoops should have grown out of and showed no signs of doing. Jim thrust his cap on, grabbed the blackthorn stick that he’d to increasingly use, and opened the backdoor. “Come on, then.”
Scoops ran to the gate which led from Jim’s driveway, connected to the village at the other end, into the glen behind the house. He reached the gate in eight steps he could do in his sleep and lifted the latch, letting Snoops run ahead. There was no need to call the dog to his side; he knew the glen as well, if not better, than Jim himself.
Jim followed, strolling along the path which ran into, and then through the glen. A steep hill opposite, coated in autumn leaf-fall and curled-up ferns, hid the waterfall at its other side. The drumming sound was constant through the glen, and his own Glen House. It was the sound Jim both fell asleep and woke to.
Competing with the drumming, a river ran fast to his right before forking to go around the house. A low run of stones forded the start of the fork, giving the village – such as it was, blink and you’d miss it for sure – its name. Jim stayed on the path, leaving the hill to Snoops who ran up, seeking who knew what, a constant movement through the bracken and ferns. A wooden bridge, spanning the river just before the pool at the foot of the waterfall, offered an alternative to the ford with its slippery rocks, and Jim chose this, taking his time; even on the boards, he had to be careful with his footing.
He paused on the bridge, waiting for Snoops to make his way to him, the nightly walk just as familiar, as much as a ritual, as anything Alexander Armstrong could say. From here, having rounded the hill, the lower waterfall dominated the scene. It crashed into the pool, the foam visible in the falling evening. In another half hour it would be dark, where a month ago it had still been light. He hated the shortening lights, hated doing this walk in the dark but hated even more to admit that. Once or twice, though, over the autumn, he’d followed the path in the other direction, into the village, not quite facing Snoops’ betrayed look back.
Today, though, the light was just enough to see where his footing was and he decided to climb a little further up, following a set of wooden steps which hugged the cliff face framing the waterfall. Spray hit his face as he passed closer to the fall, reminding him why he did this walk even with the need for a stick and careful steps. It wasn’t just for Snoops; something inside him came alive with the sound of the waterfall and the chill spray misting his face.
He climbed past the first pool. No swimmers tonight, although they were mad eejits who’d turn up at night and in the middle of winter when the water was pure Baltic. Jim liked the pool as much as the next man, he’d spent most of his summers as a lad in and out of it, but this new fashion for swimming all the time, outdoors, and talking about endorphins and whatnot made no sense. The swimmers filled up the little carpark at the other entrance to the glen and, half the time – although he hadn’t had the heart yet to tell them – the girls getting changed weren’t able to hide themselves as well as they thought they did. He’d yet to decide if that was good or bad for tourism – for sure, as a lad, he’d have seen it as a bonus.
He climbed doggedly. Snoops ran past him on the steps and was out of sight in moments, only the occasional swish-swish in the bracken, as the dog explored from right to left, showing where he was.
The night was coming on rightly now, and Jim turned to go back down, giving a sharp whistle that should have brought Snoops to him, but the dog didn’t come. Beside Jim, the second pool was empty, only the drum of the waterfall breaking the night. On the road above, at the top of another flight of steps, the odd crunch of a car’s wheels could be heard.
“Snoops!” he called, not liking the quaver in his voice but since the accident – referred to only as the collision by the police, as if there was any doubt about whose fault it was – he was acutely aware that if he fell no one would know except Snoops. Some nights it was a comfort to think about it but… if he was gone, who’d fight for his Joan? Or Lauren? Or the babies that weren’t even recognised as people, who were just dead pieces of meat inside his daughter’s body, three weeks off birth?
The thoughts brought bitter bile with them and he wanted only to get back to Glen House and slam the door. Keep everyone and everything out. Damn the dog. It wasn’t like him, and that made Jim climb again, afraid, with a piercing cold, that the dog had been hurt. Without Snoops there’d be nothing except Pointless and dinners from the village until people decided Jim was coping all right and he became just the subject of whispered conversations about the ‘poor old man, his wife and daughter, and then the dog, too.’ Avoided, as if he’d spread bad luck, like a Jonah.
Suddenly, Snoops let out a bark, loud and sharp in the darkness. Not a yip, not in pain, but a good solid, and alive, ‘I’ve found something’ bark. Jim didn’t care about the steps, or the chance his stick might slip, or the night, just that Snoops was okay. He followed a second bark to where the dog stood, near the top of the steps, the white flash on his tail wagging to and fro showing Jim.
“What is it?” Jim asked. He took a step forward, but a sound stopped him. A small sound, a stunted babble. Maybe a fox cub, abandoned? But Snoops would have gone for it, Jim knew; he’d seen more than one off before.
Jim stepped past the dog and stooped down, pushing the long grass and brambles back and there, in the glen, under a tangled bower of ivy, lay a baby, wrapped in a single white sheet, its hands balled up in fury.
