Oh but its hard being a part-time writer. The day job can be a source of terrible frustration as it never leaves time in the day to get on and do what I actually want to. This afternoon though I have been back at my desk typing away at The Last Titan. Yey!
2036 words drafted today involving Sapphira, an ancient Olympian goddess and and lots of TV sets!
I am enjoying myself.
A quick sample:
SPOILER ALERT -
THIS IS A DRAFT FROM BOOK 4 OF THE FORGOTTEN WINGS SERIES
The Fermi residence was a quite magnificent affair, a grand
glass mansion overlooking the sea on one side and a more traditional brick
construction on the other. It was classy
and tasteful I thought as we swung through the gates which opened to let us
through, and up the tree lined drive to the main entrance.
“A very good day to you Madame,”
said Scolari as we exited the car. I looked at him and frowned. He was the same
man who had appeared on the video chat earlier Or at least, it was the same
body. As he led us into the house I turned to Margaret and Michael and run my
hand across my throat. “He’s already dead,” I mouthed to them. I wasn’t even
sure how I could tell that. Maybe it was the absence of any kind or aura (I
could after all still normally see something with my ‘short’ Sight) or maybe it was some other more
subtle cue. It didn’t matter; I just knew. There was no soul in the creature in
front of us. It was dead. As far as one could practically define it, it was a
zombie.
Scolari stopped suddenly and faced
me. “You know don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well it doesn’t matter, does it
Sweetie? I’m in the house so just carry on following this one.” The figure
started forward again. “I didn’t expect you to appear so human. And pregnant?
Surely you can do better than that?”
We walked down a corridor and into
an atrium with a glass lift. Atomic willed Scolari’s body to take us up to
floors and walked us along another length of a landing until we got to a room
of noise and shadows. The last zombie I had seen was a pitiful, broken thing
that walked with an unnatural gait and moved with almost robot jerks as
Kennefick the sorcerer controlled him. This one moved with a fluidity and grace
that may even have surpassed what the man had managed when he was actually
alive.
The noise I was hearing was a
jumble of voices, music, street sounds, some sporadic gunfire, passionate
lovemaking … it was a cacophony of different events in at least four different languages.
It was chaos. Bedlam.
It was eight or nine large TV
screens tuned to different channels, each one blaring out at top volume. Atomic
had her back to us as we entered the room. Over her shoulder was a boxing match
in German whilst the news played out in Cantonese. There was a Hollywood sci-fi
movie in one corner whilst something quite pornographic was happening on the
lower right. Elsewhere a war was being fought and cheerleaders were pom-pomming
for the Broncos. Meanwhile, in Deli …
“Is it not fantastic?” the goddess
purred. All these stories, all these happenings. And it’s just travelling through the air. Through
the air! The mortals have finally done something to impress me.
I managed to focus on what she
said but it wasn’t easy.
“Atomic,” I said, “I come with
greetings. I would like to speak with you.”
“Pull up a chair, Sweetie. Let’s
just enjoy all this for a while.”
I swallowed my impatience and Margaret pulled up
a chair for me to sit on. The Chinese
news programme clicked over to one in Spanish from Panama. To my left was a
cage holding a naked woman. She looked at me with wide eyes and mouthed “Help
me.”
