Tuesday 22 March 2011

First Draft


Last night I completed my first draft of the Occultus. I still haven’t quite processed that information yet. Maybe it’s because I’m in shock and denial as I’ve really enjoyed writing this novel or maybe it’s because I know I’m not finished yet. Now comes the really hard part – editing. Now I have to read through it all, pick up on the parts that don’t work and fix them.

So final word count of my first draft, a few words over 70,000.

In my next update, I thought it would be interesting to explore writing techniques that I’ve seen used and have used myself. In the meantime though, I promised to post a snippet. So here we go:

------

Breaking into a hospital is easy enough – just spin the right tale for the nurses and they’ll leave you alone. Of course, ‘my grandma is dying and I just want to say goodbye’ doesn’t work quite as well for breaking into the more secure parts or for getting you past the on duty policemen. But then, that was why Serena had asked me to accompany her hapless hunter. Things like pesky security cameras were no problem for a demon of my class – though it would have to be a really pathetic demon that couldn’t handle a security camera or two. The police guards were a different story.

“Can’t you possess one of them or something?” the kid asked and I cocked my eyebrow at him before peering around the corner again at the two overweight men.

“Why would I want to?” I liked my body. It took some serious string pulling to get it and I wasn’t about to exchange it for inferior packaging – not even temporarily. “I could kill them though. That would get them out the way.”

He stiffened beside me, his hand automatically moving to the knife behind his back even though he knew it would do no good. “Not an option.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re my moral compass – here to keep me on the straight and narrow. It would have been easier if Serena had made me come alone.” It was exactly why she hadn’t let me.

I watched the men as they stood in silence, no doubt wishing they were back home rather than standing outside of a loony’s room, guarding her and keeping her from escaping.

“Wait here,” I whispered, already moving around the corner to stroll toward the men. I heard him shuffle behind me, torn between stopping me from hurting the men and staying hidden and out of trouble. He did as he was told though. Good boy.

“Excuse me,” officer number one called out, eyes locked on me. Both men were rigid, their postures suggesting that they were ready to manhandle me if I got too close. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Well, I shouldn’t be in a lot of places that I tend to go but he didn’t know that. I offered a sheepish smile and watched as the man’s shoes went up in flames. Anyone watching carefully enough might have seen the slight flick of my hand. Anyone watching from the security camera at the end of the hall would have been stuck watching snow and for anyone else, they would have probably been too busy watching the officer dance around frantically in an attempt to put the flames out.

“I saw an extinguisher near the lift if you need it,” I said, hitching my thumb over my shoulder. Ever the Good Samaritan. Truth be told, I lied. There probably was one lying around somewhere but if there was, I hadn’t seen it. Still, it got both men away from the doorway as they forgot about my presence and focused solely on putting the fire out. After all, the girl was locked up and what was I going to do?

As they had hurried passed, I’d lifted the keys from the least flammable of the pair and was already working at the lock when Danny-boy came up behind me.

“What did you go and do that for?” he demanded, his black and white view of right and wrong coming through clearly in his words. It wasn’t like I’d killed either of them, simply distracted them but he just couldn’t get passed the possibility of first degree burns.

The door to the room swinging open, I turned to look at him with a grin, about to tell him to stop overreacting but my words died as Miss Blondie slammed into me. Her words were so loud that they nearly drowned out my thoughts.

“DEMON!”

I barely caught sight of the broken metal in her hand as she attempted to drive it into my chest. My hand grabbed her wrist just in time to stop her but other than that, I wasn’t having much luck at subduing her. She was a hell of a lot stronger than she looked but then maybe that had something to do with the crazed look in her eyes.

Daniel slipped behind her, gripping her arms and pulling her back and away from me. She continued to buck and thrash, fighting to get back to me. She was frenzied and out of control. Jesus, maybe she really was a nutter and if that was the case – just why were we wasting time rescuing her?

“Let me go!” she cried but Daniel held her all the tighter. “He’s a demon!”

“Well I’m not about to deny the truth.” I shrugged, playing cool even though I felt a little disoriented by the sudden attack. A quick glance around the room told me her weapon had probably been broken off from the misshapen thing pretending to be a bed. They should have just given her a mattress or a bunch of pillows – people didn’t try attacking demons with them.

“We’re here to help you,” Daniel tried to soothe her and I saw something familiar in his eyes, something I had seen in Serena’s before. It was something that I couldn’t quite comprehend but whatever it was, it was the very thing that had the psycho blonde calming – if only a little.

“Help? From a demon? I’d rather stay here.” She stopped bucking, her hand loosening on the metal but not enough to let it fall from her grasp. “Why should I trust either of you?”

“I didn’t say you had to trust us.” He was smart for a kid, I’d give him that. “And him, I don’t even trust him but I trust the one that sent us here.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence there, Danny-boy. Now how about we ship out of here before the men in uniforms return – we can have this whole trust talk whilst we’re outside. We can even do those fall and catch things if you want.”

“Who sent you?” the girl demanded. Her blonde curls fell to cover her face but I could see her eyes clearly through the strands. They were strong and passionate in the same way Danny-boy’s were soft and clumsy.

“Someone who’s not a demon.” He didn’t bother to say it had been an angel. She wouldn’t have believed him anyway. “She believes you’re in danger if you stay here.”

I took a step out into the hallway, ready to get going. The lights flickered for a moment and I looked down toward the exit. The guards were on their way back, only something wasn’t right. The air smelt wrong, thick and choking. “Damn it. You two better move it out of there unless you want to be deep fried demon food. We need to find another way out.”

Fighting other demons wasn’t part of the deal. It was supposed to be in, slip past security, and then out again. But now I knew security wasn’t the real reason Serena had wanted me along. She had wanted fire power to back up her little hunter.

------

Thank you for dropping by!!

Thursday 10 March 2011

What is normal?

"Nobody realises that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."
-- Al Camus

I was reading through quotes last night and I found that one above. I thought it was fascinating and unbelievably true. It’s something I’ve always wondered about when watching other people. Looking at some of my friends, they all have their quirks, but they all (or most of them ;)) seem relatively normal and I know how much hard work it is for me to appear ‘normal’ at times so I often wonder if it’s the same for them. Do they make a conscious effort or does it just come naturally?

It’s just something that really makes you wonder.

Besides, what is ‘normal’ anyway?

Brief update for The Occultus:

I made it to 56k last night, finishing chapter 28. It’s going quite well at the moment and I’m really looking forward to seeing it complete. In my next update, I’ll post a small snippet or chapter, but in the meantime – back to figuring out these next couple of chapters.

Ciao for now!