"It wasn’t until he was on a train, speeding away from Kirkcaldy, the rattle of the tracks beneath him, that he came back to reality, staring at Anouska with wide eyes and panic. She looked back at him, her eyes intent, afraid as much as he was. In her hand she clutched the black petal and felt the softness of it. The sensation covered her being, as if the petal was a great smothering blanket, enveloping her in its dark folds.
Where it had come from, there was no sunlight."
Remaining Word Count: 38,410
My first post for December comes after a bit of a struggle with the book. I had written a few thousand words prior to this post, but the story had gone off on a tangent and I'd decided that it wasn't going in the right direction, so I pulled on the reins and started again.
I'm feeling now that the story is continuing as it should, with more layers of mystery coming in. It's interesting, but in some of the words I'd written I felt I'd revealed too much of the story line, so chose a new path to keep the intrigue going. Well, I'm only on chapter five, after all, and I think the new way is much better, keeping things closer to my chest (and hopefully the reader) so as to reveal things more slowly, more subtlely.
You'll see from the snippet too that I've based the story in Scotland, starting in Kirkcaldy, Fife. It seemed logical to me to do that, as well as providing some local interest, it kind of ties the book to the charity event I'm writing for, which is based in Fife. However, I've since moved the book out of Fife (on a train journey) heading up towards Perthshire, to a town called Pitlochry. This is where the next 'act' of the book comes into play, with a convention of pagans attending the community hall there. Of course, this is no ordinary convention, as you will discover if you read the book!
As for the black petals, well, of course they're from the black tree of the title...but does the tree exist in our own reality?
Until next time. Thanks to EVERYONE for contributing to my Just Giving page and spurring me on to keep going with this task! I've got to get my skates on if I'm going to finish this in time...but that's approximately 50 pages or so written so far.
Please donate if you've not already done so - the link is opposite! Many, many thanks.
