I've decided I'm going to write a novel.
It's been on my mind for a while, but I've always been put off by the sheer scale of the thing, and only ever had the balls to do a couple of short stories. A while back, I did some reading about how writers actually work and came to the conclusion that it wouldn't be in the slightest bit shameful if I just started and took my time, rather than worrying too much about the end result or when I was gonna finish the fucker. So I've just kind of started - very intermittently - sketching some ideas down.
I've been encouraged and interested in the experience I've had while writing my electronic museum blog - firstly, that you actually get better at writing the more you do of it. It sounds obvious, but for some reason I'm still kind of excited by that fact. Second, the actual act of writing is really, really satisfying...
See? I'm even starting to sound like a novelist :-)
Anyway. Here's a [insert disclaimer] snippet:
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Here's something else.
A long, grey beach. The tide is ferocious, waves incoming fast and the kind of swell you only get when landfall is thousands of miles away. Onshore the sound is formidable, each wave-crash literally that, a huge explosion of sound followed by an almost animal sucking as the rocks are dragged back seaward.
A boy is in the water. He's 12, thin, awkward, and too far out. He has a surfboard of sorts, polystyrene and pitted with holes. He has drifted northwards and is close to the rocks but still sits and waits for the waves he knows will come.
It starts to rain and he is strangely comforted by the warmth and the normality of the sound of water on water. He laughs out loud at the thought of the sea filling up and wonders where it would overflow to if it did.
A minute later and he's standing on his board, cresting a wave which stretches as far as he can see. He pushes to his right and shifts his weight to lift the board, sliding inexorably down the whiteness but fighting it as he gets near shore.
The sound is deafening and he shouts with the sheer power and joy and oneness of the moment, flying - the closest I can get to flying - and then suddenly it all goes hugely and incredibly soundless and I'm underwater but not fighting; breathing through the water as if I have gills and beating down into the silent, slow moving water below, the sediment spiralling around me, the only sound now the high crunch of miniscule sand grains and my breathing, always my breathing.