Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Cold Light of Day

The Dreaming Arm is attempting to publish its very first work of fiction – to be written by YOU the reader. It’s a simple idea, not a particularly new one and more of an experiment than anything else. The first paragraph is set out below. Anyone who would like to continue the story, please post your contribution in the comments section.

It was pissing down outside and the wind was howling like a wolf on heat. A cold wet miserable bastard of a night. Ideal weather for writing a novel, thought the budding young writer as she tapped merrily away on the keyboard. Then came total blackness. It was a powercut. She cursed herself for not having made a back-up disk of her novel. Three months work down the drain. Suddenly the power came back on. Almost at this precise moment the phone started ringing.

9 comments:

David Todd said...

'Hi'

'Jane'

'Hi Angie. I'm so glad you phoned'

'Never mind telling me that. Bob's back and there's a party tonight. And I've ordered a taxi and on the way we're going to pick you up'

Antonio from Italy said...

Ciaran, this comment of mine is not for the novel, but for asking you how comes that in the past three months the writer never had the idea of saving her work... I mean, I don't think she typed for three months in a row and never pressed 'Save' at least once... She should have done it for sure, she should have the last saved copy of the document. If not I'm glad she lost her work, that serves her well for not clicking on the disk icon at least once :-)

Lady Fotherington-Smethers said...

"Really, I didn't realise Bob was back" stammered Jane hoping her voice did not betray the depth of emotion she was feeling. Her heart raced - last time she had seen Bob he had been the tall dark stranger with the pink ipod and the tartan socks she had fallen in love with, the man who had aroused her to such a crescendo of passion that she had found it impossible to erase him from her memory ever since, she could still remember his flouresent yellow boxer shorts as they had fallen on the floor of the mud hut in Scotland where they had made love for the first time, it was a pity that sheep interrupted them at the most inconvenient moment.....

CW said...

Angie and Jane got into the taxi. The driver drove silently into the night before stopping at a set of lights. Suddenly he turned around to face the two girls. It was the maniacally grinning face of Bob...

David Todd said...

Jane had thought there was something vaguely familiar about Bob. The dungarees, the checked shirt and the hard hat sitting on the front passengers seat. But Bob driving a taxi?

CW said...

"There's been a downturn in the construction industry you see" explained Bob.
"Too much foreign competition and cheap labour to compete with. So I'm doing a bit of taxi driving on the side to make a bit of extra cash. So where's this party then?"

Mike said...

"The party's at Jade's," said Jane. The party was always at Jade's, never at Jane's, all the cool kids used to stick together with a magnetism that Jane never could quite emulate.

"Jade's house," Bob said the words in a sibilant whisper that sent a cold shiver up Jane's spine.

CW said...

Minutes later Bob pulled into Jade's driveway. The house appeared to be empty and no lights were on inside.
"Are you sure it's at Jade's?" Angie asked Jane impatiently.

CW said...

So they knocked on the front door and waited.