FYI

This blog was created as a platform for my Android apps, namely NTW Text Editor and Pendulum Chaos so far. But I admit I neglect it and often digress, a lot :'(

Nevertheless, if you are interested in this sort of things, you can glean some conceptual insights into how NTW was conceived in my earliest posts

Monday 23 April 2012

This is by no means a serious attempt at writing a story. I've had it in my head for years and years, and have taken tons of notes on it. But I can never seriously sit down to write even a rough draft of it, because my own criticism going on inside my head kills it after a few paragraphs. On the other hand, I can usually write pages and pages of blog/forum/fb posts with no problem. So I'm gonna give the informal approach a go here and hope something comes out of this.


Prologue






Chapter 1.1

It was a dark and windy night. The wind came howling gently from the north, cold and biting, bringing with it the faint scent of lichen flowers from the green peaks of the Luding Mountains.

The river running beside the inn was quite deep but no more than three meters across. The innkeeper was an enterprising fellow and he would suspend small crates of beer into the chillingly cold river water. He was not supposed to do that of course, the river was the main source of water for the entire city of Tradmart and there were regulations against polluting it. But his customers paid more for chilled beer than warm mead, and this more than made up for the occasional bribes when officials came checking.

It was slow business that night. Most people including all his staff had gone home early for their spring reunion dinner. There was just him, his wife, and two regulars in the inn. One was a doctor from the north sector, the other was a police constable who had just dropped by for an unofficial break while doing his rounds. Both were finishing up already
He was cleaning the common room for the night while his wife was doing the kitchen. The doctor was leaving and ordered a beer to drink on his way back, so his wife leaned adroitly over the window to pulled up a crate from the river.

And then he heard her short sharp scream.

No, not rats, lizards, or cockroaches, Delana had nerves of iron and was not frightened by such common sights. Could she have injured herself somehow? He felt his heart skip a beat and then a rush of vigor flow through him as he dropped his mop and ran towards the kitchen.

From the corridor, he saw Delana standing facing the window, her back heaving hard with huge breaths.  Whatever happened, it had got her really terrified.

"There, there, what's the matter, Delana?" Reaching out, he touched her shoulder gently and said as soothingly as he could. She said nothing, just turned to hug him and pointed at the ground. He looked down. And his breath stopped.

It was a baby. Human apparently, judging from his features, but his skin was an unhealthy shade of gray-blue and still dripping wet from the cold river water. He lay there quite neatly, as though just sleeping, in a crate of beer. The innkeeper gasped and felt sickened as though kicked in the gut. He could see no sign of life in the child.

"What's the matter? You need any help?" Both the doctor and the police had entered the kitchen as well. They had not seen the baby yet.




5 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Haha, essentially, he "saves" the world.
      Yes I know very lame ^_^'

      But his backstory as well as that of the other major characters is pretty convoluted, and (I hope) zen-ish enough.

      Delete
    2. Haha, essentially, he "saves" the world.
      Yes I know very lame ^_^'

      But his backstory as well as that of the other major characters is pretty convoluted, and (I hope) zen-ish enough.

      Delete
    3. Problem is when you are writing a story yourself, everything seems inadequately planned or unnecessarily complicated, or too obvious, or trying to be to obscure, etc etc.

      Delete
  2. What's lame with saving the world? Most stories are variations of this archetype, and it's always been a good read for the soul! What's different is the journey though..and I am curious to read more!

    Hehe..Don't overthink loh..Just let it flow and you can come back and edit it later. Sometimes, things just show up and click as you flow along. ^^

    ReplyDelete