Friday 14 August 2009

Preface gets the punctuation treatment - probably a good idea

Editing is like polishing: you can see it needs doing, but put it off because it means you have to pick things up and put them down where they really ought to be. Polishing is never my favourite thing but I'm always pleased by the results when I get around to doing it.

PREFACE

The pain from shredded skin, ripped on the thorns and brambles in my path, drained what was left of my strength. Gasping and shaking, I scrambled to higher ground at the top of the mound. I dragged shallow breaths into my aching, ice-scorched lungs. Time, like my energy, was running out and I still hadn't delivered the warning.

I’d come back home to enjoy hanging out with my friends. Instead I’d spent time researching a little known sub-culture and walking, make that running, into danger. Before being ripped apart and dying, if I was lucky, it could be that I had just enough time left to invent a time machine, perhaps he really wasn’t worth all this?

I imagined myself in quieter, safer, alternate realities. In my head I agonised over the question but in my heart I found the answer: the excitement of knowing, and being loved by him. I loved him. He made even this seem like the right place to be. I smiled, and even though he wasn’t there with me, I reached out my hand as if we could really touch.

Time machines are over-rated; I’d stand by my choices.

I took a deep breath and screamed.

I cannot make that description at the start anything but clumsy - you shouldn't wake with that as your first thought of the day... oh, that's just me! I sense a little work still needed - it still goes out to the girls on Monday - argh!


THE SATURDAY MORNING VERSION:

Dark, clawing brambles shredded my skin. Gasping and shaking, I scrambled to higher ground at the top of the mound. I dragged shallow breaths into my aching, ice-scorched lungs. Time, like my energy, was running out and I still hadn't delivered the warning.

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