The Story What I'm Writing

[LimeGreenLegend 4,275]

I've always loved writing, and have, in the past, made several attempts to write a book.  These all failed.  The ideas were good, but I just never kept at it.  Recently, however, I had an idea for a story and feel like this is the one.  I figure I'll post what I have here now, and the promise of posting further updates will keep me motivated to keep going.  Hopefully.

So here is my new, ongoing effort.  For now it's called The Pig, but that may change.

The Pig

“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.”

John Stuart Mill – Utilitarianism (1863)

1 - The Farm

     I can remember The Farm now. 

     The lowing of the traffic passing by in the background.  Closer, the monotonous drone of fluorescent lights.  The gentle lapping of water.  It all fades now, and I can remember.

     The Farm.

     Sometimes we would visit The Farm during the summer holidays.  Mum, Dad and me.  Sometimes.  Mum’s sister, Aunt Marie, lived in Little Toppingham with Uncle Steve and their two children, Michael and Lauren, my cousins.  I didn’t have any others.

     ‘It’s nice to get away to the country,’ Dad would always say during the drive down the motorway.  Sometimes he would sing ‘ooooooh baby do you know what you’re worth?  Ooooooh Devon is a place on Earth,’ like that song, and he would start to laugh, long and hard, and he would grip the steering wheel so tightly from laughing so hard that it would start to turn with the heaving of his shoulders.  The old Honda would start to cut to and fro across the lane in time with his laughter.

     This terrified Mum, and she would shout ‘Pete!  Stop it!’ and hit him on his shoulder with her tiny balled up fists, white from clenching so hard. 

     Seeing how scared she was would only make Dad saw the steering wheel back and forth even harder, deliberately now, still laughing, sometimes right in her face.  From the back seat I would watch the road ahead as it jerked left and right, trying to keep up with the steering wheel as it, too, was jerked left and right.  Dad’s knuckles rose out from the imitation leather wheel, as white now as Mum’s fists, which were still balled up but now nested together in her lap, rigid.  Then Dad would stop.  The demon in the steering wheel exorcised.  The road ahead now tame and meek, yielding before us.  Tears would be streaming down his ruddy cheeks, which would be puffing in and out like a fleshy bellows as he struggled to regain his composure. 

     ‘Come on,’ he would say between wheezing gasps.  ‘It’s just a laugh.’

 

     Little Toppingham is a small village snuggled up against the side of the Moor, with The Farm being a fifteen minute drive away, as Dad drove.  About twenty five minutes for anyone else.  It was hidden down a circuitous succession of treacherously narrow country roads.  The sound of the constant scraping of brambles and bracken and the tips of the lower hanging boughs of the trees, bowing to you on either side, surrounded you as you ventured deeper in to the dark heart of the Devonshire countryside.  But then, after no time at all, you come to a turning, almost hidden by centuries worth of hedgerow growth, and you’re there.

     I call it The Farm, but in reality that would be an insult to actual farms.  It’s bigger than a small-holding, but not by much.  A medium-holding.  But when I remember The Farm I am remembering myself as a child, and as such I see The Farm through the eyes of my childhood, and it is huge.  It was, and always will be, The Farm.  Coming in through the entrance you are immediately met by the squat limestone farmhouse, crumbling at every edge and topped with a tatty thatch. 

[pete_95973 4,383]

I have about 100 pages of a novel written.  I want to get back into it some day.  Even if I never made a dollar I enjoy the experience of writing and creating.  Motivation is the key.  Hope you keep going!

[Con 5,719]

Lime you and Pete are a fucking authors? I would love to read your material. Please send them to me. 

I aspire to sell a screenplay someday. I really want to co-write something with someone someday. 

[pete_95973 4,383]

2 minutes ago, Con said:

Lime you and Pete are a fucking authors? I would love to read your material. Please send them to me. 

I aspire to sell a screenplay someday. I really want to co-write something with someone someday. 

My novel was originally written as a screenplay but I changed it to a novel form when I realized the odds of selling a screenplay were about the same as winning the lottery.  Where as selling a novel is at least twice as good lol.

[Con 5,719]

2 hours ago, pete_95973 said:

My novel was originally written as a screenplay but I changed it to a novel form when I realized the odds of selling a screenplay were about the same as winning the lottery.  Where as selling a novel is at least twice as good lol.

Hell yeah it’s hard. Especially when you are an unknown author. Your first 10 pages better grab the script analyst by the bippy! Or you have no shot. 

[VALL_es1583070462 286]

Glad to know I'm not the only one who has written something. I started writing a novel some years ago (02/20/2013, that's when I started it), which was supposed to be divided in 3 parts. The first part has 100 pages more or less, and some people read it and told me it was pretty good and tried to encourage me to continue with the second part. The second part has 25 pages more or less, but I don't have the energy to keep writing that story. I don't care about the money, I started writing this just for fun.

[Spinnaker1981 974]

First of all, thank you @LimeGreenLegend I already like your writing from that small text. it flows naturally.

I have the makes of a Sci-fi novel in place, and most of the research done. I have the general layout and timeline, and the character characterization (that does not sound right). And I started to right the first chapter, but, as it turns out, my writing is awful and I have a hard time explaining what I want to explain.

Also, it is in Portuguese.

 

So, even though the story is there and the characters already have a place in my heart, nobody will ever meet them as I do, because the writer doesn´t know how to write...

[LimeGreenLegend 4,275]

@Spinnaker1981 thanks man.  Sounds like we should start a XDBX writers group to help each other.

If I spoke Portuguese I would offer to read it through  

[Spinnaker1981 974]

Yes. The layout of the story is around a little girl (main character) and the construction of earths first real spaceship. The idea came when I met a guy online (through another game) that was finishing his master in space aeronautics engineering. We talked a lot and the idea came to me, so I started the research, talked a lot with him and I have it all lined up, but my writing is not appealing, unfortunately. Research I can do. Ideas for the story are all in place, and what happens to every character. The plot is there and the story is solid. 

It leaves me sad to think about this.

when I started to write the first chapters and realized that I would hate to read my own book, I was heartbroken... 

[Con 5,719]

So I will ask yet again........CAN I READ STUFF YOU FOLKS HAVE WRITTEN? Dafuq is wrong with you all? the first step to becoming a writer is to let people read your stuff!!! I'm no literary agent. lol. You don't have to worry about me not liking your story and telling publishers to stay away. I need inspiration too. So share share share!