Boast post....

Well I can now explain why I haven't been posting as regularly as before.  I have decided to enter another challenge and I am half way through.  I am a little behind in meeting the deadline, but I think that I am close enough to maybe make it.

If you haven't guessed by my recent posts, I have entered the National Novel Writing Month Challenge - which is essentially - write a novel of 50,000 words in 30 days. I am at 26,134 words. My only problem is that I don't know how to end it.  I need some help.  I am going to post the gist of the story and some excerpts.  Please post your comments - positive and/or negative and if you have an idea of how I should end it, please let me know.

I tentatively call the novel "Woven"  just as a focus. It is about a woman who is in therapy because of some recent trauma in her life and her therapist suggests that she keep a journal and write about the happier times in her life or even negative times, with a view to understanding and resolving them.  The book has two narrators, the woman and her therapist. The woman's name is Penny after the Greek mythological character, Penelope, the sister of Helen of Troy.  Penelope's husband has gone off to war and she is waiting for him to return.  It has been almost ten years and many think that she should remarry.  She agrees to once she finishes a funeral shroud for her father-in-law.  She weaves the shroud during the day and rips it out at night, so that it is never finished.

Woven has overtones of pressure to complete something and a hint that things are being unravelled.  Here is an excerpt.

"Well, I had come to England to travel so I decided that I should just set about to get some travelling done.  I flipped through the classified notices in The Times and one caught my eye.  It was a trip to Istanbul in a mini van for three weeks.  What really appealed to me was the price – just 30 pounds sterling, everything included.  I rang them up and there was still space.  I could bring the cash with me when I arrived to join the group, which would be leaving in three days.

The timing was perfect.  I had just enough time to get a few things, like a backpack and walking shoes and not enough time to get cold feet. I decided to ignore my fears.  I refused to think what if this...or what about that.....  I told Grace, the night before I was to leave that I would be gone for a few weeks.  I didn't want her to talk me out of it. 

So now it was Wednesday morning and I had butterflies in my stomach. I had packed the night before. I doubled checked that I had my passport, my 30 pounds in cash and about that much again in traveller's cheques, in case I needed it. Yes, I had everything. I walked to the front door, opened it and headed to the Underground station.

Although the ad In the Times had given the London location code of SW1. When I consulted my A to Z of London I realized that the street address was no where near the very respectable addresses in SW1.  In fact by accident or by design the notice had omitted a extra “1” The location was actually SW11.  Ladbrooke Grove – a rather seedy area of London, as I was about to find out.

My spirits dropped the closer I got to the address I was given. Buildings went from freshly painted to never painted in just a  few blocks. Litter increased noticeably. Rubber tires rested against broken fences;  rubbish bins spilled their ugly contents everywhere and dogs whined.  What had I done? How could anyone run a respectable business in these conditions.  I was almost ready to turn back when I saw the van just a block away. A small group of people were milling about, my fellow travellers, I thought. They looked like young adventurers, not deadbeats.  I walked towards them, relieved."

All comments welcome!!

Have an amazing day