Followers

Wednesday 8 January 2014

New beginnings: The first few hundred words

This months' writing challenge at  http://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com.au
is about new beginnings.   I love them.  I love starting something new and I have discovered over the years that I am very good at starting new things -  it is the completion, the seeing it through, that I find a challenge.   I have had some association with Christian Romance writers.  Perhaps to really get something new going, I should try my hand at the genre and see if it fits.  So here is a beginning of perhaps a new story for my contribution to this month's challenge.

Shelby Cole hurtled toward her future at six hundred and fifty two miles an hour.  
From thirty thousand feet she hoped the view of the unknown would be clearer, but all she could see before her was the shaking back of the seat in front.

She turned to the leather bound book in her lap and scanned the dense page reading familiar words which at this moment took on a whole new meaning.  ‘In the beginning was the Word…’   
It became her new chapter, her unwritten page, waiting, anticipating, lying open to receive …

The shudder of deceleration woke her a few hours later and she peered through the clouds to watch the new world rise up to meet her with an offering of lush vegetation. The tall palm trees also waved their welcome.  

As she claimed her luggage from the carousel, she scanned the crowd for a familiar face.  
Someone shoved a pig under her nose and spoke through red and broken teeth in a staccato pidgin; another pushed a basket of a hairy yellow tubes at her.    The fragrance rising from the swirling crowd was a greasy mix of coconut and body odour.  Shelby delighted in it.  She let it reach her expanding heart, knowing this was the new beginning she had chosen.   

Oh, and here he came now, the one who had chosen her.  
‘Bradley’, she croaked through her sudden thirst.  He waved from above the crowd and arrived with a bunch of fresh tropical flowers.   
‘This way’.  He said taking her hand.  


Shelby Cole’s future struck her with a blast of humid air as she stepped from the terminal.  It sucked at her lungs, toyed with the moisture from her body and then abandoned it to remain on her skin where it turned to glue.  It plastered her hair to her cheek and adhered her blouse to her back and arms. . . 

Would you like the challenge of continuing this story or should we leave Shelby at the hot and sticky entrance to her new life?   New beginnings are like that too,  unwritten.