So, I'm well into my second year of uni now, and everything seems to be going pretty smoothly. I mean, my attendance is still shit, but I doubt that's ever gonna change to be honest. I've made some pretty good headway on novel number 2, the one I started for NanoWriMo, and have written and planned a fair bit. It's not my best writing as yet, but it's certainly getting there. Here, have an excerpt;

A shiver jumped through Caleb's frail body; the house was freezing, windows were shattered in almost every room, remnants of the lives squatters lived here before, littering the floors. The night was more than cold; it was like someone had thrown a bucket of ice water down on the entire of the English countryside. The wind howled around the building, whistling through the many holes in the bricks – sending chills through the entire building. The grounds were frozen – the grass, once damp with dew, was now stiff with the cold and greying in colour. At the back of the house a muddied lake lays forgotten, untended with weeds growing over every feature. Frogs once would have called to their mates and cried for their offspring – tadpoles and spawn filling each corner. That wildlife would have long since left the pond, probably just dying outright, or perhaps simply finding a better climate for the winter.

As the rain battered through the window frames, the young boy huddled himself into a corner, gathering his jacket around him. He’d picked a thick coat, fortunately, and wasn’t exactly freezing in his little nook – but still, nothing could beat central heating and a nice warm duvet to cuddle up in. As he sat there, in the dark, ancient house, he contemplated how he had arrived at such a situation. He had been told, exactly how the predicament, situation, problem, arose, but still he couldn't make sense of it. How could he have just forgotten all that had happened for years? He had no recollection of certain times, days and moments of his life – like time-jumps, or slips, had just passed him by. It made no sense. His mind wandered, weaving through his memories – the real and the imaginary – absently passing over the many glitches, and imperfections. His eyes finally slipped shut around four am the following morning, his tiredness taking over the raging battle in his head, calling a ceasefire.

Those are the two opening paragraphs. They generally set the tone for the entire novel; the protagonist is pretty much gonna feel like that through the whole thing, except for the parts where we look back at his history, and memories. This is the second of two novels I'm writing, the former of which is hopefully gonna be a trilogy, but I guess it all depends on how I manage to plan it all out. It's more difficult than I thought to get your head around everything that goes into a novel - how does this timeline fit into theirs? How did that character know that particular piece of information? When did they do this, that, or the other? You get the idea.
For Creative Writing I have to submit a Final Portfolio. This can be any of the following combinations: 10 poems, 5 poems and a 1500 word short story, two 1500 word short stories, or a 3000 word novel extract. I'm not sure yet, but I'm probably gonna go for either of the two latter options. I've already got 4500 words of one novel written, so I could use that, right?

Today's one line;

'One day I'll learn to fly, and then I'll be just a memory.'