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The edits for Grim Glass Vein are complete, my poor red pen is exhausted and almost out of ink and my head is spinning so much the remaining words are blurring. She (seems my novel is a girl) now stands at a little over 57,000 words. I guess it's time to let her stew before the final read through (or complete re-edit) and then let the hideous querying process begin.

Here be the beginning of the first chapter. Oh, and it's long, so feel free to skip.

She should have died.

Standing at the graveside, watching as daffodils tumbled down onto the walnut box, Sydney Hart realised they were burying the wrong sister. Her hand fluttered to her chest. She waited for the earth to recognise its mistake, for it to cave and swallow her. If it did, nobody would flinch. She suspected her parents, Florence and David, would extend a hand to the girl who climbed out in her place. After all, they'd told her countless times, they'd rather Naomi had survived the accident.

The wind tugged at the slices of fake grass laid around the grave edge. Sydney dug a half-bitten fingernail into her scar, tracing it from the corner of her lip to the tip of her left ear. It didn't hurt. It never hurt. The day before, a district nurse had removed the stitches—prettying her up for the funeral (the nurse's words)—but had left behind the urge to unpick them. Sydney stilled her fingers. Tendrils of breath slid from her lips, offering the world a gasp. At times, she felt insubstantial, a nothing. Proving she may no longer walk amongst them, her parents looked straight through her.

Dressed in starched black suits, her parents clung to each other at the edge of the open grave. Even though they swayed back and forth, there was stillness to them. Twin black ravens pecking at their souls until their shells were hollow. One slight nudge and they would tumble down. Beside them, Sydney's grandpa leaned on his walking stick, his head too heavy for his emaciated body to hold up. Grey trousers sagged around his knees. On impact, Naomi’s soul had rushed out of her dying body to gather up her family’s spirits and now they too lay at rest, almost buried. No wonder Sydney’s mouth tasted like soil and blood, she was swallowing dirt alongside them.

Sydney ran her hand under her dry eyes. She'd forgotten how to cry or feel. If she died, would Florence and David shed tears for her? Perhaps, her death would prove the proverbial lifting of weight and they'd shake off their grief.

Yes, she should have died, and Naomi should have lived.

She looked down at the shiny heels she'd stolen from Naomi's side of the wardrobe. No wonder she felt like a monster’s bride. Metal ripping through her cheek mid accident had proven less debilitating than the pointy-toe shoes her twin had favoured. Sydney pressed a finger into the ridge that had long ago settled between her eyebrows. Determined to squeeze by her eyeballs or out through her nostrils, her brain pressed against her skull.

Knock, knock, knock – is anybody out there, can anybody hear me. Yes, slice her open and let the grieving end.

Her sigh disturbed the air, catching the wings of a passing blackbird. Its feathers beat above the grave. For a moment, she thought it would plummet. Did you taste my soul? Do you know where I belong? Cry, damn you.

The bird squawked.

A man rested against his digger a respectable distance from the funeral party. His tobacco stained fingers twitched. Somehow, she knew he wanted to pull the packet of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, that he didn’t care his lungs were packing in beneath the weight of tar. Noting her stare, the gravedigger sniffed and turned around. Someone else watched them both. A few yards behind the man, a boy drew on a

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Let me introduce you to my NaNoWriMo project: THEATRE OF CURIOUS ACTS.

Oh, and by the way – I’m cheating.  The ‘Theatre of Curious Acts’ is a set of intertwined stories set over a century – three novellas and two short stories – all heading toward the same conclusion.  The basic premise is:

The Grim Reaper is a girl, her name is Olivia and her pale horse is a pirate ship.  When Daniel Cole, a shell-shocked WW1 soldier, is transported to the surreal otherworld where she resides, he ruins her and her sisters plans for the coming apocalypse.

So we have:

Part One: Shrapnel From a Broken Smile

A ghost story. It’s 2008, the once glorious ‘Theatre of Curious Acts’ is derelict and provides the perfect playground for a boy out to impress a girl.

Part Two: Paper Dragons

In 1918 a group of WW1 Soldiers head out to the Theatre of Curious Acts for a fabled ‘Paper Dragon’ show.  They are transported to a surreal otherworld where Daniel Cole and Swan Ecklund are beguiled by two sisters – Olivia and Blanche.

Part Three: (The man with) One Yellow Shoe

It is 1985 and Harvey Cadell (one of our soldiers from ‘Paper Dragons’) has returned to the theatre, which is now a cinema, to catch one last performance before he dies. And in the hope he will find a door back to that otherworld and some of his lost friends. Instead he meets The Collector of Memories and finds himself trapped in a movie.

Part Four: Monstrous Interlude

It’s 1955 and during the showing of a B-movie a monster escapes. It is up to ‘The Collector of Memories’ to put it back.

Part Five: Anticipating Pitchforks

Daniel Cole returns from the otherworld just in time for Armageddon. Oh, and he’s arrived on Olivia’s pirate ship and her sisters are following in their own transport: a zeppelin, a battleship and a train.

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