A Taste of the Swamp
Work’s been really slow lately.
That said, I’ve been working really hard. One of the things about a slow day at the office is that it allows for a lot of time to write, and I’ve been working on a story that is almost a complete departure from anything I’ve ever written in my life.
For one, it’s set in a world I know like I know my back yard, mostly, because it is in my back yard – the swamps and rivers of Southeast Georgia. For another, the protagonist is not a cynical, world-wise woman but a skinny bookworm of a twelve-year-old boy.
It’s a story that gave me a slight WTF moment when I started writing it simply because it is such a departure from my usual, but at the same time I feel the urge to find out how the story comes out like I’ve never felt before. Because I don’t know. These aren’t characters I’ve lived with for ages, these aren’t old friends who’ve always haunted my mind – these are people that sprung out of the ether in the middle of the night out of nowhere, and they’re taking me on a trip I didn’t really agree to go on.
I have to finish this story. It’s like a constant itch at the back of my mind that won’t let itself be ignored, something that I’ve experienced only rarely with a story. The thing about that itch, though? When it happens, and you pay attention to it, what it gives you is inevitably something wonderful.
I don’t want to talk about the plot or the characters, I don’t want to discuss the story at all until I get finished with this first draft, because I don’t want to soothe that itch in any way other than actually writing it out. I want the impetus to write this story to stay at the level it is now.
But I will give a little taste. The following scene is from somewhere fairly deep in the first chapter:
“Well, what’s yer name, boy?” the old man asked.
“Nate,” the boy said. “What were you running from the police for?”
“They figure I stole some food,” the old man said with a smile. “They figure right, but I was hungry, and it wouldn’t cause no harm to nobody. What’re you runnin’ from, since we’re askin’?”
Nate bit the inside of his cheek.
“There’s a man…” he said.
“Ahhh,” the old man said. “Ain’t there always? Well, that’s alright then. Sometimes you just got to run. M’name’s Jack.”
The boy looked back over his shoulder.
Don’t worry none, we’ll hear ‘em with plenty of time to get away,” the old man smiled. “They’re noisy, tell everything in the woods that they’re coming while they’re still miles away.”
Nate nodded and shrugged off his rucksack, leaning it against the stump.
“Are you a wizard?” Nate asked.
“Whazzat?” the old man asked. A pouch of chewing tobacco appeared in his hands from some pocket somewhere, and he tucked a bit of it into his bottom lip.
“In this book I like, there’s an old man who does magic. He’s a wizard.”
“I don’t know nothing about magic or wizards,” Jack shrugged.
“But I saw you!” Nate said. “I mean, at least I think I did. It was dark. But you turned into a bobcat!”
Jack chuckled. “Mebbe I did, Mebbe I didn’t, but I ain’t done no magic. If I could do magic, I’d magic me a mansion up on one of them hills with plenty of food in the fridge, and I wouldn’t never get rained on again. No, I don’t know no magic, my boy.”
© 2010 Jennifer L. Davis
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