Pepper Ridge Lane

My daughter was baptised about a month ago and we had the immense pleasure of having all our favourite family (hehe) over to our place afterwards for lunch.

During the busy day of cooking, eating, laughing, catching up and celebrating my brother in law asked about my writing. He said that he was impatient to read something that I had written. I asked which one would he be interested in. He said the one with the quivering virgin and the bodice-ripping pirate. I had to laugh.

I don't have a book like that. I wish I had a book like that. Maybe I should write a book like that.

The book that I have been working on, Pepper Ridge Lane, is very different to Orpheus and Tomorrow we May Die. I am totally in love with it. I love everything about it. I don't know if writers are supposed to say that about the things they write, but I don't care. I love it.

It is a sweet story, I think, about a young woman returning home to her family's farm after years overseas travelling because her beloved grandfather is sick. She returns to find that things arent't exactly as she left them, and her little hometown Mt Houser, is next on the list of the developer's take over list. But don't worry, the story doesn't end there. It is intertwined with her grandfather's own life story (based on my grandfather's life) from when he was a young man in the second world war to how he created a new life in a strange new country.

Like I said I love it. The writing is so different to any of the other novels I've written (or attempted to!!) and seems to roll off my fingers almost like velvety, smooth poetry (see? Just talking about it makes me poetic!!) I'm not tooting my own horn, I'm just saying that I really enjoy writing this one and hopefully it will actually get finished.

There was a line in a Supernatural episode that I watched not long ago, and forgive me for not quoting it verbatim, but it went something like this. It was the final episode ("Swan Song") of Season 5 and Carver Edlund/Chuck Shurley is narrating. He is talking about endings and has a classic line about writers. He says something like - "Endings are hard. Any monkey with a keyboard can write a beginning, but endings are harder." The Captain and I both burst out laughing. I am the monkey with the typewriter!

This was enough to spur me on to actually attempt an ending for Pepper Ridge Lane but unlike some people I can't seem to write out of chronological order. But I do have an ending in sight. Keep an eye on the word counter next door!!

And in case you're interested here's the opening from Pepper Ridge. Happy reading - and let me know what you think!!

Marisol Cicero had been a rebel since birth. Only hours after she was born she fought hand and foot at her mother’s breast, like a puppy fighting for its life source against five other siblings. Little fists flailing, mouth gnawing hungrily. Her mother, Sylvia, wanted to name her Emily but her grandfather, Tommaso decided that was too meek a name for such a ferocious little creature and suggested Marisol instead. Marisol. Mar y sol. The name of Tommaso’s own grandmother – supposedly a Catalan princess – it represented the powerful elements of sea and sun. Tommaso believed that such a creature as his new granddaughter needed the force of a name that could harness such elements.

I didn’t know Marisol then, but I heard the stories. And I met the untamed toddler only a couple of years later. It was the beginning of a special relationship. I must say, at this point, that I’ve been around a hundred years or so, offering those above the comfort of my path. Pepper Ridge Lane, that’s my name. I’m the lane that led Marisol to her true home, the farm called Il Prato.

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So, would you want to read more??