Wednesday 17 October 2012

The Colossal Misreckoning...

As I've been very much into writing novels at the moment, and my blog always seems to come back round to centre around how much I love writing and how I have managed to find some inspiration to add another chapter onto the novel. As a result, I thought it was about time that I shared a little extract from my current story, the very start. Naturally, if people aren't big story readers then there is absolutely nothing against you skipping this blog and I would have done too but I did say I would share my life; and it seems that writing is always there to come back to and command a very big part of my life and so sharing seemed like a natural progression. I have recently named my story (that is incomplete) The Colossal Misreckoning and this is definitely subject to change because I am indecisive but at the moment that shall remain the title.

The weird thing is that a year ago I don't think I would've wanted any people I knew to read these blogs or to read my story creations but I think it's time that I shared what I loved and hoped that someone else who reads it might love it as well. The only way you can make it in the world is by sharing your "talent" and I use talent in quotation marks because it's a very loose term and I am by no means saying I have a huge, best-selling author's talent; just a little one which allows me a way with words.

Enough of my rambling, I hope you enjoy it and if you did and subsequently if you didn't; let me know with any suggestions you can think of where I can make it better. I'm always trying to better myself and I would appreciate the feedback.

Have a wonderful day, Nicole :) x

"Eva Spence was what you would call a straight-laced girl. She always tried to be the most presentable in every way shape or form; the way she dressed, spoke and acted. She had always wanted to be a proper lady when she grew up and all through her childhood she had tried to keep it that way. Sure, there were moments in her past when she wasn’t the perfect citizen and she hadn’t always behaved completely ladylike but she had tried and for the most part had succeeded. She rarely drank, and when she did, she always behaved herself unlike other girls who would throw themselves at any guy who would pay attention to them. She didn’t believe in meaningless flings and certainly wasn’t going to give a man anything until she knew that he had something to give her. Some people called her naïve, sheltered and some guys who she wouldn’t put out for called her frigid. But to her, it wasn’t her being any of those, it was her being smart and protecting herself from the cruelty of the world.
Eva had decided from a young age that she wanted to save herself for the perfect man, and when she was younger, she had believed that the man she had given herself to was in fact the perfect man. It wasn’t until she had caught him also being the perfect man to another girl that she realised she had worn her heart on her sleeve and had made a huge mistake. Not only had she given her innocence to a man that wasn’t worthy of it, she had stupidly believed that he would be the man she would end up marrying and having children with. At that point in her life, Eva was left to mend her broken heart as well as mend her broken future.
The heartbreak only made Eva want to strive more for her job and she quickly got herself immersed into the world of journalism, with her very first job giving her a chance to broadcast her voice around. She didn’t work for a very well-known magazine, but it was a job and she was able to do the thing she loved the most. Slowly but surely, she worked her way up and left the magazine with a good reference. Reaching far above her potential, Eva applied to a more prestigious magazine knowing that she didn’t have a hope in hell but if life had taught her anything she knew that things weren’t always how they seem. Life didn’t always work out the way you expected it. Even if she didn’t get the job, she tried and you can’t get where you want if you don’t give yourself the chance to get there. Nothing ventured, nothing gained as her mother always told her.
Amazingly, she had got the job and they wanted her to start immediately, which she did. Admittedly, her role in the magazine was the lowest she could get without being an intern or the mail boy. At the start the only articles she got was the ones the higher up journalists rejected. None of the stories she had written for over a year had gotten any publicity and during that time the thought of quitting because she wasn’t getting anywhere would always pass through her mind more times than she wanted. She never got closer to quitting than the fleeting thoughts and kept writing the articles like they were for the front page. She put her heart and soul into every piece regardless of the fact that they were hardly read.
It was only from sheer luck that she got an article that was of little importance, but more than her other work had been. One of the higher journalists had been taken ill with her assignment half researched and everyone else was already occupied with other things. If she hadn’t had been walking past Mr Walsh’s office at that moment in time when he had no other choices she would never have gotten the opportunity to show him how good she could write if given half a chance. He had stopped her on a whim. She could tell by his dishevelled appearance that he was desperate but that was fine for her. An opportunity is an opportunity irrespective how it is handed to you. He had asked her if she could write fast and well. After she had said yes, he gave her the assignment on the stop as a trial for whether he would let her take complete control of it. She was given until the end of the day to write a couple of paragraphs of the 2,000 word article to see how she approached it.
Without any encouragement, she took the assignment, read through it and started immediately. Eva must have worked all day, without taking breaks for food or drink, to make sure that she made the most of the opportunity and her work was perfect. By the end of the day, she was stood in his office fiddling with her thumbs and shaking her legs through sheer nerves about what he would think. She knew that it was good but she knew that he wasn’t looking for just plain, old good, he wanted something spectacular and Eva wasn’t sure she was spectacular material. Nothing on his face had told her what he thought about it and it only added to her nerves as the silence in the office stretched on and on. After what seemed to be hours, he looked at her quizzically and then looked back down at her work, nothing about his expression telling her his thoughts.
“What position are you?”
“Junior journalist, sir.”
“Who put you in that position?”
“You did, sir.”
Her nerves had spiked so high at that moment with the fear of being fired on the spot worming round her body. The look on his face and the way he was staring at her, she knew he was thinking he made a mistake for hiring her.
“This is good. Really good. I want you to continue and write the full 2,000 word article. And at the end, I want to see how you do and then have a meeting with you about a potential moving from a junior journalist to reporter dependant on your work, of course. Get it done for next week, Monday. If it’s late, don’t bother coming back.”
Eva thought back at that day with fond memories remembering that as the day her whole life had taken a turn for the better. She had been given the chance to show her boss she deserved to get a promotion and she did just that. She produced her best work and the delighted look on his face as he read through it gave her the warm sensation throughout that told her this was her moment. Eva was fast promoted to reporter and although that was where she stayed until this day, she was able to research, and write more important articles for the magazine. Any step up is a step in the right direction and she could only see herself stepping higher and higher."

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