Last year I posted daily instalments of my nanowrimo endeavour. This year I’m going to do it a bit differently, every few days I’ll give you a new PDF which you can download and read – if anyone feels like being super clever and even more helpful and telling me how to turn this into an ebook I might even put in in the kindle store (for free).

Below is instalment 1 of The Centaur and the Heir, with just a taster to wet your appetite.

Susan pulled herself up out of her seat. It felt to her as though she had been there for day upon day, it could even have been a full week for the way that time seemed to have stalled as she drifted into restless slumber of silence. In fact it was only a little more than half an hour since the last visitor had left and the storm of noise and conversation had given way to a peace more threatening than any hail of inquisitive kindness she could imagine.

If this feels like a wordy and long-winded way of setting out her condition and state of mind it is but a glimpse of her own tumultuous considerations. When Susan realised the time had passed so slowly she thought herself stupid for ever doubting it’s glacial pace. Archie was due to visit later that afternoon and she knew he would not fail her. He had done as she asked even in the most painful of abstentions.

Susan found herself frustrated at the failure of time to move to her whim. But you know how it is, why when you are waiting for something to happen it seems to never come, but when you are having such joy the time never seems enough. She wished the hours had passed, maybe even days gone by in flash when pain could have been sidelined and the gnawing absence subsided. It was in the midst of this melancholy that Susan’s eyes alighted on the painting she spent most of the last few years refusing to make eye contact with. … Read on

The Centaur and the Heir Chapter 1