As committed in an earlier post, one of my tasks running into next year is to outline my long-standing novel concept, whose working title is Bitter Creek. I started today. There is a bit of a history to this story, and I suppose I can reveal a little:
Firstly, it is the oldest, legitimate idea for a novel for me. While the Chronicles of Evyntyde can be traced back to about 25 years ago, when I was about 25, Bitter Creek‘s core idea came to me when I was about 15 years old. That makes it ancient. I was traveling with my parents in their car and I was staring out of the car window – I certainly was a moody teenager at that age. I saw a bleak countryside, which Australia has a lot of in summer, and I suddenly had a vision – a set of thoughts, concepts, images – what would happen if out of that bleak landscape… and is it possible that it is happening because of… It was a powerful sequence, perhaps running for about ten minutes, and this inspiration has never left my thoughts. It has been on my list of things to do for at least 5 years.
Now a sad story. About 5 years ago I wrote an outline (typed actually, on a spreadsheet), and despite my fastidiousness with computers, I found a few years later that I lost it. Ugh. I remember a lot, but it hurts – even now. The outline that I am creating is in effect a rework. Thank goodness this was the one and only time I lost data. I have a 3 Terabyte external hard drive to make sure that never happens again!!!
So, of the several things I promised to do over the next twelve months, I have commenced the first.
The tantalizer:
David is an Australian palaeontologist with a remarkable academic record. He is in his forties and has already pretty much done it all. He gave up his amazing position at a prestigious US College and returned home, to enjoy working the field in the Australian desert, which he so much loves. He is digging at Bitter Creek, a South Australian region where an unusual episode, eons ago, changed microbe life from one form to another. Inexplicably, although the theory is that an asteroid event caused it, he, and a former student of his, discover something different indeed, and it was about to impact the entire Earth.
in the meantime, another ex student of his, and a girl he had fallen in love with – which caused the most tumultuous and complicating episode of his life – is now working in Antarctica, and encounters something fantastic, but at the same time deadly, to all life on Earth. She doesn’t know there is a connection with what David had discovered, but she calls for his help.
They reunite and get caught in a global fight for humanity’s survival. Their skills, as esoteric and academic as they are, are called, and become indispensable in the struggle.
Sounds corny without specifics, but it is, in my estimation, unique. I look forward to outlining and writing it.
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The Chronicles of Evyntyde 