Saturday, July 17, 2010

Dream Creation

I am in a new phase of life, an exhilarating, terrifying phase: that of taking my dreams and personally making them real.

The project is the publication of a novel, The Moment of Change.

I’ve known from the age of six that I wanted to write and I’ve been doing so, on and off, since then, with pauses of varying lengths, usually related to feedback it’s taken me 38 years to learn how to handle.

So here we are. The launch is scheduled for early October, at Podamo’s beautiful headquarters in Christchurch’s Bedford Row, www.podamo.com.

Chapter One follows. If you’d like a longer preview, or to pre-order your copy, email me at jennifer@jennifermanson.co.nz.
Thanks to everyone who has supported me: friends who have read and encouraged, proof-read and passed the novels on to other friends; and to those who will sponsor the publication - your generosity is enormously appreciated. Thank you.

The Moment of Change

Chapter One

I was once in a car accident. I slipped on oil, or ice, on a corner half way up a mountain pass. My car spun off the road onto gravel, settling into a backward slide which in the calm of the moment I expected to bring me to a halt. I thought I was nearly stopped when the car began tipping backwards. In that moment I felt no fear, just a deep curiosity about what was going to happen next.

There is nothing much to say about Happily Ever After; it is what comes before that is interesting. Sometimes life throws you an element of the random. Embrace it. The only mistake you can make at this point is to try to keep life on its previous course.

And sometimes, when life doesn’t do it, you have to throw in that element of the random yourself.