I think that I have decided to replace (with something quite different) my draft for the start of the next book to be written ("Daisy").
These are only very rough drafts, but... My first attempt began:
The flickering desk lamp bathes this page in shadow. Burning oil scents the room, almost like rissoles frying. Beyond the window, three or four lanterns in the darkness: students or staff returning to the halls of residence. Singing, decidedly out of tune, seems to betoken an excess of alcohol in the vicinity of at least one bobbing light. Taking another sip tea, blackcurrant rolls across my tongue. This desk seems a little small, my legs slightly cramped.
It’s the evening of Mistream the fourteenth in Year Twenty-Six.
“That’s a queer way to write the date,” Beatrice – my roommate – just said, looking over my shoulder. “If it was me, I’d put it into figures, separated by slashes.”
“It seems more literary, the way I’ve done it,” I reply.
“In any case, I’m pretty sure that’s not the sort of thing we’re supposed to write.”
“Wait and see,” I hold my finger to my lips, enjoining silence.
“Is that what it’s doing?” Beatrice continues to read, as I write. “What if I’m not enjoying silence?”
“Whatever.” The play on words didn’t seem worth a more considered response.
Very well… My name is Daisy Diamond. The circumstances of my conception made me a pioneer: part of the first age of gynogenesis girls. For uncounted generations, children had fathers: a male second parent. From my time onwards, we have genetrices, our mothers fertilised by another woman.
“I don’t think there’s any need to write all that,” Beatrice said, having collected her tea and biscuit from the other desk. “Everyone knows all that… well, not necessarily that you’re part of the first gynogenesis generation, but…”
“If people are reading my book…”
“Book?”
“It may grow into one. Stranger things have happened. And, if people are reading my book in a thousand years’ time…”
“As if!”
“I don’t say they will be…”
“And, even they are, they’ll know all about gynogenesis, and genetrices, and…”
“Yes, but they may have forgotten about fathers.”
“In any case,” Beatrice shifted our dispute, “you’re bigging yourself up. You’re not really one of the first gynogenesis girls. In fact you’re a month or so younger than me, and…”
“Yes, Beatrice, but we were born in year eight… not so very long after…”
“You should know that Berenice II was born in year one, and…”
In case this really is read in a thousand years, I’ll explain that Berenice II has shared her genetrix’s throne for the last eight years.
My mother is Lisa-Louise, the famous photographer. Once, inevitably, she had a surname, but it is no more. Her family name, she tells me, was Addal, but she prefers not to be addled. There is more to it than that. Her uncle, Wilfred Addal, served Usurper II of Lundin as a spymaster. Mum says that he was neither a pleasant nor an evil man. He did what he saw as his duty, and once did her friend Tuerqui a very good turn. All the same, her ancestry isn’t one that many women would wish to own.
My genny is a notable cavalry commander: Colonel Modesty Clay.
Both my mother and my genny were warriors of love. That, I suppose, makes me a warriors of love child. The pair of them clearly view that part of their lives with affection and pride.
“You called it a book,” Beatrice interrupted my flow. “But that’s just a pages or three of scribble.”
The second draft begins:
The scent of recently turned earth may well have been damage we’d inflicted on the lawn. After recent rain, my feet sank into the soft surface. Beyond the window, the room lay in darkness. Gritty dirt from the bin chafed at my fingertips. Manoeuvring the heavy metal object into place against the wall, it boomed loudly. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked in reply. A slightly soapy taste from cheap whisky filled my mouth. In an upstairs window, somebody ignited a lamp – splashing light on to the grass at our feet.
“Someone’s up there,” Beatrice said, “do you think she’ll see us?”
“Not so loud,” Nerys whispered, “or she’ll certainly hear us.”
“She can’t have failed,” I replied, “to hear the bin bash against the wall.”
“Whoever it is,” Heather said, “she’s probably used to student pranks – won’t pay us much mind.”
“This is not a prank,” Nerys sounded indignant, “we’re looking for the place where…”
“We all know what we’re looking for,” Beatrice shook her head. “Who’s going to climb up on the bin, and try to open the window?”
It was the mid-evening of Mistream the fourteenth in Year Twenty-Six. Perhaps three hours earlier, Beatrice, Nerys, Heather and I had completed our first day as students in the Imperial University at Berenice. While I’m unable to speak for the others, it’s fair to say that I’d found the experience more bewildering than enlightening. Several hours, or so it felt, had passed in queuing. The seeming reason to standing in line was to register for a series of things, although I’d generally found myself only dimly aware – if that – of what, precisely, our object was.
“It makes a nice change,” I reflected “to know what I’m looking for. Half the day…”
“You climb up on the bin, Daisy,” Heather said to me. “After all, your mum’s a cavalry officer, and…”
“I don’t see what that’s got to do with it.”
“You’re probably used to leaping on to horses.”
“We’ve all four of us ridden. In any case, I’ve spent more time – in recent years – at the Belle House School with you lot, than in camp with my mum.”
“You took a gap year,” Beatrice said, “in Victoria’s Land.”
“I didn’t spend it climbing up on to bins.”
“Yes, but you must have had all sorts of adventures out in the wilderness – marshes, forests, wild beasts…”
