craigmcn

Alright, ladies and gents, it’s November and NaNoWriMo has started again. Last year’s Western was abandoned at 3,381 words. Hopefully, this year’s contemporary murder mystery will make it to 50,000 words. Here’s a short sample, written today:

The two lovers had spent the last hour strolling slowly along the beach, hand in hand, often stopping to stare deeply into each other’s eyes. As they walked they whispered quietly to each other.

They had only been seeing each other for a couple of months, but it was starting to get serious. She had taken him to meet her parents. His parents having passed away years before, he took her to a quiet bed and breakfast up in the mountains outside of town.

The tide was out and they had plenty of beach on which to walk. They dodged seaweed and driftwood, and let the sea shells crunch beneath their feet. and, as always, on an ocean beach, there was the smell of the sea, dead fish, rotting seaweed.

“What is that smell?” she asked, turning up her nose.

“Just the ocean, I think,” he answered. “It doesn’t really smell any different, does it?”

“No, I think it’s more. It’s really pungent.”

“Oh, I think you might be right. Let’s keep walking and see if it gets better… Or worse?”

The couple walked on and the smell continued to get worse. It smelled a little like the fish, as though somebody had dumped a significant amount of fish entrails, but there was definitely something more.

“What’s that over there?” he asked, as he pointed ahead to what seemed to be just more seaweed and driftwood.

“Oh, yeah, there is something there.” she said and she walked closer to the pile.

She looked more closely and prodded the pile with her feet. Some seaweed slid off of a couple of driftwood logs, and she began shrieking.

“Oh, shit, what is it?” he came up behind her to see what she had seen.

Although neither had ever seen one before, there was no mistaking the bloody and beaten dead body that was wedged among the flotsam.

So, let me know if I’m on the right path. Hopefully, I’ll have a little more for you tomorrow.