The rules of the Lucky Seven Meme say that one is supposed to go to page 7 or 77 of one’s current manuscript; go to line seven; and then post on your blog the next seven lines or sentences. I’ve already done this once (see Seven for a secret never to be told) a couple of years ago when I hadn’t had the blog very long, but I’ve done so much work on the book in the intervening period (including indulging myself by spending the whole of this afternoon writing), that I thought it might be fun to repeat the exercise with two new paragraphs, which appear below.
For the first quotation from page 7 (chapter 1), I’ve included two more sentences for free so that the paragraph remains whole. The novel has two narrators, and these words are from Jayne. Her mother is referring to the way in which cats produce multiple litters of kittens throughout the year, if allowed to do so (she is quoting from Doris Lessing’s thoughtful and idiosyncratic book Particularly Cats). For the second passage, the lasso happened to fall neatly around an intact paragraph from page 77 (the beginning of chapter 8), which comes from the other narrator, Alice (Jayne’s teenaged daughter). It’s striking to me the coincidence of subject matter between these two passages.
(page 7)
“You can have Marmite with that,” she snapped as I reached for the jam. “But not jam. Your sister has already finished the jar I was saving for the sponge.” She snatched the jam away and nestled it against her tea. “They have dozens, four or five times a year if you let them, five or six to a litter, over and over.” She jabbed at the book. “It says here that in the wild–” she waved her hand at the wretched square of grass outside the window “–cats lose at least half their litters to birds of prey. It says here–” and here she traced her man’s hand’s finger under the line that interested her “–a litter of six kittens in a warm basket in a town house can be seen, perhaps, as eagle and hawk fodder in the wrong place.” I sat quietly, transfixed by the grasping talons crashing silently out of the sky, crushing the furry ribcage, plucking out the eyes, gobbling up the heart. Mother snorted. “Perhaps,” she repeated.
(page 77)
Father likes us to go walking as a family. This usually takes place by the river (or, on bad days, in the river, such as when Hugh has accidentally flung a glove into the water with an expansive but wild gesture and must slither down the bank to retrieve it). Hugh and I walk together like normal people; Father strides on ahead with an imaginary dog; Mother generally lags behind. Hugh and I rather enjoy these attempts at family unity and use the time to exchange thoughts and ideas. We might discuss, for example, the domestication of animals.
reading and books, writing and words
