I was hoping to devote an entry to the origins of the story, but outside circumstances seem to be conspiring against me. Odds are good that I'm only going to manage 29 out of the promised 30 updates this month, but I didn't want to leave you (my loyal/hypothetical audience) without the excerpt I'd been promising.

Direct from the manuscript (with a few quick formatting tweaks to make the PDF a little prettier), here is the current draft of the first chapter of...

 

 

Chapter One: PDF

Repeat, "current draft." But hopefully you enjoy it.