The first element of writing that I ever had published was my chapter 20 in Airborne. This was part of a promotion run by Borders with James Patterson in 2009.
The process to select the 30 writers (one for each chapter), required a response to the following prompt:
The sky had turned grey as the four men walked nervously past the police car…
My response, which led to me being selected as part of the writing team, was:
The front passenger side door opened and a bloodied policeman slid into the gutter. Behind him, the two way radio was noticeably damaged.
‘Don’t…let him…win’
Alex, closest to the beaten police officer, paused and said, ‘We have no choice. You’ve seen that yourself.’
Moving quickly to catch up with the others, he missed the light fading from the eyes of the policeman; his body relaxing into a final state of death.
Crossing the road, the four entered a rundown apartment block, which the policeman had been observing.
This was wrong, they knew it, but the instructions of their tormentor followed, as if he himself walked behind them.
Steven knocked on the apartment door and the empty sound mocked them.
The door opened, seemingly reluctantly, to reveal a tall woman with shoulder length brown hair, framed by dull light behind her. Tears welled in her eyes, threatening to follow the dry ones on her cheeks.
Sobbing, she quietly said ‘This isn’t right, you are becoming like him.’
Without waiting for a reply, she motioned to her left and a small boy moved to stand in front of her, looking up at the four men.
Turning to look at his mother one final time, he pleaded an old argument, ‘Do I have to go with them?’
‘Yes’, his mother replied before turning and directing the boy towards her four personal demons.
She quietly closed the door.
The manuscript was eventually published but only in limited numbers. Here is my copy:
You can read more about this promotion here and here.
