Winter Arrives
(White Cairns ski school, Episode 1)
By Roz Marshall
Synopsis
When her ski instructor husband is
delayed from returning to Scotland, it falls to Jude Winters - creative graphic
artist, mother and home-maker – to get the season started for ailing White
Cairns Ski School. It's a challenge that's way out of her comfort zone. How can
she turn things around and keep the wolf from their door until he gets back?
"Winter Arrives" is the 1st
novella from the 'White Cairns Ski School' series about the dramas and romances
in a Scottish snowsports school.
Roz says:
“Winter
Arrives” was, illogically, the second book I wrote for the ‘White Cairns ski
school’ series.
Episode 2,
“Fear of Falling”, started life as a one-hour TV drama script; and ended up as
a prose novella when I realised how hard it was for a debut scriptwriter to get
a series commissioned, and how much easier it is to self-publish a series of
eBooks.
Like a TV
drama series, each episode has its own story arc, but there are also threads
from the wider story and foreshadowing for future books. So my challenge in
writing Episode 1 was to introduce all the characters in a plausible way which
would lead into the (already written) second book, whilst making it a real
‘story’ in its own right, with a beginning, middle and end.
This extract
shows some of the would-be instructors arriving in the ski resort for their
interviews with the ski school.
Extract
Jude twisted her lip. "I just
hope today works, and some good people turn up. We've only got a couple of days
left to get the list to Forbes."
"She'll be right," Mike said
again, but anything else he might have added got lost as the door flew open and
a denim-clad bundle of energy bounced into the room. Small, ginger-haired and
distinctive, rather than tall, dark and handsome, he looked like the boy next
door who'd been shrunk in the wash.
"Morning, campers!" He
looked round at the almost-empty room. "I'm never first here?"
Jude went over to greet him. She held
out a hand, "Hi, I'm Jude, the, erm, ski school owner."
He shook her hand enthusiastically.
"Hi, I'm Callum. Callum Johnstone."
-::-
On the high street, a Premier bus
pulled away from the bus stop, leaving two passengers on the pavement. The
first quickly strode away, ponytail swinging above the rucksack on her back,
Doc Martens tapping a rhythm that counterpointed the ski bag as it banged
against her leg.
The second passenger looked rather
forlorn as she stood amongst her bags, gazing round at the shops and cafes.
Tourists milled aimlessly on the
pavements, cameras dangling round their necks like medals on Olympic athletes.
Mostly they looked like they had just come off a bus trip to 'see Scotland in a
day', although a few were obviously there for sporting activities and were dressed
appropriately in sensible walking boots, fleeces and Gore-tex. The only local
in evidence was a rather dishevelled, stringy old lady with grey hair and a
decades-old ski jacket who was pushing a bicycle across the street, plastic
supermarket bags swinging on the handlebars.
Debbie hoped that the rest of the
skiers round here were a bit more modern, and perhaps more masculine as well.
Sniffing, she unzipped a pocket in her sports bag, and pulled out a rather
crumpled bit of paper. She studied it, then looked up and down the street. She
frowned, turned the diagram through ninety degrees, looked left, and spotted
the upper floors of the Regal Hotel. Stuffing the paper into the pocket of her
hoodie, she took a deep breath and picked up her bags.
-::-
After some long minutes, they broke
apart and the passenger reached behind him for the door handle. He slid out of
the door, lips last, then flipped the seat forward and pulled a snowboard bag
off the back seat and onto the pavement. He leaned back in for another kiss.
"Last night was awesome!"
She pouted back up at him, saying,
"Anytime, cowboy!" Then something across the car park caught her
attention, and he noticed her pupils widen.
He turned his head to see what she was
looking at, and his eyes narrowed. Another snowboarder was swaggering across
the car park. He looked like a surfer dude – baggy cargo pants, a Fat Face
sweatshirt, Converse sneakers and Oakleys perched on sun-bleached hair.
Marty stood up, pulled his sunglasses
off his curly hair and onto his nose, then smacked the roof of her car and
waved her off, saying, "I'll give you a call." He wouldn't.
The other snowboarder approached,
sizing him up. From the look on his face, he obviously thought his labels were
more impressive than Marty's jeans and fleece.
"Hi bro, I'm Colin. You here for
the job?"
"Yup." Marty hoisted his snowboard
bag onto his shoulder.
"What d'you ride?" asked
Colin.
"A Deacon XT."
Colin sniffed. "I had one of
those last season. Got rid of it." Marty just looked at him. "I got
an Oppera Maxride from the rep. Wants me to test it for them. It's totally
rad."
Marty shrugged. "I heard they
were pretty sluggish. But okay if you don't ride too fast."
He turned his back and headed for the
hotel entrance. They might be fellow snowboarders, but it was obvious they
weren't going to be friends.
About the
author
Roz
lives in Scotland with her husband and the obligatory dog and cat. She has been
writing since childhood, including screenwriting, songwriting, web pages and
even sentiments for greeting cards!
The
White Cairns novellas are written from experiences Roz had whilst working as a
ski instructor in various Scottish ski resorts - they do say you should 'write
what you know'…
For more info
on Roz Marshall, check out her books on AMAZON, get
her NEWSLETTER, follow
her updates on FACEBOOK
or read her BLOG.
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